Origin of the Negro

Feilding Star, Volume IX, Issue 83, 11 February 1888, Page 3

Origin of the Negro

At the creating of Adam, runs a Negro legend, Satan sat about imitating the work, and taking a quantity of sand, succeeded ' quite in making a man. But as everything that Satan touches becomes black, his man was naturally of that color. Seeing tbis, Satan undertook to wash him wbite in the river Jordan, but the water flpwed back as soon as he approached- it, and there was nothing left but a very little water in the bottom of the stream, which just covered the .bottom of the man's feet ahd the palms of his hands, which explains the fact thdt their hands and feet are not as darfc as the rest of their bodies. Furious at discovering that his attempt was in vain, Satan struck the poor creature a terrible blow upon the nose, whijh flattened it out for ever. The unhappy man asked for mercy, whereupon Satan, realising that his condition was not his own fault, and feeling a certain amount of pity for him passed his hand in a sort of caress over the man's head, but the terrible heat of the hand served the purpose of a curling-iron, and v frizzed the hair so tbat it remained woolly ever since.