There is his mythological panacea. Mannhardt is all for "Corn-mother," Corn being nothing peculiarly Hellenic or Aryan in the adoration of earth. A comparative study of earth-worship would prove it to be very widely diffused, even among non-European tribes. The Demeter cult, however, is distinct enough from the myth of Gæa, the Earth, considered as, in conjunction with Heaven, the parent of the gods. Demeter is rather the fruitful soil regarded as a person than the elder Titanic formless earth personified as Gæa. Thus conceived as the foster-mother of life, earth is worshipped in America by the Shawnees and Potawatomies as _Me-mk-kum-mik-o-kwi_, the "mother of earth" It will be shown that this goddess appears casually in a Potawatomie legend, which is merely a savage version of the sacred story of Eleusis.* Tacitus found that Mother Hertha was adored in Germany with rites so mysterious that the slaves who took part in them were drowned. "Whereof ariseth a secret terror and an holy ignorance what that should be which they only see who are a-perishing."** It is curious that in the folk-lore of Europe, up to this century, food-offerings to the earth were _buried_ in Germany and by Gipsies; for the same rite is practised by the Potawatomies.*** * Compare Maury, Religions de la Grece, i. 72. ** Germania, 40, translation of 1622. *** Compare Tylor, Prim. Cult, ii. 273, with Father De Smet, Oregon Missions, New York, 1847, p. 351. The Mexican Demeter, Centeotl, is well known, and Acosta's account of religious ceremonies connected with harvest in Mexico and Peru might almost be taken for a description of the Greek _Eiresione_. The god of agriculture among the Tongan Islanders has one very curious point of resemblance to Demeter. In the Iliad (v. 505) we read that Demeter presides over the fanning of the grain. "Even as a wind carrieth the chaff about the sacred threshing-floors when men are winnowing, _what time golden Demeter, in rush of wind_, maketh division of grain and chaff.".... Now the name of the "god of wind, and weather, rain, harvest and vegetation in general" in the Tongan Islands is Alo-Alo, literally "to fan".* One is reminded of Joachim Du Bellay's poem, "To the Winnowers of Corn". Thus from all these widely diffused examples it is manifest that the idea of a divinity of earth, considered as the mother of fruits, and as powerful for good or harm in harvest-time, is anything but peculiar to Greece or to Aryan peoples. In her character as potent over this department of agriculture, the Greek goddess was named "she of the rich threshing-floors," "of the corn heaps," "of the corn in the ear," "of the harvest-home," "of the sheaves," "of the fair fruits," "of the goodly gifts," and so forth.**