These mythological coincidences are, indeed, so strongly supported by similarity of customs and linguistic affinities, that there can be no difficulty in classing the Mexicans and kindred American peoples, and even the lighter Polynesians, with the Adamites. This being so, a still broader generalisation than any yet attempted may be made as to the peoples to be included in the Adamic division of the human race. The simplest classification of mankind, according to cranial conformation, is that of Retzius into dolichocephali, or long heads, and brachycephali, or short heads. The Mexicans, and other peoples of the western part of the American Continent, belong to the latter category, as do also the inhabitants of the greater part of the area of Asia and Europe. In China, and in the southern part of Asia as well as of Europe, the various peoples are chiefly long-headed, and this is the case with the Hamitic population of Northern Africa. The latter are, however, certainly much mixed with the native African element, which is purely dolichocephalic, exhibiting traces of its prognathism; and it is far from improbable that originally they were brachycephalic, like the allied peoples of Western Asia. Such also may have been the case with the Chinese and the lighter Polynesians, who are now nearly dolichocephalic.[229] Throughout all the regions where these peoples are found there would appear to have been an indigenous long-headed stock, which has more or less nearly absorbed the brachycephalic element, which was introduced long ages ago from the vast regions of Central Asia, and which, for want of a better term, may be called Scythic. Subject to this qualification, it may probably be said that Adamic and short-headed are synonymous terms, and that among the descendants of Father Ad may, therefore, be classed all the peoples who are embraced in the great brachycephalic division of mankind, or who would have belonged to it, if they had not been physically modified by contact with peoples of the more primitive dolichocephalic area.
How far the Adamites have trespassed on this area it is difficult to determine. That they have become mixed with the peoples of the African Continent to a much larger extent than is usually supposed may be believed. The Hottentots, at its extremest limit, are no doubt a residual deposit of such intermixture; while the great family to which the Kafirs belong furnish evidence of it in various particulars. The Adamites appear also to have spread throughout the archipelagos of the Pacific, furnishing an explanation of the many customs and myths in which the Polynesian Islanders agree with Asiatic peoples. Nor are the Adamites much less widely spread throughout the American Continent. Apart from what Professor Busk affirms, that a broad type of head is to be met with on the coast all round South America, peoples allied to those of Mexico and Central America would seem to have occupied many of the West Indian Islands, and to have penetrated through the central portion of North America to the Great Lakes. Wherever the Adamites have come into contact with the long-headed pre-Adamitic stock, they have either made these to disappear, or, while having their physical structure somewhat modified by intermixture, they have established a supremacy due to their greater vigour and mental energy. It is difficult, indeed, to say where the descendants of Ad are not now to be met with, or where the pre-Adamite is to be found uninfluenced by contact with them.
In conclusion, it will be well to endeavour to ascertain the origin of the tradition as to Adam or father Ad. According to usually received teaching, Adam and Eve were the actual first parents of the human race, or, at all events, of the Adamic portion of it. Whether or not this idea is correct need not be further considered here, beyond stating that if, as Bunsen suggests, the existence of other antediluvian patriarchs be mythical, so also must be that of Adam from whom they are said to have sprung.
The Semitic word ADaM conveys several ideas. In the form Adamah or Adami it has reference to the earth or soil, but its primary sense was either “red” or “man.” Probably a double meaning was conveyed in the name of the Egyptian god Atum, whose representation was that of a red man. It must be noted, however, that the traditional ancestor is usually styled, not Adam but simply Ad; and this primitive root may have had some other signification, analogous perhaps to that of Eve (Hhavváh), “the mother of all living.” This word, which denotes “life,” is from hhayáh, to live, to give life—the allied word in Arabic being haywān, and the Arabic name for Eve becoming hawwa. Now, in the Celtic dialects ad forms the root of words denoting vegetable vitality. In Welsh, moreover, tad is a father; the base, ta, denoting, among allied senses, “a supreme one,” reminding us of the Chinese ta, great; and connected with it being tras, kindred, affinity. Turning, however, to Eastern languages, we find that the old Egyptian had a word ti, with a sense analogous to that of the Welsh ta, and also a verb ta, to give, which is found in Hebrew, as ’athah, to come, and in Arabic as ata, to give, or to bring forth. It is evident that the primitive root, consisting of the dental t or d, preceded or followed by a vowel sound, had associated with it the idea of activity, and probably of paternity. In the old Akkad speech, indeed, ad itself signifies a “father,” and we are justified, therefore, in supposing that when this word was used as the name of the mythical common ancestor, it had a sense analogous to that which “Eve” expressed, i.e., “the father of life, or of all living.” In Adam and Eve, therefore, we may have a reference to the male and female principles which, in the philosophy of the ancients, as in that of the Chinese and some other Eastern peoples, pervade all nature, and originate all things, applied particularly, however, to the human race. But Adam was not the name given at first to this mystical father of the race. The Egyptian Atum was originally a cosmogonic deity. Bunsen states that the name of this god may be resolved into At-Mu, meaning “Creator of the mother or night.” The sense of this, however, is not very apparent, and it may be suggested that the term Adam (in Egyptian Atum) was formed by the combination of the primitive akkad words Ad, father, and Dam, mother. It would thus originally express a dual idea, agreeably to the statement in Gen. v. 2, that male and female were called “Adam.” This agrees perfectly with the Persian tradition which made the first human being androgynous. When the dual idea expressed in the name was forgotten, Adam became the Great Father, the Great Mother receiving the name of Eve (Hhavváh), i.e., living or life, although Adam in the generic sense of “Mankind,” denoted both male and female.
Note.—The Turanian or rather Altaic affinity of the Akkad, referred to at page 109 above, appears to have been established by M. Lenormant, who states that their name means “Mountaineers,” from Akkad, a mountain. It is possible, however, that the word may have had a more primitive signification. As the name of a country and not of a people, Akkad did not come into use until the Assyrian epoch, “When the Accadian had become a dead language, and the tradition of the real meaning of the word was consequently quite lost.” (Chaldean Magic and Sorcery, p. 404.) As to the aboriginal Arab people referred to at page 117, it may be mentioned that M. Lenormant (Hist. Anc. de l’Orient, 9th Ed. I. t. prem. p. 313), points out that the name, Adah, of the mother of the two sons of Lameckh, who were chiefs of pastoral races, is only the feminine form of that of the people of Ad.
[CHAPTER V.]
THE DESCENDANTS OF CAIN.
In various parts not only of the old world continents, but also of America, and even on some of the Islands of the Pacific, are the ruins of stone buildings which, from their general character, are well called “Kyklopean.” The style of architecture varies in different countries according to the uses for which the buildings were designed, or the local influences among which they were erected. Whatever their form, all those ancient buildings agree in the massive character of their structure, and most of them in the fact that the stones are put together without mortar or cement. Kyklopean architecture proper (in which large unhewn blocks are rudely put together with small stones to fill up the interstices) differs, however, from the Polygonal or Pelasgian, and from the Horizontal or Etruscan, which, in addition, has the courses scrupulously level, with joints vertical, and fitting accurately. General Forlong, the author of “Rivers of Life, or Faiths of Man in all Ages,” while pointing out that distinction, remarks that those several styles do not denote different ages, and that the builders were evidently of the same race. This opinion is confirmed by the fact that all the three styles are found in the ruins of Peru, whose Kyklopean structures, moreover, are not restricted to those of rectangular formation, but sometimes take the form of round towers.
General Forlong identifies the great building race of antiquity with the Kushites or Aithiopians of the Greek historians, and with Mr. Fergusson, he supposes them to have belonged to the Turanian family of peoples. The distinguished architect and archæologist affirms, indeed, that not only were the Turanians the great architects and builders of remote antiquity, but that they were the inventors of all the arts, as well as the religions and mythologies, which were afterwards developed by the later Shemites and Aryans.