Page:Primitive Culture Vol 1.djvu/373

Rh that the Moon, King of Night and husband of the Sun, faithlessly loved the Morning Star, wherefore he was cloven through in punishment, as we see him in the sky. By a different train of thought, the Moon's periodic death and revival has suggested a painful contrast to the destiny of man, in one of the most often-repeated and characteristic myths of South Africa, which is thus told among the Namaqua. The Moon once sent the Hare to Men to give this message, 'Like as I die and rise to life again, so you also shall die and rise to life again,' but the Hare went to the Men and said, 'Like as I die and do not rise again, so you shall also die and not rise to life again.' Then the Hare returned and told the Moon what he had done, and the Moon struck at him with a hatchet and slit his lip, as it has remained ever since, and some say the Hare fled and is still fleeing, but others say he clawed at the Moon's face and left the scars that are still to be seen on it, and they also say that the reason why the Namaqua object to eating the hare (a prejudice which in fact they share with very different races) is because he brought to men this evil message. It is remarkable that a story so closely resembling this, that it is difficult not to suppose both to be versions from a common original, is told in the distant Fiji Islands. There was a dispute between two gods as to how man should die: 'Ra Vula (the Moon) contended that man should be like himself — disappear awhile and then live again. Ra Kalavo (the Rat) would not listen to this kind proposal, but said, "Let man die as a rat dies." And he prevailed.' The dates of the versions seem to show that the presence of these myths among the Hottentots and Fijians, at the two opposite sides of the globe, is at any rate not due to transmission in modern times.