savage Malay tribe of Malacca, say men did not die but waned and waxed with the moon; but on the suggestion of B'lo, the brother of the First Magician, the Lord of the Underworld, decreed that man should die off "like the banana, which leaves its young shoots behind it." The "Cast Skin" incident is very characteristic of the Indonesia-Melanesia area; the "Perverted Message" is not unknown, and the loss of immortality through the conduct of a woman is frequent in Melanesia.
At first sight it would seem very improbable that a story from New Britain, Annam, and Gallaland could have a common origin, but the occurrence of two sets of incidents in the composite story from these places requires explanation. The identity of human thought is an inadequate solution, but this is just the kind of story which, on account of its complexity, most folklorists would be agreed must have had a single origin. We have seen that modern ethnological investigations do provide a mechanism by means of which the composite story and its two main elements, either severally or as a whole, could have been disseminated over an enormous area and among very diverse peoples. Thus the difficulties that baffled Andrew Lang can probably be overcome if other branches of the science of man are taken into account, and by adopting the methods of Dr. Rivers it may be possible to distinguish in many cases between the vertical and lateral tradition that puzzled Joseph Jacobs.
I have dwelt, at what I trust is not undue length, with one chapter of Sir James Frazer's great book, and similar restatements might be made of others. "The Great Flood" affords a perennial topic for discussion, and I understand that Professor Elliot Smith is bringing out a book on this subject, in which he will deal with it on the lines of cultural transmission.[1]
- ↑ The Story of the Flood, to be published by the Manchester University Press. For brief summaries of the argument see Journ. Manch. Egypt. and Oriental Socy., 1917-18, p. 17, and The Evolution of the Dragon, Manchester, 1919.
