Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 4 1886.djvu/205

Rh secrets of those living near them. It has always been so. From time immemorial eclipses have been caused by a monster that periodically eats up the sun and moon, and disgorges them again. A very large number of our Indian fellow-subjects of the Queen-Empress think so still.

There is a corollary to be attached to the above definition of Folk-lore, and the term for the purpose of study must be made to include the customs which arise out of it. These customs originate in that common sense which is so often ridiculed as the most uncommon nonsense. A demon or god, for the terms are in practice nearly synonymous, lives in one of the Indian fig-trees, as is clear to the natives from the perpetual trembling of its leaves: this much is the explanation of cause and effect. All demons or gods are capable of good and evil: this is anthropomorphism—man arguing down to himself. Therefore it is obvious that the demon or god must be propitiated by a gift: this is common sense underlaid by anthropomorphism. Hence the gifts to the tree, now a general religious custom. By similar stages we arrive at the equally universal Indian social custom of opprobriously naming children. Three children of doting parents die successively,—quite an ordinary occurrence among primitive people who let their little ones run naked and have no idea of caring for them, as we understand this matter,—and what causes it? Not want of care assuredly in their eyes, but the spirit that has taken a fancy to the babes, and acquired them for himself. How shall they avoid this in the future? "By cheating the spirit," answers common sense, and so the next little boy is given a disgusting name, and dressed up as a girl until past childhood. I think the process by which custom grows out of myth is to be explained somewhat as above, though I would at this stage again remind my hearers that every social fact, as we now observe it, has a long history behind it, and that this must be first examined before its existence can be scientifically accounted for.

If the full definition, that Folk-lore as an object of study is the popular explanation of observed facts and the customs arising therefrom, is to stand, it must reasonably meet all circumstances, and separate, as sharply as may be, what is from what is not Folk-lore.