C ETHNOGRArmC SKETCH. 



chapters of ethnology whicli afford us the (lee])est insight into tlie thoughts 

 which guide the untutored reasoning of the so-called savage^. 



Wherever we find deities in tlie stage of imperfect antln-opomorphisni 

 we are likely to find also deified animals in the stage of zoodenionism and 

 not in that of zootheism or zoolatry. Where gods and goddesses have 

 reached a fully anthropomorphic shape, wliich occurred in a few American 

 nations only, there we also find priests, temples, ceremonies, oracles, saci'i- 

 fices, and prayers; but where deities remain in the undeveloped condition 

 of spirits and demons, propitious or malevolent to mankind, we may expect 

 to see the natives deifying quadrupeds, birds, or snakes, instead of giving 

 their gods the human form, which is the most perfect form of this world's 

 creatures. For in many physical qualities animals surpass the human being. 

 Tliis excites the admiration of man in his ruder stages; he wonders at their 

 cunning and shrewdness, and thinks them his equals in more than one 

 respect. Why should he not express such feelings as these by reverencing 

 them and including them in his unpolished and naive, but pictorial and 

 candid folklore stories? 



It would be a mistake to assume that the animals which the folklore 

 of the Indian in the hunter stage chiefly celebrates are game animals or 

 such as are of material advantage to him. Folklore selects for its purpose 

 such beasts which the hunting and fisliing Indian, with his great practical 

 knowledge of animate creation, admires above others for such qualities as 

 their surprising sagacity, their wonderful agility, the love for their offspring, 

 the help afforded by them by discovering the hidden causes of disease, the 

 beauty of their skin or other covering, and the change in the coloring of 

 their fur-skins wrought by the alternation of the seasons — or such animals 

 as he dreads on account of their ferocity, their nightly habits, their power 

 of bringing about storms, thunder, or rain-fall, and last, but not least, for 

 their demoniac power of presaging future events, especially war, disease, 

 and death. The great scarcity of certain animals is also a sufficient cause 

 for introducing them into the popular stories. 



The animals which form the subject of mythic stories and beast tales 

 are pretty much the same as those mentioned in the magic songs of the 

 medical practitioners, of wliicli I have brought together a considerable col- 

 lection in Texts, pp. 153-181. The birds get an unusuall}' large .share in 



