granted by me beforehand (though possibly that might not
be guessed from my critic), our author will explain Artemis's human
sacrifice of a girl in a fawn-skin--bloodshed, bear and all--with no aid
from Kamilarois, Cahrocs, and Samoans.



Mr. Max Muller's Explanation


Greek races traced to Zeus--usually disguised, for amorous purposes, as a
brute. The Arcadians had an eponymous heroic ancestor, 'Areas;' they
also worshipped Artemis. Artemis, as a virgin, could not become a mother
of Areas by Zeus, or by anybody. Callisto was also Artemis. Callisto
was the mother of Areas. But, to save the character of Artemis, Callisto
was now represented as one of her nymphs. Then, Areas reminding the
Arcadians of [Greek] (a bear), while they knew the Bear constellation,
'what was more natural than that Callisto should be changed into an
arktos, a she-bear . . . placed by Zeus, her lover, in the sky' as the
Bear?

Nothing could be more natural to a savage; they all do it. {144b} But
that an Aryan, a Greek, should talk such nonsense as to say that he was
the descendant of a bear who was changed into a star, and all merely
because 'Areas reminded the Arcadians of arktos,' seems to me an extreme
test of belief, and a very unlikely thing to occur.



Wider Application of the Theory


Let us apply the explanation more widely. Say that a hundred animal
names are represented in the known totem-kindreds of the world. Then had
each such kin originally an eponymous hero whose name, like that of Areas
in Arcady, accidentally 'reminded' his successors of a beast, so that a
hundred beasts came to be claimed as ancestors? Perhaps this was what
occurred; the explanation, at all events, fits the wolf of the Delawares
and the other ninety-nine as well as it fits the Arcades. By a curious
coincidence all the names of eponymous heroes chanced to remind people of
beasts. But _whence come the names of eponymous heroes_? From their
tribes, of course--Ion from Ionians, Dorus from Dorians, and so

Martha Finley (1828 - 1909) was a teacher and author of numerous works, the most well known being the 28 volume Elsie Dinsmore series which was published over a span of 38 years. The daughter of Presbyterian minister Dr. James Brown Finley and his wife and cousin Maria Theresa Brown Finley, she was born on April 26th, 1828 in Chillicothe, Ohio. Finley wrote many of her books under the psodonym Martha Farquharson. She died in 1909 in Elkton, Maryland, where she moved in 1876.

Anonymous may refer to: Anonymus, the Latin spelling, may refer to: