2 TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. [More ve

have transcribed, it is because I think that, though each of them is given
the outward garb .of an apologue, the events they refer to can, without
exaggeration, be considered as endowing them with the character more
of traditions than of myths properly speaking. My meaning will become
more apparent from a perusal of the comments wherewith I have ventured
to accompany them.

These, I fully expect, will find many an incredulous reader, when they
do not excite the supercilious pity of the modern critic. Speaking of
the Vedas and the Rigveda is much more fashionable in certain circles
than quoting the Bible and referring to the momentous events mentioned
in Moses’ Genesis. Another school of folk-lorists would also see in the
native American myths nothing but personifications of natural phe-
nomena. But I cannot help thinking that the latter’s ingenuity would
have to be exercised to a rather remarkable degree if they were looking,
as they are wont, to the following detailed legends for a figurative ac-
count, say, of the daily conflict between light and darkness or some other
physical phenomenon. As to the former, I suppose one may always be
permitted to refer to the Biblical narratives, were it only as to historical
chronicles, independently of the inspired character of their authors.

Moreover, it is but just to add that most of my commentaries are
merely hints thrown out more in the shape of queries than as incontro-
vertible facts. Attempts at identifications, I know, are generally danger-
ous, especially when their basis is such vague and disconnected elements
as those furnished by the stories upon which the present paper is founded.
Yet these stories contain a few points which, to my mind, are not without
significance, and these I shall try to bring out in all sincerity. I am
wedded to no pet theory as to the origin of our Indians, and this freedom
from preconceived ideas leaves me so much the more at liberty to speak
out my mind frankly.

To the proper understanding of an aboriginal myth’s meaning, one
should not forget that the native chronicles have absolutely no regard for
chronology and very little, indeed, for consistency. They abound in
anachronisms no less than in synchronisms; and no wonder. A people
having no written literature cannot be expected to have preserved in
narratives handed down by word of mouth only the exact order of
events. Furthermore, the real facts thereby related are almost invariably
hidden under a thick veil of details more or less puerile, and these de-
tails are always coloured after the particular environment of the tribe.
The human mind cannot grasp or imagine that a duplicate of which the
eyes have never seen in whole or, separately, in its component parts.
Therefore one cannot reasonably exact from a native story a correct ac-