ian life has this peculiar interest, that it gives us
an insight into the thinking and acting of our own forefathers long
before the dawn of history, when they worshiped gods very much like
those of the Indians.

All the world over, the most widely separated peoples in similar stages
of development exhibit remarkably similar ideas and customs, as if one
had borrowed from the other. There is often a curious resemblance
between the myths of some race in Central Africa and those of some
heathen tribe in Northern Europe. The human mind, under like
conditions, works in the same way and produces like results. Thus, in
studying pictures of Indian life as it existed at the Discovery, we
have before us a sort of object-lesson in the condition of our own
remote ancestors.

Now, the first European visitors made serious {17} errors in describing
Indian life. They applied European standards of judgment to things
Indian. A tadpole does not look in the least like a frog. An
uninformed person who should find one in a pool, and, a few weeks
later, should find a frog there, would never imagine that the tadpole
had changed into the frog. Now, Indian society was in what we may call
the tadpole stage. It was quite unlike European society, and yet it
contained exactly the same elements as those out of which European
society gradually unfolded itself long ago.

Indian society grew up in the most natural way out of the crude
beginnings of all society. Let us consider this point for a moment.
Suppose human beings of the lowest grade to be living together in a
herd, only a little better than beasts, what influence would first
begin to elevate them? Undoubtedly, parental affection. Indeed,
mother-love is the foundation-stone of all our civilization. On that
steadfast rock the rude beginnings of all social life are built. Young
animals attain their growth and the ability to provide for themselves
very early. The parents' watchful care does not need to be long
exercised. The offspring, so soon as it is weaned, is quickly {18}
forgotten. Not so the young human being. Its brain requires a long
time for its slow maturing. Thus, for years, without its parents' care
it would perish. The mother's love is strengthened by the constant
attention which she must so long give to her child, and this is shared,
in a degree, by the father. At the same time, their common interest in
the same object draws them closer together. Before the fir