United States or Gibraltar ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


Quite independently I could not help seeing that among savages and peasants we had mythology, not in a literary hortus siccus, but in situ. Mannhardt, though he appreciated Dr. Tylor, had made, I think, but few original researches among savage myths and customs. His province was European folklore. What he missed will be indicated in the chapter on 'The Fire-Walk' one example among many.

I give my informant's letter exactly as it reached me, though it has been published before in Longman's Magazine: Kling Fire-walk 'Dear Sir, Observing from your note in Longman's Magazine that you have mislaid my notes re fire-walking, I herewith repeat them.

This excursus on 'The Fire-walk' has been introduced, as an occasion arose, less because of controversy about a neglected theme than for the purpose of giving something positive in a controversial treatise. For the same reason I take advantage of Mr. Max Muller's remarks on Yama, 'the first who died, to offer a set of notes on myths of the Origin of Death. Mr.

These lemons were afterwards eagerly scrambled for by the bystanders, who, so far as I can recollect, attributed a healing influence to them. Bulgarian Fire-walk As to the Bulgarian rite, Dr. Schischmanof writes to me: 'I am sure the observance will surprise you; I am even afraid that you will think it rather fantastic, but you may rely on my information.

The Fire-walk in Trinidad. Mr. Henry E. St. Clair, writing on September 14. 1896, says: 'In Trinidad, British West Indies, the rite is performed annually about this time of the year among the Indian coolie immigrants resident in the small village of Peru, a mile or so from Port of Spain. I have personally witnessed the passing, and the description given by Mr.

To make this examination, in the ethnographic field, is almost a new labour. As we shall see, anthropologists have not hitherto investigated such things as the 'Fire-walk' of savages, uninjured in the flames, like the Three Holy Children. The 'physical phenomena' which answer among savages to the use of the 'divining rod, and to 'spiritist' marvels in modern times, have only been glanced at.

But how is the Fire-walk done? That remains a mystery, and perhaps no philologist, folk-lorist, anthropologist, or physiologist, has seriously asked the question. The medicamentum of Varro, the green frog fat of India, the diluted sulphuric acid of Mr. Clodd, are guesses in the air, and Mr. Clodd has made no experiment.

The evidence is decidedly good enough to prove that in Europe, India, and Polynesia the ancient rite of the Hirpi of Soracte is still a part of religious or customary ceremony. Fijian Fire-walk The case which originally drew my attention to this topic is that given by Mr. Mr.

Then followed a review of our contending methods in the explanation of Artemis, of the Fire-walk, of Death Myths, and of the Fire-stealer. Thus a number of points in mythological interpretation have been tested on typical examples. Much more might be said on a book of nearly 900 pages. If my answer be desultory and wandering, remember the sporadic sharpshooting of the adversary!

At all events, for the Soranus-Feronia rite philology only supplies her competing etymologies, folk-lore her modern rural parallels, anthropology her savage examples, psychical research her 'cases' at first-hand. Anthropology had neglected the collection of these, perhaps because the Fire-walk is 'impossible. Yama