The Spirit of the To understand the spirit of the myth one must learn to live over again the age which produced it. Without this, the practice of minute analysis of myth forms and derivation of myth names, the divi sion of mythical stories into historical, scien tific, religious and folk-tales and the minute grubbing of the ordinary scientific methods are of little avail. The study of mythology, like that of history, requires the power of imagina tion coupled with the patience and the trained methods of the scientific mind. However well the division of myths into classes may serve the uses of scientific study, the farther investiga tion is carried into the past the more all classes of mythological stories come into contact, min gle or blend with one another and reveal to us man trying to solve the primitive problems pre sented to the race. He develops these problems as he sees them and he explains them in con formity with his mode of science. In the very infancy of experimentally acquired knowledge he began to record his racial or tribal experi ences in the form of stories, songs, symbols, dances and fixed ceremonies coupled with mys tical formulae and incantations. However un reasoning these may seem to the scientifically trained mind of to-day, they were nevertheless perfectly reasonable to primitive man who pro pounded them. The primitive myth-maker, which is but another name for the primitive philosopher and scientist, noticed that the sun moves away from the equator in the winter and that then the days are shorter and the nights longer, and he invented a legend or tale to ac count for it. This tale conformed in every re spect to the belief of himself and the people of his day. The sun was a great and powerful be ing. The night spirit grew jealous of him and came and persuaded the people that the sun was an impostor, that he was not at all powerful since he allowed himself to be driven daily across the sky in the self-same track. So the people mocked the sun and taunted him with his impotence, whereupon he became angry and vowed to leave them in darkness. As he moved farther and farther to the north and the days became shorter and colder and the frost spirits seized upon all the land and froze over the lakes and rivers, the people became terrified and made sacrifices and offered dances and music to the Great Spirit, who finally relented and tame back to them. But to remind them of the fact that he is all powerful and to make sure they shall never forget the insult they offered him, the sun goes north for a part of each year and shortens the days and lengthens the nights. In this myth the sun is essentially hu man and he acts as an all-powerful kindly hu man being would do, especially in a primitive age, were he insulted. To the primitive mind the scientific fact around which the story is woven was satisfactorily explained by the story itself. The existence of summer and winter is accounted for by a similar nature myth and though the two myths explain what is prac tically the same phase of nature yet to primi tive man there was no inconsistency in the stories simply because to him the gradual re treat of the sun northward and the coming of winter were two distinct events in no way con nected with each other. Nor tor him was the coming of summer dependent on the going away of winter, though the events happened to be coincidental, for both summer and winter were powerful beings each of which acted of his own volition. An Algonquin myth brings them together through the Great Spirit who went northward, with the spirit of summer in his hunting jacket, and routed the spirit of win ter out of his ice tepee and brought the summer to the northland.
Man and primitive man all nature was a struggle, not of elements, but of wondrously powerful and intelligent beings who were so real to him that they may be said to have formed as active and concrete a part of his existence as his household, his friends and his enemies. About these beings of his imagination he built up a mass of traditionary lore which was carefully handed down from father to son. In this lore he grouped and clas sified these supernatural beings; and to each he attached myths to explain their attributes, pow ers, functions and affections. Quite philosophi cal were these myths from the point of view of their creators. The earth received the seed and the sky sent the water that made it grow. The union of the two gave birth to the plant. Thus the earth and the sky became wife and husband. The sun was the greater light that ruled the day, the moon the lesser light that ruled the night, so in many theologies the for mer was the husband and the latter the wife, while the morning star, which appears with thp sun, was their offspring.. However, frequently in northern mythologies, where the light of the sun loses its great power for apart of the year, the latter frequently becomes the wife and the moon the husband. The moon governed the night, the season when the mists most fre quently descend upon the land. So she be comes the goddess of fertility and as such is closely connected with all the water and vege tation deities. In Egypt Egyptian women prayed to Isis, the moon goddess, that site might look kindly upon them and bless them and make them fruitful. Roman women about to be married invoked Juno, the queen of heaven, that she might make them bear chil dren; and Greek women made the same prayer to Hera, the mother of the stars, the queen of heaven, the moon goddess, the great deity of growth and fertility. Among the Aztecs and other cultured races of America, Indian women prayed the moon to make them fruitful; and offerings are still presented to the moon throughout Indian America with the same end in view. So strong is this belief that the In dian of Latin America frequently associates the name of the ancient moon goddess with that of the Virgin; and so powerful has the influence of the Indian become that not only Indian but also educated white women go to certain shrines of the Virgin to pray that they may be blessed with children. Indian women still hold up their new-born children to the moon-mother that she may bless them and make them, in their turn, fruitful. Being the patroness of growth, birth
and fertility the moon became the deity of doc tors and of medicine, and among Egyptians, Indo-Europeans, Aztecs, Mayas, Zapotecas and Mixtecas alike she took a kindly interest in peo ple of feeble mind or those afflicted with skin or other scrofulous diseases. She was also the pro tectoress of young children and animals both in Europe and America. She was the goddess of bunters and is frequently represented as armed for the chase. A close examination of all these functions and attributes of the moon goddess will show that they are closely related, interde pendent and that the one naturally grew out of the others. The moon, in most of the In dian mythologies of America, was also the mother or the grandmother of the winds or some of them, who are themselves the bringers of the fruitful rains and mists. Here again the mythology is consistent.
Growth of Examples might be given ad infinitum, but the foregoing are suf ficient to show that the mythologies of most ancient races represented systems of thought, of philosophy and religion which followed what were then rational lines of reasoning to those holding them and passing them on to succeed ing generations. These ancient myths were at once religious, philosophical and scientific in that they contained within themselves the re ligious, philosophical and scientific knowledge of the race or what passed for such. Behind all mythologies, are broad, general principles which lead, everywhere, to similar results. This accounts for the similarity of apparently unrelated myths in widely different parts of the earth, a similarity more marked in the nature myths, The comparative study of myths is of as much importance in the development of the science of mythology as is the comparative study of languages in the development of the science of philology; since the general laws that govern the making of myths seem to pro duce as closely related results as those that govern the formation of languages. Fairy tales, folk-tales, historical, philosophical, religious and scientific myths are continually running into one another. Often one short tale contains all these elements. Hence the field of study is not only very extensive, but the lines of thought are continually crossing and recrossing one an other. Out.of this confusing maze have come many i theories, explanations and systems of mythology most of them defective in that they have failed to survey the whole field and to take into account its broad general significance. Mythologies are like rolling stones, they take new forms as they move onward; and when they come to rest they gather extraneous mosses, which disfigure them often to such an extent as to hide their original forms. These changes are due to both external and internal influences, to action and reaction. Dissimilar myths are often found side by side apparently unaffected by one another ; others are blended, while still others are so confused front long con tact with one another that their original functions and attributes are not clearly discernible. Tribal influences, captives, slaves, foreign teachers and philosophers, servants, broken-down mytholo gies and the myths of subject people all have had their part to the shaping of the myths of nations. The constant rising and dying of re ligious, scientific and philosophical ideas, throughout the long unwritten history of man's progress toward civilization molded and shaped his myths; so that it is safe to say that how ever primitive myths may seem to us, there are probably no primitive myths in existence, since, man even in his lowest stage of development to-day, has passed far beyond the condition of his ancestors when they first began to formu late their philosophy of the world about them in the stories that we have named mythology In the days when the Romans had conquered the civilized nations surrounding them, Rome had already become the meeting-place of creeds or mythologies as had Athens in the days of Paul. And often there, the same deity was worshiped in separate temples and under sep arate guise. There were temples to Juno and Luna, both moon deities, to Hera the Greek goddess of the moon and Isis the Egyptian moon divinity. Each was the sovereign lady of the sky. And when Christianity stepped in and drove out the heathen deities, her triumph was only partial, for the converted heathen could not so easily forget his past. To his new Chris tian saints he attributed the powers and vir tues of his ancient gods. Upon the Virgin, as the lady of heaven, he lavished all the adoration given to the moon divinities, and he long loved to depict her as standing upon the crescent (the symbol of the moon). Thus the mythologies of the past have followed us into the present. In art, achitecture, literature, philosophy, sci ence, their names and influence greet us at every turn; for the dead past has not buried its dead. To-day the Christianized Indian throughout Latin America, in his Christian devotions, thinks as frequently in terms of his ancient gods as of his new faith. To the Virgin he at tributes the power to send the rain, to fertilize the earth, man and beast; and he still puts food on the graves of the departed that they may have provision for their journey to the future world. Once a year, on the °dm, de los muer tos° (day of the dead), when the dead are popularly believed to revisit the earth, he deco rates their resting-places in like manner. Thus the present teaches that the mythologies of the past were constantly being modified and changed while they were exerting their influ ence upon dying or supposedly defunct myth ological systems. This is the same principle that was at work when Greece, Rome, 'Egypt, Assy ria, Arabia, Persia, India and the broken-down mythologies of the races who preceded them, acted and reacted upon one another. To these must be added the modifying influences of the Celt and the Arab, the German and the Mongol, who each, in his own way, left his mark upon the mythologies of northern Africa and south ern Europe and Asia.