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Myth age not a past epoch

An error we are liable to fall into concerning myths is that of presuming that they are wholly things of the past; that nowadays nobody believes in them or tells them. In fact, many persons and many tribes believe in them and tell them. The myth age is not a past epoch, but a condition of thinking. It is always present somewhere and present to some extent always among all races. The primitive tribes of the Philippines believe implicitly in their myths. The Bontoc Igorots, for example, tell how the Moon woman, Kabigat, cut off the head of a child of the Sun man, Chal-chal, and thus taught head-hunting to earth people; some of them tell, too, how Coling, the Serpent Eagle, was made, and happens to be always hovering over their pueblo. Even the youngest child knows how the rice-bird came about, and why an Igorot never harms O-wug, the snake. These stories are being gathered to-day by American scientists and are being written down for the first time. The native college students of the Islands have joined in a movement to preserve the traditions of the more civilized tribes also, and are industriously putting into written form the stories of their people. Most of these are not beliefs that are past, but beliefs about the past—a distinction noteworthy to the student of myths. Little children of all races are naturally in a myth age, and many of their imaginings are as beautiful as those of the old Greeks, and, if made known, would be as contributive to literature, I dare say. Poets are but grown-up children to whom Nature makes a continued concrete appeal, and they are always thinking myth-wise, we well know.