knowledge of creating it – with other humans. The Vainakh hero Pkharmat brought fire to mankind and was chained to Mount Kazbek as punishment. Oceania In Polynesian myth, Māui is the thief of fire. There are many variations of the myth. In the version told in New Zealand, an ancestress of Maui is the keeper of fire, and she stores it in her fingernails and toenails. Maui nearly tricks her into giving him all of her nails, but she catches onto him and throws her last toenail down, engulfing the ground in flame and nearly killing Maui. In the mythology of the Wurundjeri people of Australia, it was the Crow who stole the secret of fire from the Karatgurk women. Nuclear weapons Since shortly after the detonation of the first atomic bombs, the destructive power of atomic weapons has been compared to the story of Prometheus and the theft of fire. F. L. Campbell wrote in "Science on the March: Atomic Thunderbolts", in the September 1945 issue of The Scientific Monthly: Modern Prometheans have raided Mount Olympus again and have brought back for man the very thunderbolts of Zeus. The biography of Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin is entitled American Prometheus in reference to the myth. Further comparisons to Prometheus have been made in publications by the United Nations, MITs Technology Review and Harvards Nuclear Study Group. The "theft of fire" metaphor has also been used to argue against the proliferation of nuclear weapons by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute and repeatedly by statesman Henry Kissinger as early as 1957, at the Munich Security Conference and as part of the Nuclear Threat Initiative with former Senator Sam Nunn, former Secretary of Defense William Perry and former Secretary of State George Shultz. Supporters of nuclear power have interpreted the anecdote more favorably. See also Comparative mythology Control of fire by early humans Olympic flame References Further reading Abenójar, Óscar (2019). «La Anciana Y El Robo Del Fuego. Tipología Y distribución De Las Variantes Del Mito». In: Boletín De Literatura Oral 9 (julio):13-34. https://doi.org/10.17561/blo.v9.1. External links O fogo e as chamas dos mitos by Betty Mindlin Essay about the origin of fire, stealing of fire, keeping of fire in different South-American indigenous cultures Creation myths Comparative mythology Fire Theft