Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/831

Rh P K 807 running in a south-easterly direction, the space for cultiva tion being but limited and confined to the parts adjacent to the river. On the eastern side lies the Pegu Yoma, and north and north-east of the district its forest-covered spurs form numerous valleys and ravines, the torrents from which unite in one large stream called the Na-weng river. The most important of the plains lie in the south and south west portions of Prome, and extend along the whole length of the railway that runs between the towns of Poungde and Prome ; they are mostly under cultivation, and those in the south are watered by a series of streams forming the Myit- ma-kha or upper portion of the Hlaing. There are in addition large tracts of land covered by tree-jungle which are available for cultivation. The principal river is the Irawadi, which intersects the district from north to south ; next in importance are the Tha-ni and its tributaries and the Na-weng system of rivers. In the hills near the capital the soil is of Tertiary formation, and in the plains it is of alluvial deposit. The climate is much drier than other districts in British Burmah. The total rainfall in 1882 was 49-64 inches. In 1881 the population was 322,342 (161,433 males and 160,909 females). Buddhists and Jains numbered 313,261, Mohammedans 1795, Hindus 978, Christians 336, Aborigines 5818, and Parsees 5. More than two-thirds of the population are agriculturists. The chief towns are Prome (see below), and Shwedoung and Poungde, with 12,373 and 6727 inhabitants respectively. The chief products are rice, teak, cutch, silk, sugar cane, cotton, tobacco, and sesame oil ; but the staple product is rice, which is cultivated mainly in the Poungde and Shwe-doung townships. The total area under cultivation in 1882 was 234,222 acres. One of the most important manufactures is silk ; others are ornamental boxes, coarse brown sugar, and cutch. The gross revenue of the district in 1882 amounted to about 92,000, of which over a third was derived from the land. The early history of the once flourishing kingdom of Prome, like that of the other states which now form portions of the province of British Burmah, is veiled in obscurity. Fact and fable are so interwoven that it is impossible to disentangle the true from the false. After the conquest of Pegu in 1758 by Aloung-bhiira, the founder of the third and present dynasty of Ava kings, Prome remained a province of the Barman kingdom till the close of the second Burmese war in 1853, when the province of Pegu was annexed to British territory. PROME, chief town of the above district, on the left bank of the Irawadi, had a population in 1881 of 28,813 (males 14,982, females 13,831). To the south and south-east the town is closed in by low pagoda-topped hills, on one of which stands the conspicuous gilded Shwe Tsan-daw. The town was taken by the British in 1825 and again in 1852, on both occasions with hardly any opposition from the Burmese. In 1862 it was almost entirely destroyed by fire, and was afterwards relaid out in straight and broad streets. It was erected into a municipality in 1874, and since then great improvements have been made. Its principal manufactures are silk cloths and lacquer ware. PROMETHEUS, son of the Titan lapetus by the sea nymph Clymene, is the chief &quot; culture hero,&quot; and, in some accounts, the Demiurge of Greek mythical legend. As a culture-hero or inventor and teacher of the arts of life, he belongs to a wide and well-known category of imaginary beings. Thus Qat, Quahteaht, Pundjel, Maui, loskeha, Cagn, Wainamoinen, and an endless array of others repre sent the ideal and heroic first teachers of Melanesians, Ahts, Australians, Maoris, Algonquins, Bushmen, and Finns. Among the lowest races the culture-hero com monly wears a bestial guise, is a spider (Melanesia), an eagle hawk (Australia), a coyote (north-west America), a dog or raven (Thlinkeet), a mantis insect (Bushman), and so forth, yet is endowed with human or even superhuman qualities, and often shades off into a permanent and practically deathless god. Prometheus, on the other hand, is purely anthropomorphic. He is the friend and benefactor of mankind. He defends them against Zeus, who, in accordance with a widely diffused mythical theory, desires to destroy the human race and supplant them with a new and better species, or who simply revenges a trick in which men get the better of him. The pedigree and early exploits of Prometheus are given by Hesiod (Theog., 510-616). On a certain occasion gods and men met at Mecone. The business of the assembly was to decide what portions of slain animals the gods should receive in sacrifice. On one side Prometheus arranged the best parts of the ox covered with offal, on the other the bones covered with fat. Zeus was invited to make his choice, chose the fat, and found only bones beneath. A similar fable of an original choice, in which the chooser is beguiled by appearances, recurs in Africa and North America. The native tribes adapt it to explain the different modes of life among themselves and white men. In wrath at this trick, according to Hesiod, or in other versions for the purpose of exterminating the remnants of people who escaped the deluge of Deucalion, Zeus never bestowed, or later withdrew, the gift of fire. In his &quot;philanthropic fashion,&quot; Prometheus stole fire, concealed in a hollow fennel stalk (Hesiod, Op. et Di.}, and a fennel stalk is still used in the Greek islands as a means of carrying a light (cf. Pliny, xiii. 22). According to some legends he gained the fire by holding a rod close to the sun. Pro bably the hollow fennel stalk in Avhich fire was carried got its place in myth from the very fact of its common use. We thus find Prometheus in the position of the fire-bringer, or fire-stealer, and so connected with a very wide cycle of similar mythical benefactors. Among the Murri of Gippsland, to begin with a backward people, the fire-stealer was a man, but he became a bird. Tow-e-ra, or fire, was in the possession of two women who hated the blacks. A man who loved men cajoled the women, stole fire when their backs were turned, and was metamorphosed into &quot; a little bird with a red mark on its tail, which is the mark of fire.&quot; The fire-bringer in Brittany is the golden or fire-crested wren. Myths like this kill two birds with one stone, and at once account for the possession of fire by men and for the marking of certain animals regarded as fire-bringers. 1 In another Australian legend fire was stolen by the hawk from the bandicoot, and given to men. In yet another a man held his spear to the sun, and so got a light. A bird is fire-bringer in an Andaman island tale, and a ghost in another myth of the same island. 2 In Kew Zealand, Maui stole fire from Mauika, the lord of fire. He used a bird s inter vention. Among the Ahts, in North America, 3 fire was stolen by animals from the cuttle-fish. Among the Thlinkeets, Yehl, the raven-god, was the fire-stealer. Among the Cahrocs, the coyote steals fire from &quot;two old women.&quot; Among the Aryans of India, Soma is stolen by birds, as water is among the Thlinkeets, and mead in the Edda. 4 Fire concealed himself, in the Veda, was dragged from his hiding place by Matarigvan, and was given to the priestly clan of Bhrigu. We also hear that Matarigvan &quot; brought fire from afar &quot; (R. V., iii. 9, 5), and that Bhrigu found fire lurk ing in the water (R. V., x. 46, 2). 5 In considering the whole question, one must beware of the hasty analogical method of reasoning too common among mythologists* For example, when a bird is spoken of as the fire-bringer we need not necessarily conclude that, in each case, the bird means lightning. On the other hand, the myth often exists to explain the cause of the mark ings of certain actual species of birds. Again, because a hero is said to have stolen or brought fire, we need not regard that hero as the personification of fire, and explain all his myth as a fire-myth. The legend of Prometheus has too often been treated in this fashion, though he is really a culture hero, of whose exploits, such as making 1 For these see Brough Smith, Aborigines of Victoria; Kuhn, on bird fire-bringer in Isle of Man, Die Herabkunft des Feuers, p. 109. 2 Journ. Anthrop. Inst., Nov. 1884. 3 Sproat, Savage Life. 4 Bancroft, iii. 100 ; Aitareya Brahmana, ii. 93, 203 ; Kuhn, op. cit., 144. 5 Compare Bergaighe, La Religion Vediquc, i. 52-56, and Kuhn s Herabkunft ; and see the essays by Steinthal in appendix to English version of Goldziher s Mythology among the Hebrews.