Page:The Mythology of All Races Vol 10 (North American).djvu/16

vi important works which have appeared since the publication of these "Guides" are, of course, duly mentioned.

For the form and spelling of the names of tribes and of linguistic stocks the usage of the Handbook of American Indians is followed, and the same form is used for both the singular and for the collective plural. Mythic names of Indian origin are capitalized, italics being employed for a few Indian words which are not names. The names of various objects regarded as persons or mythic beings sun, moon, earth, various animals, etc. are capitalized when the personified reference is clear; otherwise not. This rule is difficult to maintain consistently, and the usage in the volume doubtless varies somewhat.

The word "corn," occurring in proper names, must be understood in its distinctively American meaning of "maize." Maize being the one indigenous cereal of importance in American ritual and myth, "Spirits of the Corn" (to use Sir J. G. Frazer's classic phrase) are, properly speaking, in America "Spirits of the Maize." A like ambiguity attaches to "buffalo," which in America is almost universally applied to the bison.

The illustrations for the volume have been selected with a view to creating a clear impression of the art of the North American Indians, as well as for their pertinency to mythic ideas. This art varies in character in the several regions quite as much as does the thought which it reflects. It is interesting to note the variety in the treatment of similar themes or in the construction of similar ceremonial articles; for this reason representations of different modes of presenting like ideas have been chosen from diverse sources: thus, the Thunderbird conception appears in Plates III, VI, XVI, and Figure 1; the ceremonial pole in Plates XII, XVII, XXX; and masks from widely separate areas are shown in the Frontispiece and in Plates IV, VII, XXV, XXXI. In a few cases (as Plates II, VIII, IX, XI, XVIII, and probably XIX) the art is modified by white influence; in the majority of examples it is purely