210 michelson: fox ritualistic myths 



It is the profusion of information contained in the Fox ritual- 

 istic origin myths that gives them their unique character in primi- 

 tive literature. This applies especially to the incorporation of 

 existing songs and set speeches. 



Among the Piegans, as Wissler has pointed out, myths occur- 

 ring in many other tribes in certain cases have been utilized for 

 ritualistic myths. Thus it is patent that they are secondarily 

 adapted for such uses. Among the Menomini (Skinner) such is 

 not the case; the myths do not occur elsewhere out of their ritu- 

 alistic setting. But the ritualistic myths of both these tribes 

 are not comparable with those of the Foxes in the details given. 

 Yet there is one point in which the Fox ritualistic origin myths 

 resemble those of the Menomini; that is, that the elements do 

 not occur elsewhere outside their setting. 



Some of the songs of the Fox ritualistic origin myths occur 

 among the Kickapoo, which shows that they must be rather an- 

 cient. Unfortunately the Kickapoo as well as the Sauk ritualis- 

 tic origin myth is at present unknown. In so far as Kickapoo 

 folk-lore and mythology are extremely close to Fox (as I have 

 recently shown), and as Fox, Sauk, and Kickapoo are extremely 

 closely related linguistically, it is the more to be regretted, for 

 it might prove that not only the same type of ritualistic origin 

 myths occurs in all three, but also the same myths, which in 

 this case would go back to a hoary antiquity unless they have 

 spread by dissemination. In this connection it must be stated 

 that our knowledge of Sauk folk-lore and mythology is too 

 scanty to permit us to determine how close it is to Fox. 



In so far as Fox origin myths are all of one type, it is clear that 

 literary systematization has taken place. In other words we 

 cannot regard the Fox ritualistic origin myths as the actual his- 

 tory of how certain ceremonies were introduced among the Fox 

 Indians. This is somewhat confirmed by the fact that the Ojibwa 

 have some of the ceremonies that the Fox ritualistic origin myths 

 account for, but apparently lack the origin myths. It is, how- 

 ever, possible that they have simply not been thus far recorded. 

 Yet today there is a large amount of Ojibwa mythology pub- 

 lished, and Dr. Jones' unpublished material (which I am editing 



