This hearkened back uncomfortably to earlier beliefs that some modern races such as the African " Bushmen" (properly the Kalahari San) and Australian Aborigines were more primitive than others.
And the historian theorized that people in the Western world who have trouble sleeping through the night now may be experiencing a sort of echo, a hearkening back to how their European ancestors slept in two phases.
The household went to bed; and I' too anxious to lie down, opened my lattice and put my head out to hearken, though it rained: determined to admit them in spite of the prohibition, should they return.