The Great Scorching: Possible linkages toancient and modern global warming

Messages from the past...do they have anything to tells us about our present, or our future?

Have myths preserved memories of rising seas, driven by global warming, submerging lands in ancient times?

We face today what has been called the greatest crisis in the known history of modern humans – the crisis of global warming and climate change. And it is a problem, according to the vast majority of experts, of our own making.

However, in the past, after the last glacial period or “mini-ice age,” the world witnessed extensive sea flooding caused by warming temperatures melting global ice packs.

During this illustrious conference, we have heard many participants speak of global flood myths.

The purpose of my paper is to examine myths here in the Philippines and the surrounding region that tell of a time when people viewed the sky as lower than it is today, or as containing multiple Suns. Because the sky was lower, the Sun was also lower and there was great heat -- a period of great scorching. And about this same time in some of these same mythologies we hear that the great sea flood also occurred.

I want to examine whether these myths of the great scorchingand the great flood are actually remembrances of a time at the start of the present inter-glacial period, known as the Holocene, when warming temperatures actually caused seas to rise dramatically.

However, before I proceed, let me first examine one of the questions addressed by this conference. That is, whether ornot myth and oral tradition convey historical events and facts.

My experience studying the voluminous material on myth suggests that most researchers believe myth preserves at least some history when the right conditions exist. This isthe case whether they see mythology as originating from the unconscious mind as suggested by Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, or as derived from ritual and the need to explain nature as espoused by James Frazer1.

Of course, we should distinguish the ordinary folk tale or story that is told simply for amusement from the memorized, structured traditions of full-time priests and other ritualists. The folk storyteller usually recollects the tales heard to the best of his or her ability.

A full-time chanter, bard or priest learns line by line, andsometimes syllable by syllable in serious instruction that lasts for many years. They often memorize traditions that can fill whole books using cadence, rhythm, meter, rhyme, assonance and other memorization techniques2. Prior to their exposure to the modern world, the material these specialists learned was often considered of grave importanceto the community.

Of course, many oral traditions fall somewhere in between the simple folk tale or folk remedy and the serious epic or ritual chant.

The mythologist Lord Raglan once proposed that myths and folklore do not preserve history for periods longer than 150years. However, Raglan’s beliefs were based on anecdotal experience from his own family where he found that information was lost after three generations of 50 years3. He came from a literate culture that depended on writing andwere sophisticated oral preservation methods were not used.

In cultures were writing was absent, or were oral transmission was preferred for various reasons; the situation is quite different from what Raglan found among his own family.

Indeed, one of Lord Raglan’s critics, William Bascom offeredan exception to Raglan’s claims in the case of the Gwambe people of Mozambique. They had preserved legends -- ordinary folktales -- that described early migration and theGwambe’s experience with early Europeans4. These oral traditions were verified using the records of Portuguese explorers from four centuries earlier.

In another example, historians once believed that Biblical accounts of the city of Ur, and Homer’s tales of Troy were purely fictional, possibly derived from folklore, until archaeologists discovered remnants of these ancient cities5.

One archaeological study released just last year verified indigenous Hawaiian chants of voyages from Hawaii to Tahiti and back. Stone tools, some of them 2,000 years old were found in Tahiti made of basalt traced to the Hawaiian Islands. Previously, many researchers had believed that theHawaiians had reached these islands accidentally, driven by storms, and lacked the navigational ability to make the return journey to Tahiti6.

Another archaeological example comes from the Pacific regionof Vanuatu, where well-preserved oral chants and genealogiestell of Chief Roimata who lived according to tradition around the year 1265. Archaeologists were able to locate the chief’s gravesite and used various techniques to confirmmany of the legendary details. For example, according to legend, Chief Roimata was accompanied on his voyage to the land of the dead by family and clan members7.

At the burial site, it was found that about 50 people including possibly the chief’s youngest wife were buried

together with him probably in acts of self-sacrifice. Above the chief, on a dancing ground surface were eleven embracingcouples buried together. According to the oral records, themen were drugged with kava extract before internment but notthe women, and in fact, the men do appear in the burials as more sedated than the women.

In Pakistan, the Kalash and Burusho peoples have legends that trace the descent of their people or leaders back to Alexander the Great and his invasions. A genetic study released last year showed both the Kalash and Burusho indeedcarry a haplotype, unique in the region that originates in Greece and Macedonia8.

A number of researchers including DeLaguna, Vansina, Miller and Krech have recorded many examples showing that oral tradition does preserve valid history sometimes with surprising clarity9.

One difference between written and oral traditions before modern times is the very limited number of people who could record written history. In most societies, it was only the elite scribes that could write. These scribes were often subject to the political environment of the time and could hardly express themselves freely.

History is replete with kings who claimed vast conquests that on later inspection prove to be exaggerations. Ramses II of Egypt, for example, claimed victories that went beyondthe existing evidence. The same Pharaoh was known also to have appropriated the statues of previous kings removing their identifying inscriptions and replacing them with his own signatures10.

In comparison to scribal societies, oral records can be created by any family or clan. Among the Polynesians, for whom the keeping of family genealogies was a sacred duty, some traditions record dozens of generations, both fathers and mothers. In some areas, a genealogy of more than 100

generations could be found, and these records usually included stories and details linked with noted ancestors11.

Having many different versions of the same event or person is often advantageous as compared to only one or a limited number of versions. Journalists and criminal investigators know that even for events that have occurred very recently, witnesses will give accounts that can sometimes vary wildly in details12. The more witnesses available, however, the greater the ability of the investigator to sort through details and arrive at the version closest to the truth.

Turning again specifically to the link between mythology andhistory, we know that historical events are often mythologized, or that historical events are embellished withmythological or supernatural themes.

For example, a stone inscription found in East Java known asthe Calcutta Inscription and dated to 1041 CE, tells of a volcanic eruption that occurred on the island in 1006 CE13. The inscription describes a time of great dissolution known in Sanskrit as pralaya in which Java is described as resembling a “sea of milk.”

This concept of a “sea of milk” comes from Ancient Indian mythology – the story of the churning of the sea of milk as found rendered in art at the great temple of Angkor Wat in Cambodia. Geologists have discovered that during this verytime Mount Merapi in Java had erupted mightily covering muchof the island with a layer of light-colored ash or tephra that could explain the period of great dissolution mentionedin the inscription, and the ashy color would account for the“sea of milk” description14.

Javanese scribes had apparently recorded an historical eruption of Mount Merapi with motifs known from Hindu-Buddhist mythology.

In a similar sense, when Mongol fleets attempting to invade Japan were destroyed by typhoons, historical records attribute the victory to the Divine Wind known in Shintoism as Kamikazi.

Even in modern times, we still witness the practice of mythologizing real events. One example comes from the late well-known tele-evangelist Jerry Falwell in the United States. Falwell had stated publicly that the 9-11 attacks in New York City were allowed by God because of America’s sinfulness15.

Falwell’s followers may well have seen some truth in these statements, and potentially they could transmit these beliefs as folklore traditions. One could view in the same way the claims made by U.S. President George W. Bush that God had spoken to him and advised him to invade Iraq16.

Regardless of the truthfulness of the mythological or supernatural claims, these elements are fused together with real historical events, the 9-11 attacks and the invasion ofIraq respectively. I suspect that most mythology in a similar fashion transmits both historical and non-historicalinformation.

Oral history and mythology is subject to accretion, interpolation, mutation, errors in transmission and the like. We find the same thing, though, occurring in writing systems. In certain cases, transmission was more difficult with written texts17. Copying manuscripts, for example, wasa painstaking process that led to many errors from simple misspelling to skipping entire stanzas or paragraphs.

For the researcher, whether the tradition is oral or written, the task still lies in identifying archaic languageand style, analyzing content, and other methods in reconstructing the text in chronological layers18.

Now, turning to the question at hand our colleague Stephen Oppenheimer, in his book Eden in the East19 makes a powerful argument that many of the widespread flood myths can be traced to actual rising sea levels during the Holocene period. He traces these myths especially to the submerging of Sundaland under the South China Sea and Indian Ocean. Inthis body of myths, rainfall usually plays little or no part; the sea engulfs the land often causing permanent loss of previously inhabited territory.

Tales of the ancient deluge are often combined together withthe myth of the “great heat” and/or the “world fire” in manyparts of the globe20. If we take the position that many stories of sea flooding are based in reality, then indeed, global warming would be the cause.

At its peak, this warming pattern is sometimes called the Warm Maritime Phase21 when much of the area of the Northern Sea and the Northwest Passage, now impassable, was free of ice. Sea levels were about five meters higher than they aretoday. Some time roughly between 5500 and 4500 years ago, the Earth’s climate began to cool and eventually stabilize resulting in the sea settling at present-day levels22.

In addition to increasing temperatures, global warming in Southeast Asia also causes a decline in rainfall because of weakening winds that circulate moisture across the Pacific23. Dry conditions are also exacerbated on Mainland Southeast Asia by the eventual melting of glaciers in the Himalayas24.

Recent theories suggest that major forest fires, like those in the western United States during 2007, may be due in partto climate change25. Warmer temperatures and drier conditions in Southeast Asia might also increase the frequency and severity of regional forest fires

During the Warm Maritime Phase, the increase of Southeast Asian fires would have resulted in haze of greater intensity

than the Asian brown clouds of modern times. Ancient humans, I would suggest, may have viewed this haze as evidence of the sky moving lower. The Sun seen through the haze might also appear lower than usual. The low-hanging clouds of smoke together with the increasingly warm weather and drastic change in climate could have appeared linked. With the low sky seen by ancient observers as also bringing the Sun closer to the Earth and causing the seasons to become warmer.

The increase in forest fires might also account for the tales of the great conflagration and the World Fire that often accompany myths of the Great Flood.

If the ancients perceived the low hanging sky as responsiblefor the great scorching period, often described in catastrophic terms, then the raising of the sky26 would bring relief to humanity. Sky-raising signals also the end of the Great Flood in various mythologies. Now, we come to the question as to how the ancient storytellers perceived the sky as moving up to its present height?

My suggestion is that a major volcanic eruption occurred simultaneously with the beginning of the cooling period thatbegan bringing down and stabilizing sea levels, and cooling global temperatures. The timing of the eruption with the cooling trend was coincidental, but the eruption itself could have contributed to global cooling just as Mt. Pinatubo caused the world to cool for a few years after it exploded in 199127.

Sometime probably between 4000 BCE and 3000 BCE, when globalsea levels drop and then stabilize, a major volcanic eruption28 occurred along the routes of the Nusantao Trade and Communication Network29. The vast fiery cloud of the eruption would be visible at great distances during the night. Vast portions of the sea in the region became filled with ash and lahar.

News of the eruption spread throughout the Nusantao maritimenetwork. This is something I discuss in detail in my books Quests of the Dragon and Bird Clan30 and Sailing the Black Current31.

This belief in a new epoch could be linked quite intimately with the changing climate, the cooling weather and the subsiding sea levels. The imagery of the sky being pushed up would be supplied by the expanding mushroom cloud and theexplosions of an erupting volcano.

Think of the volcano’s ash cloud as the pestle of Tuglibong32, who in Manobo myth, strikes the center of the sky with her pestle while pounding rice causing it to move upward to its present height. The eruption likely depositedlarge amounts of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere, which works to deplete the ozone layer resulting in cooling globaltemperatures33.

From the volcano, large fireballs may have been perceived assimilar to the solar orb, giving rise to the myths of the superfluous suns. In many legends of the region, the multiple suns rise up and then are shot down often falling into the ocean where their flames control sea levels by consuming excess water.

You may see here mythological attempts to explain natural changes in climate based on observations of a series of events. These events may be coincidental as with the timingof the general global cooling trend with that of the volcanic eruption, or actually linked as in the case of the volcano-induced cooling due to atmospheric aerosol deposits.

Falling temperatures would help reduce problems with forest fires, and large volcanic eruptions often help spur El Nino events as some believe happened during last Pinatubo eruption34. This would mean increased rainfall, further reducing the problems with fires and brown clouds and possibly creating the perception of a raised sky in the eyesof ancient observers. Although the immediate effects of the

volcano would be harsh, in the long term the changes in weather, combined with general global trends not related to the volcano, would have brought relief from the previous situation of rising temperatures and rising sea levels.

Nusantao seafarers would have updated communities in their communication network rapidly. The short-term catastrophic effects of the volcanic eruption could have spurred even more extensive Nusantao migration, thus further spreading the reach of the myths that evolved from the natural changes. For example, the theme of sky raising relieving the world of great heat can be found in “New World” cultureslike those of the Cherokee and Navajo35. Indeed, there is a rather large body of common myths between Asia and the Americas, and I have discussed possibilities for these connections in my books The Naga Race36 and Quests of the Dragon and Bird Clan Dr. Oppenheimer has also discussed these possible links, which could be direct and/or indirect in nature.

Now, we can examine a few sets of myths to see how the motifs agree with the natural events that I have outlined.

First, let us start with the ancient Chinese tale of Nu Gua (Nuwa) as found in the Han Dynasty classic Huainanzi37. Nu Gua appears here as the primordial female or goddess who mends the earth apparently after a cataclysmic battle of fire and water between the characters Kung Kung (Gonggong), associated with water and floods, and Chuan Hsu (Zhuanxu).

In a time long ago, the four poles were decayed and thenine states, rent asunder. The sky did not cover everywhere and the earth was not filled in all around. Fire raged and flamed without dying out; water swelled and rose without dying down. . Fierce beasts ate the vigorous and vultures snatched the old and weak. Then, Nu Gua smelted stones of five colors and patched up theazure sky and cut off the legs of a sea-turtle to standup the four poles.

Huainanzi, 6/6b (2nd century BCE)

In other versions of the myth involving Gonggong, the floods come after the shooting down of the Nine Suns, savingthe world from destruction by great heat38. The Nine Suns incertain traditions are said to fall into the ocean or unto arock in the ocean and to consume the waters that flow into the sea39.

If we look at the elements of these myths, we find a series of motifs that potentially link up with sea level-stabilizing climate change in the fourth millennium BCE.

Ravages of fire and water can be seen symbolically as representing the competing forces of warm vs. cool climate. They can also relate to the firestorm created by a volcanic eruption, something also hinted at by a mountain’s collapse during the battle between Gonggong and Chuan Hsu. The raising of the sky by Nu Gua and the submergence of the NineSuns can be seen as signs of global cooling. The submerged Suns also can be viewed as a cosmic explanation for the controlled sea levels with the Suns no longer threatening the world with heat, but instead consuming at stable levels the waters that flow from rivers into the ocean. In the newage that ensues, the floods and heat that plagued humanity are now under control allowing the growth of civilization.

In Hindu myth, we also find the theme of a great fiery underwater chasm known as the Mare’s Head (Vadavamukha). The Mare’s Head is in this case not the Sun but the flaming wife of the Sun transformed into a mare’s head that continuously consumes the ocean’s waters. As such, a balance arises, with rainwater flowing into the ocean from the world’s rivers controlled by the evaporating fires of the Mare’s Head40.

Another set of myths related to the raising of the sky and the end of the great heat is found among the highland

peoples of Mindanao and Luzon in the Philippines. In many mythologies of the Philippines and surrounding regions, the pre-diluvian and/or pre-scorching period was either a goldenage or at least a period of normalcy41. This supports the idea that the low height of the sky is a post-creation event. There was still a memory of times when the seas werenot rising and temperatures were not so warm.

In one Ifugao version in northern Luzon, the golden age is followed by drought that spurs people to dig for springs of water. They finally reach a great underwater fountain, apparently a form of the great navel of the Earth found in other regional myths. Waters gushing from the spring cause the Great Deluge42.

Manobo and Bagobo myths tell also of the Great Scorching that endangers all life. People cannot plant, or do not know planting yet, and cannot even reproduce properly to populate the land. After Tuglibong or Mona raises the sky by striking it with her pestle, a golden age ensues, people begin to multiply and crops are planted. Either Tuglibong or her daughter Mebuyan creates a great hole into the Underworld when her spinning rice mortar drills into the Earth. The mortar is placed at the center of the Earth whenthe rice is pounded, and one version places it on a mound. This imagery could suggest the cosmic mountain, in this casea volcano whose crater is seen reaching into the bowels of the Earth43.

The Earth opening created by the mortar, the world spring created by the Ifugao and the widespread motif of the “navelof the sea” found in the Philippines and throughout much of Insular Southeast Asia all appear related44. They are generally linked in some way either with the flood or with control of the flood, or with the ebbing and flowing of the tide.

The navel of the sea drains the waters of the ocean keepingthe seas from rising too high. It is also widely seen as

responsible for the changing tides. The opening created by Tuglibong or Mebuyan leads to the Black River of the Underworld, which can be seen as related to the underground oceanic waters originating from the cosmic drain. In Pampanga, myths of the battle between the gods of Arayat, onthe one hand, and Pinatubo or Sambal gods on the other, are often seen in the light of a great deluge or storm45. The battle between the two mountain gods could allegorically represent a volcanic eruption as the two deities hurl rocks at each other.

We also find in this region the common theme of the battle between the Sun and the Moon46, something that I submit can be seen as a reference to the cataclysm of fire, and water or steam, that occurs during an eruption. This set of motifs not only occurs widely in the Philippines but also can be found in many parts of Southeast Asia and reaches allthe way to India. In many cases, the quarrel starts because of the intense heat caused by the Sun and his progeny. After the battle, we again see the start of a new age when things are more or less stable, and in which the Moon, once the superior or equal to the Sun, takes a subordinate position.

In Eden in the East, Dr. Oppenheimer mentions a legend of the deluge combined with a fiery cataclysm in classical Hindu texts. The theme appears to link with mythologies of various Austro-Asiatic, Tibeto-Burmese, Daic and other peoples in India and Southeast Asia often together with the motif of the Sun-Moon battle. In these myths, we often find a catastrophe of fire-rain or fire-water upon the Earth47, along with the motif of excessive heat from the Sun and his children.

We have then three different causes for the Great Scorching:1) The low height of the sky and thus the Sun, 2) the multiplicity of Suns, or 3) the excess heat of the Sun usually combined together with that of his progeny. In each case, the intense heat threatens the world and is usually

solved by violent action such as striking the sky to raise it higher, shooting down the superfluous Suns, or a battle between the Moon and the Sun.

When the problems related to the Sun’s heat are resolved, the other plagues of rising seas, floods, drought and fire-rain finally subside as well although the resolution is in itself usually cataclysmic. Moreover, the final event is often easily interpreted as indicating a volcanic eruption with falling ashes, embers and rocks; even the descriptions of the falling Suns can be seen as large spewed fireballs orfiery ash clouds descending to the Earth. If we study the distribution of these motifs, we find a strong circum-Pacific association.

Therefore, the ancient peoples around Sundaland, I would suggest, sought to explain global climate changes, as they experienced them regionally, through myth. Memories of a previous stable climate were preserved in ideas of an ancient golden age that preceded the great flood or great heat.

These latter events, due to rising temperatures and rising sea levels, were explained in various ways, most commonly through the idea of a low sky and Sun. It may be that Asian brown clouds, the result of more frequent and intense forestfires linked to global warming, helped in the development ofthe belief of the low height of the sky.

A volcanic eruption centralized along the Nusantao trade routes was, in turn, connected through both coincidental andcausative events with positive changes in climate and sea levels. The fireballs of the eruption were visualized as superfluous Suns, and back-linked with the Great Scorching. These Suns, shot down and submerged in the sea, consumed theexcess water flows thus controlling sea levels. In other myths, the eruption opened up or cleared the ocean’s great cosmic drain.

These explanations were created by the ancients to both explain and record events of a truly cataclysmic nature thathad changed their societies.

Now, having offered my hypothesis on the nature and origin of these myths, I would like to turn to something that Prof.Odal-Devora requested of me when she invited me to this prestigious event. That is to explore the ancient flood myths in relation to the modern situation of global warming and rising sea levels.

Myth often contains moral lessons and warnings in the form of prophecy. The recording of natural calamities may have been meant as a warning for future generations. What happened before could, and probably will, happen again. You might be surprised to find out that even some modern geologists have even created a new field of research known as geomythology48.

Geomythologists study ancient legends for clues that might indicate potential for natural disaster that has not yet been revealed by scientific research.

Patrick Nunn from Fiji, for example, was contracted by the French government to study Pacific myths for warning clues of natural disasters. Nunn became a believer in the power of geomythology in 2002 when road construction revealed signs of a recent volcanic eruption on the island of Kadavu supporting local legend. Previously he had dismissed such traditional lore because scientific studies showed the last volcanic activity was tens of thousands of years old49.

Probably the best recent example of how ancient legends can instruct future generations came during the recent devastating tsunami in the Indian Ocean. The Moken, nomadicsea gypsies living in Thailand, preserve myths that warn of sudden and dramatic receding tides creating ‘man-eating waves, that people should escape by heading for high ground50.

During the 2004 tsunami, which killed 300,000 people, the Moken heeded this ancient knowledge and survived the terrible disaster.

Moken traditions may serve as one example of how ancient myths can serve a very practical purpose for future generations. We know that in the present many indigenous peoples have a deep reverence for nature.

The Agta people of Cagayan in northern Luzon know that fire could be put to great advantage when used wisely51. Fire could clear land for agriculture, but if the fire were allowed to get out of control, the land would produce no food. Agta use fire to attract animals during hunting, and the smoke from fire aids them on their expeditions for honeyand red ant larvae and eggs. They also use smoke to repel insects and snakes, and the ashes from fire to repel parasites. Like the Hanunoo of Mindoro, the Agta realize that fire must not endanger the regeneration of fallow land.The Hanunoo watched over the trees on fallow land to make sure they were not cut down prematurely and they placed firebreaks around all swidden land to protect the fallow52.

When used wisely fire could help reduce the forest load actually helping to prevent forest fires. However, the slash-and-burn methods of modern commercial farmers have rejected the old ideas of natural balance.

Lowland slash-and-burn farmers quickly exhaust the land and promote topsoil loss, landslides and flooding53. The excessive fire and smoke soon disturbs the ecological balance in the region resulting often in loss of both forestand agricultural land.

In the present-day, we have seen how the loss of knowledge of the natural balance may cost humanity and the rest of theworld dearly through unnatural processes of global warming.

Not that global warming is itself unnatural. The flooding ofSundaland was not the fault of our ancestors.

However, modern humans are causing climate change to occur before its natural cycle. We are bringing on misery at a global scale before its natural time. Like slash-and-burn farmers, modern industry is unwisely dumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere at an ever-increasing rate, changing global weather patterns.

Moreover, we are beginning to feel nature’s wrath. Although we may not be able to avoid all the consequences of our pastactions, we can still come to an accord again with nature, with our parents, the Earth and Sky, and in the process realize the wisdom of our ancestors.

Footnotes

1 Otto Rank and Alan Dundes. In Quest of the Hero, Princeton University Press, 1990, vii-xxxi.2 David C. Rubin. Memory in Oral Traditions: The Cognitive Psychology of Epic, Ballads, and Counting-out Rhymes, Oxford University Press, 1995.3 FitzRoy Richard Somerset Raglan. The Hero: A study in tradition, myth and drama. Methuen, 1936, 12.4 William Bascom. “The Myth-Ritual Theory,” The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 70, No. 276 (Apr. - Jun., 1957) 103-114.5 S.H. Allen. Finding the Walls of Troy: Frank Calvert and Heinrich Schliemann at Hisarlik, University of California Press, 1998.6 KD Collerson and MI Weisler. “Stone adze compositions and the extent of ancient Polynesian voyaging and trade,” Science 2007 Sep 28;317(5846):1907-1.7 José Garanger. Archéologie des Nouvelles-Hébrides: contribution à la connaissance des îles du centre. Publications de la Société des Océanistes, No. 30. Paris: ORSTOM.8 S. Firasat, Khaliq S, Mohyuddin A, Papaioannou M, Tyler-Smith C, Underhill PA andAyub Q. “Y-chromosomal evidence for a limited Greek contribution to the Pathan population of Pakistan,” Eur J Hum Genet. 2007 Jan;15(1):121-6.9 Fredrica DeLaguna. “The Story of a Tlingit Community,” Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 172. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1960. Jan Vansina. Oral Tradition:A Study in Historical Methodology, Chicago: Aldine Press, 1965. Joseph C. Miller ed. The African Past Speaks: Essays on Oral Tradition and History. Folkestone: W Dawson, 1980. Shepard Krech III. "The State of Anthropology." Annual Reviews of Anthropology 1991 20:345- 375.10 Ian Shaw. The Oxford History of Egypt, Oxford University Press, 2003, 288-9.11 William Ellis. Polynesian Researches, During a residence of nearly eight years..., J & J Harper, 1833, 78. Karl Von den Steinen, Die Marquesaner und Ihre Kunst, II (1928), 64. Von Den Steinen mentions a knot genealogy in the Marquesas that contained 159 generations.12 Anthony Heaton-Armstrong, Eric Shepherd and David Wolchover. Analysing Witness Testimony, Oxford University Press, 1999.13 George Coedes. Les états hindouisés d'Indochine et d'Indonésie, E. de Broccard, 1948, 245.14 Supriyati D. Andreastuti and Brent V. Alloway. Stratigraphy, age and correlation of a tephra marker bed in Central East Java, Indonesia, 2005, http://conferences.eas.ualberta.ca/tephrarush2005/abstracts/Andreastuti_and_Alloway.pdf.15 Robert E. Denton. Language, Symbols, and the Media, Transaction Publishers, 2004, 23.16 John Bice. A 21st Rationalist in Medieval America, Chelydra Bay Press, 2007, 202.17 Kathleen Davis and Robert Boenig. Manuscript, Narrative, Lexicon, Bucknell University Press, 2000.18 Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht. The Powers of Philology, University of Illinois Press, 2003.19 Stephen Oppenheimer. Eden in the East: The Drowned Continent of Southeast Asia, Phoenix, 1999.20 Oppenheimer, 241, 268-9.21 James Hornell. Water Transport: Origins & Early Evolution, The University Press, 1946, 212.22 William James. Climate Change in Prehistory, Cambridge University Press, 2005.23 University Of Arizona (2003, January 27). Climate Records Show Global Warming Could Influence Asian Monsoon. ScienceDaily.24 Tim Johnson. “Warming Triggers ‘Alarming’ Retreat of Himalayan Glaciers,” McClatchy Newspapers, <http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/05/12/1148/>.

25 Steven W. Running. “Is Global Warming Causing More, Larger Wildfires?” Science 18August 2006: Vol. 313. no. 5789, pp. 927 – 928.26 See Map A for distribution of sky raising theme.27 Joan Martí and Gerald Ernst. Volcanoes and the Environment, Cambridge University Press,2005, 162.28 Siebert L, Simkin T (2002-). Volcanoes of the World: an Illustrated Catalog of Holocene Volcanoes and their Eruptions. Smithsonian Institution, Global Volcanism Program Digital Information Series, GVP-3, (http://www.volcano.si.edu/world/largeeruptions.cfm).29 Wilhelm G. Solheim II. “Origins of the Filipinos and their Languages," 9th

Philippine Linguistics Congress, University of the Philippines, 2006.30 Paul Kekai Manansala. Quests of the Dragon and Bird Clan, Lulu Press, 2006.31 Paul Kekai Manansala. Sailing the Black Current: Secret History of Ancient Philippine Argonauts in Southeast Asia, the Pacific and Beyond, BookSurge Publishing, 2006.32 Pieter Jan Raats. A Structural Study of Bagobo Myths, Cebu: University of San Carlos, 1969.33 A. Robock. “Volcanoes and climate,” Reviews of Geophysics, 1999 38(2), 191-219.34 Lisa M. Pinsker. “Mount Pinatubo: A Natural Climate Experiment,” Geotimes March 2002, < http://www.geotimes.org/mar02/geophen.html>.35 Thomas Bryan Underwood and Moselle Stack. Cherokee Legends and the Trail of Tears, Kessinger Publishing, 2006, 5. Franciscan Fathers. An Ethnological Dictionary of the Navajo Language, Arizona: St. Michaels, 1910, 354.36 Paul Kekai Manansala. The Naga Race, Calcutta: Firma KLM, 1994.37 John S. Major. Heaven and earth in Early Han thought: chapters three, four, and five of the Huainanzi, SUNY Press, 1993.38 Yves Bonnefoy. Asian Mythologies, University of Chicago Press, 1993, 236.39 Anne Birrell. Chinese Mythology: An Introduction, JHU Press, 1999, 144.40 Tudeng Nima, Gyurme Dorje, Tadeusz Skorupski, Mi rigs dpeskrun khaṅ. An EncyclopaedicTibetan-English Dictionary, School of Oriental and African Studies, 2001, 698.41 Damiana L. Eugenio. Philippine Folk Literature: The Myths, University of the Philippines Press, 1993, 103-113.42 Otley Beyer. “Origin myths among the mountain peoples of the Philippines,” The Philippine journal of science April 1913. [Vol. 8, no. D], 112.43 Raats, 6, 14, 20-25, 33, 34.44 Manansala, Sailing the Black Current, 5-33; Beyer, 89; 45 Luther Parker. “Daughters of Sinukuan,” Philippine Magazine 1929, Vol. 26, no. 1, 535, 694, 750.46 Rudolf Rahmann. “Quarrels and Enmity between the Sun and the Moon. A Contribution to the Mythologies of the Philippines, India, and the Malay Peninsula,” Folklore Studies, Vol. 14, 1955 (1955), pp. 202-214.47 Oppenheimer, 268-9.48 Robin McKie. “Ancient legends give an early warning of modern disasters,” The Observer Dec. 4 2005, < http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1657262,00.html>.49 Ibid.50 Ibid.51 R. F. Ellen, PeterParkes and Alan Bicker. Indigenous Environmental Knowledge and Its Transformations, Routledge, 2000, 183ff.52 Harold C. Conklin. Hanunoo agriculture, University Microfilms, 1972.

53 Cheryl Ann Palm. Slash-and-burn Agriculture: The Search For Alternatives, Columbia University Press, 2005, 3-8.