Compare the following account of the New Zealanders:—
“Shut out from the rest of the world, without any to set them a pattern of what was right or to reprove what was wrong, is it surprising that morally they should have degenerated, even from the standard of their forefathers? They were not always addicted to war, neither were they always cannibals; the remembrance of the origin of these horrid customs is still preserved amongst them. If the progressive development theory were true, aboriginal races should have progressively advanced; every successive generation should have added some improvement to the one which preceded it; but experience proves the contrary. A remarkable instance of this may be adduced in the fact, that the New Zealanders have retrograded, even since the days of Captain Cook; they then possessed large double canoes, decked, with houses on them similar to those of Tahiti and Hawaii, in which, traditionally, their ancestors arrived; it is now more than half a century since the last was seen. Tradition also states that they had finer garments in former days and of different kinds; that, like their reputed ancestors, they made cloth from the bark of trees—the name is preserved, but the manufacture has ceased. There are remains also in their language which would lead us to suppose that, like the inhabitants of Tonga, they once possessed a kingly form of government, and though they have now no term to express that high office, still they have words which are evidently derived from the very one denoting a king in Tonga. Their traditions, which are preserved, also establish the same fact, and perhaps one of the strongest proofs is their language; its fulness, its richness, and close affinity not only in words but in grammar to the Sanscrit, carries the mind back to a time when literature could not have been unknown.” From “Te Ika a Maui,” or “New Zealand and its Inhabitants,” by the Rev. Richard Taylor, M.A., F.G.S., a Missionary in New Zealand for more than thirty years, pp. 5, 6.
CHAPTER XIII
NOAH AND THE GOLDEN AGE.
Taking as the basis of this theory that the law of nations forms part of a tradition, that the stream of this tradition has never ceased to flow, and that the diffusion of its waters has ever been the source and condition of fecundity; and further, that this tradition in its main current has run in the channels which Dr Newman (infra, [p. 338]) has indicated—for although there are other reservoirs, they have become stagnant, and exist like the fresh-water lake, the Bahr-i-Nedjig (vide Rawlinson’s “Ancient Monarchies,” i. 18), whose waters are “fresh and sweet” so long as they communicate with the Euphrates, but when they are cut off become “unpalatable,” so that those “who dwell in the vicinity are no longer able to drink of it”—taking these various facts as the basis, we come inevitably to the question—Whence this tradition arose, and upon what authority and sanction it rests?
In answer to this I do not hesitate to affirm that presumptively it goes back to the commencement of human history, and more demonstrably to that commencement—which for historical and practical purposes is sufficient—the era of Noah.
I propose now to inquire how near this theory can be brought to the facts.
A fairer opportunity could hardly have been afforded for ascertaining the force and fulness of primitive tradition than the discovery of the American continent; yet this opportunity was totally disregarded by the Spanish conquerors,[266]—rough men, and for the most part the offscourings of Spain,—and its evidences were but sparsely and negligently collected by the explorers of a different character who followed at a later date.
Something, however, of primitive tradition has been thus preserved (vide Help’s “Spanish Conquest of America,” i. 278, 286, 290; Prescott, “Mexico,” i. 54). Indeed, the approximation to the biblical narrative is so close that the suspicion would be quite reasonable that missionaries of whom we have no record had found their way to these people before the continent became known to us; or that the people themselves were of Jewish descent; or that they had left the Asiatic mainland subsequently to the preaching of St Thomas the apostle. Manco Capac (vide infra), according to this conjecture, may have been one of these missionaries; or it may even be that in the venerable image which the description calls up we see in vision the apostle himself.
When, however, the description is compared with the traditions I have collated of a patriarchal character—still more remote and venerable, “Him of mazy counsel—Saturn” (Hesiod), I shall ask the reader to decide whether the more improbable conjecture, measured according to time and distance, has not the greater weight of evidence.