GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF MYTHS. 335 



it was indeed remarked upon by Father Lafitau. nearly a cen- 

 tury and a half ago.^ Three great features of the Asiatic 

 stories are foimd among the North American Indians^ in the 

 fullest and clearest development. The earth is supported on 

 the back of a huge floating Tortoise^ the Tortoise sinks under 

 water and causes a deluge, and the Tortoise is conceived as 

 being itself the Earth floating upon the face of the deep. 



In the last century, Loskiel, the Moravian missionary, re- 

 marked of the North American Indians, that " Some imagine^ 

 that the earth swims in the sea, or that an enormous tortoise 

 carries the world on its back."^ Schoolcraft, an unrivalled 

 authority on Indian mythology within his own district, remarks 

 that the turtle is " an object held in great respect, in all Indian 

 reminiscence. It is believed to be, in all cases, a symbol of 

 the earth, and is addressed as a mother." In the Iroquois 

 mythology, there was a woman of heaven who was called Ata- 

 hentsicj and one of the six men of heaven became enamoured 

 of her. When it was discovered, she was cast down to earth, 

 and received on the back of a great turtle lying on the waters, 

 and there she was delivered of twins. One was " The Good 

 Mind," the other was " The Bad Mind," and thus the two 

 great powers of the Indian dualism, the Good and Evil Prin- 

 ciple, came into the world, and the tortoise expanded 'and be- 

 came the earth,^ or, as it is elsewhere related, the otter and the 

 fishes distm'bed the mud at the bottom of the ocean, and draw- 

 ing it up round the tortoise, formed a small island, which, gra- 

 dually increasing, became the earth.* Father Charlevoix gives 

 two different versions of the story. In one place it is Taron- 

 yawagon, the King of Heaven, who gave his wife so mighty a 

 kick that she flew out of the sky and down to earth, and fell 

 upon the back of a tortoise, which, cleaving the waters of the 

 deluge with its feet, at last uncovered the earth, and carried 

 the woman to the foot of a tree, where she was delivered of 

 twin sons, and the elder, who was called Tawiskaron, killed his 

 younger brother. In another place the story is like School- 

 craft's.^ Among the Mandans, Cathn found a legend which 



' Lafitau, vol. i. p. 99. - Loskiel, part i. p. 30. 



^ Schoolcraft, part i. pp. 390, 316. ^ Coleman, p. 15. 



* Charlevoix, vol. vi. pp. 146, 65. 



