Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 20, 1909.djvu/559

 Correspondence. 495

ancestors, or Alcheringa folk. This is rather curious, for, in most mythologies where an All-Father occurs, he is a good deal mixed up with Alcheringa folk; though, when he makes the world, and makes himself, he seems on a much higher level than they. In two or three cases the Andamanese beings leave the earth in anger. " Biliku's present abode is in the sky to the north-east." This departure of the All-Father to the sky, and his unceasing residence there, are a very common, indeed almost universal, form of the myth. According to the Kaitish, Atnatu made himself and another world beyond the sky, where he dwells. Usually, however, the All-Father goes skyward after a sojourn on earth. In one Andamanese myth, Biliku has changed into a stone, like a common Alcheringa person. The story of fire-theft from these beings, such as Bundjel or Zeus, is familiar.

Mr. Brown gives the legend of Bihku as " the creator of the world," adding, — " I was often told that Biliku was the first human being, and that she made the earth and the first Andamanese. But there was no legend of creation in connec- tion with Biliku." Does Mr. Brown mean that only white people told him about a creation legend which the natives repudiated? Or does he mean that, in legend, Biliku made the earth, but human beings " came otherwise "? I am anxious not to misinterpret Mr. Brown. He writes, — "Biliku, the same man told me, made the earth and sky and sea, but it does not seem that she was the creator of men." The All-Father some- times, like Pundjel, is the maker of men out of earth, wood, or other raw material: but often they come otherwise. Biliku is clearly regarded as a creator on a fairly large scale, — earth, sea, and sky, — though I am often told that savages could not possibly evolve such a belief. They can, teste Mr. Brown (and many others).

We now come to the points of diff'erence between Mr. Brown and Mr. Man.

I. The latter told us that Puluga had a wife, a green shrimp, whom we may regard as a parallel to the Biliku spiders. But Puluga, in two or three groups, is the predominant partner. As to his being "like fire" (Mr. Man) or anthropomorphic (Mr. Brown), the question is otiose, as, according to both