Page:Researches into the Early History of Mankind and the Development of Civilization.djvu/125

Rh the power of imagination required to see footprints in mere round or long cavities, but also from the unanimity with which Egyptians, Greeks, Brahmans, Buddhists, Christians, and Moslems have adopted them as relics, each from their own point of view. The typical case is the sacred footprint of Ceylon, which is a cavity in the rock, 5 feet long by 2$1⁄2$ feet wide, at the top of Adam's Peak, made into something like a huge footstep by mortar divisions for the toes. Brahmans, Buddhists, and Moslems still climb the mountain to do reverence to it; but to the Brahman it is the footstep of Siva, to the Buddhist of the great founder of his religion, Gautama Buddha, and to the Moslem it is the spot where Adam stood when he was driven from Paradise; while the Gnostics have held it to be the footprint of Ieû, and Christians have been divided between the conflicting claims of St. Thomas and the Eunuch of Candace, Queen of Ethiopia. The followers of these different faiths have found holy footprints in many countries of the Old World, and the Christians have carried the idea into various parts of Europe, where saints have left their footmarks; while, even in America, St. Thomas left his footsteps on the shores of Bahia, as a record of his mythic journey.

For all we know, the whole mass of the Old World footprint-myths may have had but a single origin, and have travelled from one people to another. The story is found, too, in the Pacific Islands, for in Samoa two hollow places, near six feet long, in a rock, are shown as the footprints of Tiitii, where he stood when he pushed the heavens up from the earth. But there are reasons which may make us hesitate to consider the whole Polynesian mythology as independent of Asiatic influence. In North America, at the edge of the Great Pipestone Quarry, where the Great Spirit stood when the blood of the buffalos he was devouring ran down upon the stone and turned it red, there his footsteps are to be seen deeply marked in the rock, in the form of the track of a great bird; while Mexican eyes could discern in the