Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 23, 1912.djvu/350

 328 The Sociological Significance of Myth.

especially if these have physical features and language different from his own, immediately will mystery and wonder be aroused. Myths will arise, or, if the strangers have a culture of which creation-myths form part, these will be transferred and transmitted and become part of the permanent heritage of the people.

It is noteworthy that creation-myths occur among the Australians, and that they are intimately blended with the narratives in which the description of social relations plays so prominent a part. In this combination of social myths with those accounting for the creation of man himself I see only another indication of the complexity of Australian culture.

So far I have assumed without question that the narratives of the Arunta and other tribes of central Australia are myths, the pure product of the human imagination, serving to account for certain of their social institutions and customs. From a study of myths having natural phenomena as their subject I was led to formulate the principle that man does not make myths about the familiar and the uniform, but rather about that which is exceptional and inconstant. Then, applying this principle to myths having social con- ditions as their subject, I have tried to show that, in so far as such social conditions are the subject of myth in Australia, they can only be fully explained on the assump- tion that Australian society is complex and has arisen through the mixtures of peoples possessing different forms of social organisation. I suppose it to have been the sense of mystery aroused in one people by the social practices of another which acted as the seed and fertiliser of the mythic fancy.

It will follow that, if the Australian narratives are myths, they are not empty and meaningless fancies, but have a very definite sociological significance. If the principle which I have formulated is correct, Australian mythology