Dixon[1] into two chief types—the Evolutionary and the Creative. The distinguishing features of the evolutionary theme are its postulation of an original darkness; and the genealogical manner in which, through a series of abstractions and concrete things, it traces the developement of the cosmos from that chaotic night. Almost invariably also, the cleaving-together of heaven and earth, and their ultimate separation, form a dramatic scene in the story. Not quite invariably,[2] but in so great a majority of versions that we may take this feature also as a characteristic of the evolutionary creation theme.
The creative type of myth has no genealogical tendencies, nor in its pure form does it give any hint of the cleaving-together of the elements. With few exceptions, it begins by assuming the existence of a certain amount of original matter, plus an original god. The latter inhabits a heavenly region of light and space, which is and always has been separate from the waste of waters beneath; at a given moment, he sets to work on original matter, and the universe takes shape.
The absence of the theme of original darkness from myths of this class, and the existence of the creative being in an upper region,[3] where he is sometimes portrayed as the centre of a throng of bright companions,[4] are points which give rise to a very strong inference that he is characteristically a light-god. This will become clearer, perhaps, a little later.
The text which I have exhibited is clearly a result of the
- ↑ Professor R. Dixon, "Oceanic Mythology," vol. ix. of the Mythology of all Races, Marshall Jones, Boston, 1916, p. 4.
- ↑ The idea is absent from certain Hawaiian and Samoan renderings of the evolutionary type.
- ↑ Cf. Turner, Samoa, Macmillan, 1884, p. 7 et seq.; Ellis, Polynesian Researches, vol. i. p. 251; P. Erdland, Die Marshall-Insulaner, Münster, p. 204.
- ↑ Cf. Reiter, in Anthropos, ii. p. 444 et seq. (1907).
