THE FIGHT WITH THE FIRE MONSTER.
The fire, which some had never before seen, or only vaguely observed in the lightning or a distant volcano, proved the greatest terror of all, as it was the greatest mystery. They saw it creeping through the grass, destroying scattered pieces of wood, as well as flaming in various parts of the forest. They thought it was a great serpent, and tried to kill it by throwing clubs at it, which it in turn devoured; when they declared that it was a monster that fed on wood, and ate whole forests. Some thought that it was the sun that had broken loose from the sky, and fallen in pieces to the earth; because, in addition to its light, they felt its heat. All were inclined to worship it as a divinity, some saying that it was Shoozoo himself.
“It is some kind of snake,” said one, “and I never yet saw a snake that I could not strangle;” whereat he seized a burning brand, which he took to be the body of the serpent, and tried to squeeze it to death. He dropped it quickly, however, with a loud scream, saying that it had bit him. He then jumped on the fire, thinking to crush the monster, when the sparks flew up in great numbers, frightening all who were present, and igniting the hair of the assailant, who was soon rushing about in flames.
“There is a fight between him and the monster,” said one; “let us see which will whip.”
The man was soon burned to death and his body nearly consumed, at which great terror seized the rest.
They called the monster the Sun-serpent, and for a long time, whenever fire appeared, they avoided it, or prayed to it, to avert its wrath. When it lightened they were afraid, and prayed that it would remain in the sky, and not come to the earth. They regarded the thunder as its voice; and when it struck a tree or destroyed a forest, they said it had come down to take a meal. In time, as they got more familiar with it, they took to feeding it with wood, to appease its hunger, and prevent it from devouring them or their possessions. When it went out, they thought it had crawled into the earth, like any other snake, and rarely was anybody bold enough to try to dig it out, or even to approach its hole. When they saw it flying through the air, as in lightning or a falling star, they predicted some great calamity, and were exceptionally religious. They pointed to the many thunder storms and to the damage done by the lightning and rain as evidence of all this; for these disturbances were all more frequent and violent in the Tertiary Age than at any subsequent time, the air being never for a long time either clear or silent.
There was, in short, so much that the early race did not understand, that they were perpetually in awe. Every convulsion of nature was a subject of worship to them. They thought it was alive, or produced by some living monster, and they feared its wrath and tried to appease it. Earth-quakes soon got a name, and were placed among the divinities. Thunder, Lightning, Rain, Hail, and subsequently Snow were canonized as heavenly spirits. The wind was the breath of Shoozoo, or of his great Alligator. Sunshine came to be the smile of the Great Serpent, when he was in good humor. The air came soon to be as full of monsters as the earth, and men’s imagination saw more than their eyes. A spirit world had dawned upon them, and the supernatural began to rule the race. All the unknown was fashioned into gods, and the realm of ignorance became one of terror and devotion.
“It all comes,” persisted Gimbo, “from looking up. If people only walked on their four feet they would not see the sky and its fires. I never see anything that is high, and so am not made afraid. The cure for all these evils is to return to all fours, when you won’t see anything that is so far off that it does not concern you.”
“But you see more snakes, and are more frightened by them than we,” retorted one.