18 TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. [VoL. Y. 



inflicted by the dwarfs on the brother of the hero, ^stas, who appears 

 here in the combined role of Noah and of Jehovah. 



When the waters have subsided somewhat, the BibHcal Noah sent out 

 a raven " which went forth and did not return till the waters were dried 

 up upon the earth^" The Carrier Noah sends down the beaver and the 

 muskrat, which do not return until one of them brings up a little mud. 



Moses' Noah then sends forth a dove " to see if the waters had not 

 ceased upon the face of the earth,^" which returns as a sign that the land 

 is not yet fit for man to inhabit. Likewise the hero of the Carrier 

 legend sends out the wolf to see if the island is inhabitable, with the re- 

 sult that it soon returns with the silent message that it is as yet unfit 

 for him to dwell upon. It is not before a second trial, the equivalent of 

 the second sending of the dove, that he is told hy the howling of the 

 wolf, as Noah was by the carrying of the bough of the olive tree, that 

 the earth is henceforth fit again for habitation. 



Nobody, disbelieving the autochthony of our Indians, will be astonished 

 to find the remembrance of the deluge vivid among them. That tradi- 

 tion is universal throughout the old world. It is to be found, under one 

 form or another, among the principal nations of antiquity no less than 

 among the aborigines of the new world. Noah and his ark have their 

 counterparts in most of the known mythologies. Everybody is ac- 

 quainted with the Deucalion Sisyphes of the Greeks : now that personage 

 has duplicates in the Xisuthrus of the Chaldeans, the Yima of the 

 Iranians, the Khasisatra of the Babylonian inscriptions, the Manu of the 

 Hindoos and the Fo-hi of the Chinese. 



The universality of the tradition baffles all attempts at incredulity on 

 the part of the most hardened sceptic. What is not quite so clear is the 

 question as to the extent the catastrophe really prevailed. Three differ- 

 ent views have been advanced on the subject. There is the opinion, now 

 held by few well informed writers, that the deluge was universal both 

 geographically and ethnographically. The second view, which is now 

 very prevalent among competent critics of all creeds and nationalities, 

 estimates that it was indeed universal ethnographically, but not geogra- 

 phically. Lastly a third opinion, which is held by authors of repute and 

 undoubted orthodoxy, would have it that the catastrophe had no really 

 universal effects, either as regards the earth, or relatively to its in- 

 habitants. 



These remarks may appear in the light of an unnecessary digression ; 



^ Gen. viii., 7. 



