THE DESCENDANTS OF CAIN.
In various parts not only of the old world continents, but also of
America, and even on some of the Islands of the Pacific, are the ruins
of stone buildings which, from their general character, are well
called “Kyklopean.” The style of architecture varies in different
countries according to the uses for which the buildings were designed,
or the local influences among which they were erected. Whatever their
form, all those ancient buildings agree in the massive character of
their structure, and most of them in the fact that the stones are put
together without mortar or cement. Kyklopean architecture proper (in
which large unhewn blocks are rudely put together with small stones
to fill up the interstices) differs, however, from the _Polygonal_
or _Pelasgian_, and from the _Horizontal_ or _Etruscan_, which, in
addition, has the courses scrupulously level, with joints vertical, and
fitting accurately. General Forlong, the author of “Rivers of Life,
or Faiths of Man in all Ages,” while pointing out that distinction,
remarks that those several styles do not denote different ages, and
that the builders were evidently of the same race. This opinion is
confirmed by the fact that all the three styles are found in the ruins
of Peru, whose Kyklopean structures, moreover, are not restricted to
those of rectangular formation, but sometimes take the form of round
towers.
General Forlong identifies the great building race of antiquity with
the Kushites or Aithiopians of the Greek historians, and with Mr.
Fergusson, he supposes them to have belonged to the Turanian family of
peoples. The distinguished architect and archæologist affirms, indeed,
that not only were the Turanians the great architects and builders of
remote antiquity, but that they were the inventors of all the arts, as
well as the religions and mythologies, which were afterwards developed
by the later Shemites and Aryans.
But how far does this conclusion agree with actual facts? M. Georges
Perrot, in his important work on the “History of Art,” says that the
ancient Oriental world has seen the birth of three great civilisations,
that of Egypt, that of Chaldea, and that of China, all of which have
features in common, although each preserves its own proper character.
Chaldea was the _Sennaar_ of the author of the Book of Genesis, the
land in which were built the ancient cities of Babel, Erech, Accad,
and Calneh. The mighty hunter or warrior Nimrod, to whom the erection
of those cities is ascribed, was the son of Kush and the grandson of
Cham, and he is thus placed by the sacred writer in the same family as
the Egyptians, Aithiopians, and the Libyans, as also the Canaanites
and Phœnicians. The Kushites, of whom Nimrod is the representative in
Genesis, were located by the poets and classical historians in Susiana
rather than in Chaldea. Both of these countries, however, adjoin the
Valley of the Tigris, and the name Aithiopians applied by those writers
to the inhabitants of the shores of the Persian Gulf and the sea of
Oman agrees with the relationship which, according to the genealogists
of the Hebrew Scriptures, subsisted between the Kushites of Asia and
those of Africa. It is to the shores of the Persian Gulf that the
development, if not the origin, of the Chaldean civilisation has been
traced. M. Perrot calls Egypt “the ancestor of civilised nations,”
and he affirms that, in grouping the great peoples of antiquity to
determine the part taken by each in the work of progress, it is
necessary to commence with Egypt as the point of departure of all the
forces which operate to that end. The Egyptians were not, however,
indigenous to the Valley of the Nile. It is now almost universally
acknowledged that they belonged to the white or Caucasian stock of
Europe and Western Asia, from which they reached Egypt by the isthmus
of Suez. Their Caucasian origin is confirmed by their language,
which, with the other Hamitic idioms, had, as M. Lenormant shows, a
relationship to the Semitic languages, the two families having a common
mother language, the native country of which was in Asia at the east of
the basin of the Euphrates and Tigris. We are thus taken to the region
where the old Chaldean civilisation flourished for the place of origin
of the Egyptians; but did they belong to the same Kushite stock? In
endeavouring to answer this question, it is necessary to remember that
before the foundation of the Empire by Menes Egypt had comprised two
kingdoms, that of Lower Egypt or the country of the north, and that
of Upper Egypt or the country of the south. These kingdoms must have
existed a considerable period, judging from the fact that the later
Monarchs carried two crowns to indicate the dominion exercised over the
two great divisions of the Empire, and probably it represented some
race difference in their inhabitants. The Aryan character described by
M. L. Page Renouf to the Egyptian mythology, and the features of many
of the figures represented on the tombs of the fourth Dynasty, might
lead us to suppose that the earliest Egyptians belonged to the Aryan
stock. This opinion is, perhaps, confirmed by the consideration that
the earliest and most sacred towns of the Egyptians were situate in
Upper Egypt.
M. Lenormant thinks that the descendants of Mizraim settled in Egypt at
different epochs, and that the earliest settlers, the Anamim of the Old
Testament and the Anou of the hieroglyphic inscriptions, were driven
by the later ones into different parts of Egypt, but principally into
Nubia. The former may, therefore, have been pure Aryans, the southern
country being referred to as the home of the race; although the Empire
was first established in Lower Egypt, its chief centre being Memphis,
from which its culture gradually overspread the whole country. The
early inhabitants of the Delta region were represented at a later date
by the Hyksos, who have been identified by Professor Duncker with the
Philistines of the Syrian Coast. This people are spoken of in the
Book of Genesis as descendants of Mizraim, and their neighbours, the
Phœnicians, stood in the same relation to the northern Egyptians as did
the Kushites of Chaldea. Like the latter peoples, the Phœnicians were
great builders. The remains of vast structures still exist throughout
Phœnicia, which was known to the ancient Babylonians as Martu, “the
west.” Among modern writers, M. Renan is of opinion that “singular
relations exist between the ethnographic, historic, and linguistic
position of Yemen and that of Phœnicia,” as showing that there was
a close relationship between the latter and the ancient people of
Southern Arabia. Mr. Baldwin accepts both these views, and comes to the
conclusion that the first great civilisers and builders of antiquity
were the Kushites or Aithiopians of Southern Arabia, and that they
colonised or civilised Chaldea, Phœnicia, and Egypt. Tradition speaks
of Kepheus as one of the great sovereigns of ancient Aithiopia, whose
kingdom extended from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf, and whose
capital was Joppa, one of the most ancient cities of Phœnicia. We may
well believe that this very early Kushite kingdom comprised part of
Northern Africa, and therefore that it included the Delta of the Nile
with the great city, Memphis, of the Egyptian pyramid builders. The
similarity in many features of the Phœnician and Egyptian architecture
points to a close connection between those peoples, and a portion of
the Kushite race which peopled Phœnicia doubtless settled in the Delta,
from whence its culture would easily spread throughout the Nile Valley.
It is certain that Southern Arabia was the seat of a very primitive
civilisation, which influenced all the regions around. Phœnicia,
however, would seem to have been most intimately allied with Chaldea,
the origin of whose civilisation, although ascribed to the fish-god
Oannes, can hardly be traced to Arabia.
According to the Biblical writer, Kush was the eldest son of Ham, who
was also the father of Mizraim, Phut, and Canaan. All these peoples
were great builders, and it is very probable, therefore, that they, as
well as the Kushites, derived their knowledge from a common source. In
this case, and even if Mizraim, Canaan, and Phut were the _descendants_
rather than the brethren of Kush, the civilisation with which the
Kushites are accredited was, in reality, that of the earlier Hamites.
The probability is that all the peoples belonging to the Hamitic stock
possessed the elements of a very ancient civilisation, which was handed
down in the most direct line through the Kushites of Chaldea. M. Perrot
accepts the opinion of M. Oppert, that when the primitive Chaldeans
first settled in the plains of Sennaar they already had a national
organisation, and that they possessed writing, the most necessary
industries, a religion, and a complete legislation. If this was so we
shall have to seek a very primitive source for the Kushite or Hamitic
civilisation. What was its origin can only be ascertained when the race
ancestry of the Hamites is known. In relation to this point it must not
be forgotten that Ham was the brother of Shem and Japhet, and therefore
that they were all members of a common family. As the descendants of
Noah, they all alike belonged to the great white or Caucasian stock.
M. Lenormant, while endorsing this view, says that anciently, as in
the present day, there was an anthropological distinction between
the Hamites and the Shemites, which he accounts for by supposing the
former to have become intermixed with a dark or black race, which they
found already established in the country to which they spread, while
the Shemites, who stayed behind, preserved the purity of the white
race. The facts of linguistic science and anthropology can thus be
made to agree, but M. Lenormant has to admit that the Eastern Kushites
cannot be brought within that theory, as from the earliest historical
period they have spoken a language radically distinct from those of
the Shemites and the other Hamitic peoples. He adds that the coast
between the Persian Gulf and the Indus appears to have been, from a
remote antiquity, the point of meeting and fusion of two distinct races
having brown complexions, but inclining more or less to pure black. The
Eastern Kushites are thus confounded by a gradual series of transitions
with the Dravidians of India. This reference to the Dravidians is
perfectly just, as there is no doubt, whatever may be the case now,
that originally they partook of the high qualities possessed by the
peoples of the Kushite stock. As a race they were noted for their
love of art and commerce, and General Forlong, after having examined
minutely most of the famous shrines of India, came to the conclusion
“that there is nothing to equal those of Dravidia, save some small ones
in Western India, which, in their completeness, form, and conception,
denote the same master builders who, as Jainas, &c., learned in Mysore
and the South under those great architects.” There is indeed reason
to believe that the marvellous temples of Cambodia and Java, of which
the ruins still exist, were erected by Dravidians from India. M.
Moura, the learned author of a history of Cambodia, has established
that the great architects of that kingdom were the peoples to whom the
name of Khmerdoms is given by their descendants, the Khmers. They
were of Hindoo origin, and emigrated from the neighbourhood of Delhi
in the fifth century before Christ. Whether the original Khmers were
of pure Aryan stock is, however, very doubtful, and it is extremely
probable that they were Hinduised Dravidians. The Hindoos, to whom the
civilisation of Java is ascribed, are spoken of as coming from Kling,
by which is meant the Dravidian Telinga.
If, as M. Lenormant supposes, the Eastern Kushites became fused with a
brown or black race, it does not follow that this race was originally
black, or that it belonged to a negroid stock. All the Hamites, and
especially the Kushites, were of a more or less dark complexion,
but the black hue may have been acquired through natural influences
operating during a vast period of time. The Dravidians have, at least
from a linguistic standpoint, Turanian affinities, and it is now almost
universally admitted that the earliest civilised inhabitants of Chaldea
belonged to the great Turanian family of peoples who are usually spoken
of as the yellow race. There is no doubt that a yellow race, whose
languages had an affinity on the one side with the languages of the
Altaic peoples, and on the other side with the Dravidian dialects,
and who preceded the Shemitic and Japhetic peoples in material
civilisation, existed in Eastern Asia alongside of the white race.
M. Ujfalvy supposes the Eastern Turanians to have descended the first
from the plateau of the Altai; to be followed by the Western Turanians,
who occupied Northern Europe from time immemorial; the children of
Noah being the last to quit the primeval home. If this was so we can
well understand that the average Turanian physical type must present
peculiarities which distinguish it easily from that of the Caucasian
races.
What we have now to do with is the origin of primitive civilisation,
and everything points to the early Turanians as the people among whom
it was developed. We have already seen that if the primitive Chaldeans
did not belong to the Turanian stock they were intimately associated
with Turanian peoples to whom they are thought to have been indebted
for much of their culture. The great western division of the Turanian
race appears to have possessed an advanced civilisation long before
its Aryan neighbours. The Tchoudes, who are described by Ujfalvy as
the most ancient people of the Altaic race, were noted metallurgists,
while the Permians and the Finns are supposed to have taught art and
agriculture to the Slavs and Scandinavians of Northern Europe. M.
Reclus remarks that, not only did the Turanians teach their neighbours
the use of iron and other metals, but they have the glory of having
given to us most of our domestic animals, and probably also the greater
part of our most useful cultured plants. Finally, the Turanians were,
says M. Lenormant, “the constructors of the first towns, and the
inventors of metallurgy and of the first rudiments of the principal
arts of civilisation.” He adds that they were “addicted to rites
which were reproved by Yahveh, and were viewed with as much hatred as
superstitious terror by the populations still in the pastoral state
whom they had preceded in the path of material progress and invention,
but who remained morally more pure and elevated.”
This description, applied by M. Lenormant to the Turanians, has
reference primarily to the Cainites, and it carries the origin of
material civilisation much farther back in time than would have been
thought possible a few years ago. The facts mentioned in connection
with Cain and his descendants strikingly confirm the opinion that the
Kushite civilisation was handed down from a period which, in relation
to the Deluge of Genesis, may be called antediluvian. The tradition
of the Deluge is a primitive belief of the three white races, the
Aryan, the Semitic, and the Hamitic. It appears to have been originally
limited to the peoples of the Caucasian stock, and this fact requires
that the Turanians should be excluded from the effect of the supposed
catastrophe. The yellow race, therefore, may claim an “antediluvian”
descent, and as Noah, the progenitor of the white races, belonged to
the Sethite stock, the common ancestor of the Turanian peoples must
have been a Cainite.
The first public event recorded in the life of Cain after his exile was
the building of a town, which he called Enoch, after his first-born
son. This town has been identified with the city of Khotan, which is
situate in the region where Cain is thought to have fixed his abode.
According to Abel Rémusat the traditions of that city, preserved in the
native chronicles and referred to by the Chinese historians, go back
to a much earlier period than those of any other city of Central Asia.
Baron d’Eckstein has, moreover, shown that Khotan was the centre of
a district in which the art of metallurgy has been practised from the
remotest antiquity. This is important, for Tubal Cain, the youngest son
of Lamekh, the descendant of Cain, is said in Genesis to have been “an
instructor of every artificer in brass and iron.”
The ancestors of the present Chinese appear not to have been acquainted
with the blacksmith’s art when they first descended into the plains,
although it was practised by the neighbouring Tibetan tribes, who, we
can hardly doubt, were allied to the Kolarian population of Eastern
India, if not also to the Dravidians of the south and west. The
relationship of the Dravidians to the peoples of the Altaic stock, and
the practice of metallurgy by the latter particularly, would tend,
however, to prove that the Jabal were not, as supposed by M. Ujfalvy,
Turanians who settled in Northern Asia and Europe. Those facts would
rather support the view of Knobel, which identifies the Jabal and the
Jubal as a musical and pastoral race, as distinguished from a settled
metallurgic race to whom the name of Tubal Cain was given.
The opinion that the ancestors of the Turanian peoples were Cainites
may be confirmed by reference to certain social and religious
phenomena. In the story of the slaying by Cain of his brother Abel
there is evident reference to antagonism between a pastoral and an
agricultural people. M. Lenormant, who sees a connection between the
fratricide and the founding of the first city, has arrived at the
conviction that the Chaldæo-Babylon tradition concerning the primitive
days of the human race included a reference to those two actions of
Cain. He says, however, “there are certain reasons for suspecting
that the Chaldeans took the part of the murderer Cain against Abel,
as the Romans did that of Romulus against Remus.” The preference of
the Chaldeans for the murderer agrees with the Cainite origin ascribed
to their Turanian ancestors, among whom the polygamy and revenge
attributed to Lamekh were no doubt as prevalent as among some of their
descendants at the present day. The French writer sees in the fourth
chapter of Genesis a condemnation of Lamekh as the prototype of fierce
vengeance, and at the same time of polygamy. The whole pre-Deluge
history of man, as given in Genesis, would seem to imply the existence
of an hereditary opposition between the descendants of Cain and those
of Seth, who was regarded as standing in a special relation to the
Shemites. It was evidently written in the same spirit as that which saw
in the enmity between the Iranians and Turanians a constant conflict
between light and darkness. The race of Cain are referred in the
Biblical narrative as “sons of men,” a title which implies a condition
of religious or moral inferiority, as compared with the “sons of God”
descended from Seth. That narrative says, further, that in the time of
Enoch men began to call on the name of Jehovah. This statement, which
has reference only to the Sethites, supposes that the Cainites invoked
some other god, and in the Shamanism of the Dravidians and various
Turanian peoples we have no doubt a phase of the religious worship
prevalent among their Cainite ancestors.
Another point in connection with religious ideas, which is of
great importance in relation to the above subject, is the origin
of serpent-worship. M. Lenormant remarks that “the Arcadians made
the serpent one of the principal attributes and one of the forms of
Héa.” This deity, who closely resembles Waïnamoïnen, one of the three
principal gods of the Finns, occupied a very important position in
the Pantheon of the ancient Chaldeans. Héa, like the Finnish god,
was “not only king of the waters and the atmosphere, he was also the
spirit whence all life proceeded, the master of favourable spells,
the adversary and conqueror of all personifications of evil, and the
sovereign possessor of all science.” The worship of serpent-gods is
a practice to which many of the primitive Turanian tribes have been
addicted. This accounts for the curious association of serpent-worship
with Buddhism and Siva-ism. Both of these faiths, as exhibited in the
marvellous sculptures of the ruined temples of Cambodia, are intimately
connected with serpent-worship. This cult was no doubt very prevalent
among the native populations before the arrival of the Hindoos, as
legend states that the banished Indian Prince, for whom the city of
Nakon-Thom was built, married a daughter of the King of the Nagas or
Serpents, and became the sovereign of the country. Serpent-worship,
indeed, would seem to have been prevalent throughout Northern India.
The territory of the king of the serpent city Taxila reached nearly to
Delhi, and it probably extended over Kashmere and part of Afghanistan.
Here was a very important centre of serpent-worship. General Forlong
states that in Kashmere this cult appears everywhere, “and the records
of the country point to its beautiful lake and mountain fastnesses
as the earliest historic seats which we have of the faith.” It is
remarkable that a King of the Naga race was reigning in Magadha when
Gautama was born in 626 B.C., and, according to a Hindoo legend, even
the Buddha himself had a serpent lineage. If this was so, it is not
surprising that his teachings should be accepted by the Naga races, who
no doubt belonged to the pre-Aryan stock.
The constant introduction of the serpent, especially of the sacred
Cobra, into the sculptures of the Cambodian temples, is remarkable.
M. Moura states that the ancient Khmers of Cambodia recognised both
good and evil serpents, the former of which lived in the water and the
latter inhabited the land. The Buddhists of India and Indo-China had
the same idea, and M. Moura supposes that the good serpents represented
the human Nagas who became Buddhists, and the bad serpents those who
refused to abandon their native serpent-worship. This explanation,
however, is not necessary, as the ancient Egyptians entertained
analogous ideas. No other people, except, perhaps, the Hindoos and
allied races, were more thoroughly imbued with the serpent superstition
than the Egyptians. Mr. Cooper, in his “Observations on the Serpent
Myths of Ancient Egypt,” remarks that “the reverence paid to the
snake was not merely local, or even limited to one period of history,
but prevailed alike in every district of the Pharian Empire, and has
left its indelible impress upon the architecture and the archæology
of both Upper and Lower Egypt.” The Cobra di Capello of the Hindoos
and Cambodians was the sacred Uræus of the Egyptians. With the
latter it was used as the symbol of fecundity and immortality, and
was also universally assumed as the “emblem of divine and sacro-regal
sovereignty.” The Uræus was always represented in the female form,
and all the Egyptian goddesses were adorned with it, as the images
of the Hindoo gods were often surmounted with the sacred Naga. Among
the Egyptians another kind of serpent was also held in universal
veneration. It was a gigantic species of Coluber, which from the
earliest ages was regarded as “the representative of spiritual, and
occasionally physical, evil.” This was the great snake of the celestial
waters, the adversary of the gods with which the soul had to contend
after death. The Egyptians had thus a good and an evil serpent, the
former of which was small and the latter large. Among the Cambodians
the reverse was the case, as the small serpent was the representative
of evil, and the great serpent, the Naga-Naga, of good.
We have already seen that the cobra occupies an important place in
the Buddhist sculpture, and that the great serpent with its human
supporters was represented at both Amravati and Angkor Wat. Curiously
enough a similar idea to this is represented on certain Egyptian
monuments. On the sarcophagus of Oime-nepthah I. is sculptured a long
serpent, which, says Mr. Robert Sewell, is doubled into folds just like
the roll of the Buddhist frieze, and having a god standing on each fold
in the places occupied by the sacred emblems of the Buddhist faith
at Amravati. He supposes the long roll of the Amravati frieze to be
intended to represent a serpent, and to have had its origin in Western
Asian or Egyptian ideas. I had already, before meeting with this
observation, been struck with the similarity between the Egyptian and
the Buddhist representations, especially when considered in the light
of the Cambodian sculptures which undoubtedly represent the Naga-Naga.
The gigantic serpent of the celestial ocean of Egyptian mythology is
Aphôphis, the spirit of evil, and in the contest between him and Horus
we have, according to M. Le Page Renouf, a form of the Indra and Vritra
myth. An Accadian text speaks of “the enormous serpent with seven
heads,” the “serpent which beats the waves of the sea ... extending his
power over heaven and earth.” This is supposed to refer to Héa, and it
reminds us of the heavenly Naga-Naga of Hindoo mythology, which, like
the Accadian serpent deity, was representative of the good principle.
Such was also the case among all the old Turanian nations, and it
was only when, as remarked by M. Lenormant, “the Iranian traditions
were fused with the ancient beliefs of the Proto-Medic religion, the
serpent-god naturally became identified with the representative of
the dark and bad principle.” It cannot be doubted that this was the
later notion, and that the Turanian belief which associated with the
serpent ideas of goodness was of earlier date. Thus, the Dragon, says
Mr. Doolittle, “enjoys an ominous eminence in the affections of the
Chinese people. It is frequently represented as the greatest benefactor
of mankind.... The Chinese delight in praising its wonderful prospects
and powers. It is the venerated symbol of good.”
The veneration of the serpent must have been of very early origin
to occupy so strong a hold over the Chinese, whose spoken language,
according to M. Terrien de Lacouperie, forms a link between the
Accadian and the Ugro-Finnish divisions of the Ural-Altaic languages.
The art of metallurgy was practised by the peoples belonging to both
these divisions, and yet, according to M. Lenormant, it was not known
to the early Chinese. We must thus suppose that the latter left the
common home before the invention of metallurgy, and, therefore, that
they represent a very early condition of the stock from which the
Turanian peoples sprang. We seem, indeed, to be carried back to the
very earliest period of the legendary history of the Cainite race, and
possibly to that of the legendary ancestor of the race. According to
the tradition preserved in Genesis, there was a peculiar association
between Adam and the serpent. This animal is there the tempter Satan,
but according to another view Adam, or rather Ad, who was apparently
the traditional ancestor of a portion at least of the old Turanian
stock, was himself the serpent. A rabbinical tradition makes Cain
the son, not of Adam, but of the serpent-spirit Asmodeus. The name
Eve is connected with an Arabic root which means both “life” and “a
serpent,” and if Eve was the serpent mother, Ad must have been the
serpent father of the race. There is reason for believing that Adam
was the legendary ancestor of the Cainites, as distinguished from
the descendants of Seth. The name Adam, no doubt, signifies in the
Semitic languages “the man,” but it has been pointed out that the name
borne by the son of Seth, and therefore the ancestor of Noah, that
is Enoch, is in Hebrew the exact synonym of Adam, and also signifies
“the man.” There is, moreover, almost an exact parallel between the
descendants of Adam, through Cain on the one hand, and those of Seth
through Enoch on the other, and each line is terminated by three
heads of races, that of the Cainites by the sons of Lamekh and that
of the Enocides by the grandsons of Lamekh. In the latter there is
the insertion of one additional generation, that of Noah, between
Lamekh and the division of the family into three branches. This is,
however, capable of explanation. M. Lenormant shows, by a comparison
of the various legends referring to the primitive age of mankind,
that the number 7 or 10 was used by all the ancient nations as a
round number for the antediluvian ancestors of the race. Tradition
seemed to float between these two numbers until the influence of
the Chaldæo-Babylonians caused the number 10, which is that of the
generations of the Sethites, to dominate over the number 7, that of
the Cainites. It is to that influence we would ascribe the existence
among the descendants of Seth of the legendary ancestor of the three
Caucasian races. The Chaldean Noah was Khasisatra, whose vessel was
saved during the Flood by the god Héa. This god himself was, however,
supposed to have a vessel in which he sailed over the celestial ocean.
He was, in fact, the fish-god Oannes, from whom the Chaldeans were
said to have derived their civilisation, and we probably have in
Oannes the point of identification between Héa and Noah himself. The
Caucasian races, whose fathers had been saved from the Deluge, could
not have a better legendary ancestor than the divine teacher who,
issuing from the Egyptian sea, was the god Héa, not only the soul of
the watery element but the source of all generation. If Noah, then,
be a mythological being, introduced into the Sethite genealogy under
Chaldean influence, Lamekh becomes the direct ancestor of the Caucasian
stock as he is of the Turanian peoples. An argument in favour of this
view is furnished by the Scripture account itself. Among the sons of
Noah a peculiar position is occupied by Ham. He and his son Canaan are
cursed, in like manner as Cain was cursed. The sins were different,
and therefore the punishments were different, but there appears to be
a kind of parallelism between Cain and Canaan for which a good reason
probably existed in the mind of the writer of Genesis. We have seen
that the Hamites were intimately connected with peoples belonging to
the Turanian stock, and they were the special recipients of the old
Cainite civilisation. It is, indeed, far from improbable that they were
more Cainite than Sethite. The three sons of Noah would seem to answer
to the three sons of Adam, and as Ham or Canaan is a reproduction
of Cain, so Japheth and Shem are reproductions of Abel and Seth. In
either case the elder brothers were put on one side or cursed, that the
youngest brother might enjoy the inheritance. Perhaps an explanation
of this conduct may be found in the race relationships of the Semites.
That they had a closer affinity to the Hamites than had the Japhethites
is unquestionable, and it can hardly be less doubted that the latter
were the purest branch of the Caucasian stock. The Semites were,
indeed, a mixed race, but as the Hebrews professed to be the chosen
people it was necessary that the Hamite and Japhethite races should be
put on one side, as Abel and Cain had been, that their ancestor Shem
might take the chief place. The Semites thus became the representative
Caucasian people who, as children of light, stand in opposition to the
Turanian Hamites, in like manner as the sons of Seth were opposed to
the descendants of Cain.
We have been led to believe that the civilisation of the ancient world
originated among the Cainites, of whom the Turanians are the line of
descendants. We have seen reason, moreover, for supposing that the
particular branch of the Turanian stock, among whom the development
of the art of metallurgy first took place, was the Ural-Altaic, to
which the earliest inhabitants of Chaldea belonged, and whom Dr.
Topinard supposes to be the connecting-link between the fair types of
Europe and the brachycephalic types of Asia. The building art was one
of the earliest to be developed, as is evident from the reference in
Genesis to the building of a city by Cain. The erection of the first
city is connected with the slaying of Abel, and therefore the origin
of architecture may be referred back to almost the earliest period
of human culture, and we may well suppose that some of the least
cultured Turanian tribes represent a still earlier stage of Cainite
civilisation. M. Lenormant objects to Herr Knobel’s theory that the
Chinese and the Mongolian peoples are Cainites, that “the geographical
horizon of the traditions of Genesis did not extend far enough to
include them.” If, however, when the Chinese first descended into
the plains they were still in the stone age, they may have been true
Cainites, the more so as their immediate ancestors were located much
nearer than are their descendants to the primeval home of Adamite
man. The remarkable influence which the veneration for the serpent
has obtained among the Chinese, a superstition which was developed
no less remarkably among the peoples belonging to the Western branch
of the Turanian family, and through them among the Hamitic peoples,
would seem to prove that it was of primeval origin. The arts of
metallurgy and architecture appear to have had a later development,
and to have originated among the Turanian Aithiopians or Kuths, to
whom the civilisation of the ancient world was ascribed. After leaving
their home in West-Central Asia they settled in Chaldea, from whence
they gradually spread throughout Western Asia, Northern Africa, and
Europe, where, in later years, they came in contact with the Caucasian
races, who gave a higher tone to their intellectual culture and their
religious ideas, the latter being especially observable in the position
assigned to the great serpent as the embodiment of evil.
* * * * *
_Note._—The legend of the slaying of Abel by his brother Cain referred
to at page 138, is met with in the Mythologies of some of the American
tribes. See _Monographie des Dènè Dindjié_, by C. R. E. Petitot,
pp. 62-84, and for a similar legend of the Aztecs, see _American
Hero-Myths_, by Daniel G. Brinton, pp. 64-68.