Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/515

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Mr. E. Sidney Hartland adds the following parallels: This myth is very widespread. The story of the building of the tower is not always connected with that of the dispersion of man- kind or the confusion of tongues, which often form the subject of independent sagas. A striking parallel to the story in the text is one from Mashonaland, which runs thus: " One of the Baroswi kings wanted the moon, and his faithful subjects proceeded to try and get it. They started building a wooden tower or ladder, and year by year it rose higher. Eventually the wood at the bottom became rotten, and the tower tumbled down, all the Baroswis on it being killed " (W. S. Taberer, Chief Native Commissioner for Mashonaland, Journal African Society, iv., p. 319). Another is from Mexico. It appears that the Aztecs believed in four races of giants preceding the present human inhabitants of the earth. The fourth and final race of giants was created at the same time as the present sun. They desired to reach it, and, balked in their attempts to intercept it as it rose or set, they came together again in a place called Iztaczolin Inneminian (Dwelling of the White Quail) and sought to reach it by building a lofty pyramid or tower. "The sun, the chief lord of the upper world, indignant that eaters of flesh should seek to mingle with dwellers in the sky, summoned the gods from the four quarters of the heavens, who destroyed the building and dispersed these presumptuous mortals over the four quarters of the earth" (Payne, History of the Netv IVorld, O.xford, 1S99, ii., p. 410, citing Duran, Hist, de las Indias). The Choctaw of Louisiana relate that " Aba, the good spirit above, created many men, all Choctaw, who spoke the language of the Choctaw and understood one another." They came together and after much talk and wondering at the sky, determined to endeavour to reach it. "So they brought many rocks and began building a mound that was to have touched the heavens. That night, however, the wind blew strong from above and the rocks fell from the mound." A second and a third time the builders resumed their task. " But once more, as the men lay near the mound that night, wrapped in slumber, the winds came with so great force that the rocks were hurled down on them. The men were not killed; but when daylight came and they made their way from beneath the rocks and began to speak to one