Let us now examine in detail a few of the savage stories of the Origin of Death. That told by the Australians may be regarded with suspicion, as a refraction from a careless hearing of the narrative in Genesis. The legend printed by Mr. Brough Smyth [{183a}] was told to Mr. Bulwer by ‘a black fellow far from sharp,’ and this black fellow may conceivably have distorted what his tribe had heard from a missionary. This sort of refraction is not uncommon, and we must always guard ourselves against being deceived by a savage corruption of a Biblical narrative. Here is the myth, such as it is:—‘The first created man and woman were told’ (by whom we do not learn) ‘not to go near a certain tree in which a bat lived. The bat was not to be disturbed. One day, however, the woman was gathering firewood, and she went near the tree. The bat flew away, and after that came Death.’ More evidently genuine is the following legend of how Death ‘got a lead’ into the Australian world. ‘The child of the first man was wounded. If his parents could heal him, Death would never enter the world. They failed. Death came.’ The wound in this legend was inflicted by a supernatural being. Here Death acts on the principle ce n’est que le premier pas qui coûte, and the premier pas was made easy for him. We may continue to examine the stories which account for death as the result of breaking a taboo. The Ningphos of Bengal say they were originally immortal. [{183b}] They were forbidden to bathe in a certain pool of water. Some one, greatly daring, bathed, and ever since Ningphos have been subject to death. The infringement, not of a taboo, but of a custom, caused death in one of the many Melanesian myths on this subject. Men and women had been practically deathless because they cast their old skins at certain intervals; but a grandmother had a favourite grandchild who failed to recognise her when she appeared as a young woman in her new skin. With fatal good-nature the grandmother put on her old skin again, and instantly men lost the art of skin-shifting, and Death finally seized them. [{184}]
The Greek Myth
The Greek myth of the Origin of Death is the most important of those which turn on the breaking of a prohibition. The story has unfortunately become greatly confused in the various poetical forms which have reached us. As far as can be ascertained, death was regarded in one early Greek myth as the punishment of indulgence in forbidden curiosity. Men appear to have been free from death before the quarrel between Zeus and Prometheus. In consequence of this quarrel Hephæstus fashioned a woman out of earth and water, and gave her to Epimetheus, the brother of the Titan. Prometheus had forbidden his brother to accept any gift from the gods, but the bride was welcomed nevertheless. She brought her tabooed coffer: this was opened; and men—who, according to Hesiod, had hitherto lived exempt from ‘maladies that bring down Fate’—were overwhelmed with the ‘diseases that stalk abroad by night and day.’ Now, in Hesiod (Works and Days, 70-100) there is nothing said about unholy curiosity. Pandora simply opened her casket and scattered its fatal contents. But Philodemus assures us that, according to a variant of the myth, it was Epimetheus who opened the forbidden coffer, whence came Death.
Leaving the myths which turn on the breaking of a taboo, and reserving for consideration the New Zealand story, in which the Origin of Death is the neglect of a ritual process, let us look at some African myths of the Origin of Death. It is to be observed that in these (as in all the myths of the most backward races) many of the characters are not gods, but animals.
The Bushman story lacks the beginning. The mother of the little Hare was lying dead, but we do not know how she came to die. The Moon then struck the little Hare on the lip, cutting it open, and saying, ‘Cry loudly, for your mother will not return, as I do, but is quite dead.’ In another version the Moon promises that the old Hare shall return to life, but the little Hare is sceptical, and is hit in the mouth as before. The Hottentot myth makes the Moon send the Hare to men with the message that they will revive as he (the Moon) does. But the Hare ‘loses his memory as he runs’ (to quote the French proverb, which may be based on a form of this very tale), and the messenger brings the tidings that men shall surely die and never revive. The angry Moon then burns a hole in the Hare’s mouth. In yet another Hottentot version the Hare’s failure to deliver the message correctly caused the death of the Moon’s mother (Bleek, Bushman Folklore). [{185}] Compare Sir James Alexander’s Expedition, ii. 250, where the Namaquas tell this tale. The Fijians say that the Moon wished men to die and be born again, like herself. The Rat said, ‘No, let them die, like rats;’ and they do. [{186}]
The Serpent
In this last variant we have death as the result of a failure or transgression. Among the more backward natives of South India (Lewin’s Wild Races of South India) the serpent is concerned, in a suspicious way, with the Origin of Death. The following legend might so easily arise from a confused understanding of the Mohammedan or Biblical narrative that it is of little value for our purpose. At the same time, even if it is only an adaptation, it shows the characteristics of the adapting mind:—God had made the world, trees, and reptiles, and then set to work to make man out of clay. A serpent came and devoured the still inanimate clay images while God slept. The serpent still comes and bites us all, and the end is death. If God never slept, there would be no death. The snake carries us off while God is asleep. But the oddest part of this myth remains. Not being able always to keep awake, God made a dog to drive away the snake by barking. And that is why dogs always howl when men are at the point of death. Here we have our own rural superstition about howling dogs twisted into a South Indian myth of the Origin of Death. The introduction of Death by a pure accident recurs in a myth of Central Africa reported by Mr. Duff Macdonald. There was a time when the man blessed by Sancho Panza had not yet ‘invented sleep.’ A woman it was who came and offered to instruct two men in the still novel art of sleeping. ‘She held the nostrils of one, and he never awoke at all,’ and since then the art of dying has been facile.
Dualistic Myths
A not unnatural theory of the Origin of Death is illustrated by a myth from Pentecost Island and a Red Indian myth. In the legends of very many races we find the attempt to account for the Origin of Death and Evil by a simple dualistic myth. There were two brothers who made things; one made things well, the other made them ill. In Pentecost Island it was Tagar who made things well, and he appointed that men should die for five days only, and live again. But the malevolent Suque caused men ‘to die right out.’ [{187}] The Red Indian legend of the same character is printed in the Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology (1879-80), p. 45. The younger of the Cin-au-av brothers, who were wolves, said, ‘When a man dies, send him back in the morning and let all his friends rejoice.’ ‘Not so,’ said the elder; ‘the dead shall return no more.’ So the younger brother slew the child of the elder, and this was the beginning of death.