FABLE AND FOLKLORE 23 



Although Sir Thomas Browne 33 attributed "an occult 

 and secret property" to this bird as an indicator of wind- 

 drift, it does not otherwise appear that it had any magical 

 reputation: yet the skin of a kingfisher was sure to be 

 found among the stuffed crocodiles, grinning skulls and 

 similar decorations of the consulting-room of a medieval 

 "doctor," who himself rarely realized, perhaps, what a 

 fakir he was. Moreover, we read "That its dried body 

 kept in a house protected against lightning and kept 

 moths out of garments." 



On the American continent, probably the nearest ap- 

 proach to the "sacredness" discussed in a former para- 

 graph, is the sincere veneration of their animal-gods, in- 

 cluding a few birds, by the Zuriis and some other Village 

 Indians of New Mexico and Arizona, which has been 

 studied minutely by our ethnologists. Yet we read of 

 many other sacred birds among the redmen. The red- 

 headed woodpecker is regarded as the tutelary deity of 

 the Omahas, and as the patron-saint of children, because, 

 they say, its own family is kept in so safe a place. 

 Pawnees have much the same sentiment toward the wren, 

 which they call "laughing-bird" because it seems always 

 happy. The crow was the sacred bird of the "ghost- 

 dance" — a religious ceremony of high significance among 

 the tribes of the Plains, as is explained in Chapter IX. 

 The Navahos regard the mountain bluebird as sacred on 

 account of its azure plumage, which (as something blue) 

 is representative of the South ; and it is deemed the herald 

 of the rising sun, which is their supreme image of God. 

 One of their old men told Stewart Culin that "two blue 

 birds stand at the door of the house in which [certain] 

 gods dwell." 



In most cases among our Indians, as elsewhere, it is un- 



