GEOGEAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF MYTHS. 359 



Wieland, our Wayland Smitli, the representative of Hepli83stus. 

 Tlie transfer of the lameness of tlie Fire- god to the Devil seems 

 to belong to the mixture of the Scriptui'al Satan with the ideas 

 of heathen gods^ elves, giants, and demons, which go to form 

 that strange compound, the Devil of popular medigeval belief.^ 



There is something very quaint in the notion of a lame god 

 or devil, but it is quite a familiar one in South Africa. The 

 deity of the Namaquas and other tribes is Tsui'kuap, whose 

 principal attributes seem to be the causing of pain and death. 

 This being received a wound in his knee in a great fight, and 

 " Wounded-knee " appears to be the meaning of his name.^ 

 Moffat's account, which is indeed not very clear, fits with a late 

 remark made by Livingstone among another people of South 

 Africa, the Bakwains. He observes that near the village of 

 Sechele there is a cave called Lepelole, which no one dared 

 to enter, for it was the common belief that it Avas the habita- 

 tion of the Deity, and that no one who went in ever came out 

 again. "It is curious," he says, "that in all their pretended 

 dreams or visions of their god he has always a crooked leg, 

 like the Egyptian Thau.'^^ Even in Australia something similar 

 is to be found. The Biam is held to be like a black, but de- 

 formed in his lower extremities , the natives say they got many 

 of the songs sung at their dances from him, but he also causes 

 diseases, especially one which marks the face like small-pox.* 



The Diable Boiteux of South America is thus described by 

 Poppig, in his account of the life of the forest Indians of Mainas. 

 "A ghostly being, the Uchuclla-chaqui or Lame-foot, alone 

 troubles the source of his best pleasure and his livelihood. 

 Where the forest is darkest, where only the light-avoiding 

 amphibia and the nocturnal birds dwell, lives this dangerous 

 creature, and endeavours, by putting on some friendly shape, to 

 lure the Indian to his destruction. As the sociable hunters do, 



^ Welcker, ' Griechische Gotterlehre ;' Gottingeti, 1857, etc., vol. i. pp. 661-5. 

 Gi-imm, D. M., pp. 221, 351, 937-8, 914, 963. See Schirreti, p. 161. 



2 Moffat, pp. 257-9. 



2 Livingstone, p. 121. He means, I presume, Pthali, or rather Pthah-Sokari 

 Osiris. 



* Eyre, vol. ii. p. 362. 



