Fig. 15.—Archaic Greek Gems.
‘Savage realism’ is the result of a desire to represent an object as it is known to be, and not as it appears. Thus Catlin, among the Red Indians, found that the people refused to be drawn in profile. They knew they had two eyes, and in profile they seemed only to have one. Look at the Selinus marbles, and you will observe that figures, of which the body is seen in profile, have the full face turned to the spectator. Again, the savage knows that an animal has two sides; both, he thinks, should be represented, but he cannot foreshorten, and he finds the profile view easiest to draw. To satisfy his need of realism he draws a beast’s head full-face, and gives to the one head two bodies drawn in profile. Examples of this are frequent in very archaic Greek gems and gold work, and Mr. A. S. Murray suggests (as I understand him) that the attitude of the two famous lions, which guarded vainly Agamemnon’s gate at Mycenæ, is derived from the archaic double-bodied and single-headed beast of savage realism. Very good examples of these oddities may be found in the Journal of the Hellenic Society, 1881, pl. xv. Here are double-bodied and single-headed birds, monsters, and sphinxes. We engrave (Fig. 15) three Greek gems from the islands as examples of savagery in early Greek art. In the oblong gem the archers are rather below the Red Indian standard of design. The hunter figured in the first gem is almost up to the Bushman mark. In his dress ethnologists will recognise an arrangement now common among the natives of New Caledonia. In the third gem the woman between two swans may be Leda, or she may represent Leto in Delos. Observe the amazing rudeness of the design, and note the modern waist and crinoline. The artists who engraved these gems on hard stone had, of necessity, much better tools than any savages possess, but their art was truly savage. To discover how Greek art climbed in a couple of centuries from this coarse and childish work to the grace of the Ægina marbles, and thence to the absolute freedom and perfect unapproachable beauty of the work of Phidias, is one of the most singular problems in the history of art. Greece learned something, no doubt, from her early knowledge of the arts the priests of Assyria and Egypt had elaborated in the valleys of the Euphrates and the Nile. That might account for a swift progress from savage to formal and hieratic art; but whence sprang the inspiration which led her so swiftly on to art that is perfectly free, natural, and god-like? It is a mystery of race, and of a divine gift. ‘The heavenly gods have given it to mortals.’
FOOTNOTES:
[237] The illustrations in this article are for the most part copied, by permission of Messrs. Cassell & Co., from the Magazine of Art, in which the Essay appeared.
[238] Part of the pattern (Fig. 5, b) recurs on the New Zealand Bull-roarer, engraved in the Essay on the Bull-roarer.
[239] See Schliemann’s Troja, wherein is much learning and fancy about the Aryan Svastika.
INDEX.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Y Z
Achbor, 115
Acosta, 19
Adityas, 135
Æetes, 95
Ælian, 109
Æschines, 39
Africa, 149
— customs of women in, 72
— divining rod in, 184-186
Aleutians, 74
Amazon, Indians of, 131
Ancestor worship among Hottentots and elsewhere, 197-211
Animal bride, 76
— deities, 103-120
— worship, 118
Animals—
bear in religion, 176
descent claimed from, 104, 128
in stars, 121-142
sacred, 103-120
sun regarded as a beast, 133
Apollo and the mouse, 103-120
Apollodorus, 49
Apollonius Rhodius, 95
Apsaras, 65
Apsyrtos, 95
Arcadians, 128
Ares, 126
Argives, 110
Aristophanes, 133
Arktos, 141
Arnobius, 39
Art, early Greek, 303
— gods in, 118
Art of Ojibways, 293
— of savages, 276-304
— Palæolithic, 297
Artemis Orthia, 33
Aryan myths parallel with savage, 83, 96, 97, 103-120, 141
— nuptial etiquette, 76
— race, 117
Aryans and savages, 134-135
— sensitive to ‘loud’ colours, 69
Ashanti, 24
Assyria, army of, destroyed, 112
Assyrian etymologies, 28
Astley, 72
Athens, owl of, 110
Aurelii, 104
Australia, 72
— arts of, 283
— divination in, 170
— Herbert Spencer on, 125
— moon myth, 54
— native stratagem, 41
— religion of, 231
— swallowing myth, 54
Aymar, Jacques, 191-195
Baal, 62
— Hamon, 61
Ballad of ‘Bonny Hind,’ 175
Ballads, 156-179
Barbadoes, 20
Bear among stars, 121
— Callisto changed into, 128
— in Finnish and other religions, 176
— Max Müller, Mr., on Great, 139
— Totem of Iroquois, 110
— tribes, 128
Beaver, myth of, 79-81
Bergaigne, 241
Bernier (Abbé), 197
Berosos, 60
Bheki, 77-80
Bible, 183
Bongoes, 150
Boyd, Dawkins, 299
Brahmana Aitareya, 134
— Satapatha, 134
Brahmanas, 69
Brazil, mysteries in, 43
Brown, Mr. Robert, 60
— on Moly, 151-153
— on star myths, 137
Buddhist story, 132
Bull-roarer, 29-44
— art of, 295
— their star myths, 122, 124, 131
— swallowing myth of, 53
Callaway, 84
Callisto, 132
Campbell, J. F., 93
Cannibals, 88
Cappadocia, 152
Castor and Pollux, in Australia, 128
Castren, 78
Catlin, 40
Cat, recognised as the moon, 117
Celts, art of, 289
Chanson de Geste, 161
Cheparas, 34
Chevreuil on divining rod, 188
China, planchette in, 187
Clemens of Alexandria, 39
Coins, 110
‘Comparative Mythology,’ 58
Congo, mysteries on, 40
Costigan, Captain, 41
Cronus, myth of, 45-63
— sickle of, 61
Crow, 126
Culture-Hero, 55
‘Cupid and Psyche,’ 64-86
Curtius, 3
Cushing, 37
Customs, savage Greek of expiation, 96
— of savages, 72
— among Yorubas, 73
— in Australia, 72
— Aleutian, 74
— Bulgarian, 73
— Breton, 75
— Carib, 73
— Carian, 74
— Circassian, 73
— Futa, 72
— Iroquois, 73
— Kaffir, 74
— Milesian, 74
— in Naz, 75
— Spartan, 73
— Timbuctoo, 72
— Welsh, 74
— Zulu, 74
Dacotah, 117
Dalton, 81
Dancing, Lucian on, 41
— myth, 56
— Urvasi recognised as, 68
Dead, the home of the, 171
De Cara, 3
Delphi, fetich-stone of, 52
Deluge myth, 34
Demeter, 19
— and the ram, 6
Devas, 234
‘Dionysiak Myth,’ 60
Divination in Australia, 170
Divining rod, 180-196
Dog-star, 154
Dozon, 73
Dumuzi, 137
Edomites, 115
— cats sacred in, 113
— mouse myth in, 111
— rats sacred in, 113
Emerald, worship of, 105
Eos, 69
Epic, Greek, its origin, 161
— of Finns, 156-179
Eratosthenes, 125
Eskimo, 130
— art of, 285
— moon myths, 132
Euhemerism, 199
Eustathius, 103
— in Finland, 164
Ezekiel, 115
Fairy-bride, 82
Family, the history of, 245-275
— gods, 119
Farrer, 82
Fauriel, 178
Fetich-stone of Delphi, 52
Fetich-stones, 224
Fetichism, 212-242
Finns, poetry of, 156-179
Folklore, 6
— method of, 10-28
— of plants, 143-155
Food of dead men, 171
Frog, descent claimed from, 104
Futa, 72
Gallinomeros, 133
Gaunab, 205-211
Garcilasso de la Vega, 103-107
Gens (see ‘Family’)
Γένος (see ‘Family’)
‘Gentile system,’ 236
Gervase (of Tilbury), 76
— (ancestral), 199
Giant, 90-92
Giordano Bruno, 139
Glacial age, 298
Gods, family, 119
— horned, 60
— in art, 118
— in bestial form, 134
— in Samoa, 119
— lame, 206
— of Greece, 27
— of Hottentots, 197-211
— Vedic, 234
— Vedic and Brahmanic, 27
Greece, fetich-stones in, 224
Greeks, their star myths, 136
Guiana swallowing myth, 55
Hades, 65
Halévy, 155
Hamelin, Piper of, 114
Hare and moon, 132
— in Zulu myths, 168
Harpocration, 40
Hartung, 61
Harvest home, superstitions of, 18
Heaven and earth, 45
— — Indian myth of, 50
Heitsi Eibib, 209
Hittites, 153
Horned gods, 60
Horus, 113
Hottentots, 197-211
— Herb-lore of, 143-155
Howitt and Fison, 34
Huacas, 105
Human sacrifice, 61
Ice, Age of, 298
Il, 60
Iliad, 103
Inca, 103
Indra, 134
— a ‘shape-shifter,’ 126
Infinite, the, 206
Initiation (see ‘Mysteries’)
Ioxidæ, 119
Iron, a tabooed metal, 64
— the birth of, 169
— in Vedic India, 217
Isaiah, 115
Isis, 130
Israel, Totems of, 115
Jacob, Verge de, 187
Japanese, 93
Jason, 5
— the myth of, 87-102
— the Red Indian parallel, 99
— Samoan parallel, 97
Job Ben Solomon never saw his wife, 72
Jonah, 55
Jurupari pipes, 43
Kaffir swallowing myth, 54
Kamilaroi, 34
Karnos, Karnu, Keren, 60
Kathasarit sagara, 92
Kohl, 80
Κῶνος, 39
Krāna, 59
Krishna, 170
Κρονίων, 57
— differs from Mr. Max Müller on etymology of Urvasi and Pururavas, 70
— sees fire myths everywhere, 70
Kurnai, 34
Kwai Hemm, 53
Language and thought, 211
— childhood of, 218
Lightning, 117
Loftie, Mr., 113
Long on ‘Totamism,’ 105
Lönnrot, 160
Lucian, 41
Lyons, murder at, 191
M‘Lennan, Mr., on the family, 245-275
Magic, 146
— Algonquin, 99
— in Vedas, 241
— note of lower culture, 78
Maine, Sir Henry, on the family, 245-275
Maize, superstition about, 20
Malagasy Märchen, 93
Malebranche, 190
Mandragora, 143-155
Mandrake, 144-152
Manabozho, 293
Maoris, art of, 286
— myths of, 45-50
Märchen—
Algonquin, 82
Bornoese, 82
Dutch, 76
features of, 157,
158, 163
of Nicht Nought Nothing, 89
of Swan Maidens, 82
Russian, 93, 171
Scotch, 89
South African, 171
West Highland, 93
Marriage, early, 245-275
— in connection with Totemism, 106-107
Master of Life, 105
Medea recognised as Moon, 96
— as Lightning, 96
Melanesian myths, 56
Mélusine, 117
— myth of, 76
Merman, forsaken, 76
Mexico, 16
Meyer, 66
Milky Way, 122
Mimnermus, 95
Moloch, 62
Moluna, Christoval de, 105
Moly, 143-155
Mongols, divining rod among, 184
Moon and hare, 132
— Australian myth of, 54
— man in, 132
— Medea thought to be, 96
— myths, 132
‘Moon-cat,’ 117
Mouse and Apollo, 103-120
‘Mouse of Night,’ 117
Mouse tribe, 114
Mouse-Apollo, 103-120
Muir, 50
— on childhood of language, 74, 218
— on etymology of Urvasi, 68, 69
— on fetichism, 212-242
— on Hottentot myths, 197-211
— on Hyperion, 132
— on Ote, 105
— on spelling of Totem, 105