193 
The historical value of Indian traditions is comparatively slight, 
their value, that is to say, to the ethnologist who seeks to reconstruct 
the origins, migrations, and developments of the various tribes. For 
this there are several reasons. In the first place the traditions are 
not fixed even in a single tribe, but the versions given by one family 
contradict those of another so frequently as to cast doubt iqion the 
credibility of them all. We should not expect complete agreement, 
of course. That was lacking even in Polynesia, where the traditions 
of the natives were the special concern of a priesthoofl that strove 
to hand them on unchanged from one generation to another.^ But 
in Indian tribal traditions there is scarcely a semblance of agreement 
concerning movements and events in pre-European times. Even on 
the Pacific coast, where tlic nobles were so deeply engrossed in matters 
of rank ami inheritance that they kept count of ])otlatches and debts 
for three or four generations, traditions of events that happened more 
than a century and a half ago show little congruity, so that we cannot 
rely upon them unless they are supported by considerations of 
another character. It would almost seem that the Indians lacked 
interest in plain, historical facts, or at least found them difficult to 
understand without invoking such a wealth of supernatural causes 
and interferences that to-flay we cannot separate the fanciful from 
the real. Many other pecjplcs would have preserved fairly reliable 
records of a great constitutional change such as the formation of the 
League of the Iroquois, which commenced only about the time of 
Columbus and was not perfected until a century later. Yet, although 
we know the names of its j>rincipal founders, Dekanawida and Hia- 
watha, we have very little authentic information concerning their 
lives, which have become swallowed up in impossible legends. 
Another reason for the unreliability of Indian traditions is the 
manner in which they were re-interpreted as they s])rcad from tribe 
to tribe. There are stories that are known almost from one end of 
the Dominion to the other, as well as to many tribes in the United 
States. Waterman cites a good example.- It is a tale about a girl 
and a dog, which is quoted l>y certain Eskimo tribes to explain the 
origin of sea mammals, by others to explain the origin and diffusion 
I pcicv Siiiilh collected in New Zealand and Raroton'ra long genealogies that traced hack the 
history of certain faniilies for nine or ten centuries. The earlier portions of the two lists, which 
coverts! the period preceding the separation of the Maoris of New Zealand from the Rarotongans, 
virtually coincide, so accurately had each island group preserved its traditions. 
- Waterinan, T. T. : “ The Explanatory Ehaueiit in the Folk-Tales of the North .American Indians”; 
Jour, of American Folk-Lore, voL xxvii, j>p. 24, 28 et seq. (1914). 
