Darwin and Modern Science (1909)
Edited by A.C. Seward
IX. SOME PRIMITIVE THEORIES OF THE ORIGIN OF MAN.
By J.G. FRAZER.
Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.
n a bright day in late autumn a good many years ago I had ascended the
hill of Panopeus in Phocis to examine the ancient Greek fortifications
which crest its brow. It was the first of November, but the weather was
very hot; and when my work among the ruins was done, I was glad to rest
under the shade of a clump of fine holly-oaks, to inhale the sweet
refreshing perfume of the wild thyme which scented all the air, and to
enjoy the distant prospects, rich in natural beauty, rich too in memories
of the legendary and historic past. To the south the finely-cut peak of
Helicon peered over the low intervening hills. In the west loomed the
mighty mass of Parnassus, its middle slopes darkened by pine-woods like
shadows of clouds brooding on the mountain-side; while at its skirts
nestled the ivy-mantled walls of Daulis overhanging the deep glen, whose
romantic beauty accords so well with the loves and sorrows of Procne and
Philomela, which Greek tradition associated with the spot. Northwards,
across the broad plain to which the hill of Panopeus descends, steep and
bare, the eye rested on the gap in the hills through which the Cephissus
winds his tortuous way to flow under grey willows, at the foot of barren
stony hills, till his turbid waters lose themselves, no longer in the vast
reedy swamps of the now vanished Copaic Lake, but in the darkness of a
cavern in the limestone rock. Eastward, clinging to the slopes of the
bleak range of which the hill of Panopeus forms part, were the ruins of
Chaeronea, the birthplace of Plutarch; and out there in the plain was
fought the disastrous battle which laid Greece at the feet of Macedonia.
There, too, in a later age East and West met in deadly conflict, when the
Roman armies under Sulla defeated the Asiatic hosts of Mithridates. Such
was the landscape spread out before me on one of those farewell autumn days
of almost pathetic splendour, when the departing summer seems to linger
fondly, as if loth to resign to winter the enchanted mountains of Greece.
Next day the scene had changed: summer was gone. A grey November mist
hung low on the hills which only yesterday had shone resplendent in the
sun, and under its melancholy curtain the dead flat of the Chaeronean
plain, a wide treeless expanse shut in by desolate slopes, wore an aspect
of chilly sadness befitting the battlefield where a nation's freedom was
lost.
But crowded as the prospect from Panopeus is with memories of the past, the
place itself, now so still and deserted, was once the scene of an event
even more ancient and memorable, if Greek story-tellers can be trusted.
For here, they say, the sage Prometheus created our first parents by
fashioning them, like a potter, out of clay. (Pausanias X. 4.4. Compare
Apollodorus, "Bibliotheca", I. 7. 1; Ovid, "Metamorph." I. 82 sq.; Juvenal,
"Sat". XIV. 35. According to another version of the tale, this creation of
mankind took place not at Panopeus, but at Iconium in Lycaonia. After the
original race of mankind had been destroyed in the great flood of
Deucalion, the Greek Noah, Zeus commanded Prometheus and Athena to create
men afresh by moulding images out of clay, breathing the winds into them,
and making them live. See "Etymologicum Magnum", s.v. "'Ikonion", pages
470 sq. It is said that Prometheus fashioned the animals as well as men,
giving to each kind of beast its proper nature. See Philemon, quoted by
Stobaeus, "Florilegium" II. 27. The creation of man by Prometheus is
figured on ancient works of art. See J. Toutain, "Etudes de Mythologie et
d'Histoire des Religions Antiques" (Paris, 1909), page 190. According to
Hesiod ("Works and Days", 60 sqq.) it was Hephaestus who at the bidding of
Zeus moulded the first woman out of moist earth.) The very spot where he
did so can still be seen. It is a forlorn little glen or rather hollow
behind the hill of Panopeus, below the ruined but still stately walls and
towers which crown the grey rocks of the summit. The glen, when I visited
it that hot day after the long drought of summer, was quite dry; no water
trickled down its bushy sides, but in the bottom I found a reddish
crumbling earth, a relic perhaps of the clay out of which the potter
Prometheus moulded the Greek Adam and Eve. In a volume dedicated to the
honour of one who has done more than any other in modern times to shape the
ideas of mankind as to their origin it may not be out of place to recall
this crude Greek notion of the creation of the human race, and to compare
or contrast it with other rudimentary speculations of primitive peoples on
the same subject, if only for the sake of marking the interval which
divides the childhood from the maturity of science.
The simple notion that the first man and woman were modelled out of clay by
a god or other superhuman being is found in the traditions of many peoples.
This is the Hebrew belief recorded in Genesis: "The Lord God formed man of
the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life;
and man became a living soul." (Genesis ii.7.) To the Hebrews this
derivation of our species suggested itself all the more naturally because
in their language the word for "ground" (adamah) is in form the feminine of
the word for man (adam). (S.R. Driver and W.H.Bennett, in their
commentaries on Genesis ii. 7.) From various allusions in Babylonian
literature it would seem that the Babylonians also conceived man to have
been moulded out of clay. (H. Zimmern, in E. Schrader's "Die
Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament"3 (Berlin, 1902), page 506.)
According to Berosus, the Babylonian priest whose account of creation has
been preserved in a Greek version, the god Bel cut off his own head, and
the other gods caught the flowing blood, mixed it with earth, and fashioned
men out of the bloody paste; and that, they said, is why men are so wise,
because their mortal clay is tempered with divine blood. (Eusebius,
"Chronicon", ed. A. Schoene, Vol. I. (Berlin, 1875), col. 16.) In Egyptian
mythology Khnoumou, the Father of the gods, is said to have moulded men out
of clay. (G. Maspero, "Histoire Ancienne des Peuples de l'Orient
Classique", I. (Paris, 1895), page 128.) We cannot doubt that such crude
conceptions of the origin of our race were handed down to the civilised
peoples of antiquity by their savage or barbarous forefathers. Certainly
stories of the same sort are known to be current among savages and
barbarians.
Thus the Australian blacks in the neighbourhood of Melbourne said that
Pund-jel, the creator, cut three large sheets of bark with his big knife.
On one of these he placed some clay and worked it up with his knife into a
proper consistence. He then laid a portion of the clay on one of the other
pieces of bark and shaped it into a human form; first he made the feet,
then the legs, then the trunk, the arms, and the head. Thus he made a clay
man on each of the two pieces of bark; and being well pleased with them he
danced round them for joy. Next he took stringy bark from the Eucalyptus
tree, made hair of it, and stuck it on the heads of his clay men. Then he
looked at them again, was pleased with his work, and again danced round
them for joy. He then lay down on them, blew his breath hard into their
mouths, their noses, and their navels; and presently they stirred, spoke,
and rose up as full-grown men. (R. Brough Smyth, "The Aborigines of
Victoria" (Melbourne, 1878), I. 424. This and many of the following
legends of creation have been already cited by me in a note on Pausanias X.
4. 4 ("Pausanias's Description of Greece, translated with a Commentary"
(London, 1898), Vol V. pages 220 sq.).) The Maoris of New Zealand say that
Tiki made man after his own image. He took red clay, kneaded it, like the
Babylonian Bel, with his own blood, fashioned it in human form, and gave
the image breath. As he had made man in his own likeness he called him
Tiki-ahua or Tiki's likeness. (R. Taylor "Te Ika A Maui, or New Zealand
and its Inhabitants", Second Edition (London, 1870), page 117. Compare E.
Shortland, "Maori Religion and Mythology" (London, 1882), pages 21 sq.) A
very generally received tradition in Tahiti was that the first human pair
was made by Taaroa, the chief god. They say that after he had formed the
world he created man out of red earth, which was also the food of mankind
until bread-fruit was produced. Further, some say that one day Taaroa
called for the man by name, and when he came he made him fall asleep. As
he slept, the creator took out one of his bones (ivi) and made a woman of
it, whom he gave to the man to be his wife, and the pair became the
progenitors of mankind. This narrative was taken down from the lips of the
natives in the early years of the mission to Tahiti. The missionary who
records it observes: "This always appeared to me a mere recital of the
Mosaic account of creation, which they had heard from some European, and I
never placed any reliance on it, although they have repeatedly told me it
was a tradition among them before any foreigner arrived. Some have also
stated that the woman's name was Ivi, which would be by them pronounced as
if written "Eve". "Ivi" is an aboriginal word, and not only signifies a
bone, but also a widow, and a victim slain in war. Notwithstanding the
assertion of the natives, I am disposed to think that "Ivi", or Eve, is the
only aboriginal part of the story, as far as it respects the mother of the
human race. (W. Ellis, "Polynesian Researches", Second Edition (London,
1832), I. 110 sq. "Ivi" or "iwi" is the regular word for "bone" in the
various Polynesian languages. See E. Tregear, "The Maori-Polynesian
Comparative Dictionary" (Wellington, New Zealand, 1891), page 109.)
However, the same tradition has been recorded in other parts of Polynesia
besides Tahiti. Thus the natives of Fakaofo or Bowditch Island say that
the first man was produced out of a stone. After a time he bethought him
of making a woman. So he gathered earth and moulded the figure of a woman
out of it, and having done so he took a rib out of his left side and thrust
it into the earthen figure, which thereupon started up a live woman. He
called her Ivi (Eevee) or "rib" and took her to wife, and the whole human
race sprang from this pair. (G. Turner, "Samoa" (London, 1884), pages 267
sq.) The Maoris also are reported to believe that the first woman was made
out of the first man's ribs. (J.L. Nicholas, "Narrative of a Voyage to New
Zealand" (London, 1817), I. 59, who writes "and to add still more to this
strange coincidence, the general term for bone is 'Hevee'.") This wide
diffusion of the story in Polynesia raises a doubt whether it is merely, as
Ellis thought, a repetition of the Biblical narrative learned from
Europeans. In Nui, or Netherland Island, it was the god Aulialia who made
earthen models of a man and woman, raised them up, and made them live. He
called the man Tepapa and the woman Tetata. (G. Turner, "Samoa", pages 300
sq.)
In the Pelew Islands they say that a brother and sister made men out of
clay kneaded with the blood of various animals, and that the characters of
these first men and of their descendants were determined by the characters
of the animals whose blood had been kneaded with the primordial clay; for
instance, men who have rat's blood in them are thieves, men who have
serpent's blood in them are sneaks, and men who have cock's blood in them
are brave. (J. Kubary, "Die Religion der Pelauer", in A. Bastian's
"Allerlei aus Volks- und Menschenkunde" (Berlin, 1888), I. 3, 56.)
According to a Melanesian legend, told in Mota, one of the Banks Islands,
the hero Qat moulded men of clay, the red clay from the marshy river-side
at Vanua Lava. At first he made men and pigs just alike, but his brothers
remonstrated with him, so he beat down the pigs to go on all fours and made
men walk upright. Qat fashioned the first woman out of supple twigs, and
when she smiled he knew she was a living woman. (R.H. Codrington, "The
Melanesians" (Oxford, 1891), page 158.) A somewhat different version of
the Melanesian story is told at Lakona, in Santa Maria. There they say
that Qat and another spirit ("vui") called Marawa both made men. Qat made
them out of the wood of dracaena-trees. Six days he worked at them,
carving their limbs and fitting them together. Then he allowed them six
days to come to life. Three days he hid them away, and three days more he
worked to make them live. He set them up and danced to them and beat his
drum, and little by little they stirred, till at last they could stand all
by themselves. Then Qat divided them into pairs and called each pair
husband and wife. Marawa also made men out of a tree, but it was a
different tree, the tavisoviso. He likewise worked at them six days, beat
his drum, and made them live, just as Qat did. But when he saw them move,
he dug a pit and buried them in it for six days, and then, when he scraped
away the earth to see what they were doing, he found them all rotten and
stinking. That was the origin of death. (R.H. Codrington op. cit., pages
157 sq.)
The inhabitants of Noo-Hoo-roa, in the Kei Islands say that their ancestors
were fashioned out of clay by the supreme god, Dooadlera, who breathed life
into the clay figures. (C.M. Pleyte, "Ethnographische Beschrijving der
Kei-Eilanden", "Tijdschrift van het Nederlandsch Aardrijkskundig
Genootschap", Tweede Serie X. (1893), page 564.) The aborigines of
Minahassa, in the north of Celebes, say that two beings called Wailan
Wangko and Wangi were alone on an island, on which grew a cocoa-nut tree.
Said Wailan Wangko to Wangi, "Remain on earth while I climb up the tree."
Said Wangi to Wailan Wangko, "Good." But then a thought occurred to Wangi
and he climbed up the tree to ask Wailan Wangko why he, Wangi, should
remain down there all alone. Said Wailan Wangko to Wangi, "Return and take
earth and make two images, a man and a woman." Wangi did so, and both
images were men who could move but could not speak. So Wangi climbed up
the tree to ask Wailan Wangko, "How now? The two images are made, but they
cannot speak." Said Wailan Wangko to Wangi, "Take this ginger and go and
blow it on the skulls and the ears of these two images, that they may be
able to speak; call the man Adam and the woman Ewa." (N. Graafland "De
Minahassa" (Rotterdam, 1869), I. pages 96 sq.) In this narrative the names
of the man and woman betray European influence, but the rest of the story
may be aboriginal. The Dyaks of Sakarran in British Borneo say that the
first man was made by two large birds. At first they tried to make men out
of trees, but in vain. Then they hewed them out of rocks, but the figures
could not speak. Then they moulded a man out of damp earth and infused
into his veins the red gum of the kumpang-tree. After that they called to
him and he answered; they cut him and blood flowed from his wounds.
(Horsburgh, quoted by H. Ling Roth, "The Natives of Sarawak and of British
North Borneo" (London, 1896), I. pages 299 sq. Compare The Lord Bishop of
Labuan, "On the Wild Tribes of the North-West Coast of Borneo,"
"Transactions of the Ethnological Society of London", New Series, II.
(1863), page 27.)
The Kumis of South-Eastern India related to Captain Lewin, the Deputy
Commissioner of Hill Tracts, the following tradition of the creation of
man. "God made the world and the trees and the creeping things first, and
after that he set to work to make one man and one woman, forming their
bodies of clay; but each night, on the completion of his work, there came a
great snake, which, while God was sleeping, devoured the two images. This
happened twice or thrice, and God was at his wit's end, for he had to work
all day, and could not finish the pair in less than twelve hours; besides,
if he did not sleep, he would be no good," said Captain Lewin's informant.
"If he were not obliged to sleep, there would be no death, nor would
mankind be afflicted with illness. It is when he rests that the snake
carries us off to this day. Well, he was at his wit's end, so at last he
got up early one morning and first made a dog and put life into it, and
that night, when he had finished the images, he set the dog to watch them,
and when the snake came, the dog barked and frightened it away. This is
the reason at this day that when a man is dying the dogs begin to howl; but
I suppose God sleeps heavily now-a-days, or the snake is bolder, for men
die all the same." (Capt. T.H. Lewin, "Wild Races of South-Eastern India"
(London, 1870), pages 224-26.) The Khasis of Assam tell a similar tale.
(A. Bastian, "Volkerstamme am Brahmaputra und verwandtschaftliche Nachbarn"
(Berlin, 1883), page 8; Major P.R.T. Gurdon, "The Khasis" (London, 1907),
page 106.)
The Ewe-speaking tribes of Togo-land, in West Africa, think that God still
makes men out of clay. When a little of the water with which he moistens
the clay remains over, he pours it on the ground and out of that he makes
the bad and disobedient people. When he wishes to make a good man he makes
him out of good clay; but when he wishes to make a bad man, he employs only
bad clay for the purpose. In the beginning God fashioned a man and set him
on the earth; after that he fashioned a woman. The two looked at each
other and began to laugh, whereupon God sent them into the world. (J.
Spieth, "Die Ewe-Stamme, Material zur Kunde des Ewe-Volkes in Deutsch-Togo"
(Berlin, 1906), pages 828, 840.) The Innuit or Esquimaux of Point Barrow,
in Alaska, tell of a time when there was no man in the land, till a spirit
named "a se lu", who resided at Point Barrow, made a clay man, set him up
on the shore to dry, breathed into him and gave him life. ("Report of the
International Expedition to Point Barrow" (Washington, 1885), page 47.)
Other Esquimaux of Alaska relate how the Raven made the first woman out of
clay to be a companion to the first man; he fastened water-grass to the
back of the head to be hair, flapped his wings over the clay figure, and it
arose, a beautiful young woman. (E.W. Nelson, "The Eskimo about Bering
Strait", "Eighteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology",
Part I. (Washington, 1899), page 454.) The Acagchemem Indians of
California said that a powerful being called Chinigchinich created man out
of clay which he found on the banks of a lake; male and female created he
them, and the Indians of the present day are their descendants. (Friar
Geronimo Boscana, "Chinigchinich", appended to (A. Robinson's) "Life in
California" (New York, 1846), page 247.) A priest of the Natchez Indians
in Louisiana told Du Pratz "that God had kneaded some clay, such as that
which potters use and had made it into a little man; and that after
examining it, and finding it well formed, he blew up his work, and
forthwith that little man had life, grew, acted, walked, and found himself
a man perfectly well shaped." As to the mode in which the first woman was
created, the priest had no information, but thought she was probably made
in the same way as the first man; so Du Pratz corrected his imperfect
notions by reference to Scripture. (M. Le Page Du Pratz, "The History of
Louisiana" (London, 1774), page 330.) The Michoacans of Mexico said that
the great god Tucapacha first made man and woman out of clay, but that when
the couple went to bathe in a river they absorbed so much water that the
clay of which they were composed all fell to pieces. Then the creator went
to work again and moulded them afresh out of ashes, and after that he
essayed a third time and made them of metal. This last attempt succeeded.
The metal man and woman bathed in the river without falling to pieces, and
by their union they became the progenitors of mankind. (A. de Herrera,
"General History of the vast Continent and Islands of America", translated
into English by Capt. J. Stevens (London, 1725, 1726), III. 254; Brasseur
de Bourbourg, "Histoire des Nations Civilisees du Mexique et de l'Amerique-
Centrale" (Paris, 1857—1859), III. 80 sq; compare id. I. 54 sq.)
According to a legend of the Peruvian Indians, which was told to a Spanish
priest in Cuzco about half a century after the conquest, it was in
Tiahuanaco that man was first created, or at least was created afresh after
the deluge. "There (in Tiahuanaco)," so runs the legend, "the Creator
began to raise up the people and nations that are in that region, making
one of each nation of clay, and painting the dresses that each one was to
wear; those that were to wear their hair, with hair, and those that were to
be shorn, with hair cut. And to each nation was given the language, that
was to be spoken, and the songs to be sung, and the seeds and food that
they were to sow. When the Creator had finished painting and making the
said nations and figures of clay, he gave life and soul to each one, as
well men as women, and ordered that they should pass under the earth.
Thence each nation came up in the places to which he ordered them to go."
(E.J. Payne, "History of the New World called America", I. (Oxford, 1892),
page 462.)
These examples suffice to prove that the theory of the creation of man out
of dust or clay has been current among savages in many parts of the world.
But it is by no means the only explanation which the savage philosopher has
given of the beginnings of human life on earth. Struck by the resemblances
which may be traced between himself and the beasts, he has often supposed,
like Darwin himself, that mankind has been developed out of lower forms of
animal life. For the simple savage has none of that high notion of the
transcendant dignity of man which makes so many superior persons shrink
with horror from the suggestion that they are distant cousins of the
brutes. He on the contrary is not too proud to own his humble relations;
indeed his difficulty often is to perceive the distinction between him and
them. Questioned by a missionary, a Bushman of more than average
intelligence "could not state any difference between a man and a brute—he
did not know but a buffalo might shoot with bows and arrows as well as man,
if it had them." (Reverend John Campbell, "Travels in South Africa"
(London, 1822, II. page 34.) When the Russians first landed on one of the
Alaskan islands, the natives took them for cuttle-fish "on account of the
buttons on their clothes." (I. Petroff, "Report on the Population,
Industries, and Resources of Alaska", page 145.) The Giliaks of the Amoor
think that the outward form and size of an animal are only apparent; in
substance every beast is a real man, just like a Giliak himself, only
endowed with an intelligence and strength, which often surpass those of
mere ordinary human beings. (L. Sternberg, "Die Religion der Giljaken",
"Archiv fur Religionswissenschaft", VIII. (1905), page 248.) The
Borororos, an Indian tribe of Brazil, will have it that they are parrots of
a gorgeous red plumage which live in their native forests. Accordingly
they treat the birds as their fellow-tribesmen, keeping them in captivity,
refusing to eat their flesh, and mourning for them when they die. (K. von
den Steinen, "Unter den Naturvolkern Zentral-Brasiliens" (Berlin, 1894),
pages 352 sq., 512.)
This sense of the close relationship of man to the lower creation is the
essence of totemism, that curious system of superstition which unites by a
mystic bond a group of human kinsfolk to a species of animals or plants.
Where that system exists in full force, the members of a totem clan
identify themselves with their totem animals in a way and to an extent
which we find it hard even to imagine. For example, men of the Cassowary
clan in Mabuiag think that cassowaries are men or nearly so. "Cassowary,
he all same as relation, he belong same family," is the account they give
of their relationship with the long-legged bird. Conversely they hold that
they themselves are cassowaries for all practical purposes. They pride
themselves on having long thin legs like a cassowary. This reflection
affords them peculiar satisfaction when they go out to fight, or to run
away, as the case may be; for at such times a Cassowary man will say to
himself, "My leg is long and thin, I can run and not feel tired; my legs
will go quickly and the grass will not entangle them." Members of the
Cassowary clan are reputed to be pugnacious, because the cassowary is a
bird of very uncertain temper and can kick with extreme violence. (A.C.
Haddon, "The Ethnography of the Western Tribe of Torres Straits", "Journal
of the Anthropological Institute", XIX. (1890), page 393; "Reports of the
Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits", V. (Cambridge,
1904), pages 166, 184.) So among the Ojibways men of the Bear clan are
reputed to be surly and pugnacious like bears, and men of the Crane clan to
have clear ringing voices like cranes. (W.W. Warren, "History of the
Ojibways", "Collections of the Minnesota Historical Society", V. (Saint
Paul, Minn. 1885), pages 47, 49.) Hence the savage will often speak of his
totem animal as his father or his brother, and will neither kill it himself
nor allow others to do so, if he can help it. For example, if somebody
were to kill a bird in the presence of a native Australian who had the bird
for his totem, the black might say, "What for you kill that fellow? that my
father!" or "That brother belonging to me you have killed; why did you do
it?" (E. Palmer, "Notes on some Australian Tribes", "Journal of the
Anthropological Institute", XIII. (1884), page 300.) Bechuanas of the
Porcupine clan are greatly afflicted if anybody hurts or kills a porcupine
in their presence. They say, "They have killed our brother, our master,
one of ourselves, him whom we sing of"; and so saying they piously gather
the quills of their murdered brother, spit on them, and rub their eyebrows
with them. They think they would die if they touched its flesh. In like
manner Bechuanas of the Crocodile clan call the crocodile one of
themselves, their master, their brother; and they mark the ears of their
cattle with a long slit like a crocodile's mouth by way of a family crest.
Similarly Bechuanas of the Lion clan would not, like the members of other
clans, partake of lion's flesh; for how, say they, could they eat their
grandfather? If they are forced in self-defence to kill a lion, they do so
with great regret and rub their eyes carefully with its skin, fearing to
lose their sight if they neglected this precaution. (T. Arbousset et F.
Daumas, "Relation d'un Voyage d'Exploration au Nord-Est de la Colonie du
Cap de Bonne-Esperance" (Paris, 1842), pages 349 sq., 422-24.) A Mandingo
porter has been known to offer the whole of his month's pay to save the
life of a python, because the python was his totem and he therefore
regarded the reptile as his relation; he thought that if he allowed the
creature to be killed, the whole of his own family would perish, probably
through the vengeance to be taken by the reptile kinsfolk of the murdered
serpent. (M. le Docteur Tautain, "Notes sur les Croyances et Pratiques
Religieuses des Banmanas", "Revue d'Ethnographie", III. (1885), pages 396
sq.; A. Rancon, "Dans la Haute-Gambie, Voyage d'Exploration Scientifique"
(Paris, 1894), page 445.)
Sometimes, indeed, the savage goes further and identifies the revered
animal not merely with a kinsman but with himself; he imagines that one of
his own more or less numerous souls, or at all events that a vital part of
himself, is in the beast, so that if it is killed he must die. Thus, the
Balong tribe of the Cameroons, in West Africa, think that every man has
several souls, of which one is lodged in an elephant, a wild boar, a
leopard, or what not. When any one comes home, feels ill, and says, "I
shall soon die," and is as good as his word, his friends are of opinion
that one of his souls has been shot by a hunter in a wild boar or a
leopard, for example, and that that is the real cause of his death. (J.
Keller, "Ueber das Land und Volk der Balong", "Deutsches Kolonialblatt", 1
October, 1895, page 484.) A Catholic missionary, sleeping in the hut of a
chief of the Fan negroes, awoke in the middle of the night to see a huge
black serpent of the most dangerous sort in the act of darting at him. He
was about to shoot it when the chief stopped him, saying, "In killing that
serpent, it is me that you would have killed. Fear nothing, the serpent is
my elangela." (Father Trilles, "Chez les Fang, leurs Moeurs, leur Langue,
leur Religion", "Les Missions Catholiques", XXX. (1898), page 322.) At
Calabar there used to be some years ago a huge old crocodile which was well
known to contain the spirit of a chief who resided in the flesh at Duke
Town. Sporting Vice-Consuls, with a reckless disregard of human life, from
time to time made determined attempts to injure the animal, and once a
peculiarly active officer succeeded in hitting it. The chief was
immediately laid up with a wound in his leg. He SAID that a dog had bitten
him, but few people perhaps were deceived by so flimsy a pretext. (Miss
Mary H. Kingsley, "Travels in West Africa" (London, 1897), pages 538 sq.
As to the external or bush souls of human beings, which in this part of
Africa are supposed to be lodged in the bodies of animals, see Miss Mary H.
Kingsley op. cit. pages 459-461; R. Henshaw, "Notes on the Efik belief in
'bush soul'", "Man", VI.(1906), pages 121 sq.; J. Parkinson, "Notes on the
Asaba people (Ibos) of the Niger", "Journal of the Anthropological
Institute", XXXVI. (1906), pages 314 sq.) Once when Mr Partridge's canoe-
men were about to catch fish near an Assiga town in Southern Nigeria, the
natives of the town objected, saying, "Our souls live in those fish, and if
you kill them we shall die." (Charles Partridge, "Cross River Natives"
(London, 1905), pages 225 sq.) On another occasion, in the same region, an
Englishman shot a hippopotamus near a native village. The same night a
woman died in the village, and her friends demanded and obtained from the
marksman five pounds as compensation for the murder of the woman, whose
soul or second self had been in that hippopotamus. (C.H. Robinson,
"Hausaland" (London, 1896), pages 36 sq.) Similarly at Ndolo, in the Congo
region, we hear of a chief whose life was bound up with a hippopotamus, but
he prudently suffered no one to fire at the animal. ("Notes Analytiques
sur les Collections Ethnographiques du Musee du Congo", I. (Brussels, 1902-
06), page 150.
Amongst people who thus fail to perceive any sharp line of distinction
between beasts and men it is not surprising to meet with the belief that
human beings are directly descended from animals. Such a belief is often
found among totemic tribes who imagine that their ancestors sprang from
their totemic animals or plants; but it is by no means confined to them.
Thus, to take instances, some of the Californian Indians, in whose
mythology the coyote or prairie-wolf is a leading personage, think that
they are descended from coyotes. At first they walked on all fours; then
they began to have some members of the human body, one finger, one toe, one
eye, one ear, and so on; then they got two fingers, two toes, two eyes, two
ears, and so forth; till at last, progressing from period to period, they
became perfect human beings. The loss of their tails, which they still
deplore, was produced by the habit of sitting upright. (H.R. Schoolcraft,
"Indian Tribes of the United States", IV. (Philadelphia, 1856), pages 224
sq.; compare id. V. page 217. The descent of some, not all, Indians from
coyotes is mentioned also by Friar Boscana, in (A. Robinson's) "Life in
California" (New York, 1846), page 299.) Similarly Darwin thought that
"the tail has disappeared in man and the anthropomorphous apes, owing to
the terminal portion having been injured by friction during a long lapse of
time; the basal and embedded portion having been reduced and modified, so
as to become suitable to the erect or semi-erect position." (Charles
Darwin, "The Descent of Man", Second Edition (London, 1879), page 60.) The
Turtle clam of the Iroquois think that they are descended from real mud
turtles which used to live in a pool. One hot summer the pool dried up,
and the mud turtles set out to find another. A very fat turtle, waddling
after the rest in the heat, was much incommoded by the weight of his shell,
till by a great effort he heaved it off altogether. After that he
gradually developed into a man and became the progenitor of the Turtle
clan. (E.A. Smith, "Myths of the Iroquois", "Second Annual Report of the
Bureau of Ethnology" (Washington, 1883), page 77.) The Crawfish band of
the Choctaws are in like manner descended from real crawfish, which used to
live under ground, only coming up occasionally through the mud to the
surface. Once a party of Choctaws smoked them out, taught them the Choctaw
language, taught them to walk on two legs, made them cut off their toe
nails and pluck the hair from their bodies, after which they adopted them
into the tribe. But the rest of their kindred, the crawfish, are crawfish
under ground to this day. (Geo. Catlin, "North American Indians"4 (London,
1844), II. page 128.) The Osage Indians universally believed that they
were descended from a male snail and a female beaver. A flood swept the
snail down to the Missouri and left him high and dry on the bank, where the
sun ripened him into a man. He met and married a beaver maid, and from the
pair the tribe of the Osages is descended. For a long time these Indians
retained a pious reverence for their animal ancestors and refrained from
hunting beavers, because in killing a beaver they killed a brother of the
Osages. But when white men came among them and offered high prices for
beaver skins, the Osages yielded to the temptation and took the lives of
their furry brethren. (Lewis and Clarke, "Travels to the Source of the
Missouri River" (London, 1815), I. 12 (Vol. I. pages 44 sq. of the London
reprint, 1905).) The Carp clan of the Ootawak Indians are descended from
the eggs of a carp which had been deposited by the fish on the banks of a
stream and warmed by the sun. ("Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses", Nouvelle
Edition, VI. (Paris, 1781), page 171.) The Crane clan of the Ojibways are
sprung originally from a pair of cranes, which after long wanderings
settled on the rapids at the outlet of Lake Superior, where they were
changed by the Great Spirit into a man and woman. (L.H. Morgan, "Ancient
Society" (London, 1877), page 180.) The members of two Omaha clans were
originally buffaloes and lived, oddly enough, under water, which they
splashed about, making it muddy. And at death all the members of these
clans went back to their ancestors the buffaloes. So when one of them lay
adying, his friends used to wrap him up in a buffalo skin with the hair
outside and say to him, "You came hither from the animals and you are going
back thither. Do not face this way again. When you go, continue walking.
(J. Owen Dorsey, "Omaha Sociology", "Third Annual Report of the Bureau of
Ethnology" (Washington, 1884), pages 229, 233.) The Haida Indians of Queen
Charlotte Islands believe that long ago the raven, who is the chief figure
in the mythology of North-West America, took a cockle from the beach and
married it; the cockle gave birth to a female child, whom the raven took to
wife, and from their union the Indians were produced. (G.M. Dawson,
"Report on the Queen Charlotte Islands" (Montreal, 1880), pages 149B sq.
("Geological Survey of Canada"); F. Poole, "Queen Charlotte Islands", page
136.) The Delaware Indians called the rattle-snake their grandfather and
would on no account destroy one of these reptiles, believing that were they
to do so the whole race of rattle-snakes would rise up and bite them.
Under the influence of the white man, however, their respect for their
grandfather the rattle-snake gradually died away, till at last they killed
him without compunction or ceremony whenever they met him. The writer who
records the old custom observes that he had often reflected on the curious
connection which appears to subsist in the mind of an Indian between man
and the brute creation; "all animated nature," says he, "in whatever
degree, is in their eyes a great whole, from which they have not yet
ventured to separate themselves." (Rev. John Heckewelder, "An Account of
the History, Manners, and Customs, of the Indian Nations, who once
inhabited Pennsylvania and the Neighbouring States", "Transactions of the
Historical and Literary Committee of the American Philosophical Society",
I. (Philadelphia, 1819), pages 245, 247, 248.)
Some of the Indians of Peru boasted of being descended from the puma or
American lion; hence they adored the lion as a god and appeared at
festivals like Hercules dressed in the skins of lions with the heads of the
beasts fixed over their own. Others claimed to be sprung from condors and
attired themselves in great black and white wings, like that enormous bird.
(Garcilasso de la Vega, "First Part of the Royal Commentaries of the
Yncas", Vol. I. page 323, Vol. II. page 156 (Markham's translation).) The
Wanika of East Africa look upon the hyaena as one of their ancestors or as
associated in some way with their origin and destiny. The death of a
hyaena is mourned by the whole people, and the greatest funeral ceremonies
which they perform are performed for this brute. The wake held over a
chief is as nothing compared to the wake held over a hyaena; one tribe only
mourns the death of its chief, but all the tribes unite to celebrate the
obsequies of a hyaena. (Charles New, "Life, Wanderings, and Labours in
Eastern Africa" (London, 1873) page 122.) Some Malagasy families claim to
be descended from the babacoote (Lichanotus brevicaudatus), a large lemur
of grave appearance and staid demeanour, which lives in the depth of the
forest. When they find one of these creatures dead, his human descendants
bury it solemnly, digging a grave for it, wrapping it in a shroud, and
weeping and lamenting over its carcase. A doctor who had shot a babacoote
was accused by the inhabitants of a Betsimisaraka village of having killed
"one of their grandfathers in the forest," and to appease their indignation
he had to promise not to skin the animal in the village but in a solitary
place where nobody could see him. (Father Abinal, "Croyances fabuleuses
des Malgaches", "Les Missions Catholiques", XII. (1880), page 526; G.H.
Smith, "Some Betsimisaraka superstitions", "The Antananarivo Annual and
Madagascar Magazine", No. 10 (Antananarivo, 1886), page 239; H.W. Little,
"Madagascar, its History and People" (London, 1884), pages 321 sq; A. van
Gennep, "Tabou et Totemisme a Madagascar" (Paris, 1904), pages 214 sqq.)
Many of the Betsimisaraka believe that the curious nocturnal animal called
the aye-aye (Cheiromys madagascariensis) "is the embodiment of their
forefathers, and hence will not touch it, much less do it an injury. It is
said that when one is discovered dead in the forest, these people make a
tomb for it and bury it with all the forms of a funeral. They think that
if they attempt to entrap it, they will surely die in consequence." (G.A.
Shaw, "The Aye-aye", "Antananarivo Annual and Madagascar Magazine", Vol.
II. (Antananarivo, 1896), pages 201, 203 (Reprint of the Second four
Numbers). Compare A. van Gennep, "Tabou et Totemisme a Madagascar", pages
223 sq.) Some Malagasy tribes believe themselves descended from crocodiles
and accordingly they deem the formidable reptiles their brothers. If one
of these scaly brothers so far forgets the ties of kinship as to devour a
man, the chief of the tribe, or in his absence an old man familiar with the
tribal customs, repairs at the head of the people to the edge of the water,
and summons the family of the culprit to deliver him up to the arm of
justice. A hook is then baited and cast into the river or lake. Next day
the guilty brother or one of his family is dragged ashore, formally tried,
sentenced to death, and executed. The claims of justice being thus
satisfied, the dead animal is lamented and buried like a kinsman; a mound
is raised over his grave and a stone marks the place of his head. (Father
Abinal, "Croyances fabuleuses des Malgaches", "Les Missions Catholiques",
XII. (1880), page 527; A. van Gennep, "Tabou et Totemisme a Madagascar",
pages 281 sq.)
Amongst the Tshi-speaking tribes of the Gold Coast in West Africa the
Horse-mackerel family traces its descent from a real horse-mackerel whom an
ancestor of theirs once took to wife. She lived with him happily in human
shape on shore till one day a second wife, whom the man had married,
cruelly taunted her with being nothing but a fish. That hurt her so much
that bidding her husband farewell she returned to her old home in the sea,
with her youngest child in her arms, and never came back again. But ever
since the Horse-mackerel people have refrained from eating horse-mackerels,
because the lost wife and mother was a fish of that sort. (A.B. Ellis,
"The Tshi-speaking Peoples of the Gold Coast of West Africa" (London,
1887), pages 208-11. A similar tale is told by another fish family who
abstain from eating the fish (appei) from which they take their name (A.B.
Ellis op. cit. pages 211 sq.).) Some of the Land Dyaks of Borneo tell a
similar tale to explain a similar custom. "There is a fish which is taken
in their rivers called a puttin, which they would on no account touch,
under the idea that if they did they would be eating their relations. The
tradition respecting it is, that a solitary old man went out fishing and
caught a puttin, which he dragged out of the water and laid down in his
boat. On turning round, he found it had changed into a very pretty little
girl. Conceiving the idea she would make, what he had long wished for, a
charming wife for his son, he took her home and educated her until she was
fit to be married. She consented to be the son's wife cautioning her
husband to use her well. Some time after their marriage, however, being
out of temper, he struck her, when she screamed, and rushed away into the
water; but not without leaving behind her a beautiful daughter, who became
afterwards the mother of the race." (The Lord Bishop of Labuan, "On the
Wild Tribes of the North-West Coast of Borneo", "Transactions of the
Ethnological Society of London", New Series II. (London, 1863), pages 26
sq. Such stories conform to a well-known type which may be called the
Swan-Maiden type of story, or Beauty and the Beast, or Cupid and Psyche.
The occurrence of stories of this type among totemic peoples, such as the
Tshi-speaking negroes of the Gold Coast, who tell them to explain their
totemic taboos, suggests that all such tales may have originated in
totemism. I shall deal with this question elsewhere.)
Members of a clan in Mandailing, on the west coast of Sumatra, assert that
they are descended from a tiger, and at the present day, when a tiger is
shot, the women of the clan are bound to offer betel to the dead beast.
When members of this clan come upon the tracks of a tiger, they must, as a
mark of homage, enclose them with three little sticks. Further, it is
believed that the tiger will not attack or lacerate his kinsmen, the
members of the clan. (H. Ris, "De Onderafdeeling Klein Mandailing Oeloe en
Pahantan en hare Bevolking met uitzondering van de Oeloes", "Bijdragen tot
de Tall- Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlansch-Indie, XLVI. (1896), page
473.) The Battas of Central Sumatra are divided into a number of clans
which have for their totems white buffaloes, goats, wild turtle-doves,
dogs, cats, apes, tigers, and so forth; and one of the explanations which
they give of their totems is that these creatures were their ancestors, and
that their own souls after death can transmigrate into the animals. (J.B.
Neumann, "Het Pane en Bila-stroomgebied op het eiland Sumatra",
"Tijdschrift van het Nederlandsch Aardrijkskundig Genootschap", Tweede
Serie, III. Afdeeling, Meer uitgebreide Artikelen, No. 2 (Amsterdam, 1886),
pages 311 sq.; id. ib. Tweede Serie, IV. Afdeeling, Meer uitgebreide
Artikelen, No. 1 (Amsterdam, 1887), pages 8 sq.) In Amboyna and the
neighbouring islands the inhabitants of some villages aver that they are
descended from trees, such as the Capellenia moluccana, which had been
fertilised by the Pandion Haliaetus. Others claim to be sprung from pigs,
octopuses, crocodiles, sharks, and eels. People will not burn the wood of
the trees from which they trace their descent, nor eat the flesh of the
animals which they regard as their ancestors. Sicknesses of all sorts are
believed to result from disregarding these taboos. (J.G.F. Riedel, "De
sluik- en kroesharige rassen tusschen Selebes en Papua" (The Hague, 1886),
pages 32, 61; G.W.W.C. Baron van Hoevell, "Ambon en meer bepaaldelijk de
Oeliasers" (Dordrecht, 1875), page 152.) Similarly in Ceram persons who
think they are descended from crocodiles, serpents, iguanas, and sharks
will not eat the flesh of these animals. (J.G.F. Riedel op. cit. page
122.) Many other peoples of the Molucca Islands entertain similar beliefs
and observe similar taboos. (J.G.F. Riedel "De sluik- en kroesharige
rassen tusschen Selebes en Papua" (The Hague, 1886), pages 253, 334, 341,
348, 412, 414, 432.) Again, in Ponape, one of the Caroline Islands, "The
different families suppose themselves to stand in a certain relation to
animals, and especially to fishes, and believe in their descent from them.
They actually name these animals 'mothers'; the creatures are sacred to the
family and may not be injured. Great dances, accompanied with the offering
of prayers, are performed in their honour. Any person who killed such an
animal would expose himself to contempt and punishment, certainly also to
the vengeance of the insulted deity." Blindness is commonly supposed to be
the consequence of such a sacrilege. (Dr Hahl, "Mittheilungen uber Sitten
und rechtliche Verhaltnisse auf Ponape", "Ethnologisches Notizblatt", Vol.
II. Heft 2 (Berlin, 1901), page 10.)
Some of the aborigines of Western Australia believe that their ancestors
were swans, ducks, or various other species of water-fowl before they were
transformed into men. (Captain G. Grey, "A Vocabulary of the Dialects of
South Western Australia", Second Edition (London, 1840), pages 29, 37, 61,
63, 66, 71.) The Dieri tribe of Central Australia, who are divided into
totemic clans, explain their origin by the following legend. They say that
in the beginning the earth opened in the midst of Perigundi Lake, and the
totems (murdus or madas) came trooping out one after the other. Out came
the crow, and the shell parakeet, and the emu, and all the rest. Being as
yet imperfectly formed and without members or organs of sense, they laid
themselves down on the sandhills which surrounded the lake then just as
they do now. It was a bright day and the totems lay basking in the
sunshine, till at last, refreshed and invigorated by it, they stood up as
human beings and dispersed in all directions. That is why people of the
same totem are now scattered all over the country. You may still see the
island in the lake out of which the totems came trooping long ago. (A.W.
Howitt, "Native Tribes of South-East Australia" (London, 1904), pages 476,
779 sq.) Another Dieri legend relates how Paralina, one of the Mura-Muras
or mythical predecessors of the Dieri, perfected mankind. He was out
hunting kangaroos, when he saw four incomplete beings cowering together.
So he went up to them, smoothed their bodies, stretched out their limbs,
slit up their fingers and toes, formed their mouths, noses, and eyes, stuck
ears on them, and blew into their ears in order that they might hear.
Having perfected their organs and so produced mankind out of these
rudimentary beings, he went about making men everywhere. (A.W. Howitt op.
cit., pages 476, 780 sq.) Yet another Dieri tradition sets forth how the
Mura-Mura produced the race of man out of a species of small black lizards,
which may still be met with under dry bark. To do this he divided the feet
of the lizards into fingers and toes, and, applying his forefinger to the
middle of their faces, created a nose; likewise he gave them human eyes,
mouths and ears. He next set one of them upright, but it fell down again
because of its tail; so he cut off its tail and the lizard then walked on
its hind legs. That is the origin of mankind. (S. Gason, "The Manners and
Customs of the Dieyerie tribe of Australian Aborigines", "Native Tribes of
South Australia" (Adelaide, 1879), page 260. This writer fell into the
mistake of regarding the Mura-Mura (Mooramoora) as a Good-Spirit instead of
as one of the mythical but more or less human predecessors of the Dieri in
the country. See A.W. Howitt, "Native Tribes of South-East Australia",
pages 475 sqq.)
The Arunta tribe of Central Australia similarly tell how in the beginning
mankind was developed out of various rudimentary forms of animal life.
They say that in those days two beings called Ungambikula, that is, "out of
nothing," or "self-existing," dwelt in the western sky. From their lofty
abode they could see, far away to the east, a number of inapertwa
creatures, that is, rudimentary human beings or incomplete men, whom it was
their mission to make into real men and women. For at that time there were
no real men and women; the rudimentary creatures (inapertwa) were of
various shapes and dwelt in groups along the shore of the salt water which
covered the country. These embryos, as we may call them, had no distinct
limbs or organs of sight, hearing, and smell; they did not eat food, and
they presented the appearance of human beings all doubled up into a rounded
mass, in which only the outline of the different parts of the body could be
vaguely perceived. Coming down from their home in the western sky, armed
with great stone knives, the Ungambikula took hold of the embryos, one
after the other. First of all they released the arms from the bodies, then
making four clefts at the end of each arm they fashioned hands and fingers;
afterwards legs, feet, and toes were added in the same way. The figure
could now stand; a nose was then moulded and the nostrils bored with the
fingers. A cut with the knife made the mouth, which was pulled open
several times to render it flexible. A slit on each side of the face
separated the upper and lower eye-lids, disclosing the eyes, which already
existed behind them; and a few strokes more completed the body. Thus out
of the rudimentary creatures were formed men and women. These rudimentary
creatures or embryos, we are told, "were in reality stages in the
transformation of various animals and plants into human beings, and thus
they were naturally, when made into human beings, intimately associated
with the particular animal or plant, as the case may be, of which they were
the transformations—in other words, each individual of necessity belonged
to a totem, the name of which was of course that of the animal or plant of
which he or she was a transformation." However, it is not said that all
the totemic clans of the Arunta were thus developed; no such tradition, for
example, is told to explain the origin of the important Witchetty Grub
clan. The clans which are positively known, or at least said, to have
originated out of embryos in the way described are the Plum Tree, the Grass
Seed, the Large Lizard, the Small Lizard, the Alexandra Parakeet, and the
Small Rat clans. When the Ungambikula had thus fashioned people of these
totems, they circumcised them all, except the Plum Tree men, by means of a
fire-stick. After that, having done the work of creation or evolution, the
Ungambikula turned themselves into little lizards which bear a name meaning
"snappers-up of flies." (Baldwin Spencer and F.J. Gillen, "Native Tribes
of Central Australia (London, 1899), pages 388 sq.; compare id., "Northern
Tribes of Central Australia" (London, 1904), page 150.)
This Arunta tradition of the origin of man, as Messrs Spencer and Gillen,
who have recorded it, justly observe, "is of considerable interest; it is
in the first place evidently a crude attempt to describe the origin of
human beings out of non-human creatures who were of various forms; some of
them were representatives of animals, others of plants, but in all cases
they are to be regarded as intermediate stages in the transition of an
animal or plant ancestor into a human individual who bore its name as that
of his or her totem." (Baldwin Spencer and F.J. Gillen, "Native Tribes of
Central Australia", pages 391 sq.) In a sense these speculations of the
Arunta on their own origin may be said to combine the theory of creation
with the theory of evolution; for while they represent men as developed out
of much simpler forms of life, they at the same time assume that this
development was effected by the agency of two powerful beings, whom so far
we may call creators. It is well known that at a far higher stage of
culture a crude form of the evolutionary hypothesis was propounded by the
Greek philosopher Empedocles. He imagined that shapeless lumps of earth
and water, thrown up by the subterranean fires, developed into monstrous
animals, bulls with the heads of men, men with the heads of bulls, and so
forth; till at last, these hybrid forms being gradually eliminated, the
various existing species of animals and men were evolved. (E. Zeller, "Die
Philosophie der Griechen", I.4 (Leipsic, 1876), pages 718 sq.; H. Ritter et
L. Preller, "Historia Philosophiae Graecae et Romanae ex fontium locis
contexta"5, pages 102 sq. H. Diels, "Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker"2, I.
(Berlin, 1906), pages 190 sqq. Compare Lucretius "De rerum natura", V. 837
sqq.) The theory of the civilised Greek of Sicily may be set beside the
similar theory of the savage Arunta of Central Australia. Both represent
gropings of the human mind in the dark abyss of the past; both were in a
measure grotesque anticipations of the modern theory of evolution.
In this essay I have made no attempt to illustrate all the many various and
divergent views which primitive man has taken of his own origin. I have
confined myself to collecting examples of two radically different views,
which may be distinguished as the theory of creation and the theory of
evolution. According to the one, man was fashioned in his existing shape
by a god or other powerful being; according to the other he was evolved by
a natural process out of lower forms of animal life. Roughly speaking,
these two theories still divide the civilised world between them. The
partisans of each can appeal in support of their view to a large consensus
of opinion; and if truth were to be decided by weighing the one consensus
against the other, with "Genesis" in the one scale and "The Origin of
Species" in the other, it might perhaps be found, when the scales were
finally trimmed, that the balance hung very even between creation and
evolution.
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