第88章

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.