through the succession of ever-developing forms of animal and plant life
at last culminating in man and the world as we now see them, so does the
anthropologist discover in the myths and legends of a people the dim
traces of their origin and development till these come out in the
stronger light of historical time. And it is at this point that the
ethnologist, trying to understand a race as he finds them today, must
look earnestly back into the "realm of beginnings," through this window
of so-called legendary lore, in order to account for much that he finds
in the culture of the present day.


=The Challenge: Need of Research on Basic Beliefs Underlying Ceremonies=

Wissler says:[2] "It is still an open question in primitive social
psychology whether we are justified in assuming that beliefs of a basic
character do motivate ceremonies. It seems to us that such must be the
case, because we recognize a close similarity in numerous practices and
because we are accustomed to believe in the unity of the world and life.
So it may still be our safest procedure to secure better records of
tribal traditional beliefs and to deal with objective procedures as far
as possible. No one has ventured to correlate specific beliefs and
ceremonial procedures, but it is through this approach that the
motivating power of beliefs will be revealed, if such potency exists."

[Footnote 2: Wissler, Clark, An Introduction to Social Anthropology:
Henry Holt & Co., New York, 1926, p. 266.]

Some work has been done along this line by Kroeber for the tribes of
California, Lowie for the Crow Indians, and Junod for the Ekoi of West
Africa; but it appears that the anthropological problem of basic beliefs