averns, personified one as a bird and one as
a winged serpent, the waters subsided and the land dried.[197-1]

In the birds that here play such conspicuous parts, we cannot fail to
recognize the winds and the clouds; but more especially the dark thunder
cloud, soaring in space at the beginning of things, most forcible emblem
of the aerial powers. They are the symbols of that divinity which acted
on the passive and sterile waters, the fitting result being the
production of a universe. Other symbols of the divine could also be
employed, and the meaning remain the same. Or were the fancy too
helpless to suggest any, they could be dispensed with, and purely
natural agencies take their place. Thus the unimaginative Iroquois
narrated that when their primitive female ancestor was kicked from the
sky by her irate spouse, there was as yet no land to receive her, but
that it "suddenly bubbled up under her feet, and waxed bigger, so that
ere long a whole country was perceptible."[197-2] Or that certain
amphibious animals, the beaver, the otter, and the muskrat, seeing her
descent, hastened to dive and bring up sufficient mud to construct an
island for her residence.[197-3] The muskrat is also the simple
machinery in the cosmogony of the Takahlis of the northwest coast, the
Osages and some Algonkin tribes.

These latter were, indeed, keen enough to perceive that there was really
no _creation_ in such an account. Dry land was wanting, but earth was
there, though hidden by boundless waters. Consequently, they spoke
distinctly of the action of the muskrat in bringing it to the surface as
a formation only. Michabo directed him, and from the mud formed islands
and main land. But when the subject of creation was pressed, they
replied they knew nothing of that, or roundly answered the questioner
that he was talking nonsense.[198-1] Their myth, almost identical with
that of their neighbors, was recognized by them to be not of a
construction, but a reconstruction only; a very judicious distinction,
but one which has a most important corollary. A reconstruction supposes
a previous existence. This they felt, and had something to say about an
earth anterior to this of ours, but one without light or human
inhabitants. A lake burst its bounds and submerged it wholly. This is
obviously nothing but a mere and meagre fiction, invented to explain the
origin of the primeval ocean. But mark it well, for this is the germ of
those marvellous myths of t