me
_Cannook_, with whom he had various contests, and by whose machinations he
was turned black. Yel is further represented as the god of the winds and
storms, and of the thunder and lightning.[1]

[Footnote 1: For the extent and particulars of this myth, many of the
details of which I omit, see Petitot, _ubi supra_, pp. 68, 87, note;
Matthew Macfie. _Travels in Vancouver Island and British Columbia_, pp.
452-455 (London, 1865); and J.K. Lord, _The Naturalist in Vancouver Island
and British Columbia_ (London, 1866). It is referred to by Mackenzie and
other early writers.]

Thus we find, even in this extremely low specimen of the native race, the
same basis for their mythology as in the most cultivated nations of
Central America. Not only this; it is the same basis upon which is built
the major part of the sacred stories of all early religions, in both
continents; and the excellent Father Petitot, who is so much impressed by
these resemblances that he founds upon them a learned argument to prove
that the Dene are of oriental extraction,[1] would have written more to
the purpose had his acquaintance with American religions been as extensive
as it was with those of Asiatic origin.

[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 conf