The Urantia Book
PAPER 63
THE FIRST HUMAN FAMILY
Presented by a Life Carrier resident on Urantia.
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.