became troubled before them, and there arose from it a black pillar, ascending towards the sky, and approaching the meadow ... and behold it was a Jinnee, of gigantic stature.'[1] The difficulty in interpreting language like this is to know how far it is seriously and how far fancifully meant. But this doubt in no way goes against its original animistic meaning, of which there can be no question in the following story of a 'great sea-serpent' current among a barbarous East African tribe. A chief of the Wanika told Dr. Krapf of a great serpent which is sometimes seen out at sea, reaching from the sea to the sky, and appearing especially during heavy rain. 'I told them,' says the missionary, 'that this was no serpent, but a waterspout.'[2] Out of the similar phenomenon on land there has arisen a similar group of myths. The Moslem fancies the whirling sand-pillar of the desert to be caused by the flight of an evil jinn, and the East African simply calls it a demon (p'hepo). To traveller after traveller who gazes on these monstrous shapes gliding majestically across the desert, the thought occurs that the well-remembered 'Arabian Nights'' descriptions rest upon personifications of the sand-pillars themselves, as the gigantic demons into which fancy can even now so naturally shape them.[3]
Rude and distant tribes agree in the conception of the Rainbow as a living monster. New Zealand myth, describing the battle of the Tempest against the Forest, tells how the Rainbow arose and placed his mouth close to Tane-ma-huta, the Father of Trees, and continued to assault him till his trunk was snapt in two, and his broken branches strewed the ground.[4] It is not only in mere nature-myth like this, but in actual awe-struck belief and terror, that the idea of the
- ↑ Lane, 'Thousand and one N.' vol. i. p. 30, 7.
- ↑ Krapf, 'Travels,' p. 198.
- ↑ Lane, ibid. pp. 30, 42; Burton, 'El Medinah and Meccah,' vol. ii. p. 69; 'Lake Regions,' vol. i. p. 297; J. D. Hooker, 'Himalayan Journals,' vol. i. p. 79; Tylor, 'Mexico,' p. 30; Tyerman and Bennet, vol. ii. p. 362. [Hindu piçâcha = demon, whirlwind.]
- ↑ Taylor, 'New Zealand,' p. 121.
