Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 23, 1912.djvu/340

318 Another frequent subject of myth is even more familiar than fire. If myths do not arise about the familiar, we should not expect to find the narratives of rude culture dealing with the origin of man himself or of the part of the earth on which he lives. The wide prevalence of creation-myths seems at first sight to form such an exception to my generalisation as to put it wholly out of court. At the present moment I am content thus to mention the problem raised by this exception, and shall return to it later when the general argument of my paper will have given us the clue to its solution.

The examination of nature-myths has now led us to the principle that people do not mythologise about the uniform and the familiar, and I proceed to inquire what aspects of social life we should expect to find the subject of myth if this principle also holds good of myths having social conditions as their topic. The point on which I wish especially to lay stress as the foundation of my argument is that, if people do not make myths about the very familiar, social organisation is the very last aspect of social life which one would expect to be their subject. By social organisation I mean the fundamental setting in and around which social events take place,—such institutions as the family and clan and the relationships set up by membership of these social groupings. Of all aspects of social life this is the most constant and all-pervading. We often speak of it in general as social structure, because it forms the foundation and framework of the whole social life, and, if there is anything in the principle I have stated, I should no more expect to find its origin the subject of myth than I should expect to find myths about the origin of the floors and walls of our houses.

There is a very striking difference between phenomena belonging to the fundamental institutions of social organisation and those connected with other aspects of human life. A man who is carrying out a religious rite is doing