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The 5th Epochal Revelation
-The Urantia Papers
PAPER 63
THE FIRST HUMAN FAMILY
63:0.1
URANTIA was registered as an inhabited world when the
first two human beings -- the twins -- were eleven years
old, and before they had become the parents of the
first-born of the second generation of actual human
beings. And the archangel message from Salvington, on
this occasion of formal planetary recognition, closed
with these words:
63:0.2
"Man-mind has appeared on 606 of Satania, and these
parents of the new race shall be called
Andon and
Fonta. And
all archangels pray that these creatures may speedily be
endowed with the personal indwelling of the gift of the
spirit of the Universal Father."
63:0.3
Andon is the Nebadon name which signifies "the first
Fatherlike creature to exhibit human perfection hunger."
Fonta signifies "the first Sonlike creature to exhibit
human perfection hunger." Andon and Fonta never knew
these names until they were bestowed upon them at the
time of fusion with their Thought Adjusters. Throughout
their mortal sojourn on Urantia they called each other
Sonta-an and Sonta-en, Sonta-an meaning "loved by
mother," Sonta-en signifying "loved by father." They
gave themselves these names, and the meanings are
significant of their mutual regard and affection.
1. ANDON AND FONTA
63:1.1
In many respects, Andon and Fonta were the most
remarkable pair of human beings that have ever lived on
the face of the earth. This wonderful pair, the actual
parents of all mankind, were in every way superior to
many of their immediate descendants, and they were
radically different from all of their ancestors, both
immediate and remote.
63:1.2
The parents of this first human couple were apparently
little different from the average of their tribe, though
they were among its more intelligent members, that group
which first learned to throw stones and to use clubs in
fighting. They also made use of sharp spicules of stone,
flint, and bone.
63:1.3
While still living with his parents, Andon had fastened
a sharp piece of flint on the end of a club, using
animal tendons for this purpose, and on no less than a
dozen occasions he made good use of such a weapon in
saving both his own life and that of his equally
adventurous and inquisitive sister, who unfailingly
accompanied him on all of his tours of exploration.
63:1.4
The decision of Andon and Fonta to flee from the
Primates tribes implies a quality of mind far above the
baser intelligence which characterized so many of their
later descendants who stooped to mate with their
retarded cousins of the simian tribes. But their vague
feeling of being something more than mere animals was
due to the possession of personality and was augmented
by the indwelling presence of the Thought Adjusters.
2. THE FLIGHT OF THE TWINS
63:2.1
After Andon and Fonta had decided to flee northward,
they succumbed to their fears for a time, especially the
fear of displeasing their father and immediate family.
They envisaged being set upon by hostile relatives and
thus recognized the possibility of meeting death at the
hands of their already jealous tribesmen. As youngsters,
the twins had spent most of their time in each other's
company and for this reason had never been overly
popular with their animal cousins of the Primates tribe.
Nor had they improved their standing in the tribe by
building a separate, and a very superior, tree home.
63:2.2
And it was in this new home among the treetops, one
night after they had been awakened by a violent storm,
and as they held each other in fearful and fond embrace,
that they finally and fully made up their minds to flee
from the tribal habitat and the home treetops.
63:2.3
They had already prepared a crude treetop retreat some
half-day's journey to the north. This was their secret
and safe hiding place for the first day away from the
home forests. Notwithstanding that the twins shared the
Primates' deathly fear of being on the ground at
nighttime, they sallied forth shortly before nightfall
on their northern trek. While it required unusual
courage for them to undertake this night journey, even
with a full moon, they correctly concluded that they
were less likely to be missed and pursued by their
tribesmen and relatives. And they safely made their
previously prepared rendezvous shortly after midnight.
63:2.4
On their northward journey they discovered an exposed
flint deposit and, finding many stones suitably shaped
for various uses, gathered up a supply for the future.
In attempting to chip these flints so that they would be
better adapted for certain purposes, Andon discovered
their sparking quality and conceived the idea of
building fire. But the notion did not take firm hold of
him at the time as the climate was still salubrious and
there was little need of fire.
63:2.5
But the autumn sun was getting lower in the sky, and as
they journeyed northward, the nights grew cooler and
cooler. Already they had been forced to make use of
animal skins for warmth. Before they had been away from
home one moon, Andon signified to his mate that he
thought he could make fire with the flint. They tried
for two months to utilize the flint spark for kindling a
fire but only met with failure. Each day this couple
would strike the flints and endeavor to ignite the wood.
Finally, one evening about the time of the setting of
the sun, the secret of the technique was unraveled when
it occurred to Fonta to climb a near-by tree to secure
an abandoned bird's nest. The nest was dry and highly
inflammable and consequently flared right up into a full
blaze the moment the spark fell upon it. They were so
surprised and startled at their success that they almost
lost the fire, but they saved it by the addition of
suitable fuel, and then began the first search for
firewood by the parents of all mankind.
63:2.6
This was one of the most joyous moments in their short
but eventful lives. All night long they sat up watching
their fire burn, vaguely realizing that they had made a
discovery which would make it possible for them to defy
climate and thus forever to be independent of their
animal relatives of the southern lands. After three
days' rest and enjoyment of the fire, they journeyed
63:2.7
The Primates ancestors of Andon had often replenished
fire which had been kindled by lightning, but never
before had the creatures of earth possessed a method of
starting fire at will. But it was a long time before the
twins learned that dry moss and other materials would
kindle fire just as well as birds' nests.
3. ANDON'S FAMILY
63:3.1
It was almost two years from the night of the twins'
departure from home before their first child was born.
They named him Sontad; and Sontad was the first creature
to be born on Urantia who was wrapped in protective
coverings at the time of birth. The human race had
begun, and with this new evolution there appeared the
instinct properly to care for the increasingly enfeebled
infants which would characterize the progressive
development of mind of the intellectual order as
contrasted with the more purely animal type.
63:3.2
Andon and Fonta had nineteen children in all, and they
lived to enjoy the association of almost half a hundred
grandchildren and half a dozen great-grandchildren. The
family was domiciled in four adjoining rock shelters, or
semicaves, three of which were interconnected by
hallways which had been excavated in the soft limestone
with flint tools devised by Andon's children.
63:3.3
These early Andonites evinced a very marked clannish
spirit; they hunted in groups and never strayed very far
from the homesite. They seemed to realize that they were
an isolated and unique group of living beings and should
therefore avoid becoming separated. This feeling of
intimate kinship was undoubtedly due to the enhanced
mind ministry of the adjutant spirits.
63:3.4
Andon and Fonta labored incessantly for the nurture and
uplift of the clan. They lived to the age of forty-two,
when both were killed at the time of an earthquake by
the falling of an overhanging rock. Five of their
children and eleven grandchildren perished with them,
and almost a score of their descendants suffered serious
injuries.
63:3.5
Upon the death of his parents, Sontad, despite a
seriously injured foot, immediately assumed the
leadership of the clan and was ably assisted by his
wife, his eldest sister. Their first task was to roll up
stones to effectively entomb their dead parents,
brothers, sisters, and children. Undue significance
should not attach to this act of burial. Their ideas of
survival after death were very vague and indefinite,
being largely derived from their fantastic and
variegated dream life.
63:3.6
This family of Andon and Fonta held together until the
twentieth generation, when combined food competition and
social friction brought about the beginning of
dispersion.
4. THE ANDONIC CLANS
63:4.1
Primitive man -- the Andonites -- had black eyes and a
swarthy complexion, something of a cross between yellow
and red. Melanin is a coloring substance which is found
in the skins of all human beings. It is the original
Andonic skin pigment. In general appearance and skin
color these early Andonites more nearly resembled the
present-day Eskimo than any other type of living human
beings. They were the first creatures to use the skins
of animals as a protection against cold; they had little
more hair on their bodies than present-day humans.
63:4.2
The tribal life of the animal ancestors of these early
men had foreshadowed the beginnings of numerous social
conventions, and with the expanding emotions and
augmented brain powers of these beings, there was an
immediate development in social organization and a new
division of clan labor. They were exceedingly imitative,
but the play instinct was only slightly developed, and
the sense of humor was almost entirely absent. Primitive
man smiled occasionally, but he never indulged in hearty
laughter. Humor was the legacy of the later Adamic race.
These early human beings were not so sensitive to pain
nor so reactive to unpleasant situations as were many of
the later evolving mortals. Childbirth was not a painful
or distressing ordeal to Fonta and her immediate
progeny.
63:4.3
They were a wonderful tribe. The males would fight
heroically for the safety of their mates and their
offspring; the females were affectionately devoted to
their children. But their patriotism was wholly limited
to the immediate clan. They were very loyal to their
families; they would die without question in defense of
their children, but they were not able to grasp the idea
of trying to make the world a better place for their
grandchildren. Altruism was as yet unborn in the human
heart, notwithstanding that all of the emotions
essential to the birth of religion were already present
in these Urantia aborigines.
63:4.4
These early men possessed a touching affection for their
comrades and certainly had a real, although crude, idea
of friendship. It was a common sight in later times,
during their constantly recurring battles with the
inferior tribes, to see one of these primitive men
valiantly fighting with one hand while he struggled on,
trying to protect and save an injured fellow warrior.
Many of the most noble and highly human traits of
subsequent evolutionary development were touchingly
foreshadowed in these primitive peoples.
63:4.5
The original Andonic clan maintained an unbroken line of
leadership until the twenty-seventh generation, when, no
male offspring appearing among Sontad's direct
descendants, two rival would-be rulers of the clan fell
to fighting for supremacy.
63:4.6
Before the extensive dispersion of the Andonic clans a
well-developed language had evolved from their early
efforts to intercommunicate. This language continued to
grow, and almost daily additions were made to it because
of the new inventions and adaptations to environment
which were developed by these active, restless, and
curious people. And this language became the word of
Urantia, the tongue of the early human family, until the
later appearance of the colored races.
63:4.7
As time passed, the Andonic clans grew in number, and
the contact of the expanding families developed friction
and misunderstandings. Only two things came to occupy
the minds of these peoples: hunting to obtain food and
fighting to avenge themselves against some real or
supposed injustice or insult at the hands of the
neighboring tribes.
63:4.8
Family feuds increased, tribal wars broke out, and
serious losses were sustained among the very best
elements of the more able and advanced groups. Some of
these losses were irreparable; some of the most valuable
strains of ability and intelligence were forever lost to
the world. This early race and its primitive
civilization were threatened with extinction by this
incessant warfare of the clans.
63:4.9
It is impossible to induce such primitive beings long to
live together in peace. Man is the descendant of
fighting animals, and when closely associated,
uncultured people irritate and offend each other. The
Life Carriers know this tendency among evolutionary
creatures and accordingly make provision for the
eventual separation of developing human beings into at
least three, and more often six, distinct and separate
races.
5. DISPERSION OF THE ANDONITES
63:5.1
The early Andon races did not penetrate very far into
Asia, and they did not at first enter Africa. The
geography of those times pointed them north, and farther
and farther north these people journeyed until they were
hindered by the slowly advancing ice of the third
glacier.
63:5.2
Before this extensive ice sheet reached France and the
British Isles, the descendants of Andon and Fonta had
pushed on westward over Europe and had established more
than one thousand separate settlements along the great
rivers leading to the then warm waters of the North Sea.
63:5.3
These Andonic tribes were the early river dwellers of
France; they lived along the river Somme for tens of
thousands of years. The Somme is the one river unchanged
by the glaciers, running down to the sea in those days
much as it does today. And that explains why so much
evidence of the Andonic descendants is found along the
course of this river valley.
63:5.4
These aborigines of Urantia were not tree dwellers,
though in emergencies they still betook themselves to
the treetops. They regularly dwelt under the shelter of
overhanging cliffs along the rivers and in hillside
grottoes which afforded a good view of the approaches
and sheltered them from the elements. They could thus
enjoy the comfort of their fires without being too much
inconvenienced by the smoke. They were not really cave
dwellers either, though in subsequent times the later
ice sheets came farther south and drove their
descendants to the caves. They preferred to camp near
the edge of a forest and beside a stream.
63:5.5
They very early became remarkably clever in disguising
their partially sheltered abodes and showed great skill
in constructing stone sleeping chambers, dome-shaped
stone huts, into which they crawled at night. The
entrance to such a hut was closed by rolling a stone in
front of it, a large stone which had been placed inside
for this purpose before the roof stones were finally put
in place.
63:5.6
The Andonites were fearless and successful hunters and,
with the exception of wild berries and certain fruits of
the trees, lived exclusively on flesh. As Andon had
invented the stone ax, so his descendants early
discovered and made effective use of the throwing stick
and the harpoon. At last a tool-creating mind was
functioning in conjunction with an implement-using hand,
and these early humans became highly skillful in the
fashioning of flint tools. They traveled far and wide in
search of flint, much as present-day humans journey to
the ends of the earth in quest of gold, platinum, and
diamonds.
63:5.7
And in many other ways these Andon tribes manifested a
degree of intelligence which their retrogressing
descendants did not attain in half a million years,
though they did again and again rediscover various
methods of kindling fire.
6. ONAGAR -- THE FIRST TRUTH TEACHER
63:6.1
As the Andonic dispersion extended, the cultural and
spiritual status of the clans retrogressed for nearly
ten thousand years until the days of Onagar, who assumed
the leadership of these tribes, brought peace among
them, and for the first time, led all of them in the
worship of the "Breath Giver to men and animals."
63:6.2
Andon's philosophy had been most confused; he had barely
escaped becoming a fire worshiper because of the great
comfort derived from his accidental discovery of fire.
Reason, however, directed him from his own discovery to
the sun as a superior and more awe-inspiring source of
heat and light, but it was too remote, and so he failed
to become a sun worshiper.
63:6.3
The Andonites early developed a fear of the elements --
thunder, lightning, rain, snow, hail, and ice. But
hunger was the constantly recurring urge of these early
days, and since they largely subsisted on animals, they
eventually evolved a form of animal worship. To Andon,
the larger food animals were symbols of creative might
and sustaining power. From time to time it became the
custom to designate various of these larger animals as
objects of worship. During the vogue of a particular
animal, crude outlines of it would be drawn on the walls
of the caves, and later on, as continued progress was
made in the arts, such an animal god was engraved on
various ornaments.
63:6.4
Very early the Andonic peoples formed the habit of
refraining from eating the flesh of the animal of tribal
veneration. Presently, in order more suitably to impress
the minds of their youths, they evolved a ceremony of
reverence which was carried out about the body of one of
these venerated animals; and still later on, this
primitive performance developed into the more elaborate
sacrificial ceremonies of their descendants. And this is
the origin of sacrifices as a part of worship. This idea
was elaborated by Moses in the Hebrew ritual and was
preserved, in principle, by the Apostle Paul as the
doctrine of atonement for sin by "the shedding of
blood."
63:6.5
That food was the all-important thing in the lives of
these primitive human beings is shown by the prayer
taught these simple folks by Onagar, their great
teacher. And this prayer was:
63:6.6
"O Breath of Life, give us this day our daily food,
deliver us from the curse of the ice, save us from our
forest enemies, and with mercy receive us into the Great
Beyond."
63:6.7
Onagar maintained headquarters on the northern shores of
the ancient Mediterranean in the region of the present
Caspian Sea at a settlement called Oban, the tarrying
place on the westward turning of the travel trail
leading up northward from the Mesopotamian southland.
From Oban he sent out teachers to the remote settlements
to spread his new doctrines of one Deity and his concept
of the hereafter, which he called the Great Beyond.
These emissaries of Onagar were the world's first
missionaries; they were also the first human beings to
cook meat, the first regularly to use fire in the
preparation of food. They cooked flesh on the ends of
sticks and also on hot stones; later on they roasted
large pieces in the fire, but their descendants almost
entirely reverted to the use of raw flesh.
63:6.8
Onagar was born 983,323 years ago (from A.D. 1934), and
he lived to be sixty-nine years of age. The record of
the achievements of this master mind and spiritual
leader of the pre-Planetary Prince days is a thrilling
recital of the organization of these primitive peoples
into a real society. He instituted an efficient tribal
government, the like of which was not attained by
succeeding generations in many millenniums. Never again,
until the arrival of the Planetary Prince, was there
such a high spiritual civilization on earth. These
simple people had a real though primitive religion, but
it was subsequently lost to their deteriorating
descendants.
63:6.9
Although both Andon and Fonta had received Thought
Adjusters, as had many of their descendants, it was not
until the days of Onagar that the Adjusters and guardian
seraphim came in great numbers to Urantia. This was,
indeed, the golden age of primitive man.
7. THE SURVIVAL OF ANDON AND FONTA
63:7.1
Andon and Fonta, the splendid founders of the human
race, received recognition at the time of the
adjudication of Urantia upon the arrival of the
Planetary Prince, and in due time they emerged from the
regime of the mansion worlds with citizenship status on
Jerusem. Although they have never been permitted to
return to Urantia, they are cognizant of the history of
the race they founded. They grieved over the Caligastia
betrayal, sorrowed because of the Adamic failure, but
rejoiced exceedingly when announcement was received that
Michael had selected their world as the theater for his
final bestowal.
63:7.2
On Jerusem both Andon and Fonta were fused with their
Thought Adjusters, as also were several of their
children, including Sontad, but the majority of even
their immediate descendants only achieved Spirit fusion.
63:7.3
Andon and Fonta, shortly after their arrival on Jerusem,
received permission from the System Sovereign to return
to the first mansion world to serve with the morontia
personalities who welcome the pilgrims of time from
Urantia to the heavenly spheres. And they have been
assigned indefinitely to this service. They sought to
send greetings to Urantia in connection with these
revelations, but this request was wisely denied them.
63:7.4
And this is the recital of the most heroic and
fascinating chapter in all the history of Urantia, the
story of the evolution, life struggles, death, and
eternal survival of the unique parents of all mankind.
63:7.5
Presented by a Life Carrier resident on Urantia.
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