4 THE HUMAN SPECIES 



ceeded to create a girl when the first boy had been killed by a 

 horse. In the tradition of the Andaman Islanders the first 

 man created by Paluga was tall and blackbearded, and did not 

 receive a wife until he had proved that he was capable of sup- 

 porting himself; the Arawaks, a branch of the Caribbeans, are 

 so lacking in chivalry as to assert that man was created by a 

 good spirit, and woman by an evil one. The Eastern Eskimos 

 also ascribe the creation of the world and man to two distinct 

 deities : one good, bearing the masculine name of Tongarsak, 

 the other malevolent and nameless, but it has not been proved 

 that they impute the creation of woman to this latter. 



The contrast between a good and an evil creator is still 

 more striking in the Zend-Avesta, the sacred writings of Zoro- 

 aster, the philosopher of ancient Persia. Ormuzd, wishing to 

 raise a bulwark against his enemy, Ahriman, created the 

 material world with its living beings in 365 days, taking 75 

 days for the creation of man alone. This primitive being was 

 bisexual, and from him descended the first pair, Meschia and 

 Meschiana, the progenitors of the peoples of the earth. Ormuzd 

 was, however, powerless to prevent man's ultimately falling a 

 victim to the sinister god Ahriman (Death). 



Zoroaster's teaching represents man as created for his own 

 sake, whereas, in the Indian doctrine of the revelation of 

 Ekhumescha, according to the Sastra of Brahma, living organ- 

 isms, including man, were created merely in order to serve as 

 a purifying, intermediate stage for the fallen devetas (angels), 

 the cow forming the last stage but one, and man the final. 



In all these legends man is simply a dynamic creation. The 

 supreme being willed that he should be, and he was. In con- 

 trast to this purely dynamic process of creation we have the 

 conceptions of those nations who endeavour to explain the 

 process on material mechanical grounds. 



Here too we find the most diverse ideas prevalent, for is it 

 not inevitable that all speculation as to the creation of the 

 world in which we live should be powerfully influenced by our 

 surroundings, organic and inorganic? Hence it need not 

 astonish us to learn that man is sometimes supposed to have 

 originated in plants. For instance, the Leni Lenape think that 

 the supreme spirit formed the first man and woman out of a tree- 



