CHAPTER VI.
THE EXTENSION AND INFLUENCE OF 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 RICHES 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 DENE 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.
In the foregoing chapters I have passed in review the hero-myths of five nations widely asunder in location, in culture and in language.

I have shown the strange similarity in their accounts of their mysterious early benefactor and teacher, and their still more strange, because true, presentiments of the arrival of pale-faced conquerors from the East.
I have selected these nations because their myths have been most fully recorded, not that they alone possessed this striking legend.

It is, I repeat, the fundamental myth in the religious lore of American nations.
Not, indeed, that it can be discovered in all tribes, especially in the amplitude of incident which it possesses among some.

But there are comparatively few of the native mythologies that do not betray some of its elements, some fragments of it, and, often enough to justify us in the supposition that had we the complete body of their sacred stories, we should find this one in quite as defined a form as I have given it.
The student of American mythology, unfortunately, labors under peculiar disadvantages.

When he seeks for his material, he finds an extraordinary dearth of it.