The replies received, though occasionally singularly clear and correct, are usually of that profoundly…
- Date of account
- Revised nineteenth-century edition
- Source
- The Myths of the New World A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America
- Reference
- The Myths of the New World A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America · selected passage 44
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English comparative scholarship drawing on Indigenous American sources
- Translation
- Daniel G. Brinton
- Record updated
- 2026-08-24
Record summary
The replies received, though occasionally singularly clear and correct, are usually of that profoundly ambiguous purport which leaves the anxious inquirer little wiser than he was before
Published source text
Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.
Source passage
Source text · mention onlyThe replies received, though occasionally singularly clear and correct, are usually of that profoundly ambiguous purport which leaves the anxious inquirer little wiser than he was before. For all this, ventriloquism, trickery, and shrewd knavery are sufficient explanations. Nor does it materially interfere with this view, that converted Indians, on whose veracity we can implicitly rely, have repeatedly averred that in performing this rite they themselves did not move the medicine lodge; for nothing is easier than in the state of nervous excitement they were then in to be self-deceived, as the now familiar phenomenon of table-turning illustrates.
Historical context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyThis material belongs to a folklore tradition. Story type, collector, community, transmission and literary editing matter when comparing it with other sources.
Modern context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyLattice compares motifs and reported features without assuming that a traditional being is a biological species or that similar stories document one external cause.
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