The significance of such studies as these of a little tribe like the Zuñis, and especially of such fuller studies as will, it is hoped, follow in due course, is not restricted to their bearing on the tribe itself. They bear on the history of man the world over. I have become convinced that they thus bear on human history, especially on that of human culture growth, very directly, too, for the Zuñis, say, with all their strange, apparently local customs and institutions and the lore thereof, are representative in a more than merely general way of a phase of culture through which all desert peoples, in the Old World as well as in the New, must sometime have passed. Thus my researches among these Zuñis and my experimental researches upon myself, with my own hands, under strictly primitive conditions, have together given me insight and power to interpret their myths and old arts, as I could never otherwise have hoped to do; and it has also enlarged my understanding of the earliest conditions of man everywhere as nothing else could have done. The leisure for this long continued research has been due to the generosity, scientific disinterestedness, and personal kindness of my former chief, Professor Spencer F. Baird, and of my present revered director, Major J. W. Powell, whose patience and helpfulness through years of struggle, ill-health, and delay could not adequately be repaid by even the complete carrying out of the series of works herein projected and prefaced. To them and to Professor W. J. McGee, who has aided and fostered this work in every possible way, I owe continual gratitude. MYTHS[8] [8] As stated more fully in the introductory paragraphs, notes giving the etymologies of native terms and explaining and amplifying obscure or brief allusions and presenting the special sense in which certain expressions and passages are used will be given in the second part of this paper, to appear in the future. THE GENESIS OF THE WORLDS, OR THE BEGINNING OF NEWNESS. Before the beginning of the new-making, Áwonawílona (the Maker and Container of All, the All-father Father), solely had being. There was nothing else whatsoever throughout the great space of the ages save everywhere black darkness in it, and everywhere void desolation. In the beginning of the new-made, Áwonawílona conceived within himself and thought outward in space, whereby mists of increase, steams potent of growth, were evolved and uplifted. Thus, by means of his innate knowledge, the All-container made himself in person and form of the Sun whom we hold to be our father and who thus came to exist and appear. With his appearance came the brightening of the spaces with light, and with the brightening of the spaces the great mist-clouds were thickened together and fell, whereby was evolved water in water; yea, and the world-holding sea.