_Polynesian Traditions._--In Oceania even, and not among the Pelagian
negroes or Papoos,[66] but the Polynesian, racenatives of the
archipelago of Australasia, the diluvian tradition has been traced,
mingled with recollections of sudden rises of the sea, which are one of
the most frequent scourges of those islands. The most noted is that of
Tahiti, which has been specially referred to the primeval tradition.
Here it is as given by M. Gaussin,[67] who has published a translation
of it, as well as the Tahitian text, written by a native named Mare:--
"Two men had gone out to sea to fish with the line, Roo and Teahoroa
by name. They threw their hooks into the sea, which caught in the
hair of the god Ruahatu. They exclaimed, 'A fish!' They drew up the
line and saw that it was a man they had caught. At sight of the god
they bounded to the other end of their bark, and were half dead with
fear. Ruahatu asked them, 'What is this?' The two fishermen replied,
'We came to fish, and we did not know that our hooks would catch
thee.' The god then said, 'Unfasten my hair;' and they did so. Then
Ruahatu asked, 'What are your names?' They replied, 'Roo and
Teahoroa.' Ruahatu next said, 'Return to the shore, and tell men
that the earth will be covered with water, and all the world will
perish. To-morrow morning repair to the islet called Toa-marama; it
will be a place of safety for you and your children.'
"Ruahatu caused the sea to cover the lands. All were covered, and
all men perished except Roo, Teahoroa, and their families."
This story, like all in this part of the world currently referred to the
memory of the Deluge, has assumed the childish character peculiar to
Polynesian legends, and moreover, as M. Maury justly observes, it may be
naturally explained by the recollection of one of those tidal waves so
common in Polynesia. The most essential feature of all traditions
properly called diluvian is wanting here. The island, observes M. Maury,
has no resemblance to the Ark.[68] It is true that one of the versions
of the Tahitian legend states that the two fishermen repaired to
Toa-marama, not only with their families, but with a pig, a dog, and a
couple of fowls, which recalls the entry of the animals into the Ark. On
the other hand, some details of a similar story among the Fijis,
especially one in which, for many years after the event, canoes were
kept ready in case of its repetition, far better fit a local phenomenon,
a tidal wave, than a universal deluge.
However, if all these legends were exclusively related to local
catastrophes, it would be strange that they should appear and be almost
similar in a certain number of localities at a great distance from each
other, and only where the Polynesian race has taken root, or left
indubitable traces of its passage;--this race, indigenous in the Malay
Archipelago, not having migrated thence till about the fourth century of
the Christian era--_i.e._, at a time when, in consequence of the
communication between India and a portion of Malaysia,[69] the
Flood-tradition under its Indian form might well have entered in.
Without, therefore, deciding the question one way or other, we do not
think that that opinion can absolutely be condemned which finds in these
Polynesian legends an echo of the tradition of the Deluge, much
weakened, much changed, and more inextricably confused than anywhere
else with local disasters of recent date.
The result, then, of this long review authorizes us to affirm the story
of the Deluge to be a universal tradition among all branches of the
human race, with the one exception, however, of the black. Now a
recollection thus precise and concordant cannot be a myth voluntarily
invented. No religious or cosmogonic myth presents this character of
universality. It must arise from the reminiscence of a real and terrible
event, so powerfully impressing the imagination of the first ancestors
of our race, as never to have been forgotten by their descendants. This
cataclysm must have occurred near the first cradle of mankind, and
before the dispersion of the families from which the principal races
were to spring; for it would be at once improbable and uncritical to
admit that at as many different points of the globe as we should have to
assume in order to explain the wide spread of these traditions--local
phenomena so exactly alike should have occurred, their memory having
assumed an identical form, and presenting circumstances that need not
necessarily have occurred to the mind in such cases.
Let us observe, however, that probably the diluvian tradition is not
primitive but imported in America; that it undoubtedly wears the aspect
of an importation among the rare populations of the yellow race where it
is found; and lastly, that it is doubtful among the Polynesians of
Oceania. There will still remain three great races to which it is
undoubtedly peculiar, who have not borrowed it from each other, but
among whom the tradition is primitive, and goes back to the most ancient
times; and these three races are precisely the only ones of which the
Bible speaks as being descended from Noah, those of which it gives the
ethnic filiation in the tenth chapter of Genesis. This observation,
which I hold to be undeniable, attaches a singularly historic and exact
value to the tradition as recorded by the Sacred Book, even if, on the
other hand, it may lead to giving it a more limited geographical and
ethnological significance. In another paper I propose to inquire
whether, in the conception of the inspired writers, the Deluge really
was universal, in the sense customarily supposed.
But as the case now stands, we do not hesitate to declare that, far from
being a myth, the Biblical Deluge is a real and historical fact, having,
to say the least, left its impress on the ancestors of three
races--Aryan or Indo-European, Semitic or Syro-Arabian, Chamitic or
Kushite--that is to say, on the three great civilized races of the
ancient world, those which constitute the higher humanity--before the
ancestors of those races had as yet separated, and in the part of Asia
they together inhabited.