This new method goes still further. Some former mythologists had supposed that even in the savage state man feels a sense of awe before the mighty forces of nature and the terrible mysteries of life; that joy in light and existence, dread of death and darkness, love of family and country, are emotions so intimate, so native to the soul, as nowhere to be absent—so potent as to find expressions in the highest imaginative forms of thought and speech. Not so the latest teachers. They sneer at the possibility of such inspiration even in the divine legends of cultivated nations, and are ready to brand them all as but the later growths of “myths, cruel, puerile and obscene, like the fancies of the savage myth-makers from which they sprang.”[125] Like other fashions, this latest will also pass away, because it is a fashion only, and not grounded on the permanent, the verifiable facts of human nature. Etymology is as yet far from an exact science, and comparative mythologists in applying it have made many blunders: they have often erred in asserting historical connections where none existed; they have been slow in recognizing that primitive man works with very limited materials, both physical and mental, and as everywhere he has the same problems to solve, his physical and mental productions are necessarily very similar. These are objections, not against the method, but against the manner of its application. Those who have studied savage races most intimately and with most unbiased minds have never found their religious fancies merely “puerile and obscene,” as some writers suppose, but significant and didactic. Savage symbolism is rich and is expressed both in object and word; and what appears cruelty, puerility or obscenity assumes a very different aspect when regarded from the correct, the native, point of view, with a full knowledge of the surroundings and the intentions of the myth-makers themselves. In the sections which follow I have endeavored to illustrate these opinions by some studies from American mythology. I have chosen a series of unpromising names from the sacred books of the Quiches of Guatemala, and endeavored to ascertain their exact definition and original purport. I have taken up the most unfavorable aspect of the Algonkin hero-god, and shown how parallel it is to the tendencies of the human mind everywhere; in the Journey of the Soul, the striking analogies of Egyptian, Aryan and Aztec myth have been brought together and an explanation offered, which I believe will not be gainsaid by any competent student of Egyptian symbolism. The Sacred Symbols found in all continents are explained by a similar train of reasoning; while the modern folk-lore of two tribes of semi-Christianized Indians of to-day reveals some relics of the ancient usages. THE SACRED NAMES IN QUICHE MYTHOLOGY.[126]