kindred. Once more, man is taken to be the fruit of some tree or plant,
or not to have emerged ready-made, but to have grown out of the ground
like a plant or a tree. In some countries, as among the Bechuanas, the
Boeotians, and the Peruvians, the spot where men first came out on
earth is known to be some neighbouring marsh or cave. Lastly, man is
occasionally represented as having been framed out of a piece of the
body of the Creator, or made by some demiurgic potter out of clay. All
these legends are told by savages, with no sense of their inconsistency.
There is no single orthodoxy on the matter, and we shall see that all
these theories coexist pell-mell among the mythological traditions of
civilised races. In almost every mythology, too, the whole theory of
the origin of man is crossed by the tradition of a Deluge, or some other
great destruction, followed by revival or reconstruction of the species,
a tale by no means necessarily of Biblical origin.

In examining savage myths of the origin of man and of the world,
we shall begin by considering those current among the most backward
peoples, where no hereditary or endowed priesthood has elaborated and
improved the popular beliefs. The natives of Australia furnish us
with myths of a purely popular type, the property, not of professional
priests and poets, but of all the old men and full-grown warriors of
the country. Here, as everywhere else, the student must be on his
guard against accepting myths which are disguised forms of missionary
teaching.(1)

(1) Taplin, The Narrinyeri. "He must also beware of supposing that the
Australians believe in a creator in our sense, because the Narrinyeri,
for example, say that Nurundere 'made everything'. Nurundere is but an
idealised wizard and hunter, with a rival of his species." This occurs
in the first edition, but "making all things" is one idea, wizardry is
another.

In Southern Australia we learn that the Boonoorong, an Australian
coast tribe, ascribe the creation of things to a being named Bun-jel or
Pund-jel. He figures as the chief of an earlier supernatural class of
existence, with human relationships; thus he "has a wife, WHOSE FACE HE
HAS NEVER SEEN," brothers, a son, and so on. Now this name Bun-jel means
"eagle-hawk," and the eagle-hawk is a totem among certain stocks. Thus,
when we hear that Eagle-hawk is the maker of men and things we are
reminded of the Bushman creator, Cagn, who now receives prayers of
c