“When these nations lived under ground they all spake one tongue; but, with the light of day and the level of earth, came many languages.  The earth was at this time very small, and the light was quite as scanty as it had been down below, for there was as yet no heaven, no sun, nor moon, nor stars.  So another council of the ancients was held, and a committee of their number appointed to manufacture these luminaries."[1]

Here we have the same story: 

In an ancient age, before the races of men had differentiated, a remnant of mankind was driven, by some great event, into a cave; all kinds of animals had sought shelter in. the same place; something—­the Drift—­had closed up the mouth of the cavern; the men subsisted on the animals.  At last they dug their way out, to find the world covered with mud and water.  Great winds cut the mud into deep valleys, by which the waters ran off.  The mud was everywhere; gradually it dried up.  But outside the cave it was nearly as dark as it was within it; the clouds covered the world; neither sun, moon, nor stars could be seen; the earth was very small, that is, but little of it was above the waste of waters.

[1.  Bancroft’s “Native Races,” vol. iii, p. 81.]

{p. 199}

And here we have the people longing for the return of the sun.  The legend proceeds to give an account of the making of the sun and moon.  The dumb fluter, who had charge of the construction of the sun, through his clumsiness, came near setting fire to the world.

“The old men, however, either more lenient than Zeus, or lacking his thunder, contented themselves with forcing the offender back by puffing the smoke of their pipes into his face.”

Here we have the event, which properly should have preceded the cave-story, brought in subsequent to it.  The sun nearly burns up the earth, and the earth is saved amid the smoke of incense from the pipes of the old men—­the gods.  And we are told that the increasing size of the earth has four times rendered it necessary that the sun should be put farther back from the earth.  The clearer the atmosphere, the farther away the sun has appeared.

“At night, also, the other dumb man issues from this cave, bearing the moon under his arm, and lighting up such part of the world as he can.  Next, the old men set to work to make the heavens, intending to broider in the stars in beautiful patterns of bears, birds, and such things.”

That is to say, a civilized race ’began to divide up the heavens into constellations, to which they gave the names of the Great and Little Bear, the Wolf, the Serpent, the Dragon, the Eagle, the Swan, the Crane, the Peacock, the Toucan, the Crow, etc.; some of which names they retain among ourselves to this day.

“But, just as they had made a beginning, a prairie-wolf rushed in, and, crying out, ‘Why all this trouble and embroidery?’ scattered the pile of stars over all the floor of heaven, just as they still lie.”