Migration Quite frequently mi gration myths are mistaken for creation myths and classified as such. So often is this done, in fact, that it may be taken as the general rule. Yet they should be carefully distin guished from one another. The true creation myths make an attempt to explain how and why the earth, man, animals and all other ex isting things came into being. Migration myths state the appearance of certain races in certain places with some incident connected with their first appearance there. Midway between these two extremes is the discovery myth which is made to take the place of a real creation myth. Here some great tribal or racial hero, after a series of adventures, discovers the earth, the heavens, the region of the dead or of the Supernatural People. He seems to embody the spirit of the wandering tribes; and such myths should not be classed as creation stories. These migration myths are quite common throughout the American continents and often they take the place of true creation myths. This is prob ably why they have been confounded with them by most writers on mythology. The Peruvians and the Chibchas of Colombia say that their first ancestors made their appearance from the bottom of a sacred lake. The Musk hogees assert that on the top of a great mount stood the house of Esaugetuh Emisse, the Master of Life (Breath). Standing on this hill he directed the waters back into their proper channel. This seems to be a migration myth which has got mixed up with the Biblical narrative of the creation. The first ancestor of the Minnetarees emerged from a lake with an ear of corn in his hand. This idea of coming out of the waters or from the re gion under the earth probably had its origin in the fact that all vegetation comes up out of the earth and all life depends upon it; while all fish come out of the water. A Mandan myth is typical of this class of stories, which have become real epics in the hands of the Mayas, the Chinooks and several other American races. The first Mandans lived in an underground village near a great lake. Some of them climbed the roots of a monster grape vine which penetrated there from the earth overhead and thus reached the regions above, which they found to be a land flowing with milk and honey. When the adventurers returned and related the story of their ad ventures all the other Mandans wanted to go to the land of light. So they began to climb the grape vine root. When a part of them had got out of the underground world, the weight of a very fat woman broke the root; so part of the people were left behind, where they still reside. In the hands of the Aztecs and other Nahuatl tribes this story becomes frankly a migration myth attached to that period in their very early traditional history when the Nahuas all came out of the seven caves, each cave representing the original habitat of one of the tribes.
The Coming of The myths of the creation of light are almost as plentiful as those of the creation of the earth. A legend common across the great woodless plains of the northwest of Canada says that the Sun man and the Earth-woman were once husband and wife. The Sun deserted his wife and took all his relatives, the stars, with him. Old One passing by found the woman crying and learned from her what had happened. He went to the Sun's camp and drove the Sun, Moon and the stars up into the sky, saying: "Stay there where you shall not be able to desert people or hide yourselves but remain where every one may see you, either by day or by night." Old One changed the Earth-woman into our earth. Her hair became the flowers and the grass, her bones the rocks; and he placed her where i she can always see her husband. So she is glad. According to the Wyandot after the earth had been formed around Big Turtle's body, there was very little or, according to another version, no light. So the animals met in council to decide what to do about it. They agreed that a light hung in the sky would be a good thing. Little Turtle, by her powerful medicine, raised a great storm and tumbled from the sky a cloud. Into this climbed Little Turtle and up she went in it to the sky-land. There she gathered the lightning into a great ball, hung it in the sky and called it the Sun. She gathered another smaller ball of lightning and hung it in the sky also; and she called it the Moon. A west-coast myth says that in the
days of the animal people there was darkness everywhere except in the lodge of Old Chief, the guardian of the light, who owned all the light, fire and water and would give none away. So the people were very miserable; and they begged the Old Chief for light. They tried witchcraft on him but he was too power ful for them. Then all the animals put on their dancing masks and aprons and went to the Old Chief's lodge; and there each one sang his own song. Fox sang for daylight; but Old Chief refused to give them daylight. Then they all sang together so powerfully, "Light, light, light !" that, in spite of Old Chief, the light began to steal up in the sky like a faint flush. Old Chief shouted: "Let there not be"; and at once the light disap peared down the sky, below the edge. Young Fox conjured, danced and sang and all the people danced and sang with him most power fully and shouted: "Light, light, light!" and again the light began to steal up the sky like a flush, but stronger than before. When Old One beheld their powerful magic, he be came very much excited and cried: "Let there not be Light!" He had not meant to say "Light" for it was taboo; but he had said it; and the power went out of his magic; and light flooded up into the sky. Another west coast myth relates that, once upon a time the sun had only a goat-skin coat; hut one day he met a boy whose witch mother had made him a magic many-colored coat of handsome feathers. It was brighter than the imagination. He saw this coat shining from afar off and he came down to see what it was that was making such glorious, many-colored light. He was so taken with it that he exchanged his own coat for it. The exchange was a good one, for, with the magic coat of the sun, the boy learned how to catch fish with hook and line and the sun obtained a splendor so great that even to day, after many many years, we cannot look directly at his magic coat. There are numer ous myths to explain why the moon is smaller and paler than the sun. Some of the Iro quois tribes account for the lesser brilliancy of the moon by saying that she became the wife of the sun ; but she ran and hid in a cave, because she could not bear the heat of her hus band. This made the sun very angry and he stormed terribly at his wife who remained trembling for fear in the cave; and it was only after a long time that she was persuaded to come out. When she did she had already be come thin and pined away until she was nearly dead. She has never recovered her original brightness since that day. Wht she fattens up a little she immediately thinks of her hus band's great anger; and she grows thin and pines away again. An Eskimo legend also accounts for the paleness of the moon thus: The house of the moon is covered with white deer skins which he keeps hanging out there to dry. So the moon's light is always dim. An Alaska myth asserts that the house of the moon is made of very clear, transparent ice and within it there is wondrously bright light, which shines through the walls. When this is more than usually brilliant its reflection causes the Northern Lights. Afraid of Nothing, the west-coast female divinity already mentioned, is represented as a wonderful woman-warrior who resides in the house of the sun. She is much feared, for her visits, like those of the Aztec moon goddess, cause sickness and death. She is said to have given the light to the moon; and she is herself undoubtedly the moon. It was dark in the Lillooet country because the sea gull had all the light hidden away in a box and would let out only enough for her own use, which was not very much. Now Raven was a great necromancer and he planned to get light for his people, so he went to the house of the Sea Gull, upset the box and let the light out so that it spread all over the world. A Pacific Coast version of the same myth says that Raven stole the baby of the Fire People and ran away with it to his coun try up among the great mountains. The Fire People sent messengers to him in an effort to get the baby back again. Finally he exchanged It for fire. Another version says he ex changed it for light to lighten the world. The Fire People agreed to teach him all the uses of fire including cooking.