Note 16 — Chapter XVIII

Father Ravennes was here making allusion to the traditions of antiquity which are all agreed on the existence of a prehistoric race called the Red Race which must have been the first human race. This Red Race was that of the masters, the Gods. The Egyptian bas-reliefs show (writes M. Michel Manzi in a remarkable scientific work) that there were then four races, the red, the yellow, the black and the white. In India the famous Rutas who are traditionally supposed to have brought civilization to the world are represented as red men. All the most ancient peoples, the Iberians, Basques, Chaldeans, etc., claimed to have been of this color and to be descended from the sons of Ad the first man, the Red. The word Adam indeed means Red Man.... The Arabs also claim descent from the sons of Ad, the great antediluvian race, the race of giants who erected vast buildings of hewn stone.