problem. Such stories, then, are the science, and to a certain extent the religious tradition, of savages.[1]
Now these tales are necessarily cast in the mould of the savage ideas of which a sketch has been given. The changes of the heavenly bodies, the processes of day and night, the existence of the stars, the invention of the arts, the origin of the world (as far as known to the savage), of the tribe, of all the various animals and plants, the origin of death itself, the origin of the perplexing traditional tribal customs, are all accounted for in stories. These stories, again, are fashioned in accordance with the beliefs already named: the belief in human connection with and kinship with beasts and plants; the belief in magic; the belief in the perpetual possibility of metamorphosis or "shape shifting;" the belief in the permanence and power of the ghosts of the dead; the belief in the personal and animated character of all the things in the world, and so forth.
No more need be said to explain the wild and (as it seems to us moderns) the irrational character of savage myth. It is a jungle of foolish fancies, a walpurgis nacht of gods, and beasts, and men, and stars, and ghosts, all moving madly on a level of common personality and animation, and all changing shapes at random, as partners are changed in some fantastic witches' revel. Such is savage mythology, and how could it be otherwise when we consider the elements of thought and belief out of which it is composed?
- ↑ "The Indians (Algonkins) conveyed instruction—moral, mechanical, and religious—through traditionary fictions and tales."—Schoolcraft, Algic Researches, i. 12.
