1

which they had received from the preceding generation, repeated one of these to a missionary, who resided among them for eight or nine years. They said that a deluge had drowned all men but a few, who escaped upon a raft of reeds; these being bound with bark, the fastenings were gnawed asunder by beavers. It may easily be supposed, that their computation of time would not go back very far; and accordingly they believed, that their great grandfathers had conversed with the first race of men, formed at Nunih Waiya, which was the first ground seen above the waters. Now since Nunih Waiya means the sloping hill,' and is reported to have the appearance of being a work of art, there can be no doubt that it was one of those huge tumuli, or mounds, representing the diluvian mountain, which will be described more at large hereafter. It is to be observed, that in the traditions of the Choctaws, as in those of many other nations, the first and second birth of the world are blended together, and a sort of divinity is attributed to the father of mankind. The account of the deluge preserved among the Dogrib Indians, who have also a tradition of the fall of man by his disobedience in eating a forbidden fruit, is of the same complexion. Chapewee is the name of the Being who imposed the test of obedience, of the first man who lived so long that at last he desired to die, and of the person who embarked with his family in a canoe, and took with him all manner of birds

1 Missionary Herald. Boston, xxiv.

and beasts to escape from an inundation: for "the strait on which he lived being choked up by fish which he had caught in a weir, the waters rose and overflowed the earth, and covered it for many days; but at length he said, 'we cannot always live thus; we must find land again :' and he sent a beaver to search for it; the beaver was drowned, and his carcass was seen floating on the water; he then despatched a musk rat upon the same errand, who was long absent, and when he did return almost died of fatigue, but he had a little earth in his paws. For a long time, Chapewee's descendants were united as one family; but at length, some young men being accidentally killed in a game, a quarrel ensued, and a general dispersion of mankind took place." The animals which Noah sent out, are here metamorphosed into others with which the Indians were more familiar, without much attention to the propriety of their employment: but that very circumstance shows what was the true foundation of the story. At the opposite extremity of the globe traditions to the same effect, but somewhat less distinct, have been discovered. In the Sandwich Islands, the remarkable events of their history are preserved in songs, committed to memory by persons who held the hereditary office of bard, and therefore the poet may be supposed to

1 Franklin's Journey to the Polar Ocean, p. 294.

2 So also Peter Martyr observes, that the natives of Hayti had dances, which they performed to the chant of certain ballads, handed down from generation to generation; in which were rehearsed the deeds of their ancestors; some were of a sacred character, containing

have indulged in a little poetic licence; but in one of them it is believed that once there was nothing but sea, till an immense bird settled on the water, and laid an egg, which soon burst, and produced the island of Hawaii.' An egg, we shall see, was a symbol of the ark, and only two human beings were said to have been saved from a flood: and therefore when it is added, that their progenitors were a man and woman, who came in a canoe with a hog, and a dog, and a pair of fowls, which comprise the whole of their domestic animals, though it is very likely to be a simple matter of fact, yet, taken in connection with the preceding fable, it seems to imply something more. In the Tonga Islands, the earth is said to have been drawn out of the water by the god Tangaloa.2 Now Tangata signifies a man, and Loa ancient;' and since the souls of deceased chiefs become in the opinion of the natives inferior gods, the ancient man, to whom they ascribe divinity and the deliverance of the earth from its submersion under water, must have been the patriarch Noah. Lastly, Bali records, we are told, allude to the destruction of the world by water3, and the Californian Indians have a tradition of the deluge. 4

Bei

their superstitions, and fables which comprised their religious creeds. Washington Irving's Life of Columbus, ii. 122. and 124. den alten Nordländern waren Poesie und Religion innigst verbunden. Barth. Hertha, p. 69.

1 Ellis's Missionary Tour, pp. 439. 451. 472.

2 Mariner's Account of the Tonga Islands, ii. 104.

3 Trans. As. Soc. iii. 106.

4 Beechey's Voyage to Pacific, ii. 78.

A German writer has observed, that religious belief, though it escapes not that changeableness which is the common lot of earthly things, is yet that which takes deepest root in the mind of man, and retains its original ideas with most fidelity.' Historians have too much neglected this truth, and are too much disposed to find political events in the fables of mythology, when they ought rather to explain much that passes for history by reference to religious notions. Neander indeed complains, that religious feelings entered so much into all the characters, customs, and relations of social life, and ancient history was so much compounded of tales half mythical, half historical, that the religious matter could no longer be separated from the mixed mass, nor be disentangled from the individual nature of the life and political character of each people with which it was interwoven.2 In order to extricate themselves from this embarrassment, the explorers of antiquity have been accustomed to strip history altogether of its mythical moiety, and have tortured dates and genealogies with a blind ingenuity, for the sake of converting the mysteries of tradition into plain matters of fact. Thus, for instance, in the history of Attica, the whole series of kings said to have preceded Theseus are fictions, owing their existence in great measure to ancient customs and religious rites misunder

1 Hertha von C. Barth., p. 180.

2 Neander's Hist. of the Church during the Five First Cent. p. 3.

stood.' Some critics, indeed, have had discrimination enough to be sensible of the effect, though they have not sufficiently discerned the cause. Those," says Boeckh, "who have deeply investigated antiquity, know that the whole genealogy of the descendants from Hellen is destitute of historical truth, and was dressed up at a late period, chiefly by the cyclian poets after the Homeric age, with very slender guidance from tradition, and certainly long after the return of the Heraclidæ, in order to demonstrate the common origin of all the Greeks.' If, then, those early writers were guilty of an intentional distortion of facts to suit a particular purpose, we must not wonder that modern inquirers have been misled. But, that religion really occupied a large space in the popular traditions, may very fairly be inferred from the respect paid to the ministers of religion, and the influence which they enjoyed in society. Among the Greeks and Romans, the persons appointed to preside over sacred things were of the noblest

Philological Museum, No. v. 347.

M. Court de Gebelin observes, that the Parian Chronicle, in the Arundel marbles, is not to be depended on as history before the Trojan war; it contradicts itself in making Cecrops the first king come from Egypt, where agriculture was certainly understood; and yet more than two centuries afterwards Ceres comes to instruct Triptolemus in that art, under the sixth king Erectheus. The mysteries of Ceres were perhaps introduced about that time; but the whole of the seven kings before Theseus, who, according to Plutarch, built Athens, are mythological personages, mistaken by the chronicler for historical kings: 250 years, the duration assigned to their empire, gives an average of more than 35 to each reign, which is a length not warranted by the course of nature.-Discours Preliminaire. 2 Boeckh. Not. Crit. ad Pind. Nem. vi. 40-42.