Then the Ácomas urged their governor to prepare for war, but he refused to do so; and the villagers, remembering the spirit in which the Zuñi Indians had left them, hastily removed their possessions to the top of the high mesa, and built the present village of Ácoma, leaving the governor alone on the mesa below. Shortly thereafter the Zuñis came in their war paint and, finding only the governor in a deserted village, they slew him and returned home again. Six days later the governor’s daughter went back to Ácoma and perhaps lived happily ever after. Because a governor mistreated his daughter and she avenged herself is the reason that Ácoma occupies its present inaccessible position. Chapter XIV KERESAN MYTHS Curiosity and credulity are the characteristics of the savage intellect. When a phenomenon presents itself, the savage requires an explanation and that explanation he makes for himself or receives from tradition in the shape of a myth.—ANDREW LANG. Although it is possible to regard the current beliefs of the Indian concerning his origin, his migrations, and his religion, as largely mythical, all such events are of a grandiose and serious character. Besides these major beliefs, there exists a vast number of lesser myths and superstitions, as well as familiar folk-tales, which are not to be overlooked, since they have almost as much power over the primitive mind as the more essential matters in his history and his faith. Careful inquiry has proved that a myth is rarely or never confined to a single tribe, and that certain myths can be traced from the Atlantic to the Pacific. It is common knowledge also that as a myth travels its poetic factor tends to predominate. We should expect to find, as we do, that myth forms are most nearly alike in contiguous tribes, and most unlike in those separated by great distances. Hence the myths of Ácoma are part of the general lore of the Southwest. One group of scholars considers that myths should be restricted to such tales as have an explanatory tendency (which is easily overestimated), and would differentiate between mythical tales on the one hand, and mythical ideas or concepts on the other, for they say we can gain much information about the first of these but very little about the second. Of “explanatory myths,” moreover, there are two forms,—inclusive and particularistic. The first is well exemplified by a culture-hero who “taught the people all the arts,” and the second by a culture-hero who taught the people merely one art, hitherto unknown, such as basket making. Another illustration is the myth of the Thunder Bird, so widely believed in that it is used by some authorities as a typical mythical concept. The conventionalized figure is found in many silver ornaments, upon the pottery, and upon scores of baskets. At Ácoma the best of her potters make a fine design of it upon plaques and vessels of various sorts.