[217] In the Japanese (vide [p. 269]) version of the legend of the bull breaking the mundane egg (vide [p. 396]), a gourd or pumpkin is also broken which contained the first man.—Vide Bryant’s “Mythology,” iii. 579. “I have mentioned that the ark was looked upon as the mother of mankind, and styled Da-Mater, and it was on this account figured under the semblance of a pomegranate,” “as it abounds with seed”—Bryant, ii. 380. Vide also plate (Bryant, ii. 410), where Juno (vide, [p. 395]) holds a dove in one hand and a pomegranate in the other.
[218] Compare alsosup., [p. 210], with Saturn. “Ipsius autem canities,” &c., and “cum falce messis insigne.”
[219] Compare again these two figures, one figuring in the Dahoman procession, the other in the Mandan bull dance.
[220] I allude to the opening of the ceremony by the centenarian white man, “the first and only man.” Mr Catlin is of opinion that this incident was introduced and superadded by some missionaries, though he adds it would be still more strange if the (Jesuit) missionaries had instructed them “in the other modes.” This, however, is understating the case. It is conceivable that missionaries should have come among them, but in this case we should have expected some trace of Christian practices and dogmas; it is difficult to conjecture what set of missionaries could have indoctrinated them with the recondite pagan mysteries of Eleusis and Hierapolis.
[221] Vide also Giebel, “Tagesfragen,” p. 91; apud Reusch, p. 500.
[222] Vide “Cook’s Voyages,” i. 199; Prescott, ii. 476.
[223] “There have been recent instances of Japanese vessels having been thrown by shipwreck upon the coasts of the Sandwich Islands, and even on the mouth of the Columbia.”—Reusch, “La Bible et la Nature,” p. 499.
“Since the north-west coast of America and the north-east of Asia have been explored, little difficulty remains on this subject.... Small boats can safely pass the narrow strait. Ten degrees farther south, the Aleutian and Fox islands form a continuous chain between Kamschatka and the peninsula of Alaska in such a manner as to leave the passage across a matter of no difficulty.”—Warburton’s “Conquest of Canada,” i. 194.
Ellis (“Polynesian Researches,” ii. 46) says: “There are also many points of resemblance in language, manners, and customs between the South Sea Islanders and the inhabitants of Madagascar in the west; the inhabitants of the Aleutian and Kurile islands in the north, which stretch along the mouth of Behring’s Straits, and forms the chain which connects the old and new worlds,” &c.
[224] “The Sandwich Islands, with a population of 500,000, are more than two thousand miles from the coast of South America. How did the population of those islands get there? Certainly not in canoes over ocean waves of two thousand miles. But I am told ‘the Sandwich islanders are Polynesians;’ not a bit of it; they are two thousand miles north of the Polynesian group, with the same impossibility of canoe navigation, and are as different in physiological traits of character and language from the Polynesian, as they are different from the American races.—“Last Rambles” (Catlin), p. 317. 1868.