Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 10, 1899.djvu/383

 Reviews. 343

amply substantiate his theory. The critic can, however, only judge what is set before him.

Mr. Curtin distinguishes two strata of mythic tales, the first dealing with the adventures and fortunes of beings inhabiting this world before its present occupiers, whether divine, animal, or human, the "first people," as he styles them. These beings partly survived as the present gods, but for the most part were changed into the present animals or into inanimate objects. The myths concerning them in their original form may be truly de- scribed as creation myths, as they set forth how, according to the Indian belief, nature, animate and inanimate, assumed its present form. The second stratum, "action myths," describes the exist- ing processes of nature, and has for its actors the god-class representing the "first people" and the heroicised ancestors of present man. The myths of the Old World belong in the main to this stratum, whereas those of America are chiefly drawn from the earlier stage. They are closely connected with the institutions under which the Indians still live, as " the lives of the first people are presented as models upon which faithful Indians are to fashion their lives at all times and places. Every act of an Indian, in peace or in war, as an individual or a member of a tribe, had its only sanction in the world of the first people, the American divinities."

The mode by which the world of the first people was changed into that at present existing "was mainly struggles between hostile personages " who metamorphosed each other into " some beast, bird, plant, or insect; but always the resultant beast or other creature corresponds in some power of mind or in some leading quality of character with the god from whose position it has fallen."

Later, Mr. Curtin describes the Indian meditating upon the w^orld as he saw it, speculating upon its origin and mode of deve- lopment, and producing these creation myths as a result of his speculation.

Now whilst I am quite disposed to accept Mr. Curtin's expla- nation of the origin of these myths, I cannot see that they do bear out his view of their primitive character as compared with those of the Old World, or, generally speaking, his theory of the stratification of myth. His secondary myths, "action myths," in which the existing forces of nature are personified and its