TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION H. 1005 



contact of the several peoples witli each other. If vre view them in their sim- 

 plicity of idea, we shall be more disposed to think that the mind of man naturally 

 produces the same result in the like circumstances, and that it is not necessary to 

 postulate any communication between the peoples to account for the identity. It 

 does not surprise us that the same complicated physical operations should be per- 

 formed by far-distant peoples without any communication with each other : why 

 should it be more surprising that mental operations, not nearly so complex, should 

 be produced in the same order by different peoples without anj- such communica- 

 tion ? Where communication is proved or probable, it may be accepted as a 

 sufficient explanation ; where it is not provable, there is no need that we should 

 assume its existence. 



The simple ideas whicli are traceable in so many places and so far back are 

 largely in relation with that branch of mythology which persouities the operations 

 of Nature. Far be it from me to attempt to define the particular phase of it which 

 is embodied in the figure of Cinderella as she sits among the ashes by the hearth, 

 or to join in the chase after the solar myth in popular tradition. The form of 

 legend which represents some of the forces of Nature under the image of a real or 

 fictitious hero capable of working wonders appenrs to be widely distributed. Of 

 such, I take it, are the traditions relating to Glooscap, which the late Dr. S. T. 

 Rand collected in the course of liis forty years' labours as a missionary among the 

 Micmac Indians of Nova Scotia, where, Mr. Webster says, Glooscap formerly 

 resided. The Indians suppose that he is still in existence, although they do not 

 know exactly where. He looked and lived like other men ; ate, drank, smoked, 

 slept, and danced along with them ; but never died, never was sick, never grew old. 

 Gape Blomidon was his home, the Basin of Minas his beaver-pond. He had 

 everything on a large scale. At Cape Split he cut open the beaver dam, as the 

 Indian name of the cape implies, and to this we owe it that ships can pass there. 

 Spencer's Island was his kettle. His dogs, when he went away, were transformed 

 into two rocks close by. When he returns he will restore them to life. He could 

 do anything and everything. Tlie elements were entirely under his control. You 

 do not often meet with a mischievous exercise of his power. It is a curious part 

 of the tradition, possibly a late addition to it, that it was the encroachments and 

 treacher/ of the whites which drove him away. 



The early inhabitants of the island of Tahiti appear to have had a whole 

 pantheon of gods and heroes representing the various operations of Nature. Even 

 the Papuans have a legend in which the morning star is personified acting as a 

 thief. But it is needless to multiply instances. Lord Bacon — who says ' The 

 earliest antiquity lies buried in silence and oblivion. . . . This silence was 

 succeeded by poetical fables, and these at length by the writings we now enjoy ; so 

 that the concealed and secret learning of the ancients seems separated from the 

 history and knowledge of the following ages by a veil or partition wall of fables 

 interposing between the things tliat are lost and those that remain' — has shown in 

 his * Wisdom of the Ancients ' that classical mythology was in truth a vast system of 

 Nature-worship, and in so doing has done more than even he knew, for he has 

 affiliated it to those ideas which have been so commonly formed among rude and 

 primitive peoples. It is true, he says, fables in general are composed of ductile 

 matter, that may be drawn into great variety by a w tt - talent or an inventive 

 genius, and be delivered of plausible meanings which they never contained. But 

 the argument of most weight with him, he continues, ' is that many of these fables 

 by no means appear to have been invented by the persons who relate and divulge 

 them, whether Homer, Hesiod, or others ; but whoever attentively considers the 

 thing will find that these fables are delivered down and related by those writers, 

 not as matters then first invented and proposed, but as things received and 

 embraced in earlier ages. The relators drew from the common stock of ancient 

 tradition, and varied but in point of embellishment, which is their own. This 

 principally raises my esteem of these fables, which I receive, not as the product 

 of the age or invention of the poets, but as sacred relics, gentle whispers, and the 

 breath of better times, that from the traditions of more ancient nations came, at 

 length, into the flutes and trumpets of the Greeks.' 



