23Nihongi (transl. W. G. Aston), pp. 46 and 110.
24 Les Memoires historiques de Se-ma Ts'ien (transl. Chavannes, 1895), I, 47.
25 Donnelly, Ragnarok, p. 211.
26 Warren, Buddhism in Translations, pp. 322-327.
27 Williamson, Religious and Cosmic Beliefs of Central Polynesia, I, 8.
28 Ibid., I, 37. 29 Ibid., I, 30.
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The Quiche tribe migrated to Mexico, the Israelites roamed in the desert, the Amalekites migrated toward Palestine and Egypt—an uneasy movement took place in all corners of the ruined world. The migration in Central Polynesia, shrouded in gloom, is narrated in the traditions of the aborigines of this part of the world about a chief named Te-erui who "lived long in utter darkness in Avaiki," who migrated in a canoe named "Weary of Darkness" to find a land of light, and who, after many years of wandering, saw the sky clearing little by little and arrived at a region "where they could see each other clearly." 30
In the Kalevala, the Finnish epos which "dates back to an enormous antiquity," 31 the time when the sun and moon disappeared from the sky, and dreaded shadows covered it, is described in these words:
Even birds grew sick and perished, men and maidens, faint and famished, perished in the cold and darkness, from the absence of the sunshine, from the absence of the moonlight. . . . But the wise men of the Northland could not know the dawn of morning, for the moon shines not in season nor appears the sun at midday, from their stations in the sky-vault.32
An explanation which would rationalize this picture as the description of a seasonal long night in northern regions will stumble over the second part of the passage: the seasons did not return in their wonted order. The dreaded shadow covered the earth when Ukko, the highest of the Finnish deities, relinquished the support of the heavens. Hailstones of iron rained down furiously, and then the world became shrouded in a generation-long darkness.
This "twilight of the gods" of the Nordic races is but the "shadow 30 Ibid., I, 28-29.
31 Crawford, in the Preface to the English translation of the Kalevala, refers the poem to a time when Hungarians and Finns were still united as one people, "in other words, to a time at least three thousand years ago."
32 The Kalevala, Rune 49.
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of death" of the Scriptures. The entire generation of those who left Egypt perished in the lightless desert. Vegetation died in the catastrophe. The Iranian book of Bundahis says: "Blight was diffused over the vegetation, and it withered away immediately." 33 When the sky was shattered, the day became dark, and the earth teemed with noxious creatures. For a long time there was no green thing seen; seeds would not germinate in a sunless world. It took many years before the earth again brought forth vegetation; this is told in the written and oral traditions of many peoples. According to American sources, the regeneration of the world and of humankind took place under the veil of the gloomy shadows, and the time is indicated as the end of the fifteenth robin-bobin
year of the darkness, ten years before the end of the gloom.34 In the scriptural narration it was probably the day when Aaron's dried twig budded for the first time.35
~The eerie world, dark and groaning, was unpleasant to all the senses save the sense of smelclass="underline" the world was fragrant. When the breeze blew, the clouds conveyed a sweet odor.
In the Papyrus Anastasi IV, written "in the year of misery," in which it is said that the months are reversed, the planet-god is described as arriving "with the sweet wind before him." 36
-In a similar text of the Hebrews we read that the times and seasons were confused, and "a fragrance perfumed all the world," and the perfume was brought by the pillar of smoke. The fragrance was like that of myrrh and frankincense. "Israel was surrounded by clouds," and as soon as the clouds were set in motion, the winds "breathed myrrh and frankincense." 3T
The Vedas contain hymns to Agni which "glows from the sky." Its fragrance became the fragrance of the earth.
33 The Bundahis, Chap. 3, Sec. 16.
34 Gomara, Conquista, cxix.
35 Numbers 17 : 8. The cover of clouds remained over the desert until after the death of Aaron.
Cf. Ginzberg, Legends, VI, 114.
36 Erman, Egyptian Literature, p. 309.
37 Ginzberg, Legends, III, 158 and 235; VI, 71. According to Targum Yerushalmi, Exodus 35 : 28: "The clouds brought the perfumes from paradise and placed them in the wilderness for Israel."
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That fragrance of thine . . .
which the immortals of yore gathered up.38
The generation of those days, when the star conveyed its fragrance to men on the earth, is immortalized in the tradition of the Hindus. The Vedic hymn compares the fragrance of the star Agni to the scent of the lotus.
Ambrosia
In what way did this veil of gloom dissolve itself?
When the air is overcharged with vapor, dew, rain, hail, or snow falls. Most probably the atmosphere discharged its compounds, presumably of carbon and hydrogen, in a similar way.
Has any testimony been preserved that during the many years of gloom carbohydrates precipitated?
'When the dew fell upon the camp in the night, the manna fell upon it." It was like "the hoar frost on the ground." It had the shape of coriander seed, the yellowish color of bdellium, and an oily taste like honeycomb. It was called "corn of heaven" and it was ground between stones and baked in pans.1 The manna fell from the clouds.2
After the nightly cooling, the carbohydrates precipitated and fell with the morning dew. The grains dissolved in the heat and evaporated; but in a closed vessel the substance could be preserved for a long time.3
The exegetes have endeavored to explain the phenomenon of manna and were helped by the naturalists who discovered that a tamarisk in the desert of Sinai sheds its seeds during certain months of the year.4 But why should this seed be called "corn of heaven,"
38 Hymns of the Atharva-Veda (transl. M. Bloomfield, 1897), 201-202. i Exodus 16 : 14-34; Numbers 11 : 7-9. 2 Psalms 78 : 23-24.
3 Exodus 16 : 21, 33-34.
4 See A. P. Stanley, Lectures on the History of the Jewish Church (1863), Pt. I, p. 147: "The manna . . . according to the Jewish tradition of Josephus, and the belief of the Arab tribes, and of the Greek church at the present day, is still found in the dropping from the tamarisk bushes."
However, Josephus, in his Antiquities, III, 26 ff.: does not speak of tamarisks but of dew which looked like snow and still falls in the desert, being a "mainstay to dwellers in these parts."
An expedition of Jerusalem University in 1927 investigated the tamarisk in
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robin-bobin
"bread of heaven,"5 or why should it be said it "will rain bread from heaven?" 6 It is also not easy to explain how a multitude of men and animals could have existed for many years in a wilderness on the scarce and seasonal seeds of some desert plant. Were such a thing possible, the desert would be preferable to tillable land that yields bread to the laborer only in the sweat of his brow.
• The clouds brought the heavenly bread, it is also said in the Talmud.7 But if the manna fell from clouds that enveloped the entire world, it must have fallen not only in the Desert of Wanderings, but everywhere; and not only the Israelites, but other peoples, too, must have tasted it and spoken of it in their traditions.
There was a world fire, says the Icelandic tradition, followed by the Fimbul-winter, and only one human pair remained alive in the north. "This human pair lie hidden in the holt during the fire of Surt." Then came "the terrible Fimbul-winter at the end of the world [age]; meanwhile they feed on morning dew, and from them come the folk who people the renewed earth." 8
Three elements are connected in the Icelandic tradition which are the same three we met in the Israelite tradition: the world fire, the dark winter that endured many years, and the morning dew that served as food during these years of gloom when nothing budded.