AMERICAN MYTHOLOGY. Ameri can is here used with the signification of the United States. The myths to be dealt with and the social systems built up about them are much wider-reaching than the territory in cluded within the American Union. They extend as far north as Hudson Bay, spread ing over Ontario and the Canadian Maritime Provinces; while from Alaska they form an almost integral link with the beliefs, myths and institutions of the Eskimos. thus em bracing all the Arctic lands of America. On the south some of the myths of the United States reach far into Mexico. Where neces sary, therefore, these myths shall be followed to their habitat beyond the borders of the United States, provided in so doing their dominant characteristics may be the better presented. This article deals neither with the history of American mythology nor with the various systems of its interpretation, since these are still in an evolutionary stage; their literature is voluminous and an account of it is readily accessible. Moreover, this litera ture is largely personal while the object of the present article is to present a condensed yet comprehensive view of the mythologies of the aborigines of the United States and the re lation of these mythologies the institutions, primitive beliefs, social evolution and peculiar modes of these peoples.
The study of American Indian mythology takes us into a condition of society different in almost every respect from our own. Here the laws of nature are unknown; and the In dian attributes life not only to everything that moves but to all the inanimate things of na ture, the plants, earth, rocks, stones and wa ter. To him the Sun. in his daily journey was a very regal personage, possessed of great power and surrounded by other powerful spir its, warriors, faithful servants and followers; while the Moon was the sovereign lady of the night. The Sun and the Moon and the Stars were relatives and ruled the heavens, a region sometimes above, sometimes below that of the Thunder Spirits. The. Four (or six) Winds were the Cloud-pushers and they ruled the Four Quarters of the earth. They sent the Spring, the Summer and the Winter, heat and cold, and they were generally the benefactors of mankind. To the Indian mind it was self evident that the rivers, streams, lakes, oceans, plants and mountains had .life, for were they not continually manifesting their activity in some way or other? And as the hills were the children of the mountains they must also necessarily be living beings. The Indian mind was ever awake to the voices of these sentient beings, the creation of his own imagination and want of knowledge. For him they whispered, spoke, whistled, chanted, they moved rest lessly, they crept, they ran, they leapt, they jumped, they rushed with the force of a hun dred armies and their roar drowned the mightest shout of the biggest war party.
And they fought and struggled among them selves with greater fierceness, with mightier intensity and with more fearful weapons than the cunning of the wisest Indian tribes had been able to devise. Necessarily they could not do all this unless they were endowed with life. This life was essentially the same as that of the Indian for he knew of no other and could picture no other. He accounted for the extraordinary power of the various phases of nature by picturing them as pos sessed of great magic (medicine). These magic powers he extended alike to animate and inanimate objects; for as they were a thing apart from the being possessing them, and were in themselves supernatural beings, it was just as easy for them to reside in a dead stump as in a live tree, in a sleeping hill as in a heaving volcano, in a placid lake as in a roaring cataract. These unseen powers were constantly at war with one another and with mankind; and they had to be fought like the other enemies of the human race or placated when possible. The natural way to fight them was with their own weapons, incantations, charms and the whole paraphernalia desig nated by the Indian as emedicine.a So about this idea of a universal, actual life throughout all nature sprang a vast mass of myths, tradi tions, folk-stories, ritual and ceremony which constitute a very important part of the mythol ogies of the races of the American continents. The priests or medicine men were the inter preters of the religious and philosophical knowledge of the tribes. They were also, for the most part, the depositories of the super natural agencies to be used in the struggle which man was constantly waging against the supernatural powers by which he was sur rounded. Hence the religious ideas of the Indian races are always associated with their philosophy, their attempts to account for the origin of the universe and all that is con tained therein, together with the various forms of animate and inanimate nature, the peculiar habits, shapes, markings and characteristics of fishes, reptiles, birds, other animals, men and the imaginary creatures who peopled the wa ter, the air and the earth with the regions round about its outer edge, below it and within it. The Indian accounted, by means of a heterogeneous mass of myths and stories, for the position, form, color and shape of mountains, hills and valleys, of forest covered lands and barren wastes, of smooth, water-washed seacoast and wild, wind-swept, desert sand-dunes. Everywhere he has writ ten his peculiar mode of thought and his primitive culture upon his institutions, his myths and his stories. But to understand these we have to be able to place ourselves in his and to see through his eyes that curiously-real world of fancy that populated his universe.