48 
MUSEUM BULLETIN NO. 16. 
of this aspect of myth diffusion has as yet been made ; but the 
general impression one gets from a comparison of the similarities 
of the mythology of the different areas in North America is that 
while whole myth complexes or very general plots may at times 
be borrowed in toto, this is rare. The similarities seem to be 
confined generally to specific themes, motifs, and episodes. 
Investigations of the influence of European on Indian myth- 
ology ought to furnish us with excellent test cases. Take, for 
example, the Tar-baby episode or the Race of the Tortoise and 
the Deer, both of which are probably of European origin. Does 
their presence in a myth indicate that the entire myth was origin- 
ally of European origin and has been completely assimilated by 
the Indians, leaving but these two vestiges ? If these two epi- 
sodes generally were found in association with other episodes of 
a myth-complex of unquestioned European origin, there might 
be some justification for this assumption. But this is not the 
case, the tar-baby episode or some close variant of it apparently 
occurring as a free unit in a number of myths. The same is 
true of the wishing-table motif, which occurs in a Winnebago 
myth that is clearly aboriginal. A study of Rand's collection of 
Micmac myths would yield a large number of additional examples. 
In Prof. Boas’ discussion of the tale of John the Bear and the 
Seven Heads, the diffusion of individual episodes as such is in- 
dicated again . 1 
What still further militates against the assumption that 
myth complexes may be borrowed and then degenerate, leaving 
only a few vestiges behind, is the fact that in those cases where 
we know that myths have been borrowed in toto there seems to 
be no degeneration even when the myth has been almost com- 
pletely remodelled in terms of the specific Indian culture. I 
obtained for instance a version of Snow-white among the Ojibwa 
of southeastern Ontario which had been completely “indianized” 
yet which retained all the episodes and motifs of the Grimm 
version. It seems also likely from a study of the Zapotecan 
myths collected in Mexico that a European myth was at times 
borrowed in toto and that some striking episode was subsequently 
1 F. Boas “Notes on Mexican folk-lore.” Journal of American Folk-Lore, Vol. XXV, 
1912, pp. 204-260. 
