THE CHILDHOOD OF FICTION.

Otago Witness, Issue 2722, 16 May 1906, Page 69

THE CHILDHOOD OF FICTION.

A STUDY OF FOLK TALES AND

PRIMITIVE THOUGHT

By J. A. Macctjxlogh

London : John Murray. 12s net. (Reviewed by " Dinornis.') This is a work at once of both literary and scientific quality and interest. The method of treatment adopted is that of the scientific student bent upon the task of clearing up tangled obscurities, the matters dealt with being the widely-gathered relics of primitive imaginative literature. or, perhaps, let ns say, the germs of such. The author of this large and learned book traces the myths, fairy tales, and traditions of all parts of the -world as near as may be -to their sources, groups them into definite classes,, and goes far towards replacing chaos with order and understanding inl-the matter of- their interpretation. Mr Macc'ullogii'.is justly r<acognised" as a worldaathotity in this fascinating department of research, and this, his latest volume on folk tales "and primitive thought, is a genuinely "valuable and attractive contribi bion io " scientific literature. -, Until very lately the subject matter of "folk-lore" lias been handed in a most perfunctory manner by numbers of those -who have concerned themselves with it. Many collections of folk tales have been published in book form, but, with few exceptions, and these all fairly recent, hardly any attempt has been made to analys? and classify these wonderful emanations of primitive intelligence, the earliest frnits of human imaginative artistry in every part of the world peopled by man. Among these honourable exceptions George Laurence Gomme, in his book " Ethnology .in Folk-lore," merits special mention. Within very email compass Gomme has marshalled a striking array of evidence to prove that the often startling and always curious beliefs and practices enshrined* in folk tales belong to eras in time and strata of " uncivilisation" immensely remote from the present. He also shows by citation of recent historical instances that isolated groups of savages, to whom the bizarre and often bloody practices inseparable from primitive. belief were genuine realities, stili existed in mauy parts of Britain and Ireland .during quite recent times. The author of " Tha- Childhood of Fiction" also strongl}- upholds the idea of the essentially savage and prehistoric nature of the beliefs, customs, and practices, th?

memory of which is preserved in folk and fairy tales and tradition? the world over. He. agrees . with Mr Go-rime in ■putting.aside, the .now largely discredit', d views of Max MulJer and others upon the Aryan origin of these strange traditional survivals. The mythologies, De Gubernath, Cox. Muller. and others, have found the origin of folk tales in the myths of the Aryan race. According to them folk tales are the detritus of siu-h Aryan myths when the .meaning of the myths themselves -was long forgotten.- The whole Aryan theoiy falls to the ground when it is discovered thit exactly similar 6tories are told by non- . An-an races, aud that the incidents of such stories are easily explainable by actu£>l customs and idea^ of savages and primitive folk everywhere. Things Aryan are but cf the day "before yesterday in thp author s view, while to find the origins of folk and fairy tales, primitive magic, and strange rites still believed in and practised by n:?ny ravages, and even by the peasantry of most " civiliiifd'' countries, we arc forced back to a time when all religion was animistic, and all worship had for its objects the ghosts of ancestors, powerful chiefs, and " medicine men"' whose prestige was the measure of thair cunning. To tho mind imbued with animism, men. animate, and inanimate objecte are all equally supposed to be alive, usually by virtue of the possession of a spirit or &oul, and to have similar passions, powers, and facuHifs, though usually animals are credited with greater powers and keener wits than men. All savages are animists, and believe that the spirit,' human or animal, can leave its enclosing body and wander about or take up its residenca temporarily in another body. Thus the spirit of a man may for the nonce enter into an animal or a tree. The aniinist has no idea o«" personality, being fifmly of the opinion that what he now sees as a man he may see immediately after as an animal or a bush. " Wherever we trace the working of the savage mmd — in Australia, Africa, Greenland. Melanesia, or elsewhere — these ideas are found unaltered, and they are Ideas which once governed the minds of the ancestors of all civilised races. There is thus obtained a practical and working belief, the idea that men, animals, and spirits or gods may all, from time to time, assume some other form than their own." Closely related io animism is the institution known as totemism, with its central doctrine of the close kinship ?>etween a human clan and an animal or plant species, aiding the acceptance of what to us must seem an incredible dogma. " Partly as a result of totemisin, partly as the product of man's myth-making fancies, stories everywhere arose of the solidarity of human and animal, of their origin from one primal stock. Thus it is a common belief that, as the Algonquins say, '" of old all animals were as men ; the Master (Glooskap) s;ave them the shapes they now wear."' Hence a great many stories all over the world explain certain markings/^ or distinctive features of various animals as the result of what happened to them when they were men j as in New Guinea, where a thief fell over a cliff, nnd had his features flattened, turning into a dugong. Animistic totemisin is everywhere rife amid savagery. Individuals or whole clans tiridergo the most surprising transformations. Among the Australian blacks men become birds, animals, stars, etc., with startling facility! Of two Australian tribes, the Wurrunnunnah blaekfellows jvere industrious., the Buniiyarl very lazy,

and as time went on the former became bees, the latter idle flits. The Bushnien of Africa believe that every woman can become a lion if she caies to to do ; other beliefs are of distant tribes who are men by night and fish by day ; of people who appear now as bears, or gulls, or ravens, as among the Eskimo ; of men who take the form of crocodiles, to capture and cat other men. In savagedom such beliefs are universal, and they are traceable among the peasantry of all civilised countries.

Closely associated with animistic superstition is the savage belief in the plurality of souls. This, as the author says, "is not unlike the Eoman belief in the genius, a sort of external soul, on which a man's iife and health depended, and which sometimes appeared in animal form." The negroes of the West Coast of Africa belkve that a man has four sou's, one of them being " contained in an animal which lives out in the bush (hence it is called the bush soul). The witch doctor alone knows what animal it is in, but he imparts his knowledge to the owner, who is then c"areful not to injure any animal of that kind." If "the soul-containing animal comes to grief — gets shot or trapped — then the man's death must inevitably ensue. These strange beliefs are only samples from among the many such that attend the savage mind -in its 6eareh for a theory of "Xature and life. The reveiend author LoJds that ;o primitive savagery all such speculations were rational — that is to siy. they represent the actual efforts of primitive intelligence; seeking to arrive at matter of fact explanations of present and visible phenomena. There was nothing of the inter.dedly fanciful about them, fanciful though they appear to us. They show us, wh-en .ightly understood, the best philosophy of which the primitive mind was capable. -To us the "'Stoiy ,1 Jack and the Beanstalk" se^ms but a pietty trifle fit for the amusement of children. Mr Maccullogli shows quite plainly that it represents a primitive explanation of how the "other world" became less easily accessible than it had been. Of all the dear, delightful old fairy tales which have charrnod us, ard -which still delight our children, there is probably not one which is not described ard traced in this wonderful volume. And all are relegated with careful, painstaking insight to their original sources in animist : .c behef. totemifm. and tbeir related developments. During some stage in the early development of the race such beliefs oiicinated and became universally diffused. They formed the rich soil whfnc« sprang n most luxuriant crop of imaginative attempts in story form to explain life, nature. • nd things particular and genera], and among -all races -we find those attempts cryst >lised ns "Wk tales." The wealth of i!lustr;.tiv? instance vnth which the author Las tju'iched ths present volume simply bifncs description. To him it has evidently been a labour of love, this account of a journey " :nto a snvFtic ]:ind of noble heroes ar.d lovely heroines, '.'iants, ogres, v» itches — a land nf -nchant-m-entP, where animals and things talk, and :>re the friends »f m;<n ; where transformation occurs ever\ day. where de-ith ard pain are vanquished; a land. too. o\ gi'-n and grisly shapes and dewis and thoughts, where horror and fear stalk abroad in the daylight/ Withal, this big and fascinating book wiH find its place and welcome among those whose leading and studies have made tlit-ni conversant with the newer conception in ethnology jhich have arisen foincidentallv with the spread of the doctune of descent. By cener.il r^adei*. it will be enjoyed, but b\ -cientific atudent.s a great deal of what .Mr Maccullogli has to communicate will be iound to be just invaluable.