ii. 103), where one of their chiefs speaks thus--"For we must tell you

that long before one hundred years our ancestors _came out of this very ground_.... You _came out of the ground_ in a country that lies beyond the seas." Now, even if we consent to detach the Iroquois tradition, there is still in both the Mandan and Choctaw tradition, a common idea of their having come from "under the ground," which seems to me the tradition that they were created out of the ground at one remove. To this it would seem the Choctaws have super-added their recollection of some incident of their tribe, possibly that they were an offshoot of the Esquimaux, or were at one period in their latitude and lived their life, which would be in accordance with the theory of their migrations from Asia by Behring's Straits. 3_d_, About the Sioux, the third instance of contrariety adduced by Catlin, it seems to me that there is no room for argument, the Sioux having the tradition referred to above, that the Great Spirit _told_ them that "The red stone was their flesh." To these three instances Mr Catlin adds--"Other tribes were created under the water, and at least _one half of the_ tribes in America represent that man was created _under the ground_ or in the rocky caverns of the mountains. Why this diversity of theories of the Creation if these people brought their traditions of the Deluge from the land of inspiration?"[114]

[112] "The Chinese cosmogony speaks as follows of the creation of man--'God took some yellow earth, and He made man _en deux sexes_.'" This is the true origin of the human race. A Hebrew tradition says that it was of the red earth, which is the same idea. The Hebrew word "Adam" expresses this idea. This correspondence as to the manner in which the body of the first man was formed, between two people who have never had relations, is very remarkable. Indian and African cosmogonies relate that the name of the first man was 'Adimo,' that of his wife 'Hava,' and that they were the last work of the Creator."--Gainet, _La Bible sans la Bible_, i. p. 74. I must note, too, the identity of the American Indian (_supra_) and the Hebrew tradition, which is curious, as it might naturally be supposed that the tradition of the Red Indian took its _colour_ from his own complexion.

Max Müller ("Lect. on the Science of Language," 1st series, p. 367) says of "man"--"The Latin word _homo_, the French _l'homme_, ... is _derived from the same root_, which we have in _humus_, soil, _humilis_, humble. _Homo_, therefore, would express the idea _of being made out of the dust of the earth_." Bunsen also ("Phil. Univ. Hist." i. 78) says--"The common word for man in all German dialects is 'manna,' containing the same root as Sanscrit 'manusha' and 'manueshya.' The Latin 'homo' is intimately connected with 'humus' and [Greek: chamai] and means _earth-born_; [Greek: anthrôpôn chamaigeneôn], says Pindar. But what is [Greek: anthrôpos]?"

[113] "Last Rambles," p. 324.

[114] The following tradition of the Tartar tribes seems to supply a link. In their tradition of the Deluge (_vide_ Gainet, i. 209) it is said, "that those who saved themselves from the Deluge shut themselves up with their provisions in the crevices of mountains, and that after the scourge had passed they came out of their caverns."

And compare, again, with the tradition of Kronos (Noah, _vide_ Bryant's "Mythology," iii. 503)--"He is said to have had _three_ sons (Sanch. ap. Euseb. P. E., lib. i. c. 10, 37), and in a _time of danger_ he formed a _large cavern in the ocean_, and in this he shut himself up, together _with these sons_, and thus escaped the danger."--_Porph. de Nymphar. Antro._, p. 109.

Bryant ("Mythology," iii. 405) says--"I have shown that Gaia, in its original sense, signified a sacred cavern, a hollow in the earth, which, from its gloom, was looked upon as an emblem of the ark. Hence Gaia, like Hasta Rhoia Cybele, is often represented as the mother of mankind." The following is very important with reference to my argument above:--The Scholiast upon Euripides says--"[Greek: Meta ton kataklysmon en oresin oikountôn tôn Argeiôn prôtos autous synôkisen Inachos]. When the Argivi or Arkites, _after the Deluge_, lived _dispersed on the mountains_, Inachus first brought them together and formed them into communities."--Comp. _infra_, p. 157, 158, 193, 332.

The instances adduced of myths connecting man with the monkey are, as a rule, traditions of degeneracy, _i.e._ of men turned into monkeys (_vide_ Tylor's "Primitive Culture," i. 340), and to which I would add the rabbinical tradition of men turned into monkeys at the Tower of Babel (De Quincey, Works,