Page:Myth, Ritual, and Religion (Volume 1).djvu/192

 πλάσματα πηλοῦ, figures kneaded of clay, as Aristophanes says in the Birds. Pund-jel made two clay images of men, and danced round them. He made their hair—one had straight, one curly hair—of bark. He danced round them. He lay on them, and breathed his breath into their mouths, noses, and navels, and danced round them. Then they arose full-grown young men. Some blacks seeing a brickmaker at work on a bridge over tho Yarra, exclaimed, "Like 'em that Pund-jel make 'em Koolin." But other blacks prefer to believe that, as Pindar puts the Phrygian legend, the sun saw men growing like trees.

Tho first man was formed out of the gum of a wattle-tree, and came out of the knot of a wattle-tree. He then entered into a young woman (though he was the first man) and was born. The Encounter Bay people have another myth, which might have been attributed by Dean Swift to the Yahoos, so foul an origin does it allot to mankind.

Australian theories of creation are by no means exclusive of a hypothesis of evolution. Thus the Dieyrie, whose notions Mr. Gason has recorded, hold a very mixed view. They aver that "the good spirit" Moora-Moora made a number of small black lizards, liked them, and promised them dominion. He divided their feet into toes and fingers, gave them noses and lips, and set them upright. Down they fell, and Moora-Moora cut off their tails. Then they walked erect and were men. The conclusion of the