1 9 14] Northwestern D6nes and Northeastern Asiatics 183 



Note now the most characteristic and quite extraordinary means 

 adopted according to both narratives to stay the progress of the pur- 

 suer: an apparently insignificant object is thrown out by the elder of 

 the two children, which is invariably transformed into a momentarily 

 insurmountable obstacle. Nay, even one of the means of self-protection 

 is about identical in both Siberian and American stories: in the former 

 a firestone, in the latter a stone arrow-point, are thrown out, both of 

 which are changed into a mountain. 



Another means of salvation is resorted to, which, though somewhat 

 different in itself, results in the self-same obstacle. In the one version 

 of the legend it is a thorn, in the other a comb; but in both cases the 

 result is the same : a forest which bars the way to the pursuer. 



The merest fact that in both Samoyed and Dene myths the fugitives 

 are saved by throwing out an object, whatever it may be, which is 

 changed into an obstacle of any kind in the way of the pursuer would 

 of itself stamp those stories as having a common origin. No stretch 

 of the imagination or display of scepticism will ever be equal to the task 

 of tracing this similarity to environment or mere hazard. 



This is so clear that I need not insist. 



The further progress of the fleeing children is also practically the 

 same in both narratives, as is likewise the ultimate end of their tormentor. 

 According to the American story, the former reached a large lake, 

 which they crossed on a dam that disappeared after them. Yet their 

 pursuer managed to again overtake them, until it was finally swallowed 

 up by two whales which sprang out of the water. 



With the Asiatic legend, the fugitives are carried over a strait by a 

 beaver, and their tormentor ends by being drowned through the wiles 

 of a sturgeon, while in the act of attempting to reach them. 



The numbers in both narratives are what are known to sociologists 

 as the sacred numbers. These are generally the number four among 

 the American Indians; with the Carriers the number two plays a similar 

 r61e — hence the two whales of their narrative — whilst the Samoyeds 

 replace it by the number seven, which is common to them and the Jews 

 of old. 



To return to our legend. Although I had long suspected mytho- 

 logical as well as sociological and technological resemblances between 

 the natives of America and those of Palaeo-Asia, I am free to confess 

 that it was with a feeling of great satisfaction that I fell upon the above 

 remarkable counterpart among the Samoyeds of a Den4 legend I had 

 myself published long before. Had I previously noticed a few stray, 

 but highly significant, remarks of the reviewer of the "American An- 

 thropologist", my surprise would not have been so great. Here are 

 those remarks: 



