These myths, and many others, hint of general conceptions of life and
the world, wide-spread theories of ancient date, such as we are not
accustomed to expect among savage nations, such as may very excusably
excite a doubt as to their native origin, but a doubt infallibly
dispelled by a careful comparison of the best authorities. Is it that
hitherto, in the pride of intellectual culture, we have never done
justice to the thinking faculty of those whom we call barbarians? Or
shall we accept the only other alternative, that these are the
unappreciated heirlooms bequeathed a rude race by a period of higher
civilization, long since extinguished by constant wars and ceaseless
fear? We are not yet ready to answer these questions. With almost
unanimous consent the latter has been accepted as the true solution, but
rather from the preconceived theory of a state of primitive
civilization from which man fell, than from ascertained facts.

It would, perhaps, be pushing symbolism too far to explain as an emblem
of the primitive waters the coyote, which, according to the Root-Diggers
of California, brought their ancestors into the world; or the wolf,
which the Lenni Lenape pretended released mankind from the dark bowels
of the earth by scratching away the soil. They should rather be
interpreted by the curious custom of the Toukaways, a wild people in
Texas, of predatory and unruly disposition. They celebrate their origin
by a grand annual dance. One of them, naked as he was born, is buried in
the earth. The others, clothed in wolf-skins, walk over him, snuff
around him, howl in lupine style, and finally dig him up with their
nails. The leading wolf then solemnly places a bow and arrow in his
hands, and to his inquiry as to what he must do for a living, paternally
advises him "to do as the wolves do--rob, kill, and murder, rove from
place to place, and never cultivate the soil."[231-1] Most wise and
fatherly counsel! But what is there new under the sun? Three thousand
years ago the Hirpini, or Wolves, an ancient Sabine tribe, were wont to
collect on Mount Soracte, and there go through certain rites in memory
of an oracle which predicted their extinction when they ceased to gain
their living as wolves by violence and plunder. Therefore they dressed
in wolf-skins, ran with barks and howls over burning coals, and gnawed
wolfishly whatever they could seize.[231-2]

Though hasty writers have often said that the Indian tribes claim
lite