Black Adam and Eve built Ark?

Recently, I read the book “Jungle Child” by Sabine Kuegler. She tells the story of her childhood in the jungle of Indonesia where she and her family lived with a group of fine young cannibals known as the Fayu tribe, which have lived completely isolated from the outside world up until then.

Because of its unusual content it is sure an interesting read but not quite as remarkable as advertised. It is written in a fairly simplistic style while being boring at times as well. I am probably the worst book critic ever so I’ll stop to rant about it right here. What I want to do instead is tell you about something I found in the book:

About two thirds through the book, after Sabine’s heroic father (a missionary) heroically reunited the hostile clans of the area in a very heroic way (did I mention he was a heroic missionary, yet?), the family went some ways upriver to visit the leader of one of the formerly aggressive clans.

At this meeting the leader talked about the mythological origins of the Fayu. He talked about a big city where all people lived happily together. Then God came and gave each couple in the city a different language (Tower of Babel?). So, the people split up and each couple went in a different direction with one of them being the first Fayus. So the Fayu believe they originated from only one couple: a bit like Adam and Eve, eh? But there is more! After a while, God decided it is about high-tide for a good old-fashioned flood and so He flooded the world, but not without letting Fayu-Adam and Fayu-Eve build an ark to take a pair of all available animals aboard. Now, how odd is that?

The Fayu people were really isolated for all this time! They have not been exposed to any other religion except for the one they made up themselves. Admittedly, they have compressed the story a bit leaving Noah and a lot more completely out of the equation. Nonetheless, the parallels to the Christian story are still amazing. Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?

Popularity: 1% [?]