Are we obliged to explain these similarities to the Mexican tradition by supposing some ancient intercourse between these peoples, the arrival, for instance, and settlement on the highlands around Lake Titicaca, of some "Toltec" colony, as has been maintained by such able writers on Peruvian antiquities as Leonce Angrand and J.J. von Tschudi?[1] I think not. The great events of nature, day and night, storm and sunshine, are everywhere the same, and the impressions they produced on the minds of this race were the same, whether the scene was in the forests of the north temperate zone, amid the palms of the tropics, or on the lofty and barren plateaux of the Andes. These impressions found utterance in similar myths, and were represented in art under similar forms. It is, therefore, to the oneness of cause and of racial psychology, not to ancient migrations, that we must look to explain the identities of myth and representation that we find between such widely sundered nations. [Footnote 1: L. Angrand, _Lettre sur les Antiquités de Tiaguanaco et l'Origine présumable 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 Hauptzüge seiner Religion durch das westliche Südamerica, 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 DÈNÈ 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.