HUMAN PARENTAGE AND NON-HUMAN ATTRIBUTES. 51 



time, the two have been mistaken for the actual dawn and 

 the actual north wind, these will, by implication, be re 

 spectively considered as male and female. 



Looking, now, at the ancient myths in general, their 

 seemingly most inexplicable trait is the habitual combi 

 nation of* alleged human ancestry and adventures, with 

 the possession of personalities otherwise figuring in the 

 heavens and on the earth, with totally non-human attri 

 butes. This enormous incongruity, not the exception but 

 the rule, the current theory fails to explain. Suppose it 

 to be granted that the great terrestrial and celestial ob 

 jects and agents naturally become personalized ; it does 

 not follow that each of them shall have a specific human 

 biography. To say of some star that he was the son of 

 this king or that hero, was born in a particular place, and 

 when grown up carried off the wife of a neighboring chief, 

 is a gratuitous multiplication of incongruities already 

 sufficiently great ; and is not accounted for by the alleged 

 necessary personalization of abstract and collective nouns. 

 As looked at from our present stand-point, however, such 

 traditions become quite natural nay, it is clear that they 

 will necessarily arise. When a nickname has become a 

 tribal name, it thereby ceases to be individually distinc 

 tive ; and, as already said, the process of nicknaming 

 inevitably continues. It commences afresh with each 

 child ; and the nickname of each child is both an individ 

 ual name and a potential tribal name, which may become 

 an actual tribal name if the individual is sufficiently cele 

 brated. Usually, then, there is a double system of distin 

 guishing the individual ; under one of which he is known 

 by his ancestral name, and under the other of which he is 

 known by a name suggestive of something peculiar to 

 himself : just as we have seen happens among the Scotch 

 clans. Consider, now, what will result when language 



