28 
MUSEUM BULLETIN NO. 16. 
who play so great a part in Winnebago mythology, and the 
entire myth appears in an epic about their adventures. Indeed 
it may very well be that originally it was connected with them. 
In the above we have, then, a clear illustration of how the 
heroes of a certain myth have been consistently interpreted in 
a certain way and how figures like the twins, who could by no 
manner of means ever be regarded as celestial beings, have been 
remoulded so as to fit into the general scheme. Now, such a 
process, it would be fair to assume, must have occurred often, 
and a careful study and analysis of a body of myths that show 
a marked preference for "celestial’ ’ interpretations, like the 
Pawnee, would probably bring to light a large number of in- 
stances. 
In addition to the above causes for variation, one other may 
be pointed out. In every cultural area or tribe, certain animals 
or beings have become traditionally associated with certain 
definite characteristics; one is the fool, another the sloven, a 
third the humorist, a fourth the boaster, a fifth the fop, a sixth 
the gossip, etc. Whenever these respective characters are 
needed, they are supplied from the stock-in-trade of the particu- 
lar tribe. If a certain myth is borrowed, certain figures are, 
therefore, likely to be displaced even if the myth content is in 
no way altered. 
It must be quite clear, then, from the above discussion, that 
neither the animal, human, or celestial nature of the hero, 
nor the type or kind of his activities can throw much light on the 
history of a given myth; that the essential thing to grasp is 
that to-day the myth is a literary unit that requires a hero whose 
specific nature and activities will be determined by a large 
number of factors; that these factors are, in the main, the char- 
acteristics of a hero as told by different families in a tribe, the 
influence of some raconteur, and, lastly, the traditional associa- 
tion of certain figures with definite traits, episodes, and motifs. 
THE EPISODES. 
We have, up to the present, been treating of the general 
plot of the myth analytically, separated from those other ele- 
