Darwin and Modern Science

by A. C. Seward

These examples suffice to prove that the theory of the creation of man out of dust or clay has been current among savages in many parts of the world. But it is by no means the only explanation which the savage philosopher has given of the beginnings of human life on earth. Struck by the resemblances which may be traced between himself and the beasts, he has often supposed, like Darwin himself, that mankind has been developed out of lower forms of animal life. For the simple savage has none of that high notion of the transcendant dignity of man which makes so many superior persons shrink with horror from the suggestion that they are distant cousins of the brutes. He on the contrary is not too proud to own his humble relations; indeed his difficulty often is to perceive the distinction between him and them. Questioned by a missionary, a Bushman of more than average intelligence "could not state any difference between a man and a brute—he did not know but a buffalo might shoot with bows and arrows as well as man, if it had them." (Reverend John Campbell, "Travels in South Africa" (London, 1822, II. page 34.) When the Russians first landed on one of the Alaskan islands, the natives took them for cuttle-fish "on account of the buttons on their clothes." (I. Petroff, "Report on the Population, Industries, and Resources of Alaska", page 145.) The Giliaks of the Amoor think that the outward form and size of an animal are only apparent; in substance every beast is a real man, just like a Giliak himself, only endowed with an intelligence and strength, which often surpass those of mere ordinary human beings. (L. Sternberg, "Die Religion der Giljaken", "Archiv fur Religionswissenschaft", VIII. (1905), page 248.) The Borororos, an Indian tribe of Brazil, will have it that they are parrots of a gorgeous red plumage which live in their native forests. Accordingly they treat the birds as their fellow-tribesmen, keeping them in captivity, refusing to eat their flesh, and mourning for them when they die. (K. von den Steinen, "Unter den Naturvolkern Zentral-Brasiliens" (Berlin, 1894), pages 352 sq., 512.))

This sense of the close relationship of man to the lower creation is the essence of totemism, that curious system of superstition which unites by a mystic bond a group of human kinsfolk to a species of animals or plants. Where that system exists in full force, the members of a totem clan identify themselves with their totem animals in a way and to an extent which we find it hard even to imagine. For example, men of the Cassowary clan in Mabuiag think that cassowaries are men or nearly so. "Cassowary, he all same as relation, he belong same family," is the account they give of their relationship with the long-legged bird. Conversely they hold that they themselves are cassowaries for all practical purposes. They pride themselves on having long thin legs like a cassowary. This reflection affords them peculiar satisfaction when they go out to fight, or to run away, as the case may be; for at such times a Cassowary man will say to himself, "My leg is long and thin, I can run and not feel tired; my legs will go quickly and the grass will not entangle them." Members of the Cassowary clan are reputed to be pugnacious, because the cassowary is a bird of very uncertain temper and can kick with extreme violence. (A.C. Haddon, "The Ethnography of the Western Tribe of Torres Straits", "Journal of the Anthropological Institute", XIX. (1890), page 393; "Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits", V. (Cambridge, 1904), pages 166, 184.) So among the Ojibways men of the Bear clan are reputed to be surly and pugnacious like bears, and men of the Crane clan to have clear ringing voices like cranes. (W.W. Warren, "History of the Ojibways", "Collections of the Minnesota Historical Society", V. (Saint Paul, Minn. 1885), pages 47, 49.) Hence the savage will often speak of his totem animal as his father or his brother, and will neither kill it himself nor allow others to do so, if he can help it. For example, if somebody were to kill a bird in the presence of a native Australian who had the bird for his totem, the black might say, "What for you kill that fellow? that my father!" or "That brother belonging to me you have killed; why did you do it?" (E. Palmer, "Notes on some Australian Tribes", "Journal of the Anthropological Institute", XIII. (1884), page 300.) Bechuanas of the Porcupine clan are greatly afflicted if anybody hurts or kills a porcupine in their presence. They say, "They have killed our brother, our master, one of ourselves, him whom we sing of"; and so saying they piously gather the quills of their murdered brother, spit on them, and rub their eyebrows with them. They think they would die if they touched its flesh. In like manner Bechuanas of the Crocodile clan call the crocodile one of themselves, their master, their brother; and they mark the ears of their cattle with a long slit like a crocodile's mouth by way of a family crest. Similarly Bechuanas of the Lion clan would not, like the members of other clans, partake of lion's flesh; for how, say they, could they eat their grandfather? If they are forced in self-defence to kill a lion, they do so with great regret and rub their eyes carefully with its skin, fearing to lose their sight if they neglected this precaution. (T. Arbousset et F. Daumas, "Relation d'un Voyage d'Exploration au Nord-Est de la Colonie du Cap de Bonne-Esperance" (Paris, 1842), pages 349 sq., 422-24.) A Mandingo porter has been known to offer the whole of his month's pay to save the life of a python, because the python was his totem and he therefore regarded the reptile as his relation; he thought that if he allowed the creature to be killed, the whole of his own family would perish, probably through the vengeance to be taken by the reptile kinsfolk of the murdered serpent. (M. le Docteur Tautain, "Notes sur les Croyances et Pratiques Religieuses des Banmanas", "Revue d'Ethnographie", III. (1885), pages 396 sq.; A. Rancon, "Dans la Haute-Gambie, Voyage d'Exploration Scientifique" (Paris, 1894), page 445.)

Sometimes, indeed, the savage goes further and identifies the revered animal not merely with a kinsman but with himself; he imagines that one of his own more or less numerous souls, or at all events that a vital part of himself, is in the beast, so that if it is killed he must die. Thus, the Balong tribe of the Cameroons, in West Africa, think that every man has several souls, of which one is lodged in an elephant, a wild boar, a leopard, or what not. When any one comes home, feels ill, and says, "I shall soon die," and is as good as his word, his friends are of opinion that one of his souls has been shot by a hunter in a wild boar or a leopard, for example, and that that is the real cause of his death. (J. Keller, "Ueber das Land und Volk der Balong", "Deutsches Kolonialblatt", 1 October, 1895, page 484.) A Catholic missionary, sleeping in the hut of a chief of the Fan negroes, awoke in the middle of the night to see a huge black serpent of the most dangerous sort in the act of darting at him. He was about to shoot it when the chief stopped him, saying, "In killing that serpent, it is me that you would have killed. Fear nothing, the serpent is my elangela." (Father Trilles, "Chez les Fang, leurs Moeurs, leur Langue, leur Religion", "Les Missions Catholiques", XXX. (1898), page 322.) At Calabar there used to be some years ago a huge old crocodile which was well known to contain the spirit of a chief who resided in the flesh at Duke Town. Sporting Vice-Consuls, with a reckless disregard of human life, from time to time made determined attempts to injure the animal, and once a peculiarly active officer succeeded in hitting it. The chief was immediately laid up with a wound in his leg. He SAID that a dog had bitten him, but few people perhaps were deceived by so flimsy a pretext. (Miss Mary H. Kingsley, "Travels in West Africa" (London, 1897), pages 538 sq. As to the external or bush souls of human beings, which in this part of Africa are supposed to be lodged in the bodies of animals, see Miss Mary H. Kingsley op. cit. pages 459-461; R. Henshaw, "Notes on the Efik belief in 'bush soul'", "Man", VI.(1906), pages 121 sq.; J. Parkinson, "Notes on the Asaba people (Ibos) of the Niger", "Journal of the Anthropological Institute", XXXVI. (1906), pages 314 sq.) Once when Mr Partridge's canoe-men were about to catch fish near an Assiga town in Southern Nigeria, the natives of the town objected, saying, "Our souls live in those fish, and if you kill them we shall die." (Charles Partridge, "Cross River Natives" (London, 1905), pages 225 sq.) On another occasion, in the same region, an Englishman shot a hippopotamus near a native village. The same night a woman died in the village, and her friends demanded and obtained from the marksman five pounds as compensation for the murder of the woman, whose soul or second self had been in that hippopotamus. (C.H. Robinson, "Hausaland" (London, 1896), pages 36 sq.) Similarly at Ndolo, in the Congo region, we hear of a chief whose life was bound up with a hippopotamus, but he prudently suffered no one to fire at the animal. ("Notes Analytiques sur les Collections Ethnographiques du Musee du Congo", I. (Brussels, 1902-06), page 150.)

Amongst people who thus fail to perceive any sharp line of distinction between beasts and men it is not surprising to meet with the belief that human beings are directly descended from animals. Such a belief is often found among totemic tribes who imagine that their ancestors sprang from their totemic animals or plants; but it is by no means confined to them. Thus, to take instances, some of the Californian Indians, in whose mythology the coyote or prairie-wolf is a leading personage, think that they are descended from coyotes. At first they walked on all fours; then they began to have some members of the human body, one finger, one toe, one eye, one ear, and so on; then they got two fingers, two toes, two eyes, two ears, and so forth; till at last, progressing from period to period, they became perfect human beings. The loss of their tails, which they still deplore, was produced by the habit of sitting upright. (H.R. Schoolcraft, "Indian Tribes of the United States", IV. (Philadelphia, 1856), pages 224 sq.; compare id. V. page 217. The descent of some, not all, Indians from coyotes is mentioned also by Friar Boscana, in (A. Robinson's) "Life in California" (New York, 1846), page 299.) Similarly Darwin thought that "the tail has disappeared in man and the anthropomorphous apes, owing to the terminal portion having been injured by friction during a long lapse of time; the basal and embedded portion having been reduced and modified, so as to become suitable to the erect or semi-erect position." (Charles Darwin, "The Descent of Man", Second Edition (London, 1879), page 60.) The Turtle clam of the Iroquois think that they are descended from real mud turtles which used to live in a pool. One hot summer the pool dried up, and the mud turtles set out to find another. A very fat turtle, waddling after the rest in the heat, was much incommoded by the weight of his shell, till by a great effort he heaved it off altogether. After that he gradually developed into a man and became the progenitor of the Turtle clan. (E.A. Smith, "Myths of the Iroquois", "Second Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology" (Washington, 1883), page 77.) The Crawfish band of the Choctaws are in like manner descended from real crawfish, which used to live under ground, only coming up occasionally through the mud to the surface. Once a party of Choctaws smoked them out, taught them the Choctaw language, taught them to walk on two legs, made them cut off their toe nails and pluck the hair from their bodies, after which they adopted them into the tribe. But the rest of their kindred, the crawfish, are crawfish under ground to this day. (Geo. Catlin, "North American Indians" 4 (London, 1844), II. page 128.) The Osage Indians universally believed that they were descended from a male snail and a female beaver. A flood swept the snail down to the Missouri and left him high and dry on the bank, where the sun ripened him into a man. He met and married a beaver maid, and from the pair the tribe of the Osages is descended. For a long time these Indians retained a pious reverence for their animal ancestors and refrained from hunting beavers, because in killing a beaver they killed a brother of the Osages. But when white men came among them and offered high prices for beaver skins, the Osages yielded to the temptation and took the lives of their furry brethren. (Lewis and Clarke, "Travels to the Source of the Missouri River" (London, 1815), I. 12 (Vol. I. pages 44 sq. of the London reprint, 1905).) The Carp clan of the Ootawak Indians are descended from the eggs of a carp which had been deposited by the fish on the banks of a stream and warmed by the sun. ("Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses", Nouvelle Edition, VI. (Paris, 1781), page 171.) The Crane clan of the Ojibways are sprung originally from a pair of cranes, which after long wanderings settled on the rapids at the outlet of Lake Superior, where they were changed by the Great Spirit into a man and woman. (L.H. Morgan, "Ancient Society" (London, 1877), page 180.) The members of two Omaha clans were originally buffaloes and lived, oddly enough, under water, which they splashed about, making it muddy. And at death all the members of these clans went back to their ancestors the buffaloes. So when one of them lay adying, his friends used to wrap him up in a buffalo skin with the hair outside and say to him, "You came hither from the animals and you are going back thither. Do not face this way again. When you go, continue walking. (J. Owen Dorsey, "Omaha Sociology", "Third Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology" (Washington, 1884), pages 229, 233.) The Haida Indians of Queen Charlotte Islands believe that long ago the raven, who is the chief figure in the mythology of North-West America, took a cockle from the beach and married it; the cockle gave birth to a female child, whom the raven took to wife, and from their union the Indians were produced. (G.M. Dawson, "Report on the Queen Charlotte Islands" (Montreal, 1880), pages 149B sq. ("Geological Survey of Canada"); F. Poole, "Queen Charlotte Islands", page 136.) The Delaware Indians called the rattle-snake their grandfather and would on no account destroy one of these reptiles, believing that were they to do so the whole race of rattle-snakes would rise up and bite them. Under the influence of the white man, however, their respect for their grandfather the rattle-snake gradually died away, till at last they killed him without compunction or ceremony whenever they met him. The writer who records the old custom observes that he had often reflected on the curious connection which appears to subsist in the mind of an Indian between man and the brute creation; "all animated nature," says he, "in whatever degree, is in their eyes a great whole, from which they have not yet ventured to separate themselves." (Rev. John Heckewelder, "An Account of the History, Manners, and Customs, of the Indian Nations, who once inhabited Pennsylvania and the Neighbouring States", "Transactions of the Historical and Literary Committee of the American Philosophical Society", I. (Philadelphia, 1819), pages 245, 247, 248.)

Some of the Indians of Peru boasted of being descended from the puma or American lion; hence they adored the lion as a god and appeared at festivals like Hercules dressed in the skins of lions with the heads of the beasts fixed over their own. Others claimed to be sprung from condors and attired themselves in great black and white wings, like that enormous bird. (Garcilasso de la Vega, "First Part of the Royal Commentaries of the Yncas", Vol. I. page 323, Vol. II. page 156 (Markham's translation).) The Wanika of East Africa look upon the hyaena as one of their ancestors or as associated in some way with their origin and destiny. The death of a hyaena is mourned by the whole people, and the greatest funeral ceremonies which they perform are performed for this brute. The wake held over a chief is as nothing compared to the wake held over a hyaena; one tribe only mourns the death of its chief, but all the tribes unite to celebrate the obsequies of a hyaena. (Charles New, "Life, Wanderings, and Labours in Eastern Africa" (London, 1873) page 122.) Some Malagasy families claim to be descended from the babacoote (Lichanotus brevicaudatus), a large lemur of grave appearance and staid demeanour, which lives in the depth of the forest. When they find one of these creatures dead, his human descendants bury it solemnly, digging a grave for it, wrapping it in a shroud, and weeping and lamenting over its carcase. A doctor who had shot a babacoote was accused by the inhabitants of a Betsimisaraka village of having killed "one of their grandfathers in the forest," and to appease their indignation he had to promise not to skin the animal in the village but in a solitary place where nobody could see him. (Father Abinal, "Croyances fabuleuses des Malgaches", "Les Missions Catholiques", XII. (1880), page 526; G.H. Smith, "Some Betsimisaraka superstitions", "The Antananarivo Annual and Madagascar Magazine", No. 10 (Antananarivo, 1886), page 239; H.W. Little, "Madagascar, its History and People" (London, 1884), pages 321 sq; A. van Gennep, "Tabou et Totemisme a Madagascar" (Paris, 1904), pages 214 sqq.) Many of the Betsimisaraka believe that the curious nocturnal animal called the aye-aye (Cheiromys madagascariensis) "is the embodiment of their forefathers, and hence will not touch it, much less do it an injury. It is said that when one is discovered dead in the forest, these people make a tomb for it and bury it with all the forms of a funeral. They think that if they attempt to entrap it, they will surely die in consequence." (G.A. Shaw, "The Aye-aye", "Antananarivo Annual and Madagascar Magazine", Vol. II. (Antananarivo, 1896), pages 201, 203 (Reprint of the Second four Numbers). Compare A. van Gennep, "Tabou et Totemisme a Madagascar", pages 223 sq.) Some Malagasy tribes believe themselves descended from crocodiles and accordingly they deem the formidable reptiles their brothers. If one of these scaly brothers so far forgets the ties of kinship as to devour a man, the chief of the tribe, or in his absence an old man familiar with the tribal customs, repairs at the head of the people to the edge of the water, and summons the family of the culprit to deliver him up to the arm of justice. A hook is then baited and cast into the river or lake. Next day the guilty brother or one of his family is dragged ashore, formally tried, sentenced to death, and executed. The claims of justice being thus satisfied, the dead animal is lamented and buried like a kinsman; a mound is raised over his grave and a stone marks the place of his head. (Father Abinal, "Croyances fabuleuses des Malgaches", "Les Missions Catholiques", XII. (1880), page 527; A. van Gennep, "Tabou et Totemisme a Madagascar", pages 281 sq.)

Amongst the Tshi-speaking tribes of the Gold Coast in West Africa the Horse-mackerel family traces its descent from a real horse-mackerel whom an ancestor of theirs once took to wife. She lived with him happily in human shape on shore till one day a second wife, whom the man had married, cruelly taunted her with being nothing but a fish. That hurt her so much that bidding her husband farewell she returned to her old home in the sea, with her youngest child in her arms, and never came back again. But ever since the Horse-mackerel people have refrained from eating horse-mackerels, because the lost wife and mother was a fish of that sort. (A.B. Ellis, "The Tshi-speaking Peoples of the Gold Coast of West Africa" (London, 1887), pages 208-11. A similar tale is told by another fish family who abstain from eating the fish (appei) from which they take their name (A.B. Ellis op. cit. pages 211 sq.).) Some of the Land Dyaks of Borneo tell a similar tale to explain a similar custom. "There is a fish which is taken in their rivers called a puttin, which they would on no account touch, under the idea that if they did they would be eating their relations. The tradition respecting it is, that a solitary old man went out fishing and caught a puttin, which he dragged out of the water and laid down in his boat. On turning round, he found it had changed into a very pretty little girl. Conceiving the idea she would make, what he had long wished for, a charming wife for his son, he took her home and educated her until she was fit to be married. She consented to be the son's wife cautioning her husband to use her well. Some time after their marriage, however, being out of temper, he struck her, when she screamed, and rushed away into the water; but not without leaving behind her a beautiful daughter, who became afterwards the mother of the race." (The Lord Bishop of Labuan, "On the Wild Tribes of the North-West Coast of Borneo", "Transactions of the Ethnological Society of London", New Series II. (London, 1863), pages 26 sq. Such stories conform to a well-known type which may be called the Swan-Maiden type of story, or Beauty and the Beast, or Cupid and Psyche. The occurrence of stories of this type among totemic peoples, such as the Tshi-speaking negroes of the Gold Coast, who tell them to explain their totemic taboos, suggests that all such tales may have originated in totemism. I shall deal with this question elsewhere.)

Members of a clan in Mandailing, on the west coast of Sumatra, assert that they are descended from a tiger, and at the present day, when a tiger is shot, the women of the clan are bound to offer betel to the dead beast. When members of this clan come upon the tracks of a tiger, they must, as a mark of homage, enclose them with three little sticks. Further, it is believed that the tiger will not attack or lacerate his kinsmen, the members of the clan. (H. Ris, "De Onderafdeeling Klein Mandailing Oeloe en Pahantan en hare Bevolking met uitzondering van de Oeloes", "Bijdragen tot de Tall- Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlansch-Indie, XLVI." (1896), page 473.) The Battas of Central Sumatra are divided into a number of clans which have for their totems white buffaloes, goats, wild turtle-doves, dogs, cats, apes, tigers, and so forth; and one of the explanations which they give of their totems is that these creatures were their ancestors, and that their own souls after death can transmigrate into the animals. (J.B. Neumann, "Het Pane en Bila-stroomgebied op het eiland Sumatra", "Tijdschrift van het Nederlandsch Aardrijkskundig Genootschap", Tweede Serie, III. Afdeeling, Meer uitgebreide Artikelen, No. 2 (Amsterdam, 1886), pages 311 sq.; id. ib. Tweede Serie, IV. Afdeeling, Meer uitgebreide Artikelen, No. 1 (Amsterdam, 1887), pages 8 sq.) In Amboyna and the neighbouring islands the inhabitants of some villages aver that they are descended from trees, such as the Capellenia moluccana, which had been fertilised by the Pandion Haliaetus. Others claim to be sprung from pigs, octopuses, crocodiles, sharks, and eels. People will not burn the wood of the trees from which they trace their descent, nor eat the flesh of the animals which they regard as their ancestors. Sicknesses of all sorts are believed to result from disregarding these taboos. (J.G.F. Riedel, "De sluik- en kroesharige rassen tusschen Selebes en Papua" (The Hague, 1886), pages 32, 61; G.W.W.C. Baron van Hoevell, "Ambon en meer bepaaldelijk de Oeliasers" (Dordrecht, 1875), page 152.) Similarly in Ceram persons who think they are descended from crocodiles, serpents, iguanas, and sharks will not eat the flesh of these animals. (J.G.F. Riedel op. cit. page 122.) Many other peoples of the Molucca Islands entertain similar beliefs and observe similar taboos. (J.G.F. Riedel "De sluik- en kroesharige rassen tusschen Selebes en Papua" (The Hague, 1886), pages 253, 334, 341, 348, 412, 414, 432.) Again, in Ponape, one of the Caroline Islands, "The different families suppose themselves to stand in a certain relation to animals, and especially to fishes, and believe in their descent from them. They actually name these animals 'mothers'; the creatures are sacred to the family and may not be injured. Great dances, accompanied with the offering of prayers, are performed in their honour. Any person who killed such an animal would expose himself to contempt and punishment, certainly also to the vengeance of the insulted deity." Blindness is commonly supposed to be the consequence of such a sacrilege. (Dr Hahl, "Mittheilungen uber Sitten und rechtliche Verhaltnisse auf Ponape", "Ethnologisches Notizblatt", Vol. II. Heft 2 (Berlin, 1901), page 10.)

Some of the aborigines of Western Australia believe that their ancestors were swans, ducks, or various other species of water-fowl before they were transformed into men. (Captain G. Grey, "A Vocabulary of the Dialects of South Western Australia", Second Edition (London, 1840), pages 29, 37, 61, 63, 66, 71.) The Dieri tribe of Central Australia, who are divided into totemic clans, explain their origin by the following legend. They say that in the beginning the earth opened in the midst of Perigundi Lake, and the totems (murdus or madas) came trooping out one after the other. Out came the crow, and the shell parakeet, and the emu, and all the rest. Being as yet imperfectly formed and without members or organs of sense, they laid themselves down on the sandhills which surrounded the lake then just as they do now. It was a bright day and the totems lay basking in the sunshine, till at last, refreshed and invigorated by it, they stood up as human beings and dispersed in all directions. That is why people of the same totem are now scattered all over the country. You may still see the island in the lake out of which the totems came trooping long ago. (A.W. Howitt, "Native Tribes of South-East Australia" (London, 1904), pages 476, 779 sq.) Another Dieri legend relates how Paralina, one of the Mura-Muras or mythical predecessors of the Dieri, perfected mankind. He was out hunting kangaroos, when he saw four incomplete beings cowering together. So he went up to them, smoothed their bodies, stretched out their limbs, slit up their fingers and toes, formed their mouths, noses, and eyes, stuck ears on them, and blew into their ears in order that they might hear. Having perfected their organs and so produced mankind out of these rudimentary beings, he went about making men everywhere. (A.W. Howitt op. cit., pages 476, 780 sq.) Yet another Dieri tradition sets forth how the Mura-Mura produced the race of man out of a species of small black lizards, which may still be met with under dry bark. To do this he divided the feet of the lizards into fingers and toes, and, applying his forefinger to the middle of their faces, created a nose; likewise he gave them human eyes, mouths and ears. He next set one of them upright, but it fell down again because of its tail; so he cut off its tail and the lizard then walked on its hind legs. That is the origin of mankind. (S. Gason, "The Manners and Customs of the Dieyerie tribe of Australian Aborigines", "Native Tribes of South Australia" (Adelaide, 1879), page 260. This writer fell into the mistake of regarding the Mura-Mura (Mooramoora) as a Good-Spirit instead of as one of the mythical but more or less human predecessors of the Dieri in the country. See A.W. Howitt, "Native Tribes of South-East Australia", pages 475 sqq.)

The Arunta tribe of Central Australia similarly tell how in the beginning mankind was developed out of various rudimentary forms of animal life. They say that in those days two beings called Ungambikula, that is, "out of nothing," or "self-existing," dwelt in the western sky. From their lofty abode they could see, far away to the east, a number of inapertwa creatures, that is, rudimentary human beings or incomplete men, whom it was their mission to make into real men and women. For at that time there were no real men and women; the rudimentary creatures (inapertwa) were of various shapes and dwelt in groups along the shore of the salt water which covered the country. These embryos, as we may call them, had no distinct limbs or organs of sight, hearing, and smell; they did not eat food, and they presented the appearance of human beings all doubled up into a rounded mass, in which only the outline of the different parts of the body could be vaguely perceived. Coming down from their home in the western sky, armed with great stone knives, the Ungambikula took hold of the embryos, one after the other. First of all they released the arms from the bodies, then making four clefts at the end of each arm they fashioned hands and fingers; afterwards legs, feet, and toes were added in the same way. The figure could now stand; a nose was then moulded and the nostrils bored with the fingers. A cut with the knife made the mouth, which was pulled open several times to render it flexible. A slit on each side of the face separated the upper and lower eye-lids, disclosing the eyes, which already existed behind them; and a few strokes more completed the body. Thus out of the rudimentary creatures were formed men and women. These rudimentary creatures or embryos, we are told, "were in reality stages in the transformation of various animals and plants into human beings, and thus they were naturally, when made into human beings, intimately associated with the particular animal or plant, as the case may be, of which they were the transformations—in other words, each individual of necessity belonged to a totem, the name of which was of course that of the animal or plant of which he or she was a transformation." However, it is not said that all the totemic clans of the Arunta were thus developed; no such tradition, for example, is told to explain the origin of the important Witchetty Grub clan. The clans which are positively known, or at least said, to have originated out of embryos in the way described are the Plum Tree, the Grass Seed, the Large Lizard, the Small Lizard, the Alexandra Parakeet, and the Small Rat clans. When the Ungambikula had thus fashioned people of these totems, they circumcised them all, except the Plum Tree men, by means of a fire-stick. After that, having done the work of creation or evolution, the Ungambikula turned themselves into little lizards which bear a name meaning "snappers-up of flies." (Baldwin Spencer and F.J. Gillen, "Native Tribes of Central Australia" (London, 1899), pages 388 sq.; compare id., "Northern Tribes of Central Australia" (London, 1904), page 150.)

This Arunta tradition of the origin of man, as Messrs Spencer and Gillen, who have recorded it, justly observe, "is of considerable interest; it is in the first place evidently a crude attempt to describe the origin of human beings out of non-human creatures who were of various forms; some of them were representatives of animals, others of plants, but in all cases they are to be regarded as intermediate stages in the transition of an animal or plant ancestor into a human individual who bore its name as that of his or her totem." (Baldwin Spencer and F.J. Gillen, "Native Tribes of Central Australia", pages 391 sq.) In a sense these speculations of the Arunta on their own origin may be said to combine the theory of creation with the theory of evolution; for while they represent men as developed out of much simpler forms of life, they at the same time assume that this development was effected by the agency of two powerful beings, whom so far we may call creators. It is well known that at a far higher stage of culture a crude form of the evolutionary hypothesis was propounded by the Greek philosopher Empedocles. He imagined that shapeless lumps of earth and water, thrown up by the subterranean fires, developed into monstrous animals, bulls with the heads of men, men with the heads of bulls, and so forth; till at last, these hybrid forms being gradually eliminated, the various existing species of animals and men were evolved. (E. Zeller, "Die Philosophie der Griechen", I.4 (Leipsic, 1876), pages 718 sq.; H. Ritter et L. Preller, "Historia Philosophiae Graecae et Romanae ex fontium locis contexta" 5, pages 102 sq. H. Diels, "Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker" 2, I. (Berlin, 1906), pages 190 sqq. Compare Lucretius "De rerum natura", V. 837 sqq.) The theory of the civilised Greek of Sicily may be set beside the similar theory of the savage Arunta of Central Australia. Both represent gropings of the human mind in the dark abyss of the past; both were in a measure grotesque anticipations of the modern theory of evolution.