Human Origins

by S. Laing

Short Duration of Tradition—No Recollection of Stone Age—Celts taken for Thunderbolts—Stone Age in Egypt—Palæolithic Implements—Earliest Egyptian Traditions—Extinct Animals forgotten—Their Bones attributed to Giants—Chinese and American Traditions—Traditions of Origin of Man—Philosophical Myths—Cruder Myths from Stones, Trees, and Animals—Totems—Recent Events soon forgotten—Autochthonous Nations—Wide Diffusion of Prehistoric Myths—The Deluge—Importance of, as Test of Inspiration—More Definite than Legend of Creation—What the Account of the Deluge in Genesis really says—Date—Extent—Duration—All Life destroyed except Pairs preserved in the Ark—Such a Deluge impossible—Contradicted by Physical Science—By Geology—By Zoology—By Ethnology—By History—How Deluge Myths arise—Local Floods—Sea Shells on Mountains—Solar Myths—Deluge of Hasisadra—Noah's Deluge copied from it—Revised in a Monotheistic Sense at a comparatively Late Period—Conclusion—National View of Inspiration.

In passing from the historical period, in which we can appeal to written records and monuments, into that of palæontology and geology, where we have to rely on scientific facts and reasons, we have to traverse an intermediate stage in which legends and traditions still cast a dim and glimmering twilight. The first point to notice is that this, like the twilight of tropical evenings, is extremely brief, and fades almost at once into the darkness of night.

It is singular in how short a time all memory is lost of events which are not recorded in some form of writing or inscription, and depend solely on oral tradition. Thus it may be safely affirmed that no nation which has passed into the metal age retains any distinct recollection of that of polished stone, and à fortiori none of the palæolithic period, or of the origins of their own race or of mankind. The proof of this is found in the fact that the stone axes and arrow-heads which are found so abundantly in many countries are everywhere taken for thunderbolts or fairy arrows shot down from the skies. This belief was well-nigh universal throughout the world; we find it in all the classical nations, in modern Europe, in China, Japan, and India. Its antiquity is attested by the fact that neolithic arrow-heads have been found attached as amulets in necklaces from Egyptian and Etruscan tombs, and palæolithic celts in the foundations of Chaldæan temples. In India many of the best specimens of palæolithic implements were obtained from the gardens of ryots, where they had been placed on posts, and offerings of ghee duly made to them. Like so many old superstitions, this still lingers in popular belief, and the common name for the finely-chipped arrow-heads which are so plentifully scattered over the soil from Scotland to Japan, is that of elf-bolts, supposed to have been shot down from the skies by fairies or spirits.

Until the discoveries of Boucher-de-Perthes were confirmed only half a century ago, this belief was not only that of simple peasants, but of the learned men of all countries, and the volumes are innumerable that have been written to explain how the "cerauni," or stone-celts, taken to be thunderbolts, were formed in the air during storms. They are already described by Pliny, and a Chinese Encyclopædia says that "some of these lightning stones have the shape of a hatchet, others of a knife, some are made like mallets. They are metals, stones, and pebbles, which the fire of the thunder has metamorphosed by splitting them suddenly and uniting inseparably different substances. On some of them a kind of vitrification is distinctly to be observed."

The Chinese philosopher was evidently acquainted with real meteorites and with the stone implements which were mistaken for them, and his account is comparatively sober and rational. But the explanations of the Christian fathers and mediæval philosophers, and even of scientific writers down to a very recent period, are vastly more mystical. A single specimen may suffice which is quoted by Tylor in his Early History of Mankind. Tollius in 1649 figures some ordinary palæolithic stone axes and hammers, and tells us that "the naturalists say they are generated in the sky by a fulgurous exhalation conglobed in a cloud by the circumfused humour, and are as it were baked hard by intense heat, and the weapon becomes pointed by the damp mixed with it flying from the dry part, and leaving the other end denser, but the exhalations press it so hard that it breaks out through the cloud and makes thunder and lightning."

But these attempts at scientific explanations were looked upon with disfavour by theologians, the orthodox belief being that the "cerauni" were the bolts by which Satan and his angels had been driven from heaven into the fiery abyss. These speculations, however, of later ages are of less importance for our present purpose than the fact that in no single instance can anything like a real historical tradition be found connecting the stone age with that of metals, and giving a true account of even the latest forms of neolithic implements.

This is the more remarkable in the case of Egypt, where historical records go back so very far, for here, as we have seen in a previous chapter, the relics of a stone age exist in considerable numbers. There is every probability, therefore, that Egyptian civilization had been developed, mainly on the spot, from the rude beginnings of a palæolithic age, through the incipient civilization of the neolithic, into the age of metals, and the advanced civilization which preceded the consolidation of the empire under Menes and the commencement of history.[6] And yet no tradition, with a pretence to be historical, goes back farther than with a very dim and nickering light for a few centuries before Menes, when the Horsheshu, or priests of Horus, ruled independent cities, and small districts attached to the temples. There are accounts of some passages of the Todtenbuch being taken from old hymns written on goatskin in the time of these Horsheshu, and of historical temples built on plans taken from older temples and attributed to Thoth; and it seems probable also that the Sphynx and its temple may date from the same period. But beyond these few and vague instances, there is nothing to confirm the statement attributed to Manetho, that, prior to Menes, historical kings had reigned in Thebes for 1817 years, in Memphis for 1790 years, and in This for 350 years; before whom came heroes and kings for 5813 years, heroes for 1255 years, and gods for 13,900 years.

The disappearance of all historical recollections of a stone age is paralleled by the oblivion of the origin of the remains of the great extinct quaternary animals which were contemporary with man. Everywhere we find the fossil bones of the elephant and rhinoceros attributed to monsters and giants, both in the ancient and modern worlds. St. Augustine denounces infidels who do not believe that "men's bodies were formerly much greater than now," and quotes, in proof of the assertion, that he had seen himself "so huge a molar tooth of a man, that it would cut up into a hundred teeth of ordinary men,"—doubtless the molar of a fossil elephant. Marcus Scaurus brought to Rome from Joppa the bones of the monster who was to have devoured Andromeda. The Chinese Encyclopædia, already referred to, describes the "Fon-shu, an animal which dwells in the extreme cold on the coast of the Northern Sea, which resembles a rat in shape, but is as big as an elephant, and lives in dark caverns, ever shunning the light. There is got from it an ivory as white as that of an elephant;" evidently referring to the frozen mammoths found in Siberia. Similar circumstances gave rise to the same myth in South America, and the natives told Darwin that the skeletons of the mastodon on the banks of the Parana were those of a huge burrowing animal, like the bizchaca or prairie-rat.

Numerous similar instances are given by Tyler in his Early History of Mankind, and among the whole multitude of this class of myths, there is only one which has the least semblance of being derived from actual tradition, viz. the bas-relief of the sacrifice of a human victim by a Mexican priest, who wears a mask of an animal with a trunk resembling an elephant or mastodon; and certain vague traditions among some of the Red Indian tribes speak of an animal with an arm protruding from its shoulder. It is more probable, however, that these may have been derived from traditions brought over from Asia like the Mexican Calendar, or be creations of the fancy, like dragons and griffins, inspired by some idea of an exaggerated tapir, than that, in this solitary instance, a Mexican priest should have been actually a contemporary of the mammoth or mastodon.

If fossil animals have thus given rise everywhere to legends of giants, fossil shells have played the same part as regards legends of a deluge. These are in many cases so abundant at high levels that they could not fail to be observed, and, if observed, to be attributed to the sea having once covered these levels, and inundated all the earth except the highest peaks. The tradition of an universal deluge is however so important that I reserve it for separate consideration at the end of the present chapter.