12
Traditions of Man,
(Lord Lindsay’s Travels, letter 7, Arabia.) Another English traveller no-ticed women in India use “ tbeir hands as ladles to fill tbeir pitchers.”
Some writers suppose that Adam, at the beginning ofhis existence, wasnot subject to such inconvenient modes of supplying his natural wants.They will have it, that he possessed the knowledge of a philosopher, andwas equally expert as a modern mechanic, in applying it to the practicalpurposes of life. It need scarcely be remarked, that this is imaginary : wemight as well credit the visionary tales of the rabbis, or digest the equallyauthentic accounts of Mahomedan writers. According to these, Adam musthave been a blacksmith, for he brought down from paradise with him, livethings made of iron; an anvil, a pair of tongs, two hammers, a large and asmall one, and a needle! Analogous to this is the affirmation of the Scyth-ians, mentioned by Herodotus , a that there feil from heaven into the Scythian district, four things made of gold; a plough, a yoke, an axe, and a goklet.The palladium of Troy, it was said, also, feil down from heaven. It, wasa small statue of Pallas, holding a distaff and spindle. b
We believe there is no authority in the bible, either for the superiorityof Adam’s knowledge, or of the circumstances in which he was placed:on the contrary, Moses represents him and his immediate descendants, inthat rüde state, in which all the original and distinct tribes of men have beenfound at one time or another; living on the spontaneous productions of theearth, on fruits and roots; ignorant of the existence and use of the metals, (andthere could be no civilization where these were unknown;) naked and in-sensible of the advantages of clothing: in process of time, using a slight co-vering of leaves, or other vegetable productions, and subsequently applyingthe skins of animals to the same purpose; then constructing huts or dwellingsofthe leaves and branches oftrees; attainingthe knowledge of, and use offire ; and making slight attempts to cultivate the earth; for slight indeed theymust have been, in the infancy of the human race, before animal powerwas applied to agricultural labor, or the implements of husbandry wereknown. Of these last, rüde implements formed of sticks, might have been,and probably were used, as they have been by rüde people in all ages.Virgil’s description of the aborigines of Italy , previous to the reign ofSaturn, is merely a poetic Version of traditions of man in primeval times:
Nor laws they knew, nor manners, nor the careOf lab’ring oxen, nor the shining share, (the plough.)
Nor arts of gain, nor what they gained to spare.
Their exercise the chase : the running floodSupplied their thirst: the trees supplied their food.
Then Saturn came. En. viii, 420.
Vitruvius says, “ In ancient times, men, like wild beasts, lived in forests,caves, and groves, feeding on wild food; and that they acquired the art ofproducing fire, from observing it evolved from the branches of trees, whenviolently rubbed against each other, during tempestuous winds.” 0
Similar traditions of their ancestors were preserved by all the ancientnations, and some of their religious ceremonies were based upon them.Thus at the Plynteria, a festival of the Greeks in honor of Minerva, it wascustomary to carry in the procession a cluster of figs, which intimated theprogress of civilization among the first inhabitants of the earth, as figs servedthem for food, after they had acquired a disrelish for acorns. The Arca-dians eat apples tili the Lacedemonians warred with them. d
The oak was revered because it alforded man in the first ages, both foodand drink, by its acorns and honey, (bees frequently making their hives
a iv, 5. b These and similar traditions of other people, indicate the extreme antiquityof the implements named. The ancients were as ignorant of their origin as we are.