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NTRODUCTION Among the things told by Indians to white men aremany stories. Some are stories about Indian customsand how they started. Some are stories about gods andheroes. Some are stories of war, of hunting, or of otherreal adventure. Some are just made-up stories thatwere told because Indians, like ourselves, were fondof stories. Many of the stories are very old. Some ofthem must have been handed down from Indian par-ents to Indian children for hundreds, and perhapsthousands of years. They are still being told by Tn-dians to Indians. The stories that follow in this book are about ani-mals. They are given here just as Indians told them towhite men. Some of them are in almost the very words_ used by Indians, for they came from Indians whocould speak English. The others were turned by white men into English as much like the Indian way of speaking as possible.
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