became ignerssuit, and the water poured over everything. When the earth reappeared, it was entirely covered by a glacier. Little by little this decreased, and two human beings fell down from heaven, by whom the earth was peopled. One can see every year that the glacier is shrinking. In many places signs may yet be seen of the time when the sea rose over the mountains.'[1]
In this myth we can trace influences from no fewer than four different quarters. The conception of the ignerssuit, who resemble men and live under the earth, suggests the Indian legend that men formerly lived under the earth, but began one day to climb to the surface by means of a vine which grew up through a fissure or chasm in a mountain. When a fat old woman (or man) tried to clamber up, the vine broke off, and the rest had to remain below, while those who had reached the top peopled the earth.[2]
The two beings who fall down from heaven appear to belong to the cosmogony of the Finnish-
- ↑ Holm, Meddelelser om Grönland, part 10, p. 144.
- ↑ Compare K. Knortz, Aus dem Wigwam, p. 130. H . de Charencey (Melusine, i. 225) mentions (quoting from Malthæus, Hidatsa Grammar, 1873, Intr. p. xvii.) that the forefathers of the Minnetarees, a tribe belonging to the Missouri region, lived at the bottom of a great lake, and climbed up to the surface of the earth by help of a big tree, which ultimately broke, so that many of them had to remain below. (From an unpublished manuscript by Moltke Moe.) This legend presents an even closer analogy to that of the ignerssuit, who dwell under the sea.
