Other
witnesses inform us that this nation "had a tradition that the world
would end,"[221-1] and probably, like the Greeks and Aztecs, they
supposed the gods would perish with it.
"At the close of the ages, it hath been decreed,
Shall perish and vanish each weak god of men,
And the world shall be purged with a ravening fire.
Happy the man in that terrible day,
Who bewails with contrition the sins of his life,[221-2]
And meets without flinching the fiery ordeal."
FOOTNOTES:
[193-1] So far as this applies to the Eskimos, it might be questioned on
the authority of Paul Egede, whose valuable _Nachrichten von Groenland_
contains several flood-myths, &c. But these Eskimos had had for
generations intercourse with European missionaries and sailors, and as
the other tribes of their stock were singularly devoid of corresponding
traditions, it is likely that in Greenland they were of foreign origin.
[194-1] Pictet, _Origines Indo-Europeennes_ in Michelet, _La Mer_.
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