We cannot go much lower than the Bushmen, and among Bushman divine myths
is room for the 'swallowing trick' attributed to Cronus by Hesiod. The
chief divine character in Bushman myth is the Mantis insect. His adopted
daughter is the child of Kwai Hemm, a supernatural character, 'the all-
devourer.' The Mantis gets his adopted daughter to call the swallower to
his aid; but Kwai Hemm swallows the Mantis, the god-insect. As Zeus made
his own wife change herself into an insect, for the convenience of
swallowing her, there is not much difference between Bushman and early
Greek mythology. Kwai Hemm is killed by a stratagem, and all the animals
whom he has got outside of, in a long and voracious career, troop forth
from him alive and well, like the swallowed gods from the maw of Cronus.
{54a} Now, story for story, the Bushman version is much less offensive
than that of Hesiod. But the Bushman story is just the sort of story we
expect from Bushmen, whereas the Hesiodic story is not at all the kind of
tale we look for from Greeks. The explanation is, that the Greeks had
advanced out of a savage state of mind and society, but had retained
their old myths, myths evolved in the savage stage, and in harmony with
that condition of fancy. Among the Kaffirs {54b} we find the same
'swallow-myth.' The Igongqongqo swallows all and sundry; a woman cuts
the swallower with a knife, and 'people came out, and cattle, and dogs.'
In Australia, a god is swallowed. As in the myth preserved by
Aristophanes in the 'Birds,' the Australians believe that birds were the
original gods, and the eagle, especially, is a great creative power. The
Moon was a mischievous being, who walked about the world, doing what evil
he could. One day he swallowed the eagle-god. The wives of the eagle
came up, and the Moon asked them where he might find a well. They
pointed out a well, and, as he drank, they hit the Moon with a stone
tomahawk, and out flew the eagle. {54c} This is oddly like Grimm's tale
of 'The Wolf and the Kids.' The wolf swallowed the kids, their mother
cut a hole in the wolf, let out the kids, stuffed the wolf with stones,