Traditions, Superstitions and Folk-lore Part 28

Historians are now pretty generally satisfied, from the combined evidences of philology, ethnology, and tradition, that the bulk of the European nations had a common origin in the East, and that some Asiatic tribes are descendent from the same original stock. I am not, however, insensible to the value of the fact that the early action and thought of all tribes or nations present a certain amount of resemblance, on account of the similar conditions to which each has been subjected. The aborigines of Australia, the South Sea Islands, and America, procured fire by means of an instrument similar to the "chark" of the modern Hindoos and their Aryan ancestors, but they did not give it the same name. The modern Jews, of Semitic origin, sacrifice the common fowl on the eve of the Feast of the Atonement. The belief in the mystical character of chanticleer is equally shared by the Lancas.h.i.+re and Cornish peasant, the Norseman, the Welshman, the ancient Roman, the modern Hindoo, and some of the North-African tribes. Mr. Lapham, in describing the "Animal Mounds" of Wisconsin, speaks of one carved into the shape of a great serpent, in Adams County. He says,--"Conforming to the curve of the hill, and occupying its very summit, is the serpent, its head resting near the point, and its body winding back for seven hundred feet, in graceful undulations, terminating in a triple coil at the tail.

The entire length, if extended, would be not less than one thousand feet.... The outline of the work is clearly and boldly defined.... The neck of the serpent is stretched out, and slightly curved, and its mouth is opened wide, as if in the act of swallowing or ejecting an oval figure, which rests partially within the distended jaws. This oval is formed by an embankment of earth, without any perceptible opening, four feet in height, and is perfectly regular in outline, its transverse and conjugate diameters being one hundred and sixty, and eighty feet, respectively." This looks, certainly, very like the gigantic Scotch serpent mound, referred to at page 51 of this work, and the huge worm hills of Durham and the North of England. Sir John Lubbock has treated this branch of the subject exhaustively in his recent work on "The Origin of Civilization and the Primitive Condition of Man."

The Arabs and other Semitic tribes wors.h.i.+pped the sun as well as the Aryans. The sun and fire wors.h.i.+p, likewise, was found to obtain in more than one state on the discovery of South America. Many writers have arrived at the conclusion that "there was communication between the Old World and America in very remote times." Mr. Baldwin (Pre-historic Nations, p. 393) contends that "the antiquities of Mexico and Central America reveal religious symbols, devices, and ideas nearly identical with those found in all countries of the Old World where Cus.h.i.+te communities formerly existed. They show us planet wors.h.i.+p with its usual orphic and phallic accompaniments. Humboldt, having travelled in America, and observed remains of these civilisations, was convinced that such communications formerly existed. He found evidence of it in the religious symbols, the architecture, the hieroglyphics, and the social customs made manifest by the ruins, which he was sure came from the other side of the ocean; and, in his view, the date of this communication was older than 'the present division of Asia into Chinese, Mongols, Hindus,' etc. Humboldt did not observe symbols of phallic wors.h.i.+p, but the Abbe Bra.s.seur de Bourbourg shows that they were described by Spanish writers at the time of the Conquest. He points out that they were prevalent in the countries of Mexico and Central America, being very abundant at Colhuacan, on the Gulf of California, and at Panuco. Colhuacan was a flouris.h.i.+ng city, and the capital of an important kingdom; 'there,' he says, 'phallic inst.i.tutions had existed from time immemorial.' At Panuco phallic symbols abounded in the temples and on the public monuments. These, with the serpent devices, the sun wors.h.i.+p, and the remarkable knowledge of astronomy that existed in connection with them, show a system of religion of which the Abbe is constrained to say: 'Asia appears to have been the cradle of this religion, and of the social inst.i.tutions which it consecrated.'" The ancient traditions preserved by the inhabitants seem to countenance this view. They speak of a race of "bearded white men who came across the ocean from the East."

A writer in a recent number of the _Gentleman's Magazine_ has the following pertinent remarks on this curious and interesting subject:--"One fact corroborative of the idea that the Old World, or at least some of the inhabitants of Asia, were once aware of the existence of America before its discovery by Columbus, is that many of the Arabian ulema with whom I have conversed on this subject are fully convinced that the ancient Arabian geographers knew of America; and, in support of this opinion, point to pa.s.sages in old works in which a country to the west of the Atlantic is spoken of. An Arab gentleman, a friend of mine, General Hussein Pasha, in a work he has just written on America, called 'En-Nesser-Et Tayir,' quotes from Djeldeki and other old writers to show this."

This writer favours the view that the Chinese, at a very remote period, became acquainted with the American continent, _via_ the Pacific Ocean.

Some writers regard the inscription on the celebrated Dighton rock, on the east bank of the Taunton river, as Phnician. This, however, has been disputed. Others regard it as commemorative of an Indian triumph at some remote period.

Dr. Charles Frederick Winslow, in his recently published work, "Force and Nature," expresses himself strongly in favour of the truth of the presumed ancient communication between the Asian and the American continents. He says:--

"In order to sustain this position, I might, were it admissible, adduce here, as collateral proof, an important and hitherto unpublished fact, of an archaeological character, in addition to my geographical and geological observations made upon the coasts and islands of the Pacific Ocean. The fact is this, brought to my knowledge by an unusually extensive practice of my profession, that a uniform custom of _dorsocision_ has existed throughout the Polynesian islands from periods unknown, and beyond all tradition, embracing alike New Zealand, Esther Island, Tahiti, the Marquesas, and Hawaii--a rite wholly different from, but similar in its results to, the Jewish one of circ.u.mcision; and that this has been performed at the eighth or ninth year in all of them, and transmitted by father to son, with undeviating precision, from generation to generation. A fact of this character so deeply rooted in the moral, social, and traditional life of many peoples thus widely distributed throughout that vast ocean, so remotely separated from each other, and without intercourse, indicates even more strongly than colour, caste or language, not only the unity of their progenitors, but also the wide-spread existence of a single race, the vestiges of which were left here and there above the waters when the land sank between America and Asia, and received the older seas into a new basin."

Various hypotheses have been suggested as to the direction in which the flora of the "Old World," and especially of the _miocene_ division of the tertiary formations, migrated to America, or _vice versa_. Heer, the celebrated Swiss naturalist, favours the Atlantic route, and regards certain important relations between the fauna of the continents of Europe and America as corroborative, to some extent, at least, of the truth of the statement of the Egyptian priests to Plato, that there, at one time, existed a continent named Atlantis, in the midst of the s.p.a.ce now occupied by the Atlantic ocean. Sir Charles Lyell, however, on geological grounds, dissents from this view, and rather inclines to the one propounded by Dr. Asa Gray and Mr. Bentham, that the route of the migration was in the opposite or Pacific direction, "and took a course four times as long across America and the whole of Asia." Lyell says,--"It is the enormous depth and width of the Atlantic which makes us shrink from the hypothesis of a migration of plants, fitted for a sub-tropical climate in the Upper Miocene period, from America to Europe, by a direct course from west to east. Can we not escape from this difficulty by adopting the theory that the forms of vegetation common to recent America and Miocene Europe, first extended from east to west across North America and pa.s.sed thence by Behring's Straits and the Aleutian Islands to Kamtschatka, and thence by land, placed between the 40th and 60th parallels of lat.i.tude where the Kurile Islands and j.a.pan are now situated, and thence to China, from which they made their way across Asia to Europe?"

Mr. Consul Plowden, in a report to the Earl of Clarendon, a few years ago, mentions some Abyssinian superst.i.tions which much resemble others of Aryan origin. Although the Abyssinians are said to be descended from the Semitic[38] branch of the human family, it must not be forgotten that Christianity has prevailed amongst them from a very early period; and, consequently, sympathetic intercourse must have taken place in the less remote past between them and some of the offshoots of the Aryan stock. Mr. Plowden says,--

"The Abyssinians are superst.i.tious; they believe in the efficacy of amulets; of writings in jargon mixed with Scripture; in the charms of Mussulmans to control the hail and the rain; in spirits of the forest and the river; in omens; in fortune-tellers; and in devils that may be cast out by spells from their human victims, quoting the authority of the New Testament for their belief--to these they attribute epilepsy and other incurable diseases. One absurdity has, however, led to the death of many innocent individuals; all workers in iron, and some others, are supposed to convert themselves into hyenas, and to prey invisibly on their enemies, and many have been slaughtered in this belief. This singular idea, which is universal and tenacious, has its parallel in the 'loup-garou' of France and the 'wehr-wolf' of Germany."

Speaking of the natives of Minahasa, the north-east promontory of the island Celebes, in the Malayan Archipelago, Mr. Russel Wallace, after commending their modern qualities, refers to their original condition when first discovered by Europeans. He says,--

"Their religion was that naturally engendered in the undeveloped human mind by the contemplation of grand natural phenomena and the luxuriance of tropical nature. The burning mountain, the torrent and the lake, were the abode of their deities; and certain trees and birds were supposed to have especial influence over men's actions and destiny. They held wild and exciting festivals to propitiate these deities or demons; and believed that men could be changed by them into animals, either during life or after death."

These superst.i.tions would themselves suggest some remote connection with India; and, singularly enough, Mr. Wallace, in his map of the Malay Archipelago, just includes them within the boundary line which divides the Hindoo-Malayan from the Austro-Malayan region of this district.

Indeed, as has been before observed, he shows that in the neighbouring island of Bali, the religion of the Brahmins still obtains, and that magnificent ruins of their temples still exist in the island of Java.

Therefore it is not improbable some of these now reclaimed savages may be only degenerate descendants from the original Hindoo-Aryan stock.

There is doubtless much force in Hallam's observation that "similarity of laws and customs _may often_ be traced to natural causes in the state of society rather than to imitation." Yet the strong tendency of all humanity to imitation of every kind, the "toughness of tradition," and the longevity of superst.i.tious belief, are nevertheless equally powerful agents in the mental development of humanity, and demand the most careful consideration and regard, when the nature and character of progressive civilisation, in any age or country, is subjected to philosophical a.n.a.lysis.

It will be seen from the preceding chapters, that many traditions and superst.i.tions appear insensibly to glide into each other. Sometimes two or more seem, as it were, to overlie one another, or to have become indeed even more intimately compounded. With regard to superst.i.tions, this is very apparent in those which relate to witchcraft, were-wolves, transformations, the furious host, the spectre huntsman, giants, heroes, tyrant lords, etc. This is parallelled by many traditionary beliefs both general and local. In whatever part of the country stands a ruined castle or abbey or other religious establishment, the nearest peasant or even farmer, will a.s.sure an enquirer that it was battered into ruin by Oliver Cromwell! Here the secretary Cromwell, of Henry the Eighth's reign, and the renowned Protector of the following century are evidently amalgamated. Indeed the redoubted Oliver himself seems to have absorbed all the castle-destroying heroes of the national history, Old Time included. The Arthur legends appear to have been constructed upon a somewhat similar principle. At the "pa.s.s of the Ribble," near Preston, the site of Cromwell's victory over the Duke of Hamilton, every human skull which is dug up or washed by the swollen river from out of its banks, is believed to pertain to a "Scotch warrior" who fell in that battle. Scottish armies have crossed the pa.s.s on several occasions from the days of Athelstan to those of the "Young Pretender," but tradition has fused them nearly all into one.

The sites of ruined churches, abbeys, etc., are believed yet to entomb the ancient edifices, and superst.i.tious people say that, by applying the ear to the earth at midnight, on Christmas eve, they can hear the bells ringing. It is not unlikely, when this practice was a common one, that the sound of some distant bells might occasionally be feebly conducted by the earth, and give countenance to this very universal superst.i.tion.

The strength of this species of traditionary faith was forcibly ill.u.s.trated, a few years ago, at the "Maudlands," Preston. Historical records and discovered remains, as well as tradition, marked the locality as the site of a Mediaeval Hospital, dedicated to St. Mary Magdalen. A "square mound," evidently an artificial earthwork, was a conspicuous object. Learned antiquaries regarded this as of Roman construction, although no actual remains had been discovered to attest the truth of the conjecture. Popular superst.i.tion, however, declared that the mound resulted from the pressure of the steeple of the church of the Hospital, which was entombed beneath it, and that the truth of this could be attested on any Christmas-Eve by the experiment referred to. Doubts being entertained as to the Roman character of the work, some local antiquaries caused excavations to be made in the mound. So prevalent was this superst.i.tion, that, on the discovery of a small brick chamber, scores of people eagerly visited the spot, and retired fully convinced they had seen a portion of the steeple of the sunken edifice, and that its discovery demonstrated the truth of the ancient tradition!

Singularly enough, in this instance, "antiquarianism" and "folk-lore"

proved equally at fault. Remains of pottery, bulbous shaped tobacco pipe bowls, called by the populace both "fairy pipes" and "Cromwell pipes,"

etc., together with doc.u.mentary and other evidence, enabled me, in my "History of Preston and its Environs," to demonstrate that the mound in question was the most modern structure then on the ground; that it formed part of the defences of Preston constructed by Colonel Rosworm, after the capture of the town by the Parliamentary troops under Sir John Seaton, in 1643; and that the small brick chamber, in all probability, was the remains of a powder and "match" magazine. However satisfactory this appears to intelligent historical students and general readers, still the sunken church and the Christmas-Eve bell-ringing yet finds favour with some not otherwise ignorant persons. A precisely similar legend is implicitly believed by many in connection with the Roman outwork on Mellor Hill, on the line of ancient road from Manchester to Ribchester.

Ancient castles and monasteries were supposed to have underground means of intercommunication. One tradition of this cla.s.s, near Preston, presents some remarkable features. In my youth I and the public generally firmly believed that some such work as the celebrated "Thames tunnel" had, ages ago, been constructed beneath the bed of the Ribble and its broad valley, to enable the monks at Tulketh to communicate with the inmates of the priory on the opposite table land at Penwortham.

In the "History of Preston and its Environs," I have endeavoured to sift out the little truth that may underlie this strange tradition. Finding good evidence that each of these promontories had been occupied as outposts or _speculae_ in connection with the Roman station at the "Pa.s.s of the Ribble," previously referred to, I have suggested that it is not improbable the results of the rude system of telegraphy then in use would be sufficient to utterly confound the ignorant peasantry of the day, who would be unable to account for the rapid communication of intelligence except by means of a secret underground pa.s.sage. The monks from Evesham, on the establishment of their "cell" at Penwortham, might, from policy, countenance the tradition of their predecessors, especially in troubled times, on account of the impression of power which such a belief would naturally engender amongst the more ignorant of the population. This way of accounting for the transmission of secret information and even war material is by no means an uncommon one amongst uneducated people in various parts of the world. In Abyssinia, according to Mansfield Parkyns, the people firmly believe that the German missionaries had "in the course of only a few days, perforated a tunnel all the way (from Adowa) to Ma.s.sowa, on the coast of the Red Sea, a distance of above a hundred and fifty miles, whence they were to obtain large supplies of arms, ammunition, etc."

In the churchyard at Ribchester the remains of a Roman temple dedicated to Minerva have been discovered. Long before this, however, a singular tradition was current respecting it. Leland, King Henry the Eighth's antiquary, after visiting the spot, says:--"Ther is a place wher the people fable that the _Jues_ had a Temple." Doubtless the edifice discovered in the early part of the present century was the temple referred to. In the middle period of Christianity in England, the only old, or indeed, different religion to their own, known to the ma.s.s of the people, would be the Jewish. Hence the confounding of the Pagan Romans with their Israelitish successors.

The _Athenaeum_ (Feb. 1868) contained the following paragraph, which affords a marked modern ill.u.s.tration of this tendency to the confusion of various traditions in the popular mind:--

"SAMSON MOHAMMEDAN.--At Miss Heraud's reading of 'Samson Agonistes,' the Rev. Henry Allon, who presided, mentioned a fact ill.u.s.trative of the way in which tradition deals with ancient legends. As he stood on the site of the Temple of Gaza, two learned Mussulmans a.s.sured Mr. Allon that Samson was not a Jew but a Mussulman, and that he pulled down the temple, not on the head of the Philistines, but on that of the a.s.sembled Christians who had persecuted the Mohammedans."

I have before observed that the European languages referred to are _not a.s.serted to have sprang from the Sanscrit_, but that all, on the contrary, have a common source. The Vedic hymns, however, are the oldest preserved specimens of any of these cognate tongues.[39] Considerable change must have taken place in the southern Aryan speech before the period when they were written; yet they retain to a great extent, reliable evidence of the common origin of the languages referred to. Max Muller is very explicit on this subject. He says,--

"Even in the Veda, where _dyu_ occurs as a masculine, as an active noun, and discloses the same germs of thought which in Greece and Rome grew into the name of the supreme G.o.d of the firmament, Dyu, the deity, the lord of heaven, the ancient G.o.d of light, never a.s.sumes any powerful mythological vitality, never rises to the rank of a supreme deity. In the earlier lists of Vedic deities, Dyu is not included, and the real representative of Jupiter in the Veda is not Dyu, but Indra, a name of Indian growth, and unknown in any other independent branch of Aryan language. _Indra_ was another conception of the bright sunny sky, but, partly because its etymological meaning was obscured, partly through the more active poetry and wors.h.i.+p of certain Ris.h.i.+s, this name gained a complete ascendancy over that of Dyu, and nearly extinguished the memory in India of one of the earliest, if not _the_ earliest, name by which the Aryans endeavoured to express their first conception of the deity.

Originally, however, and this is one of the most important discoveries which we owe to the study of the Veda--originally _Dyu_ was the bright heavenly deity in India as well as in Greece."

The early mythology of the Aryans, and doubtless of all other savage nations, was more or less a species of, perhaps unconscious, anthropomorphism or a personification of the powers or forces of nature.

This is beautifully ill.u.s.trated by a superst.i.tion yet existent among the Ojibbeway Indians in North America. North-west of Fort Garry lies the lake Manitobah, which has recently given its name to the new province formed out of the Red River region. This name is derived from the circ.u.mstance that a "mysterious voice" is said to be occasionally heard at night in a small island in its midst. The Indians never approach it, believing it to be the home of the Manitobah, or the "Speaking G.o.d." The "voice" is said to result, as in the case of Charybdis, from the beating of the waves upon the rocks and s.h.i.+ngle of the sh.o.r.e. One writer says:--"Along the northern coast of the island there is a long low cliff of fine grained compact limestone, which, under the stroke of the hammer, clinks like steel. The waves beating on the sh.o.r.e at the foot of the cliff cause the fallen fragments to rub against each other, and to give out a sound resembling the chimes of distant church bells. This phenomenon occurs when the gale blows from the north, and then, as the winds subside, low, wailing sounds, like whispering voices, are heard in the air. Travellers a.s.sert that the effect is very impressive, and they have been awakened at night under the impression that they were listening to church bells."[40]

The kind of personification referred to would, in the case of primaeval man, have certainly but a very remote affinity to that conscious artistic personification employed by the cultivated poets and sculptors of after ages. Mr. G. W. c.o.x, in his "Mythology of the Aryan Nations,"

presents this distinction in very forcible language. He says,--

"The sun would awaken both mornful and inspiriting ideas, ideas of victory and defeat, of toil and premature death. He would be the t.i.tan, strangling the serpents of the night before he drove his chariot up the sky; and he would also be the being who, worn down by unwilling labour undergone for men, sinks wearied into the arms of the mother who bore him in the morning. Other images would not be wanting; the dawn and the dew and the violet clouds would not be less real and living than the sun. In his rising from the east he would quit the fair dawn, whom he should see no more till his labour drew towards its close. And not less would he love and be loved by the dew and by the morning herself, while to both his life would be fatal as his fiery car rose higher in the sky.

So would man speak of all other things also; of the thunder and the earthquake and the storm, not less than of summer and of winter. But it would be no personification, and still less would it be an allegory or metaphor. It would be to him a _veritable reality_, which he examined and a.n.a.lysed as little as he reflected on himself. It would be a sentiment and a belief, but in no sense a religion."

In other words, primaeval savages did not work artistically, but simply observed, thought, and expressed themselves in the only manner in which they were able.

Kelly describes the usual course of a myth as "beginning in a figurative explanation of meteoric facts, it next became a hieratic mystery, and then descended from the domain of religion to that of magic and popular story."

I have previously observed that the word "Edda," the t.i.tle of the work which records the wild mythical cosmogony of the Scandinavian race, (a mixture of oriental and northern legend), means "Mother of Poetry."

Language itself is largely made up of figures of speech, or as Jean Paul Richter says it is a "dictionary of faded metaphors," the original meaning of which is fully understood but by the philologist. It is not surprising, therefore, that the unknown should, under certain conditions, be figuratively described by means of the known, or that personifications of this cla.s.s eventuated in the belief in absolute personal existences, in the minds of doubtless well-meaning, but, nevertheless, ignorant men. A few verses from H. H. Wilson's translation of the Vedic hymns will show the nature of this personification:--

"Dyaus (Sky) father, and Prithivi (Earth) kind mother,[41] Agni (Fire) brother, ye Vasus (Bright ones) have mercy on us."

"How long is it that the dawns have risen? How long will they rise?

"Those mortals who beheld the pristine Ushas dawning have pa.s.sed away: to us she is now visible, and they approach who will behold her in after times.

"Ushas, endowed with truth, who art the sister of Bhava, the sister of Varuna, be thou hymned first of the G.o.ds.

"Unimpeding divine rites, although wearing away the ages of mankind, the dawn s.h.i.+nes the likeness of the mornings that have pa.s.sed, or that are to be for ever, the first of those that are to come.

"She s.h.i.+nes upon us like a young wife, rousing every living being to go to his work. The fire had to be kindled by men: she brought light by striking down darkness.

"She rose up, spreading far and wide, and moving towards every one she grew in brightness, wearing her brilliant garment. The mother of the cows, the leader of the dogs, she shone gold-coloured, lovely to behold.

"She, the fortunate, who brings the eye of the G.o.d, who leads the white and lovely steed (of the sun), the Dawn was seen revealed by her rays, with brilliant treasures she follows every one.

"Thou, who art a blessing when thou art near, drive far away the unfriendly; make the pastures wide, give us safety. Remove the haters, bring treasures, liaise up wealth to the wors.h.i.+pper, thou mighty Dawn.

"s.h.i.+ne for us with thy best rays, thou bright Dawn, thou who lengthenest our life, thou the love of all, who givest us wealth in cows, horses, and chariots."

Max Muller thus further ill.u.s.trates the process of the transition referred to:--

"To us it is clear that the story of Zeus descending as a golden rain into the prison of Danae was meant for the bright sky delivering the earth from the bonds of winter, and awaking in her a new life by the golden showers of spring. Many of the stories that are told about the love of Zeus for human and half human heroines have a similar origin.[42] The idea which we express by the phrase, 'King by the grace of G.o.d,' was expressed in ancient language by calling Kings the descendants of Zeus. This simple and natural conception gave rise to innumerable local legends. Great families and whole tribes claimed Zeus for their ancestor; and as it was necessary in each case to supply him with a wife, the name of the country was naturally chosen to supply the wanting link in these sacred genealogies. Thus _aeacus_ the famous king of _aegina_, was fabled to be the offspring of Zeus. This need not have meant more than that he was a powerful, wise, and just king. But it soon came to mean more. aeacus was fabled to have been really the son of Zeus, and Zeus is represented as carrying off aegina and making her the mother of aeacus.... It is said that Zeus in the form of a bull carried off _Europa_. This means no more if we translate it back into Sanscrit, than that the strong rising sun (Vrishan) carries off the wide-s.h.i.+ning dawn.

This story is alluded to again and again in the Veda. Now _Minos_, the ancient King of Crete, required parents; so Zeus and Europa were a.s.signed to him."

The fabled ravishment of Leda by Jupiter in the form of a swan is capable of a like interpretation. Light clouds were called swans, and Mr. c.o.x regards a white mist, in this instance, to form an equivalent to the golden shower of the Danae legend.

In like manner the myth which fabled that dipus married his mother after murdering his father, is divested of its revolting features. It is held to imply no more than that the sun destroys the darkness and sinks at evening into the twilight from whence he sprung.