Page:The Mythology of All Races Vol 9 (Oceanic).djvu/27

Rh have but little personal experience with native peoples to realize how hopeless it is for the civilized inquirer to predicate what the symbolism of anything really is to the native mind. The study of mythology has, in the last few years, also demonstrated to what a degree all myths are in a state of flux, new elements and incidents being borrowed and incorporated into old tales and modified to accord with local beliefs and predispositions. Thus, what starts out, perhaps, as a solar incident may come to be embodied in another myth of quite different origin, and in so doing may wholly lose its former significance; or an entire myth, originally accounting for one thing, may become so modified by transmission that its first meaning becomes lost.

Lastly, we may again point out that at present the available material is still so imperfect that all conclusions must be accepted with reserve. Xot only are there large areas from which no data whatever have been collected (and even some from which, owing either to the extinction of the population or their greatly changed manner of life, none can ever be obtained), but very little, comparatively, of what has been gathered has been recorded in the language of the people themselves. Misunderstandings, conscious or unconscious colouring of statements to accord with preconceived ideas of what the people ought to think, statements made by natives who obligingly tell the investigator just what they think he wants to hear—these and other sources of error must be eliminated so far as possible before we can be sure of our ground. In spite of all this, however, it is worth while to take account of stock, as it were, and to see, as well as we can, where we stand. By so doing we may at least recognize the gaps in our knowledge and be spurred on to try to fill them while yet there is time.