OF ALL RACES IN THIRTEEN VOLUMES LOUIS HERBERT GRAY, A.M., PH.D., EDITOR NORTH AMERICAN BY HARTLEY BURR ALEXANDER, PH.D. PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY REL. M 999 Bereglet rese Febr. 1, 1918. COPYRIGHT, 1916 BY MARSHALL JONES COMPANY Entered at Stationers' Hall, London All rights reserved Printed April, 1916 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BY THE UNIVERSITY PRESS BOUND BY THE BOSTON BOOKBINDING COMPANY AUTHOR'S PREFACE O one can be more keenly aware of the sketchy nature N° of the study here undertaken than is the author. The literature of the subject, already very great, is being augmented at a rate hitherto unequalled; and it is needless to say that this fact alone renders any general analysis at present provisional. As far as possible the author has endeavoured to confine himself to a descriptive study and to base this study upon regional divisions. Criticism has been limited to the indication of suggestive analogies, to summaries in the shape of notes, and to the formulation of a general plan of selection (indicated in the Introduction), without which no book could be written. The time will certainly come for a closely analytical comparative study of North American myths, but at the present time a general description is surely the work which is needed. Bibliographical references have been almost entirely relegated to the Notes, where the sources for each section will be found, thus avoiding the typographical disfigurement which footnotes entail. The plan, it is believed, will enable a ready identification of any passage desired, and at the same time will give a convenient key for the several treatments of related topics. The Bibliography gives the sources upon which the text is chiefly based, chapter for chapter. Other references, incidentally quoted, are given in the Notes. The critical reader's attention is called, in particular, to Note 1, dealing with the difficult question of nomenclature and spelling. The author has made no attempt to present a complete bibliography of American Indian mythology. For further references the literature given in the "Bibliographical Guides" should be consulted; important works which have appeared since the publication of these "Guides" are, of course, duly mentioned. For the form and spelling of the names of tribes and of linguistic stocks the usage of the Handbook of American Indians is followed, and the same form is used for both the singular and for the collective plural. Mythic names of Indian origin are capitalized, italics being employed for a few Indian words which are not names. The names of various objects regarded as persons or mythic beings sun, moon, earth, various animals, etc. are capitalized when the personified reference is clear; otherwise not. This rule is difficult to maintain consistently, and the usage in the volume doubtless varies somewhat. The word "corn," occurring in proper names, must be understood in its distinctively American meaning of "maize." Maize being the one indigenous cereal of importance in American ritual and myth, "Spirits of the Corn" (to use Sir J. G. Frazer's classic phrase) are, properly speaking, in America "Spirits of the Maize." A like ambiguity attaches to "buffalo," which in America is almost universally applied to the bison. The illustrations for the volume have been selected with a view to creating a clear impression of the art of the North American Indians, as well as for their pertinency to mythic ideas. This art varies in character in the several regions quite as much as does the thought which it reflects. It is interesting to note the variety in the treatment of similar themes or in the construction of similar ceremonial articles; for this reason representations of different modes of presenting like ideas have been chosen from diverse sources: thus, the Thunderbird conception appears in Plates III, VI, XVI, and Figure 1; the ceremonial pole in Plates XII, XVII, XXX; and masks from widely separate areas are shown in the Frontispiece and in Plates IV, VII, XXV, XXXI. In a few cases (as Plates II, VIII, IX, XI, XVIII, and probably XIX) the art is modified. by white influence; in the majority of examples it is purely |