tion according to which they could once "make stone things that
flew over rivers". They have remarkable artistic powers, and their
drawings of men and animals on the walls of caves are often not inferior
to the designs on early Greek vases.(3)

(1) See "Divine Myths of the Lower Races".

(2) Hahu, Tsuni Goam, p. 4. See other accounts in Waitz, Anthropologie,
ii. 328.

(3) Custom and Myth, where illustrations of Bushman art are given, pp.
290-295.

Thus we must regard the Bushmen as possibly degenerated from a higher
status, though there is nothing (except perhaps the tradition about
bridge-making) to show that it was more exalted than that of their
more prosperous neighbours, the Hottentots. The myths of the Bushmen,
however, are almost on the lowest known level. A very good and authentic
example of Bushman cosmogonic myth was given to Mr. Orpen, chief
magistrate of St. John's territory, by Qing, King Nqusha's huntsman.
Qing "had never seen a white man, but in fighting," till he became
acquainted with Mr. Orpen.(1) The chief force in Bushmen myth is by Dr.
Bleek identified with the mantis, a sort of large grasshopper. Though he
seems at least as "chimerical a beast" as the Aryan creative boar, the
"mighty big hare" of the Algonkins, the large spider who made the
world in the opinion of the Gold Coast people, or the eagle of the
Australians, yet the insect (if insect he be), like the others, has
achieved moral qualities and is addressed in prayer. In his religious
aspect he is nothing less than a grasshopper. He is called Cagn. "Cagn
made all things and we pray to him," said Qing. "Coti is the wife of
Cagn." Qing did not know where they came from; "perhaps with the men who
brought the sun". The fact is, Qing "did not dance that dance," that is,
was not one of the Bushmen initiated into the more esoteric mysteries
of Cagn. Till we, too, are initiated, we can know very little of Cagn in
his religious aspect. Among the Bushmen, as among the Greeks, there is
"no religious mystery without dancing". Qing was not very consistent.
He said Cagn gave orders and caused all things to appear and to be made,
sun, moon, stars, wind, mountains, animals, and this, of course, is a
lofty theory of creation. Elsewhere myth avers that Cagn did not so
much create as manufacture the objects in nature. In his early day "the
snakes were also men". Cagn struck snakes with his staff and turned them
into men, as Zeus, in the Aeginetan myth,