a2 REPORT—1883. 
5. The Yahgan Indians of Tierra del Fuego. By Hypn Ciarke. 
The author stated that, in consequence of the publication by Lady Brassey of the 
‘Voyage of the Sunbeam, great attention had been paid to these Indians by men 
of science here and in Germany. On examination of the language he found that 
its relations were of a distinct character with a group in Africa, and with the 
Ngoten, &e., particularly. This raised an important question as to the mode in 
which the language had been transmitted to the extremity of South America. 
6. Primitive Astronomical Traditions as to Paradise. 
By R. G. Harieurron. 
The author had met with a great mass of primitive legends among savages as 
to a primeval paradise, with its Tree of Life and of Knowledge, being situated in 
the stars of Taurus, the Pleiades. As far back as 1863 he privately printed a 
paper entitled ‘ New Materials for the History of Man, derived from a comparison 
of the Calendars and Festivals of Nations.’ In the course of these astronomical 
researches, he had met, to his surprise, with curious traditions as to a Paradise and 
deluge, the cross, a tree or bough, and a bird connected with the primitive year and 
its festivals. He had since devoted much careful study to this enigma, and the 
present paper gave only a portion of these investigations, for the subject was too 
wide to be outlined in a paper. Halfacentury ago, many learned works were 
devoted to coincidences in the religious ideas, traditions, and symbols of nations ; 
and it was by some supposed that they were distorted vestiges of the sacred 
narrative, but this view had been abandoned, and all these learned investigations 
had been discredited. We now cut the Gordian knot, which we cannot solve, as 
to these common traditions and beliefs, and suppose them of indigenous growth. 
But, while this conclusion might, in many instances, be right, there were many 
coincidences too arbitrary and widely spread to admit of the solution that the 
beliefs and religious ideas of primitive races were all the emanations of darkness, 
stagnation, and decay. The author then selected some American traditions as to 
the Tree of Life and Paradise. The symbols of a cross and a bough or tree, he 
thought, were suggested by the form of the Pleiades, which when they set have a 
remarkable resemblance to a prostrate tree. The Kiowas of the prairies believe 
that in the shape of the Pleiades and of some adjoining stars can be seen the form 
of their great Father in Heaven, the great Kiowa. Once upon a time he went far 
to the West and met with a prostrate tree or trunk which he struck three times. 
At the first stroke human beings of misshapen, monstrous forms came forth. These 
he put to rights, placed them back in the tree and struck it a second time, when per- 
fect men and women came forth from this tree of life. He placed them again in 
the tree, and struck it a third time, when men and women and children that had 
been born, came out of it. He instructed the men and women in the rude arts of 
savage life, and then went up to the Pleiades. This belief in our having sprung 
from a tree is well known in the Old World, in Britain, Lapland, Germany, 
Greece, Persia, and other countries. An Indian tribe of the Pampas, the Abipones, 
believe that their Great Father resides in the Pleiades, and when these stars 
disappear from the heavens for a time, it is believed that he dies or is ill, and when 
those stars reappear his revival is hailed with joy. This gives a clue to the death 
and revival of the gods of antiquity. These people use the symbol of those ‘stars 
of rain,’ the prehistoric cross, as an ornament or sacred sign. There is also a 
curious tradition of seven giant brothers, who fished off the west coast of Canada. 
They struck a huge monster with a harpoon. As the rope could not be loosened, 
they were dragged far into the ocean towards a vast whirlpool. Just as they 
neared it, the rope broke, and they sailed up to the Pleiades, where they are now 
visible as the seven stars. These seven brothers give us a clue to the seven 
Cabeiric brothers, of Phcenician tradition, who sailed in the first ship, and who 
have been identified with the Pleiades by Movers. But the story of the whirlpool 
is especially important, for we meet it in the traditions of the Dyaks of Borneo, 
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