of his existence, but have even seen him, and in the far north the story is told how he created the world. The Ahts of Vancouver's Island talk of Tootooch, the mighty bird dwelling aloft and far away, the flap of whose wings makes the thunder (Tootah), and his tongue is the forked lightning. There were once four of these birds in the land, and they fed on whales; but the great deity Quawteaht, entering into a whale, enticed one thunder-bird after another to swoop down and seize him with its talons, when plunging to the bottom of the sea he drowned it. Thus three of them perished, but the last one spread his wings and flew to the distant height where he has since remained. The meaning of the story may probably be that thunderstorms come especially from one of the four quarters of heaven. Of such myths, perhaps that told among the Dacotas is the quaintest: Thunder is a large bird, they say hence its velocity. The old bird begins the thunder; its rumbling noise is caused by an immense quantity of young birds, or thunders, who continue it, hence the long duration of the peals. The Indian says it is the young birds, or thunders, that do the mischief; they are like the young mischievous men who will not listen to good counsel. The old thunder or bird is wise and good, and does not kill anybody, nor do any kind of mischief. Descending southward to Central America, there is found mention of the bird Voc, the messenger of Hurakan, the Tempestgod (whose name has been adopted in European languages as huracano, ouragan, hurricane) of the Lightning and of the Thunder. So among Caribs, Brazilians, Hervey Islanders and Karens, Bechuanas and Basutos, we find legends of a flapping or flashing Thunder- bird, which seem simply to translate into myth the thought of thunder and lightning descending from the upper regions of the air, the home of the eagle and the vulture.1

1 Pr. Max v. Wied, 'Reise in N. A.' vol. i. pp. 446, 455; vol. ii. pp. 152, 223; Sir Alex. Mackenzie, 'Voyages,' p. cxvii. ; Sproat, 'Scenes of Savage Life' (Vancouver's I.), pp. 177, 213; Irving, 'Astoria,' vol. ii. ch xxii.; Le

The Heaven-god dwells in the regions of the sky, and thus what form could be fitter for him and for his messengers than the likeness of a bird? But to cause the ground to quake beneath our feet, a being of quite different nature is needed, and accordingly the office of supporting the solid earth is given in various countries to various monstrous creatures, human or animal in character, who make their office manifest from time to time by a shake given in negligence or sport or anger to their burden. Wherever earthquakes are felt, we are likely to find a version of the great myth of the Earth-bearer. Thus in Polynesia the Tongans say that Maui upholds the earth on his prostrate body, and when he tries to turn over into an easier posture there is an earthquake, and the people shout and beat the ground with sticks to make him lie still. Another version forms part of the interesting myth lately mentioned, which connects the under-world whither the sun descends at night, with the region of subterranean volcanic fire and of earthquake. The old Maui lay by his fire in the dead-land of Bulotu, when his grandson Maui came down by the cavern entrance; the young Maui carried off the fire, they wrestled, the old Maui was overcome, and has lain there bruised and drowsy ever since, underneath the earth, which quakes when he turns over in his sleep.1 In Celebes we hear of the world-supporting Hog, who rubs himself against a tree, and then there is an earthquake.2 Among the Indians of North America, it is said that earthquakes come of the movement of the great world-bearing Tortoise. Now this Tortoise seems but a mythic picture of the Earth itself,

Jeune, op. cit. 1634, p. 26; Schoolcraft, 'Indian Tribes,' part iii. p. 233, 'Algic Res.' vol. ii. pp. 114–6, 199; Catlin, vol. ii. p. 164; Brasseur, 'Popol Vuh,' p. 71 and Index, 'Hurakan;' J. G. Müller, Amer. Urrel.' pp. 222, 271; Ellis, Polyn. Res.' vol. ii. p. 417; Jno. Williams, 'Missionary Enterprise,' p. 93; Mason, l.c. p. 217; Moffat, 'South Africa,' p. 338; Casalis, 'Basutos,' p. 266; Callaway, 'Religion of Amazulu,' p. 119.

1 Mariner, 'Tonga Is.' vol. ii. p. 120; S. S. Farmer, 'Tonga,' p. 135; Schirren, pp. 35-7.

2 Journ. Ind. Archip.' vol. ii. p. 837.

2

and thus the story only expresses in mythic phrase the very fact that the earth quakes; the meaning is but one degree less distinct than among the Caribs, who say when there is an earthquake that their Mother Earth is dancing.1 Among the higher races of the continent, such ideas remain little changed in nature; the Tlascalans said that the tired worldsupporting deities shifting their burden to a new relay caused the earthquake; the Chibchas said it was their god Chibchacum moving the earth from shoulder to shoulder.3 The myth ranges in Asia through as wide a stretch of culture. The Kamchadals tell of Tuil the Earthquakegod, who sledges below ground, and when his dog shakes off fleas or snow there is an earthquake; Ta Ywa, the solar hero of the Karens, set Shie-oo beneath the earth to carry it, and there is an earthquake when he moves." The world-bearing elephants of the Hindus, the worldsupporting frog of the Mongol Lamas, the world-bull of the Moslems, the gigantic Omophore of the Manichæan cosmology, are all creatures who carry the earth on their backs or heads, and shake it when they stretch or shift. Thus in European mythology the Scandinavian Loki, strapped down with thongs of iron in his subterranean cavern, writhes when the overhanging serpent drops venom on him; or Prometheus struggles beneath the earth to break his bonds; or the Lettish Drebkuls or Poseidon the Earth-shaker makes the ground rock beneath men's feet.7 From thorough myths of imagination such as most of these, it may be sometimes possible to distinguish philosophic myths like them in form, but which appear to be attempts at

Bell, 'Tr. in Asia,' in Pinkerton, vol. vii. p. 369; Bastian, 'Oestl. Asien,' vol. ii. p. 168; Lane, 'Thousand and one Nights,' vol. i. p. 21; see Latham, 'Descr. Eth.' vol. ii. p. 171; Beausobre, 'Manichée,' vol. i. p. 243.

7 Edda, 'Gylfaginning,' 50; Grimm, 'D. M.' p. 777, &c.

serious explanation without even a metaphor. The Japanese think that earthquakes are caused by huge whales creeping underground, having been probably led to this idea by finding the fossil bones which seem the remains of such subterranean monsters, just as we know that the Siberians who find in the ground the mammoth-bones and tusks, account for them as belonging to huge burrowing beasts, and by force of this belief, have brought themselves to think they can sometimes see the earth heave and sink as the monsters crawl below. Thus, in investigating the earthquake-myths of the world, it appears that two processes, the translation into mythic language of the phenomenon itself, and the crude scientific theory to account for it by a real moving animal underground, may result in legends of very striking similarity.1

In thus surveying the mythic wonders of heaven and earth, sun, moon, and stars, wind, thunder, and earthquake, it is possible to set out in investigation under conditions of actual certainty. So long as such beings as Heaven or Sun are consciously talked of in mythic language, the meaning of their legends is open to no question, and the actions ascribed to them will as a rule be natural and apposite. But when the phenomena of nature take a more anthropomorphic form, and become identified with personal gods and heroes, and when in after times these beings, losing their first consciousness of origin, become centres round which floating fancies cluster, then their sense becomes obscure and eorrupt, and the consistency of their earlier character must no longer be demanded. In fact, the unreasonable expectation of such consistency in nature-myths, after they have passed into what may be called their heroic stage, is one of the mythologist's most damaging errors. The present examination of nature-myths has mostly taken them in their primitive and unmistakable condition, and has only been in some degree extended to include closely-corresponding 1 Kaempfer, Japan,' in Pinkerton, vol. vii. p. 684; see mammoth-myths in Early Hist. of Mankind,' p. 315.

legends in a less easily interpretable state. It has lain beyond my scope to enter into any systematic discussion of the views of Grimm, Grote, Max Müller, Kuhn, Schirren, Cox, Bréal, Dasent, Kelly, and other mythologists. Even the outlines here sketched out have been purposely left without filling in surrounding detail which might confuse their shape, although this strictness has caused the neglect of many a tempting hint to work out episode after episode, by tracing their relation to the myths of far-off times and lands. It has rather been my object to bring prominently into view the nature-mythology of the lower races, that their clear and fresh mythic conceptions may serve as a basis in studying the nature-myths of the world at large. The evidence and interpretation here brought forward, imperfect as they are, seem to countenance a strong opinion as to the historical development of legends which describe in personal shape the life of nature. The state of mind to which such imaginative fictions belong is found in full vigour in the savage condition of mankind, its growth and inheritance continue into the higher culture of barbarous or half-civilized nations, and at last in the civilized world its effects pass more and more from realized belief into fanciful, affected, and even artificial poetry.