THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. 55 



than is generally allowed. His banishing by prayer all snakes and 

 venomous reptiles from Ireland, may imply that by disseminating 

 the doctrines of Christianity, he overthrew the worship of the ser- 

 pent and drove its priests from the island." 



This form of worship, I believe, is now confined to the inacces- 

 sible tribes of Central Africa and an Abysinnian tribe called the 

 Shangallas, and traces of it are said to be met with amongst the 

 lowest class of Negroes in the Southern , States, who hold Obi wor- 

 ship once a year in the densest part of the forest and the swamp. 



The Hindoos have a tradition evidently connected with the 

 creation of man and the subsequent death of Abel at the hands of 

 Cain. Brahma becoming incarnate, produced the first man out of 

 one half of his body, and the first woman out of the other half. 

 From this pair were born three sons, two of whom quarrelling, one 

 wished the other might be a wanderer on the face of the earth, 

 whereupon, his brother incensed at this slew him with a club whilst 

 performing a sacrifice. 



A remarkable legend exists amongst the Iroquois Indians, that 

 the first woman was seduced from her allegiance to God, and on 

 this account banished from Heaven. Afterwards she bore two sons, 

 one of whom, in consequence of a quarrel, took a club and slew 

 the other. But from the same woman sprang many men and women, 

 who were the progenitors of the whole human race. 



The fable of Uranus, the first civilizer of men, and his eldest 

 son, Hyperion, being slain by his brethren out of envy, is thought 

 by mythologists to show a connection with the Scriptural account of 

 Abel, whilst some again include under this connection the fable of the 

 Corybantes, three brothers, one of whom was murdered by the other 

 two. Doubtless each legend had its basis in the same origin and 

 from one source. 



Take again, as another connecting link of mythology, the 

 deluge. Everywhere the tradition exists, amongst all the Nations 

 of antiquity, amongst the Indians of our own land, the Mexicans, 

 the South Sea Islanders, the Asiatics, and in fact everywhere, 

 and each race has modified or diversified it according to its own 

 ideas. Plato, in his Timseus, gives an Egyptian account of the 

 deluge, on which occasion certain herdsmen and shepherds were 

 saved on the tops of the mountains, but they who dwelt in the plains 

 were swept into the sea by the rising of the waters. In the Hindoo 



