This stem
is one of the most widely distributed in North America, extending across
the whole continent south of the Eskimos, and scattered toward the warmer
latitudes quite into Mexico. It is low down in the intellectual scale, its
component tribes are usually migratory savages, and its dialects are
extremely synthetic and of difficult phonetics, requiring as many as
sixty-five letters for their proper orthography. No wonder, therefore,
that we have but limited knowledge of their mental life.
Conspicuous in their myths is the tale of the Two Brothers. These
mysterious beings are upon the earth before man appears. Though alone,
they do not agree, and the one attacks and slays the other. Another
brother appears on the scene, who seems to be the one slain, who has come
to life, and the two are given wives by the Being who was the Creator of
things. These two women were perfectly beautiful, but invisible to the
eyes of mortals. The one was named, The Woman of the Light or The Woman of
the Morning; the other was the Woman of Darkness or the Woman of Evening.
The brothers lived together in one tent with these women, who each in turn
went out to work. When the Woman of Light was at work, it was daytime;
when the Woman of Darkness was at her labors, it was night.
In the course of time one of the brothers disappeared and the other
determined to select a wife from one of the two women, as it seems he had
not yet chosen.
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