light, like the mammoths of Siberia, may be traced in various stories. Thus, the Fijians tell a tale of two rocks, male and female Lado, which are two deities who were turned by the sight of daylight into stone;[1] and in the West Indies there were men who dwelt in Cimmerian darkness in their caves, and coming out were turned into stones and trees by the sight of the sun.[2]
Tales of giants and monsters, which stand in direct connexion with the finding of great fossil bones, are scattered broadcast over the mythology of the world. Huge bones, found at Punto Santa Elena, in the north of Guayaquil, have served as a foundation for the story of a colony of giants who dwelt there.[3] The whole area of the Pampas is a great sepulchre of enormous extinct animals; no wonder that one great plain should be called the "Field of the giants," and that such names as "the hill of the giant," "the stream of the animal," should be guides to the geologist in his search for fossil bones.[4]
In North America it is the same. The fossil bones of Mexico are referred to the giants who dwelt in the land in early times, and were found living in the plains of Tlascala by the Olmecs, who came there before the Toltecs. At the time of the conquest, Bernal Diaz was told of their huge stature and their crimes; and, to show him how big they were, the people brought him a bone of one of them, which he measured himself against, and it was as tall as he, who was a man of reasonable stature. He and his companions were astonished to see those bones, and held it for certain that there had been giants in that land.[5] The Indians of North America tell how their mythic hero, Manabozho, "killed the ancient monsters whose bones we now see under the earth." They use pieces of the bones of these monsters as charms, and most likely the pieces of bone drawn in their pictures as instruments of magic power are such. They tell of giants who could stride over the largest rivers, and the tallest pine-trees. The Winnebagos say their monstrous medicine animal still exists,
- ↑ Seemann, 'Viti,' p. 66.
- ↑ Oviedo, in Purchas, vol. v. p. 959.
- ↑ Humboldt, Vues des Cord., pl. 26. Cieza de Leon, p. 189. Rivero and Tschudi, Ant. Per. p. 51.
- ↑ Darwin, in Narr., vol. iii. p. 155.
- ↑ Bernal Diaz, Conq. de la Nueva España; Madrid, 1795, vol. i. p. 350. Tylor, 'Mexico,' p. 236. Clavigero, vol. i. p. 125. Humboldt, Vues des Cord., pl. 26.
