Tradition : Principally with Reference to Mythology and the

82 CHRONOLOG Y FROM SCIENCE.
it black."-" Annales de la Prop, de la Foi*" 1. iv. 537 ;
Garnet, i. 211.
In Tonga, the tradition is connected with this history
of Cain:
" The god Tangaloa,9 who first inhabited this earth, is this Adam.
He had two sons, who went to live at Boloton. . . . The younger was
very clever. Tonbo (the eldest) was very different : he did nothing
IV d Uw VI. V « lji\^ \_/ i^A and covet the works of his brother. On
her out walking, and knocked him down. Then
father arrived at Boloton, and in great anger said, ' Whv has th
killed thy brother. Fly, wretched man ; fly. Your race shall b
, and your soul depraved ; you shall labour without success.
Begone ; you shall not go to the land of your brother, but your
;her shall come sometimes to trade with you.' And he said to
family of the victim, * Go towards the great land ; your skin shall
be white ; you shall excel in all good things.' "-Gainet, i. 93.10
Cardinal Wiseman (in his " Science and Revealed
Religion," lect. iii.), says, with reference to Aristotle's
distribution of mankind into races by colour :
" There is a passage in Julius Firmicus, overlooked by the commentators
of Aristotle, which gives us the same ternary division,
with the colours of each race. * In the first place,' he writes, ' speaking
of the characters and colours of men, they agree in saying,-if by
the mixed influence of the stars, the characters and complexions of
men are distributed ; and if the course of the heavenly bodies, by a
certain kind of artful painting, form the lineaments of mortal bodies ;
that is, if the moon makes men white, Mars red, and Saturn black,
how comes it that in Ethiopia all are born black, in Germany
white, and in Thrace red ?'"-Astronomicon, lib. i., c. i., ed. Basil.
1551, p. 3.
Now this passage seems to ine to have a still further
significance in the words I have italicised, with refer-
g "Annales de Philos. Chret," t. xiii. p. 235.
10 The expressions in the latter part of this narration recall the blessing
of Jacob, and suggests the possibility of the tradition having come through
descendants of Esau.