Io THE PAWNEE: MYTHOLOGY. 
ficulties early discovered in the grouping of the tales is the fact that one 
version of a tale may be considered as having a certain character, while 
a slightly different version is related by another informant in another 
band, or even in the same band, and is considered as having an entirely 
different character. Hence it is that in one or two instances one version 
of a tale is found in one group, while another version is found in another 
group. Further difficulty of arrangement was encountered in the fact 
that a few tales lie close to the borderland of one or another group, and 
it often becomes a matter of considerable difficulty in deciding upon the 
proper position of a tale. In nearly every case, however, the estimate of 
the character of the tale as held by the informant has been observed. 
The Pawnee clearly recognizes two great categories of tales—those 
which are true and which are supposed to relate to things or events which 
actually happened, and those which are false and which are considered 
to have been invented by the Pawnee, especially by the old men, for the 
purpose of impressing some moral precept, illustrating some phase of 
ethical life, or of conveying a warning, etc. A division slightly more 
extended, however, than the one just noted has been followed, and the 
tales are divided into four groups, each group being preceded by a state- 
ment which presents with sufficient fullness the common ground and 
common facts which connect together the tales of that group. Thus 
there are distinguished: (1) Tales which are true and which especially 
concern the supernatural beings of the heavens. Many of these tales 
are cosmogonic in nature, and nearly all possess some religious element. 
(2) Tales of Ready-to-Give, the major part of which are cultural hero 
tales which may be or may not be true, but which are associated with one 
of the supernatural beings of the north who is the supreme guardian deity 
of the people in matters pertaining to food quests. (3) Stories which 
are supposed to be true and which treat of the wonderful doings of the 
supernatural beings of the earth. The majority of these are concerned 
with the acquisition of an individual medicine or manitou, which may 
be transferred by sale or gift, but which is not necessarily hereditary. 
(4) Coyote tales, none of which are supposed to be true, but nearly all 
of which point a moral. It is interesting to note, concerning the Coyote 
tales as a group, that throughout the Coyote appears as a mean trick- 
ster and that his position as transformer is secondary to that of certain 
heroes found in the second group. Thereis reason to believe that, while 
the Pawnee were in Nebraska, the word Coyote was rarely or possibly never 
used in connection with these tales, and that they were called instead 
Wolf tales, the Wolf being the mean trickster and not the Coyote. These 
Coyote or Wolf tales, in general, suggest to the Pawnee the mischievous 
