Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 2, 1891.djvu/230

222 by Roscher as primitive, with a reference to Lithuanian and Russian folk-songs, and Lettish, Teutonic, and Otaheitian sagas. So, too, the belief that the moon is an all-seeing eye is shown by Roscher to be primitive by a reference to its existence among the Germans, Egyptians, and Mongols. Finally, the belief that anything done or suffered by man on a waxing moon tends to develop, whereas anything done or suffered on a waning moon tends to diminish, is rightly claimed as primitive by Roscher on the ground that it is widely spread amongst all peoples.

On the other hand, the connection between the moon and menstruation, on which Roscher bases a good many of his inferences, cannot be regarded as primeval merely because it seems to Roscher "extremely simple and natural". To primitive man the connection may or may not seem obvious; but his notion of simplicity is not always the same as ours, and, until instances are produced of savages believing in the connection, we have no right to say that the idea is so simple and "natural" that it must be primitive. Nor does this idea of Roscher's necessarily derive support, as he imagines, from the primitive belief that pregnancy and delivery are affected by the moon. This belief can be satisfactorily explained as a case of that general sympathy between the waxing or the waning of the moon and the fortunes of man (or woman), which we noticed in the last paragraph. Again, Aristotle, Cicero, Pliny, the Stoics, and others may have imagined that dew was deposited by the moon, and that for this reason the growth of vegetation was the work of the moon; but we must refuse to accept the speculations of late philosophers as evidence of what primitive man thinks on the subject. For one thing, it is not dew that the savage prays to the moon for. He prays for what he wants. Thus the Hottentots say, or said, to the moon: "I salute you; you are welcome. Grant us fodder for our cattle, and milk in abundance" (Kolben, Present State of the Cape of Good Hope, 1731 ). For another thing, the crops are frequently