Thlinkeet Indians-Such myths invented to account for natural phenomena-Not always the result of forgotten etymologies-The Aht story of the origin of the moon-American story of the robin- Hervey Islanders' story of the sole-Stories also invented to account for curious customs or beliefs-Reason given by the Irish for their annual persecution of the wren-The story of the wren and the eagle, very similar in Ireland and North America-Facility of the dispersion of stories often accounts for their resemblance-Wide range of the story of Faithful John-Polynesian stories of Maui stopping the sun's motion-the same idea in Wallachia and North America-Many similar stories arose independently of each other, as the versions of the idea contained in Jack and the Beanstalk-- Some Aryan myths, explained as fancies about the clouds, found also in the New World-Hindu myth of Urvasi compared with myths from Borneo and America-Story-roots to be looked for on earth, not in the clouds-Celestial and terrestrial phenomena con- fused-The influence of dreams in the production of myths-The influence of flattery-Tendency of chiefs and sorcerers to become gods and heroes after death--Zeus compared with the culture-heroes of savage mythology-The Hottentot Utixo, Mannan MacLear, Manabozho, Viracocha, Quetzalcoatl, Heitsi Eibip, all probably of human origin-Nicknames a factor in mythology-Tendency to personify abstractions-Vivid imagination of savages. pages 239-275 COMPARATIVE FOLK-LORE. Interest of folk-lore due to the wide range of similar superstitions-- mythology-Traces of fire-worship—Beltane fires, formerly perhaps fall I. SOME SAVAGE MYTHS AND BELIEFS. THE question of the universality of religion, of its presence in some form or another in every part of the world, seems to be one of those which lie beyond the bounds of a dogmatic answer. For the accounts of missionaries and travellers, which furnish the only data for its solution, have been so largely vitiated, if not by a consciousness of the interests supposed to be at stake, at least by so strong an intolerance for the tenets of native savage religions, that it seems impossible to make sufficient allowance either for the bias of individual writers or for the extent to which they may have misunderstood, or been purposely misled by, their informants. Although, however, on the subject of native religions we can never hope for more than approximate truth, the reports of missionaries and others, written at different periods of time about the same place or contemporaneously about widely remote places, as they must be free from all possible sus B picion of collusion, so they supply a kind of measure of probability by which the credibility of any given belief may be tested. be tested. Thus an idea, too inconceivable to be credited, if only reported of one tribe of the human race, may be safely accepted as seriously held, if reported of several tribes in different parts of the world. An Englishman, for instance, however much winds and storms may mentally vex him, would scarcely think of testifying his repugnance to them by the physical remonstrance of his fists and lungs, nor would he easily believe that any people of the earth should seriously treat the wind in this way as a material agent. If he were told that the Namaquas shot poisoned arrows at storms to drive them away, he would show no unreasonable scepticism in disbelieving the fact; but if he learnt on independent authority that the Payaguan Indians of North America rush with firebrands and clenched fists against the wind that threatens to blow down their huts; that in Russia the Esthonians throw stones and knives against a whirlwind of dust, pursuing it with cries; that the Kalmucks fire their guns to drive the storm-demons away; that Zulu rain-doctors or heaven-herds whistle to lightning to leave the skies just as they whistle to cattle to leave their pens; and that also in the Aleutian Islands a whole village will unite to shriek and strike against the raging wind, he would have to acknowledge that the statement about the Namaquas contained in itself nothing intrinsically improbable. And besides this test of genuine savage thought, a test which obviously admits of almost infinite application, there is another one no less serviceable in ethnological criticism, namely, where the reality of a belief is supported by customs, widely spread and otherwise unintelligible. No better illustration can be given of this than the belief, which, asserted by itself, would be universally disbelieved, in a second life not only for men but for material things; but which, supported as it is by the practice, common alike in the old world and the new, of burying objects with their owner to live again with him in another state, is certified beyond all possibility of doubt. If to us there seems a no more self-evident truth than that a man can take nothing with him out of the world, a vast mass of evidence proves, that the discovery of this truth is one of comparatively modern date and of still quite partial distribution over the globe. So much, then, being premised as to the nature of the evidence on which our knowledge of the lower races depends, and as to the limits within which such evidence may be received and its veracity tested, let us proceed to examine some of the higher beliefs of savages, which, as they bear some analogy to the beliefs on similar subjects of more advanced societies, are in a sense religious, and, so far at least as the |