hkwitt] introduction 59 



party much smaller in number, who succeeded in avoiding entanglement in the 

 struggle of preparing the world for man, left the earth. According to some 

 lu.vths they went beyond the sky to the upper land ; according to others they 

 sailed in boats over the ocean to the West — sailed till they went out beyond the 

 setting sun, beyond the line where the sky touches the earth. There they are 

 living now free from pain, disease, and death, which came into the world just 

 before they left, but before the coming of man and through the agency of this 

 tirst people. . . . 



This earliest .\nierican myth cycle really describes a period in the beginning 

 of which all things — and there was no thing then which was not a person — 

 lived in company without danger to each other or trouble. This was the period 

 of prim.ipval innocence, of which we hear so many echoes in tradition and 

 early literature, when that infinite variety of character and quality now 

 manifest in the universe was still dormant and hidden, practically uncre- 

 ated. This was the " golden age " of so many mythologies — the " golden age "' 

 dreamed of so often, but never seen by mortal man; a period when, in their 

 original form and power, the panther and the deer, the wolf and the antelope, 

 lay down together, when the rattlesnake was as harmless as the rabbit, when 

 trees could talk and flowers sing, when both could move as nimbly as the 

 swiftest on earth. 



Such, in a sketch exceedingly meager and imperfect, a hint rather than a 

 sketch, is the first great cj'cle of American mythology — the creation-myth of 

 the New World. From this cycle are borrowed the characters and machinery 

 for myths of later construction and stories of inferior importance ; myths 

 relating to the action of all observed forces and phenomena : struggles of the 

 seasons, winds, light and darkness; and stories in great numbers containing 

 adventures without end of the present animals, birds, reptiles, and insects — 

 people of the former world in their fallen state. . . . 



To whatever race they may belong, the earliest myths, whether of ancient 

 record or recent collection, point with unerring indication to the same .source 

 as those of America, for the one reason that there is no other source. The 

 personages of any given body of myths are such manifestations of force in the 

 world around them, or the result of such manifestations, as the ancient myth- 

 makers observed ; and whether they went backwards or forwards, these were 

 the only personages possible to them, because they were the only personages 

 accessible to their .sen.ses or conceivable to their minds. . . . 



Since they had passions varying like those of men, the myth-makers narrate 

 the origin of these passions, and carried their personages back to a period of 

 peaceful and innocent chaos, when there was no motive as yet in existence. 

 After a while the shock came. The motive appeared in the form of revenge 

 for acts done through cupidity or ignorance; strife began, and never left the 

 world of the gods till one quota of them was turned into animals, plants, 

 heavenly bodies, everything in the universe, and the other went away unchanged 

 to a place of happy enjoyment. 



All mytlis have the same origin, and all run jjarallel up to a certain point, 

 which may be taken as the point to which the least-developed people have 

 risen." 



And Mr. Curtin further says : 



At that period the earth . . . was occupied by personages who are called 

 people, though it is well understood at all times that they were not human ; 

 they were persons, individuals.' 



* Curtin, Jeremiah Myths and Folk-Lore of Ireland, pp. 22-27, Boston, 1890. 

 'Ibid., p. 22. 



