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There are various sorts of beings that appear sometimes in animal form, sometimes in human form, their function being the arranging of the affairs of the world, the origination of institutions, and sometimes a definite creation of various things. The title "founders" or "transformers" or "culture-heroes" has been given them.
These legends are far too numerous, they are too similar to each other, they are too manifestly symbolical, to admit of any such interpretation. By comparing them carefully with each other, and with correlative myths of the Old World, their true character soon becomes apparent. One of the most widely famous of these culture-heroes was Manabozho or Michabo, the Great Hare.
Among the North American Indians the mythological systems of the Algonkins, the Pawnees, and other tribes, include the origin of all forms of natural objects and all institutions of society. The histories of the Great Hare of the Lenâpé, the Thunder Bird of the West, and the various transformers or culture-heroes, are scarcely less elaborate than the New Zealand stories.
The myths are still prevailingly cosmologic and sociologic, but the beginning of biographical sketches of supernatural Powers is visible. The Melanesian Qat and the Polynesian Maui are on the border line between culture-heroes and gods, but they are real persons, and their adventures, while they describe origins, are also descriptions of character.
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