half a century after the conquest, it was
in Tiahuanaco that man was first created, or at least was created afresh
after the deluge. "There (in Tiahuanaco)," so runs the legend, "the
Creator began to raise up the people and nations that are in that
region, making one of each nation of clay, and painting the dresses that
each one was to wear; those that were to wear their hair, with hair, and
those that were to be shorn, with hair cut. And to each nation was given
the language, that was to be spoken, and the songs to be sung, and the
seeds and food that they were to sow. When the Creator had finished
painting and making the said nations and figures of clay, he gave life
and soul to each one, as well men as women, and ordered that they should
pass under the earth. Thence each nation came up in the places to which
he ordered them to go." (E.J. Payne, "History of the New World called
America", I. (Oxford, 1892), page 462.)

These examples suffice to prove that the theory of the creation of man
out of dust or clay has been current among savages in many parts of
the world. But it is by no means the only explanation which the savage
philosopher has given of the beginnings of human life on earth. Struck
by the resemblances which may be traced between himself and the beasts,
he has often supposed, like Darwin himself, that mankind has been
developed out of lower forms of animal life. For the simple savage has
none of that high notion of the transcendant dignity of man which makes
so many superior persons shrink with horror from the suggestion that
they are distant cousins of the brutes. He on the contrary is not too
proud to own his humble relations; indeed his difficulty often is
to perceive the distinction between him and them. Questioned by a
missionary, a Bushman of more than average intelligence "could not state
any difference between a man and a brute--he did not know but a buffalo
might shoot with bows and arrows as well as man, if it had them."
(Reverend John Campbell, "Travels in South Africa" (London, 1822, II.
page 34.) When the Russians first landed on one of the Alaskan islands,
the natives took them for cuttle-fish "on account of the buttons on
their clothes." (I. Petroff, "Report on the Population, Industries, and
Resources of Alaska", page 145.) The Giliaks of the Amoor think that the
outward form and size of an animal are only apparent; in substance every
beast is a real man, just like a Giliak himself, only end