194 
of the different races of mankind. The Tlinkit Indians repeat the 
same story to account for the Milky Way, and the Blackfoot Indians 
to explain the orij>’in of their “ dog society,” an organization of com- 
paratively recent growth. There are tribes that make it exjblanatory 
of nothing, but narrate it as a mere anecdote. The story is highly 
fantastic, and obviously nothing but an ancient folk-tale variously 
re-inter]:»reted by the different tribes to suit their needs. Even if it 
were not a tissue of impossibilities, we should certainly err if we 
regarded it as the true explanation of the Blackfoot “ dog society.”’ 
Similarly we often find two tribes with the same migration tradition, 
although it can hardly be true of both. New myths and new tradi- 
tions arose so easily, indeed,^ that even when a tradition seems purely 
local and contains no improbable episodes we dare not accept its- 
authenticity uidcss we can adduce other evidence to its support. 
Practically the only value the folk-tales possess for reconstruct- 
ing the earlier history of the Imlians comes from an analytical study 
of their diffusion. If two tribes now widely separated both relate 
the same complex story, we know that they have been in contact 
with each other at some period in their history, or else that one or 
both of them has derived it from an intermediate tribe. Tales like 
the girl and dog story, mentioned above, are so ancient that we can 
hardly hope to discover their original sources or to trace the historical 
contacts suggested by their present diffusion. There are certain 
themes, such as stories about giants and dwarfs, that may even 
belong to the infancy of the human race, and have reached America 
with the first immigrants. Others, again, are so simple and natural 
that they could spring up in any country, and their distribution has 
no historical significance. Thus both our Indians and the aborigines 
of Australia have a tradition concerning a great flood, which we can- 
not reasonably connect with the biblical account or with each other. 
Still, when we find among the Chukchee and Koryak tribes of north- 
eastern Asia, and again on the Pacific coast of Canada, a whole series 
of similar anecdotes in which the raven plays a leading part, and when 
we are confident that these anecdotes were current in both regions 
before the arrival of Europeans, we can safely assume that the two 
groups of natives, altliough now separated by huiiflreds of miles, were 
1 The Hojh Indians of Arizona have a mjlh to explain llu? origin of horses, altliontth horses reaclied 
America, only with llic Spaniards. WateTinan : Op. cit., p, 33. 
