FABLE AND FOLKLORE 103 



ventures of the few or solitary survivors by means of 

 whom the world was repeopled. Thus scores, perhaps 

 hundreds, of varying traditions and fables exist of the 

 creation of the earth out of a chaos of water, or of its 

 restoration after having been drowned in a universal 

 flood ; and often it is hard to distinguish the creation-myth 

 from the deluge-tale. 



The American story-material of this nature may be 

 divided into groups that would correspond roughly to the 

 various aboriginal language-stocks, betraying a family 

 likeness in each group, but showing tribal variations as a 

 rule connected with each particular tribal or mythical 

 "first man," or with the totemic ancestor. 



The creation-legends, as such, do not concern us much. 

 They are of purely mythical, supernatural beings of 

 various sorts, descending from the sky or coming up out 

 of the underworld, and either finding a readymade earth 

 to dwell upon or else creating one by magic. Some 

 Southern darkies will tell you that the blue jay made the 

 earth. "When all de worF was water he brung de fust 

 grit er dirt." The strangest conception of this kind is not 

 American but that of the Ainus of northern Japan, who 

 say that the earth originally was a sterile, cold, unin- 

 habitable and dreadful quagmire. The creator existed 

 aloft, however, and finally made and despatched a water- 

 wagtail to construct a place habitable for men. The bird 

 fluttered over the water-spaces, trampled the thin mud 

 and beat it down with its feet. Thus ground was 

 gradually hardened and elevated in spots, the water 

 steadily drained away and good soil was left. Hence the 

 Ainus hold the little wagtail in almost worshipful esteem. 



Let us, however, restrict the inquiry to North America, 

 and to the deluge-story proper — that is, the destruction of 



