Page:Myth, Ritual, and Religion (Volume 1).djvu/210

 four legs, and tails, bred confusedly. In place of the Iroquois Ataentsic, a woman called Omoroca presided over the mud and the menagerie. She, too, like Ataentsic, is sometimes recognised as the moon. Affairs being in this state, Bel-Maruduk arrived and cut Omoroca in two (Chokanipok destroyed Ataensic), and out of Omoroca Bel made the world and the things in it. We have already seen that in savage myth many things are fashioned out of a dead member of the extra-natural race. Lastly, Bel cut his own head off, and with the blood the gods mixed clay and made men. The Chaldeans inherited very savage fancies.

One ought, perhaps, to apologise to the Chaldeans for inserting their myths among the fables of the least cultivated peoples, but it will scarcely be maintained that the Oriental myths differ in character from the Digger Indian and Iroquois explanations of the origin of things. The Ats of Vancouver Island, whom Mr. Sproat knew intimately, and of whose ideas he gives a cautious account, tell a story of the usual character. They believe in a member of the extra-natural race, named Quawteaht, of whom we shall hear more in  his heroic character. As a demiurge "he is undoubtedly represented as the general framer, I do not say creator, of all things, though some special things are excepted. He made the earth and water, the trees and rocks, and all the animals. Some say that Quawteaht made the sun and moon, but the majority of the Indians believe that he had nothing to do with their formation,