The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1914-07-05
As a matter Of pure reason we NAV

upon time there must have been men
VINO had no past at all wherewith to
please their present fancy, men to whom
stories were all unknown. To an Adam
and an Eve the history of the serpent
ana the apple and the angel with the
! naming sword were history, but in the
land or Nod we can readily imagine that
10 the Juniors in Gains household this
history must have become legend and
ntly to be introduced with the ritual
phrase or once upon a time" which
Is In itself the beginning Of the story
tellers art, the genesis of fiction as a
literary vehicle.
Clearly the man OF the New Guinea
wilds whom DR.. Neuhauss reveals to us.
TINS man OF the stone age, living all I'M
clad and not ashamed, soaring his flesh
with wcals in the beginning of ornament,
u man whose british life has not vet
attained TO tho terror of a god idea
clearly he is representative of the
lowest scale of human existence. Yet
ono whole volume of this great work
is crowded with tho faithful record by
devoted missionaries OF the tales which
the savages tell in the moonlight when
they sit on the raised verandas of their
pause, in the memory OF such as have
sought to make acquaintance with the
shy savages, is punctuated with the
dry clatter Of the spatula rafting in
the lime calabash for the preparation
OF the bctel, whose chewing slavers
rcd stripes down rude vlsages and upon
brawny breasts. Rude though this So
cicty Of the stone age included within
years or grace AZ survival must be,
1t is by no means lacking In the art
or fiction. the telling of tales which are
at once the memory of the past, the
hope directed toward the future and the
relief OF the present. That, in sum- is
all that folklore amounts to--thc fable
leading the history in the evolution
of the intellectual life.
The scene Is strange to us. Tn our
forests we sec no CLINT of the bird
OF paradise, we hear no deep booming
note Of the rhinoceros bird. our high
est ideal of rank jungle growth is Jacks
beanstalk; VIC cannot invent the up
ward spring Of the giant bamboo. which
far outtops that famous vegetable. The
setting OF these stories must therefore
be strange and unfamiliar. But the
meat Of the stories is strangely familiar.
Tho stone age man is telling under his
palms just the tales which we have
preserved for our children, strange crea-
lures OF the woods and the air, all the
procession of fancy's breed. which,
among others. the brothers Grimm have
put into tho books.
Here is tale OF the Tami folk, one
which combines several clements "a
milar TO us. one preserved in the Semitic
texts from n Sumerian source. another
coming to US through the Greek from
forebears of the Sanskrit
Two men OF the Island OF Ginggala |
went out to fish and were swallowed |
up by whale. They sat in the whales |
belly until they came near the island !
of women. When the whales belly !
scrapcd on the sea bottom they said. !
Now We arc close TO shore" They |
asked: "kinsman, have YOU by any |
chance a splinter Of obsidlan in your !
arm basket" They rummaged through |
their baskets and found some obsidian |
flakes. They set out to slash the In |
sides OF the whale: tho fish spat them |
out upon the beach. There they sat- |
and in that land lived only women. |
Then comes an interesting tale OF the |
manner OF life of the women where |
no man had ever been. Each of the |
men had a son. Then the >chlldren |
reached an age ut which they might /
help in mons work. One night when
the fathers and sons were at the fishing
they heard the sisterhood OF the Plei-
AIDES and the moon crying out the warn
ing: "Oh, my folk, with the morning
gray wo are due at the mouth of the
Buta and now morning is upon u.s."
The men sought to capture the heavenly |
visitors with great hooks and once and |
again the moon broke them loose. But |
In tho end the craft of the men proved |
successful and they clamhcred aboard |
the canoe of the Pleiades, with reassur-
Ing words that they were not spirits Of
the wild or vanished men, but two true
and right GingSala. Thus they won
home and lived happily ever after. and
even this stock phrase OF legend Is in |
the Tami text.
A common incident OF our German!c |
stock of legend Is that of Great Klaus |
md Little Klaus, the triumph OF the |
over his elder brethren who
would keep him down; the same story
on the dstaff side is familiar in Gin
ierella. The Kai people have the self
same story.
In the town OF Scwela lived four
brothers. one day they went into the
forest to dig pit traps for the eldest
and left the youngest at home weeping.
For food they. who fed on wild pigs,
left him but n mouse to cook for him
self The odor of the cooking tolled
IN the wood spirit kwilong, who tricked
the lad out of his scanty meal. Then
the ogre and the lad fell to fighting,
kw!long with the stout weapons of the
elder brothers, the boy with no more
Than the toy weapons which his elders
mad foisted off on him. But the lad won
the fight by his cleverness. cut OFF the
)gres head and threw that and the
body away, but the liver he cooked in
4 potfull OF taro. When his brothers
they were filled with amaze
nent at the feast. but they professed
20 believe the boys statement that II
was the liver of the mouse which had
become great in tho cooking. Day after
lay the same events, always the same
,gre, always the same victory of the
lespised youngstcr. always the same
great feast in the evening. At last the
ad will put up with this harsh treat
nent no longer and runs away. Fer
away in his wanderngs he comes to
/ land of women, and by his cleverness
establishes himself in their community,
ives happily after n somewhat patriar- 5
hal fashion and in time comes TO the
'giipf Of tie brothers who had dealt |