128 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



are many languages differing to a greater or less extent, so 

 there are many like differing mythologies. 



As in language, so in mythology, investigation has pro- 

 ceeded from the known to the unknown — from the higher 

 to the lower mythologies. In each step of the progress of 

 opinion on this subject a particular phenomenon may be ob- 

 served. As each lower status of mythology is discovered it 

 is assumed to be the first in origin, the primordial mythol- 

 ogy, and all lower but imperfectly understood mythologies 

 are interpreted as degradations from this assumed original 

 belief. Thus polytheism was interpreted as a degeneracy 

 from monotheism, nature worship from psychotheism, 

 zoolotry from ancestor worship ; and in order monotheism has 

 been held to be the original mythology, then polytheism, then 

 physitheism, or nature worship, then ancestor worship. 



With a large body of mythologists nature worship is now 

 accepted as the primitive religion ; and with another body, 

 equally as respectable, ancestor worship is primordial. But 

 nature worship and ancestor worship are concomitant parts 

 of the same religion, and belong to a status of culture highly 

 advanced and characterized by the invention of conventional 

 pictographs. In North America we have scores or even 

 hundreds of systems of mythology, all belonging to a lower 

 state of culture. 



Let us hope that American students will not fall into this 

 line of error by assuming that zootheism is the lowest stage, 

 because this is the status of mythology most widely spread 

 on the continent. 



Mythology is primitive philosophy. A mythology, that 

 is, the body of myths current among any people and be- 

 lieved by them, comprises a system of explanations of all 

 the phenomena of the universe discerned by them ; but. such 

 explanations are always mixed with much extraneous mat- 

 ter, chiefly incidents in the history of the personages who 

 were the heroes of mythologic deeds. 



Every mythology has for its basis a theology — a system of 

 gods who are the actors, and to whom are attributed the phe- 



