grew till they could touch the sky on both sides." * 1 Alexander. North American Mythology, p.
223.
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The shooting star that made the earth into a sea of flames, the terrible noise, the water that rose mountain high, and the appearance of a monster in the sky, like Typhon or a dragon, all these elements were not brought together in this Indian narrative by sheer invention; they belong together.
The Wichita, an Indian tribe of Oklahoma, tell the following story of "The Deluge and the Repeopling of the Earth": 2 "There came to the people some signs, which showed that there was robin-bobin
something in the north that looked like clouds; and the fowl of the air came, and the animals of the plains and woods were seen. All of this indicated that something was to happen. The clouds that were seen in the north were a deluge. The deluge was all over the face of the earth."
The water monsters succumbed. Only four giants remained, but they fell, too, each on his face.
"The one in the south as he was falling said that the direction he fell should be called south." The other giant said that "the direction in which he was falling should be called west—Where-the-sun-goes." The third fell and named the direction of his fall north; the last called his direction
"east—Where-the-sun-rises."
Only a few men survived. The wind also survived on the face of the earth; everything else was destroyed. A child was born to a woman (from the wind), a Dream-girl. The girl grew rapidly. A boy child was born to her. "He told his people that he would go in the direction of the east, and he was to become the Morning Star."
This tale sounds like an incoherent story, but let us note its various elements: "something in the north that looked like clouds" which made people and animals huddle together in apprehension of an approaching catastrophe; wild beasts emerging from the forests and coming to human abodes; an engulfing tide that destroyed everything, even the monster animals; the determination of the new four quarters of the horizon; a generation later the birth of the Morning Star.
This combination of elements cannot be accidental; all these
2G. A. Dorsey, The Mythology of the Wichita (1904).
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events, and in the same sequence, were found to have occurred in the middle of the second millennium before the present era.
The Indians of the Chewkee tribe on the Gulf Coast telclass="underline" "It was too hot. The sun was put 'a handbreadth' higher in the air, but it was still too hot. Seven times the sun was lifted higher and higher under the sky arch, until it became cooler." 3
In eastern Africa we can trace the same tradition. "In very old times the sky was very close to the earth." 4
The Kaska tribe in the interior of British Columbia relate: "Once a long time ago the sky was very close to the earth." s The sky was pushed up and the weather changed.
The sun, after being stopped on its way across the firmament, "became small, and small it has remained since then." •
Here is a story, told to Shelton by the Snohomish tribe on Puget Sound, about the origin of the exclamation "Yahu," 7 to which I have already referred briefly. "A long time ago, when all the animals were still human beings, the sky was very low. It was so low that the people could not stand erect. . . . They called a meeting together and discussed how they could raise the sky. But they were at a loss to know how to do so. No one was strong enough to lift the sky. Finally the idea occurred to them that possibly the sky might be moved by the combined efforts of the people, if all of them pushed against it at the same time. But then the question arose of how it would be possible to make all the people exert their efforts at exactly the same moment. For the different peoples would be far away from one another, some would be in this part of the world, others in another part. What signal could be given that all people would lift at precisely the same time? Finally, the word 'Yahu!' was invented for this purpose. It was decided that all the people should shout Tahu!'
3 Alexander, North American Mythology, p. 60.
4 L. Frobenius, Dichten und Denken in Sudan (1925).
5 J. A. Teit, "Kaska Tales," Journal of American Folk-Lore, XXX (1917).
6 Frobenius, Das Zeitalter des Sonnengottes, pp. 205 ff.
7 Shelton, "Mythology of Puget Sound," Journal of American Folk-Lore, XXXVII (1924).
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together, and then exert their whole strength in lifting the sky. In accordance with this, the people equipped themselves with poles, braced them against the sky, and then all shouted 'Yahu!' in unison. Under their combined efforts the sky rose a little. Again the people shouted 'Yahu!' and robin-bobin
lifted the heavy weight. They repeated this until the sky was sufficiently high." Shelton says that the word "Yahu" is used today when some heavy object like a large canoe is being lifted.
It is easy to recognize the origin of this legend. Clouds of dust and gases enveloped the earth for a long time; it seemed that the sky had descended low. The earth groaned repeatedly because of the severe twisting and dislocation it had experienced. Only slowly and gradually did the clouds lift themselves from the ground.
The clouds that enveloped the Israelites in the desert, the trumpetlike sounds that they heard at Mount Sinai, and the gradual lifting of the clouds in the years of the Shadow of Death are the same elements that we find in this Indian legend.
Because the same elements can be recognized in very different settings, we can affirm that there was no borrowing from one people by another. A common experience created the stories, so dissimilar at first, and so much alike on second thought.
The story of the end of the world, as related by the Pawnee Indians, has an important content. It was written down8 from the mouth of an old Indian:
"We are told by the old people that the Morning Star ruled over all the minor gods in the heavens. . . . The old people told us that the Morning Star said that when the time came for the world to end, the Moon would turn red . . . that when the Moon should turn red, the people would know that the world was coming to an end.
"The Morning Star said further that in the beginning of all things they placed the North Star in the north, so that it should not move. . . . The Morning Star also said that in the beginning of all things they gave power to the South Star for it to move up close, once in a while, to look at the North Star to see if it were still standing in the north. If it were still standing there, it was to move back to its
8 Dorsey, ed., The Pawnee Mythology (1906), Pt. I, v>. 35.
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place. . . . When the time approached for the world to end, the South Star would come higher. . . .
The North Star would then disappear and move away and the South Star would take possession of the earth and of the people. . . . The old people knew also that when the world was to come to an end, there were to be many signs. Among the stars would be many signs. Meteors would fly through the sky. The Moon would change its color once in a while. The Sun would also show different colors.