66 Shells as evidence of the Migrations. 
the shell, which gradually became louder till at last a little 
female child was seen, which by degrees grew to be a 
woman and married the raven. From this union came all 
the Indians of the region.” 
Thus preserved in the traditions of these people is the 
identical conception which we have already observed in 
pictorial manuscripts of the Mayas—the idea of the birth 
of a female child from a sea-shell. Such a striking simi- 
larity can hardly have been the result of accident. Turn- 
ing to Ellen C. Semple’s interesting book on “ Influences 
of Geographic Environment” (London, 1911, p. 395) we 
find that these widely-separated peoples—the Haidas and 
Tlingits of British Columbia and Alaska and the Mayas 
of Yucatan—have been linked together on other cultural 
grounds. 
In the Pacific Islands, especially in Samoa, there exists 
a persistent belief in the presence of gods in conch-shell 
trumpets. Some of the information relating to this idea, 
extracted from Turner’s interesting account of Samoa, 
has already been given on an earlier page, where also 
allusion has been made to the use of shell-trumpets at 
moon ceremonies. Other gods, Turner informs us, are said 
to be incarnate in the cuttle-fish, as well as in the large 
white “ cowry,” (Ovulum ovum); while Nonia,a village god, 
was supposed to be present in the cockle-shell. Concern- 
ing the origin of man some curious ideas are expressed in 
the traditions of these people. It is believed that man is 
formed from a species of mussel and that he casts his 
skin like shell-fish ; from a man called Ariaré (to appear) 
and a woman sprang the cuttle-fish and the race of men. 
Another of their traditions is that Lu had a wife, Gaogao- 
o-le-tat (expanse of sea), who had a son also called Lu 
and she next brought forth a lot of all kinds of shell-fish."” 
Codrington, in his “ Melanesians” (Oxford, 1891, p. 26) 
™* Turner, of. cs¢., pp. 8, 9, 12, etc. 
