Note 77 — Fables
Reading edition
Previous writers—among them Ratzel and Graebner77—have sought to account for certain resemblances in culture, between Malaysia, Polynesia, and America, by historical connection. A part of our material—such as that of the blood-clot child (p. 125),78 the rape of the maiden by the vine which carries her to the sky (p. 33),78 the magic flight (p. 75),78 and magic growth (p. 38)79—may seem to lend support to such a theory. These similarities are assuredly suggestive and interesting, but it appears to the writer that the material is too scanty and the folklore of intervening lands too little known to justify us in considering them as convincing proof of borrowing over such immense distances.80