Page:Journal of American Folklore vol. 12.djvu/29

 Animal Tales of the Eskimo. 21

tively barely more than one one-hundredth of the Eskimo traditions we possess (about seven or eight ordinary octavo pages out of 550). This scantiness necessarily results in, or is the result of, a treatment very different from that which the animal element receives in Indian mythologies.

The difference is most apparent — and this consideration may throw some light on the causes of the difference — when we remem- ber that among Indian tribes there is almost always more or less association of animals with cosmogonies. The creator, the world- preserver, the transformer, the culture-hero, whether united into one person or not, are universal figures in Indian mythologies ; and they are often conceived as animals. The hare (Algonquin), the raven (all the North Pacific coast tribes), the spider (Pueblo), the coyote (Rocky Mountain region), are familiar examples. And even when these characters are men, many of their dealings are with animals. Witness the widespread story of the diving of various animals in order to reproduce the earth after the flood. In fact, the truth of this contention is so obvious and so widely recognized as to need no further evidence. Throughout North America, animals contribute to cosmogony.

Equally universal and well-known is the association of animals with the system of totemism, to which, in fact, they contribute the foundation.

Among the Eskimo, however, totemism is totally wanting. More than that, their cosmogonical ideas are exceedingly rudimentary. The most thorough investigations seem to show that, while the Eskimo may have a very definite idea of the world as it is at pre- sent, they practically do not conceive of its origin, or the origin of its parts. Perhaps the only strictly cosmogonical myth of the Eskimo is that relating to the origin of the sun and moon, and that is purely human. What else there is — and it is scanty and discon- nected — occurs almost altogether among the small group of animal stories mentioned above, — those of marriages of men and animals. It seems, accordingly, as if there were some causal connection here, as if the absence of totemism, the scantiness of cosmogonical notions, and the scarcity of animal tales were all related ; just as the greater development of these things among the Indians would seem to be due to one cause or one set of causes. Corroborating this view is the fact that, among a western Eskimo tribe, our information as to which appears to reveal the presence (due perhaps to Indian influ- ence) of a more definite cosmogony than that possessed by other tribes, we find animals taking a part in the cosmogonical acts. {Petitot, "Vocabulaire Francais-Esquimau, Dialecte des Tchiglit," pp. xxiv., xxxiv. Note also the introduction of animals into the sun

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