324 FOSSIL MEN. 



appreciate the natural fact to which it relates. The ver- 

 bal parallelism in this little piece is as characteristic 

 of American song as of that of the early East. 



SONG OF THE OKOGIS. 



See how the white spirit presses us, 

 Presses us, presses us, heavy and long, 

 Presses us down to the frost-bitten earth. 

 Alas ! ye are heavy, ye spirits so white ; 

 Alas ! ye are cold ye are cold ye are cold. 

 Ah! cease, shining spirits that fall from the skies, 

 Ah ! cease so to crush us and keep us in dread ; 

 Ah ! when will you vanish and spring-time return ? 



The names of the constellations come down to us 

 from the most remote antiquity, modified by Greek 

 myths, but not of Greek origin ; and they testify both 

 to that tendency to transfer our own thoughts to the 

 universe around us to which I have already referred, 

 and to the application of the totemic system of 

 emblems to the heavenly bodies. It is, therefore, not 

 wonderful that the Americans should, like the men 

 of the East in the days of Job, have names and sym- 

 bols for those most important in their relations to 

 man, but it is a more striking and significant fact that 

 these apparently arbitrary names should be the same 

 with those of the Old World. It is still more curious 

 that they should in some cases serve to supplement 

 and illustrate the application of these names. The 

 Great Bear, from its prominence in the northern sky 

 and its connection with the pole-star " the star that 

 does not move " of the Americans, is as likely as 

 any other to have had its name handed down from age 



