he Kumis of South-Eastern India related to Captain Lewin, the Deputy
Commissioner of Hill Tracts, the following tradition of the creation of
man. "God made the world and the trees and the creeping things first,
and after that he set to work to make one man and one woman, forming
their bodies of clay; but each night, on the completion of his work,
there came a great snake, which, while God was sleeping, devoured the
two images. This happened twice or thrice, and God was at his wit's end,
for he had to work all day, and could not finish the pair in less than
twelve hours; besides, if he did not sleep, he would be no good," said
Captain Lewin's informant. "If he were not obliged to sleep, there would
be no death, nor would mankind be afflicted with illness. It is when
he rests that the snake carries us off to this day. Well, he was at his
wit's end, so at last he got up early one morning and first made a dog
and put life into it, and that night, when he had finished the images,
he set the dog to watch them, and when the snake came, the dog barked
and frightened it away. This is the reason at this day that when a
man is dying the dogs begin to howl; but I suppose God sleeps heavily
now-a-days, or the snake is bolder, for men die all the same." (Capt.
T.H. Lewin, "Wild Races of South-Eastern India" (London, 1870),
pages 224-26.) The Khasis of Assam tell a similar tale. (A. Bastian,
"Volkerstamme am Brahmaputra und verwandtschaftliche Nachbarn" (Berlin,
1883), page 8; Major P.R.T. Gurdon, "The Khasis" (London, 1907), page
106.)

The Ewe-speaking tribes of Togo-land, in West Africa, think that God
still makes men out of clay. When a little of the water with which he
moistens the clay remains over, he pours it on the ground and out of
that he makes the bad and disobedient people. When he wishes to make a
good man he makes him out of good clay; but when he wishes to make a
bad man, he employs only bad clay for the purpose. In the beginning
God fashioned a man and set him on the earth; after that he fashioned
a woman. The two looked at each other and began to laugh, whereupon
God sent them into the world. (J. Spieth, "Die Ewe-Stamme, Material zur
Kunde des Ewe-Volkes in Deutsch-Togo" (Berlin, 1906), pages 828, 840.)
The Innuit or Esquimaux of Point Barrow, in Alaska, tell of a time when
there was no man in the land, till a spirit named "a se lu", who resided
at Point Barrow, made a clay man, set him up on the shore to dry,
breath