Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 10, 1899.djvu/387

 Rh of his argument as "the belief in a primal being, a Maker, undying, usually moral " (p. 3). I have not been able to find any corresponding definition of myth. Sometimes it is used (as on pp. xvii, 3, and 5) in opposition to religion, or (as on p. 29) to religion and morality; at other times it is said to consist of two elements, the rational and the irrational (p. 9). Again, the term rational seems to be the equivalent of religious, and irrational the converse (pp. 4, 10, &c.). It is pretty obvious that these terms are all purely subjective, purely arbitrary; and moreover they are not used consistently. Arguments built on terms thus loosely employed must suffer the fate of the house built on the sand.

Mr. Lang has quite missed the point of my remarks in the note (ante, vol. ix., p. 303) on the legends of the Noongahburrahs. Mrs. Langloh Parker has not yet informed us which of the stories in her second volume the black piccaninnies would not be allowed to hear. At all events they would be allowed to hear the legend of the Borah of Byamee in the first volume. Though that legend speaks of Byamee as a man, it treats him with greater reverence than some of the tales solemnly inculcated in the Wiradthuri mysteries do. If it cannot be said to "touch on sacred subjects," it is inseparably connected with the Legend of the Flowers in the second volume, which presumably does, and which Mr. Lang includes in his description of "a very charming and poetical aspect of the Baiame belief." Charming and poetical aspects are, it would seem, "rational": at least Mr. Lang so characterises the description of Artemis in the Odyssey (p. 10). Is the Legend of the Flowers within his definition of religion? It cannot be; for it recognises Byamee not as "a primal being," but as a glorified wizard of the tribe; nor as "a Maker," save of manna and flowers, which a wizard might very well be. Undying he is, but only " up to date," and moral, if it be moral to set his brand arbitrarily on three trees and thus taboo them to the starving people. In short, the legend is a myth, and "the blacks" do not "draw the line" as and where Mr. Lang seeks to draw it. His "essential distinction" does not correspond with the facts; his theory lays undue emphasis on facts otherwise to be explained; and his definition, framed to fit his theory, does not define religion as "the blacks" understand it.

Other points in the Preface to which I may refer are the names