h points for the birthplace of the
race to Tula in the distant orient. The cave itself suggests to the
classical reader that of Eolus, or may be paralleled with that in which
the Iroquois fabled the winds were imprisoned by their lord.[83-1] These
brothers were of no common kin. Their voices could shake the earth and
their hands heap up mountains. Like the thunder god, they stood on the
hills and hurled their sling-stones to the four corners of the earth.
When one was overpowered he fled upward to the heaven or was turned into
stone, and it was by their aid and counsel that the savages who
possessed the land renounced their barbarous habits and commenced to
till the soil. There can be no doubt but that this in turn is but
another transformation of the Protean myth we have so long
pursued.[83-2]

There are traces of the same legend among many other tribes of the
continent, but the trustworthy reports we have of them are too scanty to
permit analysis. Enough that they are mentioned in a note, for it is
every way likely that could we resolve their meaning they too would
carry us back to the four winds.[83-3]

Let no one suppose, however, that this was the only myth of the origin
of man. Far from it. It was but one of many, for, as I shall hereafter
attempt to show, the laws that governed the formations of such myths not
only allowed but enjoined great divergence of form. Equally far was it
from being the only image which the inventive fancy hit upon to express
the action of the winds as the rain bringers. They too were many, but
may all be included in a twofold division, either as the winds were
supposed to flow in from the corners of the earth or outward from its
central point. Thus they are spoken of under such figures as four
tortoises at the angles of the earthly plane who vomit forth the
rains,[85-1] or four gigantic caryatides who sustain the heavens and
blow the winds from their capacious lungs,[85-2] or more frequently as
four rivers flowing from the broken calabash on high, as the Haitians,
draining the waters of the primitive world,[85-3] as four animals who
bring from heaven the maize,[85-4] as four messengers whom the god of
air sends forth, or under a coarser trope as the spittle he ejects
toward the cardinal points which is straightway transformed into wild
rice, tobacco, and maize.[85-5]

Constantly from the palace of the lord of the world, seated on the high
hill of heaven, blow four winds, pour four str