or else it may itself suffer change, being mingled, by a process of condensation, with that part of the whole to which it is transferred. This is what occurred in the course of the transformation of the proper name Egulac to Mombapan[1] in The War of the Ghosts, and a further illustration has already been given in the fusion of the death and the body-lifting incidents from the same tale. Again, transposition may simply take the form of a reversal of the parts played by different persons. In The War of the Ghosts first the wounded man is told to go home and then later he himself begs to be taken home; first the young Indian declares his own conviction that he will live, but later he has the declaration taken from him by the warrior. There are many different modes and conditions of transposition, all of which may be illustrated clearly by means of experiments of the kind which I have here reported. It is highly desirable that this experimentation should be carried out, because changes by transposition very frequently indeed mark turning points in the history of the conventionalisation of narrative material.
By a more extended discussion it would be possible to bring to light additional principles and modes of change. But enough has been said to show that, by the application of the methods here proposed, illuminating information may be obtained, with respect to the character and conditions of the changes undergone by material in process of conventionalisation.
- ↑ In the original the two place-names are Egulac and Kalama. In the third reproduction these become Malagua and Komama. Malagua was thought to be "probably a compound of the two names," and in fact obviously contains constituents of both. Two reproductions later the dominant "o" of Komama is transferred, and with it the effect of the repetition of the "m." Malagua becomes Momapan, and Komama entirely disappears.
