[141] What is still more remarkable, the same tradition is found in the "Popol Vul" (Mexican traditions), and as it is there given, fits in still more exactly with the solution I have suggested. It is there said that the _first race_ of men were created "_out the earth_," the third out "_of a tree_ called Tzité."[B] _If_ the "Popol Vul" came under Christian or European influences in the 17th century, it would have been more likely to have been brought into harmony with the Bible, rather than with either Homer, Hesiod, or the Edda. Let us pursue the myth a little further. Mr W. K. Kelly, "Indo-Europ. Tradition and Folklore" (_vide_ Max Müller, ii. 197) says, "This healing virtue, which the mistletoe shares with the _ash_, is a long descended tradition, for the Kushtha ... a healing plant, was one that grew beneath the _heavenly Asvattha_," which is elsewhere called "the imperishable Asvattha or Peepul (_Ficus religiosus_), out of which the immortals shaped the heaven and the earth," which legend Mr Kelly further traces in the German Yggdrasil (although Mr Max Müller from his own point of view dissents); at the foot of which tree (p. 207) "lies the serpent Nidhöggr, and gnaws its roots." Neither Mr Max Müller nor Mr Kelly discuss the point with reference to the view suggested above. [B] _Tiki_ was the great progenitor among New Zealanders.--_Shortland_, p. 56. [142] Gen. i. 1, "In the beginning God created heaven and earth. 2. And the earth was void and empty, and _darkness was_ upon the face _of the deep_; and the spirit of God moved over the waters. 5. And He called the light day and the darkness night; and there was _evening_ and morning one day." In addition to the instances adduced by Gainet, it will be remembered that the Jewish sabbath was from evening to evening, and with us the astronomical day commences at noon, and the commencement and termination of the civil day at mean midnight. In the _second_ [Chinese] dynasty the day commenced at mid-day. Wei-Wang, the founder of the _third_ dynasty, fixed it at midnight." (Bunsen's "Egypt," vol. iii. p. 390.) In the Phoenician cosmogony "the beginning of all was a dark and stormy atmosphere," "thick, unfathomable black chaos." (_Vide_ Bunsen's "Egypt," iv. 176.) The New Zealanders have preserved the tradition with still greater distinctness. "In the _beginning of time_ was Te Po (the night or darkness). In the generations that followed Te Po came Te Ao (the light)" &c., &c. (_Vide_ Shortland's "Traditions of the New Zealanders," p. 55.)