62 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



turbid speculations, in the writings of Schoolcraft. Many of the 

 myths of the Indians of the South, in that region stretching back from 

 the great Gulf, are known — some collected by travelers, others by edu- 

 cated Indians. 



Many of the myths of the Iroquois are known. The best of these 

 are in the writings of Morgan, America's greatest anthropologist. 

 Missionaries, travelers, and linguists have given us a great store of the 

 myths of the Dakota stock. Many myths of the Tinne also have 

 been collected. Petitot has recorded a number of those found at the 

 North, and we have in manuscript some of the myths of a Southern 

 branch — the Navajos. Perhaps the myths of the Numas have been 

 collected more thoroughly than those of any other stock. These are 

 yet unpublished. Powers has recorded many of the myths of various 

 stocks in California, and the old Spanish writings give us a fair collec- 

 tion of the Nahuatl myths of Mexico, and Rink has presented us an 

 interesting volume on the mythology of the Innuits ; and, finally, frag- 

 ments of mythology have been collected from nearly all the tribes of 

 North America, and they are scattered through thousands of volumes, 

 so that the literature is vast. The brief description which I shall give 

 of zootheism is founded on a study of the materials which I have thus 

 indicated. 



All these tribes are found in the higher stages of savagerj^, or the 

 lower stages of barbarism, and their mythologies are found to be 

 zootheistic among the lowest, physitheistic among the highest, and a 

 great number of tribes are found in a transition state, for zootheism 

 is found to be a characteristic of savagery, and physitheism of bar- 

 barism, using the terms as they have been defined by Morgan. The 

 supreme gods of this stage are animals. The savage is intimately 

 associated with animals. " From them he obtains the larger part of 

 his clothing, and much of his food, and he carefully studies their habits 

 and finds many wonderful things. Their knowledge and skill and 

 power appear to him to be superior to his own. He sees the mountain- 

 sheep fleet among the crags, the eagle soaring in the heavens, the 

 humming-bird poised over its blossom-cup of nectar, the serpents swift 

 without legs, the salmon scaling the rapids, the spider weaving its 

 gossamer web, the ant building a play-house mountain — in all animal 

 nature he sees things too wonderful for him, and from admiration he 

 grows to adoration, and the animals become his gods." * 



Ancientism plays an important part in this zootheism. It is not 

 the animals of to-day whom the Indians worship, but their progenitors 

 — their prototypes. The wolf of to-day is a howling pest, but that 

 wolf's ancestor— the first of the line — was a god. The individuals of 

 every species are supposed to have descended from an ancient being — 



* Vide "Outlines of the Philosophy of the North American Indians," by J. W. 

 Powell. Read before the American Geographical Society at Chickering Hall, December 

 29, 1876. 



