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'Mr. Lang, as usual, has recourse to savages, most useful when they are really wanted. He quotes an illustration from the South Pacific that Tuna, the chief of the eels, fell in love with Ina and asked her to cut off his head. When his head had been cut off and buried, two cocoanut trees sprang up from the brain of Tuna. How is this, may I ask, to account for the story of Daphne? Everybody knows that "stories of the growing of plants out of the scattered members of heroes may be found from ancient Egypt to the wigwams of the Algonquins," but these stories seem hardly applicable to Daphne, whose members, as far as I know, were never either severed or scattered.'

Mr. Max Muller is not content with giving a very elaborate and interesting account of how the story of Tuna arose . He keeps Tuna in hand, and, at the peroration of his vast work , warns us that, before we compare myths in unrelated languages, we need 'a very accurate knowledge of their dialects . . . to prevent accidents like that of Tuna mentioned in the beginning.' What accident? That I explained the myth of Daphne by the myth of Tuna? But that is precisely what I did not do. I explained the Greek myth of Daphne as a survival from the savage mental habit of regarding men as on a level with stones, beasts, and plants; or as a tale 'moulded by poets on the same model.' The latter is the more probable case, for we find Daphne late, in artificial or mythographic literature, in Ovid and Hyginus. In Ovid the river god, Pentheus, changes Daphne into a laurel. In Hyginus she is not changed at all; the earth swallows her, and a laurel fills her place.

Now I really did believe--perhaps any rapid reader would have believed--when I read Mr. Max Muller, that I must have tried to account for the story of Daphne by the story of Tuna. I actually wrote in the first draft of this work that I had been in the wrong. Then I verified the reference which my critic did not give, with the result which the reader has perused. Never could a reader have found out what I did really say from my critic, for he does not usually when he deals with me give chapter and verse. This may avoid an air of personal bickering, but how inconvenient it is!

Let me not be supposed to accuse Mr. Max Muller of consciously misrepresenting me. Of that I need not say that he is absolutely incapable. My argument merely took, in his consciousness, the form which is suggested in the passage cited from him.

Tuna and Daphne

To do justice to Mr. Max Muller, I will here state fully his view of the story of Tuna, and then go on to the story of Daphne. For the sake of accuracy, I take the liberty of borrowing the whole of his statement :--

'I must dwell a little longer on this passage in order to show the real difference between the ethnological and the philological schools of comparative mythology.

'First of all, what has to be explained is not the growing up of a tree from one or the other member of a god or hero, but the total change of a human being or a heroine into a tree, and this under a certain provocation. These two classes of plant-legends must be carefully kept apart. Secondly, what does it help us to know that people in Mangaia believed in the change of human beings into trees, if we do not know the reason why? This is what we want to know; and without it the mere juxtaposition of stories apparently similar is no more than the old trick of explaining ignotum per ignotius. It leads us to imagine that we have learnt something, when we really are as ignorant as before.

'If Mr. A. Lang had studied the Mangaian dialect, or consulted scholars like the Rev. W. W. Gill--it is from his "Myths and Songs from the South Pacific" that he quotes the story of Tuna--he would have seen that there is no similarity whatever between the stories of Daphne and of Tuna. The Tuna story belongs to a very well known class of aetiological plant-stories, which are meant to explain a no longer intelligible name of a plant, such as Snakeshead, Stiefmutterchen, &c.; it is in fact a clear case of what I call disease of language, cured by the ordinary nostrum of folk-etymology. I have often been in communication with the Rev. W. W. Gill about these South Pacific myths and their true meaning. The preface to his collection of Myths and Songs from the South Pacific was written by me in 1876; and if Mr. A. Lang had only read the whole chapter which treats of these Tree-Myths , he would easily have perceived the real character of the Tuna story, and would not have placed it in the same class as the Daphne story; he would have found that the white kernel of the cocoanut was, in Mangaia, called the "brains of Tuna," a name like many more such names which after a time require an explanation.

'Considering that "cocoanut" was used in Mangaia in the sense of head , the kernel or flesh of it might well be called the brain. If then the white kernel had been called Tuna's brain, we have only to remember that in Mangaia there are two kinds of cocoanut trees, and we shall then have no difficulty in understanding why these twin cocoanut trees were said to have sprung from the two halves of Tuna's brain, one being red in stem, branches, and fruit, whilst the other was of a deep green. In proof of these trees being derived from the head of Tuna, we are told that we have only to break the nut in order to see in the sprouting germ the two eyes and the mouth of Tuna, the great eel, the lover of Ina. For a full understanding of this very complicated myth more information has been supplied by Mr. Gill. Ina means moon; Ina-mae- aitu, the heroine of our story, means Ina-who-had-a-divine lover, and she was the daughter of Kui, the blind. Tuna means eel, and in Mangaia it was unlawful for women to eat eels, so that even now, as Mr. Gill informs me, his converts turn away from this fish with the utmost disgust. From other stories about the origin of cocoanut trees, told in the same island, it would appear that the sprouts of the cocoanut were actually called eels' heads, while the skulls of warriors were called cocoanuts.

'Taking all these facts together, it is not difficult to imagine how the story of Tuna's brain grew up; and I am afraid we shall have to confess that the legend of Tuna throws but little light on the legend of Daphne or on the etymology of her name. No one would have a word to say against the general principle that much that is irrational, absurd, or barbarous in the Veda is a survival of a more primitive mythology anterior to the Veda. How could it be otherwise?'

Criticism of Tuna and Daphne

Now , as to Daphne, we are not invariably told that hers was a case of 'the total change of a heroine into a tree.' In Ovid she is thus changed. In Hyginus, on the other hand, the earth swallows her, and a tree takes her place. All the authorities are late. Here I cannot but reflect on the scholarly method of Mannhardt, who would have examined and criticised all the sources for the tale before trying to explain it. However, Daphne was not mangled; a tree did not spring from her severed head or scattered limbs. She was metamorphosed, or was buried in earth, a tree springing up from the place.

'The Tuna story belongs to a very well known class of aetiological plant-stories' , 'which are meant to explain a no longer intelligible name of a plant, &c.' I also say, 'these myths are nature- myths, so far as they attempt to account for a fact in nature--namely, for the existence of certain plants, and for their place in ritual.'

The reader has before him Mr. Max Muller's view. The white kernel of the cocoanut was locally styled 'the brains of Tuna.' That name required explanation. Hence the story about the fate of Tuna. Cocoanut was used in Mangaia in the sense of 'head' . So it is now in England.

See Bell's Life, passim, as 'The Chicken got home on the cocoanut.'

The Explanation

'We shall have to confess that the legend of Tuna throws but little light on the legend of Daphne, or on the etymology of her name.'

Disease of Language and Folk-etymology

If the etymologies were accepted, no proof is offered to us of the actual existence, as a vera causa, of the process by which a saying. 'Apollo pursues Daphne,' remains in language, while the meaning of the words is forgotten. This process is essential, but undemonstrated. See the chapter here on 'The Riddle Theory.'

These processes, if demonstrated, which they are not, must be carefully discriminated from the actual demonstrable process of folk-etymology. The Marmalade legend gives the etymology of a word, marmalade; the Daphne legend does not give an etymology.

The theory of Daphne is of the kind protested against by Mannhardt, where he warns us against looking in most myths for a 'mirror-picture' on earth of celestial phenomena. For these reasons, among others, I am disinclined to accept Mr. Max Muller's attempt to explain the story of Daphne.

Mannhardt on Daphne

Since we shall presently find Mr. Max Muller claiming the celebrated Mannhardt as a sometime deserter of philological comparative mythology, who 'returned to his old colours,' I observe with pleasure that Mannhardt is on my side and against the Oxford Professor. Mannhardt shows that the laurel was regarded as a plant which, like our rowan tree, averts evil influences. 'Moreover, the laurel, like the Maibaum, was looked on as a being with a spirit. This is the safest result which myth analysis can extract from the story of Daphne, a nymph pursued by Apollo and changed into a laurel. It is a result of the use of the laurel in his ritual.' In 1877, a year after Mannhardt is said by Mr. Max Muller to have returned to his old colours, he repeats this explanation. In the same work he says that 'there is no reason for accepting Max Muller's explanation about the Sun-god and the Dawn, wo jeder thatliche Anhalt dafur fehlt.' For this opinion we might also cite the Sanskrit scholars Whitney and Bergaigne.

THE QUESTION OF ALLIES

Athanasius

Mr. Max Muller protests, most justly, against the statement that he, like St. Athanasius, stands alone, contra mundum. If ever this phrase fell from my pen , it is as erroneous as the position of St. Athanasius is honourable. Mr. Max Muller's ideas, in various modifications, are doubtless still the most prevalent of any. The anthropological method has hardly touched, I think, the learned contributors to Roscher's excellent mythological Lexicon. Dr. Brinton, whose American researches are so useful, seems decidedly to be a member of the older school. While I do not exactly remember alluding to Athanasius, I fully and freely withdraw the phrase. But there remain questions of allies to be discussed.

Italian Critics

Mr. Max Muller asks, 'What would Mr. Andrew Lang say if he read the words of Signer Canizzaro, in his "Genesi ed Evoluzione del Mito" , "Lang has laid down his arms before his adversaries"?' Mr. Lang 'would smile.' And what would Mr. Max Muller say if he read the words of Professor Enrico Morselli, 'Lang gives no quarter to his adversaries, who, for the rest, have long been reduced to silence'? The Right Hon. Professor also smiles, no doubt. We both smile. Solvuntur risu tabulae.

A Dutch Defender

The question of the precise attitude of Professor Tiele, the accomplished Gifford Lecturer in the University of Edinburgh , is more important and more difficult. His remarks were made in 1885, in an essay on the Myth of Cronos, and were separately reprinted, in 1886, from the 'Revue de l'Histoire des Religions,' which I shall cite. Where they refer to myself they deal with Custom and Myth, not with Myth, Ritual, and Religion . It seems best to quote, ipsissimis verbis, Mr. Max Muller's comments on Professor Tiele's remarks. He writes :

'Let us proceed next to Holland. Professor Tiele, who had actually been claimed as an ally of the victorious army, declares:--"Je dois m'elever, au nom de la science mythologique et de l'exactitude . . . centre une methode qui ne fait que glisser sur des problemes de premiere importance."

'And again:

'"Ces braves gens qui, pour peu qu'ils aient lu un ou deux livres de mythologie et d'anthropologie, et un ou deux recits de voyages, ne manqueront pas de se mettre a comparer a tort et a travers, et pour tout resultat produiront la confusion."'

Again :

'Besides Signer Canizzaro and Mr. Horatio Hale, the veteran among comparative ethnologists, Professor Tiele, in his Le Mythe de Kronos , has very strongly protested against the downright misrepresentations of what I and my friends have really written.

'Professor Tiele had been appealed to as an unimpeachable authority. He was even claimed as an ally by the ethnological students of customs and myths, but he strongly declined that honour :-

'"M. Lang m'a fait 1'honneur de me citer," he writes, "comme un de ses allies, et j'ai lieu de croire que M. Gaidoz en fait en quelque mesure autant. Ces messieurs n'ont point entierement tort. Cependant je dois m'elever, au nom de la science mythologique et de 1'exactitude dont elle ne peut pas plus se passer que les autres sciences, contre une methode qui ne fait que glisser sur des problemes de premiere importance," &c.

'Speaking of the whole method followed by those who actually claimed to have founded a new school of mythology, he says :--

'"Je crains toutefois que ce qui s'y trouve de vrai ne soit connu depuis longtemps, et que la nouvelle ecole ne peche par exclusionisme tout autant que les ainees qu'elle combat avec tant de conviction."

'That is exactly what I have always said. What is there new in comparing the customs and myths of the Greeks with those of the barbarians? Has not even Plato done this? Did anybody doubt that the Greeks, nay even the Hindus, were uncivilised or savages, before they became civilised or tamed? Was not this common-sense view, so strongly insisted on by Fontenelle and Vico in the eighteenth century, carried even to excess by such men as De Brosses ? And have the lessons taught to De Brosses by his witty contemporaries been quite forgotten? Must his followers be told again and again that they ought to begin with a critical examination of the evidence put before them by casual travellers, and that mythology is as little made up of one and the same material as the crust of the earth of granite only?'

Reply

Professor Tiele wrote in 1885. I do not remember having claimed his alliance, though I made one or two very brief citations from his remarks on the dangers of etymology applied to old proper names. To citations made by me later in 1887 Professor Tiele cannot be referring. Thus I find no proof of any claim of alliance put forward by me, but I do claim a right to quote the Professor's published words. These I now translate:--

'What goes before shows adequately that I am an ally, much more than an adversary, of the new school, whether styled ethnological or anthropological. It is true that all the ideas advanced by its partisans are not so new as they seem. Some of us--I mean among those who, without being vassals of the old school, were formed by it--had not only remarked already the defects of the reigning method, but had perceived the direction in which researches should be made; they had even begun to say so. This does not prevent the young school from enjoying the great merit of having first formulated with precision, and with the energy of conviction, that which had hitherto been but imperfectly pointed out. If henceforth mythological science marches with a firmer foot, and loses much of its hypothetical character, it will in part owe this to the stimulus of the new school.'

'Braves Gens'

Professor Tiele then bids us leave our cries of triumph to the servum imitatorum pecus, braves gens, and so forth, as in the passage which Mr. Max Muller, unless I misunderstand him, regards as referring to the 'new school,' and, notably, to M. Gaidoz and myself, though such language ought not to apply to M. Gaidoz, because he is a scholar. I am left to uncovenanted mercies.

Professor Tiele on Our Merits

The merits of the new school Professor Tiele had already stated:--

'If I were reduced to choose between this method and that of comparative philology, I would prefer the former without the slightest hesitation. This method alone enables us to explain the fact, such a frequent cause of surprise, that the Greeks like the Germans . . . could attribute to their gods all manner of cruel, cowardly and dissolute actions. This method alone reveals the cause of all the strange metamorphoses of gods into animals, plants, and even stones. . . . In fact, this method teaches us to recognise in all these oddities the survivals of an age of barbarism long over-past, but lingering into later times, under the form of religious legends, the most persistent of all traditions. . . . This method, enfin, can alone help us to account for the genesis of myths, because it devotes itself to studying them in their rudest and most primitive shape. . . . '

Destruction and Construction

Thus writes Professor Tiele about the constructive part of our work. As to the destructive--or would-be destructive--part, he condenses my arguments against the method of comparative philology. 'To resume, the whole house of comparative philological mythology is builded on the sand, and her method does not deserve confidence, since it ends in such divergent results.' That is Professor Tiele's statement of my destructive conclusions, and he adds, 'So far, I have not a single objection to make. I can still range myself on Mr. Lang's side when he' takes certain distinctions into which it is needless to go here.

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