uncle; the germs of dualism appear early. Like some
other culture-heroes, he steals sun, moon and stars out of a box, so
enlightening the dark earth. These people are at any rate above the
Greenlanders, but are surpassed by the Algonkins described by Nicholas
Perrot in 1700, and by the Iroquois, whom the heroic Father Brebeuf
(1593-1649) learned to know so well.[3] The earth-maker of the former
was called Michabo, i.e. the Great Hare.[4] He is the leader of some
animals on a raft on a shoreless sea. Three of these in succession are
sent to dive for a little earth. A grain of sand is brought; out of it
he makes an island (America?). Of the carcases of the dead animals he
makes the present men (N. Americans?). There is also a Flood-story, an
episode in which has a bearing on the great dragon-myth[5] (see
DELUGE). The Iroquois are in advance of the Algonkins; their
creator-hero has no touch of the animal in him. Above the waters there
existed a heaven, or a heavenly earth (cf. Mexico, Babylonia, Egypt),
through a hole in which Aataentsic fell to the water. The broad back of
a tortoise (cf. S 6) on which a diving animal had placed some mud,
received her. Here, being already pregnant, she gave birth to a
daughter, who in turn bore the twins Joskeha and Tawiscara (myth of
hostile brothers). By his violence (cf. Gen. xxv. 22) the latter killed
his mother, out of whose corpse grew plants. Tawiscara fled to the west,
where he rules over the dead. Joskeha made the beasts and also men.
After acting as culture-giver he disappeared to the east, where he is
said to dwell with his grandmother as her husband.[6]

3. _Mexican._--The most interesting feature in the Mexican cosmology is
the theory of the ages of the world. Greece, Persia and probably
Babylon, knew of four such ages.[7] The Priestly Writer in the
Pentateuch also appears to be acquainted with this doctrine; it is the
first of four ages which begins with the Creation and ends with the
Deluge. The Mexicans, however, are said to have assumed five ages called
"suns." The first was the sun of earth; the second, of fire; the third,
of air; the fourth, of water; the fifth (which is the present) was
unnamed. Each of these closed with a physical catastrophe.[8] The
speculations which underlie the Mexican theory have not come down to us.
For the Iranian parallel, see S 8, and on the Hebrew Priestly Writer,
Gunkel, _Genesis_[2], pp. 233 ff.

4. _Peruvian._--In Peru, as in Egypt, the