Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/105

Rh LYCANTHROPY 91 pists; here a distinction is drawn between friendly and hostile tigers, and lycanthropy is introduced to explain the cases of hostility. Again (2) in the native literature of modern savages there constantly occur stories of the &quot;Beauty and the Beast&quot; type, so distinctly resembling those of the Aryan Mcihrchen as to indicate identity of origin ; but, while in the Aryan story the beast-form of the hero or heroine is generally at last removed, in the savage story the incongruity of the beast-form is scarcely realized, and the Indian lover lives happily with his beaver bride, the Zulu maiden with her frog husband. And (3) in many instances the power or necessity of transformation is ascribed, not to individuals, but to clans or nations. Thus the aboriginal Naga tribes of India seemed to the Aryans to take the form of serpents ; the Neuri seemed to the Scythians, and the Hirpini to the Romans, to become wolves, as also did the native Irish of Ossory to the early Christian priests ; the Abyssinians credit the Buda caste (blacksmiths and potters of alien stock) with ability to become hytenas at pleasure ; the Berserkr-rage of Iceland is perpetuated in the modern Scandinavian belief that Lapps and Finns can take the form of bears. In mediaeval times Blois had a special celebrity for were-wolves, and persons named Gamier or Grenier were generally assumed to be lycanthropists. When, we find that these three distinct classes of primitive facts regarding lycanthropy are all referable to a common origin, there seems good reason for regarding that as being in truth the origin of lycanthropous belief. And thus we are led to refer lycanthropy to the more general facts of primitive TOTBMISM (q.v.), for the facts recited are as undoubtedly characteristic of the latter as of the former. Where the totem is an animal, it is regarded as the ancestor of the tribe ; all animals of its species are revered, and are never willingly killed ; however dangerous to life, they are feigned by the tribe to be friendly&quot; to them, arid hostile only to their enemies. Apply ing these facts to the foregoing lycanthropous phenomena in order, we observe (1) that the tiger is a totem god among the Kandhs ; consequently he reserves his wrath for their enemies. 1 Individual enemies would, however, be created whenever an individual Kandh had the blood- feud against another, for then his totem was bound to aid him. Such we saw was in fact the Kandh explanation of the wrath of the- totem. The development of sorcery would naturally lead to the utilization of the totem as assistant in it also. The Arawak &quot;kanaima&quot; is both lawful avenger and cruel sorcerer ; and from a similar reason probably did the wolf or were-wolf in Europe become a synonym for outlaw. The outlaw was at first simply the peaceless man the man who preferred vendetta to money composition for injuries, as he was originally bound to do, subsequently entitled to do, and finally prohibited from, doing. (2) The beast-hero of savage story ceases to be strange when we learn that &quot; a beaver,&quot; &quot; a dog,&quot; &quot; a grizzly bear, &quot; mean respectively a person of a tribe having the animal in question for totem. And so too (3) with the third class of phenomena which contem plates tribes turned into beasts. The Nagas had the serpent for totem ; apparently the Hirpini, and the native Irish in many districts, had the wolf ; they certainly venerated and worshipped that animal. The Lapps are known to worship the bear. Blois means the &quot;city of wolves.&quot; Doubtless all cases of this sort admit of similar explanation, The doctrine of lycanthropy or metamorphosis of living men must be distinguished from the doctrine of metempsychosis or trans migration of souls. It no doubt was usual to conclude that the 1 The Watusi of East Africa distinctly describe all wild beasts save their own totem-animals as eneray-scouts. souls of cataleptic and epileptic patients sojourned temporarily in animals, while the patients were unconscious ; but this phase of lycanthropy is too rare and too abnormal to be associated with the origin of the superstition. Transmigration after death, involving the belief in a future state, raises questions as puzzling as does lycanthropy itself, and questions qui te of a different kind, because iu normal lycanthropy the change effected is an actual corporeal one. Mr Tylor therefore throws little light on the origin of lycan thropy when he connects it with metempsychosis. In the form familiar to us it doubtless involves the doctrine of &quot; animism &quot; the doctrine that animals, plants, and things are prompted to action by- spirits similar to those possessed by men ; but, whether lycanthropy is simply a special application of a general doctrine of animism, and is not rather one of the earliest advances from a blind totemism to a general animistic theory, may fairly be questioned. This at least seems plain : animism, apart from totemism, is not itself sufficient to explain lycanthropy, for even animistic beliefs are not developed abnormally, but along lines predetermined by circumstances. Mr Tylor s views are, however, so cautiously and so suggestively expressed as to deserve close study. Hardly so satisfactory arc the other theories on the subject, which, passing over varia tions in detail, fall into two classes the mythological and the rationalistic. On the former view, now upheld by a large school of inquirers, the ancient Aryan myths, and their modern represen tatives the Malirchen, are regarded as imaginative descriptions (principally due to the use of metaphorical language) of the great elemental powers and changes of nature. On such a view the occurrence of shape-changing gods and heroes is simple and natural, so long as the persons are purely mythical, because thus far nothing need be deemed strange or unnatural. But the theory breaks down when it ventures on elucidation of historical facts. It seems vain to contend, although it is contended, that &quot; the terrible delusion of lycanthropy arose from tlie mere use of an equivocal word &quot; (VKOS, &quot;wolf,&quot; for evK6s, &quot;shining&quot;). Attempt to substantiate in detail this explanation of history is absolutely fatal. &quot;Whence,&quot; it is asked, &quot; came the notions that men were changed into wolves, bears, and birds, and not into lions, fishes, or reptiles? &quot;and the triumph ant reply is that the first-named animals were selected for glossiness or luminosity of coat. 2 Consequently, if transformation into the other animals was also believed in, the theory stands self-refuted. Now Hippomenes and Atalanta were for impiety turned into lion and lioness, Cadmus and Harmonia into serpents ; and these cases of transformation have almost as intimate an association with the historical belief in men-lions and men-serpents as the case of Lycaon (my thologically = the shiner, the sun) has with lycanthropy. Cognate to the mythological doctrine is the doctrine of the per sonification as demons of all obstacles which men have encountered in the long struggle for existence, among these the wilder and more savage animals. This is just a one-sided animism: it is inadequate to explain how the savage beasts so often became mild and gentle men. The rationalistic theories are open to the same objections : to account for divine and benignant lycanthropists they have to be supplemented by the mythological theories ; they themselves deal exclusively with the more repulsive characteristics. The most recent exponent of the rationalistic theory is Mr Baring Gould, who rests his case on a proof of the facts that there is &quot; an innate craving for blood implanted in certain natures, restrained under ordinary circumstances, but breaking forth occasionally, accompanied with, hallucination, leading in most cases to cannibalism.&quot; That can nibalism and craving for blood had a natural (though not a neces sary) connexion with lycanthropy, if it originated among savages, need not be disputed ; but Mr Baring Gould s instances, drawn from mediaeval European history, are undoubtedly exceptional. Hallucination, however, has been accepted as sufficient explana tion of lycanthropy by many eminent authorities, besides Mi- Gould, and raises a graver question. Belief in transformation into beasts has been acknowledged as a distinct type of monomania by medical men since the days of Paulus ^Egineta (7th century) at least ; but even in madness there is method, and insane delusions must reflect the usages and beliefs of contemporaneous society. Here the weakness of the case appears. Mr Gould, for instance, merely states that the victims were rustics, and wolves the chief terror of their homesteads, an explanation valid only on the assumption that the idea of metamorphosis was already familiar, an assumption, that is, of the whole matter at issue. Besides, it is the popular, not the individual, belief in transformation that is strange ; to trace its origin to insane delusion makes it stranger still, for sane men are particularly sceptical regarding the reality of the impressions of the insane. Sane men, moreover, believed in transformation, not only into malignant wolves, but also into harm less cats and hares, which in consequence became malignant and dangerous. How can the rationalistic theory account for a pheno menon like this ? On the whole, there seems little doubt that, whether the origin of lycanthropy rests in totemism or not, Mr 2 Sir G. W. Cox, The Mythology of the Aryan Nations, London, 1870, vol. i. pp. 63 note, 231, 363, 459 ; vol. ii. p. 78 note.