156 Primitive Theories of the Origin of Man 
in them are sneaks, and men who have cock’s blood in them are 
brave. According to a Melanesian legend, told in Mota, one of the 
Banks Islands, the hero Qat moulded men of clay, the red clay from 
the marshy river-side at Vanua Lava. At first he made men and pigs 
just alike, but his brothers remonstrated with him, so he beat down 
the pigs to go on all fours and made men walk upright. Qat fashioned 
the first woman out of supple twigs, and when she smiled he knew she 
was a living woman”. A somewhat different version of the Melanesian 
story is told at Lakona, in Santa Maria. There they say that Qat and 
another spirit (vui) called Marawa both made men. Qat made them 
out of the wood of dracaena-trees. Six days he worked at them, 
carving their limbs and fitting them together. Then he allowed them 
six days to come to life. Three days he hid them away, and three 
days more he worked to make them live. He set them up and 
danced to them and beat his drum, and little by little they stirred, till 
at last they could stand all by themselves. Then Qat divided them 
into pairs and called each pair husband and wife. Marawa also made 
men out of a tree, but it was a different tree, the tavisoviso. He 
likewise worked at them six days, beat his drum, and made them live, 
just as Qat did. But when he saw them move, he dug a pit and buried 
them in it for six days, and then, when he scraped away the earth to 
see what they were doing, he found them all rotten and stinking. 
That was the origin of death®. 
The inhabitants of Noo-hoo-roa, in the Kei Islands say that their 
ancestors were fashioned out of clay by the supreme god, Dooad- 
lera, who breathed life into the clay figures‘. The aborigines of 
Minahassa, in the north of Celebes, say that two beings called 
Wailan Wangko and Wangi were alone on an island, on which grew 
a cocoa-nut tree. Said Wailan Wangko to Wangi, “Remain on 
earth while I climb up the tree.” Said Wangi to Wailan Wangko, 
“Good.” But then a thought occurred to Wangi and he climbed up 
the tree to ask Wailan Wangko why he, Wangi, should remain down 
there all alone. Said Wailan Wangko to Wangi, “Return and take 
earth and make two images, a man and a woman.” Wangi did so, and 
both images were men who could move but could not speak. So Wangi 
climbed up the tree to ask Wailan Wangko, “How now? The two 
images are made, but they cannot speak.” Said Wailan Wangko to 
Wangi, “Take this ginger and go and blow it on the skulls and the 
ears of these two images, that they may be able to speak; call the man 
1 J. Kubary, “Die Religion der Pelauer,” in A. Bastian’s Allerlei aus Volks- und 
Menschenkunde (Berlin, 1888), 1. 3, 56. 
? R. H. Codrington, The Melanesians (Oxford, 1891), p. 158. 
3 R. H. Codrington, op. cit., pp. 157 sq. 
* C. M, Pleyte, “Ethnographische Beschrijving der Kei-Hilanden,” Tijdschrift van het 
Nederlandsch Aardrijkskundig Genootschap, Tweede Serie, x. (1893), p. 564. 
