360 GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF MYTHS. 



it gives the well understood signs^ and, never readied itself, 

 entices the deluded victim deeper and deeper into the solitude, 

 disappearing with a shout of mocking laughter when the path 

 home is lost, and the terrors of the wilderness are increasing 

 with the growing shadows of night. Sometimes it separates 

 companions who have gone hunting together, by appearing 

 first in one place, then in another in an altered form ; but it 

 never can deceive the wary hunter who in distrust examines 

 the footsteps of his enemy. Hardly has he caught sight of the- 

 quite unequal size of the impressions of the feet, when he 

 hastens back, and for long after no one dares to make an ex- 

 pedition into the wilderness, for the visits of the fiend are only 

 for a time."^ In South America as in Africa this is not a mere 

 local tale, but a widely spread belief. 



In conclusion, the analogies between the Mythology of 

 America and of the rest of the world which have been here 

 enumerated, when taken together with the many more which 

 come into view in studying a wider range of native American 

 traditions, and after full allowance has been made for the possi- 

 bihty of independent coincidences, seem to me to warrant the 

 expectation that it will not be long before the American My- 

 thology will have to be treated as embodying materials common 

 to other districts of the world, mixed no doubt with purely 

 native matter. Such a view would bring the early histoiy of 

 America into definite connexion with that of other regions, 

 over a larger geographical range than that included in Hum- 

 boldt's argument, and would bear with some force, though of 

 course but indirectly, on the problem of the origin and diffusion 

 of mankind. 



' Poppig, 'Eeise in Chile,' etc. ; Leipzig, 1835, toI. ii. p. 358. Klemui, C. G. 

 vol. i. p. 276. 



