times, great divergences in the recital of
even the most familiar of their stories. We have heard the same legend
given by several story-tellers and no two agreed in many particulars.
Others, however, were told with very slight differences.

We have adopted the course of recording what seemed to us the most natural
version and most in harmony with the instincts and characteristics of the
pure Indian. The close scientific student of Indian folklore will see that
we have softened some expressions and eliminated some details that were
non-essential. The crude Indian languages, while absolutely free from
blasphemy, cannot always be literally translated. _Verbum sat sapienti_.

The method we have adopted, in the presentation of these myths and legends
in connection with the chatter and remarks of our little ones, while
unusual, will, we trust, prove attractive and interesting. We have
endeavored to make it a book for all classes. Here are some old myths in
new settings, and here are some, we venture to think, that have never
before been seen in English dress. These will interest the student of such
subjects, while the general style of the book will, we hope, make it
attractive to young readers.

Nanahboozhoo, the personage who occupies the principal part in these myths,
is the most widely known of all those beings of supposed miraculous birth
who played such prominent parts in Indian legends. He does not seem to have
been claimed by any one particular tribe. Doubtless legends of him were
transmitted down from the time when the division of tribes had not so
extensively taken place; when perhaps the Algonquin, now so subdivided, was
one great tribe, speaking one language.

The variety of names by which he is known is accounted for by these tribal
divisions and the rapid changes which took place in the language owing to
its having no written form to maintain its unity.

What his original name was, when legends about him first began to be told,
is of course unknown. However, since the white race began to gather up and
record these Indian myths he has been known as Misha-wabus, Manabush,
Jous-ke-ha, Messou, Manabozho, Nanahboozhoo, Hiawatha, Chiabo,
Singua-sew--and even some other names have been heard. We have given him in
this volume the name of Nanahboozhoo as that was the one most frequently
used by the Indians among whom we lived or visited.

There is more unanimity about his origin, among the tribes, than about his
nam