Tales of the North American Indians

DURING the past century the untiring labors of a score or two of field workers have gathered from the North American Indians by far the most extensive body of tales representative of any primitive people. These tales are available in government reports, folk-lore journals, and publications of learned societies. Unfortunately, the libraries in which more than a small portion of them can be examined are few, and even in the largest libraries the very wealth of material serves but to confuse the general reader who seeks without undue expenditure of time to acquaint himself with American Indian tales. To meet the obvious need presented by this situation, this collection has been prepared. The editor has sought to make available in the compass of a single volume typical examples of such of these tales as have gained any general currency. Some tales are common to the tribes of a single culture area, some to the whole East or the whole West, and some are known over practically the whole continent. Indeed, few tales worth telling are confined to a single tribe. The assiduous reader soon learns to recognize many recurrent patterns or types, which transcend geographical and linguistic boundaries, and which form the basis of most of the tales in the various collections. In recognition of the persistence of these types, the editor has endeavored to secure representative versions of each of the better-known tales then, by means of comparative notes, to show the extent of the distribution of each tale and each motif; and, finally, to present the material in such wise as to be obvious to the general reader.