LITERARY ASPECTS OF NORTH AMERICAN MYTHOLOGY. 
29 
ments that go to form the entire myth-complex. We shall now 
treat the episodes in the same manner. 
Would we equate two myths merely on the basis of similarity 
in certain episodes ? Given a general culture-area such as that of 
the Woodlands or Woodland-Plains, would similarity in certain 
of the episodes be sufficient to identify two myths ? The answer 
to this question is of fundamental importance. 
When, indeed, are two episodes identical ? When the general 
plot is the same or when the plot plus its motivation is the same ? 
Generally speaking, we seem to regard the similarity of the plot 
as sufficient. Take, for example, the well-known episode of 
the trickster and the ducks he wishes to capture. Here the 
episode consists of the tying of the ducks’ legs. That is the 
essential object. How it is accomplished varies according to 
the version obtained. In spite of the variability of the moti- 
vation, we feel confident, nevertheless, that we are always 
dealing with the same episode. Or, take the episode of the hero 
in “Haxige” and “Holy One” and the animal who informs 
him what has become of his brother. Here the essential thing 
is that the hero obtain the required information. How he act- 
ually obtains it varies widely. The divergence in motivation 
may bring in a large amount of detail of a different kind for each 
version, so that externally the episodes may appear quite dif- 
ferent. If, for instance, the information is obtained from the 
woodpecker, the author-raconteur may bring in the whole story 
of how the woodpecker obtained his present characteristics, 
whereas if he obtained it from some animal who had been slighted 
by those who had killed the hero’s brother, the whole story 
of how he had been insulted might be brought in. 
Finally, let us take the Mexican-Indian tale of the rabbit 
committing depredations on the chile-field of an old woman. 
The essential feature of the plot is how to catch the rabbit and 
drive him away. This, according to many versions of the tale, 
is accomplished by distributing tar-baby decoys over the field. 
From a New Mexican informant, however, I obtained a version 
in which the rabbit was driven away by the owner of the chile- 
field paying insects to crawl into the rabbit’s anus. The tar-baby 
as a decoy, on the other hand, I found in a Mexican-Zapotecan 
version of Grimm’s story of the Golden Apple tree. 
