ABSTRACT

Myth is true history because it is sacred history, not only by reason of its contents but also because of the concrete sacral forces which it sets going. Among various peoples of Australia, during the initiation-ceremonies the stories of the mythical age are told, the endless journeyings of the totemic ancestors who were the progenitors of the individual clans, because these recitals, apart from keeping alive and reinforcing the tribal traditions, promote the increase of the various totemic species. A pre-mythical stage is no more and no less an abstraction than the pre-logical stage of L. Levy-Bruhl; human thought is mythical and logical at the same time. The idea of the creative Supreme Being among primitive peoples is nothing but a form of the myth of beginnings and as such shares in the character of myth, at once magical and religious.