Page:Transactions of the Second International Folk-Congress.djvu/147

 find the record of those visits and visitors of four centuries ago still preserved in what some would call the "mythology" of the West Indians. Yet we should know that such visits were actual historical events, and that the visitors were ordinary human beings, whose alleged "supernatural" qualities are wholly explainable in the light of our superior knowledge. But it is certain that, if the European records of those visits had accidentally been lost, and if we had long ago forgotten that such visits ever were made, many modern investigators of West Indian folk-lore would at once pronounce those tales of "supernatural" beings to be nothing but the creation of West Indian fancy.

There is, of course, nothing new in the belief that the so-called " mythology" of nations is simply their ancient traditional history more or less distorted. This theory, originated by Euhemerus fifteen centuries ago, has had many exponents; although it is not so much in vogue at the present day as it has been in former times. But, for my own part, I am not concerned in demonstrating that all mythology is nothing but traditional history. Whether so sweeping an assertion can or can not be defended is not the question which interests me primarily. What appears to me the most important view of folk-lore is this: That the first and most natural theme for the tales and traditions of unlettered castes or races is the recital of actual events in their own past, and that therefore no assertion made by tradition ought to be classified as fiction until it is clearly shown that it cannot possibly be grounded on fact. My own impression is that a vast amount of what many people regard as fiction is essentially fact; and, further, that a critical study of many so-called myths will eventually throw a great light upon history. Some of my views in this direction I have recently embodied in a published work, which is known to some gentlemen present—The Testimony of Tradition. I shall not further encroach upon the time of this meeting by any detailed reference to that work, but will merely explain that it deals specially with those traditions referring to the past existence of a race, or races, of dwarfs in Europe; the general correctness of which traditions is best demonstrated by the still-existing chambered mounds and underground chambers ascribed to those people; it being evident that such of those structures as have incontrovertibly been used as dwellings could not, by reason of their dimensions, have been inhabited by any but people of dwarfish size.