ANTHROPOID MYTHOLOGY. 657 



was employed in household tasks : " If the show-bread is not arranged 

 according to the directions upon the holy tables in the temple at Jeru- 

 salem, it is just as though an ape had done it." According to Idajim, 

 1, 5, the ape could be employed in connection with certain religious 

 ablutions ; but the Rabbi Jose, named above, denies him this property. 

 Baba Kama speaks of apes being trained to keep the house clear of 

 vermin ; and it is well known that they will eat the smaller animals, 

 such as young birds, mice, bugs, and caterpillars, as dainties. 



Of the tricks of apes, Baba Kama tells of one of the animals that 

 stole dye-stuff and colored wool with it. Nedarim mentions one that 

 ran away and was found in a cave along with the treasures that it had 

 collected there. Duvaucel, Brehm, and others, say that Indian apes 

 steal and conceal gold, precious stones, and other bright things. 



The palatableness of the milk and blood of bipeds is spoken of by 

 several Talmudic authors, and the question is suggested why, if only 

 men are meant, the term biped should be exceptionally used. The 

 glossater, A. ben David, adds the remark, " such as man " ; while Jiz- 

 chaki says, " Only man is meant here." The erect anthropoids may, 

 however, also have been in the thought of the writers. In exj)Osition 

 of Leviticus xi, 27, "And whatsoever goeth upon his paws, among 

 all manner of beasts that go on all four," it is remarked in the Sifra, 

 51, "By these are meant the ape (kof), the Kipud, and Aclne- 

 hasadeh." A. ben David says in this connection : " While the ape 

 resembles man in form, and has fingers on his hands and toes on his 

 feet like men, he is nevertheless ranked among the other animals as 

 unclean." In Jebamot, it is said that a deformity of a man's foot by 

 which the toes are bent under the sole so that he has to walk on the 

 back of his foot, renders him unfit for the performance of certain cere- 

 monies. In Moed Katon is an allusion to a funeral orator, named 

 Bar Kipuph (son of an ape or ape-man), who had a deformity of this 

 kind, and probably received his nickname in consequence of it. Robert 

 Hartmann says that the chimpanzee and orang-outang go on all-fours, 

 bending their fingers into the hollow of their hands, and setting the 

 calloused back of their hands on the ground ; and this explains why 

 the gait of crippled persons was called ape-like, and why the orator 

 was called Bar Kipuph. Sometimes we meet the expression, " like the 

 act of an ape," a bare imitation. 



The fables of the Abne, Ad?ie, or Adone-hasadeh, have assumed 

 very strange forms. While the Talmudic and Midraist representations 

 of this being distinctly point to an authropoid ape, the name of which 

 may appear in Job v, 23 "For thou shalt be in league with the 

 stones of the field ; and the beasts of the field shall be at peace with 

 thee " where the word in the original translated stones is believed 

 by some to refer more properly to this animal the interpreters and 

 glossaters, following the fashion of the grotesque fables of great apes, 

 have made a formidable monster of it. Kilajim describes it as the 



VOL. XXI.- 



