But this theory of the original similarity of the savage mind
everywhere and in all races will scarcely account for the world-
wide distribution of long and intricate mythical PLOTS, of
consecutive series of adroitly interwoven situations. In presence
of these long romances, found among so many widely severed peoples,
conjecture is, at present, almost idle. We do not know, in many
instances, whether such stories were independently developed, or
carried from a common centre, or borrowed by one race from another,
and so handed on round the world.

This chapter may conclude with an example of a tale whose DIFFUSION
may be explained in divers ways, though its ORIGIN seems
undoubtedly savage. If we turn to the Algonkins, a stock of Red
Indians, we come on a popular tradition which really does give
pause to the mythologist. Could this story, he asks himself, have
been separately invented in widely different places, or could the
Iroquois have borrowed from the Australian blacks or the Andaman
Islanders? It is a common thing in most mythologies to find
everything of value to man--fire, sun, water--in the keeping of
some hostile power. The fire, or the sun, or the water is then
stolen, or in other ways rescued from the enemy and restored to
humanity. The Huron story (as far as water is concerned) is told
by Father Paul Le Jeune, a Jesuit missionary, who lived among the
Hurons about 1636. The myth begins with the usual opposition
between two brothers, the Cain and Abel of savage legend. One of
the brothers, named Ioskeha, slew the other, and became the father
of mankind (as known to the Red Indians) and the guardian of the
Iroquois. The earth was at first arid and sterile, but Ioskeha
destroyed the gigantic frog which had swallowed all the waters, and