This is a scholarly compilation and comparison of 101 creation myths from South America. It is probably the most complete collection of the data on this aspect of South American creation stories currently available, although, it should be noted that the author has chosen to omit the Andean high cultures from his survey, and most of the available data are brief paraphrases rather than actual myth texts.
The study is introduced by a brief discussion of the definition of myth, drawn principally from Bidney, Cassirer, and Langer, but this comes to no conclusions and is not importantly related to the presentation of the materials. Some of the generalizations in the body of the text are dubious or discredited: “The mind of primitive man is not only nebulous and confused but also very limited in its capacity for abstraction and generalization” (p. 28). “One of the characteristics of mythology is the geographic determinism to which it is subject” (p. 46). The assumption of completeness of the data leads to treatment of high gods, tricksters, and culture heroes as parallel Creators, which seems doubtful.
On balance, this is a useful work, carefully and conscientiously done, but it is not a definitive study, nor does it importantly supersede Alfred Métraux’ treatment of the subject in The Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology and Legend (New York, Funk and Wagnalls, 1950).
