that from this habit the custom of scalping was derived and practised by the Indian.

Mr. Tanner relates:

A few days afterwards, as I was hunting, I started, at the same moment, an elk and three young bears, the latter running into a tree. I shot at the young bears, and two of them fell. As I thought one or both of them must be only wounded, I sprang immediately towards the root of the tree, but had scarce reached it, when I saw the old she-bear come jumping in an opposite direction. She caught up the cub, which had fallen nearest her, raising it with her paws, while she stood on her hind-feet, holding it as a woman holds her child. She looked at it for a moment, smelled the ball-hole which was in its belly, and perceiving it was dead, dashed it down, and came directly towards me, gnashing her teeth, and walking so erect that her head stood as high as mine. All this was so sudden that I had scarce reloaded my gun, having only time to raise it, when she came within reach of the muzzle. I was now made to feel the necessity of a lesson the Indians had taught me, and which I very rarely neglected, namely, after discharging my gun, to think of nothing before loading it again.

The bears live in families, consisting of a pair and their young, and sometimes several families live together in one cave.

The Indian name, mok-wa, contains the same word, or syllable, wa, of which mention has been made, as also being found in the general term for the sun, karakwa. It is seen also in that for the Grand-mother, Me-sukhum-me-go-kwa, used in the chant of the medicine-hunt described in the foregoing pages. M. Cuoq states that karakwa is used for both sun and moon. There seems to be a relationship in these words karakwa and mokwa,

an association of ideas similar to that between the Sanskrit arkáh (sun) and riksha (stars); the latter being traced by Müller as being applied to the constellation Ursa Major, the rikshas. Riksha was equally the name of bear and star in Sanskrit; and this eminent scholar quotes the following passage from the RigVeda,1 "These stars fixed high above, which are seen by night, whither do they go by day?" as a probable reference to the constellation of the Great Bear.

Since wa is derived from a-áh in an Indian dialect (seen also in the name Aátahensic), and the same word seems to reappear in arkáh, etymologists may decide that they are of the one root and parentage, and that the Sanskrit name of the constellation is of a common origin with that of the animal. As this term for this group of stars, Great Bear, is found so universally among the ancients, the priests of Belus, the magi of Persia, and in fact among all nations, a commonalty of origin in the term may be sought with reason among the splintered tongues or diverse dialects of the Eastern and Western Worlds.

In the picture of the Indian's wildcat, its complex symbols are especially noteworthy. Composite figures were depicted upon the walls of the houses of the Creeks. These had the heads of animals and the bodies of men, and vice-versa, as has

been previously stated. In rock-inscription and in moundstructures certain symbols are of a composite character. More

often the former are a combination of the wings of birds and the feet of men, as in the above cut. Winged

'Rig-Veda, i. 24, 10.

figures are of common occurrence in Assyrian sculpture. In the picture below-from a cylinder whose probable date is 2000 years B. C.- is seen a parallelogram, with

inders, together with composite winged figures. It suggests the Indian's description of the fiery substance beyond the sun, in which dwelt the creative spirit. The figure on the right of the picture, carrying the mystic vessel, doubtless represents the mystic Oannes, whose history, as recorded by Berosus, is herewith given:

LEGEND OF OANNES.

There was a time in which there existed nothing but darkness and an abyss of waters, wherein resided most hideous beings, which were produced by a twofold principle. There appeared men, some of whom were furnished with two wings, others with four, and with two faces. They had one body, but two heads the one that of a man, the other of a woman; and likewise in their several organs they were both male and female. Other human figures were to be seen with the legs and horns of a goat; some had horse's feet, while others united two hind-quarters of a horse with the body of a man, resembling in shape the hippocentaurs. Bulls, likewise, were bred there, with the heads of men; and dogs with fourfold bodies, terminated in their extremities with the tails of fishes; horses, also, with the heads of dogs; men too, and other animals, with the heads and bodies of horses, and the tails

of fishes. In short, there were creatures in which were combined the limbs of every species of animals. In addition to these, fishes, reptiles, serpents, with other monstrous animals, which assumed each other's shape and countenance; of all which were preserved delineations in the temple of Belus at Babylon.

The person who presided over them was a woman named Onoroca, which in the Chaldean language is thalatta, in Greek, thalassa (the sea), but which might equally be interpreted as the moon. All things being in this situation, Belus came, and cut the woman asunder, and of one half of her he formed the earth, and of the other half the heavens, and at the same time destroyed the animals within her (or in the abyss).

All this was an allegorical description of nature. For, the whole universe consisting of moisture, and animals being continually generated therein, the deity above-mentioned took off his head; upon which the other gods mixed the blood, as it gushed out, and from thence formed men. On this account is it that they are rational, and partake of divine knowledge. This Belus, by whom they signify Jupiter, divided the darkness, and separated the heavens from the earth, and reduced the universe to order. But the animals, not being able to bear the prevalence of light, died. Belus upon this, seeing a vast space unoccupied, though by nature fruitful, commanded one of the gods to take off his head and to mix the blood with the earth, and from thence to form other men and animals, which should be capable of bearing air. Belus formed also the stars and the sun and the moon and the five planets.1

The deciphering of the cuneiform inscriptions disclosed the fact that the Assyrians had similar accounts

1 Vide the Chaldean account of Genesis, from the cuneiform inscription; and a fragment from the works of Berosus, a Babylonian priest and Chaldean historian in the time of Alexander the Great. G. SMITH.

of the creation of men and animals to those of the Chaldeans as given above, in regard to which race the Hebrew Scriptures state:

Behold the land of the Chaldeans. This people was not, till the Assyrian founded it for them that dwelt in the wilderness. They set the towers thereof; they raised up the palaces thereof.

The question of what race the Assyrians were, may still be considered as open to doubt, according to Layard. The discoveries through excavations disclose the fact that the history of this people belongs to the earliest annals of the human race. Their literature is composed, in part, of legends that were probably oral traditions long before they were committed to writing.

Since a mystery still surrounds this race, from which sprang the Chaldeans and, according to Judith, the Jewish race, it is of more than passing interest when is found a similitude between their legends and symbols and those of the North American Indians. A comparison of Assyrian with Indian records reveals a kinship between two worlds of primeval savagery, disclosing a leaven of religion, destined, like a fiery seed, to burn off the husk of barbaric worship.

The Chaldean legend recalls the legend of the Indian goddess Atahensic, whose head was dissevered from her body and placed in the heavens, and who was regarded as equally goddess of water and of the moon. It has been related that Atahensic was believed to control the event of death, that she was the gatherer of souls. In the Izdubar legends is the following statement:

1 Vide Nineveh and its Remains, by A. H. Layard, D. C. L.