monuments. With a more graceful thought, the Indians of North America declare that the imitative tumuli of Ohio, great mounds laid out in rude imitation of animals, were shaped in old days by the great Manitu himself, in promise of a plentiful supply of game in the world of spirits. The New Zealanders tell how the hero Kupe separated the North and South Islands, and formed Cook's Straits. Greek myth placed at the gate of the Mediterranean the twin pillars of Herakles; in more recent times the opening of the Straits of Gibraltar became one of the many feats of Alexander of Macedon.[1] Such a group of stories as this is no unfair test of the value of mere traditions of personal names which simply answer the questions that mankind have been asking for ages about the origin of their rites, laws, customs, arts. Some such traditions are of course genuine, and we may be able, especially in the more modern cases, to separate the real from the imaginary. But it must be distinctly laid down that, in the absence of corroborative evidence, every tradition stands suspect of mythology, if it can be made by the simple device of fitting some personal name to the purely theoretical assertion that somebody must have introduced into the world fire-making, or weapons, or ornaments, or games, or agriculture, or marriage, or any other of the elements of civilization.
Among the various matters which have excited curiosity, and led to its satisfaction by explanatory myths, are local names. These, when the popular ear has lost their primitive significance, become in barbaric times an apt subject for the myth-maker to explain in his peculiar fashion. Thus the Tibetans declare that their lake Chomoriri was named from a woman (chomo) who was carried into it by the yak she was riding, and cried in terror ri-ri! The Arabs say the founders of the city of Sennaar saw on the river bank a beautiful woman with teeth glittering like fire,
- ↑ Bastian, 'Mensch,' vol. iii. pp. 167-8; Wilkinson in Rawlinson's 'Herodotus,' vol. ii. p. 79; Grimm, 'D. M.' pp. 972-6; W. G. Palgrave, 'Arabia,' vol. i. p. 251; Squier and Davis, 'Monuments of Mississippi Valley,' p. 134; Taylor, 'New Zealand,' p. 258.
