d above all of local and mythical names.' {106a} I do not see that it
is easier when these names are not Greek, but Hottentot, or Algonquin!

Thus Achilles may as easily mean 'holder of the people' as 'holder of
stones,' i.e. a River-god! Or does [Greek] suggest aqua, Achelous the
River? Leto, mother of Apollo, cannot be from [Greek], as Mr. Max Muller
holds (ii. 514, 515), to which Mr. Max Muller replies, perhaps not, as
far as the phonetic rules go 'which determine the formation of
appellative nouns. It, indeed, would be extraordinary if it were. . . .'
The phonetic rules in Hottentot may also suggest difficulties to a South
African Curtius!

Other scholars agree with Curtius--agree in thinking that the etymology
of mythical names is a sandy foundation for the science of mythology.

'The difficult task of interpreting mythical names has, so far, produced
few certain results,' says Otto Schrader. {106b}

When Dr. Hahn applies the process in Hottentot, we urge with a friendly
candour these cautions from scholars on Mr. Max Muller.

A Hottentot God

In Custom and Myth (p. 207), I examine the logic by which Dr. Hahn proves
Tsuni-Goam to be 'The Red Dawn.' One of his steps is to say that few
means 'sore,' or 'wounded,' and that a wound is _red_, so he gets his
'red' in Red Dawn. But of tsu in the sense of 'red' he gives not one
example, while he does give another word for 'red,' or 'bloody.' This
may be scholarly but it is not evidence, and this is only one of many
perilous steps on ground extremely scabreux, got over by a series of
logical leaps. As to our quarrel with Mr. Max Muller about his friend's
treatment of ethnological materials, it is this: we do not believe in the
validity of the etymological method when applied to many old divine names
in Greek, still less in Hottentot.

Cause of our Scepticism

Our scepticism is confirmed by the extraordinary diversity of opinion
among scholars as to what the right analysis of old divine names is. Mr.
Max Muller writes (i. 18): 'I have never been able to extract from my
critics the title of a single book in which my etymologies and my
mythological equations had been seriously criticised by real scholars.'
We might answer, 'Why tell you what you know very well?' For (i. 50) you
say that while Signer Canizzaro calls some of your 'equations'
'irrefutably demonstrated,' 'other scholars declare these equations are
futile and impossible.' Do these oth