History Main / TheDescendantsOfCain

* A positive example in Creator/HermannHesse's ''Demian'', where the title character speculates that Abel's descendants made the story up out of resentment, because some people are more intelligent, insightful, and ambitious than others. Demian, incidentally, has a certain 'brightness' on his forehead which the protagonist mentions several times.

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-->'''Dean''': A bloodline?\\
'''Michael''': Stretching back to Cain and Abel. It's in your blood, your father's blood, your family's blood.\\
'''Dean''': Awesome. [[SixDegreesOfKevinBacon Six degrees of Heaven Bacon.]]

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* In ''TabletopGame/VampireTheMasquerade'', Cain's curse was actually [[OurVampiresAreDifferent vampirism]], so the modern (Western) vampires are all descended from him by transmission of said curse. As a result, one of the terms used for Western vampires is "Cainites".

** However, Cain's entire backstory was changed in "[[Recap/SupernaturalS09E11FirstBorn First Born]]", where they made him a reformed demon after he slaughtered Abel for being tempted by Lucifer. "[[Recap/SupernaturalS10E14TheExecutionersSong The Executioner's Song]]" builds on this retcon by having Cain actively hunt down and kill his descendants in order to remove his evil from the Earth, and he only goes after the Winchesters when they get in his way, casting doubt on the concept of them being his descendants too. However, since Cain claims to have over 700 million descendants whom he is dealing with in a predetermined order, he might have been planning to get around to the Winchesters eventually.

* In the Franchise/DCUniverse, Comicbook/VandalSavage was at one point revealed to ''be'' the Biblical Cain, leading to stories in which the monster Grendel, his daughter Scandal Savage, and his indirect descendant Comicbook/{{Batwoman}} had to deal with the familial and mystical consequences of being, well, descendants of Cain.

* The idea that Cain or his descendants were cursed with black skin dates back at least to the Middle Ages. Many Christians in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries also believed that dark-skinned people were the descendants of Ham and a wife who was descended from Cain. Thus, they attributed to black people not only the mark of Cain but the curse God placed on Ham's son Canaan that declared him "servant of servants." As one can probably imagine, this was used by many racists in the Americas to justify the enslavement of these people. This is usually called the "Curse of Ham". Another, more recent idea, is that Cain and/or some of his descendants were Neanderthals. The large brow ridge these people had would be the Mark.

{{Cain}} as character has his own trope here. See {{Nephilim}} for another group of Biblical descent which may have some crossover. Compare Myth/{{Lilith}}.

After Cain became the first murderer by [[CainAndAbel killing his brother]], he was not killed but cursed by God and driven into exile in the land of Nod. There he took a wife (a famously UnknownCharacter), and at least six generations were descended from him. Old Testament literalists point out that this means that there were humans not descended from Eden somewhere on Earth concurrently with the family of Adam.

See {{Nephilim}} for another group of Biblical descent which may have some crossover. Compare Myth/{{Lilith}}.

See {{Nephilim}} for another group of Biblical descent which may have some crossover. Compare UsefulNotes/{{Lilith}}.

See {{Nephilim}} for another group of Biblical descent. Compare UsefulNotes/{{Lilith}}.

* Literature/TheBible names six generations of Cain's descendants. Cain begat Enoch, who begat Irad, who begat Mehujael, who begat Methusael, who begat Lamech. Lamech's wife Ada bore him Jabal the shepherd and Jubal the musician; their half-brother Tubalcain and half-sister were Lamech's sons by his other wife, Zillah. Lamech explains to his two wives how, where Cain would be avenged sevenfold, Lamech's vengeance is seventy-sevenfold.
** According to Jewish tradition, that daughter of Lamech, who was named Naamah, was Noah's wife--meaning that [[TomatoInTheMirror you (and everyone else)]] are a descendant of Cain.
* The idea that Cain or his descendants were cursed with black skin dates back at least to the Middle Ages. Many Christians in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries also believed that dark-skinned people were the descendants of Ham and a wife who was descended from Cain. Thus, they attributed to black people not only the mark of Cain but the curse God placed on Ham's son Canaan that declared him "servant of servants." As one can probably imagine, this was used by many racists in the Americas to justify the enslavement of these people.
** Another, more recent idea, is that Cain and/or some of his descendants were Neanderthals. The large brow ridge these people had would be the Mark.

* Another sectarian belief is the "serpent seed" doctrine, in which Cain, the first child of Eve, was actually not the first child of Adam, but rather of Satan, with whom Eve had intercourse with in the Garden of Eden, and thus from this sex was considered the ForbiddenFruit and also that SexIsEvil. Somehow in this doctrine Cain's descendants (referred to as the "serpent seed") survived the Flood and thus became the Jews, which explains Jesus saying to them in the gospel of John that "your father is the devil" and "your father was a murderer from the beginning."

After Cain became the first murderer by [[CainAndAbel killing his brother]], he was not killed but cursed by God and driven into exile in the land of Nod. There he took a wife (a famously UnknownCharacter), and at least six generations were descended from him.

* ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedII'' has one glyph puzzle reveal that UsefulNotes/TheKnightsTemplar descended from Cain, and that their symbol (the Templar Cross) was Cain's mark.

* The UsefulNotes/{{Mormon|ism}} scripture ''The Pearl of Great Price'' describes a vision in which "the seed of Cain were black" and thus set apart from all of Adam's other descendants (Moses 7:22). The scripture also states that Canaan's children were all cursed with a despicable "blackness" (Moses 7:8), and explains that the Egyptians were forbidden the priesthood because their Canaanite descent through Ham's daughter Egyptus "preserved the curse in the land," apparently referring to the curse of Ham (Abraham 1:23—27). Though the scripture neither claims that Cain was punished with blackness nor identifies him as an ancestor of the Canaanites or the Egyptians, Brigham Young's non-canonical ''Journal of Discourses'' explicitly associated black skin and the curse of Ham with the descendants of Cain: the postdiluvian "servant of servants" curse was "pronounced upon the same race" as Cain, whose mark "is the flat nose and black skin," and whose curse will not be lifted "until all the other descendants of Adam have received the promises and enjoyed the blessings of the Priesthood and the keys thereof." In part because of teachings like these, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints barred people of African descent from the priesthood (though at least one had been ordained under Joseph Smith) until 1978, when a new revelation received by the Church leadership allowed "all worthy males" to be ordained to the priesthood from that time forward.

* ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'': In "[[Recap/SupernaturalS05E13TheSongRemainsTheSame The Song Remains the Same]]", [[ArchangelMichael Michael]] says the Winchester bloodline is descended from Cain and Abel. Their descendants are the only ones who can be used as vessels by the Archangels Michael and Lucifer to manifest on Earth.

---->''For the killing of Abel''
-->''the Eternal Lord had exacted a price:\\

* The idea that Cain or his descendants were cursed with black skin dates back at least to the Middle Ages. Many Christians in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries also believed that dark-skinned people were the descendants of Ham and a wife who was descended from Cain. Thus, they attributed to black people not only the mark of Cain but the curse God placed on Ham's son Canaan that declared him "servant of servants." As one can probably imagine, this was used by many racists in America to justify the enslavement of these people.

Cain's descendants may have all been drowned in TheGreatFlood, whose survivors were all descended from the line that proceeds from Adam's other son Seth through Noah; this would necessarily limit depictions of Cain's descendants to antediluvian BibleTimes. Some believe, however, that Cain's descendants survived the Flood, and still bear the identifiable mark of their ancestor.

* In ''Theatre/ChildrenOfEden'', Ham falls in love with Yona, a descendent of Cain.

* The UsefulNotes/{{Mormon|ism}} scripture ''The Pearl of Great Price'' describes a vision in which "the seed of Cain were black" and thus set apart from all of Adam's other descendants (Moses 7:22). The scripture also states that Canaan's children were all cursed with a despicable "blackness" (Moses 7:8), and explains that the Egyptians were forbidden the priesthood because their Canaanite descent through Ham's daughter Egyptus "preserved the curse in the land," apparently referring to the curse of Ham (Abraham 1:23�27). Though the scripture neither claims that Cain was punished with blackness nor identifies him as an ancestor of the Canaanites or the Egyptians, Brigham Young's non-canonical ''Journal of Discourses'' explicitly associated black skin and the curse of Ham with the descendants of Cain: the postdiluvian "servant of servants" curse was "pronounced upon the same race" as Cain, whose mark "is the flat nose and black skin," and whose curse will not be lifted "until all the other descendants of Adam have received the promises and enjoyed the blessings of the Priesthood and the keys thereof." In part because of teachings like these, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints barred people of African descent from the priesthood (though at least one had been ordained under Joseph Smith) until 1978, when a new revelation received by the Church leadership allowed "all worthy males" to be ordained to the priesthood from that time forward.

* The idea that Cain or his descendants were cursed with black skin dates back at least to the Middle Ages. Many Christians in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries also believed that dark-skinned people were the descendants of Ham and a wife who was descended from Cain. Thus, they attributed to black people not only the mark of Cain but the curse God placed on Ham's son Canaan that declared him "servant of servants."

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* The UsefulNotes/{{Mormon|ism}} scripture ''The Pearl of Great Price'' describes a vision in which "the seed of Cain were black" and thus set apart from all of Adam's other descendants (Moses 7:22). The scripture also states that Canaan's children were all cursed with a despicable "blackness" (Moses 7:8), and explains that the Egyptians were forbidden the priesthood because their Canaanite descent through Ham's daughter Egyptus "preserved the curse in the land," apparently referring to the curse of Ham (Abraham 1:23–27). Though the scripture neither claims that Cain was punished with blackness nor identifies him as an ancestor of the Canaanites or the Egyptians, Brigham Young's non-canonical ''Journal of Discourses'' explicitly associated black skin and the curse of Ham with the descendants of Cain: the postdiluvian "servant of servants" curse was "pronounced upon the same race" as Cain, whose mark "is the flat nose and black skin," and whose curse will not be lifted "until all the other descendants of Adam have received the promises and enjoyed the blessings of the Priesthood and the keys thereof." In part because of teachings like these, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints barred people of African descent from the priesthood (though at least one had been ordained under Joseph Smith) until 1978, when a new revelation received by the Church leadership allowed "all worthy males" to be ordained to the priesthood from that time forward.

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Cain's descendants may have all been drowned in TheGreatFlood, whose survivors were all descended from the line that proceeds from Adam's other son Seth through Noah; this would necessarily limit depictions of Cain's descendants to antediluvian BiblicalTimes. Some believe, however, that Cain's descendants survived the Flood, and still bear the identifiable mark of their ancestor.

* ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedII'' has one glyph puzzle reveal that the KnightsTemplar descended from Cain, and that their symbol (the Templar Cross) was Cain's mark.