The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1892-10-20
OUR SAVAGE FoREFATHERs.

Even Thoss Classic Old Hambugs, the
Greeks. Were Barbarians.
We all know the school boys famous
mistranslation of Horace:
Delicta maiorum immeritus tues
The delights of our ancestors were
unmitigated filth" That is the inn
preston left on the modern mind BY .
study OF Mr.. Gomme's book. s'Ethnol-
ogy in Folklore Mr.. CONNIE shows
us our ancestors eating theirs, knock
ing elderly men on the head merely be-
cause they were elderly, making torches
OF human fat, placing fragments Of
corpses over stable doors, daubing the
brldegrooms feet with SCOT Tin Scot
land), and. in short, as the poet says,
doing divers and disgusting things"
This does not at all surprise the felix
lorist- They all do it, he says. in the
words of the old comic song, and he is
quite prepared to admit that unmiti-
gated filth was the delight of our an
cestors.
Ihey were savages, says he. and our
descendants may and probably will. be
savages again. Mankind is like the lit
tie royal child who wanted to make
mud pies with the small gamins in the
gutter. Some races have to a certain
extent been weaned from the inclina-
ton to make mud pies But give them
chance, say in Africa, where the eye
OF their nurse, of public opinion, is not
on them, and back they go to their
pies. both OF mud and blood 1t is not
difficult, In certain circumstances, to
imagine universal degradation, from
which the race would very slowly
climb back into the feudai pc
Rod. But Mr.. CONNIE. and some
other students, do not entirely
accept this view We're the people
who daubed the bridegroom with SCOT
and did the other divers and disgusting
things, were they really of our kindred,
after all? Or, if they were, did they in
vent these discreditable performances,
or did they merely borrow the customs
from some neigh boring and conquered
savages?
Mr.. CONNIE seems to be Of the latter
opinion. 1t has been proved that there
was perhaps no dirty, savage tricks
which did not exist in the Greek relig-
ion A civilized people, they danced
about with snakes in their hands, like
the Moquis; they worshiped obscene
images and kept filthy sacred pictures
in their temples; they sdored stones;
they performed unpleasant rites with
pigs flesh; their sacrifices were often
ridiculous and revolving; they told
highly discreditable stories Of gods who
went about disguised as dogs, serpents,
ants, swans and wolves All these
things tho lowest savages also do, and
tho conclusion is that Greeks, too, had
once been savages, and that the con-
of their religion retained
customs which puzzled and annoyed
their common sense and piety. Moth
ing but Christianity made an end of
these myths and manners, and even
did not eradicate all Of
them among country folk. Folklore,
peasant custom, is full of traces of sac
rifice and of savage beliefs in local spir-
it's. Here, Mr.. CONNIE, as we under
stand him, demurs and tries, as others
have tried, to save the credit of our an
,estors. They were ''Aryaas;" an
Aryan was a gentleman, he never could |
have invented and initiated all these
,tupidities and denominations. Where
ne practiced them THAT is everywhere) |
ne must have merely adopted the Gus
,oms of savages whom he had con-
1uered -London News.