Shikk and the Nesnas, creatures like one half of a split man, with one arm, leg, and eye. Possibly it was thence that the Zulus got their idea of a tribe of half-men, who in one of their stories found a Zulu maiden in a cave and thought she was two people, but on closer inspection of her admitted, 'The thing is pretty! But oh the two legs!' These realistic fancies coincide with the simple metaphor which describes a savage as only 'half a man,' semihomo, as Virgil calls the ferocious Cacus.[1] Again, when the Chinese compared themselves to the outer barbarians, they said 'We see with two eyes, the Latins with one, and all other nations are blind.' Such metaphors, proverbial among ourselves, verbally correspond with legends of one-eyed tribes, such as the savage cave-dwelling Kyklopes.[2] Verbal coincidence of this kind, untrustworthy enough in these latter instances, passes at last into the vaguest fancy. The negroes called Europeans 'long-headed,' using the phrase in our familiar metaphorical sense; but translate it into Greek, and at once Hesiod's Makrokephaloi come into being.[3] And, to conclude the list, one of the commonest of the monster-tribes of the Old and New World is that distinguished by having feet turned backward. Now there is really a people whose name, memorable in scientific controversy, describes them as 'having feet the opposite
3 Kölle, 'Vei Gr.' p. 229; Strabo, i. 2, 35. The artificially elongated
skulls of real (
Greek characters) (Hippokrates, 'De Aeris,' 14.) are found in the
burial-places of Kertch.
- ↑ Lane, vol. i. p. 33; Callaway, 'Zulu Tales,' vol. i. pp. 199, 202. Virg. Æn. viii. 194; a similar metaphor is the name of the Nimchas, from Persian nim — half, 'Journ. Eth. Soc.' vol. i. p. 192, cf. French demi-monde. Compare the 'one-legged' tribes, Plin. vii. 2; Schoolcraft, 'Indian Tribes,' part iii. p. 521; Charlevoix, vol. i. p. 25. The Australians use the metaphor 'of one leg' (matta gyn) to describe tribes as of one stock, G. F. Moore, 'Vocab.' pp. 5, 71.
- ↑ Hayton in Purchas, vol. iii. p. 108; see Klemm, 'C. G.' vol. vi. p. 129; Vambéry, p. 49; Homer. Odyss. ix.; Strabo, i. 2, 12; see Scherzer, 'Voy. of Novara,' vol. ii. p. 40; C. J. Andersson, 'Lake Ngami, &c.,' p. 453; Du Chaillu, 'Equatorial Africa,' p. 440; Sir J. Richardson, 'Polar Regions,' p. 300. For tribes with more than two eyes, see Pliny's metaphorically explained Nisacæthæ and Nisyti, Plin. vi. 35; also Bastian, 'Mensch,' vol. ii. p. 414; 'Oestl. Asien,' vol. i. pp. 25, 76; Petherick, l.c.; Bowen, 'Yoruba Gr.' p. xx.; Schirren, p. 196.
- ↑ 3
