It is said that the Tamanakis, a Carib tribe on the banks of the Orinoco, have a legend of the man and woman who escaped the flood by reaching the summit of Mount Tapanacu. There they threw cocoa-nuts behind them, from which sprung a new race of men and women. If the report be true, which, however, we cannot affirm, this would be a very singular agreement with one of the distinctive features of the Greek story of Deucalion and Pyrrha.
Russian explorers have reported a childlike narrative of the flood in the Aleutian Islands, forming the geographical link between Asia and North America, and at the extremity of the north-east of America among the Kolosks. Henry the traveller gives the following tradition as current among the Indians of the Great Lakes:—
"In former times the father of the Indian tribes dwelt towards the rising sun. Having been warned in a dream that a deluge was coming upon the earth, he built a raft, on which he saved himself with his family and all the animals. He floated thus for several months. The animals, who at that time spoke, loudly complained and murmured against him. At last a new earth appeared, on which he landed with all the animals, who from that time lost the power of speech as a punishment for their murmurs against their deliverer."
According to Father Charlevoix, the tribes of Canada and the valley of the Mississippi relate in their rude legends that all mankind was destroyed by a flood, and that the good spirit, to repeople the earth, had changed animals into men. It is to J. S. Kohl we owe our acquaintance with the version of the Chippeways—full of grotesque and perplexing touches—in which the man saved from the deluge is called Menaboshu.[65] To know if the earth be drying he sends a bird, the diver, out of his bark; then becomes the restorer of the human race and the founder of existing society. Catlin relates a story, current among the Mandans, of the earth being a great tortoise borne on the waters, and that when one day, in digging the soil, a tribe of white men pierced the shell of the tortoise, it sank, and the water covering it drowned all men, with the exception of one, who saved himself in a boat; and when the earth re-emerged, sent out a dove, who returned with a branch of willow in its beak. Here we have Noah's dove, as in the story of Tezpi and Menaboshu we have other birds substituted for it. But the native originality of this detail, as of the whole diluvian tradition among the Mandans, may well be doubted when we remember that the physical peculiarities of this curious tribe on the banks of the Missouri led Catlin to consider it of mixed blood, and partly white origin.
In the songs of the inhabitants of New California allusion was made to a very remote period when the sea left its bed and covered the earth. The whole race of men and animals perished in this deluge, sent by the supreme god Chinigchinig, with the exception of a few who had taken refuge on a high mountain which the water failed to reach. The Commissioners of the United States who explored New Mexico before its annexation, tell of the existence of a similar tradition among the different native tribes of that vast territory. Other travellers give us kindred narratives, more or less strikingly resembling the Bible record. But for the most part they are too vaguely reported to be entirely trusted.
VI.
Polynesian Traditions.—In Oceania even, and not among the Pelagian negroes or Papoos,[66] but the Polynesian, racenatives of the archipelago of Australasia, the diluvian tradition has been traced, mingled with recollections of sudden rises of the sea, which are one of the most frequent scourges of those islands. The most noted is that of Tahiti, which has been specially referred to the primeval tradition. Here it is as given by M. Gaussin,[67] who has published a translation of it, as well as the Tahitian text, written by a native named Maré:—
"Two men had gone out to sea to fish with the line, Roo and Teahoroa by name. They threw their hooks into the sea, which caught in the hair of the god Ruahatu. They exclaimed, 'A fish!' They drew up the line and saw that it was a man they had caught. At sight of the god they bounded to the other end of their bark, and were half dead with fear. Ruahatu asked them, 'What is this?' The two fishermen replied, 'We came to fish, and we did not know that our hooks would catch thee.' The god then said, 'Unfasten my hair;' and they did so. Then Ruahatu asked, 'What are your names?' They replied, 'Roo and Teahoroa.' Ruahatu next said, 'Return to the shore, and tell men that the earth will be covered with water, and all the world will perish. To-morrow morning repair to the islet called Toa-marama; it will be a place of safety for you and your children.'
"Ruahatu caused the sea to cover the lands. All were covered, and all men perished except Roo, Teahoroa, and their families."
This story, like all in this part of the world currently referred to the memory of the Deluge, has assumed the childish character peculiar to Polynesian legends, and moreover, as M. Maury justly observes, it may be naturally explained by the recollection of one of those tidal waves so common in Polynesia. The most essential feature of all traditions properly called diluvian is wanting here. The island, observes M. Maury, has no resemblance to the Ark.[68] It is true that one of the versions of the Tahitian legend states that the two fishermen repaired to Toa-marama, not only with their families, but with a pig, a dog, and a couple of fowls, which recalls the entry of the animals into the Ark. On the other hand, some details of a similar story among the Fijis, especially one in which, for many years after the event, canoes were kept ready in case of its repetition, far better fit a local phenomenon, a tidal wave, than a universal deluge.