first, that I should obtain the precise original form of the myth by a rigid scrutiny of authorities; and, secondly, that I should bring to bear upon it modern methods of mythological and linguistic analysis.

The first of these requirements has given me no small trouble. The sources of American history not only differ vastly in merit, but many of them are almost inaccessible. I still have by me a list of books of the first order of importance for these studies, which I have not been able to find in any public or private library in the United States.

I have been free in giving references for the statements in the text. The growing custom among historians of omitting to do this must be deplored in the interests of sound learning. It is better to risk the charge of pedantry than to leave at fault those who wish to test an author's accuracy or follow up the line of investigation he indicates.

On the other hand, I have exercised moderation in drawing comparisons with Aryan, Semitic, Egyptian and other Old World mythologies. It would have been easy to have noted apparent similarities to a much greater extent. But I have preferred to leave this for those who write upon general comparative mythology. Such parallelisms, to reach satisfactory results, should be attempted only by those who have studied the Oriental religions in their original sources, and thus are not to be deceived by superficial resemblances.

The term "comparative mythology" reaches hardly far enough to cover all that I have aimed at. The professional mythologist thinks he has completed his task when he has traced a myth through its transformations in story and language back to the natural phenomena of which it was the expression. This external history is essential. But deeper than that lies the study of the influence of the myth on the individual and national mind, on the progress and destiny of those who believed it, in other words, its true _religious_ import. I have endeavored, also, to take some account of this.

The usual statement is that tribes in the intellectual condition of those I am dealing with rest their religion on a worship of external phenomena. In contradiction to this, I advance various arguments to show that their chief god was not identified with any objective natural process, but was human in nature, benignant in character, loved rather than feared, and that his worship carried with it the germs of the development of benevolent emotions and sound ethical principles.

_Media, Pa., Oct., 1882._

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY.

Some Kind of Religion Found among all Men--Classifications of Religions--The Purpose of Religions--Religions of Rite and of Creed--The Myth Grows in the First of these--Intent and Meaning of the Myth.

Processes of Myth Building in America--Personification, Paronyms and Homonyms--Otosis--Polyonomy--Henotheism--Borrowing--Rhetorical Figures--Abstract Expressions--Esoteric Teachings.

Outlines of the Fundamental American Myth--The White Culture-hero and the Four Brothers--Interpretation of the Myth--Comparison with the Aryan Hermes Myth--With the Aryo-Semitic Cadmus Myth--With Osirian Myths--The Myth of the Virgin Mother--The Interpretation thus Supported.

CHAPTER II.

THE HERO-GODS OF THE ALGONKINS AND IROQUOIS.

Sec.1. _The Algonkin Myth of Michabo._

The Myth of the Giant Rabbit--The Rabbit Creates the World--He Marries the Muskrat--Becomes the All-Father--Derivation of Michabo--of Wajashk, the Musk-rat--The Myth Explained--The Light-God as God of the East--The Four Divine Brothers--Myth of the Huarochiris--The Day-Makers--Michabo's Contests with His Father and Brother--Explanation of These--The Symbolic Flint Stone--Michabo Destroys the Serpent King--Meaning of this Myth--Relations of the Light-God and Wind-God--Michabo as God of Waters and Fertility--Represented as a Bearded Man.

Sec.2. _The Iroquois Myth of Ioskeha._