526 micheivSOn: pox Indians 



The late Professor Chamberlain ^° undertook a brief com- 

 parative study of the myth of the culture-hero among Central 

 Algonquian tribes, but the Sauk and Fox material available at 

 that time seems to have escaped him; and it must be said in 

 justice to him that it was not readily accessible. The paper by 

 the late J. Owen Dorsey/^ should be read in connection with 

 Professor Chamberlain's article. Some years later Professor 

 Dixon ^- published a comparative study of the mythology of 

 Central and Eastern Algonkins. As he was able to use the Fox 

 collections of Jones, his paper is of importance to us. Unfor- 

 tunately his sources are not given, nor are the mythologies of 

 the plains Indians used in his study. Nevertheless this article 

 is very useful as a stepping-stone. The essential points which 

 Dixon seeks to establish as regards Fox folklore and mythology 

 are: (i) Fox has one set of non-culture-hero incidents with 

 Menominee, and another with Cree-Ojibwa; (2) Fox shares with 

 Ojibwa but few such incidents in common with the Eastern 

 group, though both, especially Ojibwa, have a number of such 

 incidents with this group; (3) Fox has a number of elements 

 which are typically Iroquoian; (4) Fox and Potawatomi form a 

 special group among the Central Algonquian tribes. Additional 

 material, published and unpublished, since 1909, shows that 

 these theses will have to be somewhat modified. I have gone 

 over Barbeau's Huron and Wyandot Mythology and find that 

 with one possible exception Fox has not a single incident in 

 common with Huron-Wyandot which is not shared with some 

 other Central Algonquian tribe. And my unpublished Pota- 

 watomi material, which, though inadequate, is far greater in 

 extent than that published, tends to show that the fourth thesis 

 is wrong. Fox folklore and mythology is treated but incidentally 

 by Dr. Radin in his Literary aspects of North American myth- 

 ology, but it should be stated that on page 8 he has confused 

 the Fox and Menominee versions of the cycle of the death of 

 the culture-hero's younger brother. The general subject of the 



1" Joum. Amer. Folklore 4: 193-213. 



" Ibidem 5: 293-304, "Nanibozhu in Siouan Mythology." 



'* Ibidem 22: 1-9 [Jan.-March, 1909]. 



