Darwinian Connection
Charles Darwin used the nomenclature Inuus ecaudalus in writing of the Barbary ape, now classified as Macaca sylvanus. Charles Kingsley wrote to Darwin in January 1862 speculating that certain mythological beings may represent cultural memories of creatures "intermediate between man & the ape" who became extinct as a result of natural selection:
| “ | I want now to bore you on another matter. This great gulf between the quadrumana & man; & the absence of any record of species intermediate between man & the ape. It has come home to me with much force, that while we deny the existence of any such, the legends of most nations are full of them. Fauns, Satyrs, Inui, Elves, Dwarfs — we call them one minute mythological personages, the next conquered inferior races — & ignore the broad fact, that they are always represented as more bestial than man, & of violent sexual passion. … The Inuus of the old Latins is obscure: but his name is from inire — sexual violence. | ” |
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