Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 2, 1891.djvu/240

232 exist in Homeric times because it is not mentioned in Homer. This is a question of the same nature as whether we are justified in assuming that a myth or a folk-tale did not exist at a time earlier than its first recorded mention in literature ; and the answer seems to be the same. If the rite or myth can be shown to be one common amongst primitive peoples, the argument e silentio has little weight ; and as regards human sacrifice and purification, Mr. Frazer has amply proved that they are primitive. There is no more reason to imagine that the Greeks borrowed them from the East, whether in pre- or post-Homeric times, than that the East borrowed them from the Greeks. As I have spoken of Dr. Stengel's book as one for school-boys, I ought, perhaps, to add that it is also intended for university students, and anyhow that it is a very valuable collection of facts and references, which folk-lorists will find useful. Those interested in tabu and totemism will note that the priest of Poseidon at Megara and the priestess of Hera in Argos were forbidden to eat fish. They will also note that the priestess of Athena Polias at Athens was forbidden to eat the native cheese. Finally, Dr. Stengel's treatment of Mysteries is rather disappointing. He is, doubtless, quite right in saying that the hold which they took over the minds of the Greeks was due to the fact that they taught the doctrine of a future life ; and it is not improbable that the scenic representations which took place were dramatisations of myths whose central feature was the resurrection of some god. But it is also probable that some of the central rites round which this teaching gathered were survivals from savage ritual. One such rite at Eleusis 15 that in which Helios and Selene figured (Eusebius, l. c.), whether the interpretation be that which I suggested above or not. If we may take Daremberg and Saglio's magnificent Dictionary of Classical Antiquities as fairly representative of the attitude of classical scholars in France, there is no