20 



17гиа, spirit of the air) besides the Indian Kanlakpak or «great 

 raven». But the Eskimo myth here about the sun and the 

 moon is the same as in Greenland, whereas Veniaminow tells 

 us that the Aleutians have a somewhat similar story, in which 

 however, the brother and sister were converted into sea otters. 



[ have never ventured on the task of instituting a compar- 

 ison of the Eskimo folklore with the whole material of TRADI- 

 TIONS FROM THE ADJACENT NORTHERN COUNTRIES which we are 

 possessed of. However, I can not abstain from calling attention 

 to a few examples of what I have found in them similar to 

 Eskimo elements, though apparently almost as much contradicting 

 as supporting the proposed theory of Alaska as the cradle of 

 the Eskimo race and at all events tending to show how puzz- 

 ling the traditions can be on account of a too defective know- 

 ledge about them. 



In mentioning the SAMOJED TRADITIONS Caslrèn tells as a 

 story about 7 bathing women who had laid off the clothing 

 which could transform them into birds , and a man who stole 

 one of them by laying hold on her clothes. This event, well 

 known also from other countries, exactly agrees with the chief 

 episode of a story which P. Egede asserts to have heard in 

 Greenland, while on the other hand Powers in his work on the 

 CALIFORNIA INDIANS states that he never discovered among these 

 any trace of beings like the «swanmaidens of mediæval legends». 

 But again in Sproal's TALES FROM VANCOUVER ISLAND we re- 

 cognise several Eskimo elements, as for instance: men lost in 

 venturing to brave the mysterious dangers in the unknown 

 interior of a fiord, clifTs able to clasp them, female murderers 

 who took the shape of birds , the sun and the moon as a 

 married couple. 



While the latter examples indicate a kinship with the Western 

 Indians we are again puzzled by discovering similar hints in 

 the east, in the IROQCOIS TRADITIONS communicated by E. A. 

 Smith. We hear about a monstrous snake, the dismembered 



