Dr. Oldenberg, Mr. Rhys, Dr. Robertson Smith, and so on, use the anthropological method, so ‘scholar’ needs a fresh definition.  The ‘not-scholars,’ the anthropologists, have, in fact, converted some very thoughtful scholars.  If we could only catch the true scholar!  But that we cannot do till we fully demonstrate comparisons which we may not make, for fear of first ’obscuring the Veda by this kind of light from the Dark Continent.’

Anthropology and the Mysteries

It is not my affair to defend Dr. Oldenberg, whose comparisons of Vedic with savage rites I have never read, I am sorry to say.  One is only arguing that the method of making such comparisons is legitimate.  Thus (i. 232) controversy, it seems, still rages among scholars as to ’the object of the Eleusinian Mysteries.’  ’Does not the scholar’s conscience warn us against accepting whatever in the myths and customs of the Zulus seems to suit our purpose’—­of explaining features in the Eleusinia?  If Zulu customs, and they alone, contained Eleusinian parallels, even the anthropologist’s conscience would whisper caution.  But this is not the case.  North American, Australian, African, and other tribes have mysteries very closely and minutely resembling parts of the rites of the Eleusinia, Dionysia, and Thesmophoria.  Thus Lobeck, a scholar, describes the Rhombos used in the Dionysiac mysteries, citing Clemens Alexandrinus. {114} Thanks to Dr. Tylor’s researches I was able to show (what Lobeck knew not) that the Rhombos (Australian turndun, ‘Bull-roarer’) is also used in Australian, African, American, and other savage religious mysteries.  Now should I have refrained from producing this well-attested matter of fact till I knew Australian, American, and African languages as well as I know Greek?  ’What century will it be when there will be scholars who know the dialects of the Australian blacks as well as we know the dialects of Greece?’ (i. 232) asks our author.  And what in the name of Eleusis have dialects to do with the circumstance that savages, like Greeks, use Rhombi in their mysteries?  There are abundant other material facts, visible palpable objects and practices, which savage mysteries have in common with the Greek mysteries. {115} If observed by deaf men, when used by dumb men, instead of by scores of Europeans who could talk the native languages, these illuminating rites of savages would still be evidence.  They have been seen and described often, not by ‘a casual native informant’ (who, perhaps, casually invented Greek rites, and falsely attributed them to his tribesmen), but by educated Europeans.

Abstract Ideas of Savages