Page:Primitive Culture Vol 1.djvu/383

Rh and thus the story only expresses in mythic phrase the very fact that the earth quakes; the meaning is but one degree less distinct than among the Caribs, who say when there is an earthquake that their Mother Earth is dancing. Among the higher races of the continent, such ideas remain little changed in nature; the Tlascalans said that the tired world-supporting deities shifting their burden to a new relay caused the earthquake; the Chibchas said it was their god Chibchacum moving the earth from shoulder to shoulder. The myth ranges in Asia through as wide a stretch of culture. The Kamchadals tell of Tuil the Earthquake-god, who sledges below ground, and when his dog shakes off fleas or snow there is an earthquake; Ta Ywa, the solar hero of the Karens, set Shie-oo beneath the earth to carry it, and there is an earthquake when he moves. The world-bearing elephants of the Hindus, the world-supporting frog of the Mongol Lamas, the world-bull of the Moslems, the gigantic Omophore of the Manichæan cosmology, are all creatures who carry the earth on their backs or heads, and shake it when they stretch or shift. Thus in European mythology the Scandinavian Loki, strapped down with thongs of iron in his subterranean cavern, writhes when the overhanging serpent drops venom on him; or Prometheus struggles beneath the earth to break his bonds; or the Lettish Drebkuls or Poseidon the Earth-shaker makes the ground rock beneath men's feet. From thorough myths of imagination such as most of these, it may be sometimes possible to distinguish philosophic myths like them in form, but which appear to be attempts at