22 JOHN FKASER, B.A., LL.D. 



a snake and an eel ; when lie came back to eat them he saw 

 lire issuing from the ground where they were ; he was warned 

 by his companion, the little man, not to approach, but he 

 declared he did not fear, and boldly came near; then a 

 whirlwind seized them and carried them up " above the sky," 

 where he and his companion still are, and " can be seen any 

 starlit night." 



These fr\vo legends are interesting. Minny is to them the 

 father and king of the black races, whom he now rules and 

 will rule in spirit-laud ; he was once a mortal, but now he is 

 a " skeleton " a spiritualised being without flesh and blood ; 

 and so our black fellows retain the simple primitive beliefs of 

 mankind ; they have heard nothing of annihilation or absorp- 

 tion into the infinite. I observe also that the name of their 

 great father is the same as that given on the hieroglyphic 

 inscriptions to the first king of Egypt, Menee by Herodotus 

 called Menes the head of the First Dynasty of mortals. He 

 was a public benefactor, for he executed several important 

 works, and taught his people the worship of Phtah, the great 

 artificer-god of Egypt. He must have some mythical relation 

 to the human race, for in Greece he is Minos, king of Crete, 

 ' ' Minoia regna," author of many useful laws, and afterwards 

 a judge of the shades of the dead ; in another part of Greece 

 he is Minyas, the founder of a race of heroes ; in India he is 

 Menu, and in Old Germany Mannus ; for I take all these to 

 be the same name. 



The story of Garabooung seems to correspond with that of 

 the Dioscouroi Castor and Pollux who were also mighty 

 heroes and benefactors of mankind. The ancient Germans 

 worshipped them in a sacred grove, and called them Alcis. 



How have our black fellows got hold of the name Minny, and 

 such a myth about him ? Were the name and the myth in- 

 vented by them ? Are they not rather a survival derived 

 from a common origin of traditions which belong to the 

 once undivided human family ? 



In conclusion, let any one ask me how it is that our 

 aborigines, if they are of such an origin as I assign to them, 

 have sunk so low in the scale of humanity as to be regarded 

 among the most degraded of the races of men. I deny that 

 this estimate of them is well founded ; on the contrary, I 

 assert that it was formed long ago by those who imperfectly 

 understood the habits and social organisation of our native 

 tribes, and has been ignorantly passed from mouth to mouth 

 ever since ; that, when they are thoroughly understood, our 

 black fellows are not the despicable savages that they are too 

 often represented to be. They have, or had, virtues whieh 



