'Taking all these facts together, it is not difficult to imagine how the
story of Tuna's brain grew up; and I am afraid we shall have to confess
that the legend of Tuna throws but little light on the legend of Daphne
or on the etymology of her name. No one would have a word to say against
the general principle that much that is irrational, absurd, or barbarous
in the Veda is a survival of a more primitive mythology anterior to the
Veda. How could it be otherwise?'



Criticism of Tuna and Daphne


Now (1), as to Daphne, we are not invariably told that hers was a case of
'the total change of a heroine into a tree.' In Ovid {14} she is thus
changed. In Hyginus, on the other hand, the earth swallows her, and a
tree takes her place. All the authorities are late. Here I cannot but
reflect on the scholarly method of Mannhardt, who would have examined and
criticised all the sources for the tale before trying to explain it.
However, Daphne was not mangled; a tree did not spring from her severed
head or scattered limbs. She was metamorphosed, or was buried in earth,
a tree springing up from the place.

(2) I think we do know _why_ the people of Mangaia 'believe in the
change of human beings into trees.' It is one among many examples of the
savage sense of the intercommunity of all nature. 'Antiquity made its
division between man and the world in a very different sort than do the
moderns.' {15a} I illustrate this mental condition fully in M. R. R. i.
46-56. _Why_ savages adopt the major premise, 'Human life is on a level
with the life of all nature,' philosophers explain in various ways. Hume