Читать книгу From Monkey to Man, or, Society in the Tertiary Age онлайн

28 страница из 43

Thus the driving out of the snakes from Cocoanut Hill came in time to be wholly attributed to Shoozoo, so that, like St. Patrick, he was honored for the entire service of their expulsion. The great dragon, or flying alligator, of which he only spoke to Simlee as an excuse, was, in time, believed to have been actually killed by him, as a primitive St. George. The snake that had entered the mound of one of the apes, and gorged himself with its treasured fruits, and which was killed by the ape, was alleged to have been slain by Shoozoo while guarding great treasures in a cave, as Siegfried slew the Nibelungen dragon. The expulsion of the snakes from Cocoanut Hill found its way into various stories about a primitive pair of apes—Shoozoo and Simlee—whose fruit was stolen by snakes, for which the snakes were driven from the country; reversing the story of Adam and Eve, who took the fruit from the snake and were themselves expelled, instead of the snake. Had Adam been his own biographer, like Shoozoo, the story of Eden might have been reversed.