boas] CONCLUSION 879 



woman's child flies up to the sky, while the Tlingit tell the same tale 

 without any supernatural element attached to it (p. 781). Another 

 case of this kind is presented by the wedge test as recorded among 

 the Lower Thompson Indians. The boy does not escape miraculously 

 when the ti - ee closes, but finds a hollow which he keeps open by 

 means of supports (U 209) . Here may also be mentioned the artificial 

 animals that drag hunters out to sea (p. 822), as compared to the 

 corresponding incidents farther to the south, in which an animal is 

 harpooned and swims away, draggiug the hunting-canoe along. I 

 am under the impression, so far as the present material shows, that 

 the loss of supernatural elements occurs, on the whole, near the bor- 

 der of the area in which the tales are known, so that it might be a 

 concomitant of the fragmentary character of the tales. That loss of 

 supernatural elements occurs under these conditions, appears clearly 

 from the character of the Masset and Tlingit tales recorded by 

 Swanton. In some of the Tlingit tales — for instance, iu those cor- 

 responding to the Asdi-wa'l story (p. 792) — the supernatural ele- 

 ments are omitted, or weakened by saying that the person who had 

 an incredible experience was out of his head. In the Masset series 

 there are many cases in which the supernatural element is simply 

 omitted. I am not prepared to say in how far this tendency may 

 be due to conflicts between the tales and Christian teaching or in 

 how far it may be due simply to the break with the past. The fact 

 remains that the stories lost part of their supernatural character 

 when they were told in a new environment. 



I think it would be wrong to generalize and to assume that such 

 loss of supernatural elements is throughout the fate of tales, for the 

 distribution of explanatory tales shows very clearly that it is counter- 

 balanced by another tendency of tales to take on new supernatural 

 significance. 



An additional word on the general theory of mythology. I pre- 

 sume I shall be accused of an entire lack of imagination and of 

 failure to realize the poetic power of the primitive mind if I insist 

 that the attempt to interpret mythology as a direct reflex of the 

 contemplation of nature is not sustained by the facts. 



Students of mythology have been accustomed to inquire into 

 the origin of myths without much regard to the modern history of 

 myths. Still we have no reason to believe that the myth-forming 

 processes of the last ten thousand years have differed materially 

 from modern myth-making processes. The artifacts of man that 

 date back to the end of the glacial period are so entirely of the same 

 character as those left by the modern races, that I do not see any 

 reason why we should suppose any change of mentality during this 

 period. Neither is there any reason that would countenance the 

 belief that during any part of this period intertribal contact has 



