We have taken some pains to call together a few of the most famed and sensible story-tellers and listened with much patience to a great many of their allegories, but find nothing in any of them bearing on their ideas of a future state.[55] The circumstances and actors portrayed do not reveal the actual notions of the tribe on their religion as it now exists but are founded on their ancient mythology and handed down complete in their details through successive generations, and their real significance, if they ever had any further than amusement, is now lost or absorbed in their manner of worship as referred to in these pages. [55] This inference on the part of Denig indicates that he was not cognizant of the facts, poetically expressed, conveyed by native Indian myths, and so he reached the false conclusion that all myths are no more nor less than simple fictions, when, in fact, except in their verbal dress, they are true. He failed to interpret rightly the metaphorical diction. Nevertheless, we can discern in them a probability of their being the real belief of their ancestors in their primitive ignorance, before their superstitions and religions had assumed a systematic form and tangible shape. This much may be inferred by the tacit acknowledgment of their truth apparent in the auditors and the unwillingness evinced by all to hear them ridiculed or contradicted. We think the truth of the matter is these tales were believed and formed a portion if not the greater part of the religion of their ancestors, are reverenced for their antiquity and originality, together with a lingering uncertainty as to their having actually transpired in times long passed. This may be deduced from the evident veneration with which some of them are regarded, and from the fact that there are no new fables made at the present day, nor any one who possesses or professes the character of a myth maker. These stories are not added to or diminished, for if in the telling the least circumstance be omitted the narrator is reminded of the error and corrects it. In none of them is the creation of animals or other objects, animate or inanimate, reasonably attempted, though such things are alluded to in many absurd forms and grotesque imaginings according with the general tenor of the tale. These, though often trifling in their details, present a connected chain of events and often contain a kind of moral, that is, a double meaning as observed in the one relating to the formation of the Ursa Major and Polar Star, before inserted. None of these serve to demonstrate to the young the power and ubiquity of Wakoñda.[56] This awful principle is too much feared to be lightly introduced in common conversation or connected with amusing tales, though inferior demons and minor supernatural powers with a great variety of figures of the imagination, such as monsters, ghosts, giants, beasts with reasoning powers, transformation, and works of necromancy, are represented.