Pai Ute (near Kern River, Cal.) Pokoh, Old Man, they say, created the world. Pokoh had many thoughts. He had many blankets in which he carried around gifts for men. He created ever...
Of old the Heavens and the Earth were not separated. Land and water, solids and gases, fire and stone, light and darkness were mixed together. All was liquid and turbid chaos. Then...
When the Siwash, as the Northwestern Indians called themselves, were few, Mount Hood was kept by the Spirit of Storms, who when he shook his robe caused rain or snow to fall over t...
A long, long time ago, in a valley far away, the giant Trencoss lived in a great castle, surrounded by trees that were always green. The castle had a hundred doors, and every door...
Two brothers, having hunted at the head of the Penobscot until their snow-shoes and moccasins gave out, looked at each other ruefully and cried, Would that there was a woman to hel...
In a country that is far away there once lived a young man called Tithonus. He was strong and beautiful. Light of heart and light of foot, he hunted the deer or danced and sang the...
There was once somewhere, I don't know where, beyond seven times seven countries, and even beyond them, a poor man who had a wife and three children. They were awfully poor. One da...
The Chippewas and Sioux had come together at Fort Snelling to make merry and cement friendships. Flying Shadow was sad when the time came for the tribes to part, for Track Maker ha...
Lycidas dared not at first break to Zarah the mournful truth that one blow had bereft her of both her protectors, that she was now indeed an orphan, and alone in the world. Zarah s...
God's works are good. This truth to prove Around the world I need not move; I do it by the nearest pumpkin. "This fruit so large, on vine so small," Surveying once, exclaim'd a bum...
In a certain country there lived a very wealthy man whose cattle grazed on a wide plain. One day a tiger noticed them, and so did three thieves. At night the tiger came to where th...
Once upon a time there were two brothers named Kara and Guja who were first class shots with the bow and arrow. In the country where they lived, a pair of kites were doing great da...
Mars once made havoc in the air: Some cause aroused a quarrel there Among the birds;--not those that sing, The courtiers of the merry Spring, But naughty hawk and vulture folks, Of...
Once upon a time, when the gods were building their abodes, a certain builder came and offered to erect them, in the space of three half-years, a city so well fortified that they s...
As the coming of a strange swarm of bees is indicative of good luck to the person to whom they come, so the decamping of a swarm shows that misfortune is about to visit the person...
"Speaking of 'anting-anting,'" said a man at the club House on the bank of the Pasig river, in Manila, one evening, "I have had an experience in that line myself which was rather s...
A century ago this rough eminence, a dozen miles from Chattanooga, Tennessee, was an abiding place of Cherokee Indians, among whom was Arinook, their medicine-man, and his daughter...
Soon after her arrival at home, the empress Jingu gave birth to a son, whom she named Ojin. He was one of the fairest children ever born of an imperial mother, and was very wise an...
An iron pot proposed To an earthen pot a journey. The latter was opposed, Expressing the concern he Had felt about the danger Of going out a ranger. He thought the kitchen hearth T...
Senhor Vineiro, a Portuguese, having wedded Julia Regalea, a Spaniard, in South America, found it needful to his fortunes to leave Montevideo, for a revolution was breeding, and no...
Long, long ago, when the earth was very young, two hunters were traveling through the forest. They had been on the track of a deer for many days, and they were now far away from th...
There was once upon a time a youth called Unlucky Dan. Wherever he went, and whatever he did, and with whomsoever he served, nothing came of it: all his labour was like spilt water...
But in one respect Are Frode or his authority has paid attention to the genuine mythic tradition, and that is by making the Vana-gods the kinsmen of the descendants of Yngve. This...
Upon the slopes of Hualalai, just under the clouds and among the fragrant sandal-woods, lived Hana and her son, Hiku. They made their living by beating bark into cloth, which the w...
The tale of Loku is applied to a large, ugly lizard which climbs to the rafters of houses and gives the peculiar cry that suggests its name. This lizard, although hideous, is harml...
It was Twelfth Night, and the French village of Cahokia, near St. Louis, was pleasantly agitated at the prospect of a dance in the old court saloon, which was assembly-room and eve...
The following notes are put in as condensed a form as possible. They are confined to explanations of the actors or characters in the myths, and to information concerning the meanin...
From the oldest time men have associated the mountains with visitations of God. Their height, their vastness, their majesty made them seem worthy to be stairs by which the Deity mi...
(Totems of summer and winter) Zuni (New Mexico) The priest who was named Yanauluha carried ever in his hand a staff which now in the daylight was plumed and covered with feathers -...
At the distance of a woman's walk of a day from the mouth of the river, called by the pale-faces the Whitestone, in the country of the Sioux, in the middle of a large plain, stands...