lled out to
their Maker, "What have we to do with this stone? Give us something
else." The Creator complied and hauled away at the rope; the stone
mounted up and up till it vanished from sight. Presently the rope was
seen coming down from heaven again, and this time there was a banana at
the end of it instead of a stone. Our first parents ran at the banana
and took it. Then there came a voice from heaven, saying: "Because ye
have chosen the banana, your life shall be like its life. When the
banana-tree has offspring, the parent stem dies; so shall ye die and
your children shall step into your place. Had ye chosen the stone, your
life would have been like the life of the stone changeless and
immortal." The man and his wife mourned over their fatal choice, but it
was too late; that is how through the eating of a banana death came into
the world.[92] The Mentras or Mantras, a shy tribe of savages in the
jungles of the Malay Peninsula, allege that in the early days of the
world men did not die, but only grew thin at the waning of the moon and
then waxed fat again as she waxed to the full. Thus there was no check
whatever on the population, which increased to a truly alarming extent.
So a son of the first man brought this state of things to his father's
notice and asked him what was to be done. The first man said, "Leave
things as they are"; but his younger brother, who took a more Malthusian
view of the situation, said, "No, let men die like the banana, leaving
their offspring behind." The question was submitted to the Lord of the
Underworld, and he decided in favour of death. Ever since then men have
ceased to renew their youth like the moon and have died like the
banana.[93]

[Sidenote: Primitive philosophy in the stories of the origin of death.]

Thus the three stories of the origin of death which I have called the
Moon type, the Serpent type, and the Banana type appear to be products
of a primitive philosophy which sees a cheerful emblem of immortality in
the waxing and waning moon and in the cast skins of serpents, but a sad
emblem of mortality in the banana-tree, which perishes as soon as it has
produced its fruit. But, as I have already said, these types of stories
do not exhaust the theories or fancies of primitive man on the question
how death came into the world. I will conclude this part of my subject
with some myths which do not fall under any of the preceding heads.

[Sidenote: Bahnar story of immortality, th