Mysteries Of Native American Myth And Religion

Folklorist Gary R. Varner takes a lengthy look at various myths, legends and beliefs of Native Americans in this book. Included are stories and archaeological finds from various lands that suggest cultural contacts between explorers from China, Japan, the Mediterranean and Europe with Native Americans in pre-Columbian times. Native American folklore and myths are examined including the universal legends of the flood and stories of the mysterious god-men such as Quetzalcoatl, Votan and Chinigchinix, who brought the arts, technology and civilization to indigenous cultures. Mysteries of Native American Myth and Religion is a fact-filled, yet fascinating story of the original inhabitants of North and South America. Varner has written several books on folklore and mythology and is a member of the American Folklore Society and the Foundation for Mythological Studies.

Publisher description

Recounts more than seventy Native American myths from a variety of cultures, covering gods, creation, and heroes and heroines, and discusses each myth within its own context, its relationship to other myths, and its place within world mythology.

American Indian Myths and Mysteries is an authoritative and scrupulously researched account of mythology of the native American. Although much of this ancient heritage has been lost, a great deal has been saved and there are men and women alive today who remember th lore of their ancestors.

The primary object of this volume is to furnish the reader with a general view of the mythologies of the Red Man of North America, accompanied by such historical and ethnological information as will assist him in gauging the real conditions under which this most interesting section of humanity existed. The basic difference between the Indian and European mental outlook is insisted upon, because it is felt that no proper comprehension of American Indian myth or conditions of life can be attained when such a distinction is not recognized and allowed for. The difference between the view-point, mundane and spiritual, of the Red Man and that of the European is as vast as that which separates the conceptions and philosophies of the East and West. Nevertheless we shall find in the North American mythologies much that enters into the composition of the immortal tales of the older religions of the Eastern Hemisphere. All myth, Asiatic, European, or American, springs from similar natural conceptions, and if we discover in American mythology peculiarities which we do not observe in the systems of Greece, Rome, or Egypt, we may be certain that these arise from circumstances of environment and racial habit as modified by climate and kindred conditions alone. From the contents: Chapter I: Divisions, Customs, And History Of The Race The First Indians In Europe Indians As Jews Welsh Speaking Indians Antiquity Of Man In America The Great Miocene Bridge American Man In Glacial Times The Calaveras Skull More Recent Finds Later Man In America Affinities With Siberian Peoples Chapter II: Myths Of The American Indians The Evidence Of American Languages Evidences Of Asiatic Intercourse Later Migrations The Norsemen In America Leif The Lucky The Land Of Wine The Skraelingr The Dighton Rock The Mound Buildcrs Mounds In Animal Form What The Mounds Contain The Tomb Of The Black Tortoise Who Were The Mound-Builders? The ' Nations' Of North America The Iroquois The Algonquins A Sedentary People The Muskhogean Race The Sioux Caddoan Family The Shoshoneans Early Wars With The Whites King Philip's War The Reservations The Story Of Pocahontas Indian Kidnapping Dwellings Tribal Law And Custom Hunting Costume Face Painting Indian Art Warfare The Indian Wife And Mother Indian Child Life An Indian Girl's Vigil Picture Writing Modern Education And Culture Chapter III: The Mythologies Of The North American Indians Animism Totemism Totemic Law And Custom Severity Of Totemic Rule Fetishism Fetish Objects Apache Fetishes Iroquoian Fetishes Fetishism Among The Algonquins Totemism And Fetishism Meet The Sun-Children The Prey Gods The Council Of Fetishes The Fetish In Hunting Indian Theology ... and much more ...

Presents a collection of Native American mythology from various tribes including their different perspectives on how the earth was started and how it will end.

The primary object of this book is to furnish the reader with a general view of the mythologies of the Native people of North America, accompanied by such historical and ethnological information as will assist him in gauging the real conditions under which this most interesting section of humanity existed. Contents: Divisions, Customs, and History of the Race The Mythologies of the North American Indians Algonquian Myths and Legends Iroquois Myths and Legends Sioux Myths and Legends Myths and Legends of the Pawnees Myths and Legends of the Northern and North-Western Indians