400 PRIMITIVE HISTORY OF THE lONIANS. 



back to Jeraclimeel at Jericlio or Urclioe, with Jamiii and liis son 

 Jediael, or, as we should read it, Jedigel. A more notable reminis- 

 cence of tbe " moon of G-od " is found in the strange untranslatable 

 hybrid, Erechtheus. His son Earn fades out of view, owing to the 

 similarity which his name bears to that of his father, and to the 

 greater glory of his descendants ; but Orneus and Azeus, sons of 

 Erechtheus, are Oren and Ozem, sons of Jerachmeel. Eker, in the 

 Acrabbi form becomes Cecrops ; and Daedalus, gTeat grandson of 

 Erechtheus, is the same person as Jediael, the skilful, who stands in 

 the same i-elation to Jerachmeel.^® It is not, however, my intention 

 to exhaust the history of the Jerachmeelites in this paper, but merely 

 to indicate the importance of the family among whose members Onam is 

 reckoned, that it may not be found strange to see him taking his place 

 in the foremost ranks of the great ancestors of civilized humanity. 

 Because I find that Jerachmeelites early dwelt in Palestine, and that 

 Jericho bears the name of their gTeat ancestor, I do not by any 

 means assert that Palestine was their original home. They may have 

 been Chaldeans before they were Palestinians, as the descendants of 

 Onam were Egyptians before they were either. 



The root of the name Onam is the well-knoAvn word On, which we 

 find designating the city of Heliopolis, in Egypt, and a Reubenite, 

 the son of Peleth, who took part in the rebellion of Korah, Dathan 

 and Abiram.^" Ono also is the name of a city in the tribe of Dan, 

 lying in the neighbourhood of many Jerachmeelite geographical 

 names.^^ The final am of Onam is a common ending of pi-oper 

 names, as Fuerst has shown, and as is illustrated in Achuzam, Etam, 

 Gatam.^^ It is a little remarkable that the Peubenite On should be 

 a son of Peleth, as we find the uncommon name of Peleth among 

 those of the descendants of Onam.^ Reuben must in some way 

 have been connected with an Onite family. Such is the form of the 

 word On (j^^$) that it is at times rendered Aven.*^ With the 



29 It is remarkable to find Pliny, xxxvi. 13, asserting that DtBclalus lived and constructed 

 some of Ills ingenious works in Memphis, which, as the city of the moon, probably took its- 

 name from his father, Jamin, after whom the Egyptian district of Miuyeh was called, while his 

 son was commemorated in the region which even to-day bears the appellation Jendeli. Besides 

 the Nubian Romali, Erchoas on the Nile, which is connected with the Nemoone on the 

 monuments of Setei Menephthah, must refer to the family of JerachmeeL 



80 Numbers xvi. 1. 



81 Some of these are specified on page 419. 



82 Fuerst's Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon. 



33 1 Chron. ii. 33. ; 



SI Ezekiel xxx. 15". 



