unless we owe them to Mr. Max Muller’s own researches.  Of course, he cites no authority for his fire totems.  ’The fire totem, we are told, would thus naturally have become the god of the Indians.’  ’We are told’—­where, and by whom?  Not a hint is given on the subject, so we must leave the doctrine of fire totems to its mysterious discoverer.  ’If others prefer to call Prometheus a fire totem, no one would object, if only it would help us to a better understanding of Prometheus’ (ii. 810).  Who are the ‘others’ who speak of a Greek ‘culture-hero’ by the impossibly fantastic name of ‘a fire totem’?

Prometheus

Mr. Max Muller ‘follows Kuhn’ in his explanation of Prometheus, the Fire-stealer, but he does not follow him all the way.  Kuhn tried to account for the myth that Prometheus stole fire, and Mr. Max Muller does not try. {194} Kuhn connects Prometheus with the Sanskrit pramantha, the stick used in producing fire by drilling a pointed into a flat piece of wood.  The Greeks, of course, made Prometheus mean ‘foresighted,’ providens; but let it be granted that the Germans know better.  Pramantha next is associated with the verb mathnami, ‘to rub or grind;’ and that, again, with Greek [Greek], ‘to learn.’  We too talk of a student as a ‘grinder,’ by a coincidence.  The root manth likewise means ‘to rob;’ and we can see in English how a fire-stick, a ‘fire-rubber,’ might become a ‘fire-robber,’ a stealer of fire.  A somewhat similar confusion in old Aryan languages converted the fire-stick into a person, the thief of fire, Prometheus; while a Greek misunderstanding gave to Prometheus (pramantha, ‘fire-stick’) the meaning of ‘foresighted,’ with the word for prudent foresight, [Greek].  This, roughly stated, is the view of Kuhn. {195a} Mr. Max Muller concludes that Prometheus, the producer of fire, is also the fire-god, a representative of Agni, and necessarily ’of the inevitable Dawn’—­’of Agni as the deus matutinus, a frequent character of the Vedic Agni, the Agni aushasa, or the daybreak’ (ii. 813).

But Mr. Max Muller does not say one word about Prometheus as the Fire-stealer.  Now, that he stole fire is of the essence of his myth; and this myth of the original procuring of fire by theft occurs all over the world.  As Australian and American savages cannot conceivably have derived the myth of fire-stealing from the root manth and its double sense of stealing and rubbing, there must be some other explanation.  But this fact could not occur to comparative mythologists who did not compare, probably did not even know, similar myths wherever found.

Savage Myths of Fire-stealing