hewi'm] introduction G5 



pression of human mind. In the course of time these deities or gods 

 are said to have taught their people the arts and crafts and the ele- 

 ments of their culture and their faith, thus i-evealing their will and 

 the things which were to be in the future. This divine knowledge, 

 this wisdom of the gods, was obtained or revealed in dreams or 

 visions and by theophanies. But a knowledge of the activities of the 

 I)eaple holding these views makes it evident that the doctrines and 

 the arts and the crafts taught by the gods and the institutions 

 founded by them for the i^eople are in fact the activities of the 

 people themselves which had been unconsciously imputed to these 

 deities. Of course, the gods can teach and can reveal only what has 

 been before imputed to them by the people. 



The original and chief person in the myth was not a human being, 

 altliough he was represented as possessed of the form, the desires, 

 and the volition of a person. He is reputed to have performed acts 

 which no human being had the power to perform, acts which only 

 the functioning of a process of nature or of life could accomplish. 



In some of these nai'ratives human beings, bearing human names, 

 have been substituted and the heroes and heroines of these stories ai'e 

 men, women, and children. 



The substitution of human beings in the stead of the personified 

 forces or processes of nature supplies the i-eason that apparently 

 wonderful superhuman deeds ai'e accomplished by the human substi- 

 tutes, whereas the acts portrayed are those of natural forces, not of 

 human brain and brawn. 



The stories of the Dagwanoenyent. or Flying Heads, Cyclones, and 

 Whirlwinds, of the Genonsgwa, or Stone Coats (the Frost Giants, 

 or Gods of AVinter, but originally named Tawiskaron), and of the 

 S'hagodiyoweqgowa, or Wind God, purport to relate iiistorical events, 

 altliough they are mythic and legendary in form. But unlettered 

 peoples do not transmit history. The writing of history presupposes 

 not only the art of writing but also some kind of permanent social 

 and political organization. Individual experiences fade rapidly, foi- 

 lacking the needful general interest they do not unite with others in 

 forming even some phase of the locaj history of a group. The ex- 

 periences of individuals and even of small unimportant groups of 

 people also lack the interest necessary to bring about their trans- 

 mission as history. Hence such uncivilized peoples leave to their 

 posterity no authentic accounts of the events of their times, for only 

 in song and saga, where poetry mingles with fact, do they attempt to 

 transmit the narratives of historical events and experiences. 



But with the organization and development of society into greater 

 complexity of .social and governmental organization there arises 

 the need for the transmission of a record of tribal or communal ex- 

 94615°— 18 5 



