“The names of the brothers are a matched pair of opposites. Abel comes from the Hebrew ‘hebel‘, meaning ‘breath’ or ‘vapour’: anything that lives and moves and is transient, including his own life. The root of ‘Cain’ appears to be the verb ‘kanah‘: to ‘acquire’, ‘get’, ‘own property’, and so ‘rule’ or ‘subjugate’.

‘Cain’ also means ‘metal-smith’. And since, in several languages – even Chinese – the words for ‘violence’ and ‘subjugation’ are linked to the discovery of metal, it is perhaps the destiny of Cain and his descendants to practise the black arts of technology.”

(Bruce Chatwin, The Songlines, p. 193.)