Let us now examine in detail a few of the savage stories of the Origin of
Death. That told by the Australians may be regarded with suspicion, as a
refraction from a careless hearing of the narrative in Genesis. The
legend printed by Mr. Brough Smyth {183a} was told to Mr. Bulwer by 'a
black fellow far from sharp,' and this black fellow may conceivably have
distorted what his tribe had heard from a missionary. This sort of
refraction is not uncommon, and we must always guard ourselves against
being deceived by a savage corruption of a Biblical narrative. Here is
the myth, such as it is:--'The first created man and woman were told' (by
whom we do not learn) 'not to go near a certain tree in which a bat
lived. The bat was not to be disturbed. One day, however, the woman was
gathering firewood, and she went near the tree. The bat flew away, and
after that came Death.' More evidently genuine is the following legend
of how Death 'got a lead' into the Australian world. 'The child of the
first man was wounded. If his parents could heal him, Death would never
enter the world. They failed. Death came.' The wound in this legend
was inflicted by a supernatural being. Here Death acts on the principle
ce n'est que le premier pas qui coute, and the premier pas was made easy
for him. We may continue to examine the stories which account for death
as the result of breaking a taboo. The Ningphos of Bengal say they were
originally immortal. {183b} They were forbidden to bathe in a certain
pool of water. Some one, greatly daring, bathed, and ever since Ningphos
have been subject to death. The infringement, not of a taboo, but of a
custom, caused death in one of the many Melanesian myths on this subject.
Men and women had been practically deathless because they cast their old
skins at certain intervals; but a grandmother had a favourite grandchild
who failed to recognise her when she appeared as a young woman in her new
skin. With fatal good-nature the grandmother put on her old skin again,
and instantly men lost the art of skin-shifting, and Death finally seized
them. {184}