8 THE HUMAN SPECIES 



four brothers escaping. A similar idea prevails in Madagascar, 

 only in this case the first human being, a man, is already 

 created and becomes afflicted with an abscess on the left leg, 

 to which strange source the natives discourteously trace the 

 origin of woman. According to a Slavonian tradition the first 

 man was created out of already-existing organic matter, but 

 here the organic matter is of divine origin, for during his 

 first wandering God grew weary and a drop of sweat fell from 

 him to the earth, where it straightway turned into a man. In 

 America there is a widespread belief that man originally 

 issued from the earth, from caves, or from stones. The 

 Greenlander believes the first man to have been made of 

 clay and the first woman, the mother of all succeeding genera- 

 tions, to have sprung from his thumb. The Iroquois believe 

 themselves to have come from the heart of a mountain, and the 

 Oneidas call themselves " sons of stone " because they believe, 

 like the people of Rotuma in Polynesia, that the first man was 

 made out of a stone. The belief in man having originated in 

 caves is found in Central America, among the Indians of the 

 Antilles, the Carribeans, the Solostos and other Brazilian and 

 Peruvian tribes, the latter even venerating under the name of 

 " paracina " those places where the first human beings are 

 supposed to have emerged from the earth. Under these 

 circumstances, therefore, we need feel no surprise at finding 

 a widespread belief in man's origin in plants. 



The Salivas, on the Orinoco, believe the first human beings 

 to have been like reeds, others like the fruit on the trees, and a 

 third variety of a nobler type, to have come down from the sun. 

 The national hero of the Goldens in Northern Asia in the course 

 of a pilgrimage through the land came upon a mighty tree 

 whose branches bore round shining discs. With an unerring bow- 

 shot he brought one to earth, but no sooner had it touched the 

 ground than it turned into a human being, a woman, whom the 

 hero married, they thus becoming the progenitors of the tribe. 

 Similar legends of the origin of man are found among the 

 Hereros of South-West Africa, in the Island of Nive in Poly- 

 nesia, and in Samoa, where a creeping plant grew on a rock, and 

 on dying bred worms and afterwards man. Here the animal 

 origin of man is only indirectly implied, but in all parts of the 



