CASANOWICZ— COSMOGONIC PARALLELS 



of pitch and wild animals destroyed them. At last four perfect men 

 were created of yellow and white maize, who were endowed with 

 intelligence. While these were asleep, the gods created four women 

 for them (cf. Genesis, II, 21). 



The employment of some kind of wood in making man is also 

 related in the myths of the Maidu of California and the Arawak of 

 Guiana. In the Old World this belief is found in Norse mythology, 

 which teaches that human beings were drawn forth by the gods from 

 the trunks of trees. 1 



V. CULTURE HEROES, OR TRANSFORMERS 



In many of the Indian myths there are tales or anecdotes of a 

 class of beings that stands on the border-line, as it were, between 

 divine animals, spirits, and gods: they are the various kinds of beings 

 that appear sometimes in animal form, sometimes in the form of 

 humans to whom are credited the setting in order of the shapeless 

 world, the conquest of monstrous beings, the establishment of the 

 institutions and arts of life, and sometimes also the creation of various 

 things. In some cases this personage is a mere trickster and mis- 

 chievous being, whose actions, if they result in advantage to mankind, 

 are contrary to his intentions, like Mephistopheles in Goethe's Faust, 

 the spirit that wills evil but works good. Such are the coyote, the 

 raven, the rabbit, the mink, and the bluejay. In other instances he 

 appears in a more dignified form as a benevolent helper and organizer. 

 Such are Yetl of the Athapascans, who saved their ancestors from the 

 flood and brought them fire from heaven; Kodoyanpe of the Maidu, 

 who with the assistance of the "conqueror" destroyed many monsters 

 and evil beings. Further, Joskeha of the Iroquois, and Poshaiyankya 

 of the Zuni. Just as the conception of the creator-gods is to account 

 for the beginning of the world, so also that of these beings is to account 

 for the beginning of certain conditions in the world, and the distinc- 

 tion made between them is to account for the presence of good and 

 evil elements in the world. 



One of the fragments of Berosus gives the following account of the 

 beginning of civilization in the valley of the Euphrates: 



In the first year there appeared from that part of the Red sea which borders 

 on Babylonia an animal endowed with reason by name of Oannes. Its body was 

 entirely that of a fish, but under the fish's head it had grown out another head, 

 while the feet were those of a man grown out from the fishy tail. His voice and 

 language were human. An image of it is still preserved. This being used to pass 



1 Stuhr, Nordische Alterthiimer, p. 105; Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, I, 337, quoted in F. 

 Lenormant, Beginnings of History, p. 58. 



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