"
The Loons, indeed, occasioned Glooskap so much trouble by absences that
he took wolves in their place. The ravens of the Edda are probably of
biblical origin. But it is a most extraordinary coincidence that the
Indians have a corresponding perversion of Scripture, for they say that
Glooskap, when he was in the ark, that is as Noah, sent out a white
dove, which returned to him colored black, and became a raven. This is
not, however, related as part of the myth.
The Ancient History of the Six Nations, by David Cusick, gives us in
one particular a strange coincidence with the Edda. It tells us that
the Bad Mind, the principle of Evil, forced himself out into life, as
Cusick expresses it in his broken Indian-English, "under the side of
the parent's arm;" that is, through the armpit. In the Edda
(Vafthrudnismal, 33) we are told of the first beings born on earth that
they were twins, begotten by the two feet of a giant, and born out of
his armpit.
"Under the armpit grew,
't is said of the Hrimthurs,
a girl and boy together;
foot with foot begat,
of that wise Jotun,
a six-headed son."
There are in these six lines six coincidences with red Indian
mythology: (1.) The Evil principle as a Jotun's first-born in the one
and the Bad Mind in the other are born of the mother's armpit. (2.) In
one of the tales of Lox, the Indian devil, also a giant, we are told
that his feet are male and female.
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