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Martian creation legend:

"The First Born of Barsoom," he explained, "are the race of black
men of which I am a Dator, or, as the lesser Barsoomians would
say, Prince. My race is the oldest on the planet. We trace our
lineage, unbroken, direct to the Tree of Life which flourished in
the centre of the Valley Dor twenty-three million years ago.

"For countless ages the fruit of this tree underwent the gradual
changes of evolution, passing by degrees from true plant life to
a combination of plant and animal. In the first stages the fruit
of the tree possessed only the power of independent muscular action,
while the stem remained attached to the parent plant; later a brain
developed in the fruit, so that hanging there by their long stems
they thought and moved as individuals.

"Then, with the development of perceptions came a comparison of
them; judgments were reached and compared, and thus reason and the
power to reason were born upon Barsoom.

"Ages passed. Many forms of life came and went upon the Tree of
Life, but still all were attached to the parent plant by stems of
varying lengths. At length the fruit tree consisted in tiny plant
men, such as we now see reproduced in such huge dimensions in the
Valley Dor, but still hanging to the limbs and branches of the tree
by the stems which grew from the tops of their heads.

"The buds from which the plant men blossomed resembled large nuts
about a foot in diameter, divided by double partition walls into
four sections. In one section grew the plant man, in another a
sixteen-legged worm, in the third the progenitor of the white ape
and in the fourth the primaeval black man of Barsoom.

"When the bud burst the plant man remained dangling at the end of
his stem, but the three other sections fell to the ground, where the
efforts of their imprisoned occupants to escape sent them hopping
about in all directions.

"Thus as time went on, all Barsoom was covered with these imprisoned
creatures. For countless ages they lived their long lives within
their hard shells, hopping and skipping about the broad planet;
falling into rivers, lakes, and seas, to be still further spread
about the surface of the new world.

"Countless billions died before the first black man broke through
his prison walls into the light of day. Prompted by curiosity, he
broke open other shells and the peopling of Barsoom commenced.

"The pure strain of the blood of this first black man has remained
untainted by admixture with other creatures in the race of which
I am a member; but from the sixteen-legged worm, the first ape and
renegade black man has sprung every other form of animal life upon
Barsoom.

"The therns," and he smiled maliciously as he spoke, "are but the
result of ages of evolution from the pure white ape of antiquity.
They are a lower order still. There is but one race of true and
immortal humans on Barsoom. It is the race of black men.

"The Tree of Life is dead, but before it died the plant men learned
to detach themselves from it and roam the face of Barsoom with the
other children of the First Parent.

"Now their bisexuality permits them to reproduce themselves after
the manner of true plants, but otherwise they have progressed
but little in all the ages of their existence. Their actions and
movements are largely matters of instinct and not guided to any great
extent by reason, since the brain of a plant man is but a trifle
larger than the end of your smallest finger. They live upon
vegetation and the blood of animals, and their brain is just large
enough to direct their movements in the direction of food, and to
translate the food sensations which are carried to it from their
eyes and ears. They have no sense of self-preservation and so are
entirely without fear in the face of danger. That is why they are
such terrible antagonists in combat."

From "The Gods of Mars" (ERB)