Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 3, 1892.djvu/343

Rh Though in Finland origin-stories under this heading belong to a recent period, the notion of creation by a Supreme Being is old enough in itself. Thus the Amazulus believe that the rain, sun, and moon come from the Lord above, Ankulunkulu. The aborigines of Victoria say the earth, water, sky, men, and animals were made by Baiame, who also makes the rain to fall and the grass to grow. The Andaman islanders assume that Pulugu, the creator and thunder-god, created the world and all objects, animate and inanimate, except the powers of evil. With this the analysis is brought to a close. It has made manifest, I hope with some degree of clearness, the train of thought pursued by the authors of the origins, and has laid bare the skeleton or framework which underlies the narrative. It has also shown the close analogy of internal structure between some of the categories, Nos. 13 and 16, and some popular beliefs, especially such as are based on sympathetic magic. This is not surprising. For when the mind is engaged in the consideration of cause and effect, the mental process must be very similar under all circumstances. To illustrate this I will give a couple of examples.

It is a common incident or practice in the course of the marriage ceremony to place in the lap of the bride a male child, with the express purpose of insuring male offspring. Should her first child happen to be a boy, the circumstance is naturally attributed to the above practice, and the line of thought pursued by those who practise the custom in full belief of its efficacy may thus be formulated. S. (masculinity) originated from O. (male child) by means of an action (placing O. in the bride's lap). A likeness exists between S. and O. Such a formula is analogous to category 15. Again, take the following custom, once practised at the village of Mammast, near Dorpat, in Esthonia.