moon, who, a Mangaian Selene, loved no Latmian shepherd, but an eel.  Seriously, I fail to understand Mr. Max Muller’s explanation.  Given the problem, to explain a no longer intelligible plant-name—­brains of Tuna—­(applied not to a plant but to the kernel of a nut), this name is explained by saying that the moon, Ina, loved an eel, cut off his head at his desire, and buried it.  Thence sprang cocoanut trees, with a fanciful likeness to a human face—­face of Tuna—­on the nut.  But still, why Tuna?  How could the moon love an eel, except on my own general principle of savage ‘levelling up’ of all life in all nature?  In my opinion, the Mangaians wanted a fable to account for the resemblance of a cocoanut to the human head—­a resemblance noted, as I show, in our own popular slang.  The Mangaians also knew the moon, in her mythical aspect, as Ina; and Tuna, whatever his name may mean (Mr. Max Muller does not tell us), was an eel. {17} Having the necessary savage major premise in their minds, ’All life is on a level and interchangeable,’ the Mangaians thought well to say that the head-like cocoanut sprang from the head of her lover, an eel, cut off by Ina.  The myth accounts, I think, for the peculiarities of the cocoanut, rather than for the name ‘brains of Tuna;’ for we still ask, ’Why of Tuna in particular?  Why Tuna more than Rangoa, or anyone else?’

’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.’

I never hinted that the legend of Tuna threw light on the etymology of the name of Daphne.  Mangaian and Greek are not allied languages.  Nor did I give the Tuna story as an explanation of the Daphne story.  I gave it as one in a mass of illustrations of the savage mental propensity so copiously established by Dr. Tylor in Primitive Culture.  The two alternative explanations which I gave of the Daphne story I have cited.  No mention of Tuna occurs in either.

Disease of Language and Folk-etymology

The Tuna story is described as ’a clear case of disease of language cured by the ordinary nostrum of folk-etymology.’  The ‘disease’ showed itself, I suppose, in the presence of the Mangaian words for ‘brain of Tuna.’  But the story of Tuna gives no folk-etymology of the name Tuna.  Now, to give an etymology of a name of forgotten meaning is the sole object of folk-etymology.  The plant-name, ‘snake’s head,’ given as an example by Mr. Max Muller, needs no etymological explanation.  A story may be told to explain why the plant is called snake’s head, but a story to give an etymology of snake’s head is superfluous.  The Tuna story explains why the cocoanut kernel is called ‘brains of Tuna,’ but it offers no etymology of Tuna’s name.  On the other hand, the story that marmalade (really marmalet) is so called because Queen Mary found comfort in marmalade when she was sea-sick—­hence Marie-malade,