Page:Folklore1919.djvu/42

30 ("Seelenstoff") or vital essence which corresponds so closely with that current in Indonesia that we are justified in assuming that the Kai must have obtained it from an Indonesian source. If this be so, there is no difficulty in regarding the story of the Cast Skin (which C. Keysser records under the title "Der Tod") as having been also borrowed by the Kai from Indonesia. The To Koolawi of Celebes may be regarded as akin to one of the early groups that migrated to Melanesia. The first group of these tales seems to be widely current in Indonesia. Thus taking the two groups together, we have an area of continuous distribution which extends to Samoa and crops up again in the north-east corner of South America, and also among the WaFipa and WaBende Bantu tribes of Tanganyika.

III. The three examples of the composite story come from (1) the Gazelle Peninsula, the version being that To Kambinana, the good spirit who loved men, told his brother To Korvuvu to tell men to cast their skin every year and so live for ever, but the latter commanded man to die and betrayed the secret to snakes. (2) In the Annam version Ngoc hoang sent a messenger from heaven to men with the recipe for immortality, but was intimidated by snakes to reverse it. There is not much difficulty suspecting a cultural drift here from Indonesia. (3) Among the Hamitic Galla of the horn of East Africa the "sheep of God," as the bird-messenger from God to man is called, gave the message to snakes instead of to man.

Taking the "Cast Skin" series, we have three geographical areas—East Africa, Indonesia-Melanesia, and the Orinoco region. The "Perverted Message" is solely African, and we have traced this to a probable Hamitic source. Among the purely Hamitic Galla we find both stories combined, which looks as if we were on firm ground.