THE EXTENSION AND INFLUENCE OP 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 Kiches 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. INDEX. AMERICAN HERO-MYTHS. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. SOME KIND OF RELIGION FOUND AMONG ALL MEN--CLASSIFICATIONS OF RELIGIONS--THE PURPOSE OF RELIGIONS--RELIGIONS OF RITE AND OF CREED--THE MYTH GROWS IN THE FIRST OF THESE--INTENT AND MEANING OF THE MYTH. PROCESSES OF MYTH-BUILDING IN AMERICA--PERSONIFICATION. PARONYMS AND HOMONYMS--OTOSIS--POLYONOMY--HENOTHEISM--BORROWING--RHETORICAL FIGURES--ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONS. ESOTERIC TEACHINGS. OUTLINES OF THE FUNDAMENTAL AMERICAN MYTH--THE WHITE CULTURE-HERO AND THE FOUR BROTHERS--INTERPRETATION OF THE MYTH--COMPARISON WITH THE ARYAN HERMES MYTH--WITH THE ARYO-SEMITIC CADMUS MYTH--WITH OSIRIAN MYTHS--THE MYTH OF THE VIRGIN MOTHER--THE INTERPRETATION THUS SUPPORTED. The time was, and that not so very long ago, when it was contended by some that there are tribes of men without any sort of religion; nowadays the effort is to show that the feeling which prompts to it is common, even among brutes. This change of opinion has come about partly through an extension of the definition of religion. It is now held to mean any kind of belief in spiritual or extra-natural agencies. Some learned men say that we had better drop the word "religion," lest we be misunderstood. They would rather use "daimonism," or "supernaturalism," or other such new term; but none of these seems to me so wide and so exactly significant of what I mean as "religion." All now agree that in this very broad sense some kind of religion exists in every human community.[1] [Footnote 1: I suppose I am not going too far in saying "all agree;" for I think that the latest study of this subject, by Gustav Roskoff, disposes of Sir John Lubbock's doubts, as well as the crude statements of the author of _Kraft und Stoff_, and such like compilations. Gustav Roskoff, _Das Religionswesen der Rohesten Naturvölker_, Leipzig, 1880.]