MYTH AND RITUAL. The fundamental association of myth with ritual emerges clearly in the view of Robertson Smith, that in all antique religions mythology takes the place of dogma. He thought that mythology was no essential part of ancient reli gion for it had no sacred sanction and no binding force on the wor shippers. Belief in myths was not obligatory as a part of true religion. He argued that, from the outset, ritual and practical usage were strictly speaking, the sum total of ancient religions. Political institutions are older than political theories and in like manner religious institutions are older than religious theories. Dr. Cook (Religion of the Semites, 3rd Edn. 1927) points out that myth and ritual often act upon each other. Some, he thinks, are based upon misunderstandings, are explanations of explana tions, are the product of the more intelligent and sophisticated individuals, or have been purified of earlier crudities, while fancy and imagination have transformed them. While myths are spe cifically of personal interest, in general they appeal to the differ ent types of mind in mixed communities. The views of Rob ertson Smith have assumed a more precise shape in the argument of Professor Radcliffe Brown that "it is necessary to take into ac count the explanations given by the natives themselves. Although these explanations are not of the same kind as the scientific explanations that are the objects of research, yet they are of great importance as data. Like the civilized man of Western Europe, the savage of the Andamans seeks to rationalise his behaviour ; being impelled to certain actions by mental dispositions of whose origin and real nature he is unaware, he seeks to formu late reasons for his conduct, or even if he does not when left to himself, he is compelled to when the enquiring ethnologist attacks him with questions. Such a reason as is produced by this process of rationalisation is rarely, if ever, identical with the psychological cause of the action that it justifies, yet it will nearly always help us in our search for the cause. At any rate, the reason given as explaining the action is so intimately connected with the action itself that we cannot regard any hypothesis as to the meaning of a custom as being satisfactory unless it explains, not only the custom, but also the reasons that the natives give for following it. . . . Tales that might seem merely the products of a somewhat childish fancy are very far indeed from being merely fanciful and are the means by which the Andamanese express and systematise their fundamental notions of life and nature and the sentiments attaching to these notions." (A. R. Brown, Andaman Islanders, pp. and 33o, 1922.) The process of symbolic thought is of important reference to and criticism of the interpretation of "the beliefs of savages as being the result of attempts to understand natural facts such as dreams, death, birth, etc. Such writers assume that the savage
is impelled by the same motive that so strongly dominates them selves, the desire to understand—scientific curiosity, and that such beliefs as animism or totemism are in the nature of scientific hypothesis, invented to explain the facts of dreaming and of death on the one hand, and of conception and birth on the other. If this view of the nature of primitive thought were correct it would be impossible to conceive how such inconsistencies as those that were met with among the Andamanese could be permitted. On the view that the myths of primitive society are merely the result of an endeavour to express certain ways of thinking and feeling about the facts of life which are brought into existence by the manner in which life is regulated in society, the presence of such inconsistencies need not in the least surprise us, for the myths satisfactorily fulfil their function, not by any appeal to the reasoning powers but by appealing, through the imagination, to the mind's affective dispositions." (A. R. Brown, The Andaman Islanders, 1922, p. 397.) Malinowski insists that "the function of myth, briefly, is to strengthen tradition and endow it with a greater value and prestige by tracing it back to a nigher, better, more supernatural reality of ancient events." From myth spring the epic romance and tragedy. Myth, therefore, touches the deepest desires of man— his fears, his hopes, his passions, his sentiments as it validates the social order, justifies the existing social scheme and ranges from expressions of sheer artistry to legalism. (Myth in Primitive Psy chology, 1927.) BIBLIOGRAPHY.—See the bibliographies to EGYPTIAN RELIGION and BABYLONIAN RELIGION and to the articles referred to above; also A. B. Keith, Indian Mythology (1917). For China see J. J. M. de Groot, Religious Systems of China (Leyden, 1892, etc.). See also A. Radcliffe Brown, The Andaman Islanders (1922) ; Baldwin Spencer, The Arunta (1927) ; R. H. Codrington, The Melanesians (1891) ; J. H. Hutton, The Angami Nagas (1921) , The Sema Nagas (1921) ; J. P. Mills, The Ao Nagas (1916), The Lhota Nagas (1922) ; J . Shakespeare, The Lushai-Kuki Clans (1912) ; R. E. Enthoven, The Folklore of Bombay (1924) ; W. Crooke, Folklore and Popular Religion of Northern India (edit. R. E. Enthoven, 1926) ; E. Thurston, Omens and Superstitions of Southern India (1912) ; G. Lindblom, The Akamba (2nd enlarged ed., 1920) ; J. Roscoe, The Baganda (191I) ; E. W. Smith and A. M. Dale, The Ila-speaking Peoples of Northern Nigeria (1920) ; C. K. Meek, The Northern Tribes of Nigeria (2 vols., 1925); L. Tauxier, Le Noir de Giunle (1908), Le Noir du Soudan (1912), Le Noir de Yatenga (1917), Le Noir de Bondoukou (1921) ; W. C. Willoughby, The Soul of the Bantu (1928) ; James Frazer, The Golden Bough (3rd ed., 12 vols., 1907-15).