[Footnote 1: See his "Essai sur l'Origine des Dene-Dindjie," in his
_Monographie_, above quoted.]
There is one point in all these myths which I wish to bring out forcibly.
That is, the distinction which is everywhere drawn between the God of
Light and the Sun. Unless this distinction is fully comprehended, American
mythology loses most of its meaning.
The assertion has been so often repeated, even down to the latest writers,
that the American Indians were nearly all sun-worshipers, that I take
pains formally to contradict it. Neither the Sun nor the Spirit of the Sun
was their chief divinity.
Of course, the daily history of the appearance and disappearance of light
is intimately connected with the apparent motion of the sun. Hence, in the
myths there is often a seeming identification of the two, which I have
been at no pains to avoid. But the identity is superficial only; it
entirely disappears in other parts of the myth, and the conceptions, as
fundamentally distinct, must be studied separately, to reach accurate
results. It is an easy, but by no means a profound method of treating
these religions, to dismiss them all by the facile explanations of
"animism," and "sun and moon worship."
I have said, and quoted strong authority to confirm the opinion, that the
native tribes of America have lost ground in morals and have retrograded
in their religious life since the introduction of Christianity.
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