246 THE AMERICAN MOOSE 



The red man is sensitive to the white man's ridicule. 

 He knows well that his behefs are not the behefs 

 of his white brother — and the white brother some- 

 times indiscreetly laughs when subjects are dis- 

 cussed which have serious import in the mind of 

 the red man. Furthermore, these tales are told 

 from generation to generation with little change 

 in the Indian phraseology, the oft-repeated telling 

 fixing the form of the story almost as in a printed 

 page. The same stories, however, told to a 

 cynical white man, in the white man's language, 

 become bare skeletons divested of the embellish- 

 ment which the Indian imagination could so richly 

 supply. Such a skeleton of a story is that given 

 by Thoreau, quoting the old chief of the Penob- 

 scots whom he visited on one of his trips to the 

 Maine woods many years ago.' 



These myths and legends, which constitute the 

 nearest approach to an Indian literature, have 

 been handed down from time immemorial, grand- 

 parents telling them to their grandchildren while 

 the active men of the intervening generation were 

 absent on the long expeditions of war or the 

 chase. They have been rescued from oblivion 

 by the zeal of missionaries, travelers, and others, 

 who knew the Indians well and had their confidence, 



« See p. 249. 



