The application of the word "myth" among scholars is plain enough up to a certain point; for from being a myth of Greece only, it is now used to mean a myth of any tribe or people on earth. So far there is no misunderstanding; but then we have not gone very far. When we ask what is the nature and origin of the story to which the name "myth" is given, different and contradictory answers are returned. Hence the perplexity of those who take an interest in mythology, and believe that it contains something of value, without knowing precisely in what that value consists.
The result is that mythology, considered as a whole, is supposed in a certain rough kind of way to be a species of codification of the errors of primitive men, out of which, by some method as yet unexplained, curious and interesting conclusions are to be drawn.
The word "myth," taken apart from mythology and used in the ordinary language of the day, means "non-existent." A myth is a nothing with a name. For instance, if a man is said to be possessed of wealth, and is really without a dollar, it is said that his wealth is a myth; in other words, his wealth is non-wealth, nothing, a myth. Some months ago the newspapers contained an account of a marvellous cradle of mother-of-pearl and gold, owned by the wife of a railroad millionnaire. A few days later it was stated that this cradle was a myth, for the wife of the millionnaire rocked her baby in a wicker basket. This last illustration is an excellent one; the popular idea being that a myth is a nonentity of which an entity is affirmed, a nothing which is said to be something.
Let us examine, not the scientific definition of a myth, for we have none such to examine, but a couple of myth theories put forward by two men in England, each a leader in his own sphere—Professor Max Müller and Herbert Spencer.
The first of these theories, which might be called "the theory of oblivion," though it is usually called "the linguistic theory," is founded on the hypothesis that men did not and could not make myths till they had forgotten who the chief actors in these myths were; that myth-makers only began to work when they had no means of knowing what they were really working with, or with whom they had to deal in making their stories; Müller's dictum being: It is the essential character of a true myth that it should no longer be intelligible by reference to spoken language.
According to this theory the origin of myths is to be sought in what is called "a disease of language." Now Professor Max Müller's disease of language is merely an incident in the history of mythology, not the great central and germinal principle which he makes it. Neither from Max Müller's theory of oblivion nor Herbert Spencer's theory of confusion can a definition be obtained which would apply to the myths of America, nor to the great body of myths of India and Persia, nor, for that matter, to any body of myths on earth.
If we examine closely these two theories, we shall find that they owe their origin to the overpowering influence of the previous pursuits of the two men, and the scant and faulty materials at their command. Max Müller, when he published his essays on mythology, was fresh from the occupation of comparing portions of the Aryan languages with each other, especially Sanscrit and Greek. When he found, or fancied he found, certain names of Greek mythology in Sanscrit, some of which were meaningless names in Greek, but significant in Sanscrit, he thought he had discovered the origin of myths, which he found in the misinterpretation of names whose meanings were really forgotten, but whose forms misled men into identifying them with names whose meanings were known, but altogether different from the forgotten meanings for which they were now substituted.
Mythology, according to his theory, is an outgrowth of error founded on mistaken identity of names; and the explanation of mythology follows on the discovery of the real meaning of those names by the aid of kindred languages in which their meanings are preserved.
Some stories connected with mythology have arisen in the way mentioned, and such stories cannot be explained, if explained at all, without the aid of kindred languages; but these stories no more constitute mythology than the bayous and creeks of the Amazon constitute the main body of that great river. Even if all that Professor Max Müller advances regarding Greek and Sanscrit names were demonstrated beyond a doubt, it would explain, not the origin of myths, but the origin of the particular stories with which he connects these names; for he has put in the place of mythology as a whole, the outcroppings of a part of mythology at a comparatively late period of its history, and has not touched the real origin of mythology, which, at the time he fixes for its birth, had already attained a most vigorous growth.
Herbert Spencer's theory of confusion is founded on the hypothesis that myths owe their origin to a confusion in the minds of primitive people, who worship their own earthly and natural ancestors under the guise of beasts, birds, reptiles, and plants, these ancestors when alive having received the names of beasts, birds, reptiles, and plants because they resembled them in some way, and after being dead two or three generations were confounded by their descendants with the creatures or plants after which they were named. So the people who began by worshipping the ghosts of ordinary human beings, their own fathers, fell to worshipping wild beasts, snakes, birds, and insects, from which they thought themselves descended by the ordinary process of fleshly generation. To fill out the whole list, men, if their ancestors came from the East, were descended from the sun; if from a mountain, the mountain was their ancestor; if from beyond the sea, they were descended from the sea.
This theory is discussed with as much seriousness as if it had foundation or proof in the world, as if it had ascertained facts on which to rest; and on the basis of this theory it is shown that the ghost of a savage chief grows, through accretions of respect and awe, to be an ethnic god of incalculable power.
Now, what is a myth?
The oldest myth, or rather cycle of myths, in America is that which refers to an order of things which preceded the present order, and a race of beings who inhabited the earth and the country beyond the sky before man existed. At that period the earth—a sort of featureless region, without the characteristic marks which it now possesses, though not infrequently it is represented as having at least some of them—was occupied by personages who are called people, though it is well understood at all times that they were not human; they were persons, individuals. These people had great power: whatever they wished for they had; all they needed was to name a thing, and it was there before them; they knew in their own minds when any one was thinking about them, and what that one thought; they knew of the approach of people without seeing them, and knew why they were coming. After they had lived on an indefinite period, they appear as a vast number of groups, which form two camps, which may be called the good and the bad. In the good camp are the persons who originate all the different kinds of food, establish all institutions, arts, games, amusements, dances, and religious ceremonies for the coming race.
In the other camp are cunning, deceitful beings, ferocious and hungry man-eaters—the harmful powers of every description. The heroes of the good camp overcome these one after another by stratagem, superior skill, swiftness, or the use of the all-powerful wish; but they are immortal, and, though overcome, cannot be destroyed. At the moment when the contest is decided, the victor says to the conquered: "You will be nothing hereafter but a—" and here he mentions the beast, bird, insect, plant, rock, or element into which his opponent is to be changed. But though the word has been uttered which nothing in the universe can turn aside or resist, the conquered uses in some cases his equally effective word; he turns at once to use it for the last time, and says to the victor: "Henceforth you'll be nothing but a—" and here he tells the conqueror what he is to be.
These struggles are described variously in different American mythologies, but the results are similar in all.
When the present race of men (that is, Indians) appear on the scene, the people of the previous order of affairs have vanished. One division, vast in number, a part of the good and all the bad ones, have become the beasts, birds, fishes, reptiles, insects, plants, stones, cold, heat, light, darkness, fire,