NATURE 
THURSDAY, JUNE 12, 1902. 
THE HISTORY OF THE MYTH-MAKING AGE. 
‘The Ruling Races of Prehistoric Times in India, South- 
western Asia, and Southern Europe. By J. F. Hewitt. 
Vol. i. Pp.Ixv + 627 (1894), 18s. Vol. ii. © Pp. xxxv 
+ 382 (1895), 12s. (Westminster: Constable and Co., 
Ltd.) 
History and Chronology of the Myth-making Age. 
J. F. Hewitt. Pp. xviii + 682. 
and Co., 1901.) 15s. net. 
By 
(London: Parker 
HE object of the present short article is not so much 
to call the attention of the readers of NATURE 
to two works by Mr. J. F. Hewitt, late Commissioner 
of Chota Nagpore, who has devoted many years of 
hard work to the elucidation of the history of the 
ruling races of prehistoric times in India, south- 
western Asia, and southern Europe, as to mention 
some of the difficulties connected with the history and 
chronology of the myth-making age. To discuss at 
length and in detail the contents of the three volumes 
the titles of which appear at the head of this review 
would require several numbers of NATURE, or a whole 
volume, and while an attempt is here made to indicate 
the general line of his arguments and the trend of his 
opinions, the reader, if he wishes to become master of the 
subjects as treated by Mr. Hewitt, must read the works 
themselves. Mr. Hewitt brings to bear upon his studies 
a knowledge of several Indian dialects, and a general 
knowledge of What other investigators have written about 
subjects which are germane to his own; his observations 
and opinions have not been formed hastily, and every 
fair-minded reader will, after a perusal of his works, 
arrive at the conclusion that he is an honest, even if 
sometimes mistaken, seeker after facts, and that, so far 
as his knowledge will allow him to do so, he sets the 
truth before those who will take the trouble to read what 
he has written. The chief importance of his books, in 
the writer’s opinion, is the proof which they afford of the 
little value of philology in arriving at any decision as to 
the religious views and practices of early nations ; more- 
over, we cannot help wishing that when Mr. Hewitt was 
making his quotations he had taken the trouble to give 
the words and passages on which he bases his arguments 
in the languages in which they were originally written. 
We have no intention of finding fault or of making 
carping criticisms, but Orientalists other than experts 
in Indian languages would have felt much more com- 
fortable if they could have seen before them the Baby- 
lonian, or Assyrian, or Egyptian forms of the words 
which he quotes. The answer to this objection is, of 
course, that the use of mixed Oriental types is a costly 
luxury to an author, and to many it will seem a sufficient 
one ; meanwhile, let us thank Mr. Hewitt for what we 
have, and then proceed to consider generally the aim 
and scope of his work. 
The older of the works before us is that which deals 
with the ruling races of prehistoric times in India, and 
consists of a series of eleven essays, six of which were 
published in 1894 and the remaining five in 1895. Ina 
NO. 1702, VOL. 66] 
145 
somewhat lengthy preface, Mr. Hewitt explains that he 
intended to cali especial attention by means of them to 
the chronological data which can be obtained from 
“social laws and customs, mythic history and ritual,” and 
to show how the leading epochs of civilisation succeeded 
one another in prehistoric times. [n the first essay he 
describes how he was drawn into the line of study in 
1863, when he went to Chota Nagpore as Deputy Com- 
missioner, and how the system of indigenous Indian 
village communities spread thence through all the 
countries lying between it and north-west Germany. 
Mr. Hewitt next thought he had found that the clues to 
the history of early Hindu ritual given in the Rigveda 
and elsewhere could only be explained by comparison 
with data obtained from Accadian texts, and he 
apparently still thinks that Hindu and Accadian myth- 
ology developed on nearly identical lines, the Zend ritual 
being a common link between them. He also came to 
the conclusion that Egyptian religious and national 
history in the two stages of its growth can be traced to 
Indian and Accadian sources, and that it was impossible 
that the maritime commerce, whence the wealth was 
earned which made the Euphratean countries and Egypt 
rulers of the ancient world, could have been founded 
except by the Indian seaman. In the essays which 
follow he sets out the reasons, philological, religious, and 
historical, which have induced him to hold these views, 
and adduces a number of theories, many of an astro- 
nomical character, in support of the same. We must, 
however, at the very outset protest against the statement 
that the Egyptian religion, as such, can be traced to 
India, and we much doubt if Hindu mythology can be 
compared with Accadian mythology inany way. Thanks 
to the labours of men like Brugsch and Maspero, we 
know a little about the Egyptian religion and the gods 
of Egypt, and the more we know the more we find that 
the oldest gods of Egypt were indigenous, and that the 
religion of the earliest period was the very characteristic 
product of an indigenous race of north-east Africa. 
Whether Mr. Hewitt is right or we are, others must decide; 
but any comparison between the name of the Egyptian 
god Osiris (As-ar) and the Accadian god Asar (or 
Asaru) is scientifically impossible, and when he says 
that Heru (or “Horus” ashe spells it) was the equivalent 
of the Ashéra, “or rain pole of the Semites,” and the 
“Tur or meridian pole of the Akkadians,” we are 
obliged to disagree entirely with him. The Accadians 
appear to have had a god called Zu-ab or Apzu, who had 
something in common with the Egyptian Nu (not Nun, 
as Mr. Hewitt writes the name), but to say that both 
Accadians and Egyptians worshipped Nu is incorrect. 
In the first essay we also have a long dissertation about 
St. George, who, according to Mr. Hewitt, was :— 
“the rain-god, the knight of the cross, for it was in the 
centre of the tortoise earth that the mountain of rain-god 
stood, and it is from the cross forming the ground plan 
of the tortoise, with the pole or mountain in the centre, 
that the Egyptian star of Horus was formed” (p. 17). 
But in Egyptian mythology Horus had no special star, 
and the five-rayed star was the common symbol of stars 
and gods in general. If anything, St. George was a 
solar god, and all the details of his history go to prove 
H 
