Certainly the sincere expressions on these subjects of even humble members of the human race deserve our most respectful heed, and it may be that we shall discover in their crude or coarse narrations gleams of a mental light which their proud Aryan brothers have been long in coming to, or have not yet reached.
The prejudice against all the lower faiths inspired by the claim of Christianity to a monopoly of religious truth--a claim nowise set up by its founder--has led to extreme injustice toward the so-called heathen religions.

Little effort has been made to distinguish between their good and evil tendencies, or even to understand them.

I do not know of a single instance on this continent of a thorough and intelligent study of a native religion made by a Protestant missionary.
So little real work has been done in American mythology that very diverse opinions as to its interpretation prevail among writers.

Too many of them apply to it facile generalizations, such as "heliolatry," "animism," "ancestral worship," "primitive philosophizing," and think that such a sesame will unloose all its mysteries.

The result has been that while each satisfies himself, he convinces no one else.
I have tried to avoid any such bias, and have sought to discover the source of the myths I have selected, by close attention to two points: first, that I should obtain the precise original form of the myth by a rigid scrutiny of authorities; and, secondly, that I should bring to bear upon it modern methods of mythological and linguistic analysis.
The first of these requirements has given me no small trouble.