ON THE TRANSLATION OF MYTHS BETWEEN THE OLD AND THE NEW WORLD.
Intercourse between various parts of the old world and the new was
probably much more intimate even three or four thousand years ago than we,
or at all events our immediate ancestors, have credited. The Deluge
Tablets referred to in another chapter contain items from which we gather
that sea-going vessels, well equipped and with skilled pilots, were in
vogue in the time of Noah, and there is wanting no better proof of their
seaworthiness than the fact that his particular craft was able to weather
a long-continued tempest which would probably have sunk the greater part
of those which keep the seas at the present time. The older Chinese
classics make constant allusions to maritime adventure, and the discovery
by Schliemann in ancient Troy[113] of vases with Chinese inscriptions
confirms the notion that, at that date at least, commercial exchange was
effected between these two widely-distant countries, either directly or by
transfer through different entrepôts.
A more striking example, and one which carries us back to a still earlier
epoch, will be afforded if the reported discovery of Chinese vestigia in
Egyptian tombs is confirmed by further investigation.
The fleets of King Solomon penetrated at least to India, and detached
squadrons[114] probably coasted from island to island along the Malay
archipelago; while to descend by gradation to modern times, we may quote
the circumnavigation of Africa by Hanno the Carthaginian,[115] the
discovery of America prior to Columbus by the Chinese in the fifth
century, from the Asiatic side, and by the Norsemen under Leif Ericsson in
the year 1001, from the European; and the anticipation of the so-called
discoveries of Van Diemen and Tasman by the voyages of Arab and other
navigators, from whose records El Edrisi,[116] in the twelfth century, was
enabled to indicate the existence of New Guinea, and, I think, of the
northern coast of Australia. For although the identity with Mexico of the
country called Fu-sang, visited prior to A.D. 499 by the Buddhist priest
Hoei-shiu, has been disputed, yet the arguments in favour of it seem to
preponderate. These were adduced primarily by Deguignes, and subsequently
by C. F. Neumann, Leland and others, and are based on the facts stated in
the short narrative in regard to distance, description of the Maguey
plant, or great aloe,[117] the absence of iron, and abundance of copper,
gold, and silver.
While there can be little question that the islands and land of Wák Wák
are respectively some of the Sunda islands, New Guinea, and the adjacent
portion of Australia, it does not appear to have struck any of the
commentators on this question that the name "islands of Wák Wák" may be
assumed to signify simply "Bird of Paradise islands." Wallace, in his
_Malay Archipelago_, emphatically remarks that in the interior of the
forests of New Guinea the most striking sound is the cry "Wok Wok" of the
great Bird of Paradise, and we may therefore reasonably speculate on the
bird having been known as the Wok Wok, and the islands as the Wok Wok
islands, just as we ourselves use the imitative names of Cuckoo, Morepork,
or Hoopoe for birds, or Snake islands, Ape Hill, &c. for places.
This view is to an extent strengthened by Wák Wák being the home of the
lovely maiden captured by Hasan (in the charming story of Hasan of El
Basrah in the _Arabian Nights_), after she had divested herself of her
bird skin, and to which he had to make so weary a pilgrimage from island
to island, and sea to sea, in search of her after her escape from him. It
is evident that among the wonders related by navigators of islands so
remote and unfrequented, not the least would be the superavian loveliness
of the Birds of Paradise, and from the exaggerated narratives of
travellers may have arisen the beautiful fable incorporated in the
_Arabian Nights_, as well as that other recorded by Eesa or Moosa the son
of El Mubarak Es Serafee.[118] "Here, too, is a tree that bears fruit like
women with bodies, eyes, limbs, &c. like those of women; they have
beautiful faces, and are suspended by the hair; they come forth from
integuments like large leathern bags; and when they feel the air and the
sun they cry out 'Wák Wák' until their hair is cut, and when it is cut
they die; and the people of these islands understand their cry, and augur
ill from it." This, after all, is not more absurd than the story of the
origin of the barnacle duck, extant and believed in Europe until within
the last century or so.
El Edrisi, who, in common with the geographers of the period, believed in
a great antarctic continent, after describing Sofala with its mines of
gold, abundance of iron, &c., jumps at once to the mainland of Wák Wák,
which he describes as possessing two towns situated on a great gulf
(Carpentaria?), and a savage population.[119]
The two small towns may very well have been encampments of the aborigines,
or trading stations of Malay merchants.
It may be noted that this identification of Wák Wák is in opposition to
the view entertained by some commentators; for example, Professor de Goeje
of Leyden has recently identified the Silâ islands (which had previously
been considered as being Japan) with Corea, and Wák Wák with Japan; but
this does not agree with El Edrisi's account of the people being black,
unclothed, and living on fish, shell, and tortoises (turtles), without
gold, commerce, ships, or beasts of burden. Elsewhere El Edrisi says the
women are entirely naked, and only wear combs of ivory ornamented with
mother of pearl.
Lane thinks the Arabs applied the name of Wák Wák to all the islands with
which they were acquainted on the east and south-east of Borneo. Es
Serafee, beside the details given in a previous note, also says, "From one
of these islands of Wák Wák there issueth a great torrent like pitch,
which floweth into the sea, and the fish are burnt thereby, and float upon
the water." And Hasan, in the story quoted above, has, in order to reach
the last of the seven islands of Wák Wák, to pass over the third island,
the land of the Jinn, "where by reason of the vehemence of the cries of
the Jánn, and the rising of the flames about, of the sparks and the smoke
from their mouths, and the harsh sounds from their throats, and their
insolence, they will obstruct the way before us," &c. &c. I think that in
each of these latter instances, the volcanic islands of Java, and other of
the Sunda islands are indicated.
The information in our possession is as yet too meagre to permit of our
indulging in any profitable consideration of the sources from which
originated those nations which peopled America during the very early
pre-traditional ages, of which geological evidence is accumulating daily.
In fact, the theories on this point have advanced so little beyond the
limits of speculation that I feel it unnecessary to do more than quote one
of them, as summarized in the ensuing extract. "Professor Flowers, in
remarking upon recent palæontological investigations, which prove that an
immense number of forms of terrestrial animals that were formerly supposed
to be peculiar to the Old World are abundant in the New; and that many,
such as the horse, rhinoceros, and the camel, are more numerous in species
and varieties in the latter, infers that the means of land communication
must have been very different to what it is now, and that it is quite as
likely that Asiatic man may have been derived from America as the reverse,
or both may have had their source in a common centre, in some region of
the earth now covered with sea."[120]
The most commonly accepted theory with regard to the origin of those who
have peopled the American continent, within the limits of tradition, is
that they are of Asiatic descent, and that the migration has been effected
in comparatively recent times by way of Behring Straits, and supplemented
by chance passages from Southern Asia by way of the Polynesian islands, or
from the north of Africa, across the Atlantic. There are, however, some
who elaborate Professor Flowers' suggestion, and contend, in opposition to
the more generally received opinion, that the peopling of the present
countries of the Old World has in fact been effected from the New.
For instance, a proficient Aztec scholar, Senor Altamirano[121] of Mexico,
argues that the Aztecs were a race, originating in the unsubmerged parts
of America, as old as the Asiatics themselves, and that Asia may in fact
have been peopled from Mexico; while Mr. E. J. Elliott, in quoting him,
says: "From the ruins recently found, the most northern of any yet
discovered, the indications of improved architecture, the work of
different ages, can be traced in a continual chain to Mexico, when they
culminate in massive and imposing structures, thus giving some proof by
circumstantial evidence to Altamirano's reasoning."
Again, "Dr. Rudolf Falb[122] discovers that the language spoken by the
Indians in Peru and Bolivia, especially in Quichua and Aymara, exhibits
the most astounding affinities with the Semitic languages, and
particularly with the Arabic--in which tongue Dr. Falb himself has been
skilled from his boyhood. Following up the links of this discovery, he has
first found a connecting link with the Aryan roots, and, secondly, has
arrived face to face with the surprising revelation that the Semitic roots
are universally Aryan. The common stems of all the variants are found in
their purest condition in Quichua and Aymara, from which fact Dr. Falb
derives the conclusion that the high plains of Peru and Bolivia must be
regarded as the point of exit of the present human race."
On the other hand, Mr. E. B. Tylor, in the course of an article upon
Backgammon among the Aztecs,[123] which he argues must have reached them
from Asia, and very likely through Mexico, points out that the myths and
religion of the North American tribes contain many fancies well known to
Asia, which they were hardly likely to have hit upon independently, and
which they had not learned from white men: "Such as the quaint belief that
the world is a monstrous tortoise floating on the waters; and an idea
which the Sioux have in common with the Tartars, that it is sinful to chop
or poke with a sharp instrument the burning log on the fire." He quotes
Alexander von Humboldt as having "argued years ago that the Mexicans did
and believed things which were at once so fanciful and so like the fancies
of the Asiatics that there must have been communication. Would two
nations," he asks, "have taken independently to forming calendars of days
and years by repeating and combining cycles of animals, such as tiger,
dog, ape, hare, &c.? Would they have developed independently similar
astrological fancies about these signs governing the periods they began,
and being influential each over a particular limb or organ of men's
bodies? Would they, again, have evolved separately out of this
consciousness the myths of the world and its inhabitants having, at the
end of several successive periods, been destroyed by elemental
catastrophes?"
He adds, "It may very well have been the same agency which transported to
Mexico the art of bronze-making, the computation of time by periods of
dogs and apes, the casting of nativity, and the playing of backgammon."
Then, again, we have the theory of those, now indeed few in number, who
hold that the present Indian inhabitants of America were a distinctly
indigenous race. Lord Kaimes, in his _Sketches of the History of Man_,
says, "I venture still further, which is to conjecture that America has
not been peopled from any part of the Old World." Voltaire had preceded
him in this line of argument, relying on ridicule rather than on reason.
"The same persons that readily admit that the beavers of Canada are of
Canadian origin, assert that the men must have come there in boats, and
that Mexico must have been peopled by some of the descendants of
Magog."[124]
Missionaries of various sects have endeavoured to identify the Red man
with the lost ten tribes. Adair conceived the language of the Southern
Indians to be a corruption of Hebrew, and the Jesuit Lafitan, in his
history of the savages of America, maintained that the Caribee language
was radically Hebrew.
Mr. John Josselyn,[125] in an account of the Mohawks, states that their
language is a dialect of the Tartars, and Dr. Williamson, in his history
of North Carolina, considers it can hardly be questioned that the Indians
of South America are descended from a class of the Hindoos in the southern
part of Asia.
Amongst others, Captain Don Antonio del Rio, who described the ruins of an
ancient city in Guatemala, believed that they were the relics of a
civilization founded by Phœnician colonists who had crossed the Atlantic
ocean; and yet another theory is propounded by Mr. Knox,[126] who
considers the extinct Guanches, formerly inhabiting the Canary and Cape de
Verde islands, to have closely resembled the Egyptians in certain
particulars. He goes on to observe, "Now cross the Atlantic, and in a
nearly parallel zone of the earth, or at least in one not far removed, we
stumble all at once upon the ruined cities of Copan and Central America.
To our astonishment, notwithstanding the breadth of the Atlantic,
vestiges, of a nature not to be doubted, of a thoroughly Egyptian
character reappear--hieroglyphics, monolithic temples, pyramids; who
erected these monuments on the American continent? Perhaps at some remote
period the continents were not so far apart, they might have been united,
thus forming a zone or circle of the earth occupied by a pyramid-building
people."
It is not impossible that all of these theories may be correct, and that
numerous migrations may have been made at various periods by different
nations, the most facile would of course be that from North-Eastern Asia
by way of the Aleutian islands, for, as the author of _Fu-sang_ well
remarks, a sailor in an open boat might cross from Asia to America by that
route in summer time, and hardly ever be out of sight of land; and this in
a part of the sea generally abounding in fish, as is proved by the
fishermen who inhabit many of these islands, on which fresh water is
always to be found. But it is more than likely that the direct route,
from the islands of Japan to the coast of California or Mexico, was also
occasionally followed, voluntarily or involuntarily, by mariners impelled
by enterprise, religious motives, or stress of weather.
Colonel B. Kennon, as an evidence of the possibility of junks performing
long ocean voyages, adduces the instance of a Japanese junk picked up by
an American whaler two thousand three hundred miles south-east of Japan,
and of others which had drifted among the Aleutian islands nearly half-way
over to San Francisco; and in noting the resemblance and probable
co-origin of the Sandwich Islanders with the Japanese, he adverts to the
"ancient and confirmed habit of both Japanese and Chinese of taking women
to sea with them, or of traders keeping their families on board, which
would fully account for the population of those islands," or, to extend
the argument, of points on the American continent. The Jewish element
might easily be introduced through this channel, for the occasional
admixture of Jewish blood both among the Chinese and Japanese is so
strongly marked, as to have induced some authors to contend for the
absolute descent of the latter people at least from Jewish parentage.
It must also be remembered that the waters of both the North and South
Pacific are peculiarly favourable to the navigation of small craft, and
that Captain Bligh, after the mutiny on board the _Bounty_, was able to
safely perform a journey of two thousand miles in an open boat; while all
the islands both in North and South Polynesia must necessarily have been
gradually peopled by the drifting over the ocean of stray canoes.
Again, as the tradition of the existence of a large continent west of the
African coast was extant amongst the Egyptian priests long before the days
of Solon, and, as I shall show hereafter, among the Carthaginians and
Tyrrhenians, it is, I think, more than probable that both Phœnician and
Egyptian mariners, either acting under a Royal Commission, or influenced
by mercantile considerations, would endeavour to discover it, and, as in
the case of Columbus, would have no difficulty in stretching across the
Atlantic before a fair trade wind, though they might be less successful
than him on their return.
The possibility of the existence of a large island or continent, midway
between the Old and New World, within the traditional period, is included
in the important question, which is still _sub judice_ amongst geologists,
whether the general disposition of land and water has or has not been
variable during past ages. Sir Charles Lyell held the first view, and was
of opinion[127] that complete alternations of the positions of continent
and ocean had repeatedly occurred in geological time.
The opposite idea has been suggested at various dates by eminent
authorities, suggested rather than sustained by elaborate arguments, until
recently, when the question has been re-examined by Mr. Wallace and Dr.
Carpenter.
The former, in that chapter of island life devoted to the permanence of
continents, dwells forcibly upon Dr. Darwin's inference from the paucity
of oceanic islands affording fragments of either Palæozoic or Secondary
formations "that _perhaps_ during the Palæozoic and Secondary periods
neither continents nor continental islands existed where our oceans now
extend; for, had they existed, Palæozoic and Secondary formations would in
all probability have been accumulated from sediment derived from their
wear and tear; and these would have been at least partially upheaved by
the oscillations of level which must have intervened during these
enormously long periods. If, then, we may infer anything from these facts,
we may infer that, where our oceans now extend, oceans have extended from
the remotest period of which we have any record; and, on the other hand,
that where continents now exist, large tracts of land have existed,
subjected no doubt to great oscillations of level, since the Cambrian
period."
I am not aware whether Dr. Darwin has expressed himself more
authoritatively on this point in later works, or whether the whole
question has been discussed in detail otherwise than by Mr. Wallace in the
chapter referred to, in which he quotes what must, I think, after all,
only be taken in the light of a suggestion as an auxiliary to the powerful
arguments which he himself has enunciated in favour of a similar
conclusion. There is no doubt that the paucity of any but volcanic or
coralline islands throughout the greatest extent of existing oceans has a
certain but not absolute significance, so far as recent geological epochs
are concerned.
There is another line of reasoning, debated by Mr. Wallace, based on the
formation of the Palæozoic and Secondary strata from the waste of broken
continents and islands occupying generally the site of the existing
continents, and separated by insignificant distances of inland sea or
extensions from the adjacent oceans. It is soundly based on their
lithological structure, as generally indicative of a littoral and shallow
water origin, but it seems to me to be only positive so far as it shows
that, throughout geological time, some land has existed somewhere within
the limits of the present upheaval, and simply negative as to what may or
may not have been the condition of what are now the great ocean spaces of
the world. Indeed, it would at first sight seem only reasonable to infer,
that the very depressions which caused the inundations of Europe and Asia,
during the deposition of any important formation, would imply a
corresponding elevation elsewhere, in order that the same relative areas
of land and water might be maintained.
This view has, however, been reduced in its proportions by Dr. Carpenter,
who has levelled the results of the recent researches by the _Challenger_
expedition against the advocates of the intermutations of land and ocean,
and, in pursuing another line of reasoning from Mr. Wallace, has estimated
the solid contents of ocean and land above the sea-level respectively, as
bearing the proportion of thirty-six to one. So that, supposing all the
existing land of the globe to sink down to the sea-level, this subsidence
would be balanced by the elevation of only one thirty-sixth part of the
existing ocean floor from its present depth to the same level.
It must be admitted that the balance of argument was until lately
considerably against the former existence of the country of Atlantis,
whose ghostly outlines, however, we could almost imagine to be sketched
out by faint contours in the chart illustrative of the North Atlantic
portion of the _Challenger_ investigations. But it was not so overwhelming
as to entitle us to ignore the story entirely as a fable. I do not
conceive it impossible that some centrally situated and perhaps volcanic
island may once have existed, sufficiently important to have served as the
basis of simple legends, which, under the enchantment of distance and time
became metamorphosed and enriched.
Mr. A. R. Grote suggests that it is simply a myth founded on the
observation of low-lying clouds in a sun-flushed sky, which gave the
appearance like islands on a golden sea.
Mr. Donelly, on the other hand, in a very exhaustive and able volume,
contends first, that Atlantis actually existed, and secondly, that it was
the origin of our present civilization, that its kings are represented by
the gods of Greek mythology, and that its destruction originated our
Deluge story.
The well-known story is contained in an epic of Plato, of which two
fragments only remain, found in two dialogues (the Timæus and the
Critias). Critias is represented as telling an old-world story, handed
down in his family from his great-grandfather Dropidas, who had heard it
from Solon, who had it from the Egyptian priests of Sais.[129]
Ælian, again, contains an extract from Theophrastus, who wrote in the time
of Alexander the Great, which can hardly imply anything else than an
acquaintance with America. It is in the form of a dialogue between Midas
the Phrygian and Silenus.
The latter informs Midas that Europe, Asia, and Africa were but islands
surrounded on all sides by sea, but that there was a continent situated
beyond these which was of immense dimensions, even without limits, and
that it was so luxuriant as to produce animals of prodigious magnitude.
That there men grew to double the size of themselves, and that they lived
to a far greater age, that they had many cities, and their usages and laws
were different from their own; that in one city there was more than a
million of inhabitants, and that gold and silver were there in vast
quantities.
Diodorus Siculus gives an account of what could only have been the
mainland of America, or one of the West Indian islands; it is as follows.
"After cursorily mentioning the islands within the Pillars of Hercules,
let us treat of those further ones in the open ocean, for towards Africa
there is a very large island in the great ocean sea, situated many days'
sail from Libya towards the west.
"Its soil is fruitful, a great part rising in mountains, but still with no
scarcity of level expanse, which excels in pleasantness, for navigable
rivers flow through and irrigate it. Gardens abound, stored with various
trees and numerous orchards, intersected by pleasant streams.
"The towns are adorned with sumptuous edifices, and drinking taverns,
beautifully situated in gardens, are everywhere met with; as the
convenient situation of these largely invites to pleasure, they are
frequented during the summer season.
"The mountain region possesses numerous and large forests, and various
kinds of fruitful trees. It everywhere presents deep valleys and springs
suitable for mountain recreations.
"Indeed the whole of this island is watered with springs of sweet water,
which gives rise not merely to the pleasure of its inhabitants, but also
to an accession of their health and strength.
"Hunting furnishes all kinds of game, the abundance of which in their
banquets leaves nothing to be desired.
"Moreover, the sea which washes against this island abounds with fish,
since the ocean, from its nature everywhere, affords a variety of fish.
"Finally, the temperature is very genial, from which it results that the
trees bear fruit throughout the greater part of the year.
"Lastly, it excels so much in felicity as to resemble the habitations of
the gods rather than of men.
"Formerly it was unknown, on account of the remoteness of its situation
from the rest of the world, but accident disclosed its position. The
Phœnicians have been in the habit of making frequent passages, for the
sake of commerce, from the very oldest dates, from whence it resulted that
they were the founders of many of the African colonies, and of not a few
of those European ones situated to the west; and when they had yielded to
the idea which had entered their minds, of enriching themselves greatly,
they passed out beyond the Pillars of Hercules into the sea which is
called the Ocean, and they first founded a city called Gades, on the
European peninsula, and near the straits of the Pillars [of Hercules] in
which, when others had flocked to it, they instituted a sumptuous temple
to Hercules. This temple has been held in the utmost veneration both in
ancient times and during later periods up to the present day; therefore
many Romans of illustrious nobility and reputation pronounce their vows to
that god, and happily discharge their obligations.
"The Phœnicians for this reason continued their exploration beyond the
Pillars, and when they were sailing along the African coast, being carried
off by a tempest to a distant part of the ocean, were driven by the
violence of the storm, after a period of many days, to the island of which
I have spoken, and having first acquainted themselves with its nature and
pleasing characters, introduced it to the notice of others. On that
account, the Tyrrhenians, also obtaining the empire of the sea, determined
on a colony there, but the Carthaginians prevented them, both because they
feared lest many of their citizens, being allured by the advantages of the
island, might migrate there, and because they wished to have a refuge
prepared for themselves against a sudden stroke of fortune, if by chance
the Carthaginian Republic should receive any deadly blow, for they
contemplated that they would be able, while yet powerful at sea, to
transport themselves and their families to the island unknown to the
victors."[130]
Among the many proofs which may be cited of community of origin between
the Asiatics and certainly a large proportion of the American population
is the practice of scalping enemies, quoted by Herodotus as prevalent
amongst the Scythians, and universally existing amongst all tribes of
North American Indians; the discovery of jade ornaments amongst Mexican
remains, and the general esteem in which that material is held by the
Chinese; the use of the Quipos among the Peruvians, and the assertion in
the _I-king_, or Book of Change, one of the oldest of the Chinese
Classics, that "The ancients knotted cords to express their meaning, but
in the next age the sages renounced the custom and adopted a system of
written characters;"[131] the discovery of the meander pattern among
Peruvian relics, and the common use of this ornamentation on Chinese vases
and tripods, at dates long preceding the Trojan era, in which it is
commonly supposed to have originated; the similarity of the features of
Chinese, and other Mongols, with those of various Indian tribes; the
resemblance of masks and various other remains to Chinese patterns
discovered recently by Desirée de Charnay in Central America; and the
reserve and stolid demeanour of both races. A good illustration of this is
afforded by the story told of the celebrated statesman Sieh Ngan (A.D.
320-385), in Mayer's _Chinese Reader's Manual_; it could be imagined to
apply to any Indian sachem.
It is related of Sieh Ngan that, at the time when the capital was menaced
by the advancing forces of Fukien, he sat one day over a game of chess
with a friend, when a despatch was handed to him, which he calmly read and
then continued the game. On being asked what the news was, he replied: "It
is merely an announcement that my young people have beaten the enemy." The
intelligence was, in fact, of the decisive rout of the invaders by the
army under his brother Sieh She and his nephew Sieh Hüan. Only when
retired within the seclusion of his private apartments did he give himself
up to an outburst of joy. The very expression "my young people" is the
equivalent of "my young men" which the Indian chief would have employed.
A singular custom prevails among the Petivaces, an Indian tribe of
Brazil.[132] "When they are delivered of a child, and ought to have all
the ceremony and attendance proper to a lying-in woman, the husband
presently lies down in his hammock (as if he had been brought to bed
himself), and all his wives and neighbours come about and serve him. This
is a pleasant fancy indeed, that the woman must take all the pains to
bring the child into the world, and then the man lie down and gruntle upon
it."
Compare with this the account given by Marco Polo of the same custom
prevalent among the Miau-tze, or aborigines of China, as distinguished
from their present occupants. Their reduction to submission is recorded in
the early works on the country.
"Proceeding five days' journey, in a westerly direction from Karazan, you
enter the province of Kardandan belonging to the dominion of the great
Khan, and of which the principal city is named Vochang (probably
Yung-chang in the western part of Yunnan). These people have the following
singular usage. As soon as a woman has been delivered of a child, and
rising from her bed, has washed and swathed the infant, her husband
immediately takes the place she has left, has the child beside him, and
nurses it for forty days. In the meantime the friends and relations of the
family pay to him their visits of congratulation; whilst the woman attends
to the business of the house, carries victuals and drink to the husband in
his bed, and suckles the infant at his side."[133]
We find a reference in _Hudibras_ to this grotesque practice, in which it
is imputed, but erroneously, to the Chinese themselves, and it reappears
on the western side of Europe, among those singular people the Basques,
who have their own especial Deluge tradition, and use a language which,
according to Humboldt, approaches some of the dialects of the North
American Indians more nearly than any other. They profess to trace the
custom up to Aïtor or Noah, whose wife bore a son to him when they were in
exile, and, being afraid to stay by herself for fear of being discovered
and murdered, bade her husband take care of the child, while she went out
to search for food and firing.
The change of name which prevails among the Chinese and Japanese in both
sexes, at different periods of life, is also found upon the other
continent,[134] where males and females when they come to years of
discretion do not retain the names they had when young, and, if they do
any remarkable deed, assume a new name upon it.
Less importance is to be attached to the coincidence of sun worship,
Deluge tradition, and the preservation of ancestral ashes.[135] These,
though probably not, might have been indigenous; but we can hardly
conceive this of serpent worship, which Mr. Fergusson suggests arose among
a people of Turanian origin, from which it spread to every country or land
of the Old World in which a Turanian settled. The coincidence between the
serpent mounds of North America and such an one as is described by M.
Phené in Argyllshire[136] is remarkable; and still more so is that between
the Mexican myth of the fourfold destruction of the world by fire and
water, with those current among the Egyptians and that of the four ages in
the Hindu mythology.
Another coincidence, although perhaps of minor value, will be seen in the
dresses of the soldiers of China and Mexico, as noted in the passages
annexed. "Thus, in our own time, the Chinese soldiers wear a dress
resembling the tiger skin, and the cap, which nearly covers the face, is
formed to represent the head of a tiger";[137] while the Mexican warriors,
according to Spanish historians, "wore enormous wooden helmets in the form
of a tiger's head, the jaws of which were armed with the teeth of this
animal."[138]
Mr. C. Wolcott-Brooks, in an address to the California Academy of Science,
has pointed out that, according to Chinese annals, Tai Ko Fo Kee, the
great stranger-king, ruled the kingdom of China, and that he is always
represented in pictures with two small horns like those associated with
the representation of Moses. He and his successors are said to have
introduced into China "picture writing" like that in use in Central
America at the time of the Spanish conquest. Now there has been found at
Copan, in Central America, a figure strikingly like the Chinese symbol of
Fo Kee, with his two horns. "Either," says Mr. Brooks, "one people learned
from the other, or both acquired their forms from a common source."
In reviewing all these cases we cannot fail to perceive that early and
frequent communication must have taken place between the two worlds, and
that the myths of one have probably been carried with them by the migrants
to the other.
[Illustration: FIG. 32.--MURAL TABLET, TEMPLE OF LONGEVITY, CANTON.]