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AMERICAN HERO-MYTHS.

A STUDY IN THE NATIVE RELIGIONS
OF THE WESTERN CONTINENT.

BY

DANIEL G. BRINTON, M.D.,

MEMBER OF THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY; THE AMERICAN ANTIQUARIAN
SOCIETY; THE NUMISMATIC AND ANTIQUARIAN SOCIETY OF PHILA., ETC.; AUTHOR OF
"THE MYTHS OF THE NEW WORLD;" "THE RELIGIOUS SENTIMENT." ETC.


1882.


TO

ELI K. PRICE, ESQ.,

PRESIDENT OF THE NUMISMATIC AND ANTIQUARIAN SOCIETY OF PHILADELPHIA, WHOSE
ENLIGHTENED INTEREST HAS FOR MANY YEARS, AND IN MANY WAYS, FURTHERED THE
PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE, THIS VOLUME IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED BY THE
AUTHOR.




PREFACE.


This little volume is a contribution to the comparative study of
religions. It is an endeavor to present in a critically correct light some
of the fundamental conceptions which are found in the native beliefs of
the tribes of America.

So little has heretofore been done in this field that it has yielded a
very scanty harvest for purposes of general study. It has not yet even
passed the stage where the distinction between myth and tradition has been
recognized. Nearly all historians continue to write about some of the
American hero-gods as if they had been chiefs of tribes at some
undetermined epoch, and the effort to trace the migrations and
affiliations of nations by similarities in such stories is of almost daily
occurrence. How baseless and misleading all such arguments must be, it is
one of my objects to set forth.

At the same time I have endeavored to be temperate in applying the
interpretations of mythologists. I am aware of the risk one runs in
looking at every legend as a light or storm myth. My guiding principle has
been that when the same, and that a very extraordinary, story is told by
several tribes wholly apart in language and location, then the
probabilities are enormous that it is not a legend but a myth, and must be
explained as such. It is a spontaneous production of the mind, not a
reminiscence of an historic event.

The importance of the study of myths has been abundantly shown of recent
years, and the methods of analyzing them have been established with
satisfactory clearness.

The time has long since passed, at least among thinking men, when the
religious legends of the lower races were looked upon as trivial fables,
or as the inventions of the Father of Lies. They are neither the one nor
the other. They express, in image and incident, the opinions of these
races on the mightiest topics of human thought, on the origin and destiny
of man, his motives for duty and his grounds of hope, and the source,
history and fate of all external nature. Certainly the sincere expressions
on these subjects of even humble members of the human race deserve our
most respectful heed, and it may be that we shall discover in their crude
or coarse narrations gleams of a mental light which their proud Aryan
brothers have been long in coming to, or have not yet reached.

The prejudice against all the lower faiths inspired by the claim of
Christianity to a monopoly of religious truth--a claim nowise set up by
its founder--has led to extreme injustice toward the so-called heathen
religions. Little effort has been made to distinguish between their good
and evil tendencies, or even to understand them. I do not know of a single
instance on this continent of a thorough and intelligent study of a native
religion made by a Protestant missionary.

So little real work has been done in American mythology that very diverse
opinions as to its interpretation prevail among writers. Too many of them
apply to it facile generalizations, such as "heliolatry," "animism,"
"ancestral worship," "primitive philosophizing," and think that such a
sesame will unloose all its mysteries. The result has been that while each
satisfies himself, he convinces no one else.

I have tried to avoid any such bias, and have sought to discover the
source of the myths I have selected, by close attention to two points:
first, that I should obtain the precise original form of the myth by a
rigid scrutiny of authorities; and, secondly, that I should bring to bear
upon it modern methods of mythological and linguistic analysis.

The first of these requirements has given me no small trouble. The sources
of American history not only differ vastly in merit, but many of them are
almost inaccessible. I still have by me a list of books of the first order
of importance for these studies, which I have not been able to find in any
public or private library in the United States.

I have been free in giving references for the statements in the text. The
growing custom among historians of omitting to do this must be deplored in
the interests of sound learning. It is better to risk the charge of
pedantry than to leave at fault those who wish to test an author's
