Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review Volumes 32 and 33.djvu/184

172 British and German New Guinea the region of the gold-fields and pearl-beds has been occupied at some time in the past by unknown people who evidently were seeking these forms of wealth. We can go still further back in the history of India and find a similar desire at work. Major Munn, the Inspector of Mines to the Nizam of Hyderabad, in a paper published by the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, states that the dolmen-builders of Hyderabad located their settlements round the mines of gold, diamonds, copper and iron which are so numerous there. Moreover, it seems from a comparison of the distribution of neolithic settlements in South India and the gold-bearing rocks of that region, that the neolithic people lived in close proximity to supplies of gold. It is therefore possible that the civilisation of South India owes its origin to the search for givers of life.

It would therefore seem that peoples who believed in the existence of the Isles of the Blest also looked upon certain substances, such as gold, as givers of life, and in addition they sought for the earthly paradise far and wide. Although the Isles of the Blest contained the Tree of Life, it does not seem that it was the chief aim of the search. The evidence quoted with regard to the localisation of the early sites goes to show that gold was principally sought in antiquity. This is probably because it had come to acquire an arbitrary value as currency, in addition to being beautiful and of use for jewellery. It was also the colour of the sun and much used in connection with the sun-cult, which was so closely bound up in antiquity with the search for precious metals. For these reasons gold seems to have acquired a pre-eminent place, and the Isles of the Blest