One of our most eminent students[1] has justly said: "Every Indian synthesis--names of persons and places not excepted--must preserve the consciousness of its roots, and must not only have a meaning, but be so framed as to convey that meaning with precision, to all who speak the language to which it belongs." Hence, the names of their divinities can nearly always be interpreted, though for the reasons above given the most obvious and current interpretation is not in every case the correct one.
[Footnote 1: J.Hammond Trumbull, _On the Composition of Indian Geographical Names_, p.

3 (Hartford, 1870).] As foreign names were not adopted, so the mythology of one tribe very rarely influenced that of another.

As a rule, all the religions were tribal or national, and their votaries had no desire to extend them.

There was little of the proselytizing spirit among the red race.

Some exceptions can be pointed out to this statement, in the Aztec and Peruvian monarchies.