In dealing with "The Fall of Man," Sir James Frazer[1] reconstructs the account given in Genesis, and by the comparative method fills up a lacuna in that record; this he does by a skilful integration of two types of tales: "The Story of the Perverted Message," "The Story of the Cast Skin," and "The Composite Story of the Perverted Message and the Cast Skin." He treats them solely as comparative material; making use of the data he presents, I propose to see what light the ethno-historical method can throw on the subject.
I. The examples of the "Perverted Message," which are all from Africa, clearly indicate a common origin. What appears to be the oldest form of the tale makes the Moon desirous of bestowing immortality on mankind in virtue of her waning and waxing; it is found among the Hottentots and Bushmen. The Sky-god or "God" may be taken as a later form.
(1) The Namaqua Hottentots say the Moon sent the hare to mankind with the following message: "As I die and rise to life again, so shall you die and rise to life again," but the hare reversed it. In a Bushman version from Katkop (a few miles south of 20° E. long., and of 30° S. lat.) a sceptic, who would not believe the assurance of the Moon, condemned all men to mortality, and was himself transformed into a hare by the Moon. As this is the only record from a true Bushman, we may regard it as a modified version. The Nandi of British East Africa state that a dog came to men with the tidings that like the moon they would come to life again three days after death; but in a huff at not being received with due deference he said, "All people will die." The WaSania, an aboriginal tribe of Tanaland who are serfs to the Galla, believe that formerly human beings did not die, but one day a lizard told them that though the moon rises again human beings will not.
- ↑ J. G. Frazer, Folk-Lore in the Old Testament, i. London, 1918, chap. ii. pp. 45–77.
