1894-95, | THREE CARRIER MYTHS. 19

but if digression there be, I think it is not without its usefulness in a
paper on [Indian traditions. This is my point:

If the Noachian deluge was universal neither geographically nor ethno-
graphically speaking, our aborigines must be assigned a probable Asiatic
origin, either by descent or by contact, since they have not forgotten that
event. Asiatic, have I said: they could not be represented as coming
from Africa, for all the black races are remarkable for the absence in
their mythology of any allusion to the deluge. Moreover, the physio-
logical differences between the Africans and the Americans are, of course,
too pronounced to admit of any serious comparison between the two
races. T’hey could not be said to originate from Oceanica, since the in-
habitants of that.part of the world are no less devoid of any tradition
traceable to the deluge. They could hardly be represented as of Euro-
pean origin, as, in the third hypothesis relatively to the extent of the
cataclysm, the flood is not supposed to have extended to that continent,
and the few versions of the Noachian deluge found among its primitive
inhabitants are of too vague a character to have stdod the assault of ages
among the uncultured savages who would be supposed to have derived
their present traditions on the subject from the original European
peoples.

But, a student of the Algonquin mythology will object, the story of
the floating raft and the muskrat refers, not to the deluge, but to the
creation. I have noticed that position taken by a commentator on a
Blackfoot equivalent of that portion of the Carrier myth, and even Dr,
D. G. Brinton, who sees therein neither creation nor historical deluge,
calls it “the national myth of creation of the Algonquin tribes.” In
answer to that objection, I need only refer the reader to the Carrier ver-
sion such as presented above, wherein we see the earth peopled before
the catastrophe and a gradual submersion of the globe. In confirmation
of this might also be adduced the fact that the Indians referring to that
event never call it the creation or re-creation of the world, but most
pointedly ¢o 7a-tha-dathtzpan which means “the filling up with water,”?

To make it doubly sure that the end of the Carrier myth really refers to
the deluge, I reproduce here, after Petitot, the corresponding tradition cur-
rent among the Hare Indians, their congenersin the North-East. It will
be seen that the latter can be identified with even less difficulty with the

' American Hero-Myths, p. 41.

? The expression is thus analysed : 70, up, an adverbial form which requires immediate and
intimate connection with the verb ; 72, sign of the past tense proper to the actualitive form of
some verbs ; dath?zfo means ‘‘ filled,” and implies at the same time the beginning of a past

action.