TREES IN MYTH AND LEGEND. 203 



in the wind, they are swung into heaven. Another conception 

 was that the earth, not the sky, rests on a huge tree which will 

 one day be upset by an earthquake. The living and the dead 

 will then change places; hence the latter give the tree an 

 occasional shake to hasten on matters — rather showing their 

 anxiety to get back to the good things on earth. The people 

 of Guiana know of a different kind of tree, the Ceiba tree ot 

 vast dimensions, its branches in the clouds forming the seat of 

 the Creator who made all living things from its twig and 

 bark. 



9. Trees also enter into many of the myths relating to the 

 peopling of the earth. One race on the Gulf Coast of Australia 

 think that once a great pine-tree reached from heaven to earth, 

 and by its means their ancestors used to climb up and down 

 between the two regions. To complete the story it is related 

 that a hawk which had discovered the secret of fire making, 

 while disputing with another hawk, set fire to the earth, thus 

 destroying the tree. The people who had climbed up to the 

 sky were forced to remain there. Crystals were implanted in 

 their bodies, and the flashing of these by night causes the 

 light of stars. 



Conversely there are myths which tell how men reached the 

 surface of the earth from below by means of a tree. Some tribes 

 in North America think that all men once lived in the lowest 

 depths of the earth, suffering misery. Through the intervention 

 of the god of the interior and a huge serpent, the genius of water, 

 they obtained a seed from which sprang a magic growth of cane. 

 It penetrated through a crevice in the roof, and by its means men 

 reached a higher plane of the earth's interior. Here a dim light 

 prevailed and vegetation was produced. By another magic seed 

 they climbed to the next stage, where the light was strong and 

 the animals came into being. By similar magic growths, by a 

 pine-tree or otherwise, the people, headed by two mythic twins 

 who sang as the people climbed, reached the surface. When 

 their song was ended no others were allowed to ascend, and 

 they still remain below, but through the outlet still come the 

 germs of all living things. In another Red Indian myth the 

 ascent to the surface of the earth was made by means of a 

 tree, which broke when the inevitable fat man or woman 

 was climbing it, causing many still to remain below. 



10. We come now to what is probably the most interesting 



