The league of the Iroquois and other legends : from the Indian muse

INTEODUCTIO^T.
IT is to the Mythologies of the primitive races that
we are to look for the expression of the earliest poetic,
religious and philosophic thought of Mankind.
While the Folk-lore of the Old World has long been
made the subject of research and poetic elaboration, the
Mythology of the North American Indians has received
comparatively
W little attention.
r hat the Eddas were to Scandinavian Europe; what
the Greek Mythology was to the Hellenic mind what
;
the story of Buddha, with all its clustering fables, is
to Hindoo and Mongolian; what the teachings of Christ
are to the Christian world, the revel-ation, in some sort,
of a divine love and wisdom, ai'ound which gather the
deepest affections, the purest hopes and aspirations of the
human soul; such, undoubtedly, were to the Red Men
the body of their myths and legends,
of which but a
meager store has been left to us.
There is in these fragmentary traditions abundant evidence
that they are the architecture of a religion, a part
of the world's sacred literature the Scriptures of the
Ages; scattered rays
of Divine Truth come down from
above, clothed in such imagery as the then development
of the Race made possible of apprehension.