INTRODUCTION AND GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS 5 



stump. According to the belief of the Sioux Indians, the first 

 created men stood for several generations like tree-trunks, with 

 their feet rooted in the ground, until a great snake gnawed 

 through the roots and thus endowed man with the power of 

 movement. The Caribbeans believe that their creator, Aluberi, 

 seated himself on a tree and broke off twigs which he changed 

 into animals ; but one he turned into a man, and the man fell 

 asleep, and on awaking found a woman at his side. The 

 Bagoba tribe, inhabiting South Mindanao, believe that the first 

 plants were a bamboo and a betelnut palm, and that at the 

 bidding of their god, Todlai, from the cleft bamboo there sprung 

 a boy and from the palm a girl ; when they were grown up they 

 married and became the parents of the human race. 



In other parts of the world the creator is supposed to have 

 made man out of animals ; the Dieyeries, an Australian tribe, 

 believe man originated from black lizards. The benevolent 

 deity, Moora Moora, changed their feet to fingers and toes, 

 added a nose to the face and, in order to preserve their equili- 

 brium when standing erect, removed the tail, whereby they 

 became lords over all other creatures. 



Nevertheless, traditions of man originating in plants or ani- 

 mals are rare in comparison with the overwhelming majority of 

 those wherein he has been created out of clay, earth, or stone. 

 Traditions of this type are current among the Gallas of East 

 Africa, the Javanese, the North American Indians, and, in very 

 pronounced form, among the Semitic tribes of Further Asia, the 

 Babylonians and the Hebrews, their followers in civilisation, and, 

 in yet another more modified form, among the Mohammedans. 



The so-called Mosaic tradition of the creation handed down 

 from the Babylonians, forms one of the most remarkable 

 phenomena in the history of civilisation, for it not only consti- 

 tutes a strict article of the Jewish faith but, from the founding 

 of Christendom, has continued for over nineteen centuries to be 

 the official explanation of the origin of man in all Christian 

 churches and schools. The philosophic-theological speculation 

 of scholasticism could do it no harm, for even after the early 

 dialectical stage of scholasticism had given way to pure philo- 

 sophy, the quintessence of the philosophy was, after all, only a 

 confirmation of the belief in revelation. Thomas Aquinas, the 



