Page:Myth, Ritual, and Religion (Volume 1).djvu/202

180 of Pyrrha and Deucalion. The myth about the cow is still applied to great chiefs. "He was not born; he was belched up by a cow." The myth of the stone origin corresponds to the Homeric saying about men "born from the stone or the oak of the old tale."

In addition to the theory of the natal bed of reeds, the Zulus, like the Navajoes of New Mexico and the Bushmen, believe in the subterranean origin of man. There was a succession of emigrations from below of different tribes of men, each having its own Unkulunkulu. All accounts agree that Unkulunknlu is not worshipped, and he does not seem to be identified with "the lord who plays in heaven"—a kind of lazy Zeus—when there is thunder. This "lord" appears to be a connection of the German Mother Holle, or of "the old woman that plucks her geese," as nurses tell children in Scotland when the snow falls. Unkulunkulu is not worshipped, though ancestral spirits are worshipped, because he lived so long ago that no one can now trace his pedigree to the being who is at once the first man and the creator. His "honour-giving name" is lost in the lapse of years, and the family rites have become obsolete. On the whole, the Zulu myths of the origin of man may thus be summed up:—In the beginning of things a man appeared, born from a reed-bed, and became the father of existing peoples. He also named the animals, which appear rather to have accompanied his arrival than to have been created by him, and by him to have been "given" to his children. Perhaps there was one