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 AUTHOR'S PREFACE

HIS volume should be called "Outlines of Chinese Mythology." It lays no claim to consideration as being an exhaustive study of Chinese mythology, which would require many volumes. It has been possible to condense the essential facts into this small space by an exclusion of all myths which have any suspicion of a foreign origin and by avoiding all comparisons between those of China and those of other countries. Only such traditional stories have been examined as are concerned with the powers of nature, the origin of created things, or the growth of governmental institutions and popular customs among the Chinese people.

When the earliest written records of China were made, established government and an orderly life among the people already existed. There must have been also a vast store of oral traditions. The task of those who were able to transmit their opinions by means of writing was to explain established government and organized life in the light of oral tradition. Out of this attempt grew all the myths which centre around the early rulers, celestial and terrestrial. Although the form of these myths may have suffered many changes as they were being transcribed to writing, their content has, without doubt, been accurately preserved; it is with written traditions that this study is concerned.

The sources are numerous and are too well-known to those who are versed in Chinese literature to need mentioning, while a detailed list would be of no help to the general reader. The index will serve as a guide to those who wish to go further into Chinese literary sources, as well as an aid to those to whom the system of transliteration of Chinese sounds may be unfamiliar.