AXTHROPOID MYTHOLOGY. 661 



that a branch of the tribe of Ad rebelled against its prophets, and God 

 changed them into Nesnas, that is, into creatures with one hand and 

 one leg, which hop like the birds and eat grass like the cattle. They 

 say that this race has died out, and that such creatures of the kind as 

 are found now are of a different creation (are not changed men). Com- 

 mon people call apes Xesnas." 



The ancient Egyptians did not represent the ape as a caricature of 

 man, but idealized it and paid it religious honors, as they did to many 

 other animals. A cynocephalus was kept and worshiped in the temple 

 at Hermopolis, while a cercopithecus was honored at Thebes. Mum- 

 mies of apes have been found in both of these eitie-. The ape also 

 has its place in the hieroglyphics as the representative of the sound 

 "en," and is called ein in Coptic. The god Anubis, who, at the judg- 

 ment of the dead in Amenti (or the land of death), put the heart of 

 the deceased in the balance of justice in order to report the result 

 to Thoth, is figured with the head of a cynocephalus, or dog-faced 

 baboon. Thoth himself generally appears associated with the attribute 

 of the cynocephalus, the emblem of the dog-star. The temple of 

 Queen Hatasu, at Der-el-bahri, is adorned with inscriptions relating to 

 a grand expedition into the balsam-bearing land of Punt, the Egyp- 

 tian Ophir, in which the offerings sent by the king of that country are 

 described : " The transports were loaded to the full with the wonder- 

 ful products of the land of Punt, and the various building-woods of 

 the godly land, with heaps of balsams of incense, with green incense- 

 trees, with ebonv, with ivorv, adorned with sold from the land of 

 Amu, with liquorice-wood, ehefit-wood, with frankincense, holy bal- 

 sams, and eye-paints, with cynocephaluses and baboons and greyhounds, 

 and with leopard -skins. Xever was the like brought to any king of 

 Egypt since the world has stood." According to Brugseh. the incense- 

 trees stood on the decks of the vessels, and the apes, let loose, gam- 

 boled in the rieerinsr, to the threat delight of the sailors. 



In the Indian Raniayana, where the animals are praised as allies 

 of Rama, apes are depicted in groups, under the direction of a king 

 who obeys the nods of Rama. They are not, however, introduced as 

 idealized apes, changed men or incarnate demons, but as veritable apes 

 with all their less pleasant peculiarities realistically portrayed. A 

 favorite figure of the poem is Hanuman, the fool of the serious drama, 

 around whom a fabulous atmosphere has already gathered. In him 

 may be recognized the Hulman of the Hindoos, the Mandi of the Mai- 

 abars, the sacred ape, Semnopithecus enteUus. He is an Atlas, who 

 bears mountains on his shoulders. A child of the wind and the air. he 

 affords the most agreeable svmbolism of the simian character. Like 

 a rash child, he tried to go up to the sun, and still carries a remem- 

 brancer of his mishap in the deformity of his lower jaw, which is longer 

 than the upper one. x "With his foolhardy, comic ways, he cheered and 

 comforted Rama's beloved wife Sita. and helped deliver her from the 



