er die, if their lives were not cut prematurely short by
sorcery. Further, I pointed out that this mistaken view of the nature of
death has exercised a disastrous influence on the tribes who entertain
it, since, attributing all natural deaths to sorcery, they consider
themselves bound to discover and kill the wicked sorcerers whom they
regard as responsible for the death of their friends. Thus in primitive
society as a rule every natural death entails at least one and often
several deaths by violence; since the supposed culprit being unknown
suspicion may fall upon many persons, all of whom may be killed either
out of hand or as a consequence of failing to demonstrate their
innocence by means of an ordeal.

[Sidenote: Savage stories of the origin of death.]

Yet even the savages who firmly believe in man's natural immortality are
obliged sorrowfully to admit that, as things are at the present day, men
do frequently die, whatever explanation we may give of so unexpected and
unnatural an occurrence. Accordingly they are hard put to it to
reconcile their theory of immortality with the practice of mortality.
They have meditated on the subject and have given us the fruit of their
meditation in a series of myths which profess to explain the origin of
death. For the most part these myths are very crude and childish; yet
they have a value of their own as examples of man's early attempts to
fathom one of the great mysteries which encompass his frail and
transient existence on earth; and accordingly I have here collected, in
all their naked simplicity, a few of these savage guesses at truth.

[Sidenote: Four types of such stories.]

Myths of the origin of death conform to several types, among which we
may distinguish, first, what I will call the type of the Two Messengers;
second, the type of the Waxing and Waning Moon; third, the type of the
Serpent and his Cast Skin; and fourth, the type of the Banana-tree. I
will illustrate each type by examples, and will afterwards cite some
miscellaneous instances which do not fall under any of these heads.

[Sidenote: I. The tale of the Two Messengers. Zulu story of the
chameleon and the lizard. The same story among other Bantu tribes.]

First, then, we begin with the type of the Two Messengers. Stories of
this pattern are widespread in Africa, especially among tribes belonging
to the great Bantu family, which occupies roughly the southern half of
the continent. The best-known example