Thomas Kelly Cheyne

“ Thus Manui the hero of the Indian flood-story, was, by permission of Brahma, the creator of the present human race. Noah is called by Arabic writers " the second Adam," and Maui might with as good a right be called the Noah as the Adam of New Zealand. We, in the adult age of the world, have renounced those mythical forms of expression, but we still retain much of the feeling which prompted them. The wonder of creation is even to us constantly renewed in spring ”

“ When, for instance, we find such a peculiar point as the sending out of the birds to see whether the flood had abated, we are disinclined to build any argument on the circumstance. We do find, it is true, strange points of agreement between the Greek and the Polynesian myths, yet considering the vast extent of Christian missionary activity in America, we are bound to special caution. ”

“ At the same time we must be careful not to confound different " deposits " of tradition, and must regard primarily the earliest and most original forms of myths. As in the case of the cosmogonies, a few typical specimens will be all that can here be described. I. Among the Semitic races the seniority belongs to the Babylonians. Till lately, the only version of their story known to us was that of Berosus (Miiller, Fragmenta, ii. 501) , who relates that the god Kronos appeared to Xisuthrus, tenth king of Babylon [cf. Noah, tenth patriarch] in a dream, and warned him of the coming deluge. ”

“ It is possible, therefore, to hold that the Jewish story is a distinct offshoot of a common Semitic tradition. Bolder critics will maintain that the account in Genesis must be taken in connection with the other narratives which can be explained by, and are therefore possibly dependent upon, parallel Babylonian narratives. (See BABYLONIA and COSMOGONY) . They will urge that " chest " may have been substituted for " ship " to avoid an anachronism, mankind in Noah s time not having perhaps reached the sea ”

“ The Babylonian story, as represented in the llth Izdubar lay, suggests a similar theory. The names of the hero and his father mean " the (morning) sun " and " the evening-glow." The flood is a rain-flood, and the " father of the rain " (cf. Job xxxviii. 28) is the celestial ocean, which in the original myth must have been itself the deluge; and the " ship " is like that in which the Egyptian sun-god voyages in the sea of ether. ”

“ They all represent the flood as destroying all but a few man, and even in their least original forms they still contain many peculiar features which can only have arisen from an independent exercise of the mythopoeic faculty. ”

“ Mr Catlin says, that "amongst 120 different tribes that he has visited in North and South and Central America, not a tribe exists that has not related to him distinct or vague traditions of such a calamity, in which one, or three, or eight persons were saved above the waters on the top of a high mountain " (Okeepa, p. 2) . It is extremely difficult to tell how far Christian influences may have determined the form of these stories. ”