INTRODUCTION AND GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS 9 



world legends are to be found treating of man's immediate 

 descent from animals. 



Among the Fiji Islanders the first boy and girl were pro- 

 duced from a hawk's egg, while the Santals a Bramapootra 

 tribe allied to the Kolhs prefer to believe that the progenitors 

 of the human race proceeded from the eggs of a pair of ducks. 

 In New Zealand man originated in an egg laid by a monstrous 

 bird on the water. A Peruvian legend tells how three eggs fell 

 from heaven gold, silver and copper containing respectively 

 the princes, the nobility, and the common people. Other tribes 

 of Peru, before the time of the Incas, traced their genealogy 

 from the puma, jaguar, eagle, vulture, etc., just as the North 

 American tribes believe their ancestors to have been the dog, 

 wolf, bear, hare, bog boar, beaver, wild turkey, turtle dove, 

 tortoise, crocodile, snake or salmon. The tribes of North-West 

 America carry their belief in an animal origin so far as to think 

 that their chief ancestors descended from heaven in the form of 

 birds. The result of this belief is the well-known Totemism, in 

 which Virchow tries to find a dim feeling after Darwinism, or 

 relationship with the animal world. 



We need not dwell upon the belief of the Aleutians in their 

 descent from a dog, and that of the Ainos that their forefathers 

 were bears, but the widespread belief in man's descent from the 

 apes is deserving of more attention, being of great anthropo- 

 logical interest. Savage tribes of the Malay Peninsula, who are 

 regarded by the more civilised Malays as no better than animals, 

 trace their descent from a pair of "unka putch" (the white 

 mountain ape), who sent their young down to the plains, where 

 they reached such a state of perfection that they and their de- 

 scendants became men. Similar to this is the Buddhistic legend 

 of the origin of the platyrrhine races of Thibet ; they are sup- 

 posed to have descended from two very perfect apes and to have 

 been changed into men to people the snowy regions. Another 

 instance we have in the Djatwas of Rajputana who claim to 

 descend from the ape-god Hanuman, and in support of the 

 legend maintain that their princes bear the sign of their origin 

 in a prolongation of the spine. 



A close examination of these traditions reveals the fact that 

 in every case a process of generation is pre-supposed, a fact 



