ntation that we find
between such widely sundered nations.

[Footnote 1: L. Angrand, _Lettre sur les Antiquites de Tiaguanaco et
l'Origine presumable de la plus ancienne civilisation du Haut-Perou_.
Extrait du 24eme vol. de la _Revue Generale d'Architecture_, 1866. Von
Tschudi, _Das Ollantadrama_, p. 177-9. The latter says: "Der von dem
Plateau von Anahuac ausgewanderte Stamm verpflanzte seine Gesittung und
die Hauptzuege seiner Religion durch das westliche Suedamerica, etc."]

CHAPTER VI.

THE EXTENSION AND INFLUENCE OF THE TYPICAL HERO-MYTH.

THE TYPICAL MYTH FOUND IN MANY PARTS OF THE CONTINENT--DIFFICULTIES IN
TRACING IT--RELIGIOUS EVOLUTION IN AMERICA SIMILAR TO THAT IN THE OLD
WORLD--FAILURE OF CHRISTIANITY IN THE RED RACE.

THE CULTURE MYTH OF THE TARASCOS OF MECHOACAN--THAT OF THE RICHES OF
GUATEMALA--THE VOTAN MYTH OF THE TZENDALS OF CHIAPAS--A FRAGMENT OF A MIXE
MYTH--THE HERO-GOD OF THE MUYSCAS OF NEW GRANADA--OF THE TUPI-GUARANAY
STEM OF PARAGUAY AND BRAZIL--MYTHS OF THE DENE OF BRITISH AMERICA.

SUN WORSHIP IN AMERICA--GERMS OF PROGRESS IN AMERICAN RELIGIONS--RELATION
OF RELIGION AND MORALITY--THE LIGHT-GOD A MORAL AND BENEFICENT
CREATION--HIS WORSHIP WAS ELEVATING--MORAL CONDITION OF NATIVE SOCIETIES
BEFORE THE CONQUEST--PROGRESS IN THE DEFINITION OF THE IDEA OF GOD IN
PERU, MEXICO, AND YUCATAN--ERRONEOUS STATEMENTS ABOUT THE MORALS OF THE
NATIVES--EVOLUTION OF THEIR ETHICAL PRINCIPLES.

In the foregoing chapters I have passed in review the hero-myths of five
nations widely asunder in location, in culture and in language. I have
shown the strange similarity in their accounts of their mysterious early
benefactor and teacher, and their still more strange, because true,
presentiments of the arrival of pale-faced conquerors from the East.

I have selected these nations because their myths have been most fully
recorded, not that they alone possessed this striking legend. It is, I
repeat, the fundamental myth in the religious lore of American nations.
Not, indeed, that it can be discovered in all tribes, especially in the
amplitude of incident which it possesses among some. But there are
comparatively few of the native mythologies that do not betray some of its
elements, some fragments of it, and, often enough to justify us in the
supposition that had we the complete body of their sacred stories, we
should find this one in quite as defined a form as I have given it.

The student of American mythol