HISTORICAL TRADITIONS AND MYTHS OF OBSERTATION. 299 



of real history. When a savage builds upon the discovery of 

 great bones buried in the earth a story of a combat of the 

 giants and monsters whose remains they are^ he constructs a 

 Myth of Observation which may shape itself into the form of 

 a historical tradition, and be all the more puzzling for the por- 

 tion of scientific truth which it really contains. The object of 

 the present chapter is to collect a quantity of evidence, bearing 

 on the problem how to separate Historical Traditions and Myths 

 of Observation from pure Myths, and from one another. 



Though it may not be possible to lay doAvn any general 

 canon of criticism by which the historical and mythical ele- 

 ments of tradition may be separated, it is to some extent pos- 

 sible to judge by internal evidence whether or not a particular 

 legend or episode has a claim to be considered as history. It 

 happens sometimes that a legend contains statements which 

 are hardly likely to have come into the minds of the original 

 narrators of the story, except by actual experience. The Chi- 

 nese legend which tells us the name of the ancient sage who 

 taught his people to make fire by the friction of wood cannot 

 be taken as it stands for real history, seeing that so many na- 

 tions ascribe this and other arts to mythic heroes, yet it em- 

 bodies a recollection of a time when this was the ordinary way 

 of producing fire. So, when the same people tell us that they 

 once used knotted cords like the Peruvian quipus, as records 

 of events, and that the art of writing superseded this ruder ex- 

 pedient, we are in no way called upon to receive the names and 

 dates of the inventors to whom they ascribe these arts ; but, at 

 the same time, it is hard to imagine what could have put such 

 an idea into their heads, unless there had been a foundation of 

 fact for the story, in the actual use of quipus in the country 

 before writing became general. 



In the traditions which the Polynesians have preserved of 

 their migrations in past times, it is likely that some historic 

 truth may be preserved, and with their help, aided by a closer 

 study of the languages and myths of the district, it may be 

 some day possible for ethnologists to sketch out, at least 

 roughly, the history of the race for ages before the European 

 discovery. Much of the historical value of the South Sea ti'a- 



