American Hero-myths: a Study in the Native Religions of the Western Continent

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 theO riental 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 truereligious 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.
(Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.)

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