878 TSIMSHIAN MYTHOLOGY [eth. ann. 31 



ing, exhibit remarkable uniformity of contents. Incidents, plots, 

 and arrangement are very much alike over a wide territory. The 

 incidents of American lore are hardly less widely distributed; but the 

 make-up of the stories exhibits much wider divergence, correspond- 

 ing to the greater diversification of cultural types. It is evident 

 that the integration of European cultural types has progressed much 

 further during the last two or three thousand years than that of the 

 American types. Cultural contrasts like those between the North- 

 west coast and the Plateaus or between Alaska and northern British 

 Columbia, oil the one hand, and Vancouver Island, on the other, are 

 not easily found in Europe. Excepting a few of the most outlying 

 regions, there is a great underlying uniformity in material culture, 

 social organization, and beliefs, that permeates the whole European 

 Continent, and that is strongly expressed in the comparative uni- 

 formity of folk-tales. 



For this reason European folk-lore creates the impression that the 

 whole stories are units and that their cohesion is strong, the whole 

 complex very old. The analysis of American material, on the other 

 hand, demonstrates that complex stories are new, that there is little 

 cohesion between the component elements, and that the really old 

 parts of tales are the incidents and a few simple plots. 



Only a few stories form an exception to tins rule, — such as the 

 Magic Flight or Obstacle myth, — which are in themselves complex, 

 the parts having no inner connection, and which have nevertheless 

 a very wide distribution. 



From a study of the distribution and composition of tales we must 

 then infer that the imagination of the natives has played with a few 

 plots, which were expanded by means of a number of motives that 

 have a very wide distribution, and that there is comparatively little 

 material that seems to belong to any one region exclusively, so that 

 it might be considered as of autochthonous origin. The character 

 of the folk-tales of each region lies rather in the selection of prepon- 

 derant themes, in the style of plots, and in their literary develop- 

 ment. I hope to treat this subject more fully at a later time. 



The supernatural element in tales shows a peculiar degree of 

 variability. In a study of the varying details it appeai-s a number 

 of times that stories which in one case contain fantastic elements are 

 given a much more matter-of-fact setting than others. In the tale 

 of Raven's battle with South Wind we find in most cases an incident 

 of an animal flying into the. enemy's stomach, starting a fire, and 

 thus compelling liim to cough. In the Tsimsliian version he simply 

 starts a smudge in Ins house (p. 658). In most tales of the libera- 

 tion of the Sun the magical birth of Raven play an important part 

 (p. 646) ; but among the Eskimo he invades the house by force or by 

 ordinary fraud. In the Tsimsliian tale of the origin of Raven a dead 



