Legends of the Patriarchs and Prophets. Baring-Gould Sabine

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also; she made him eat and then forced the fruit on the animals, that they might all, without exception, fall under the same condemnation, and become subject to death. But the bird Chol – that is, the Phœnix – would not be deceived, but flew away and would not eat. And now the Phœnix, says the Rabbi Joden after the Rabbi Simeon, lives a thousand years, then shrivels up till it is the size of an egg, and then from himself he emerges young and beautiful again.

      We have seen what are the Asiatic myths relating to Adam and Eve; let us now turn to Africa. In Egypt it was related that Osiris lived with Isis his sister and wife in Nysa, or Paradise, which was situated in Arabia. This Paradise was an island, surrounded by the stream Triton, but it was also a steep mountain that could only be reached on one side. It was adorned with beautiful flowers and trees laden with pleasant fruits, watered by sweet streams, and in it dwelt the deathless ones.

      There Osiris found the vine, and Isis the wheat, to become the food and drink of men. There they built a golden temple, and lived in supreme happiness till the desire came on Osiris to discover the water of Immortality, in seeking which he left Nysa, and was in the end slain by Typhon.72

      The following is a very curious negro tradition, taken down by Dr. Tutschek from a native in Tumale, near the centre of Africa.

      Til (God) made men and bade them live together in peace and happiness, labor five days, and keep the sixth as a festival. They were forbidden to hurt the beasts or reptiles. They themselves were deathless, but the animals suffered death. The frog was accursed by God, because when He was making the animals it hopped over his foot. Then God ordered the men to build mountains: they did so, but they soon forgot God’s commands, killed the beasts and quarrelled with one another. Wherefore Til (God) sent fire and destroyed them, but saved one of the race, named Musikdegen, alive. Then Til began to re-create beings. He stood before a wood and called, Ombo Abnatum Dgu! and there came out a gazelle and licked His feet. So He said, stand up, Gazelle! and when it stood up, its beast-form disappeared, and it was a beautiful maiden, and He called her Mariam. He blessed her, and she bore four children, a white pair and a black pair. When they were grown up, God ordered them to marry, the white together and the black together. In Dai, the story goes that Til cut out both Mariam’s knee-caps, and of each He made a pair of children. Those which were white He sent north; those which were black He gave possession of the land where they were born.

      God then made the animals subject to death, but the men He made were immortal. But the new created men became disobedient, as had the first creatures; and the frog complained to Him of His injustice in having made the harmless animals subject to death, but guilty man deathless. “Thou art right,” answered Til, and He cast on the men He had made, old age, sickness, and death.73

      The Fantis relate that they are not in the same condition as that in which they were made, for their first parents had been placed in a lofty and more suitable country, but God drave them into an inferior habitation, that they might learn humility. On the Gold Coast the reason of the Fall is said to have been that the first men were offered the choice of gold or of wisdom, and they chose the former.74

      In Ashantee the story is thus told. In the beginning, God created three white and three black men and women, and gave them the choice between good and evil. A great calabash was placed on the earth, as also a sealed paper, and God gave the black men the first choice. They took the calabash, thinking it contained every thing, and in it were only a lump of gold, a bar of iron, and some other metals. The white men took the sealed paper, in which they learned every thing. So God left the black men in the bush and took the white men to the sea, and He taught them how to build ships and go into another land. This fall from God caused the black men to worship the subsidiary Fetishes instead of Him.75

      In Greenland “the first man is said to have been Kallak. He came out of the earth, but his wife issued from his thumb, and from them all generations of men have sprung. To him many attribute the origin of all things. The woman brought death into the world, in that she said, Let us die to make room for our successors.”76

      The tradition of the Dog-rib Indians near the Polar Sea, as related by Sir J. Franklin in his account of his expedition of 1825-27, is that the first man was called Tschäpiwih. He found the earth filled with abundance of all good things. He begat children and he gave to them two sorts of fruit, one white and the other black, and he bade them eat the white, but eschew the black. And having given them this command, he left them and went a long journey to fetch the sun to enlighten the world. During his absence they ate only of the white fruit, and then the father made a second journey to fetch the moon, leaving them well provided with fruit. But after a while they forgot his command, and consumed the black fruit. On his return he was angry, and cursed the ground that it should thenceforth produce only the black fruit, and that with it should come in sickness and death.

      Dr. Hunter, in his “Memoirs of Captivity amongst the Indians,” says that the Delawares believe that in the beginning the Red men had short tails, but they blasphemed the Great Spirit, and in punishment for their sin their tails were cut off and transformed into women, to be their perpetual worry. The same story is told by Mr. Atherne Jones, as heard by him among the Kikapoos.

      The ancient Mexicans had a myth of Xolotl, making out of a man’s bone the primeval mother in the heavenly Paradise; and he called the woman he had made Cihuacouhatl, which means “The woman with the serpent,” or Quilatzli, which means “The woman of our flesh.” She was the mother of twins, and is represented in a Mexican hieroglyph as speaking with the serpent, whilst behind her stand the twins, whose different characters are represented by different colors, one of whom is represented slaying the other.77 Xolotl, who made her out of a bone, was cast out of heaven and became the first man. That the Mexicans had other traditions, now lost, touching this matter is probable, for they had a form of baptism for children in which they prayed that those baptized might be washed from “the original sin committed before the founding of the world.” And this had to do, in all probability, with a legend akin to that of the Iroquois, who told of the primeval mother falling, and then of the earth being built up to receive her, when precipitated out of heaven.

      The Caribs of South America relate that Luoguo, the first man and god, created the earth and the sea, and made the earth as fair as the beautiful garden in the heaven where dwell the gods. Luoguo dwelt among the men he had made for some while. He drew the men out of his navel and out of his thigh which he cut open. One of the first men was Racumon, who was transformed into a great serpent with a human head, and he lived twined round a great Cabatas tree and ate of its fruit, and gave to those who passed by. Then the Caribs lived to a great age, and never waxed old or died. Afterwards they found a garden planted with manioc, and on that they fed. But they became wicked, and a flood came and swept them away.78

      In the South Sea Islands we find other traditions of the Fall. In Alea, one of the Caroline Islands, the tale runs thus: —

      “The sister of Eliulap the first man, who was also a god, felt herself in labor, so she descended to earth and there brought forth three children. To her astonishment she found the earth barren; therefore by her mighty word, she clothed it with herbage and peopled it with beasts and birds. And the world became very beautiful, and her sons were happy and did not feel sickness or death, but at the close of every month fell into a slumber from which they awoke renewed in strength and beauty. But Erigeres, the bad spirit, envied this happiness, so he came to the world and introduced into it pain, age, and death.”79

      With the Jewish additions to the story given in Genesis, we shall conclude.

      The godless Sammael had made an alliance with all the chiefs of his hosts against the Lord, because that the holy and ever blessed Lord had said to Adam and Eve, “Have dominion over the fish of the sea,” etc.; and he said, “How can I make man to sin and drive him out?” Then he went down to earth with all his host, and he sought for a companion like to himself; he chose the serpent, which was in size like a camel, and he seated

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