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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/19347-0.txt b/19347-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6f8ec78 --- /dev/null +++ b/19347-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10192 @@ +Project Gutenberg's The Myths of the New World, by Daniel G. Brinton + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Myths of the New World + A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America + +Author: Daniel G. Brinton + +Release Date: September 22, 2006 [EBook #19347] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MYTHS OF THE NEW WORLD *** + + + + +Produced by Robert Cicconetti, Julia Miller and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by the Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions +(www.canadiana.org)) + + + + + +Transcriber's Note + +A number of typographical errors and inconsistencies have been +maintained in this version of this book. They have been marked with a +[TN-#], which refers to a description in the complete list found at the +end of the text. + +The following less-common letters are used in this version of the book. +If the characters do not display correctly, please try changing the font. + + ă a with breve + ā a with macron + ē e with macron + œ oe ligature + ū u with macron + + + + + THE MYTHS + OF + THE NEW WORLD + + + A TREATISE ON THE + SYMBOLISM AND MYTHOLOGY + OF THE + RED RACE OF AMERICA + + + BY + + DANIEL G. BRINTON, A. M., M. D. + _Memb. Hist. Soc. of Penn.; of Numismat. and + Antiq. Soc. of Philada.; Corresp. Memb. + Amer. Ethnolog. Soc.; author of + "Notes on the Floridian + Peninsula," Etc._ + + + NEW YORK + LEYPOLDT & HOLT + LONDON: TRÜBNER & CO. + 1868 + + + + + Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1868, by + DANIEL G. BRINTON, + + In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the + Eastern District of Pennsylvania. + + + + +PREFACE. + + +I have written this work more for the thoughtful general reader than the +antiquary. It is a study of an obscure portion of the intellectual +history of our species as exemplified in one of its varieties. + +What are man's earliest ideas of a soul and a God, and of his own origin +and destiny? Why do we find certain myths, such as of a creation, a +flood, an after-world; certain symbols, as the bird, the serpent, the +cross; certain numbers, as the three, the four, the seven--intimately +associated with these ideas by every race? What are the laws of growth +of natural religions? How do they acquire such an influence, and is this +influence for good or evil? Such are some of the universally interesting +questions which I attempt to solve by an analysis of the simple faiths +of a savage race. + +If in so doing I succeed in investing with a more general interest the +fruitful theme of American ethnology, my objects will have been +accomplished. + + PHILADELPHIA, + April, 1868. + + + + +CONTENTS. + + +CHAPTER I. + +GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS OF THE RED RACE. + PAGE +Natural religions the unaided attempts of man to find out God, +modified by peculiarities of race and nation.--The peculiarities of +the red race: 1. Its languages unfriendly to abstract ideas. Native +modes of writing by means of pictures, symbols, objects, and phonetic +signs. These various methods compared in their influence on the +intellectual faculties. 2. Its isolation, unique in the history of the +world. 3. Beyond all others, a hunting race.--Principal linguistic +subdivisions: 1. The Eskimos. 2. The Athapascas. 3. The Algonkins and +Iroquois. 4. The Apalachian tribes. 5. The Dakotas. 6. The Aztecs. 7. +The Mayas. 8. The Muyscas. 9. The Quichuas. 10. The Caribs and Tupis. +11. The Araucanians.--General course of migrations.--Age of man in +America.--Unity of type in the red race 1 + + +CHAPTER II. + +THE IDEA OF GOD. + +An intuition common to the species.--Words expressing it in American +languages derived either from ideas of above in space, or of life +manifested by breath.--Examples.--No conscious monotheism, and but +little idea of immateriality discoverable.--Still less any moral +dualism of deities, the Great Good Spirit and the Great Bad Spirit +being alike terms and notions of foreign importation 43 + + +CHAPTER III. + +THE SACRED NUMBER, ITS ORIGIN AND APPLICATIONS. + +The number Four sacred in all American religions, and the key to their +symbolism.--Derived from the CARDINAL POINTS.--Appears constantly in +government, arts, rites, and myths.--The Cardinal Points identified +with the Four Winds, who in myths are the four ancestors of the human +race, and the four celestial rivers watering the terrestrial +Paradise.--Associations grouped around each Cardinal Point.--From the +number four was derived the symbolic value of the number _Forty_ and +the _Sign of the Cross_ 66 + + +CHAPTER IV. + +THE SYMBOLS OF THE BIRD AND THE SERPENT. + +Relations of man to the lower animals.--Two of these, the BIRD and the +SERPENT, chosen as symbols beyond all others.--The Bird throughout +America the symbol of the Clouds and Winds.--Meaning of certain +species.--The symbolic meaning of the Serpent derived from its mode of +locomotion, its poisonous bite, and its power of charming.--Usually +the symbol of the lightning and the Waters.--The Rattlesnake the +symbolic species in America.--The war charm.--The Cross of +Palenque.--The god of riches.--Both symbols devoid of moral +significance 99 + + +CHAPTER V. + +THE MYTHS OF WATER, FIRE, AND THE THUNDER-STORM. + +Water the oldest element.--Its use in purification.--Holy water.--The +Rite of Baptism.--The Water of Life.--Its symbols.--The Vase.--The +Moon.--The latter the goddess of love and agriculture, but also of +sickness, night, and pain.--Often represented by a dog.--Fire worship +under the form of Sun worship.--The perpetual fire.--The new +fire.--Burning the dead.--A worship of the passions, but no sexual +dualism in myths, nor any phallic worship in America.--Synthesis of +the worship of Fire, Water, and the Winds in the THUNDER-STORM, +personified as Haokah, Tupa, Catequil, Contici, Heno, Tlaloc, +Mixcoatl, and other deities, many of them triune 122 + + +CHAPTER VI. + +THE SUPREME GODS OF THE RED RACE. + +Analysis of American culture myths.--The Manibozho or Michabo of +the Algonkins shown to be an impersonation of LIGHT, a hero of the +Dawn, and their highest deity.--The myths of Ioskeha of the +Iroquois, Viracocha of the Peruvians, and Quetzalcoatl of the +Toltecs essentially the same as that of Michabo.--Other +examples.--Ante-Columbian prophecies of the advent of a white race +from the east as conquerors.--Rise of later culture myths under +similar forms 159 + + +CHAPTER VII. + +THE MYTHS OF THE CREATION, THE DELUGE, THE EPOCHS OF NATURE, AND THE +LAST DAY. + +Cosmogonies usually portray the action of the SPIRIT on the +WATERS.--Those of the Muscogees, Athapascas, Quichés, Mixtecs, +Iroquois, Algonkins, and others.--The Flood-Myth an unconscious +attempt to reconcile a creation in time with the eternity of +matter.--Proof of this from American mythology.--Characteristics of +American Flood-Myths.--The person saved usually the first man.--The +number seven.--Their Ararats.--The rôle of birds.--The confusion of +tongues.--The Aztec, Quiché, Algonkin, Tupi, and earliest Sanscrit +flood-myths.--The belief in Epochs of Nature a further result of this +attempt at reconciliation.--Its forms among Peruvians, Mayas, and +Aztecs.--The expectation of the End of the World a corollary of this +belief.--Views of various nations 193 + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +THE ORIGIN OF MAN. + +Usually man is the EARTH-BORN, both in language and +myths.--Illustrations from the legends of the Caribs, Apalachians, +Iroquois, Quichuas, Aztecs, and others.--The under-world.--Man the +product of one of the primal creative powers, the Spirit, or the +Water, in the myths of the Athapascas, Eskimos, Moxos, and +others--Never literally derived from an inferior species 222 + + +CHAPTER IX. + +THE SOUL AND ITS DESTINY. + +Universality of the belief in a soul and a future state shown by the +aboriginal tongues, by expressed opinions, and by sepulchral rites. +The future world never a place of rewards and punishments.--The house +of the Son the heaven of the red man.--The terrestrial paradise and +the under-world.--Çupay.--Xibalba.--Mictlan.--Metempsychosis?--Belief +in a resurrection of the dead almost universal 233 + + +CHAPTER X. + +THE NATIVE PRIESTHOOD. + +Their titles.--Practitioners of the healing art by supernatural +means.--Their power derived from natural magic and the exercise of the +clairvoyant and mesmeric faculties.--Examples.--Epidemic +hysteria.--Their social position.--Their duties as religious +functionaries.--Terms of admission to the Priesthood.--Inner +organization in various nations.--Their esoteric language and secret +societies 263 + + +CHAPTER XI. + +THE INFLUENCE OF THE NATIVE RELIGIONS ON THE MORAL +AND SOCIAL LIFE OF THE RACE. + +Natural religions hitherto considered of Evil rather than of +Good.--Distinctions to be drawn.--Morality not derived from +religion.--The positive side of natural religions in incarnations of +divinity.--Examples.--Prayers as indices of religious +progress.--Religion and social advancement.--Conclusion 287 + + + + +THE MYTHS OF THE NEW WORLD. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE RED RACE. + + Natural religions the unaided attempts of man to find out God, + modified by peculiarities of race and nation.--The peculiarities of + the red race: 1. Its languages unfriendly to abstract ideas. Native + modes of writing by means of pictures, symbols, objects, and + phonetic signs. These various methods compared in their influence + on the intellectual faculties. 2. Its isolation, unique in the + history of the world. 3. Beyond all others, a hunting + race.--Principal linguistic subdivisions: 1. The Eskimos. 2. The + Athapascas. 3. The Algonkins and Iroquois. 4. The Apalachian + tribes. 5. The Dakotas. 6. The Aztecs. 7. The Mayas. 8. The + Muyscas. 9. The Quichuas. 10. The Caribs and Tupis. 11. The + Araucanians.--General course of migrations.--Age of man in + America.--Unity of type in the red race. + + +When Paul, at the request of the philosophers of Athens, explained to +them his views on divine things, he asserted, among other startling +novelties, that "God has made of one blood all nations of the earth, +that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him and +find him, though he is not far from every one of us." + +Here was an orator advocating the unity of the human species, affirming +that the chief end of man is to develop an innate idea of God, and that +all religions, except the one he preached, were examples of more or +less unsuccessful attempts to do so. No wonder the Athenians, who +acknowledged no kinship to barbarians, who looked dubiously at the +doctrine of innate ideas, and were divided in opinion as to whether +their mythology was a shrewd device of legislators to keep the populace +in subjection, a veiled natural philosophy, or the celestial reflex of +their own history, mocked at such a babbler and went their ways. The +generations of philosophers that followed them partook of their doubts +and approved their opinions, quite down to our own times. But now, after +weighing the question maturely, we are compelled to admit that the +Apostle was not so wide of the mark after all--that, in fact, the latest +and best authorities, with no bias in his favor, support his position +and may almost be said to paraphrase his words. For according to a +writer who ranks second to none in the science of ethnology, the +severest and most recent investigations show that "not only do +acknowledged facts permit the assumption of the unity of the human +species, but this opinion is attended with fewer discrepancies, and has +greater inner consistency than the opposite one of specific +diversity."[2-1] And as to the religions of heathendom, the view of +Saint Paul is but expressed with a more poetic turn by a distinguished +living author when he calls them "not fables, but truths, though clothed +in a garb woven by fancy, wherein the web is the notion of God, the +ideal of reason in the soul of man, the thought of the Infinite."[2-2] + +Inspiration and science unite therefore to bid us dismiss the effete +prejudice that natural religions either arise as the ancient +philosophies taught, or that they are, as the Dark Ages imagined, subtle +nets of the devil spread to catch human souls. They are rather the +unaided attempts of man to find out God; they are the efforts of the +reason struggling to define the infinite; they are the expressions of +that "yearning after the gods" which the earliest of poets discerned in +the hearts of all men. Studied in this sense they are rich in teachings. +Would we estimate the intellectual and æsthetic culture of a people, +would we generalize the laws of progress, would we appreciate the +sublimity of Christianity, and read the seals of its authenticity: the +natural conceptions of divinity reveal them. No mythologies are so +crude, therefore, none so barbarous, but deserve the attention of the +philosophic mind, for they are never the empty fictions of an idle +fancy, but rather the utterances, however inarticulate, of an immortal +and ubiquitous intuition. + +These considerations embolden me to approach with some confidence even +the aboriginal religions of America, so often stigmatized as incoherent +fetichisms, so barren, it has been said, in grand or beautiful +creations. The task bristles with difficulties. Carelessness, +prepossessions, and ignorance have disfigured them with false colors and +foreign additions without number. The first maxim, therefore, must be to +sift and scrutinize authorities, and to reject whatever betrays the +plastic hand of the European. For the religions developed by the red +race, not those mixed creeds learned from foreign invaders, are to be +the subjects of our study. Then will remain the formidable undertaking +of reducing the authentic materials thus obtained to system and order, +and this not by any preconceived theory of what they ought to conform +to, but learning from them the very laws of religious growth they +illustrate. The historian traces the birth of arts, science, and +government to man's dependence on nature and his fellows for the means +of self-preservation. Not that man receives these endowments from +without, but that the stern step-mother, Nature, forces him by threats +and stripes to develop his own inherent faculties. So with religion: The +idea of God does not, and cannot, proceed from the external world, but, +nevertheless, it finds its _historical_ origin also in the desperate +struggle for life, in the satisfaction of the animal wants and passions, +in those vulgar aims and motives which possessed the mind of the +primitive man to the exclusion of everything else. + +There is an ever present embarrassment in such inquiries. In dealing +with these matters beyond the cognizance of the senses, the mind is +forced to express its meaning in terms transferred from sensuous +perceptions, or under symbols borrowed from the material world. These +transfers must be understood, these symbols explained, before the real +meaning of a myth can be reached. He who fails to guess the riddle of +the sphynx, need not hope to gain admittance to the shrine. With +delicate ear the faint whispers of thought must be apprehended which +prompt the intellect when it names the immaterial from the material; +when it chooses from the infinity of visible forms those meet to shadow +forth Divinity. + +Two lights will guide us on this venturesome path. Mindful of the +watchword of inductive science, to proceed from the known to the +unknown, the inquiry will be put whether the aboriginal languages of +America employ the same tropes to express such ideas as deity, spirit, +and soul, as our own and kindred tongues. If the answer prove +affirmative, then not only have we gained a firm foothold whence to +survey the whole edifice of their mythology; but from an unexpected +quarter arises evidence of the unity of our species far weightier than +any mere anatomy can furnish, evidence from the living soul, not from +the dead body. True that the science of American linguistics is still in +its infancy, and that a proper handling of the materials it even now +offers involves a more critical acquaintance with its innumerable +dialects than I possess; but though the gleaning be sparse, it is enough +that I break the ground. Secondly, religious rites are living +commentaries on religious beliefs. At first they are rude +representations of the supposed doings of the gods. The Indian +rain-maker mounts to the roof of his hut, and rattling vigorously a dry +gourd containing pebbles, to represent the thunder, scatters water +through a reed on the ground beneath, as he imagines up above in the +clouds do the spirits of the storm. Every spring in ancient Delphi was +repeated in scenic ceremony the combat of Apollo and the Dragon, the +victory of the lord of bright summer over the demon of chilling winter. +Thus do forms and ceremonies reveal the meaning of mythology, and the +origin of its fables. + +Let it not be objected that this proposed method of analysis assumes +that religions begin and develop under the operation of inflexible laws. +The soul is shackled by no fatalism. Formative influences there are, +deep seated, far reaching, escaped by few, but like those which of yore +astrologers imputed to the stars, they potently incline, they do not +coerce. Language, pursuits, habits, geographical position, and those +subtle mental traits which make up the characteristics of races and +nations, all tend to deflect from a given standard the religious life of +the individual and the mass. It is essential to give these due weight, +and a necessary preface therefore to an analysis of the myths of the red +race is an enumeration of its peculiarities, and of its chief families +as they were located when first known to the historian. + +Of all such modifying circumstances none has greater importance than the +means of expressing and transmitting intellectual action. The spoken and +the written language of a nation reveal to us its prevailing, and to a +certain degree its unavoidable mode of thought. Here the red race offers +a striking phenomenon. There is no other trait that binds together its +scattered clans, and brands them as members of one great family, so +unmistakably as this of language. From the Frozen Ocean to the Land of +Fire, without a single exception, the native dialects, though varying +infinitely in words, are marked by a peculiarity in construction which +is found nowhere else on the globe,[6-1] and which is so foreign to the +genius of _our_ tongue that it is no easy matter to explain it. It is +called by philologists the _polysynthetic_ construction. What it is will +best appear by comparison. Every grammatical sentence conveys one +leading idea with its modifications and relations. Now a Chinese would +express these latter by unconnected syllables, the precise bearing of +which could only be guessed by their position; a Greek or a German would +use independent words, indicating their relations by terminations +meaningless in themselves; an Englishman gains the same end chiefly by +the use of particles and by position. Very different from all these is +the spirit of a polysynthetic language. It seeks to unite in the most +intimate manner all relations and modifications with the leading idea, +to merge one in the other by altering the forms of the words themselves +and welding them together, to express the whole in one word, and to +banish any conception except as it arises in relation to others. Thus in +many American tongues there is, in fact, no word for father, mother, +brother, but only for my, your, his father, etc. This has advantages and +defects. It offers marvellous facilities for defining the perceptions of +the senses with the utmost accuracy, but regarding everything in the +concrete, it is unfriendly to the nobler labors of the mind, to +abstraction and generalization. In the numberless changes of these +languages, their bewildering flexibility, their variable forms, and +their rapid deterioration, they seem to betray a lack of individuality, +and to resemble the vague and tumultuous history of the tribes who +employ them. They exhibit an almost incredible laxity. It is nothing +uncommon for the two sexes to use different names for the same object, +and for nobles and vulgar, priests and people, the old and the young, +nay, even the married and single, to observe what seem to the European +ear quite different modes of expression. Families and whole villages +suddenly drop words and manufacture others in their places out of mere +caprice or superstition, and a few years' separation suffices to produce +a marked dialectic difference. In their copious forms and facility of +reproduction they remind one of those anomalous animals, in whom, when a +limb is lopped, it rapidly grows again, or even if cut in pieces each +part will enter on a separate life quite unconcerned about his fellows. +But as the naturalist is far from regarding this superabundant vitality +as a characteristic of a higher type, so the philologist justly assigns +these tongues a low position in the linguistic scale. Fidelity to form, +here as everywhere, is the test of excellence. At the outset, we divine +there can be nothing very subtle in the mythologies of nations with such +languages. Much there must be that will be obscure, much that is vague, +an exhausting variety in repetition, and a strong tendency to lose the +idea in the symbol. + +What definiteness of outline might be preserved must depend on the care +with which the old stories of the gods were passed from one person and +one generation to another. The fundamental myths of a race have a +surprising tenacity of life. How many centuries had elapsed between the +period the Germanic hordes left their ancient homes in Central Asia, and +when Tacitus listened to their wild songs on the banks of the Rhine? Yet +we know that through those unnumbered ages of barbarism and aimless +roving, these songs, "their only sort of history or annals," says the +historian, had preserved intact the story of Mannus, the Sanscrit Manu, +and his three sons, and of the great god Tuisco, the Indian Dyu.[9-1] So +much the more do all means invented by the red race to record and +transmit thought merit our careful attention. Few and feeble they seem +to us, mainly shifts to aid the memory. Of some such, perhaps, not a +single tribe was destitute. The tattoo marks on the warrior's breast, +his string of gristly scalps, the bear's claws around his neck, were not +only trophies of his prowess, but records of his exploits, and to the +contemplative mind contain the rudiments of the beneficent art of +letters. Did he draw in rude outline on his skin tent figures of men +transfixed with arrows as many as he had slain enemies, his education +was rapidly advancing. He had mastered the elements of _picture +writing_, beyond which hardly the wisest of his race progressed. Figures +of the natural objects connected by symbols having fixed meanings make +up the whole of this art. The relative frequency of the latter marks its +advancement from a merely figurative to an ideographic notation. On what +principle of mental association a given sign was adopted to express a +certain idea, why, for instance, on the Chipeway scrolls a circle means +_spirits_, and a horned snake _life_, it is often hard to guess. The +difficulty grows when we find that to the initiated the same sign calls +up quite different ideas, as the subject of the writer varies from war +to love, or from the chase to religion. The connection is generally +beyond the power of divination, and the key to ideographic writing once +lost can never be recovered. + +The number of such arbitrary characters in the Chipeway notation is said +to be over two hundred, but if the distinction between a figure and a +symbol were rigidly applied, it would be much reduced. This kind of +writing, if it deserves the name, was common throughout the continent, +and many specimens of it, scratched on the plane surfaces of stones, +have been preserved to the present day. Such is the once celebrated +inscription on Dighton Rock, Massachusetts, long supposed to be a record +of the Northmen of Vinland; such those that mark the faces of the cliffs +which overhang the waters of the Orinoco, and those that in Oregon, +Peru, and La Plata have been the subject of much curious speculation. +They are alike the mute and meaningless epitaphs of vanished +generations. + +I would it could be said that in favorable contrast to our ignorance of +these inscriptions is our comprehension of the highly wrought +pictography of the Aztecs. No nation ever reduced it more to a system. +It was in constant use in the daily transactions of life. They +manufactured for writing purposes a thick, coarse paper from the leaves +of the agave plant by a process of maceration and pressure. An Aztec +book closely resembles one of our quarto volumes. It is made of a +single sheet, twelve to fifteen inches wide, and often sixty or seventy +feet long, and is not rolled, but folded either in squares or zigzags in +such a manner that on opening it there are two pages exposed to view. +Thin wooden boards are fastened to each of the outer leaves, so that the +whole presents as neat an appearance, remarks Peter Martyr, as if it had +come from the shop of a skilful bookbinder. They also covered buildings, +tapestries, and scrolls of parchment with these devices, and for +trifling transactions were familiar with the use of _slates_ of soft +stone from which the figures could readily be erased with water.[11-1] +What is still more astonishing, there is reason to believe, in some +instances, their figures were not painted, but actually _printed_ with +movable blocks of wood on which the symbols were carved in relief, +though this was probably confined to those intended for ornament only. + +In these records we discern something higher than a mere symbolic +notation. They contain the germ of a phonetic alphabet, and represent +sounds of spoken language. The symbol is often not connected with the +_idea_ but with the _word_. The mode in which this is done corresponds +precisely to that of the rebus. It is a simple method, readily +suggesting itself. In the middle ages it was much in vogue in Europe for +the same purpose for which it was chiefly employed in Mexico at the same +time--the writing of proper names. For example, the English family +Bolton was known in heraldry by a _tun_ transfixed by a _bolt_. +Precisely so the Mexican emperor Ixcoatl is mentioned in the Aztec +manuscripts under the figure of a serpent _coatl_, pierced by obsidian +knives _ixtli_, and Moquauhzoma by a mouse-trap _montli_, an eagle +_quauhtli_, a lancet _zo_, and a hand _maitl_. As a syllable could be +expressed by any object whose name commenced with it, as few words can +be given the form of a rebus without some change, as the figures +sometimes represent their full phonetic value, sometimes only that of +their initial sound, and as universally the attention of the artist was +directed less to the sound than to the idea, the didactic painting of +the Mexicans, whatever it might have been to them, is a sealed book to +us, and must remain so in great part. Moreover, it is entirely +undetermined whether it should be read from the first to the last page, +or _vice versa_, whether from right to left or from left to right, from +bottom to top or from top to bottom, around the edges of the page toward +the centre, or each line in the opposite direction from the preceding +one. There are good authorities for all these methods,[12-1] and they +may all be correct, for there is no evidence that any fixed rule had +been laid down in this respect. + +Immense masses of such documents were stored in the imperial archives of +ancient Mexico. Torquemada asserts that five cities alone yielded to the +Spanish governor on one requisition no less than sixteen thousand +volumes or scrolls! Every leaf was destroyed. Indeed, so thorough and +wholesale was the destruction of these memorials now so precious in our +eyes that hardly enough remain to whet the wits of antiquaries. In the +libraries of Paris, Dresden, Pesth, and the Vatican are, however, a +sufficient number to make us despair of deciphering them had we for +comparison all which the Spaniards destroyed. + +Beyond all others the Mayas, resident on the peninsula of Yucatan, would +seem to have approached nearest a true phonetic system. They had a +regular and well understood alphabet of twenty seven elementary sounds, +the letters of which are totally different from those of any other +nation, and evidently original with themselves. But besides these they +used a large number of purely conventional symbols, and moreover were +accustomed constantly to employ the ancient pictographic method in +addition as a sort of commentary on the sound represented. What is more +curious, if the obscure explanation of an ancient writer can be depended +upon, they not only aimed to employ an alphabet after the manner of +ours, but to express the sound absolutely like our phonographic signs +do.[13-1] With the aid of this alphabet, which has fortunately been +preserved, we are enabled to spell out a few words on the Yucatecan +manuscripts and façades, but thus far with no positive results. The loss +of the ancient pronunciation is especially in the way of such studies. + +In South America, also, there is said to have been a nation who +cultivated the art of picture writing, the Panos, on the river Ucayale. +A missionary, Narcisso Gilbar by name, once penetrated, with great toil, +to one of their villages. As he approached he beheld a venerable man +seated under the shade of a palm tree, with a great book open before him +from which he was reading to an attentive circle of auditors the wars +and wanderings of their forefathers. With difficulty the priest got a +sight of the precious volume, and found it covered with figures and +signs in marvellous symmetry and order.[14-1] No wonder such a romantic +scene left a deep impression on his memory. + +The Peruvians adopted a totally different and unique system of records, +that by means of the _quipu_. This was a base cord, the thickness of the +finger, of any required length, to which were attached numerous small +strings of different colors, lengths, and textures, variously knotted +and twisted one with another. Each of these peculiarities represented a +certain number, a quality, quantity, or other idea, but _what_, not the +most fluent _quipu_ reader could tell unless he was acquainted with the +general topic treated of. Therefore, whenever news was sent in this +manner a person accompanied the bearer to serve as verbal commentator, +and to prevent confusion the _quipus_ relating to the various +departments of knowledge were placed in separate storehouses, one for +war, another for taxes, a third for history, and so forth. On what +principle or mnemotechnics the ideas were connected with the knots and +colors we are totally in the dark; it has even been doubted whether they +had any application beyond the art of numeration.[14-2] Each combination +had, however, a fixed ideographic value in a certain branch of +knowledge, and thus the _quipu_ differed essentially from the Catholic +rosary, the Jewish phylactery, or the knotted strings of the natives of +North America and Siberia, to all of which it has at times been +compared. + +The _wampum_ used by the tribes of the north Atlantic coast was, in many +respects, analogous to the quipu. In early times it was composed chiefly +of bits of wood of equal size, but different colors. These were hung on +strings which were woven into belts and bands, the hues, shapes, sizes, +and combinations of the strings hinting their general significance. Thus +the lighter shades were invariable harbingers of peaceful or pleasant +tidings, while the darker portended war and danger. The substitution of +beads or shells in place of wood, and the custom of embroidering figures +in the belts were, probably, introduced by European influence. + +Besides these, various simpler mnemonic aids were employed, such as +parcels of reeds of different lengths, notched sticks, knots in cords, +strings of pebbles or fruit-stones, circular pieces of wood or slabs +pierced with different figures which the English liken to "cony holes," +and at a victory, a treaty, or the founding of a village, sometimes a +pillar or heap of stones was erected equalling in number the persons +present at the occasion, or the number of the fallen. + +This exhausts the list. All other methods of writing, the hieroglyphs of +the Micmacs of Acadia, the syllabic alphabet of the Cherokees, the +pretended traces of Greek, Hebrew, and Celtiberic letters which have +from time to time been brought to the notice of the public, have been +without exception the products of foreign civilization or simply frauds. +Not a single coin, inscription, or memorial of any kind whatever, has +been found on the American continent showing the existence, either +generally or locally, of any other means of writing than those +specified. + +Poor as these substitutes for a developed phonetic system seem to us, +they were of great value to the uncultivated man. In his legends their +introduction is usually ascribed to some heaven-sent benefactor, the +antique characters were jealously adhered to, and the pictured scroll of +bark, the quipu ball, the belt of wampum, were treasured with provident +care, and their import minutely expounded to the most intelligent of the +rising generation. In all communities beyond the stage of barbarism a +class of persons was set apart for this duty and no other. Thus, for +example, in ancient Peru, one college of priests styled _amauta_, +learned, had exclusive charge over the quipus containing the +mythological and historical traditions; a second, the _haravecs_, +singers, devoted themselves to those referring to the national ballads +and dramas; while a third occupied their time solely with those +pertaining to civil affairs. Such custodians preserved and prepared the +archives, learned by heart with their aid what their fathers knew, and +in some countries, as, for instance, among the Panos mentioned above, +and the Quiches of Guatemala,[16-1] repeated portions of them at times +to the assembled populace. It has even been averred by one of their +converted chiefs, long a missionary to his fellows, that the Chipeways +of Lake Superior have a college composed of ten "of the wisest and most +venerable of their nation," who have in charge the pictured records +containing the ancient history of their tribe. These are kept in an +underground chamber, and are disinterred every fifteen years by the +assembled guardians, that they may be repaired, and their contents +explained to new members of the society.[17-1] + +In spite of these precautions, the end seems to have been very +imperfectly attained. The most distinguished characters, the weightiest +events in national history faded into oblivion after a few generations. +The time and circumstances of the formation of the league of the Five +Nations, the dispersion of the mound builders of the Ohio valley in the +fifteenth century, the chronicles of Peru or Mexico beyond a century or +two anterior to the conquest, are preserved in such a vague and +contradictory manner that they have slight value as history. Their +mythology fared somewhat better, for not only was it kept fresh in the +memory by frequent repetition; but being itself founded in nature, it +was constantly nourished by the truths which gave it birth. +Nevertheless, we may profit by the warning to remember that their myths +are myths only, and not the reflections of history or heroes. + +Rising from these details to a general comparison of the symbolic and +phonetic systems in their reactions on the mind, the most obvious are +their contrasted effects on the faculty of memory. Letters represent +elementary sounds, which are few in any language, while symbols stand +for ideas, and they are numerically infinite. The transmission of +knowledge by means of the latter is consequently attended with most +disproportionate labor. It is almost as if we could quote nothing from +an author unless we could recollect his exact words. We have a right to +look for excellent memories where such a mode is in vogue, and in the +present instance we are not disappointed. "These savages," exclaims La +Hontan, "have the happiest memories in the world!" It was etiquette at +their councils for each speaker to repeat verbatim all his predecessors +had said, and the whites were often astonished and confused at the +verbal fidelity with which the natives recalled the transactions of long +past treaties. Their songs were inexhaustible. An instance is on record +where an Indian sang two hundred on various subjects.[18-1] Such a fact +reminds us of a beautiful expression of the elder Humboldt: "Man," he +says, "regarded as an animal, belongs to one of the singing species; but +his notes are always associated with ideas." The youth who were educated +at the public schools of ancient Mexico--for that realm, so far from +neglecting the cause of popular education, established houses for +gratuitous instruction, and to a certain extent made the attendance upon +them obligatory--learned by rote long orations, poems, and prayers with +a facility astonishing to the conquerors, and surpassing anything they +were accustomed to see in the universities of Old Spain. A phonetic +system actually weakens the retentive powers of the mind by offering a +more facile plan for preserving thought. "_Ce que je mets sur papier, je +remets de ma mémoire_" is an expression of old Montaigne which he could +never have used had he employed ideographic characters. + +Memory, however, is of far less importance than a free activity of +thought, untrammelled by forms or precedents, and ever alert to novel +combinations of ideas. Give a race this and it will guide it to +civilization as surely as the needle directs the ship to its haven. It +is here that ideographic writing reveals its fatal inferiority. It is +forever specifying, materializing, dealing in minutiæ. In the Egyptian +symbolic alphabet there is a figure for a virgin, another for a married +woman, for a widow without offspring, for a widow with one child, two +children, and I know not in how many other circumstances, but for +_woman_ there is no sign. It must be so in the nature of things, for the +symbol represents the object as it appears or is fancied to appear, and +not as it is _thought_. Furthermore, the constant learning by heart +infallibly leads to slavish repetition and mental servility. + +A symbol when understood is independent of language, and is as +universally current as an Arabic numeral. But this divorce of spoken and +written language is of questionable advantage. It at once destroys all +permanent improvement in a tongue through elegance of style, sonorous +periods, or delicacy of expression, and the life of the language itself +is weakened when its forms are left to fluctuate uncontrolled. Written +poetry, grammar, rhetoric, all are impossible to the student who draws +his knowledge from such a source. + +Finally, it has been justly observed by the younger Humboldt that the +painful fidelity to the antique figures transmitted from barbarous to +polished generations is injurious to the æsthetic sense, and dulls the +mind to the beautiful in art and nature. + +The transmission of thought by figures and symbols would, on the whole, +therefore, foster those narrow and material tendencies which the genius +of polysynthetic languages would seem calculated to produce. Its one +redeeming trait of strengthening the memory will serve to explain the +strange tenacity with which certain myths have been preserved through +widely dispersed families, as we shall hereafter see. + +Besides this of language there are two traits in the history of the red +man without parallel in that of any other variety of our species which +has achieved any notable progress in civilization. + +The one is his _isolation_. Cut off time out of mind from the rest of +the world, he never underwent those crossings of blood and culture which +so modified and on the whole promoted the growth of the old world +nationalities. In his own way he worked out his own destiny, and what he +won was his with a more than ordinary right of ownership. For all those +old dreams of the advent of the Ten Lost Tribes, of Buddhist priests, of +Welsh princes, or of Phenician merchants on American soil, and there +exerting a permanent influence, have been consigned to the dustbin by +every unbiased student, and when we see such men as Mr. Schoolcraft and +the Abbé E. C. Brasseur essaying to resuscitate them, we regretfully +look upon it in the light of a literary anachronism. + +The second trait is the entire absence of the herdsman's life with its +softening associations. Throughout the continent there is not a single +authentic instance of a pastoral tribe, not one of an animal raised for +its milk,[21-1] nor for the transportation of persons, and very few for +their flesh. It was essentially a hunting race. The most civilized +nations looked to the chase for their chief supply of meat, and the +courts of Cuzco and Mexico enacted stringent game and forest laws, and +at certain periods the whole population turned out for a general crusade +against the denizens of the forest. In the most densely settled +districts the conquerors found vast stretches of primitive woods. + +If we consider the life of a hunter, pitting his skill and strength +against the marvellous instincts and quick perceptions of the brute, +training his senses to preternatural acuteness, but blunting his more +tender feelings, his sole aim to shed blood and take life, dependent on +luck for his food, exposed to deprivations, storms, and long +wanderings, his chief diet flesh, we may more readily comprehend that +conspicuous disregard of human suffering, those sanguinary rites, that +vindictive spirit, that inappeasable restlessness, which we so often +find in the chronicles of ancient America. The law with reason objects +to accepting a butcher as a juror on a trial for life; here is a whole +race of butchers. + +The one mollifying element was agriculture. On the altar of Mixcoatl, +god of hunting, the Aztec priest tore the heart from the human victim +and smeared with the spouting blood the snake that coiled its lengths +around the idol; flowers and fruits, yellow ears of maize and clusters +of rich bananas decked the shrine of Centeotl, beneficent patroness of +agriculture, and bloodless offerings alone were her appropriate dues. +This shows how clear, even to the native mind, was the contrast between +these two modes of subsistence. By substituting a sedentary for a +wandering life, by supplying a fixed dependence for an uncertain +contingency, and by admonishing man that in preservation, not in +destruction, lies his most remunerative sphere of activity, we can +hardly estimate too highly the wide distribution of the zea mays. This +was their only cereal, and it was found in cultivation from the southern +extremity of Chili to the fiftieth parallel of north latitude, beyond +which limits the low temperature renders it an uncertain crop. In their +legends it is represented as the gift of the Great Spirit (Chipeways), +brought from the terrestrial Paradise by the sacred animals (Quiches), +and symbolically the mother of the race (Nahuas), and the material from +which was moulded the first of men (Quiches). + +As the races, so the great families of man who speak dialects of the +same tongue are, in a sense, individuals, bearing each its own +physiognomy. When the whites first heard the uncouth gutturals of the +Indians, they frequently proclaimed that hundreds of radically diverse +languages, invented, it was piously suggested, by the Devil for the +annoyance of missionaries, prevailed over the continent. Earnest +students of such matters--Vater, Duponceau, Gallatin, and +Buschmann--have, however, demonstrated that nine-tenths of the area of +America, at its discovery, were occupied by tribes using dialects +traceable to ten or a dozen primitive stems. The names of these, their +geographical position in the sixteenth century, and, so far as it is +safe to do so, their individual character, I shall briefly mention. + +Fringing the shores of the Northern Ocean from Mount St. Elias on the +west to the Gulf of St. Lawrence on the east, rarely seen a hundred +miles from the coast, were the Eskimos.[23-1] They are the connecting +link between the races of the Old and New Worlds, in physical appearance +and mental traits more allied to the former, but in language betraying +their near kinship to the latter. An amphibious race, born fishermen, in +their buoyant skin kayaks they brave fearlessly the tempests, make long +voyages, and merit the sobriquet bestowed upon them by Von Baer, "the +Phenicians of the north." Contrary to what one might suppose, they are, +amid their snows, a contented, light-hearted people, knowing no longing +for a sunnier clime, given to song, music, and merry tales. They are +cunning handicraftsmen to a degree, but withal wholly ingulfed in a +sensuous existence. The desperate struggle for life engrosses them, and +their mythology is barren. + +South of them, extending in a broad band across the continent from +Hudson's Bay to the Pacific, and almost to the Great Lakes below, is the +Athapascan stock. Its affiliated tribes rove far north to the mouth of +the Mackenzie River, and wandering still more widely in an opposite +direction along both declivities of the Rocky Mountains, people portions +of the coast of Oregon south of the mouth of the Columbia, and spreading +over the plains of New Mexico under the names of Apaches, Navajos, and +Lipans, almost reach the tropics at the delta of the Rio Grande del +Norte, and on the shores of the Gulf of California. No wonder they +deserted their fatherland and forgot it altogether, for it is a very +_terra damnata_, whose wretched inhabitants are cut off alike from the +harvest of the sea and the harvest of the soil. The profitable culture of +maize does not extend beyond the fiftieth parallel of latitude, and less +than seven degrees farther north the mean annual temperature everywhere +east of the mountains sinks below the freezing point.[25-1] Agriculture +is impossible, and the only chance for life lies in the uncertain +fortunes of the chase and the penurious gifts of an arctic flora. The +denizens of these wilds are abject, slovenly, hopelessly savage, "at the +bottom of the scale of humanity in North America," says Dr. Richardson, +and their relatives who have wandered to the more genial climes of the +south are as savage as they, as perversely hostile to a sedentary life, +as gross and narrow in their moral notions. This wide-spread stock, +scattered over forty-five degrees of latitude, covering thousands of +square leagues, reaching from the Arctic Ocean to the confines of the +empire of the Montezumas, presents in all its subdivisions the same +mental physiognomy and linguistic peculiarities.[25-2] + +Best known to us of all the Indians are the Algonkins and Iroquois, who, +at the time of the discovery, were the sole possessors of the region now +embraced by Canada and the eastern United States north of the +thirty-fifth parallel. The latter, under the names of the Five Nations, +Hurons, Tuscaroras, Susquehannocks, Nottoways and others, occupied much +of the soil from the St. Lawrence and Lake Ontario to the Roanoke, and +perhaps the Cherokees, whose homes were in the secluded vales of East +Tennessee, were one of their early offshoots.[25-3] They were a race of +warriors, courageous, cruel, unimaginative, but of rare political +sagacity. They are more like ancient Romans than Indians, and are leading +figures in the colonial wars. + +The Algonkins surrounded them on every side, occupying the rest of the +region mentioned and running westward to the base of the Rocky +Mountains, where one of their famous bands, the Blackfeet, still hunts +over the valley of the Saskatchewan. They were more genial than the +Iroquois, of milder manners and more vivid fancy, and were regarded by +these with a curious mixture of respect and contempt. Some writer has +connected this difference with their preference for the open prairie +country in contrast to the endless and sombre forests where were the +homes of the Iroquois. Their history abounds in great men, whose +ambitious plans were foiled by the levity of their allies and their want +of persistence. They it was who under King Philip fought the Puritan +fathers; who at the instigation of Pontiac doomed to death every white +trespasser on their soil; who led by Tecumseh and Black Hawk gathered +the clans of the forest and mountain for the last pitched battle of the +races in the Mississippi valley. To them belonged the mild mannered +Lenni Lenape, who little foreboded the hand of iron that grasped their +own so softly under the elm tree of Shackamaxon, to them the restless +Shawnee, the gypsy of the wilderness, the Chipeways of Lake Superior, +and also to them the Indian girl Pocahontas, who in the legend averted +from the head of the white man the blow which, rebounding, swept away +her father and all his tribe.[27-1] + +Between their southernmost outposts and the Gulf of Mexico were a number +of clans, mostly speaking the Muscogee tongue, Creeks, Choctaws, +Chikasaws, and others, in later times summed up as Apalachian Indians, +but by early writers sometimes referred to as "The Empire of the +Natchez." For tradition says that long ago this small tribe, whose home +was in the Big Black country, was at the head of a loose confederation +embracing most of the nations from the Atlantic coast quite into Texas; +and adds that the expedition of De Soto severed its lax bonds and shook +it irremediably into fragments. Whether this is worth our credence or +not, the comparative civilization of the Natchez, and the analogy their +language bears to that of the Mayas of Yucatan, the builders of those +ruined cities which Stephens and Catherwood have made so familiar to the +world, attach to them a peculiar interest.[27-2] + +North of the Arkansas River on the right bank of the Mississippi, quite +to its source, stretching over to Lake Michigan at Green Bay, and up the +valley of the Missouri west to the mountains, resided the Dakotas, an +erratic folk, averse to agriculture, but daring hunters and bold +warriors, tall and strong of body.[28-1] Their religious notions have +been carefully studied, and as they are remarkably primitive and +transparent, they will often be referred to. The Sioux and the +Winnebagoes are well-known branches of this family. + +We have seen that Dr. Richardson assigned to a portion of the Athapascas +the lowest place among North American tribes, but there are some in New +Mexico who might contest the sad distinction, the Root Diggers, +Comanches and others, members of the Snake or Shoshonee family, +scattered extensively northwest of Mexico. It has been said of a part of +these that they are "nearer the brutes than probably any other portion +of the human race on the face of the globe."[28-2] Their habits in some +respects are more brutish than those of any brute, for there is no +limit to man's moral descent or ascent, and the observer might well be +excused for doubting whether such a stock ever had a history in the +past, or the possibility of one in the future. Yet these debased +creatures speak a related dialect, and are beyond a doubt largely of the +same blood as the famous Aztec race, who founded the empire of Anahuac, +and raised architectural monuments rivalling the most famous structures +of the ancient world. This great family, whose language has been traced +from Nicaragua to Vancouver's Island, and whose bold intellects colored +all the civilization of the northern continent, was composed in that +division of it found in New Spain chiefly of two bands, the Toltecs, +whose traditions point to the mountain ranges of Guatemala as their +ancient seat, and the Nahuas, who claim to have come at a later period +from the northwest coast, and together settled in and near the valley of +Mexico.[29-1] Outlying colonies on the shore of Lake Nicaragua and in +the mountains of Vera Paz rose to a civilization that rivalled that of +the Montezumas, while others remained in utter barbarism in the far +north. + +The Aztecs not only conquered a Maya colony, and founded the empire of +the Quiches in Central America, a complete body of whose mythology has +been brought to light in late years, but seem to have made a marked +imprint on the Mayas themselves. These possessed, as has already been +said, the peninsula of Yucatan. There is some reason to suppose they +came thither originally from the Greater Antilles, and none to doubt but +that the Huastecas who lived on the river Panuco and the Natchez of +Louisiana were offshoots from them. Their language is radically distinct +from that of the Aztecs, but their calendar and a portion of their +mythology are common property. They seem an ancient race of mild manners +and considerable polish. No American nation offers a more promising +field for study. Their stone temples still bear testimony to their +uncommon skill in the arts. A trustworthy tradition dates the close of +the golden age of Yucatan a century anterior to its discovery by +Europeans. Previously it had been one kingdom, under one ruler, and +prolonged peace had fostered the growth of the fine arts; but when +their capital Mayapan fell, internal dissensions ruined most of their +cities. + +No connection whatever has been shown between the civilization of North +and South America. In the latter continent it was confined to two +totally foreign tribes, the Muyscas, whose empire, called that of the +Zacs, was in the neighborhood of Bogota, and the Peruvians, who in their +two related divisions of Quichuas and Aymaras extended their language +and race along the highlands of the Cordilleras from the equator to the +thirtieth degree of south latitude. Lake Titicaca seems to have been the +cradle of their civilization, offering another example how inland seas +and well-watered plains favor the change from a hunting to an +agricultural life. These four nations, the Aztecs, the Mayas, the +Muyscas and the Peruvians, developed spontaneously and independently +under the laws of human progress what civilization was found among the +red race. They owed nothing to Asiatic or European teachers. The Incas +it was long supposed spoke a language of their own, and this has been +thought evidence of foreign extraction; but Wilhelm von Humboldt has +shown conclusively that it was but a dialect of the common tongue of +their country.[31-1] + +When Columbus first touched the island of Cuba, he was regaled with +horrible stories of one-eyed monsters who dwelt on the other islands, +but plundered indiscriminately on every hand. These turned out to be the +notorious Caribs, whose other name, _Cannibals_, has descended as a +common noun to our language, expressive of one of their inhuman +practices. They had at that time seized many of the Antilles, and had +gained a foothold on the coast of Honduras and Darien, but pointed for +their home to the mainland of South America. This they possessed along +the whole northern shore, inland at least as far as the south bank of +the Amazon, and west nearly to the Cordilleras. It is still an open +question whether the Tupis and Guaranis who inhabit the vast region +between the Amazon and the Pampas of Buenos Ayres are affined to them. +The traveller D'Orbigny zealously maintains the affirmative, and there +is certainly some analogy of language, but withal an inexplicable +contrast of character. The latter were, and are, in the main, a +peaceable, inoffensive, apathetic set, dull and unambitious, while the +Caribs won a terrible renown as bold warriors, daring navigators, +skilful in handicrafts; and their poisoned arrows, cruel and disgusting +habits, and enterprise, rendered them a terror and a by-word for +generations.[32-1] + +Our information of the natives of the Pampas, Patagonia, and the Land of +Fire, is too vague to permit their positive identification with the +Araucanians of Chili; but there is much to render the view plausible. +Certain physical peculiarities, a common unconquerable love of freedom, +and a delight in war, bring them together, and at the same time place +them both in strong contrast to their northern neighbors.[33-1] + +There are many tribes whose affinities remain to be decided, especially +on the Pacific coast. The lack of inland water communication, the +difficult nature of the soil, and perhaps the greater antiquity of the +population there, seem to have isolated and split up beyond recognition +the indigenous families on that shore of the continent; while the great +river systems and broad plains of the Atlantic slope facilitated +migration and intercommunication, and thus preserved national +distinctions over thousands of square leagues. + +These natural features of the continent, compared with the actual +distribution of languages, offer our only guides in forming an opinion +as to the migrations of these various families in ancient times. Their +traditions, take even the most cultivated, are confused, contradictory, +and in great part manifestly fabulous. To construct from them by means +of daring combinations and forced interpretations a connected account of +the race during the centuries preceding Columbus were with the aid of a +vivid fancy an easy matter, but would be quite unworthy the name of +history. The most that can be said with certainty is that the general +course of migrations in both Americas was from the high latitudes toward +the tropics, and from the great western chain of mountains toward the +east. No reasonable doubt exists but that the Athapascas, Algonkins, +Iroquois, Apalachians, and Aztecs all migrated from the north and west +to the regions they occupied. In South America, curiously enough, the +direction is reversed. If the Caribs belong to the Tupi-Guaranay stem, +and if the Quichuas belong to the Aymaras, as there is strong +likelihood,[34-1] then nine-tenths of the population of that vast +continent wandered forth from the steppes and valleys at the head waters +of the Rio de la Plata toward the Gulf of Mexico, where they came in +collision with that other wave of migration surging down from high +northern latitudes. For the banks of the river Paraguay and the steppes +of the Bolivian Cordilleras are unquestionably the earliest traditional +homes of both Tupis and Aymaras. + +These movements took place not in large bodies under the stimulus of a +settled purpose, but step by step, family by family, as the older +hunting grounds became too thickly peopled. This fact hints unmistakably +at the gray antiquity of the race. It were idle even to guess how great +this must be, but it is possible to set limits to it in both directions. +On the one hand, not a tittle of evidence is on record to carry the age +of man in America beyond the present geological epoch. Dr. Lund examined +in Brazil more than eight hundred caverns, out of which number only six +contained human bones, and of these six only one had with the human +bones those of animals now extinct. Even in that instance the original +stratification had been disturbed, and probably the bones had been +interred there.[35-1] This is strong negative evidence. So in every +other example where an unbiased and competent geologist has made the +examination, the alleged discoveries of human remains in the older +strata have proved erroneous. + +The cranial forms of the American aborigines have by some been supposed +to present anomalies distinguishing their race from all others, and even +its chief families from one another. This, too, falls to the ground +before a rigid analysis. The last word of craniology, which at one time +promised to revolutionize ethnology and even history, is that no one form +of the skull is peculiar to the natives of the New World; that in the +same linguistic family one glides into another by imperceptible degrees; +and that there is as much diversity, and the same diversity among them in +this respect as among the races of the Old Continent.[35-2] Peculiarities +of structure, though they may pass as general truths, offer no firm +foundation whereon to construct a scientific ethnology. Anatomy shows +nothing unique in the Indian, nothing demanding for its development any +special antiquity, still less an original diversity of type. + +On the other hand, the remains of primeval art and the impress he made +upon nature bespeak for man a residence in the New World coeval with the +most distant events of history. By remains of art I do not so much refer +to those desolate palaces which crumble forgotten in the gloom of +tropical woods, nor even the enormous earthworks of the Mississippi +valley covered with the mould of generations of forest trees, but rather +to the humbler and less deceptive relics of his kitchens and his hunts. +On the Atlantic coast one often sees the refuse of Indian villages, +where generation after generation have passed their summers in fishing, +and left the bones, shells, and charcoal as their only epitaph. How many +such summers would it require for one or two hundred people to thus +gradually accumulate a mound of offal eight or ten feet high and a +hundred yards across, as is common enough? How many generations to heap +up that at the mouth of the Altamaha River, examined and pronounced +exclusively of this origin by Sir Charles Lyell,[36-1] which is about +this height, and covers ten acres of ground? Those who, like myself, +have tramped over many a ploughed field in search of arrow-heads must +have sometimes been amazed at the numbers which are sown over the face +of our country, betokening a most prolonged possession of the soil by +their makers. For a hunting population is always sparse, and the +collector finds only those arrow-heads which lie upon the surface. + +Still more forcibly does nature herself bear witness to this antiquity +of possession. Botanists declare that a very lengthy course of +cultivation is required so to alter the form of a plant that it can no +longer be identified with the wild species; and still more protracted +must be the artificial propagation for it to lose its power of +independent life, and to rely wholly on man to preserve it from +extinction. Now this is precisely the condition of the maize, tobacco, +cotton, quinoa, and mandioca plants, and of that species of palm called +by botanists the _Gulielma speciosa_; all have been cultivated from +immemorial time by the aborigines of America, and, except cotton, by no +other race; all no longer are to be identified with any known wild +species; several are sure to perish unless fostered by human care.[37-1] +What numberless ages does this suggest? How many centuries elapsed ere +man thought of cultivating Indian corn? How many more ere it had spread +over nearly a hundred degrees of latitude, and lost all semblance to its +original form? Who has the temerity to answer these questions? The +judicious thinker will perceive in them satisfactory reasons for +dropping once for all the vexed inquiry, "how America was peopled," and +will smile at its imaginary solutions, whether they suggest Jews, +Japanese, or, as the latest theory is, Egyptians. + +While these and other considerations testify forcibly to that isolation +I have already mentioned, they are almost equally positive for an +extensive intercourse in very distant ages between the great families of +the race, and for a prevalent unity of mental type, or perhaps they hint +at a still visible oneness of descent. In their stage of culture, the +maize, cotton, and tobacco could hardly have spread so widely by +commerce alone. Then there are verbal similarities running through wide +families of languages which, in the words of Professor Buschmann, are +"calculated to fill us with bewildering amazement,"[38-1] some of which +will hereafter be pointed out; and lastly, passing to the psychological +constitution of the race, we may quote the words of a sharp-sighted +naturalist, whose monograph on one of its tribes is unsurpassed for +profound reflections: "Not only do all the primitive inhabitants of +America stand on one scale of related culture, but that mental condition +of all in which humanity chiefly mirrors itself, to wit, their religious +and moral consciousness, this source of all other inner and outer +conditions, is one with all, however diverse the natural influences +under which they live."[38-2] + +Penetrated with the truth of these views, all artificial divisions into +tropical or temperate, civilized or barbarous, will in the present work, +so far as possible, be avoided, and the race will be studied as a unit, +its religion as the development of ideas common to all its members, and +its myths as the garb thrown around these ideas by imaginations more or +less fertile, but seeking everywhere to embody the same notions. + + +BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE. + + As the subject of American mythology is a new one to most readers, + and as in its discussion everything depends on a careful selection + of authorities, it is well at the outset to review very briefly + what has already been written upon it, and to assign the relative + amount of weight that in the following pages will be given to the + works most frequently quoted. The conclusions I have arrived at are + so different from those who have previously touched upon the topic + that such a step seems doubly advisable. + + The first who undertook a philosophical survey of American + religions was Dr. Samuel Farmer Jarvis, in 1819 (A Discourse on the + Religion of the Indian Tribes of North America, Collections of the + New York Historical Society, vol. iii., New York, 1821). He + confined himself to the tribes north of Mexico, a difficult portion + of the field, and at that time not very well known. The notion of a + state of primitive civilization prevented Dr. Jarvis from forming + any correct estimate of the native religions, as it led him to look + upon them as deteriorations from purer faiths instead of + developments. Thus he speaks of them as having "departed less than + among any other nation from the form of primeval truth," and also + mentions their "wonderful uniformity" (pp. 219, 221). + + The well-known American ethnologist, Mr. E. G. Squier, has also + published a work on the subject, of wider scope than its title + indicates (The Serpent Symbol in America, New York, 1851). Though + written in a much more liberal spirit than the preceding, it is + wholly in the interests of one school of mythology, and it the + rather shallow physical one, so fashionable in Europe half a + century ago. Thus, with a sweeping generalization, he says, "The + religions or superstitions of the American nations, however + different they may appear to the superficial glance, are + rudimentally the same, and are only modifications of that primitive + system which under its physical aspect has been denominated Sun or + Fire worship" (p. 111). With this he combines the favorite and (may + I add?) characteristic French doctrine, that the chief topic of + mythology is the adoration of the generative power, and to rescue + such views from their materializing tendencies, imagines to + counterbalance them a clear, universal monotheism. "We claim to + have shown," he says (p. 154), "that the grand conception of a + Supreme Unity and the doctrine of the reciprocal principles existed + in America in a well defined and clearly recognized form;" and + elsewhere that "the monotheistic idea stands out clearly in _all_ + the religions of America" (p. 151). + + If with a hope of other views we turn to our magnificent national + work on the Indians (History, Conditions, and Prospects of the + Indian Tribes of the United States: Washington, 1851-9), a great + disappointment awaits us. That work was unfortunate in its editor. + It is a monument of American extravagance and superficiality. Mr. + Schoolcraft was a man of deficient education and narrow prejudices, + pompous in style, and inaccurate in statements. The information + from original observers it contains is often of real value, but the + general views on aboriginal history and religion are shallow and + untrustworthy in the extreme. + + A German professor, Dr. J. G. Müller, has written quite a + voluminous work on American Primitive Religions (_Geschichte der + Amerikanischen Ur-religionen_, pp. 707: Basel, 1855). His theory is + that "at the south a worship of nature with the adoration of the + sun as its centre, at the north a fear of spirits combined with + fetichism, made up the two fundamental divisions of the religion of + the red race" (pp. 89, 90). This imaginary antithesis he traces out + between the Algonkin and Apalachian tribes, and between the Toltecs + of Guatemala and the Aztecs of Mexico. His quotations are nearly + all at second hand, and so little does he criticize his facts as to + confuse the Vaudoux worship of the Haitian negroes with that of + Votan in Chiapa. His work can in no sense be considered an + authority. + + Very much better is the Anthropology of the late Dr. Theodore Waitz + (_Anthropologie der Naturvœlker_: Leipzig, 1862-66). No more + comprehensive, sound, and critical work on the indigenes of America + has ever been written. But on their religions the author is + unfortunately defective, being led astray by the hasty and + groundless generalizations of others. His great anxiety, moreover, + to subject all moral sciences to a realistic philosophy, was + peculiarly fatal to any correct appreciation of religious growth, + and his views are neither new nor tenable. + + For a different reason I must condemn in the most unqualified + manner the attempt recently made by the enthusiastic and + meritorious antiquary, the Abbé E. Charles Brasseur (de Bourbourg), + to explain American mythology after the example of Euhemerus, of + Thessaly, as the apotheosis of history. This theory, which has been + repeatedly applied to other mythologies with invariable failure, is + now disowned by every distinguished student of European and + Oriental antiquity; and to seek to introduce it into American + religions is simply to render them still more obscure and + unattractive, and to deprive them of the only general interest they + now have, that of illustrating the gradual development of the + religious ideas of humanity. + + But while thus regretting the use he has made of them, all + interested in American antiquity cannot too much thank this + indefatigable explorer for the priceless materials he has unearthed + in the neglected libraries of Spain and Central America, and laid + before the public. For the present purpose the most significant of + these is the Sacred National Book of the Quiches, a tribe of + Guatemala. This contains their legends, written in the original + tongue, and transcribed by Father Francisco Ximenes about 1725. The + manuscripts of this missionary were used early in the present + century, by Don Felix Cabrera, but were supposed to be entirely + lost even by the Abbé Brasseur himself in 1850 (_Lettre à M. le Duc + de Valmy_, Mexique, Oct. 15, 1850). Made aware of their importance + by the expressions of regret used in the Abbé's letters, Dr. C. + Sherzer, in 1854, was fortunate enough to discover them in the + library of the University of San Carlos in the city of Guatemala. + The legends were in Quiche with a Spanish translation and scholia. + The Spanish was copied by Dr. Scherzer and published in Vienna, in + 1856, under the title _Las Historias del Origen de los Indios de + Guatemala, por el R. P. F. Francisco Ximenes_. In 1855 the Abbé + Brasseur took a copy of the original which he brought out at Paris + in 1861, with a translation of his own, under the title _Vuh Popol: + Le Livre Sacré des Quichés et les Mythes de l'Antiquité Américaine_. + Internal evidence proves that these legends were written down by a + converted native some time in the seventeenth century. They carry + the national history back about two centuries, beyond which all is + professedly mythical. Although both translations are colored by the + peculiar views of their makers, this is incomparably the most + complete and valuable work on American mythology extant. + + Another authority of inestimable value has been placed within the + reach of scholars during the last few years. This is the _Relations + de la Nouvelle France_, containing the annual reports of the + Jesuit missionaries among the Iroquois and Algonkins from and + after 1611. My references to this are always to the reprint at + Quebec, 1858. Of not less excellence for another tribe, the Creeks, + is the brief "Sketch of the Creek Country," by Col. Benjamin + Hawkins, written about 1800, and first published in full by the + Georgia Historical Society in 1848. Most of the other works to + which I have referred are too well known to need any special + examination here, or will be more particularly mentioned in the + foot-notes when quoted. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[2-1] Waitz, _Anthropologie der Naturvoelker_, i. p. 256. + +[2-2] Carriere, _Die Kunst im Zusammenhang der Culturentwickelung_, i. p. +66. + +[6-1] It is said indeed that the Yebus, a people on the west coast of +Africa, speak a polysynthetic language, and _per contra_, that the Otomis +of Mexico have a monosyllabic one like the Chinese. Max Mueller goes +further, and asserts that what is called the process of agglutination in +the Turanian languages is the same as what has been named polysynthesis +in America. This is not to be conceded. In the former the root is +unchangeable, the formative elements follow it, and prefixes are not +used; in the latter prefixes are common, and the formative elements are +blended with the root, both undergoing changes of structure. Very +important differences. + +[9-1] Grimm, _Geschichte der Deutschen Sprache_, p. 571. + +[11-1] Peter Martyr, _De Insulis nuper Repertis_, p. 354: Colon. 1574. + +[12-1] They may be found in Waitz, _Anthrop. der Naturvoelker_, iv. p. +173. + +[13-1] The only authority is Diego de Landa, _Relacion de las Cosas de +Yucatan_, ed. Brasseur, Paris, 1864, p. 318. The explanation is extremely +obscure in the original. I have given it in the only sense in which the +author's words seem to have any meaning. + +[14-1] Humboldt, _Vues des Cordillères_, p. 72. + +[14-2] Desjardins, _Le Pérou avant la Conquête Espagnole_, p. 122: Paris, +1858. + +[16-1] An instance is given by Ximenes, _Origen de los Indios de +Guatemala_, p. 186: Vienna, 1856. + +[17-1] George Copway, _Traditional History of the Ojibway Nation_, p. +130: London, 1850. + +[18-1] Morse, _Report on the Indian Tribes_, App. p. 352. + +[21-1] Gomara states that De Ayllon found tribes on the Atlantic shore +not far from Cape Hatteras keeping flocks of deer (_ciervos_) and from +their milk making cheese (_Hist. de las Indias_, cap. 43). I attach no +importance to this statement, and only mention it to connect it with some +other curious notices of the tribe now extinct who occupied that +locality. Both De Ayllon and Lawson mention their very light complexions, +and the latter saw many with blonde hair, blue eyes, and a fair skin; +they cultivated when first visited the potato (or the groundnut), +tobacco, and cotton (Humboldt); they reckoned time by disks of wood +divided into sixty segments (Lederer); and just in this latitude the most +careful determination fixes the mysterious White-man's-land, or Great +Ireland of the Icelandic Sagas (see the _American Hist. Mag._, ix. p. +364), where the Scandinavian sea rovers in the eleventh century found men +of their own color, clothed in long woven garments, and not less +civilized than themselves. + +[23-1] The name Eskimo is from the Algonkin word _Eskimantick_, eaters of +raw flesh. There is reason to believe that at one time they possessed the +Atlantic coast considerably to the south. The Northmen, in the year 1000, +found the natives of Vinland, probably near Rhode Island, of the same +race as they were familiar with in Labrador. They call them _Skralingar_, +chips, and describe them as numerous and short of stature (Eric Rothens +Saga, in Mueller, _Sagænbibliothek_, p. 214). It is curious that the +traditions of the Tuscaroras, who placed their arrival on the Virginian +coast about 1300, spoke of the race they found there as eaters of raw +flesh and ignorant of maize (Lederer, _Account of North America_, in +Harris, Voyages). + +[25-1] Richardson, _Arctic Expedition_, p. 374. + +[25-2] The late Professor W. W. Turner of Washington, and Professor +Buschmann of Berlin, are the two scholars who have traced the boundaries +of this widely dispersed family. The name is drawn from Lake Athapasca in +British America. + +[25-3] The Cherokee tongue has a limited number of words in common with +the Iroquois, and its structural similarity is close. The name is of +unknown origin. It should doubtless be spelled _Tsalakie_, a plural form, +almost the same as that of the river Tellico, properly Tsaliko (Ramsey, +_Annals of Tennessee_, p. 87), on the banks of which their principal +towns were situated. Adair's derivation from _cheera_, fire, is +worthless, as no such word exists in their language. + +[27-1] The term Algonkin may be a corruption of _agomeegwin_, people of +the other shore. Algic, often used synonymously, is an adjective +manufactured by Mr. Schoolcraft "from the words Alleghany and Atlantic" +(Algic Researches, ii. p. 12). There is no occasion to accept it, as +there is no objection to employing Algonkin both as substantive and +adjective. Iroquois is a French compound of the native words _hiro_, I +have said, and _kouè_, an interjection of assent or applause, terms +constantly heard in their councils. + +[27-2] Apalachian, which should be spelt with one p, is formed of two +Creek words, _apala_, the great sea, the ocean, and the suffix _chi_, +people, and means those dwelling by the ocean. That the Natchez were +offshoots of the Mayas I was the first to surmise and to prove by a +careful comparison of one hundred Natchez words with their equivalents in +the Maya dialects. Of these, _five_ have affinities more or less marked +to words peculiar to the Huastecas of the river Panuco (a Maya colony), +_thirteen_ to words common to Huasteca and Maya, and _thirty-nine_ to +words of similar meaning in the latter language. This resemblance may be +exemplified by the numerals, one, two, four, seven, eight, twenty. In +Natchez they are _hu_, _ah_, _gan_, _uk-woh_, _upku-tepish_, _oka-poo_: +in Maya, _hu_, _ca_, _can_, _uk_, _uapxæ_, _hunkal_. (See the Am. Hist. +Mag., New Series, vol. i. p. 16, Jan. 1867.) + +[28-1] Dakota, a native word, means friends or allies. + +[28-2] Rep. of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1854, p. 209. + +[29-1] According to Professor Buschmann Aztec is probably from _iztac_, +white, and Nahuatlacatl signifies those who speak the language _Nahuatl_, +clear sounding, sonorous. The Abbé Brasseur (de Bourbourg), on the other +hand, derives the latter from the Quiche _nawal_, intelligent, and adds +the amazing information that this is identical with the English _know +all_!! (_Hist. du Mexique_, etc., i. p. 102). For in his theory several +languages of Central America are derived from the same old Indo-Germanic +stock as the English, German, and cognate tongues. Toltec, from +_Toltecatl_, means inhabitant of Tollan, which latter may be from +_tolin_, rush, and signify the place of rushes. The signification +_artificer_, often assigned to Toltecatl, is of later date, and was +derived from the famed artistic skill of this early folk (Buschmann, +_Aztek. Ortsnamen_, p. 682: Berlin, 1852). The Toltecs are usually spoken +of as anterior to the Nahuas, but the Tlascaltecs and natives of +Cholollan or Cholula were in fact Toltecs, unless we assign to this +latter name a merely mythical signification. The early migrations of the +two Aztec bands and their relationship, it may be said in passing, are as +yet extremely obscure. The Shoshonees when first known dwelt as far north +as the head waters of the Missouri, and in the country now occupied by +the Black Feet. Their language, which includes that of the Comanche, +Wihinasht, Utah, and kindred bands, was first shown to have many and +marked affinities with that of the Aztecs by Professor Buschmann in his +great work, _Ueber die Spuren der Aztekischen Sprache im nördlichen +Mexico und höheren Amerikanischen Norden_, p. 648: Berlin, 1854. + +[31-1] His opinion was founded on an analysis of fifteen words of the +secret language of the Incas preserved in the Royal Commentaries of +Garcilasso de la Vega. On examination, they all proved to be modified +forms from the _lengua general_ (Meyen, _Ueber die Ureinwohner von Peru_, +p. 6). The Quichuas of Peru must not be confounded with the Quiches of +Guatemala. Quiche is the name of a place, and means "many trees;" the +derivation of Quichua is unknown. Muyscas means "men." This nation also +called themselves Chibchas. + +[32-1] The significance of Carib is probably warrior. It may be the same +word as Guarani, which also has this meaning. Tupi or Tupa is the name +given the thunder, and can only be understood mythically. + +[33-1] The Araucanians probably obtained their name from two Quichua +words, _ari auccan_, yes! they fight; an idiom very expressive of their +warlike character. They had had long and terrible wars with the Incas +before the arrival of Pizarro. + +[34-1] Since writing the text I have received the admirable work of Dr. +von Martius, _Beiträge zur Ethnographie und Sprachenkunde Amerika's zumal +Brasilians_, Leipzig, 1867, in which I observe that that profound student +considers that there is no doubt but that the Island Caribs, and the +Galibis of the main land are descendants from the same stock as the Tupis +and Guaranis. + +[35-1] _Comptes Rendus_, vol. xxi. p. 1368 sqq. + +[35-2] The two best authorities are Daniel Wilson, _The American Cranial +Type_, in _Ann. Rep. of the Smithson. Inst._, 1862, p. 240, and J. A. +Meigs, _Cranial Forms of the Amer. Aborigs._: Phila. 1866. They accord in +the views expressed in the text and in the rejection of those advocated +by Dr. S. G. Morton in the Crania Americana. + +[36-1] _Second Visit to the United States_, i. p. 252. + +[37-1] Martius, _Von dem Rechtzustande unter den Ureinwohnern +Brasiliens_, p. 80: Muenchen, 1832; recently republished in his _Beiträge +zur Ethnographie und Sprachenkunde Amerika's_: Leipzig, 1867. + +[38-1] _Athapaskische Sprachstamm_, p. 164: Berlin, 1856. + +[38-2] Martius, _Von dem Rechtzustande unter den Ureinwohnern +Brasiliens_, p. 77. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +THE IDEA OF GOD. + + An intuition common to the species.--Words expressing it in + American languages derived either from ideas of above in space, or + of life manifested by breath.--Examples.--No conscious monotheism, + and but little idea of immateriality discoverable.--Still less any + moral dualism of deities, the Great Good Spirit and the Great Bad + Spirit being alike terms and notions of foreign importation. + + +If we accept the definition that mythology is the idea of God expressed +in symbol, figure, and narrative, and always struggling toward a clearer +utterance, it is well not only to trace this idea in its very earliest +embodiment in language, but also, for the sake of comparison, to ask +what is its latest and most approved expression. The reply to this is +given us by Immanuel Kant. He has shown that our reason, dwelling on the +facts of experience, constantly seeks the principles which connect them +together, and only rests satisfied in the conviction that there is a +highest and first principle which reconciles all their discrepancies and +binds them into one. This he calls the Ideal of Reason. It must be true, +for it is evolved from the laws of reason, our only test of truth. +Furthermore, the sense of personality and the voice of conscience, +analyzed to their sources, can only be explained by the assumption of an +infinite personality and an absolute standard of right. Or, if to some +all this appears but wire-drawn metaphysical subtlety, they are welcome +to the definition of the realist, that the idea of God is the sum of +those intelligent activities which the individual, reasoning from the +analogy of his own actions, imagines to be behind and to bring about +natural phenomena.[44-1] If either of these be correct, it were hard to +conceive how any tribe or even any sane man could be without some notion +of divinity. + +Certainly in America no instance of its absence has been discovered. +Obscure, grotesque, unworthy it often was, but everywhere man was +oppressed with a _sensus numinis_, a feeling that invisible, powerful +agencies were at work around him, who, as they willed, could help or +hurt him. In every heart was an altar to the Unknown God. Not that it +was customary to attach any idea of unity to these unseen powers. The +supposition that in ancient times and in very unenlightened conditions, +before mythology had grown, a monotheism prevailed, which afterwards at +various times was revived by reformers, is a belief that should have +passed away when the delights of savage life and the praises of a state +of nature ceased to be the themes of philosophers. We are speaking of a +people little capable of abstraction. The exhibitions of force in nature +seemed to them the manifestations of that mysterious power felt by their +self-consciousness; to combine these various manifestations and +recognize them as the operations of one personality, was a step not +easily taken. Yet He is not far from every one of us. "Whenever man +thinks clearly, or feels deeply, he conceives God as self-conscious +unity," says Carriere, with admirable insight; and elsewhere, "we have +monotheism, not in contrast to polytheism, not clear to the thought, but +in living intuition in the religious sentiments."[45-1] + +Thus it was among the Indians. Therefore a word is usually found in +their languages analogous to none in any European tongue, a word +comprehending all manifestations of the unseen world, yet conveying no +sense of personal unity. It has been rendered spirit, demon, God, devil, +mystery, magic, but commonly and rather absurdly by the English and +French, "medicine." In the Algonkin dialects this word is _manito_ and +_oki_, in Iroquois _oki_ and _otkon_, the Dakota has _wakan_, the Aztec +_teotl_, the Quichua _huaca_, and the Maya _ku_. They all express in its +most general form the idea of the supernatural. And as in this word, +supernatural, we see a transfer of a conception of place, and that it +literally means that which is _above_ the natural world, so in such as +we can analyze of these vague and primitive terms the same trope appears +discoverable. _Wakan_ as an adverb means _above_, _oki_ is but another +orthography for _oghee_, and _otkon_ seems allied to _hetken_, both of +which have the same signification.[46-1] + +The transfer is no mere figure of speech, but has its origin in the very +texture of the human mind. The heavens, the upper regions, are in every +religion the supposed abode of the divine. What is higher is always the +stronger and the nobler; a _superior_ is one who is better than we are, +and therefore a chieftain in Algonkin is called _oghee-ma_, the higher +one. There is, moreover, a naif and spontaneous instinct which leads man +in his ecstasies of joy, and in his paroxysms of fear or pain, to lift +his hands and eyes to the overhanging firmament. There the sun and +bright stars sojourn, emblems of glory and stability. Its azure vault +has a mysterious attraction which invites the eye to gaze longer and +longer into its infinite depths.[46-2] Its color brings thoughts of +serenity, peace, sunshine, and warmth. Even the rudest hunting tribes +felt these sentiments, and as a metaphor in their speeches, and as a +paint expressive of friendly design, blue was in wide use among +them.[47-1] + +So it came to pass that the idea of God was linked to the heavens long +ere man asked himself, are the heavens material and God spiritual, is He +one, or is He many? Numerous languages bear trace of this. The Latin +Deus, the Greek Zeus, the Sanscrit Dyaus, the Chinese Tien, all +originally meant the sky above, and our own word heaven is often +employed synonymously with God. There is at first no personification in +these expressions. They embrace all unseen agencies, they are void of +personality, and yet to the illogical primitive man there is nothing +contradictory in making them the object of his prayers. The Mayas had +legions of gods; "_ku_," says their historian,[47-2] "does not signify +any particular god; yet their prayers are sometimes addressed to _kue_," +which is the same word in the vocative case. + +As the Latins called their united divinities _Superi_, those above, so +Captain John Smith found that the Powhatans of Virginia employed the +word _oki_, above, in the same sense, and it even had passed into a +definite personification among them in the shape of an "idol of wood +evil-favoredly carved." In purer dialects of the Algonkin it is always +indefinite, as in the terms _nipoon oki_, spirit of summer, _pipoon +oki_, spirit of winter. Perhaps the word was introduced into Iroquois +by the Hurons, neighbors and associates of the Algonkins. The Hurons +applied it to that demoniac power "who rules the seasons of the year, +who holds the winds and the waves in leash, who can give fortune to +their undertakings, and relieve all their wants."[48-1] In another and +far distant branch of the Iroquois, the Nottoways of southern Virginia, +it reappears under, the curious form _quaker_, doubtless a corruption of +the Powhatan _qui-oki_, lesser gods.[48-2] The proper Iroquois name of +him to whom they prayed was _garonhia_, which again turns out on +examination to be their common word for _sky_, and again in all +probability from the verbal root _gar_, to be above.[48-3] In the +legends of the Aztecs and Quiches such phrases as "Heart of the Sky," +"Lord of the Sky," "Prince of the Azure Planisphere," "He above all," +are of frequent occurrence, and by a still bolder metaphor, the +Araucanians, according to Molina, entitled their greatest god "The Soul +of the Sky." + +This last expression leads to another train of thought. As the +philosopher, pondering on the workings of self-consciousness, recognizes +that various pathways lead up to God, so the primitive man, in forming +his language, sometimes trod one, sometimes another. Whatever else +sceptics have questioned, no one has yet presumed to doubt that if a God +and a soul exist at all, they are of like essence. This firm belief has +left its impress on language in the names devised to express the +supernal, the spiritual world. If we seek hints from languages more +familiar to us than the tongues of the Indians, and take for example +this word _spiritual_; we find it is from the Latin _spirare_, to blow, +to breathe. If in Latin again we look for the derivation of _animus_, +the mind, _anima_, the soul, they point to the Greek _anemos_, wind, and +_aémi_, to blow. In Greek the words for soul or spirit, _psuche_, +_pneuma_, _thumos_, all are directly from verbal roots expressing the +motion of the wind or the breath. The Hebrew word _ruah_ is translated +in the Old Testament sometimes by wind, sometimes by spirit, sometimes +by breath. Etymologically, in fact, ghosts and gusts, breaths and +breezes, the Great Spirit and the Great Wind, are one and the same. It +is easy to guess the reason of this. The soul is the life, the life is +the breath. Invisible, imponderable, quickening with vigorous motion, +slackening in rest and sleep, passing quite away in death, it is the +most obvious sign of life. All nations grasped the analogy and +identified the one with the other. But the breath is nothing but wind. +How easy, therefore, to look upon the wind that moves up and down and to +and fro upon the earth, that carries the clouds, itself unseen, that +calls forth the terrible tempests and the various seasons, as the +breath, the spirit of God, as God himself? So in the Mosaic record of +creation, it is said "a mighty wind" passed over the formless sea and +brought forth the world, and when the Almighty gave to the clay a living +soul, he is said to have breathed into it "the wind of lives." + +Armed with these analogies, we turn to the primitive tongues of America, +and find them there as distinct as in the Old World. In Dakota _niya_ is +literally breath, figuratively life; in Netela _piuts_ is life, breath, +and soul; _silla_, in Eskimo, means air, it means wind, but it is also +the word that conveys the highest idea of the world as a whole, and the +reasoning faculty. The supreme existence they call _Sillam Innua_, Owner +of the Air, or of the All; or _Sillam Nelega_, Lord of the Air or Wind. +In the Yakama tongue of Oregon _wkrisha_ signifies there is wind, +_wkrishwit_, life; with the Aztecs, _ehecatl_ expressed both air, life, +and the soul, and personified in their myths it was said to have been +born of the breath of Tezcatlipoca, their highest divinity, who himself +is often called Yoalliehecatl, the Wind of Night.[50-1] + +The descent is, indeed, almost imperceptible which leads to the +personification of the wind as God, which merges this manifestation of +life and power in one with its unseen, unknown cause. Thus it was a +worthy epithet which the Creeks applied to their supreme invisible +ruler, when they addressed him as ESAUGETUH EMISSEE, Master of Breath, +and doubtless it was at first but a title of equivalent purport which +the Cherokees, their neighbors, were wont to employ, OONAWLEH UNGGI, +Eldest of Winds, but rapidly leading to a complete identification of the +divine with the natural phenomena of meteorology. This seems to have +taken place in the same group of nations, for the original Choctaw word +for Deity was HUSHTOLI, the Storm Wind.[51-1] The idea, indeed, was +constantly being lost in the symbol. In the legends of the Quiches, the +mysterious creative power is HURAKAN, a name of no signification in +their language, one which their remote ancestors brought with them from +the Antilles, which finds its meaning in the ancient tongue of Haiti, +and which, under the forms of _hurricane_, _ouragan_, _orkan_, was +adopted into European marine languages as the native name of the +terrible tornado of the Caribbean Sea.[51-2] Mixcohuatl, the Cloud +Serpent, chief divinity of several tribes in ancient Mexico, is to this +day the correct term in their language for the tropical whirlwind, and +the natives of Panama worshipped the same phenomenon under the name +Tuyra.[52-1] To kiss the air was in Peru the commonest and simplest sign +of adoration to the collective divinities.[52-2] + +Many writers on mythology have commented on the prominence so frequently +given to the winds. None have traced it to its true source. The facts of +meteorology have been thought all sufficient for a solution. As if man +ever did or ever could draw the idea of God from nature! In the identity +of wind with breath, of breath with life, of life with soul, of soul +with God, lies the far deeper and far truer reason, whose insensible +development I have here traced, in outline indeed, but confirmed by the +evidence of language itself. + +Let none of these expressions, however, be construed to prove the +distinct recognition of One Supreme Being. Of monotheism either as +displayed in the one personal definite God of the Semitic races, or in +the dim pantheistic sense of the Brahmins, there was not a single +instance on the American continent. The missionaries found no word in +any of their languages fit to interpret _Deus_, God. How could they +expect it? The associations we attach to that name are the accumulated +fruits of nigh two thousand years of Christianity. The phrases Good +Spirit, Great Spirit, and similar ones, have occasioned endless +discrepancies in the minds of travellers. In most instances they are +entirely of modern origin, coined at the suggestion of missionaries, +applied to the white man's God. Very rarely do they bring any +conception of personality to the native mind, very rarely do they +signify any object of worship, perhaps never did in the olden times. The +Jesuit Relations state positively that there was no one immaterial god +recognized by the Algonkin tribes, and that the title, the Great Manito, +was introduced first by themselves in its personal sense.[53-1] The +supreme Iroquois Deity Neo or Hawaneu, triumphantly adduced by many +writers to show the monotheism underlying the native creeds, and upon +whose name Mr. Schoolcraft has built some philological reveries, turns +out on closer scrutiny to be the result of Christian instruction, and +the words themselves to be but corruptions of the French _Dieu_ and _le +bon Dieu_![53-2] + +Innumerable mysterious forces are in activity around the child of +nature; he feels within him something that tells him they are not of his +kind, and yet not altogether different from him; he sums them up in one +word drawn from sensuous experience. Does he wish to express still more +forcibly this sentiment, he doubles the word, or prefixes an adjective, +or adds an affix, as the genius of his language may dictate. But it +still remains to him but an unapplied abstraction, a mere category of +thought, a frame for the All. It is never the object of veneration or +sacrifice, no myth brings it down to his comprehension, it is not +installed in his temples. Man cannot escape the belief that behind all +form is one essence; but the moment he would seize and define it, it +eludes his grasp, and by a sorcery more sadly ludicrous than that which +blinded Titania, he worships not the Infinite he thinks but a base idol +of his own making. As in the Zend Avesta behind the eternal struggle of +Ormuzd and Ahriman looms up the undisturbed and infinite Zeruana +Akerana, as in the pages of the Greek poets we here and there catch +glimpses of a Zeus who is not he throned on Olympus, nor he who takes +part in the wrangles of the gods, but stands far off and alone, one yet +all, "who was, who is, who will be," so the belief in an Unseen Spirit, +who asks neither supplication nor sacrifice, who, as the natives of +Texas told Joutel in 1684, "does not concern himself about things here +below,"[54-1] who has no name to call him by, and is never a figure in +mythology, was doubtless occasionally present to their minds. It was +present not more but far less distinctly and often not at all in the +more savage tribes, and no assertion can be more contrary to the laws of +religious progress than that which pretends that a purer and more +monotheistic religion exists among nations devoid of mythology. There +are only two instances on the American continent where the worship of an +immaterial God was definitely instituted, and these as the highest +conquests of American natural religions deserve especial mention. + +They occurred, as we might expect, in the two most civilized nations, +the Quichuas of Peru, and the Nahuas of Tezcuco. It is related that +about the year 1440, at a grand religious council held at the +consecration of the newly-built temple of the Sun at Cuzco, the Inca +Yupanqui rose before the assembled multitude and spoke somewhat as +follows:-- + +"Many say that the Sun is the Maker of all things. But he who makes +should abide by what he has made. Now many things happen when the Sun is +absent; therefore he cannot be the universal creator. And that he is +alive at all is doubtful, for his trips do not tire him. Were he a +living thing, he would grow weary like ourselves; were he free, he would +visit other parts of the heavens. He is like a tethered beast who makes +a daily round under the eye of a master; he is like an arrow, which must +go whither it is sent, not whither it wishes. I tell you that he, our +Father and Master the Sun, must have a lord and master more powerful +than himself, who constrains him to his daily circuit without pause or +rest."[55-1] + +To express this greatest of all existences, a name was proclaimed, based +upon that of the highest divinities known to the ancient Aymara race, +Illatici Viracocha Pachacamac, literally, the thunder vase, the foam of +the sea, animating the world, mysterious and symbolic names drawn from +the deepest religious instincts of the soul, whose hidden meanings will +be unravelled hereafter. A temple was constructed in a vale by the sea +near Callao, wherein his worship was to be conducted without images or +human sacrifices. The Inca was ahead of his age, however, and when the +Spaniards visited the temple of Pachacamac in 1525, they found not only +the walls adorned with hideous paintings, but an ugly idol of wood +representing a man of colossal proportions set up therein, and receiving +the prayers of the votaries.[56-1] + +No better success attended the attempt of Nezahuatl, lord of Tezcuco, +which took place about the same time. He had long prayed to the gods of +his forefathers for a son to inherit his kingdom, and the altars had +smoked vainly with the blood of slaughtered victims. At length, in +indignation and despair, the prince exclaimed, "Verily, these gods that +I am adoring, what are they but idols of stone without speech or +feeling? They could not have made the beauty of the heaven, the sun, the +moon, and the stars which adorn it, and which light the earth, with its +countless streams, its fountains and waters, its trees and plants, and +its various inhabitants. There must be some god, invisible and unknown, +who is the universal creator. He alone can console me in my affliction +and take away my sorrow." Strengthened in this conviction by a timely +fulfilment of his heart's desire, he erected a temple nine stories high +to represent the nine heavens, which he dedicated "to the Unknown God, +the Cause of Causes." This temple, he ordained, should never be polluted +by blood, nor should any graven image ever be set up within its +precincts.[57-1] + +In neither case, be it observed, was any attempt made to substitute +another and purer religion for the popular one. The Inca continued to +receive the homage of his subjects as a brother of the sun, and the +regular services to that luminary were never interrupted. Nor did the +prince of Tezcuco afterwards neglect the honors due his national gods, +nor even refrain himself from plunging the knife into the breasts of +captives on the altar of the god of war.[57-2] They were but expressions +of that monotheism which is ever present, "not in contrast to +polytheism, but in living intuition in the religious sentiments." If +this subtle but true distinction be rightly understood, it will excite +no surprise to find such epithets as "endless," "omnipotent," +"invisible," "adorable," such appellations as "the Maker and Moulder of +All," "the Mother and Father of Life," "the One God complete in +perfection and unity," "the Creator of all that is," "the Soul of the +World," in use and of undoubted indigenous origin not only among the +civilized Aztecs, but even among the Haitians, the Araucanians, the +Lenni Lenape, and others.[57-3] It will not seem contradictory to hear +of them in a purely polytheistic worship; we shall be far from +regarding them as familiar to the popular mind, and we shall never be +led so far astray as to adduce them in evidence of a monotheism in +either technical sense of that word. In point of fact they were not +applied to any particular god even in the most enlightened nations, but +were terms of laudation and magniloquence used by the priests and +devotees of every several god to do him honor. They prove something in +regard to a consciousness of divinity hedging us about, but nothing at +all in favor of a recognition of one God; they exemplify how profound is +the conviction of a highest and first principle, but they do not offer +the least reason to surmise that this was a living reality in doctrine +or practice. + +The confusion of these distinct ideas has led to much misconception of +the native creeds. But another and more fatal error was that which +distorted them into a dualistic form, ranging on one hand the good +spirit with his legions of angels, on the other the evil one with his +swarms of fiends, representing the world as the scene of their unending +conflict, man as the unlucky football who gets all the blows. This +notion, which has its historical origin among the Parsees of ancient +Iran, is unknown to savage nations. "The idea of the Devil," justly +observes Jacob Grimm, "is foreign to all primitive religions." Yet +Professor Mueller, in his voluminous work on those of America, after +approvingly quoting this saying, complacently proceeds to classify the +deities as good or bad spirits![59-1] + +This view, which has obtained without question in every work on the +native religions of America, has arisen partly from habits of thought +difficult to break, partly from mistranslations of native words, partly +from the foolish axiom of the early missionaries, "The gods of the +gentiles are devils." Yet their own writings furnish conclusive proof +that no such distinction existed out of their own fancies. The same word +(_otkon_) which Father Bruyas employs to translate into Iroquois the +term "devil," in the passage "the Devil took upon himself the figure of +a serpent," he is obliged to use for "spirit" in the phrase, "at the +resurrection we shall be spirits,"[59-2] which is a rather amusing +illustration how impossible it was by any native word to convey the idea +of the spirit of evil. When, in 1570, Father Rogel commenced his labors +among the tribes near the Savannah River, he told them that the deity +they adored was a demon who loved all evil things, and they must hate +him; whereupon his auditors replied, that so far from this being the +case, whom he called a wicked being was the power that sent them all +good things, and indignantly left the missionary to preach to the +winds.[60-1] + +A passage often quoted in support of this mistaken view is one in +Winslow's "Good News from New England," written in 1622. The author says +that the Indians worship a good power called Kiehtan, and another "who, +as farre as wee can conceive, is the Devill," named Hobbamock, or +Hobbamoqui. The former of these names is merely the word "great," in +their dialect of Algonkin, with a final _n_, and is probably an +abbreviation of Kittanitowit, the great manito, a vague term mentioned +by Roger Williams and other early writers, not the appellation of any +personified deity.[60-2] The latter, so far from corresponding to the +power of evil, was, according to Winslow's own statement, the kindly god +who cured diseases, aided them in the chase, and appeared to them in +dreams as their protector. Therefore, with great justice, Dr. Jarvis has +explained it to mean "the _oke_ or tutelary deity which each Indian +worships," as the word itself signifies.[61-1] + +So in many instances it turns out that what has been reported to be the +evil divinity of a nation, to whom they pray to the neglect of a better +one, is in reality the highest power they recognize. Thus Juripari, +worshipped by certain tribes of the Pampas of Buenos Ayres, and said to +be their wicked spirit, is in fact the only name in their language for +spiritual existence in general; and Aka-kanet, sometimes mentioned as +the father of evil in the mythology of the Araucanians, is the benign +power appealed to by their priests, who is throned in the Pleiades, who +sends fruits and flowers to the earth, and is addressed as +"grandfather."[61-2] The Çupay of the Peruvians never was, as Prescott +would have us believe, "the shadowy embodiment of evil," but simply and +solely their god of the dead, the Pluto of their pantheon, corresponding +to the Mictla of the Mexicans. + +The evidence on the point is indeed conclusive. The Jesuit missionaries +very rarely distinguish between good and evil deities when speaking of +the religion of the northern tribes; and the Moravian Brethren among the +Algonkins and Iroquois place on record their unanimous testimony that +"the idea of a devil, a prince of darkness, they first received in +later times through the Europeans."[62-1] So the Cherokees, remarks an +intelligent observer, "know nothing of the Evil One and his domains, +except what they have learned from white men."[62-2] The term Great +Spirit conveys, for instance, to the Chipeway just as much the idea of a +bad as of a good spirit; he is unaware of any distinction until it is +explained to him.[62-3] "I have never been able to discover from the +Dakotas themselves," remarks the Rev. G. H. Pond, who had lived among +them as a missionary for eighteen years,[62-4] "the least degree of +evidence that they divide the gods into classes of good and evil, and am +persuaded that those persons who represent them as doing so, do it +inconsiderately, and because it is so natural to subscribe to a long +cherished popular opinion." + +Very soon after coming in contact with the whites, the Indians caught +the notion of a bad and good spirit, pitted one against the other in +eternal warfare, and engrafted it on their ancient traditions. Writers +anxious to discover Jewish or Christian analogies, forcibly construed +myths to suit their pet theories, and for indolent observers it was +convenient to catalogue their gods in antithetical classes. In Mexican +and Peruvian mythology this is so plainly false that historians no +longer insist upon it, but as a popular error it still holds its ground +with reference to the more barbarous and less known tribes. + +Perhaps no myth has been so often quoted in its confirmation as that of +the ancient Iroquois, which narrates the conflict between the first two +brothers of our race. It is of undoubted native origin and venerable +antiquity. The version given by the Tuscarora chief Cusic in 1825, +relates that in the beginning of things there were two brothers, +Enigorio and Enigohahetgea, names literally meaning the Good Mind and +the Bad Mind.[63-1] The former went about the world furnishing it with +gentle streams, fertile plains, and plenteous fruits, while the latter +maliciously followed him creating rapids, thorns, and deserts. At length +the Good Mind turned upon his brother in anger, and crushed him into the +earth. He sank out of sight in its depths, but not to perish, for in the +dark realms of the underworld he still lives, receiving the souls of the +dead and being the author of all evil. Now when we compare this with the +version of the same legend given by Father Brebeuf, missionary to the +Hurons in 1636, we find its whole complexion altered; the moral dualism +vanishes; the names Good Mind and Bad Mind do not appear; it is the +struggle of Ioskeha, the White one, with his brother Tawiscara, the Dark +one, and we at once perceive that Christian influence in the course of +two centuries had given the tale a meaning foreign to its original +intent. + +So it is with the story the Algonkins tell of their hero Manibozho, who, +in the opinion of a well-known writer, "is always placed in antagonism +to a great serpent, a spirit of evil."[64-1] It is to the effect that +after conquering many animals, this famous magician tried his arts on +the prince of serpents. After a prolonged struggle, which brought on the +general deluge and the destruction of the world, he won the victory. The +first authority we have for this narrative is even later than Cusic; it +is Mr. Schoolcraft in our own day; the legendary cause of the deluge as +related by Father Le Jeune, in 1634, is quite dissimilar, and makes no +mention of a serpent; and as we shall hereafter see, neither among the +Algonkins nor any other Indians, was the serpent usually a type of evil, +but quite the reverse.[64-2] + +The comparatively late introduction of such views into the native +legends finds a remarkable proof in the myths of the Quiches, which were +committed to writing in the seventeenth century. They narrate the +struggles between the rulers of the upper and the nether world, the +descent of the former into Xibalba, the Realm of Phantoms, and their +victory over its lords, One Death and Seven Deaths. The writer adds of +the latter, who clearly represent to his mind the Evil One and his +adjutants, "in the old times they did not have much power; they were but +annoyers and opposers of men, and in truth they were not regarded as +gods. But when they appeared it was terrible. They were of evil, they +were owls, fomenting trouble and discord." In this passage, which, be it +said, seems to have impressed the translators very differently, the +writer appears to compare the great power assigned by the Christian +religion to Satan and his allies, with the very much less potency +attributed to their analogues in heathendom, the rulers of the world of +the dead.[65-1] + +A little reflection will convince the most incredulous that any such +dualism as has been fancied to exist in the native religions, could not +have been of indigenous growth. The gods of the primitive man are beings +of thoroughly human physiognomy, painted with colors furnished by +intercourse with his fellows. These are his enemies or his friends, as +he conciliates or insults them. No mere man, least of all a savage, is +kind and benevolent in spite of neglect and injury, nor is any man +causelessly and ceaselessly malicious. Personal, family, or national +feuds render some more inimical than others, but always from a desire to +guard their own interests, never out of a delight in evil for its own +sake. Thus the cruel gods of death, disease, and danger, were never of +Satanic nature, while the kindliest divinities were disposed to punish, +and that severely, any neglect of their ceremonies. Moral dualism can +only arise in minds where the ideas of good and evil are not synonymous +with those of pleasure and pain, for the conception of a wholly good or +a wholly evil nature requires the use of these terms in their higher, +ethical sense. The various deities of the Indians, it may safely be said +in conclusion, present no stronger antithesis in this respect than those +of ancient Greece and Rome. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[44-1] But there is no ground for the most positive of philosophers to +reject the doctrine of innate ideas when put in a certain way. The +instincts and habits of the lower animals by which they obtain food, +migrate, and perpetuate their kind, are in obedience to particular +congenital impressions, and correspond to definite anatomical and +morphological relations. No one pretends their knowledge is experimental. +Just so the human cerebrum has received, by descent or otherwise, various +sensory impressions peculiar to man as a species, which are just as +certain to guide his thoughts, actions, and destiny, as is the cerebrum +of the insectivorous aye-aye to lead it to hunt successfully for larvæ. + +[45-1] _Die Kunst im Zusammenhang der Culturentwickelung_, i. pp. 50, +252. + +[46-1] I offer these derivations with a certain degree of reserve, for +such an extraordinary similarity in the sound of these words is +discoverable in North and portions of South America, that one might +almost be tempted to claim for them one original form. Thus in the Maya +dialects it is _ku_, vocative _â kue_, in Natchez _kue-ya_, in the Uchee +of West Florida _kauhwu_, in Otomi _okha_, in Mandan _okee_, Sioux +_ogha_, _waughon_, _wakan_, in Quichua _waka_, _huaca_, in Iroquois +_quaker_, _oki_, Algonkin _oki_, _okee_, Eskimo _aghatt_, which last has +a singular likeness in sound to the German or Norse, _O Gott_, as some of +the others have to the corresponding Finnish word _ukko_. _Ku_ in the +Carib tongue means _house_, especially a temple or house of the gods. The +early Spanish explorers adopted the word with the orthography _cue_, and +applied it to the sacred edifices of whatever nation they discovered. For +instance, they speak of the great cemetery of Teotihuacan, near Tezcuco, +as the _Llano de los Cues_. + +[46-2] "As the high heavens, the far-off mountains look to us blue, so a +blue superficies seems to recede from us. As we would fain pursue an +attractive object that flees from us, so we like to gaze at the blue, not +that it urges itself upon us, but that it draws us after it." Goethe, +_Farbenlehre_, secs. 780, 781. + +[47-1] Loskiel, _Geschichte der Mission der Evang. Brueder_, p. 63: +Barby, 1789. + +[47-2] Cogolludo, _Historia de Yucathan_, lib. iv. cap. vii. + +[48-1] _Rel. de la Nouv. France._ An 1636, p. 107. + +[48-2] This word is found in Gallatin's vocabularies (_Transactions of +the Am. Antiq. Soc._, vol. ii.), and may have partially induced that +distinguished ethnologist to ascribe, as he does in more than one place, +whatever notions the eastern tribes had of a Supreme Being to the +teachings of the Quakers. + +[48-3] Bruyas, _Radices Verborum Iroquæorum_, p. 84. This work is in +Shea's Library of American Linguistics, and is a most valuable +contribution to philology. The same etymology is given by Lafitau, +_Mœurs des Sauvages_, etc., Germ. trans., p. 65. + +[50-1] My authorities are Riggs, _Dict. of the Dakota_, Boscana, _Account +of New California_, Richardson's and Egede's Eskimo Vocabularies, +Pandosy, _Gram. and Dict. of the Yakama_ (Shea's Lib. of Am. +Linguistics), and the Abbé Brasseur for the Aztec. + +[51-1] These terms are found in Gallatin's vocabularies. The last +mentioned is not, as Adair thought, derived from _issto ulla_ or _ishto +hoollo_, great man, for in Choctaw the adjective cannot precede the noun +it qualifies. Its true sense is visible in the analogous Creek words +_ishtali_, the storm wind, and _hustolah_, the windy season. + +[51-2] Webster derives hurricane from the Latin _furio_. But Oviedo tells +us in his description of Hispaniola that "Hurakan, in lingua di questa +isola vuole dire propriamente fortuna tempestuosa molto eccessiva, perche +en effetto non è altro que un grandissimo vento è pioggia insieme." +_Historia dell' Indie_, lib. vi. cap. iii. It is a coincidence--perhaps +something more--that in the Quichua language _huracan_, third person +singular present indicative of the verbal noun _huraca_, means "a stream +of water falls perpendicularly." (Markham, _Quichua Dictionary_, p. 132.) + +[52-1] Oviedo, _Rel. de la Prov. de Cueba_, p. 141, ed. Ternaux-Compans. + +[52-2] Garcia, _Origen de los Indios_, lib. iv. cap. xxii. + +[53-1] See the _Rel. de la Nouv. France pour l'An 1637_, p. 49. + +[53-2] Mr. Morgan, in his excellent work, _The League of the Iroquois_, +has been led astray by an ignorance of the etymology of these terms. For +Schoolcraft's views see his _Oneota_, p. 147. The matter is ably +discussed in the _Etudes Philologiques sur Quelques Langues Sauvages de +l'Amérique_, p. 14: Montreal, 1866; but comp. Shea, _Dict. +Français-Onontagué_, preface. + +[54-1] "Qui ne prend aucun soin des choses icy bas." _Jour. Hist. d'un +Voyage de l'Amérique_, p. 225: Paris, 1713. + +[55-1] In attributing this speech to the Inca Yupanqui, I have followed +Balboa, who expressly says this was the general opinion of the Indians +(_Hist. du Pérou_, p. 62, ed. Ternaux-Compans). Others assign it to other +Incas. See Garcilasso de la Vega, _Hist. des Incas_, lib. viii. chap. 8, +and Acosta, _Nat. and Morall Hist. of the New World_, chap. 5. The fact +and the approximate time are beyond question. + +[56-1] Xeres, _Rel. de la Conq. du Pérou_, p. 151, ed. Ternaux-Compans. + +[57-1] Prescott, _Conq. of Mexico_, i. pp. 192, 193, on the authority of +Ixtlilxochitl. + +[57-2] Brasseur, _Hist. du Mexique_, iii. p. 297, note. + +[57-3] Of very many authorities that I have at hand, I shall only mention +Heckewelder, _Acc. of the Inds._[TN-1] p. 422, Duponceau, _Mém. sur les +Langues de l'Amér. du Nord_, p. 310, Peter Martyr _De Rebus Oceanicis_, +Dec. i., cap. 9, Molina, _Hist. of Chili_, ii. p. 75, Ximenes, _Origen de +los Indios de Guatemala_, pp. 4, 5, Ixtlilxochitl, _Rel. des Conq. du +Mexique_, p. 2. These terms bear the severest scrutiny. The Aztec +appellation of the Supreme Being _Tloque nahuaque_ is compounded of +_tloc_, together, with, and _nahuac_, at, by, with, with possessive forms +added, giving the signification, Lord of all existence and coexistence +(alles Mitseyns und alles Beiseyns, bei welchem das Seyn aller Dinge ist. +Buschmann, _Ueber die Aztekischen Ortsnamen_, p. 642). The Algonkin term +_Kittanittowit_ is derived from _kitta_, great, _manito_, spirit, _wit_, +an adjective termination indicating a mode of existence, and means the +Great Living Spirit (Duponceau, u. s.). Both these terms are undoubtedly +of native origin. In the Quiche legends the Supreme Being is called +_Bitol_, the substantive form of _bit_, to make pottery, to form, and +_Tzakol_, substantive form of _tzak_, to build, the Creator, the +Constructor. The Arowacks of Guyana applied the term _Aluberi_ to their +highest conception of a first cause, from the verbal form _alin_, he who +makes (Martius, _Ethnographie und Sprachenkunde Amerika's_, i. p. 696). + +[59-1] _Geschichte der Amerikanischen Urreligionen_, p. 403. + +[59-2] Bruyas, _Rad. Verb. Iroquæorum_, p. 38. + +[60-1] Alcazar, _Chrono-historia de la Prov. de Toledo_, Dec. iii., Año +viii., cap. iv: Madrid, 1710. This rare work contains the only faithful +copies of Father Rogel's letters extant. Mr. Shea, in his History of +Catholic Missions, calls him erroneously Roger. + +[60-2] It is fully analyzed by Duponceau, _Langues de l'Amérique du +Nord_, p. 309. + +[61-1] _Discourse on the Religion of the Ind. Tribes of N. Am._, p. 252 +in the Trans. N. Y. Hist. Soc. + +[61-2] Mueller, _Amer. Urreligionen_, pp. 265, 272, 274. Well may he +remark: "The dualism is not very striking among these tribes;" as a few +pages previous he says of the Caribs, "The dualism of gods is anything +but rigidly observed. The good gods do more evil than good. Fear is the +ruling religious sentiment." To such a lame conclusion do these venerable +prepossessions lead. "_Grau ist alle Theorie_." + +[62-1] Loskiel, _Ges. der Miss. der evang. Brueder_, p. 46. + +[62-2] Whipple, _Report on the Ind. Tribes_, p. 33: Washington, 1855. +Pacific Railroad Docs. + +[62-3] Schoolcraft, _Indian Tribes_, i. p. 359. + +[62-4] In Schoolcraft, _Ibid._, iv. p. 642. + +[63-1] Or more exactly, the Beautiful Spirit, the Ugly Spirit. In +Onondaga the radicals are _onigonra_, spirit, _hio_ beautiful, _ahetken_ +ugly. _Dictionnaire Français-Onontagué, édité par Jean-Marie Shea_: New +York, 1859. + +[64-1] Squier, _The Serpent Symbol in America_. + +[64-2] Both these legends will be analyzed in a subsequent chapter, and +an attempt made not only to restore them their primitive form, but to +explain their meaning. + +[65-1] Compare the translation and remarks of Ximenes, _Or. de los Indios +de Guat._, p. 76, with those of Brasseur, _Le Livre Sacré des Quichés_, +p. 189. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +THE SACRED NUMBER, ITS ORIGIN AND APPLICATIONS. + + The number FOUR sacred in all American religions, and the key to + their symbolism.--Derived from the CARDINAL POINTS.--Appears + constantly in government, arts, rites, and myths.--The Cardinal + Points identified with the Four Winds, who in myths are the four + ancestors of the human race, and the four celestial rivers watering + the terrestrial Paradise.--Associations grouped around each + Cardinal Point.--From the number four was derived the symbolic + value of the number _Forty_, and the _Sign of the Cross_. + + +Every one familiar with the ancient religions of the world must have +noticed the mystic power they attach to certain numbers, and how these +numbers became the measures and formative quantities, as it were, of +traditions and ceremonies, and had a symbolical meaning nowise connected +with their arithmetical value. For instance, in many eastern religions, +that of the Jews among the rest, _seven_ was the most sacred number, and +after it, _four_ and _three_. The most cursory reader must have observed +in how many connections the seven is used in the Hebrew Scriptures, +occurring, in all, something over three hundred and sixty times, it is +said. Why these numbers were chosen rather than others has not been +clearly explained. Their sacred character dates beyond the earliest +history, and must have been coeval with the first expressions of the +religious sentiment. Only one of them, the FOUR, has any prominence in +the religions of the red race, but this is so marked and so universal, +that at a very early period in my studies I felt convinced that if the +reason for its adoption could be discovered, much of the apparent +confusion which reigns among them would be dispelled. + +Such a reason must take its rise from some essential relation of man to +nature, everywhere prominent, everywhere the same. It is found in the +_adoration of the cardinal points_. + +The red man, as I have said, was a hunter; he was ever wandering through +pathless forests, coursing over boundless prairies. It seems to the +white race not a faculty, but an instinct that guides him so unerringly. +He is never at a loss. Says a writer who has deeply studied his +character: "The Indian ever has the points of the compass present to his +mind, and expresses himself accordingly in words, although it shall be +of matters in his own house."[67-1] + +The assumption of precisely four cardinal points is not of chance; it is +recognized in every language; it is rendered essential by the anatomical +structure of the body; it is derived from the immutable laws of the +universe. Whether we gaze at the sunset or the sunrise, or whether at +night we look for guidance to the only star of the twinkling thousands +that is constant to its place, the anterior and posterior planes of our +bodies, our right hands and our left coincide with the parallels and +meridians. Very early in his history did man take note of these four +points, and recognizing in them his guides through the night and the +wilderness, call them his gods. Long afterwards, when centuries of slow +progress had taught him other secrets of nature--when he had discerned +in the motions of the sun, the elements of matter, and the radicals of +arithmetic a repetition of this number--they were to him further +warrants of its sacredness. He adopted it as a regulating quantity in +his institutions and his arts; he repeated it in its multiples and +compounds; he imagined for it novel applications; he constantly +magnified its mystic meaning; and finally, in his philosophical +reveries, he called it the key to the secrets of the universe, "the +source of ever-flowing nature."[68-1] + +In primitive geography the figure of the earth is a square plain; in the +legend of the Quiché's it is "shaped as a square, divided into four +parts, marked with lines, measured with cords, and suspended from the +heavens by a cord to its four corners and its four sides."[68-2] The +earliest divisions of territory were in conformity to this view. Thus it +was with ancient Egypt, Syria, Mesopotamia, and China;[68-3] and in the +new world, the states of Peru, Araucania, the Muyscas, the Quichés, and +Tlascala were tetrarchies divided in accordance with, and in the first +two instances named after, the cardinal points. So their chief +cities--Cuzco, Quito, Tezcuco, Mexico, Cholula--were quartered by +streets running north, south, east, and west. It was a necessary result +of such a division that the chief officers of the government were four +in number, that the inhabitants of town and country, that the whole +social organization acquired a quadruplicate form. The official title of +the Incas was "Lord of the four quarters of the earth," and the +venerable formality in taking possession of land, both in their domain +and that of the Aztecs, was to throw a stone, to shoot an arrow, or to +hurl a firebrand to each of the cardinal points.[69-1] They carried out +the idea in their architecture, building their palaces in squares with +doors opening, their tombs with their angles pointing, their great +causeways running in these directions. These architectural principles +repeat themselves all over the continent; they recur in the sacred +structures of Yucatan, in the ancient cemetery of Teo-tihuacan near +Mexico, where the tombs are arranged along avenues corresponding exactly +to the parallels and meridians of the central tumuli of the sun and +moon;[69-2] and however ignorant we are about the mound builders of the +Mississippi valley, we know that they constructed their earthworks with +a constant regard to the quarters of the compass. + +Nothing can be more natural than to take into consideration the regions +of the heavens in the construction of buildings; I presume that at any +time no one plans an edifice of pretensions without doing so. Yet this +is one of those apparently trifling transactions which in their origin +and applications have exerted a controlling influence on the history of +the human race. + +When we reflect how indissolubly the mind of the primitive man is welded +to his superstitions, it were incredible that his social life and his +architecture could thus be as it were in subjection to one idea, and his +rites and myths escape its sway. As one might expect, it reappears in +these latter more vividly than anywhere else. If there is one formula +more frequently mentioned by travellers than another as an indispensable +preliminary to all serious business, it is that of smoking, and the +prescribed and traditional rule was that the first puff should be to the +sky, and then one to each of the corners of the earth, or the cardinal +points.[70-1] These were the spirits who made and governed the earth, +and under whatever difference of guise the uncultivated fancy portrayed +them, they were the leading figures in the tales and ceremonies of +nearly every tribe of the red race. These were the divine powers +summoned by the Chipeway magicians when initiating neophytes into the +mysteries of the meda craft. They were asked to a lodge of four poles, +to four stones that lay before its fire, there to remain four days, and +attend four feasts. At every step of the proceeding this number or its +multiples were repeated.[71-1] With their neighbors the Dakotas the +number was also distinctly sacred; it was intimately inwoven in all +their tales concerning the wakan power and the spirits of the air, and +their religious rites. The artist Catlin has given a vivid description +of the great annual festival of the Mandans, a Dakota tribe, and brings +forward with emphasis the ceaseless reiteration of this number from +first to last.[71-2] He did not detect its origin in the veneration of +the cardinal points, but the information that has since been furnished +of the myths of this stock leaves no doubt that such was the case.[71-3] + +Proximity of place had no part in this similarity of rite. In the grand +commemorative festival of the Creeks called the Busk, which wiped out +the memory of all crimes but murder, which reconciled the proscribed +criminal to his nation and atoned for his guilt, when the new fire was +kindled and the green corn served up, every dance, every invocation, +every ceremony, was shaped and ruled by the application of the number +four and its multiples in every imaginable relation. So it was at that +solemn probation which the youth must undergo to prove himself worthy of +the dignities of manhood and to ascertain his guardian spirit; here +again his fasts, his seclusions, his trials, were all laid down in +fourfold arrangement.[72-1] + +Not alone among these barbarous tribes were the cardinal points thus the +foundation of the most solemn mysteries of religion. An excellent +authority relates that the Aztecs of Micla, in Guatemala, celebrated +their chief festival four times a year, and that four priests solemnized +its rites. They commenced by invoking and offering incense to the sky +and the four cardinal points; they conducted the human victim four times +around the temple, then tore out his heart, and catching the blood in +four vases scattered it in the same directions.[72-2] So also the +Peruvians had four principal festivals annually, and at every new moon +one of four days' duration. In fact the repetition of the number in all +their religious ceremonies is so prominent that it has been a subject of +comment by historians. They have attributed it to the knowledge of the +solstices and equinoxes, but assuredly it is of more ancient date than +this. The same explanation has been offered for its recurrence among the +Nahuas of Mexico, whose whole lives were subjected to its operation. At +birth the mother was held unclean for four days, a fire was kindled and +kept burning for a like length of time, at the baptism of the child an +arrow was shot to each of the cardinal points. Their prayers were +offered four times a day, the greatest festivals were every fourth year, +and their offerings of blood were to the four points of the compass. At +death food was placed on the grave, as among the Eskimos, Creeks, and +Algonkins, for four days (for all these nations supposed that the +journey to the land of souls was accomplished in that time), and +mourning for the dead was for four months or four years.[73-1] + +It were fatiguing and unnecessary to extend the catalogue much further. +Yet it is not nearly exhausted. From tribes of both continents and all +stages of culture, the Muyscas of Columbia and the Natchez of Louisiana, +the Quichés of Guatemala and the Caribs of the Orinoko, instance after +instance might be marshalled to illustrate how universally a sacred +character was attached to this number, and how uniformly it is traceable +to a veneration of the cardinal points. It is sufficient that it be +displayed in some of its more unusual applications. + +It is well known that the calendar common to the Aztecs and Mayas +divides the month into four weeks, each containing a like number of +secular days; that their indiction is divided into four periods; and +that they believed the world had passed through four cycles. It has not +been sufficiently emphasized that in many of the picture writings these +days of the week are placed respectively north, south, east, and west, +and that in the Maya language the quarters of the indiction still bear +the names of the cardinal points, hinting the reason of their +adoption.[74-1] This cannot be fortuitous. Again, the division of the +year into four seasons--a division as devoid of foundation in nature as +that of the ancient Aryans into three, and unknown among many tribes, +yet obtained in very early times among Algonkins, Cherokees, Choctaws, +Creeks, Aztecs, Muyscas, Peruvians, and Araucanians. They were supposed +to be produced by the unending struggles and varying fortunes of the +four aerial giants who rule the winds. + +We must seek in mythology the key to the monotonous repetition and the +sanctity of this number; and furthermore, we must seek it in those +natural modes of expression of the religious sentiment which are above +the power of blood or circumstance to control. One of these modes, we +have seen, was that which led to the identification of the divinity with +the wind, and this it is that solves the enigma in the present instance. +Universally the spirits of the cardinal points were imagined to be in +the winds that blew from them. The names of these directions and of the +corresponding winds are often the same, and when not, there exists an +intimate connection between them. For example, take the languages of the +Mayas, Huastecas, and Moscos of Central America; in all of them the word +for _north_ is synonymous with _north wind_, and so on for the other +three points of the compass. Or again, that of the Dakotas, and the word +_tate-ouye-toba_, translated "the four quarters of the heavens," means +literally, "whence the four winds come."[75-1] It were not difficult to +extend the list; but illustrations are all that is required. Let it be +remembered how closely the motions of the air are associated in thought +and language with the operations of the soul and the idea of God; let it +further be considered what support this association receives from the +power of the winds on the weather, bringing as they do the lightning and +the storm, the zephyr that cools the brow, and the tornado that levels +the forest; how they summon the rain to fertilize the seed and refresh +the shrivelled leaves; how they aid the hunter to stalk the game, and +usher in the varying seasons; how, indeed, in a hundred ways, they +intimately concern his comfort and his life; and it will not seem +strange that they almost occupied the place of all other gods in the +mind of the child of nature. Especially as those who gave or withheld +the rains were they objects of his anxious solicitation. "Ye who dwell +at the four corners of the earth--at the north, at the south, at the +east, and at the west," commenced the Aztec prayer to the Tlalocs, gods +of the showers.[75-2] For they, as it were, hold the food, the life of +man in their power, garnered up on high, to grant or deny, as they see +fit. It was from them that the prophet of old was directed to call back +the spirits of the dead to the dry bones of the valley. "Prophesy unto +the wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, thus saith the Lord +God, come forth from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these +slain, that they may live." (Ezek. xxxvii. 9.) + +In the same spirit the priests of the Eskimos prayed to _Sillam Innua_, +the Owner of the Winds, as the highest existence; the abode of the dead +they called _Sillam Aipane_, the House of the Winds; and in their +incantations, when they would summon a new soul to the sick, or order +back to its home some troublesome spirit, their invocations were ever +addressed to the winds from the cardinal points--to Pauna the East and +Sauna the West, to Kauna the South and Auna the North.[76-1] + +As the rain-bringers, as the life-givers, it were no far-fetched +metaphor to call them the fathers of our race. Hardly a nation on the +continent but seems to have had some vague tradition of an origin from +four brothers, to have at some time been led by four leaders or princes, +or in some manner to have connected the appearance and action of four +important personages with its earliest traditional history. Sometimes +the myth defines clearly these fabled characters as the spirits of the +winds, sometimes it clothes them in uncouth, grotesque metaphors, +sometimes again it so weaves them into actual history that we are at a +loss where to draw the line that divides fiction from truth. + +I shall attempt to follow step by step the growth of this myth from its +simplest expression, where the transparent drapery makes no pretence to +conceal its true meaning, through the ever more elaborate narratives, +the more strongly marked personifications of more cultivated nations, +until it assumes the outlines of, and has palmed itself upon the world +as actual history. + +This simplest form is that which alone appears among the Algonkins and +Dakotas. They both traced their lives back to four ancestors, personages +concerned in various ways with the first things of time, not rightly +distinguished as men or gods, but very positively identified with the +four winds. Whether from one or all of these the world was peopled, +whether by process of generation or some other more obscure way, the old +people had not said, or saying, had not agreed.[77-1] + +It is a shade more complex when we come to the Creeks. They told of four +men who came from the four corners of the earth, who brought them the +sacred fire, and pointed out the seven sacred plants. They were called +the Hi-you-yul-gee. Having rendered them this service, the kindly +visitors disappeared in a cloud, returning whence they came. When +another and more ancient legend informs us that the Creeks were at first +divided into four clans, and alleged a descent from four female +ancestors, it will hardly be venturing too far to recognize in these +four ancestors the four friendly patrons from the cardinal points.[78-1] + +The ancient inhabitants of Haiti, when first discovered by the +Spaniards, had a similar genealogical story, which Peter Martyr relates +with various excuses for its silliness and exclamations at its +absurdity. Perhaps the fault lay less in its lack of meaning than in his +want of insight. It was to the effect that men lived in caves, and were +destroyed by the parching rays of the sun, and were destitute of means +to prolong their race, until they caught and subjected to their use four +women who were swift of foot and slippery as eels. These were the +mothers of the race of men. Or again, it was said that a certain king +had a huge gourd which contained all the waters of the earth; four +brothers, who coming into the world at one birth had cost their mother +her life, ventured to the gourd to fish, picked it up, but frightened by +the old king's approach, dropped it on the ground, broke it into +fragments, and scattered the waters over the earth, forming the seas, +lakes, and rivers, as they now are. These brothers in time became the +fathers of a nation, and to them they traced their lineage.[78-2] With +the previous examples before our eyes, it asks no vivid fancy to see in +these quaternions once more the four winds, the bringers of rain, so +swift and so slippery. + +The Navajos are a rude tribe north of Mexico. Yet even they have an +allegory to the effect that when the first man came up from the ground +under the figure of the moth-worm, the four spirits of the cardinal +points were already there, and hailed him with the exclamation, "Lo, he +is of our race."[79-1] It is a poor and feeble effort to tell the same +old story. + +The Haitians were probably relatives of the Mayas of Yucatan. Certainly +the latter shared their ancestral legends, for in an ancient manuscript +found by Mr. Stephens during his travels, it appears they looked back to +four parents or leaders called the Tutul Xiu. But, indeed, this was a +trait of all the civilized nations of Central America and Mexico. An +author who would be very unwilling to admit any mythical interpretation +of the coincidence, has adverted to it in tones of astonishment: "In all +the Aztec and Toltec histories there are four characters who constantly +reappear; either as priests or envoys of the gods, or of hidden and +disguised majesty; or as guides and chieftains of tribes during their +migrations; or as kings and rulers of monarchies after their foundation; +and even to the time of the conquest, there are always four princes who +compose the supreme government, whether in Guatemala, or in +Mexico."[79-2] This fourfold division points not to a common history, +but to a common nature. The ancient heroes and demigods, who, four in +number, figure in all these antique traditions, were not men of flesh +and blood, but the invisible currents of air who brought the fertilizing +showers. + +They corresponded to the four gods Bacab, who in the Yucatecan mythology +were supposed to stand one at each corner of the world, supporting, like +gigantic caryatides, the overhanging firmament. When at the general +deluge all other gods and men were swallowed by the waters they alone +escaped to people it anew. These four, known by the names of Kan, Muluc, +Ix, and Cauac, represented respectively the east, north, west, and +south, and as in Oriental symbolism, so here each quarter of the compass +was distinguished by a color, the east by yellow, the south by red, the +west by black, and the north by white. The names of these mysterious +personages, employed somewhat as we do the Dominical letters, adjusted +the calendar of the Mayas, and by their propitious or portentous +combinations was arranged their system of judicial astrology. They were +the gods of rain, and under the title Chac, the Red Ones, were the chief +ministers of the highest power. As such they were represented in the +religious ceremonies by four old men, constant attendants on the high +priest in his official functions.[80-1] In this most civilized branch +of the red race, as everywhere else, we thus find four mythological +characters prominent beyond all others, giving a peculiar physiognomy to +the national legends, arts, and sciences, and in them once more we +recognize by signs infallible, personifications of the four cardinal +points and the four winds. + +They rarely lose altogether their true character. The Quiché legends +tell us that the four men who were first created by the Heart of Heaven, +Hurakan, the Air in Motion, were infinitely keen of eye and swift of +foot, that "they measured and saw all that exists at the four corners +and the four angles of the sky and the earth;" that they did not fulfil +the design of their maker "to bring forth and produce when the season of +harvest was near," until he blew into their eyes a cloud, "until their +faces were obscured as when one breathes on a mirror." Then he gave them +as wives the four mothers of our species, whose names were Falling +Water, Beautiful Water, Water of Serpents, and Water of Birds.[81-1] +Truly he who can see aught but a transparent myth in this recital, is a +realist that would astonish Euhemerus himself. + +There is in these Aztec legends a quaternion besides this of the first +men, one that bears marks of a profound contemplation on the course of +nature, one that answers to the former as the heavenly phase of the +earthly conception. It is seen in the four personages, or perhaps we +should say modes of action, that make up the one Supreme Cause of All, +Hurakan, the breath, the wind, the Divine Spirit. They are He who +creates, He who gives Form, He who gives Life, and He who +reproduces.[82-1] This acute and extraordinary analysis of the origin +and laws of organic life, clothed under the ancient belief in the action +of the winds, reveals a depth of thought for which we were hardly +prepared, and is perhaps the single instance of anything like +metaphysics among the red race. It is clearly visible in the earlier +portions of the legends of the Quichés, and is the more surely of native +origin as it has been quite lost on both their translators. + +Go where we will, the same story meets us. The empire of the Incas was +attributed in the sacred chants of the Amautas, the priests assigned to +take charge of the records, to four brothers and their wives. These +mythical civilizers are said to have emerged from a cave called _Pacari +tampu_, which may mean "the House of Subsistence," reminding us of the +four heroes who in Aztec legend set forth to people the world from +Tonacatepec, the mountain of our subsistence; or again it may mean--for +like many of these mythical names it seems to have been designedly +chosen to bear a double construction--the Lodgings of the Dawn, +recalling another Aztec legend which points for the birthplace of the +race to Tula in the distant orient. The cave itself suggests to the +classical reader that of Eolus, or may be paralleled with that in which +the Iroquois fabled the winds were imprisoned by their lord.[83-1] These +brothers were of no common kin. Their voices could shake the earth and +their hands heap up mountains. Like the thunder god, they stood on the +hills and hurled their sling-stones to the four corners of the earth. +When one was overpowered he fled upward to the heaven or was turned into +stone, and it was by their aid and counsel that the savages who +possessed the land renounced their barbarous habits and commenced to +till the soil. There can be no doubt but that this in turn is but +another transformation of the Protean myth we have so long +pursued.[83-2] + +There are traces of the same legend among many other tribes of the +continent, but the trustworthy reports we have of them are too scanty to +permit analysis. Enough that they are mentioned in a note, for it is +every way likely that could we resolve their meaning they too would +carry us back to the four winds.[83-3] + +Let no one suppose, however, that this was the only myth of the origin +of man. Far from it. It was but one of many, for, as I shall hereafter +attempt to show, the laws that governed the formations of such myths not +only allowed but enjoined great divergence of form. Equally far was it +from being the only image which the inventive fancy hit upon to express +the action of the winds as the rain bringers. They too were many, but +may all be included in a twofold division, either as the winds were +supposed to flow in from the corners of the earth or outward from its +central point. Thus they are spoken of under such figures as four +tortoises at the angles of the earthly plane who vomit forth the +rains,[85-1] or four gigantic caryatides who sustain the heavens and +blow the winds from their capacious lungs,[85-2] or more frequently as +four rivers flowing from the broken calabash on high, as the Haitians, +draining the waters of the primitive world,[85-3] as four animals who +bring from heaven the maize,[85-4] as four messengers whom the god of +air sends forth, or under a coarser trope as the spittle he ejects +toward the cardinal points which is straightway transformed into wild +rice, tobacco, and maize.[85-5] + +Constantly from the palace of the lord of the world, seated on the high +hill of heaven, blow four winds, pour four streams, refreshing and +fecundating the earth. Therefore, in the myths of ancient Iran there is +mention of a celestial fountain, Arduisur, the virgin daughter of +Ormuzd, whence four all nourishing rivers roll their waves toward the +cardinal points; therefore the Thibetans believe that on the sacred +mountain Himavata grows the tree of life Zampu, from whose foot once +more flow the waters of life in four streams to the four quarters of the +world; and therefore it is that the same tale is told by the Chinese of +the mountain Kouantun, by the Brahmins of Mount Meru, and by the Parsees +of Mount Albors in the Caucasus.[85-6] Each nation called their sacred +mountain "the navel of the earth;" for not only was it the supposed +centre of the habitable world, but through it, as the fœtus through +the umbilical cord, the earth drew her increase. Beyond all other spots +were they accounted fertile, scenes of joyous plaisance, of repose, and +eternal youth; there rippled the waters of health, there blossomed the +tree of life; they were fit trysting spots of gods and men. Hence came +the tales of the terrestrial paradise, the rose garden of Feridun, the +Eden gardens of the world. The name shows the origin, for paradise (in +Sanscrit, _para desa_) means literally _high land_. There, in the +unanimous opinion of the Orient, dwelt once in unalloyed delight the +first of men; thence driven by untoward fate, no more anywhere could +they find the path thither. Some thought that in the north among the +fortunate Hyperboreans, others that in the mountains of the moon where +dwelt the long lived Ethiopians, and others again that in the furthest +east, underneath the dawn, was situate the seat of pristine happiness; +but many were of opinion that somewhere in the western sea, beyond the +pillars of Hercules and the waters of the Outer Ocean, lay the garden of +the Hesperides, the Islands of the Blessed, the earthly Elysion. + +It is not without design that I recall this early dream of the religious +fancy. When Christopher Columbus, fired by the hope of discovering this +terrestrial paradise, broke the enchantment of the cloudy sea and found +a new world, it was but to light upon the same race of men, deluding +themselves with the same hope of earthly joys, the same fiction of a +long lost garden of their youth. They told him that still to the west, +amid the mountains of Paria, was a spot whence flowed mighty streams +over all lands, and which in sooth was the spot he sought;[87-1] and +when that baseless fabric had vanished, there still remained the fabled +island of Boiuca, or Bimini, hundreds of leagues north of Hispaniola, +whose glebe was watered by a fountain of such noble virtue as to restore +youth and vigor to the worn out and the aged.[87-2] This was no fiction +of the natives to rid themselves of burdensome guests. Long before the +white man approached their shores, families had started from Cuba, +Yucatan, and Honduras in search of these renovating waters, and not +returning, were supposed by their kindred to have been detained by the +delights of that enchanted land, and to be revelling in its seductive +joys, forgetful of former ties.[87-3] + +Perhaps it was but another rendering of the same belief that pointed to +the impenetrable forests of the Orinoko, the ancient homes of the Caribs +and Arowacks, and there located the famous realm of El Dorado with its +imperial capital Manoa, abounding in precious metals and all manner of +gems, peopled by a happy race, and governed by an equitable ruler. + +The Aztec priests never chanted more regretful dirges than when they +sang of Tulan, the cradle of their race, where once it dwelt in peaceful +indolent happiness, whose groves were filled with birds of sweet voices +and gay plumage, whose generous soil brought forth spontaneously maize, +cocoa, aromatic gums, and fragrant flowers. "Land of riches and plenty, +where the gourds grow an arm's length across, where an ear of corn is a +load for a stout man, and its stalks are as high as trees; land where +the cotton ripens of its own accord of all rich tints; land abounding +with limpid emeralds, turquoises, gold, and silver."[88-1] This land was +also called Tlalocan, from Tlaloc, the god of rain, who there had his +dwelling place, and Tlapallan, the land of colors, or the red land, for +the hues of the sky at sunrise floated over it. Its inhabitants were +surnamed children of the air, or of Quetzalcoatl, and from its centre +rose the holy mountain Tonacatepec, the mountain of our life or +subsistence. Its supposed location was in the east, whence in that +country blow the winds that bring mild rains, says Sahagun, and that +missionary was himself asked, as coming from the east, whether his home +was in Tlapallan; more definitely by some it was situated among the +lofty peaks on the frontiers of Guatemala, and all the great rivers that +water the earth were supposed to have their sources there.[88-2] But +here, as elsewhere, its site was not determined. "There is a Tulan," +says an ancient authority, "where the sun rises, and there is another in +the land of shades, and another where the sun reposes, and thence came +we; and still another where the sun reposes, and there dwells +God."[89-1] + +The myth of the Quichés but changes the name of this pleasant land. With +them it was _Pan-paxil-pa-cayala_, where the waters divide in falling, +or between the waters parcelled out and mucky. This was "an excellent +land, full of pleasant things, where was store of white corn and yellow +corn, where one could not count the fruits, nor estimate the quantity of +honey and food." Over it ruled the lord of the air, and from it the +four sacred animals carried the corn to make the flesh of men.[90-1] + +Once again, in the legends of the Mixtecas, we hear the old story +repeated of the garden where the first two brothers dwelt. It lay +between a meadow and that lofty peak which supports the heavens and the +palaces of the gods. "Many trees were there, such as yield flowers and +roses, very luscious fruits, divers herbs, and aromatic spices." The +names of the brothers were the Wind of Nine Serpents and the Wind of +Nine Caverns. The first was as an eagle, and flew aloft over the waters +that poured around their enchanted garden; the second was as a serpent +with wings, who proceeded with such velocity that he pierced rocks and +walls. They were too swift to be seen by the sharpest eye, and were one +near as they passed, he was only aware of a whisper and a rustling like +that of the wind in the leaves.[90-2] + +Wherever, in short, the lust of gold lured the early adventurers, they +were told of some nation a little further on, some wealthy and +prosperous land, abundant and fertile, satisfying the desire of the +heart. It was sometimes deceit, and it was sometimes the credited +fiction of the earthly paradise, that in all ages has with a promise of +perfect joy consoled the aching heart of man. + +It is instructive to study the associations that naturally group +themselves around each of the cardinal points, and watch how these are +mirrored on the surface of language, and have directed the current of +thought. Jacob Grimm has performed this task with fidelity and beauty as +regards the Aryan race, but the means are wanting to apply his searching +method to the indigenous tongues of America. Enough if in general terms +their mythological value be determined. + +When the day begins, man wakes from his slumbers, faces the rising sun, +and prays. The east is before him; by it he learns all other directions; +it is to him what the north is to the needle; with reference to it he +assigns in his mind the position of the three other cardinal +points.[91-1] There is the starting place of the celestial fires, the +home of the sun, the womb of the morning. It represents in space the +beginning of things in time, and as the bright and glorious creatures of +the sky come forth thence, man conceits that his ancestors also in +remote ages wandered from the orient; there in the opinion of many in +both the old and new world was the cradle of the race; there in Aztec +legend was the fabled land of Tlapallan, and the wind from the east was +called the wind of Paradise, Tlalocavitl. + +From this direction came, according to the almost unanimous opinion of +the Indian tribes, those hero gods who taught them arts and religion, +thither they returned, and from thence they would again appear to resume +their ancient sway. As the dawn brings light, and with light is +associated in every human mind the ideas of knowledge, safety, +protection, majesty, divinity, as it dispels the spectres of night, as +it defines the cardinal points, and brings forth the sun and the day, +it occupied the primitive mind to an extent that can hardly be magnified +beyond the truth. It is in fact the central figure in most natural +religions. + +The west, as the grave of the heavenly luminaries, or rather as their +goal and place of repose, brings with it thoughts of sleep, of death, of +tranquillity, of rest from labor. When the evening of his days was come, +when his course was run, and man had sunk from sight, he was supposed to +follow the sun and find some spot of repose for his tired soul in the +distant west. There, with general consent, the tribes north of the Gulf +of Mexico supposed the happy hunting grounds; there, taught by the same +analogy, the ancient Aryans placed the Nerriti, the exodus, the land of +the dead. "The old notion among us," said on one occasion a +distinguished chief of the Creek nation, "is that when we die, the +spirit goes the way the sun goes, to the west, and there joins its +family and friends who went before it."[92-1] + +In the northern hemisphere the shadows fall to the north, thence blow +cold and furious winds, thence come the snow and early thunder. Perhaps +all its primitive inhabitants, of whatever race, thought it the seat of +the mighty gods.[92-2] A floe of ice in the Arctic Sea was the home of +the guardian spirit of the Algonkins;[92-3] on a mountain near the north +star the Dakotas thought Heyoka dwelt who rules the seasons; and the +realm of Mictla, the Aztec god of death, lay where the shadows pointed. +From that cheerless abode his sceptre reached over all creatures, even +the gods themselves, for sooner or later all must fall before him. The +great spirit of the dead, said the Ottawas, lives in the dark +north,[93-1] and there, in the opinion of the Monquis of California, +resided their chief god, Gumongo.[93-2] + +Unfortunately the makers of vocabularies have rarely included the words +north, south, east, and west, in their lists, and the methods of +expressing these ideas adopted by the Indians can only be partially +discovered. The east and west were usually called from the rising and +setting of the sun as in our words orient and occident, but occasionally +from traditional notions. The Mayas named the west the greater, the east +the lesser debarkation; believing that while their culture hero Zamna +came from the east with a few attendants, the mass of the population +arrived from the opposite direction.[93-3] The Aztecs spoke of the east +as "the direction of Tlalocan," the terrestrial paradise. But for north +and south there were no such natural appellations, and consequently the +greatest diversity is exhibited in the plans adopted to express them. +The north in the Caddo tongue is "the place of cold," in Dakota "the +situation of the pines," in Creek "the abode of the (north) star," in +Algonkin "the home of the soul," in Aztec "the direction of Mictla" the +realm of death, in Quiché and Quichua, "to the right hand;"[93-4] while +for the south we find such terms as in Dakota "the downward direction," +in Algonkin "the place of warmth," in Quiché "to the left hand," while +among the Eskimos, who look in this direction for the sun, its name +implies "before one," just as does the Hebrew word _kedem_, which, +however, this more southern tribe applied to the east. + +We can trace the sacredness of the number four in other curious and +unlooked-for developments. Multiplied into the number of the +fingers--the arithmetic of every child and ignorant man--or by adding +together the first four members of its arithmetical series (4 + 8 + 12 + +16), it gives the number forty. This was taken as a limit to the sacred +dances of some Indian tribes, and by others as the highest number of +chants to be employed in exorcising diseases. Consequently it came to be +fixed as a limit in exercises of preparation or purification. The +females of the Orinoko tribes fasted forty days before marriage, and +those of the upper Mississippi were held unclean the same length of time +after childbirth; such was the term of the Prince of Tezcuco's fast when +he wished an heir to his throne, and such the number of days the Mandans +supposed it required to wash clean the world at the deluge.[94-1] + +No one is ignorant how widely this belief was prevalent in the old +world, nor how the quadrigesimal is still a sacred term with some +denominations of Christianity. But a more striking parallelism awaits +us. The symbol that beyond all others has fascinated the human mind, THE +CROSS, finds here its source and meaning. Scholars have pointed out its +sacredness in many natural religions, and have reverently accepted it as +a mystery, or offered scores of conflicting and often debasing +interpretations. It is but another symbol of the four cardinal points, +the four winds of heaven. This will luminously appear by a study of its +use and meaning in America. + +The Catholic missionaries found it was no new object of adoration to the +red race, and were in doubt whether to ascribe the fact to the pious +labors of Saint Thomas or the sacrilegious subtlety of Satan. It was the +central object in the great temple of Cozumel, and is still preserved on +the bas-reliefs of the ruined city of Palenque. From time immemorial it +had received the prayers and sacrifices of the Aztecs and Toltecs, and +was suspended as an august emblem from the walls of temples in Popoyan +and Cundinamarca. In the Mexican tongue it bore the significant and +worthy name "Tree of Our Life," or "Tree of our Flesh" (Tonacaquahuitl). +It represented the god of rains and of health, and this was everywhere +its simple meaning. "Those of Yucatan," say the chroniclers, "prayed to +the cross as the god of rains when they needed water." The Aztec goddess +of rains bore one in her hand, and at the feast celebrated to her honor +in the early spring victims were nailed to a cross and shot with arrows. +Quetzalcoatl, god of the winds, bore as his sign of office "a mace like +the cross of a bishop;" his robe was covered with them strown like +flowers, and its adoration was throughout connected with his +worship.[96-1] When the Muyscas would sacrifice to the goddess of waters +they extended cords across the tranquil depths of some lake, thus +forming a gigantic cross, and at their point of intersection threw in +their offerings of gold, emeralds, and precious oils.[96-2] The arms of +the cross were designed to point to the cardinal points and represent +the four winds, the rain bringers. To confirm this explanation, let us +have recourse to the simpler ceremonies of the less cultivated tribes, +and see the transparent meaning of the symbol as they employed it. + +When the rain maker of the Lenni Lenape would exert his power, he +retired to some secluded spot and drew upon the earth the figure of a +cross (its arms toward the cardinal points?), placed upon it a piece of +tobacco, a gourd, a bit of some red stuff, and commenced to cry aloud to +the spirits of the rains.[96-3] The Creeks at the festival of the Busk, +celebrated, as we have seen, to the four winds, and according to their +legends instituted by them, commenced with making the new fire. The +manner of this was "to place four logs in the centre of the square, end +to end, forming a cross, the outer ends pointing to the cardinal points; +in the centre of the cross the new fire is made."[97-1] + +As the emblem of the winds who dispense the fertilizing showers it is +emphatically the tree of our life, our subsistence, and our health. It +never had any other meaning in America, and if, as has been said,[97-2] +the tombs of the Mexicans were cruciform, it was perhaps with reference +to a resurrection and a future life as portrayed under this symbol, +indicating that the buried body would rise by the action of the four +spirits of the world, as the buried seed takes on a new existence when +watered by the vernal showers. It frequently recurs in the ancient +Egyptian writings, where it is interpreted _life_; doubtless, could we +trace the hieroglyph to its source, it would likewise prove to be +derived from the four winds. + +While thus recognizing the natural origin of this consecrated symbol, +while discovering that it is based on the sacredness of numbers, and +this in turn on the structure and necessary relations of the human +body, thus disowning the meaningless mysticism that Joseph de Maistre +and his disciples have advocated, let us on the other hand be equally on +our guard against accepting the material facts which underlie these +beliefs as their deepest foundation and their exhaustive explanation. +That were but withered fruit for our labors, and it might well be asked, +where is here the divine idea said to be dimly prefigured in mythology? +The universal belief in the sacredness of numbers is an instinctive +faith in an immortal truth; it is a direct perception of the soul, akin +to that which recognizes a God. The laws of chemical combination, of the +various modes of motion, of all organic growth, show that simple +numerical relations govern all the properties and are inherent to the +very constitution of matter; more marvellous still, the most recent and +severe inductions of physicists show that precisely those two numbers on +whose symbolical value much of the edifice of ancient mythology was +erected, the _four_ and the _three_, regulate the molecular distribution +of matter and preside over the symmetrical development of organic forms. +This asks no faith, but only knowledge; it is science, not revelation. +In view of such facts is it presumptuous to predict that experiment +itself will prove the truth of Kepler's beautiful saying: "The universe +is a harmonious whole, the soul of which is God; numbers, figures, the +stars, all nature, indeed, are in unison with the mysteries of +religion"? + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[67-1] Buckingham Smith, _Gram. Notices of the Heve Language_, p. 26 +(Shea's Lib. Am. Linguistics). + +[68-1] I refer to thefour "ultimate elementary particles" of Empedocles. The number was +sacred to Hermes, and lay at the root of the physical philosophy of +Pythagoras. The quotation in the text is from the "Golden Verses," given +in Passow's lexicon under the word τετρακτὺς: ναι μα τον ἁμετερᾳ ψυχᾳ +παραδοντα τετρακτυν, παγαν αεναου φυσεως. "The most sacred of all +things," said this famous teacher, "is Number; and next to it, that +which gives Names;" a truth that the lapse of three thousand years is +just enabling us to appreciate. + +[68-2] Ximenes, _Or. de los Indios_, etc., p. 5. + +[68-3] See Sepp, _Heidenthum und dessen Bedeutung für das Christenthum_, +i. p. 464 sqq., a work full of learning, but written in the wildest vein +of Joseph de Maistre's school of Romanizing mythology. + +[69-1] Brasseur, _Hist. du Mexique_, ii. p. 227, _Le Livre Sacré des +Quichés_, introd. p. ccxlii. The four provinces of Peru were Anti, Cunti, +Chincha, and Colla. The meaning of these names has been lost, but to +repeat them, says La Vega, was the same as to use our words, east, west, +north, and south (_Hist. des Incas_, lib. ii. cap. 11). + +[69-2] Humboldt, _Polit. Essay on New Spain_, ii. p. 44. + +[70-1] This custom has been often mentioned among the Iroquois. +Algonkins, Dakotas, Creeks, Natchez, Araucanians, and other tribes. +Nuttall points out its recurrence among the Tartars of Siberia also. +(_Travels_, p. 175.) + +[71-1] Schoolcraft, _Indian Tribes_, v. pp. 424 et seq. + +[71-2] _Letters on the North American Indians_, vol. i., Letter 22. + +[71-3] Schoolcraft, _Indian Tribes_, iv. p. 643 sq. "Four is their sacred +number," says Mr. Pond (p. 646). Their neighbors, the Pawnees, though not +the most remote affinity can be detected between their languages, +coincide with them in this sacred number, and distinctly identified it +with the cardinal points. See De Smet, _Oregon Missions_, pp. 360, 361. + +[72-1] Benj. Hawkins, _Sketch of the Creek Country_, pp. 75, 78: +Savannah, 1848. The description he gives of the ceremonies of the Creeks +was transcribed word for word and published in the first volume of the +American Antiquarian Society's Transactions as of the Shawnees of Ohio. +This literary theft has not before been noticed. + +[72-2] Palacios, _Des. de la Prov. de Guatemala_, pp. 31, 32, ed. +Ternaux-Compans. + +[73-1] All familiar with Mexican antiquity will recall many such +examples. I may particularly refer to Kingsborough, _Antiqs. of Mexico_, +v. p. 480, Ternaux-Compans' _Recueil de pièces rel. à la Conq. du +Mexique_, pp. 307, 310, and Gama, _Des. de las dos Piedras que se +hallaron en la plaza principal de Mexico_, ii. sec. 126 (Mexico, 1832), +who gives numerous instances beyond those I have cited, and directs with +emphasis the attention of the reader to this constant repetition. + +[74-1] Albert Gallatin, _Trans. Am. Ethnol. Soc._, ii. p. 316, from the +Codex Vaticanus, No. 3738. + +[75-1] Riggs, _Gram. and Dict. of the Dakota Lang._, s. v. + +[75-2] Sahagun, _Hist. de la Nueva España_, in Kingsborough, v. p. 375. + +[76-1] Egede, _Nachrichten von Grönland_, pp. 137, 173, 285. (Kopenhagen, +1790.) + +[77-1] Schoolcraft, _Algic Researches_, i. p. 139, and _Indian Tribes_, +iv. p. 229. + +[78-1] Hawkins, _Sketch of the Creek Country_, pp. 81, 82, and Blomes, +_Acc. of his Majesty's Colonies_, p. 156, London, 1687, in Castiglioni, +_Viaggi nelle Stati Uniti_, i. p. 294. + +[78-2] Peter Martyr, _De Reb. Ocean._, Dec. i. lib. ix. The story is also +told more at length by the Brother Romain Pane, in the essay on the +ancient histories of the natives he drew up by the order of Columbus. It +has been reprinted with notes by the Abbé Brasseur, Paris, 1864, p. 438 +sqq. + +[79-1] Schoolcraft, _Ind. Tribes_, iv. p. 89. + +[79-2] Brasseur, _Le Liv. Sac._, Introd., p. cxvii. + +[80-1] Diego de Landa, _Rel. de las Cosas de Yucatan_, pp. 160, 206, 208, +ed. Brasseur. The learned editor, in a note to p. 208, states erroneously +the disposition of the colors, as may be seen by comparing the document +on p. 395. This dedication of colors to the cardinal points is universal +in Central Asia. The geographical names of the Red Sea, the Black Sea, +the Yellow Sea or Persian Gulf, and the White Sea or the Mediterranean, +are derived from this association. The cities of China, many of them at +least, have their gates which open toward the cardinal points painted of +certain colors, and precisely these four, the white, the black, the red, +and the yellow, are those which in Oriental myth the mountain in the +centre of Paradise shows to the different cardinal points. (Sepp, +_Heidenthum und Christenthum_, i. p. 177.) The coincidence furnishes food +for reflection. + +[81-1] _Le Livre Sacré des Quichés_, pp. 203-5, note. + +[82-1] The analogy is remarkable between these and the "quatre actes de +la puissance generatrice jusqu'à l'entier developpément des corps +organisés," portrayed by four globes in the Mycenean bas-reliefs. See +Guigniaut, _Religions de l'Antiquité_, i. p. 374. It were easy to +multiply the instances of such parallelism in the growth of religious +thought in the Old and New World, but I designedly refrain from doing so. +They have already given rise to false theories enough, and moreover my +purpose in this work is not "comparative mythology." + +[83-1] Müller, _Amer. Urreligionen_, p. 105, after Strahlheim, who is, +however, no authority. + +[83-2] Müller, _ubi supra_, pp. 308 sqq., gives a good résumé of the +different versions of the myth of the four brothers in Peru. + +[83-3] The Tupis of Brazil claim a descent from four brothers, three of +whose names are given by Hans Staden, a prisoner among them about 1550, +as Krimen, Hermittan, and Coem; the latter he explains to mean the +morning, the east (_le matin_, printed by mistake _le mutin_, _Relation +de Hans Staden de Homberg_, p. 274, ed. Ternaux-Compans, compare Dias, +_Dicc. da Lingua Tupy_, p. 47). Their southern relatives, the Guaranis of +Paraguay, also spoke of the four brothers and gave two of their names as +Tupi and Guarani, respectively parents of the tribes called after them +(Guevara, _Hist. del Paraguay_, lib. i. cap. ii., in Waitz). The fourfold +division of the Muyscas of Bogota was traced back to four chieftains +created by their hero god Nemqueteba (A. von Humboldt, _Vues des +Cordillères_, p. 246). The Nahuas of Mexico much more frequently spoke of +themselves as descendants of four or eight original families than of +seven (Humboldt, _ibid._, p. 317, and others in Waitz, _Anthropologie_, +iv. pp. 36, 37). The Sacs or Sauks of the Upper Mississippi supposed that +two men and two women were first created, and from these four sprang all +men (Morse, _Rep. on Ind. Affairs_, App. p. 138). The Ottoes, Pawnees, +"and other Indians," had a tradition that from eight ancestors all +nations and races were descended (Id., p. 249). This duplication of the +number probably arose from assigning the first four men four women as +wives. The division into clans or totems which prevails in most northern +tribes rests theoretically on descent from different ancestors. The +Shawnees and Natchez were divided into four such clans, the Choctaws, +Navajos, and Iroquois into eight, thus proving that in those tribes also +the myth I have been discussing was recognized. + +[85-1] Mandans in Catlin, _Letts. and Notes_, i. p. 181. + +[85-2] The Mayas, Cogolludo, _Hist. de Yucathan_, lib. iv. cap. 8. + +[85-3] The Navajos, Schoolcraft, _Ind. Tribes_, iv. p. 89. + +[85-4] The Quichés, Ximenes, _Or. de los Indios_, p. 79. + +[85-5] The Iroquois, Müller, _Amer. Urreligionen_, p. 109. + +[85-6] For these myths see Sepp, _Das Heidenthum und dessen Bedeutung für +das Christenthum_, i. p. 111 sqq. The interpretation is of course my own. + +[87-1] Peter Martyr, _De Reb. Ocean._, Dec. iii., lib. ix. p. 195; Colon, +1574. + +[87-2] Ibid., Dec. iii., lib. x. p. 202. + +[87-3] Florida was also long supposed to be the site of this wondrous +spring, and it is notorious that both Juan Ponce de Leon and De Soto had +some lurking hope of discovering it in their expeditions thither. I have +examined the myth somewhat at length in _Notes on the Floridian +Peninsula, its Literary History, Indian Tribes, and Antiquities_, pp. 99, +100: Philadelphia, 1859. + +[88-1] Sahagun, _Hist. de la Nueva España_, lib. iii. cap. iii. + +[88-2] _Le Livre Sacré des Quichés_, Introd., p. clviii. + +[89-1] Memorial de Tecpan Atitlan, in Brasseur, _Hist. du Mexique_, i. p. +167. The derivation of Tulan, or Tula, is extremely uncertain. The Abbé +Brasseur sees in it the _ultima Thule_ of the ancient geographers, which +suits his idea of early American history. Hernando De Soto found a +village of this name on the Mississippi, or near it. But on looking into +Gallatin's vocabularies, _tulla_ turns out to be the Choctaw word for +_stone_, and as De Soto was then in the Choctaw country, the coincidence +is explained at once. Buschmann, who spells it _Tollan_, takes it from +_tolin_, a rush, and translates, _juncetum_, _Ort der Binsen. Ueber die +Aztekischen Orstnamen_,[TN-2] p. 682. Those who have attempted to make +history from these mythological fables have been much puzzled about the +location of this mystic land. Humboldt has placed it on the northwest +coast, Cabrera at Palenque, Clavigero north of Anahuac, etc. etc. Aztlan, +literally, the White Land, is another name of wholly mythical purport, +which it would be equally vain to seek on the terrestrial globe. In the +extract in the text, the word translated God is _Qabavil_, an old word +for the highest god, either from a root meaning to open, to disclose, or +from one of similar form signifying to wonder, to marvel; literally, +therefore, the Revealer, or the Wondrous One (_Vocab. de la Lengua +Quiché_, p. 209: Paris, 1862). + +[90-1] Ximenes, _Or. de los Indios_, p. 80, _Le Livre Sacré_, p. 195. + +[90-2] Garcia, _Origen de los Indios_, lib. iv. cap. 4. + +[91-1] Compare the German expression _sich orientiren_, to right oneself +by the east, to understand one's surroundings. + +[92-1] Hawkins, _Sketch of the Creek Country_, p. 80. + +[92-2] See Jacob Grimm, _Geschichte der Deutschen Sprache_, p. 681 + +[92-3] De Smet, Oregon Missions, p. 352. + +[93-1] Bressani, _Relation Abrégé_, p. 93. + +[93-2] Venegas, _Hist. of California_, i. p. 91: London, 1759. + +[93-3] Cogolludo, _Hist. de Yucathan_, lib. iv. cap. iii. + +[93-4] Alexander von Humboldt has asserted that the Quichuas had other +and very circumstantial terms to express the cardinal points drawn from +the positions of the son (_Ansichten der Natur_, ii. p. 368). But the +distinguished naturalist overlooked the literal meaning of the phrases he +quotes for north and south, _intip chaututa chayananpata_ and _intip +chaupunchau chayananpata_, literally, the sun arriving toward the +midnight, the sun arriving toward the midday. These are evidently +translations of the Spanish _hacia la media noche_, _hacia el medio dia_, +for they could not have originated among a people under or south of the +equatorial line. + +[94-1] Catlin, _Letters and Notes_, i., Letter 22; La Hontan, _Mémoires_, +ii. p. 151; Gumilla, _Hist. del Orinoco_, p. 159 + +[96-1] On the worship of the cross in Mexico and Yucatan and its +invariable meaning as representing the gods of rain, consult +Ixtlilxochitl, _Hist. des Chichimeques_, p. 5; Sahagun, _Hist. de la +Nueva España_, lib. i. cap. ii.; Garcia, _Or. de los Indios_, lib. iii. +cap. vi. p. 109; Palacios, _Des. de la Prov. de Guatemala_, p. 29; +Cogolludo, _Hist. de Yucathan_, lib. iv. cap. ix.; Villagutierre +Sotomayor, _Hist. de el Itza y de el Lacandon_, lib. iii. cap. 8; and +many others might be mentioned. + +[96-2] Rivero and Tschudi, _Peruvian Antiquities_, p. 162, after J. +Acosta. + +[96-3] Loskiel, _Ges. der Miss. der evang. Brüder_, p. 60. + +[97-1] Hawkins, _Sketch of the Creek Country_, p. 75. Lapham and Pidgeon +mention that in the State of Wisconsin many low mounds are found in the +form of a cross with the arms directed to the cardinal points. They +contain no remains. Were they not altars built to the Four Winds? In the +mythology of the Dakotas, who inhabited that region, the winds were +always conceived as birds, and for the cross they have a native name +literally signifying "the musquito hawk spread out" (Riggs, _Dict. of the +Dakota_, s. v.). Its Maya name is _vahom che_, the tree erected or set +up, the adjective being drawn from the military language and implying as +a defence or protection, as the warrior lifts his lance or shield (Landa, +_Rel. de las Cosas de Yucatan_, p. 65). + +[97-2] Squier, _The Serpent Symbol in America_, p. 98. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +THE SYMBOLS OF THE BIRD AND THE SERPENT. + + Relations of man to the lower animals.--Two of these, the BIRD and + the SERPENT, chosen as symbols beyond all others.--The Bird + throughout America the symbol of the Clouds and Winds.--Meaning of + certain species.--The symbolic meaning of the Serpent derived from + its mode of locomotion, its poisonous bite, and its power of + charming.--Usually the symbol of the Lightning and the Waters.--The + Rattlesnake the symbolic species in America.--The war charm.--The + Cross of Palenque.--The god of riches.--Both symbols devoid of + moral significance. + + +Those stories which the Germans call _Thierfabeln_, wherein the actors +are different kinds of brutes, seem to have a particular relish for +children and uncultivated nations. Who cannot recall with what delight +he nourished his childish fancy on the pranks of Reynard the Fox, or the +tragic adventures of Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf? Every nation +has a congeries of such tales, and it is curious to mark how the same +animal reappears with the same imputed physiognomy in all of them. The +fox is always cunning, the wolf ravenous, the owl wise, and the ass +foolish. The question has been raised whether such traits were at first +actually ascribed to animals, or whether their introduction in story was +intended merely as an agreeable figure of speech for classes of men. We +cannot doubt but that the former was the case. Going back to the dawn of +civilization, we find these relations not as amusing fictions, but as +myths, embodying religious tenets, and the brute heroes held up as the +ancestors of mankind, even as rightful claimants of man's prayers and +praises. + +Man, the paragon of animals, praying to the beast, is a spectacle so +humiliating that, for the sake of our common humanity, we may seek the +explanation of it least degrading to the dignity of our race. We must +remember that as a hunter the primitive man was always matched against +the wild creatures of the woods, so superior to him in their dumb +certainty of instinct, their swift motion, their muscular force, their +permanent and sufficient clothing. Their ways were guided by a wit +beyond his divination, and they gained a living with little toil or +trouble. They did not mind the darkness so terrible to him, but through +the night called one to the other in a tongue whose meaning he could not +fathom, but which, he doubted not, was as full of purport as his own. He +did not recognize in himself those god-like qualities destined to endow +him with the royalty of the world, while far more clearly than we do he +saw the sly and strange faculties of his antagonists. They were to him, +therefore, not inferiors, but equals--even superiors. He doubted not +that once upon a time he had possessed their instinct, they his +language, but that some necromantic spell had been flung on them both to +keep them asunder. None but a potent sorcerer could break this charm, +but such an one could understand the chants of birds and the howls of +savage beasts, and on occasion transform himself into one or another +animal, and course the forest, the air, or the waters, as he saw fit. +Therefore, it was not the beast that he worshipped, but that share of +the omnipresent deity which he thought he perceived under its +form.[101-1] + +Beyond all others, two subdivisions of the animal kingdom have so +riveted the attention of men by their unusual powers, and enter so +frequently into the myths of every nation of the globe, that a right +understanding of their symbolic value is an essential preliminary to the +discussion of the divine legends. They are the BIRD and the SERPENT. We +shall not go amiss if we seek the reasons of their pre-eminence in the +facility with which their peculiarities offered sensuous images under +which to convey the idea of divinity, ever present in the soul of man, +ever striving at articulate expression. + +The bird has the incomprehensible power of flight; it floats in the +atmosphere, it rides on the winds, it soars toward heaven where dwell +the gods; its plumage is stained with the hues of the rainbow and the +sunset; its song was man's first hint of music; it spurns the clouds +that impede his footsteps, and flies proudly over the mountains and +moors where he toils wearily along. He sees no more enviable creature; +he conceives the gods and angels must also have wings; and pleases +himself with the fancy that he, too, some day will shake off this coil +of clay, and rise on pinions to the heavenly mansions. All living +beings, say the Eskimos, have the faculty of soul (_tarrak_), but +especially the birds.[101-2] As messengers from the upper world and +interpreters of its decrees, the flight and the note of birds have ever +been anxiously observed as omens of grave import. "There is one bird +especially," remarks the traveller Coreal, of the natives of Brazil, +"which they regard as of good augury. Its mournful chant is heard rather +by night than day. The savages say it is sent by their deceased friends +to bring them news from the other world, and to encourage them against +their enemies."[102-1] In Peru and in Mexico there was a College of +Augurs, corresponding in purpose to the auspices of ancient Rome, who +practised no other means of divination than watching the course and +professing to interpret the songs of fowls. So natural and so general is +such a superstition, and so wide-spread is the respect it still obtains +in civilized and Christian lands, that it is not worth while to summon +witnesses to show that it prevailed universally among the red race also. +What imprinted it with redoubled force on their imagination was the +common belief that birds were not only divine nuncios, but the visible +spirits of their departed friends. The Powhatans held that a certain +small wood bird received the souls of their princes at death, and they +refrained religiously from doing it harm;[102-2] while the Aztecs and +various other nations thought that all good people, as a reward of +merit, were metamorphosed at the close of life into feathered songsters +of the grove, and in this form passed a certain term in the umbrageous +bowers of Paradise. + +But the usual meaning of the bird as a symbol looks to a different +analogy--to that which appears in such familiar expressions as "the +wings of the wind," "the flying clouds." Like the wind, the bird sweeps +through the aerial spaces, sings in the forests, and rustles on its +course; like the cloud, it floats in mid-air and casts its shadow on the +earth; like the lightning, it darts from heaven to earth to strike its +unsuspecting prey. These tropes were truths to savage nations, and led +on by that law of language which forced them to conceive everything as +animate or inanimate, itself the product of a deeper law of thought +which urges us to ascribe life to whatever has motion, they found no +animal so appropriate for their purpose here as the bird. Therefore the +Algonkins say that birds always make the winds, that they create the +water spouts, and that the clouds are the spreading and agitation of +their wings;[103-1] the Navajos, that at each cardinal point stands a +white swan, who is the spirit of the blasts which blow from its +dwelling; and the Dakotas, that in the west is the house of the +Wakinyan, the Flyers, the breezes that send the storms. So, also, they +frequently explain the thunder as the sound of the cloud-bird flapping +his wings, and the lightning as the fire that flashes from his tracks, +like the sparks which the buffalo scatters when he scours over a stony +plain.[103-2] The thunder cloud was also a bird to the Caribs, and they +imagined it produced the lightning in true Carib fashion by blowing it +through a hollow reed, just as they to this day hurl their poisoned +darts.[104-1] Tupis, Iroquois, Athapascas, for certain, perhaps all the +families of the red race, were the subject pursued, partook of this +persuasion; among them all it would probably be found that the same +figures of speech were used in comparing clouds and winds with the +feathered species as among us, with however this most significant +difference, that whereas among us they are figures and nothing more, to +them they expressed literal facts. + +How important a symbol did they thus become! For the winds, the clouds, +producing the thunder and the changes that take place in the +ever-shifting panorama of the sky, the rain bringers, lords of the +seasons, and not this only, but the primary type of the soul, the life, +the breath of man and the world, these in their role in mythology are +second to nothing. Therefore as the symbol of these august powers, as +messenger of the gods, and as the embodiment of departed spirits, no one +will be surprised if they find the bird figure most prominently in the +myths of the red race. + +Sometimes some particular species seems to have been chosen as most +befitting these dignified attributes. No citizen of the United States +will be apt to assert that their instinct led the indigenes of our +territory astray when they chose with nigh unanimous consent the great +American eagle as that fowl beyond all others proper to typify the +supreme control and the most admirable qualities. Its feathers composed +the war flag of the Creeks, and its images carved in wood or its stuffed +skin surmounted their council lodges (Bartram); none but an approved +warrior dare wear it among the Cherokees (Timberlake); and the Dakotas +allowed such an honor only to him who had first touched the corpse of +the common foe (De Smet). The Natchez and Akanzas seem to have paid it +even religious honors, and to have installed it in their most sacred +shrines (Sieur de Tonty, Du Pratz); and very clearly it was not so much +for ornament as for a mark of dignity and a recognized sign of worth +that its plumes were so highly prized. The natives of Zuñi, in New +Mexico, employed four of its feathers to represent the four winds in +their invocations for rain (Whipple), and probably it was the eagle +which a tribe in Upper California (the Acagchemem) worshipped under the +name Panes. Father Geronimo Boscana describes it as a species of +vulture, and relates that one of them was immolated yearly, with solemn +ceremony, in the temple of each village. Not a drop of blood was +spilled, and the body burned. Yet with an amount of faith that staggered +even the Romanist, the natives maintained and believed that it was the +same individual bird they sacrificed each year; more than this, that the +same bird was slain by each of the villages![105-1] + +The owl was regarded by Aztecs, Quichés, Mayas, Peruvians, Araucanians, +and Algonkins as sacred to the lord of the dead. "The Owl" was one of +the names of the Mexican Pluto, whose realm was in the north,[106-1] and +the wind from that quarter was supposed by the Chipeways to be made by +the owl as the south by the butterfly.[106-2] As the bird of night, it +was the fit emissary of him who rules the darkness of the grave. +Something in the looks of the creature as it sapiently stares and blinks +in the light, or perhaps that it works while others sleep, got for it +the character of wisdom. So the Creek priests carried with them as the +badge of their learned profession the stuffed skin of one of these +birds, thus modestly hinting their erudite turn of mind,[106-3] and the +culture hero of the Monquis of California was represented, like Pallas +Athene, having one as his inseparable companion (Venegas). + +As the associate of the god of light and air, and as the antithesis +therefore of the owl, the Aztecs reverenced a bird called _quetzal_, +which I believe is a species of parroquet. Its plumage is of a bright +green hue, and was prized extravagantly as a decoration. It was one of +the symbols and part of the name of Quetzalcoatl, their mythical +civilizer, and the prince of all sorts of singing birds, myriads of whom +were fabled to accompany him on his journeys. + +The tender and hallowed associations that have so widely shielded the +dove from harm, which for instance Xenophon mentions among the ancient +Persians, were not altogether unknown to the tribes of the New World. +Neither the Hurons nor Mandans would kill them, for they believed they +were inhabited by the souls of the departed,[107-1] and it is said, but +on less satisfactory authority, that they enjoyed similar immunity among +the Mexicans. Their soft and plaintive note and sober russet hue widely +enlisted the sympathy of man, and linked them with his more tender +feelings. + +"As wise as the serpent, as harmless as the dove," is an antithesis that +might pass current in any human language. They are the emblems of +complementary, often contrasted qualities. Of all animals, the serpent +is the most mysterious. No wonder it possessed the fancy of the +observant child of nature. Alone of creatures it swiftly progresses +without feet, fins, or wings. "There be three things which are too +wonderful for me, yea, four which I know not," said wise King Solomon; +and the chief of them were, "the way of an eagle in the air, the way of +a serpent upon a rock." + +Its sinuous course is like to nothing so much as that of a winding +river, which therefore we often call serpentine. So did the Indians. +Kennebec, a stream in Maine, in the Algonkin means snake, and Antietam, +the creek in Maryland of tragic celebrity, in an Iroquois dialect has +the same significance. How easily would savages, construing the figure +literally, make the serpent a river or water god! Many species being +amphibious would confirm the idea. A lake watered by innumerable +tortuous rills wriggling into it, is well calculated for the fabled +abode of the king of the snakes. Thus doubtless it happened that both +Algonkins and Iroquois had a myth that in the great lakes dwelt a +monster serpent, of irascible temper, who unless appeased by meet +offerings raised a tempest or broke the ice beneath the feet of those +venturing on his domain, and swallowed them down.[108-1] + +The rattlesnake was the species almost exclusively honored by the red +race. It is slow to attack, but venomous in the extreme, and possesses +the power of the basilisk to attract within reach of its spring small +birds and squirrels. Probably this much talked of fascination is nothing +more than by its presence near their nests to incite them to attack, and +to hazard near and nearer approaches to their enemy in hope to force him +to retreat, until once within the compass of his fell swoop they fall +victims to their temerity. I have often watched a cat act thus. Whatever +explanation may be received, the fact cannot be questioned, and is ever +attributed by the unreflecting, to some diabolic spell cast upon them by +the animal. They have the same strange susceptibility to the influence +of certain sounds as the vipers, in which lies the secret of snake +charming. Most of the Indian magicians were familiar with this +singularity. They employed it with telling effect to put beyond question +their intercourse with the unseen powers, and to vindicate the potency +of their own guardian spirits who thus enabled them to handle with +impunity the most venomous of reptiles.[109-1] The well-known antipathy +of these serpents to certain plants, for instance the hazel, which bound +around the ankles is an efficient protection against their attacks, and +perhaps some antidote to their poison used by the magicians, led to +their frequent introduction in religious ceremonies. Such exhibitions +must have made a profound impression on the spectators, and redounded in +a corresponding degree to the glory of the performer. "Who is a manito?" +asks the mystic meda chant of the Algonkins. "He," is the reply, "he who +walketh with a serpent, walking on the ground, he is a manito."[109-2] +And the intimate alliance of this symbol with the most sacred mysteries +of religion, the darkest riddles of the Unknown, is reflected in their +language, and also in that of their neighbors the Dakotas, in both of +which the same words _manito_, _wakan_, which express divinity in its +broadest sense, are also used as generic terms signifying this species +of animals! This strange fact is not without a parallel, for in both +Arabic and Hebrew, the word for serpent has many derivatives, meaning to +have intercourse with demoniac powers, to practise magic, and to consult +familiar spirits.[110-1] + +The pious founder of the Moravian brotherhood, the Count of Zinzendorf, +owed his life on one occasion to this deeply rooted superstition. He was +visiting a missionary station among the Shawnees, in the Wyoming valley. +Recent quarrels with the whites had unusually irritated this unruly +folk, and they resolved to make him their first victim. After he had +retired to his secluded hut, several of their braves crept upon him, and +cautiously lifting the corner of the lodge, peered in. The venerable man +was seated before a little fire, a volume of the Scriptures on his +knees, lost in the perusal of the sacred words. While they gazed, a huge +rattlesnake, unnoticed by him, trailed across his feet, and rolled +itself into a coil in the comfortable warmth of the fire. Immediately +the would-be murderers forsook their purpose and noiselessly retired, +convinced that this was indeed a man of God. + +A more unique trait than any of these is its habit of casting its skin +every spring, thus as it were renewing its life. In temperate latitudes +the rattlesnake, like the leaves and flowers, retires from sight during +the cold season, and at the return of kindly warmth puts on a new and +brilliant coat. Its cast-off skin was carefully collected by the savages +and stored in the medicine bag as possessing remedial powers of high +excellence. Itself thus immortal, they thought it could impart its +vitality to them. So when the mother was travailing in sore pain, and +the danger neared that the child would be born silent, the attending +women hastened to catch some serpent and give her its blood to +drink.[111-1] + +It is well known that in ancient art this animal was the symbol of +Æsculapius, and to this day, Professor Agassiz found that the Maues +Indians, who live between the upper Tapajos and Madeira Rivers in +Brazil, whenever they assign a form to any "remedio," give it that of a +serpent.[111-2] + +Probably this notion that it was annually rejuvenated led to its +adoption as a symbol of Time among the Aztecs; or, perchance, as they +reckoned by suns, and the figure of the sun, a circle, corresponds to +nothing animate but a serpent with its tail in its mouth, eating itself, +as it were, this may have been its origin. Either of them is more likely +than that the symbol arose from the recondite reflection that time is +"never ending, still beginning, still creating, still destroying," as +has been suggested. + +Only, however, within the last few years has the significance of the +serpent symbol in its length and breadth been satisfactorily explained, +and its frequent recurrence accounted for. By a searching analysis of +Greek and German mythology, Dr. Schwarz, of Berlin, has shown that the +meaning which is paramount to all others in this emblem is _the +lightning_; a meaning drawn from the close analogy which the serpent in +its motion, its quick spring, and mortal bite, has to the zigzag course, +the rapid flash, and sudden stroke of the electric discharge. He even +goes so far as to imagine that by this resemblance the serpent first +acquired the veneration of men. But this is an extravagance not +supported by more thorough research. He has further shown with great +aptness of illustration how, by its dread effects, the lightning, the +heavenly serpent, became the god of terror and the opponent of such +heroes as Beowulf, St. George, Thor, Perseus, and others, mythical +representations of the fearful war of the elements in the thunder storm; +how from its connection with the advancing summer and fertilizing +showers it bore the opposite character of the deity of fruitfulness, +riches, and plenty; how, as occasionally kindling the woods where it +strikes, it was associated with the myths of the descent of fire from +heaven, and as in popular imagination where it falls it scatters the +thunderbolts in all directions, the flint-stones which flash when struck +were supposed to be these fragments, and gave rise to the stone worship +so frequent in the old world; and how, finally, the prevalent myth of a +king of serpents crowned with a glittering stone or wearing a horn is +but another type of the lightning.[113-1] Without accepting unreservedly +all these conclusions, I shall show how correct they are in the main +when applied to the myths of the New World, and thereby illustrate how +the red race is of one blood and one faith with our own remote ancestors +in heathen Europe and Central Asia. + +It asks no elaborate effort of the imagination to liken the lightning to +a serpent. It does not require any remarkable acuteness to guess the +conundrum of Schiller:-- + + "Unter allen Schlangen ist eine + Auf Erden nicht gezeugt, + Mit der an Schnelle keine, + An Wuth sich keine vergleicht." + +When Father Buteux was a missionary among the Algonkins, in 1637, he +asked them their opinion of the nature of lightning. "It is an immense +serpent," they replied, "which the Manito is vomiting forth; you can see +the twists and folds that he leaves on the trees which he strikes; and +underneath such trees we have often found huge snakes." "Here is a novel +philosophy for you!" exclaims the Father.[113-2] So the Shawnees called +the thunder "the hissing of the great snake;"[113-3] and Tlaloc, the +Toltec thunder god, held in his hand a serpent of gold to represent the +lightning.[114-1] For this reason the Caribs spoke of the god of the +thunder storm as a great serpent dwelling in the fruit forests,[114-2] +and in the Quiché legends other names for Hurakan, the hurricane or +thunder-storm, are the Strong Serpent, He who hurls below, referring to +the lightning.[114-3] + +Among the Hurons, in 1648, the Jesuits found a legend current that there +existed somewhere a monster serpent called Onniont, who wore on his head +a horn that pierced rocks, trees, hills, in short everything he +encountered. Whoever could get a piece of this horn was a fortunate man, +for it was a sovereign charm and bringer of good luck. The Hurons +confessed that none of them had had the good hap to find the monster and +break his horn, nor indeed had they any idea of his whereabouts; but +their neighbors, the Algonkins, furnished them at times small fragments +for a large consideration.[114-4] Clearly the myth had been taught them +for venal purposes by their trafficking visitors. Now among the +Algonkins, the Shawnee tribe did more than all others combined to +introduce and carry about religious legends and ceremonies. From the +earliest times they seem to have had peculiar aptitude for the +ecstasies, deceits, and fancies that made up the spiritual life of their +associates. Their constantly roving life brought them in contact with +the myths of many nations. And it is extremely probable that they first +brought the tale of the horned serpent from the Creeks and Cherokees. It +figured extensively in the legends of both these tribes. + +The latter related that once upon a time among the glens of their +mountains dwelt the prince of rattlesnakes. Obedient subjects guarded +his palace, and on his head glittered in place of a crown a gem of +marvellous magic virtues. Many warriors and magicians tried to get +possession of this precious talisman, but were destroyed by the poisoned +fangs of its defenders. Finally, one more inventive than the rest hit +upon the bright idea of encasing himself in leather, and by this device +marched unharmed through the hissing and snapping court, tore off the +shining jewel, and bore it in triumph to his nation. They preserved it +with religious care, brought it forth on state occasions with solemn +ceremony, and about the middle of the last century, when Captain +Timberlake penetrated to their towns, told him its origin.[115-1] + +The charm which the Creeks presented their young men when they set out +on the war path was of very similar character. It was composed of the +bones of the panther and the horn of the fabulous horned snake. +According to a legend taken down by an unimpeachable authority toward +the close of the last century, the great snake dwelt in the waters; the +old people went to the brink and sang the sacred songs. The monster rose +to the surface. The sages recommenced the mystic chants. He rose a +little out o[TN-3] the water. Again they repeated the songs. This time +he showed his horns and they cut one off. Still a fourth time did they +sing, and as he rose to listen cut off the remaining horn. A fragment of +these in the "war physic" protected from inimical arrows and gave +success in the conflict.[116-1] + +In these myths, which attribute good fortune to the horn of the snake, +that horn which pierces trees and rocks, which rises from the waters, +which glitters as a gem, which descends from the ravines of the +mountains, we shall not overstep the bounds of prudent reasoning if we +see the thunderbolt, sign of the fructifying rain, symbol of the +strength of the lightning, horn of the heavenly serpent. They are +strictly meteorological in their meaning. And when in later Algonkin +tradition the hero Michabo appears in conflict with the shining prince +of serpents who lives in the lake and floods the earth with its waters, +and destroys the reptile with a dart, and further when the conqueror +clothes himself with the skin of his foe and drives the rest of the +serpents to the south where in that latitude the lightnings are last +seen in the autumn;[116-2] or when in the traditional history of the +Iroquois we hear of another great horned serpent rising out of the lake +and preying upon the people until a similar hero-god destroys it with a +thunderbolt,[116-3] we cannot be wrong in rejecting any historical or +ethical interpretation, and in construing them as allegories which at +first represented the atmospheric changes which accompany the advancing +seasons and the ripening harvests. They are narratives conveying under +agreeable personifications the tidings of that unending combat which the +Dakotas said was being waged with varying fortunes by Unktahe against +Wauhkeon, the God of Waters against the Thunder Bird.[117-1] They are +the same stories which in the old world have been elaborated into the +struggles of Ormuzd and Ahriman, of Thor and Midgard, of St. George and +the Dragon, and a thousand others. + +Yet it were but a narrow theory of natural religion that allowed no +other meaning to these myths. Many another elemental warfare is being +waged around us, and applications as various as nature herself lie in +these primitive creations of the human fancy. Let it only be remembered +that there was never any moral, never any historical purport in them in +the infancy of religious life. + +In snake charming as a proof of proficiency in magic, and in the symbol +of the lightning, which brings both fire and water, which in its might +controls victory in war, and in its frequency, plenteous crops at home, +lies the secret of the serpent symbol. As the "war physic" among the +tribes of the United States was a fragment of a serpent, and as thus +signifying his incomparable skill in war, the Iroquois represent their +mythical king Atatarho clothed in nothing but black snakes; so that when +he wished to don a new suit he simply drove away one set and ordered +another to take their places,[118-1] so, by a precisely similar mental +process, the myth of the Nahuas assigns as a mother to their war god +Huitzilapochtli, Coatlicue, the robe of serpents; her dwelling place +Coatepec, the hill of serpents; and at her lying-in say that she brought +forth a serpent. Her son's image was surrounded by serpents, his sceptre +was in the shape of one, his great drum was of serpents' skins, and his +statue rested on four vermiform caryatides. + +As the symbol of the fertilizing summer showers the lightning serpent +was the god of fruitfulness. Born in the atmospheric waters, it was an +appropriate attribute of the ruler of the winds. But we have already +seen that the winds were often spoken of as great birds. Hence the union +of these two emblems in such names as Quetzalcoatl, Gucumatz, Kukulkan, +all titles of the god of the air in the languages of Central America, +all signifying the "Bird-serpent." Here also we see the solution of that +monument which has so puzzled American antiquaries, the cross at +Palenque. It is a tablet on the wall of an altar representing a cross +surmounted by a bird and supported by the head of a serpent. The latter +is not well defined in the plate in Mr. Stephens' Travels, but is very +distinct in the photographs taken by M. Charnay, which that gentleman +was kind enough to show me. The cross I have previously shown was the +symbol of the four winds, and the bird and serpent are simply the rebus +of the air god, their ruler.[119-1] Quetzalcoatl, called also Yolcuat, +the rattlesnake, was no less intimately associated with serpents than +with birds. The entrance to his temple at Mexico represented the jaws of +one of these reptiles, and he finally disappeared in the province of +Coatzacoalco, the hiding place of the serpent, sailing towards the east +in a bark of serpents' skins. All this refers to his power over the +lightning serpent. + +He was also said to be the god of riches and the patron consequently of +merchants. For with the summer lightning come the harvest and the +ripening fruits, come riches and traffic. Moreover "the golden color of +the liquid fire," as Lucretius expresses it, naturally led where this +metal was known, to its being deemed the product of the lightning. Thus +originated many of those tales of a dragon who watches a treasure in the +earth, and of a serpent who is the dispenser of riches, such as were +found among the Greeks and ancient Germans.[119-2] So it was in Peru +where the god of riches was worshipped under the image of a rattlesnake +horned and hairy, with a tail of gold. It was said to have descended +from the heavens in the sight of all the people, and to have been seen +by the whole army of the Inca.[119-3] Whether it was in reference to +it, or as emblems of their prowess, that the Incas themselves chose as +their arms two serpents with their tails interlaced, is uncertain; +possibly one for each of these significations. + +Because the rattlesnake, the lightning serpent, is thus connected with +the food of man, and itself seems never to die but annually to renew its +youth, the Algonkins called it "grandfather" and "king of snakes;" they +feared to injure it; they believed it could grant prosperous breezes, or +raise disastrous tempests; crowned with the lunar crescent it was the +constant symbol of life in their picture writing; and in the meda signs +the mythical grandmother of mankind _me suk kum me go kwa_ was +indifferently represented by an old woman or a serpent.[120-1] For like +reasons Cihuacoatl, the Serpent Woman, in the myths of the Nahuas was +also called Tonantzin, our mother.[120-2] + +The serpent symbol in America has, however, been brought into undue +prominence. It had such an ominous significance in Christian art, and +one which chimed so well with the favorite proverb of the early +missionaries--"the gods of the heathens are devils"--that wherever they +saw a carving or picture of a serpent they at once recognized the sign +manual of the Prince of Darkness, and inscribed the fact in their +note-books as proof positive of their cherished theory. After going +over the whole ground, I am convinced that none of the tribes of the red +race attached to this symbol any ethical significance whatever, and that +as employed to express atmospheric phenomena, and the recognition of +divinity in natural occurrences, it far more frequently typified what +was favorable and agreeable than the reverse. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[101-1] That these were the real views entertained by the Indians in +regard to the brute creation, see Heckewelder, _Acc. of the Ind. +Nations_, p. 247; Schoolcraft, _Ind. Tribes_, iii. p. 520. + +[101-2] Egede, _Nachrichten von Grönland_, p. 156. + +[102-1] _Voiages aux Indes Occidentales_, pt. ii. p. 203: Amst. 1722. + +[102-2] Beverly, _Hist. de la Virginie_, liv. iii. chap. viii. + +[103-1] Schoolcraft, _Ind. Tribes_, v. p. 420. + +[103-2] Mrs. Eastman, _Legends of the Sioux_, p. 191: New York, 1849. +This is a trustworthy and meritorious book, which can be said of very few +collections of Indian traditions. They were collected during a residence +of seven years in our northwestern territories, and are usually verbally +faithful to the native narrations. + +[104-1] Müller, _Amer. Urreligionen_, p. 222, after De la Borde. + +[105-1] _Acc. of the Inds. of California_, ch. ix. Eng. trans. by +Robinson: New York, 1847. The Acagchemem were a branch of the Netela +tribe, who dwelt near the mission San Juan Capistrano (see Buschmann, +_Spuren der Aztek. Sprache_, etc., p. 548). + +[106-1] Called in the Aztec tongue _Tecolotl_, night owl; literally, the +stone scorpion. The transfer was mythological. The Christians prefixed to +this word _tlaca_, man, and thus formed a name for Satan, which Prescott +and others have translated "rational owl." No such deity existed in +ancient Anahuac (see Buschmann, _Die Voelker und Sprachen Neu Mexico's_, +p. 262). + +[106-2] Schoolcraft, _Ind. Tribes_, v. p. 420. + +[106-3] William Bartram, Travels, p. 504. Columbus found the natives of +the Antilles wearing tunics with figures of these birds embroidered upon +them. Prescott, _Conq. of Mexico_, i. p. 58, note. + +[107-1] _Rel. de la Nouv. France_, An 1636, ch. ix. Catlin, _Letters and +notes_, Lett. 22. + +[108-1] _Rel. de la Nouv. France_, An 1648, p. 75; Cusic, _Trad. Hist. of +the Six Nations_, pt. iii. The latter is the work of a native Tuscarora +chief. It is republished in Schoolcraft's Indian Tribes, but is of little +value. + +[109-1] For example, in Brazil, Müller, _Amer. Urrelig._, p. 277; in +Yucatan, Cogolludo, _Hist. de Yucathan_, lib. iv. cap. 4; among the +western Algonkins, _Hennepin, Decouverte dans l'Amer. Septen_. chap. 33. +Dr. Hammond has expressed the opinion that the North American Indians +enjoy the same immunity from the virus of the rattlesnake, that certain +African tribes do from some vegetable poisons (_Hygiene_, p. 73). But his +observation must be at fault, for many travellers mention the dread these +serpents inspired, and the frequency of death from their bites, e. g. +_Rel. Nouv. France_. 1667, p. 22. + +[109-2] _Narrative of the Captivity and Adventures of John Tanner_, p. +356. + +[110-1] See Gallatin's vocabularies in the second volume of the _Trans. +Am. Antiq. Soc._ under the word _Snake_. In Arabic _dzann_ is serpent; +_dzanan_ a spirit, a soul, or the heart. So in Hebrew _nachas_, serpent, +has many derivatives signifying to hold intercourse with demons, to +conjure, a magician, etc. See Noldeke in the _Zeitschrift für +Voelkerpsychologie und Sprachwissenschaft_, i. p. 413. + +[111-1] Alexander Henry, _Travels_, p. 117. + +[111-2] _Bost. Med. and Surg. Journal_, vol. 76, p. 21. + +[113-1] Schwarz, _Der Ursprung der Mythologie dargelegt an Griechischer +und Deutscher Sage_: Berlin, 1860, _passim_. + +[113-2] _Rel. de la Nouv. France_: An 1637, p. 53. + +[113-3] _Sagen der Nord-Amer. Indianer_, p. 21. This is a German +translation of part of Jones's _Legends of the N. Am. Inds._: London, +1820. Their value as mythological material is very small. + +[114-1] Torquemada, _Monarquia Indiana_, lib. vi. cap. 37. + +[114-2] Müller, _Amer. Urrelig._, 221, after De la Borde. + +[114-3] _Le Livre Sacré des Quichés_, p. 3. + +[114-4] _Rel. de la Nouv. France_, 1648, p. 75. + +[115-1] _Memoirs of Lieut. Henry Timberlake_, p. 48: London, 1765. This +little book gives an account of the Cherokees at an earlier date than is +elsewhere found. + +[116-1] Hawkins, _Sketch of the Creek Country_, p. 80. + +[116-2] Schoolcraft, _Algic Researches_, i. p. 179 sq.; compare ii. p. +117. + +[116-3] Morgan, _League of the Iroquois_, p. 159; Cusic, _Trad. Hist. of +the Six Nations_, pt. ii. + +[117-1] Mrs. Eastman, _Legends of the Sioux_, pp. 161, 212. In this +explanation I depart from Prof. Schwarz, who has collected various +legends almost identical with these of the Indians (with which he was not +acquainted), and interpreted the precious crown or horn to be the summer +sun, brought forth by the early vernal lightning. _Ursprung der +Mythologie_, p. 27, note. + +[118-1] Cusic, u. s., pt. ii. + +[119-1] This remarkable relic has been the subject of a long and able +article in the _Revue Américaine_ (tom. ii. p. 69), by the venerable +traveller De Waldeck. Like myself--and I had not seen his opinion until +after the above was written--he explains the cruciform design as +indicating the four cardinal points, but offers the explanation merely as +a suggestion, and without referring to these symbols as they appear in so +many other connections. + +[119-2] Schwarz, _Ursprung der Mythologie_, pp. 62 sqq. + +[119-3] "I have examined many Indians in reference to these details," +says the narrator, an Augustin monk writing in 1554, "and they have all +confirmed them as eye-witnesses" (_Lettre sur les Superstitions du +Pérou_, p. 106, ed. Ternaux-Compans. This document is very valuable). + +[120-1] _Narrative of John Tanner_, p. 355; Henry, _Travels_, p. 176. + +[120-2] Torquemada, _Monarquia Indiana_, lib. vi. cap. 31. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +THE MYTHS OF WATER, FIRE, AND THE THUNDER-STORM. + + Water the oldest element.--Its use in purification.--Holy + water.--The Rite of Baptism.--The Water of Life.--Its symbols.--The + Vase.--The Moon.--The latter the goddess of love and agriculture, + but also of sickness, night, and pain.--Often represented by a + dog.--Fire worship under the form of Sun worship.--The perpetual + fire.--The new fire--Burning the dead.--A worship of the passions, + but no sexual dualism in myths, nor any phallic worship in + America.--Synthesis of the worship of Fire, Water, and the Winds in + the THUNDER-STORM, personified as Haokah, Tupa, Catequil, Contici, + Heno, Tlaloc, Mixcoatl, and other deities, many of them triune. + + +The primitive man was a brute in everything but the susceptibility to +culture; the chief market of his time was to sleep, fight, and feed; his +bodily comfort alone had any importance in his eyes; and his gods were +nothing, unless they touched him here. Cold, hunger, thirst, these were +the hounds that were ever on his track; these were the fell powers he +saw constantly snatching away his fellows, constantly aiming their +invisible shafts at himself. Fire, food, and water were the gods that +fought on his side; they were the chief figures in his pantheon, his +kindliest, perhaps his earliest, divinities. + +With a nearly unanimous voice mythologies assign the priority to water. +It was the first of all things, the parent of all things. Even the gods +themselves were born of water, said the Greeks and the Aztecs. +Cosmogonies reach no further than the primeval ocean that rolled its +shoreless waves through a timeless night. + +"Omnia pontus erant, deerant quoque litora ponto." + +Earth, sun, stars, lay concealed in its fathomless abysses. "All of us," +ran the Mexican baptismal formula, "are children of Chalchihuitlycue, +Goddess of Water," and the like was said by the Peruvians of Mama Cocha, +by the Botocudos of Taru, by the natives of Darien of Dobayba, by the +Iroquois of Ataensic--all of them mothers of mankind, all +personifications of water. + +How account for such unanimity? Not by supposing some ancient +intercourse between remote tribes, but by the uses of water as the +originator and supporter, the essential prerequisite of life. Leaving +aside the analogy presented by the motherly waters which nourish the +unborn child, nor emphasizing how indispensable it is as a beverage, the +many offices this element performs in nature lead easily to the +supposition that it must have preceded all else. By quenching thirst, it +quickens life; as the dew and the rain it feeds the plant, and when +withheld the seed perishes in the ground and forests and flowers alike +wither away; as the fountain, the river, and the lake, it enriches the +valley, offers safe retreats, and provides store of fishes; as the +ocean, it presents the most fitting type of the infinite. It cleanses, +it purifies; it produces, it preserves. "Bodies, unless dissolved, +cannot act," is a maxim of the earliest chemistry. Very plausibly, +therefore, was it assumed as the source of all things. + +The adoration of streams, springs, and lakes, or rather of the spirits +their rulers, prevailed everywhere; sometimes avowedly because they +provided food, as was the case with the Moxos, who called themselves +children of the lake or river on which their village was, and were +afraid to migrate lest their parent should be vexed;[124-1] sometimes +because they were the means of irrigation, as in Peru, or on more +general mythical grounds. A grove by a fountain is in all nature worship +the ready-made shrine of the sylphs who live in its limpid waves and +chatter mysteriously in its shallows. On such a spot in our Gulf States +one rarely fails to find the sacrificial mound of the ancient +inhabitants, and on such the natives of Central America were wont to +erect their altars (Ximenes). Lakes are the natural centres of +civilization. Like the lacustrine villages which the Swiss erected in +ante-historic times, like ancient Venice, the city of Mexico was first +built on piles in a lake, and for the same reason--protection from +attack. Security once obtained, growth and power followed. Thus we can +trace the earliest rays of Aztec civilization rising from lake Tezcuco, +of the Peruvian from Lake Titicaca, of the Muyscas from Lake Guatavita. +These are the centres of legendary cycles. Their waters were hallowed by +venerable reminiscences. From the depths of Titicaca rose Viracocha, +mythical civilizer of Peru. Guatavita was the bourne of many a foot-sore +pilgrim in the ancient empire of the Zac. Once a year the high priest +poured the collective offerings of the multitude into its waves, and +anointed with oils and glittering with gold dust, dived deep in its +midst, professing to hold communion with the goddess who there had her +home.[125-1] + +Not only does the life of man but his well-being depends on water. As an +ablution it invigorates him bodily and mentally. No institution was in +higher honor among the North American Indians than the sweat-bath +followed by the cold douche. It was popular not only as a remedy in +every and any disease, but as a preliminary to a council or an important +transaction. Its real value in cold climates is proven by the sustained +fondness for the Russian bath in the north of Europe. The Indians, +however, with their usual superstition attributed its good effects to +some mysterious healing power in water itself. Therefore, when the +patient was not able to undergo the usual process, or when his medical +attendant was above the vulgar and routine practice of his profession, +it was administered on the infinitesimal system. The quack muttered a +formula over a gourd filled from a neighboring spring and sprinkled it +on his patient, or washed the diseased part, or sucked out the evil +spirit and blew it into a bowl of water, and then scattered the liquid +on the fire or earth.[125-2] + +The use of such "holy water" astonished the Romanist missionaries, and +they at once detected Satan parodying the Scriptures. But their +astonishment rose to horror when they discovered among various nations a +rite of baptism of appalling similarity to their own, connected with +the imposing of a name, done avowedly for the purpose of freeing from +inherent sin, believed to produce a regeneration of the spiritual +nature, nay, in more than one instance called by an indigenous word +signifying "to be born again."[126-1] Such a rite was of immemorial +antiquity among the Cherokees, Aztecs, Mayas, and Peruvians. Had the +missionaries remembered that it was practised in Asia with all these +meanings long before it was chosen as the sign of the new covenant, they +need have invoked neither Satan nor Saint Thomas to explain its presence +in America. + +As corporeal is near akin to spiritual pollution, and cleanliness to +godliness, ablution preparatory to engaging in religious acts came early +to have an emblematic as well as a real significance. The water freed +the soul from sin as it did the skin from stain. We should come to God +with clean hands and a clean heart. As Pilate washed his hands before +the multitude to indicate that he would not accept the moral +responsibility of their acts, so from a similar motive a Natchez chief, +who had been persuaded against his sense of duty not to sacrifice +himself on the pyre of his ruler, took clean water, washed his hands, +and threw it upon live coals.[126-2] When an ancient Peruvian had laid +bare his guilt by confession, he bathed himself in a neighboring river +and repeated this formula:-- + +"O thou River, receive the sins I have this day confessed unto the Sun, +carry them down to the sea, and let them never more appear."[127-1] + +The Navajo who has been deputed to carry a dead body to burial, holds +himself unclean until he has thoroughly washed himself in water prepared +for the purpose by certain ceremonies.[127-2] A bath was an +indispensable step in the mysteries of Mithras, the initiation at +Eleusis, the meda worship of the Algonkins, the Busk of the Creeks, the +ceremonials of religion everywhere. Baptism was at first always +immersion. It was a bath meant to solemnize the reception of the child +into the guild of mankind, drawn from the prior custom of ablution at +any solemn occasion. In both the object is greater purity, bodily and +spiritual. As certainly as there is a law of conscience, as certainly as +our actions fall short of our volitions, so certainly is man painfully +aware of various imperfections and shortcomings. What he feels he +attributes to the infant. Avowedly to free themselves from this sense of +guilt the Delawares used an emetic (Loskiel), the Cherokees a potion +cooked up by an order of female warriors (Timberlake), the Takahlies of +Washington Territory, the Aztecs, Mayas, and Peruvians, auricular +confession. Formulize these feelings and we have the dogmas of "original +sin," and of "spiritual regeneration." The order of baptism among the +Aztecs commenced, "O child, receive the water of the Lord of the world, +which is our life; it is to wash and to purify; may these drops remove +the sin which was given to thee before the creation of the world, since +all of us are under its power;" and concluded, "Now he liveth anew and +is born anew, now is he purified and cleansed, now our mother the Water +again bringeth him into the world."[128-1] + +A name was then assigned to the child, usually that of some ancestor, +who it was supposed would thus be induced to exercise a kindly +supervision over the little one's future. In after life should the +person desire admittance to a superior class of the population and had +the wealth to purchase it--for here as in more enlightened lands +nobility was a matter of money--he underwent a second baptism and +received another name, but still ostensibly from the goddess of +water.[128-2] + +In Peru the child was immersed in the fluid, the priest exorcised the +evil and bade it enter the water, which was then buried in the +ground.[128-3] In either country sprinkling could take the place of +immersion. The Cherokees believe that unless the rite is punctually +performed when the child is three days old, it will inevitably +die.[128-4] + +As thus curative and preservative, it was imagined that there was water +of which whoever should drink would not die, but live forever. I have +already alluded to the Fountain of Youth, supposed long before Columbus +saw the surf of San Salvador to exist in the Bahama Islands or Florida. +It seems to have lingered long on that peninsula. Not many years ago, +Coacooche, a Seminole chieftain, related a vision which had nerved him +to a desperate escape from the Castle of St. Augustine. "In my dream," +said he, "I visited the happy hunting grounds and saw my twin sister, +long since gone. She offered me a cup of pure water, which she said came +from the spring of the Great Spirit, and if I should drink of it, I +should return and live with her forever."[129-1] Some such mystical +respect for the element, rather than as a mere outfit for his spirit +home, probably induced the earlier tribes of the same territory to place +the conch-shell which the deceased had used for a cup conspicuously on +his grave,[129-2] and the Mexicans and Peruvians to inter a vase filled +with water with the corpse, or to sprinkle it with the liquid, baptizing +it, as it were, into its new associations.[130-1] It was an emblem of +the hope that should cheer the dwellings of the dead, a symbol of the +resurrection which is in store for those who have gone down to the +grave. + +The vase or the gourd as a symbol of water, the source and preserver of +life, is a conspicuous figure in the myths of ancient America. As Akbal +or Huecomitl, the great or original vase, in Aztec and Maya legends it +plays important parts in the drama of creation; as Tici (Ticcu) in Peru +it is the symbol of the rains, and as a gourd it is often mentioned by +the Caribs and Tupis as the parent of the atmospheric waters. + +As the MOON is associated with the dampness and dews of night, an +ancient and wide-spread myth identified her with the Goddess of Water. +Moreover, in spite of the expostulations of the learned, the common +people the world over persist in attributing to her a marked influence +on the rains. Whether false or true, this familiar opinion is of great +antiquity, and was decidedly approved by the Indians, who were all, in +the words of an old author, "great observers of the weather by the +moon."[130-2] They looked upon her not only as forewarning them by her +appearance of the approach of rains and fogs, but as being their actual +cause. + +Isis, her Egyptian title, literally means moisture; Ataensic, whom the +Hurons said was the moon, is derived from the word for water; and +Citatli and Atl, moon and water, are constantly confounded in Aztec +theology. Their attributes were strikingly alike. They were both the +mythical mothers of the race, and both protect women in child-birth, the +babe in the cradle, the husbandman in the field, and the youth and +maiden in their tender affections. As the transfer of legends was nearly +always from the water to its lunar goddess, by bringing them in at this +point their true meaning will not fail to be apparent. + +We must ever bear in mind that the course of mythology is from many gods +toward one, that it is a synthesis not an analysis, and that in this +process the tendency is to blend in one the traits and stories of +originally separate divinities. As has justly been observed by the +Mexican antiquarian Gama: "It was a common trait among the Indians to +worship many gods under the figure of one, principally those whose +activities lay in the same direction, or those in some way related among +themselves."[131-1] + +The time of full moon was chosen both in Mexico and Peru to celebrate +the festival of the deities of water, the patrons of agriculture,[131-2] +and very generally the ceremonies connected with the crops were +regulated by her phases. The Nicaraguans said that the god of rains, +Quiateot, rose in the east,[131-3] thus hinting how this connection +originated. At a lunar eclipse the Orinoko Indians seized their hoes and +labored with exemplary vigor on their growing corn, saying the moon was +veiling herself in anger at their habitual laziness;[132-1] and a +description of the New Netherlands, written about 1650, remarks that the +savages of that land "ascribe great influence to the moon over +crops."[132-2] This venerable superstition, common to all races, still +lingers among our own farmers, many of whom continue to observe "the +signs of the moon" in sowing grain, setting out trees, cutting timber, +and other rural avocations. + +As representing water, the universal mother, the moon was the +protectress of women in child-birth, the goddess of love and babes, the +patroness of marriage. To her the mother called in travail, whether by +the name of "Diana, diva triformis" in pagan Rome, by that of Mama +Quilla in Peru, or of Meztli in Anahuac. Under the title of +Yohualticitl, the Lady of Night, she was also in this latter country the +guardian of babes, and as Teczistecatl, the cause of generation.[132-3] + +Very different is another aspect of the moon goddess, and well might the +Mexicans paint her with two colors. The beneficent dispenser of harvests +and offspring, she nevertheless has a portentous and terrific phase. She +is also the goddess of the night, the dampness, and the cold; she +engenders the miasmatic poisons that rack our bones; she conceals in her +mantle the foe who takes us unawares; she rules those vague shapes which +fright us in the dim light; the causeless sounds of night or its more +oppressive silence are familiar to her; she it is who sends dreams +wherein gods and devils have their sport with man, and slumber, the twin +brother of the grave. In the occult philosophy of the middle ages she +was "Chief over the Night, Darkness, Rest, Death, and the +Waters;"[133-1] in the language of the Algonkins, her name is identical +with the words for night, death, cold, sleep, and water.[133-2] + +She is the evil minded woman who thus brings diseases upon men, who at +the outset introduced pain and death in the world--our common mother, +yet the cruel cause of our present woes. Sometimes it is the moon, +sometimes water, of whom this is said: "We are all of us under the power +of evil and sin, _because_ we are children of the Water," says the +Mexican baptismal formula. That Unktahe, spirit of water, is the master +of dreams and witchcraft, is the belief of the Dakotas.[133-3] A female +spirit, wife of the great manito whose heart is the sun, the ancient +Algonkins believed brought death and disease to the race; "it is she +who kills men, otherwise they would never die; she eats their flesh and +knaws[TN-4] their vitals, till they fall away and miserably +perish."[134-1] Who is this woman? In the legend of the Muyscas it is +Chia, the moon, who was also goddess of water and flooded the earth out +of spite.[134-2] Her reputation was notoriously bad. The Brazilian +mother carefully shielded her infant from the lunar rays, believing that +they would produce sickness;[134-3] the hunting tribes of our own +country will not sleep in its light, nor leave their game exposed to its +action. We ourselves have not outgrown such words as lunatic, +moon-struck, and the like. Where did we get these ideas? The +philosophical historian of medicine, Kurt Sprengel, traces them to the +primitive and popular medical theories of ancient Egypt, in accordance +with which all maladies were the effects of the anger of the goddess +Isis, the Moisture, the Moon.[134-4] + +We have here the key to many myths. Take that of Centeotl, the Aztec +goddess of Maize. She was said at times to appear as a woman of +surpassing beauty, and allure some unfortunate to her embraces, destined +to pay with his life for his brief moments of pleasure. Even to see her +in this shape was a fatal omen. She was also said to belong to a class +of gods whose home was in the west, and who produced sickness and +pains.[134-5] Here we see the evil aspect of the moon reflected on +another goddess, who was at first solely the patroness of agriculture. + +As the goddess of sickness, it was supposed that persons afflicted with +certain diseases had been set apart by the moon for her peculiar +service. These diseases were those of a humoral type, especially such as +are characterized by issues and ulcers. As in Hebrew the word _accursed_ +is derived from a root meaning _consecrated to God_, so in the Aztec, +Quiché, and other tongues, the word for _leprous_, _eczematous_, or +_syphilitic_, means also _divine_. This bizarre change of meaning is +illustrated in a very ancient myth of their family. It is said that in +the absence of the sun all mankind lingered in darkness. Nothing but a +human sacrifice could hasten his arrival. Then Metzli, the moon, led +forth one Nanahuatl, the leprous, and building a pyre, the victim threw +himself in its midst. Straightway Metzli followed his example, and as +she disappeared in the bright flames the sun rose over the +horizon.[135-1] Is not this a reference to the kindling rays of the +aurora, in which the dark and baleful night is sacrificed, and in whose +light the moon presently fades away, and the sun comes forth? + +Another reaction in the mythological laboratory is here disclosed. As +the good qualities of water were attributed to the goddess of night, +sleep, and death, so her malevolent traits were in turn reflected back +on this element. Other thoughts aided the transfer. In primitive +geography the Ocean Stream coils its infinite folds around the speck of +land we inhabit, biding its time to swallow it wholly. Unwillingly did +it yield the earth from its bosom, daily does it steal it away piece by +piece. Every evening it hides the light in its depths, and Night and the +Waters resume their ancient sway. The word for ocean (_mare_) in the +Latin tongue means by derivation a desert, and the Greeks spoke of it as +"the barren brine." Water is a treacherous element. Man treads boldly on +the solid earth, but the rivers and lakes constantly strive to swallow +those who venture within their reach. As streams run in tortuous +channels, and as rains accompany the lightning serpent, this animal was +occasionally the symbol of the waters in their dangerous manifestations. +The Huron magicians fabled that in the lakes and rivers dwelt one of +vast size called _Angont_, who sent sickness, death, and other mishaps, +and the least mite of whose flesh was a deadly poison. They added--and +this was the point of the tale--that they always kept on hand portions +of the monster for the benefit of any who opposed their designs.[136-1] +The legends of the Algonkins mention a rivalry between Michabo, creator +of the earth, and the Spirit of the Waters, who was unfriendly to the +project.[136-2] In later tales this antagonism becomes more and more +pronounced, and borrows an ethical significance which it did not have at +first. Taking, however, American religions as a whole, water is far more +frequently represented as producing beneficent effects than the reverse. + +Dogs were supposed to stand in some peculiar relation to the moon, +probably because they howl at it and run at night, uncanny practices +which have cost them dear in reputation. The custom prevailed among +tribes so widely asunder as Peruvians, Tupis, Creeks, Iroquois, +Algonkins, and Greenland Eskimos to thrash the curs most soundly during +an eclipse.[137-1] The Creeks explained this by saying that the big dog +was swallowing the sun, and that by whipping the little ones they could +make him desist. What the big dog was they were not prepared to say. We +know. It was the night goddess, represented by the dog, who was thus +shrouding the world at midday. The ancient Romans sacrificed dogs to +Hecate and Diana, in Egypt they were sacred to Isis, and thus as +traditionally connected with night and its terrors, the Prince of +Darkness, in the superstition of the middle ages, preferably appeared +under the form of a cur, as that famous poodle which accompanied +Cornelius Agrippa, or that which grew to such enormous size behind the +stove of Dr. Faustus. In a better sense, they represented the more +agreeable characteristics of the lunar goddess. Xochiquetzal, most +fecund of Aztec divinities, patroness of love, of sexual pleasure, and +of childbirth, was likewise called _Itzcuinan_, which, literally +translated, is _bitch-mother_. This strange and to us so repugnant title +for a goddess was not without parallel elsewhere. When in his wars the +Inca Pachacutec carried his arms into the province of Huanca, he found +its inhabitants had installed in their temples the figure of a dog as +their highest deity. They were accustomed also to select one as his +living representative, to pray to it and offer it sacrifice, and when +well fattened, to serve it up with solemn ceremonies at a great feast, +eating their god _substantialiter_. The priests in this province +summoned their attendants to the temples by blowing through an +instrument fashioned from a dog's skull.[138-1] This canine canonization +explains why in some parts of Peru a priest was called by way of honor +_allco_, dog![138-2] And why in many tombs both there and in Mexico +their skeletons are found carefully interred with the human remains. +Wherever the Aztec race extended they seem to have carried the adoration +of a wild species, the coyote, the _canis latrans_ of naturalists. The +Shoshonees of New Mexico call it their progenitor,[138-3] and with the +Nahuas it was in such high honor that it had a temple of its own, a +congregation of priests devoted to its service, statues carved in stone, +an elaborate tomb at death, and is said to be meant by the god Chantico, +whose audacity caused the destruction of the world. The story was that +he made a sacrifice to the gods without observing a preparatory fast, +for which he was punished by being changed into a dog. He then invoked +the god of death to deliver him, which attempt to evade a just +punishment so enraged the divinities that they immersed the world in +water.[139-1] + +During a storm on our northern lakes the Indians think no offering so +likely to appease the angry water god who is raising the tempest as a +dog. Therefore they hasten to tie the feet of one and toss him +overboard.[139-2] One meets constantly in their tales and superstitions +the mysterious powers of the animals, and the distinguished actions he +has at times performed bear usually a close parallelism to those +attributed to water and the moon. + +Hunger and thirst were thus alleviated by water. Cold remained, and +against this _fire_ was the shield. It gives man light in darkness and +warmth in winter; it shows him his friends and warns him of his foes; +the flames point toward heaven and the smoke makes the clouds. Around it +social life begins. For his home and his hearth the savage has but one +word, and what of tender emotion his breast can feel, is linked to the +circle that gathers around his fire. The council fire, the camp fire, +and the war fire, are so many epochs in his history. By its aid many +arts become possible, and it is a civilizer in more ways than one. In +the figurative language of the red race, it is constantly used as "an +emblem of peace, happiness, and abundance."[140-1] To extingish[TN-5] an +enemy's fire is to slay him; to light a visitor's fire is to bid him +welcome. Fire worship was closely related to that of the sun, and so +much has been said of sun worship among the aborigines of America that +it is well at once to assign it its true position. + +A generation ago it was a fashion very much approved to explain all +symbols and myths by the action of this orb on nature. This short and +easy method with mythology has, in Carlylian phrase, had its bottom +pulled from under it in these later times. Nowhere has it manifested its +inefficiency more palpably than in America. One writer, while thus +explaining the religions of the tribes of colder regions and higher +latitudes, denies sun worship among the natives of hot climates; another +asserts that only among the latter did it exist at all; while a third +lays down the maxim that the religion of the red race everywhere "was +but a modification of Sun or Fire worship."[141-1] All such sweeping +generalizations are untrue, and must be so. No one key can open all the +arcana of symbolism. Man devised means as varied as nature herself to +express the idea of God within him. The sun was but one of these, and +not the first nor the most important. Fear, said the wise Epicurean, +first made the gods. The sun with its regular course, its kindly warmth, +its beneficent action, no wise inspires that sentiment. It conjures no +phantasms to appal the superstitious fancy, and its place in primitive +mythology is conformably inferior. The myths of the Eskimos and +northern Athapascas omit its action altogether. The Algonkins by no +means imagined it the highest god, and at most but one of his +emblems.[142-1] That it often appears in their prayers is true, but this +arose from the fact that in many of their dialects, as well as in the +language of the Mayas and others, the word for heaven or sky was +identical with that for sun, and the former, as I have shown, was the +supposed abode of deity, "the wigwam of the Great Spirit."[142-2] The +alleged sun worship of the Cherokees rests on testimony modern, +doubtful, and unsupported.[142-3] In North America the Natchez alone +were avowed worshippers of this luminary. Yet they adored it under the +name Great Fire (_wah sil_), clearly pointing to a prior adoration of +that element. The heliolatry organized principally for political ends by +the Incas of Peru, stands alone in the religions of the red race. Those +shrewd legislators at an early date officially announced that Inti, the +sun, their own elder brother, was ruler of the cohorts of heaven by like +divine right that they were of the four corners of the earth. This +scheme ignominiously failed, as every attempt to fetter the liberty of +conscience must and should. The later Incas finally indulged publicly in +heterodox remarks, and compromised the matter by acknowledging a +divinity superior even to their brother, the sun, as we have seen in a +previous chapter. + +The myths of creation never represent the sun as anterior to the world, +but as manufactured by the "old people" (Navajos), as kindled and set +going by the first of men (Algonkins), or as freed from some cave by a +kindly deity (Haitians). It is always spoken of as a fire; only in Peru +and Mexico had the precession of the equinoxes been observed, and +without danger of error we can merge the consideration of its worship +almost altogether in that of this element.[143-1] + +The institutions of a perpetual fire, of obtaining new fire, and of +burning the dead, prevailed extensively in the New World. In the present +discussion the origin of such practices, rather than the ceremonies with +which they were attended, have an interest. The savage knew that fire +was necessary to his life. Were it lost, he justly foreboded dire +calamities and the ruin of his race. Therefore at stated times with due +solemnity he produced it anew by friction or the flint, or else was +careful to keep one fire constantly alive. These not unwise precautions +soon fell to mere superstitions. If the Aztec priest at the stated time +failed to obtain a spark from his pieces of wood, if the sacred fire by +chance became extinguished, the end of the world or the destruction of +mankind was apprehended. "You know it was a saying among our +ancestors," said an Iroquois chief in 1753, "that when the fire at +Onondaga goes out, we shall no longer be a people."[144-1] So deeply +rooted was this notion, that the Catholic missionaries in New Mexico +were fain to wink at it, and perform the sacrifice of the mass in the +same building where the flames were perpetually burning, that were not +to be allowed to die until Montezuma and the fabled glories of ancient +Anahuac with its heathenism should return.[144-2] Thus fire became the +type of life. "Know that the life in your body and the fire on your +hearth are one and the same thing, and that both proceed from one +source," said a Shawnee prophet.[144-3] Such an expression was wholly in +the spirit of his race. The greatest feast of the Delawares was that to +their "grandfather, the fire."[144-4] "Their fire burns forever," was +the Algonkin figure of speech to express the immortality of their +gods.[144-5] "The ancient God, the Father and Mother of all Gods," says +an Aztec prayer, "is the God of the Fire which is in the centre of the +court with four walls, and which is covered with gleaming feathers like +unto wings;"[144-6] dark sayings of the priests, referring to the +glittering lightning fire borne from the four sides of the earth. + +As the path to a higher life hereafter, the burning of the dead was +first instituted. It was a privilege usually confined to a select few. +Among the Algonkin-Ottawas, only, those of the distinguished totem of +the Great Hare, among the Nicaraguans none but the caciques, among the +Caribs exclusively the priestly caste, were entitled to this peculiar +honor.[145-1] The first gave as the reason for such an exceptional +custom, that the members of such an illustrious clan as that of Michabo, +the Great Hare, should not rot in the ground as common folks, but rise +to the heavens on the flames and smoke. Those of Nicaragua seemed to +think it the sole path to immortality, holding that only such as offered +themselves on the pyre of their chieftain would escape annihilation at +death;[145-2] and the tribes of upper California were persuaded that +such as were not burned at death were liable to be transformed into the +lower orders of brutes.[145-3] Strangely, enough, we thus find a sort of +baptism by fire deemed essential to a higher life beyond the grave. + +Another analogy strengthened the symbolic force of fire as life. This is +that which exists between the sensation of warmth and those passions +whose physiological end is the perpetuation of the species. We see how +native it is to the mind from such coarse expressions as "hot lust," "to +burn," "to be in heat," "stews," and the like, figures not of the +poetic, but the vulgar tongue. They occur in all languages, and hint how +readily the worship of fire glided into that of the reproductive +principle, into extravagances of chastity and lewdness, into the +shocking orgies of the so-called phallic worship. + +Some have supposed that a sexual dualism pervades all natural religions +and this too has been assumed as the solution of all their myths. It has +been said that the action of heat upon moisture, of the sun on the +waters, the mysteries of reproduction, and the satisfaction of the +sexual instincts, are the unvarying themes of primitive mythology. So +far as the red race is concerned, this is a most gratuitous assumption. +The facts that have been eagerly collated by Dulaure and others to +bolster such a detestable theory lend themselves fairly to no such +interpretation. + +There existed, indeed, a worship of the passions. Apparently it was +grafted upon or rose out of that of fire by the analogy I have pointed +out. Thus the Mexican god of fire was supposed to govern the generative +proclivities,[146-1] and there is good reason to believe that the sacred +fire watched by unspotted virgins among the Mayas had decidedly such a +signification. Certainly it was so, if we can depend upon the authority +of a ballad translated from the original immediately after the conquest, +cited by the venerable traveller and artist Count de Waldeck. It +purports to be from the lover of one of these vestals, and referring to +her occupation asks with a fine allusion to its mystic meaning-- + + "O vièrge, quand pourrai-je te posséder pour ma compagne cherie? + Combien de temps faut-il encore que tes vœux soient accomplis? + Dis-moi le jour qui doit devancer la belle nuit où tous deux, + Alimenterons le feu qui nous fit naitre et que nous devons + perpetuer."[147-1] + +There is a bright as well as a dark side even to such a worship. In +Mexico, Peru, and Yucatan, the women who watched the flames must be +undoubted virgins; they were usually of noble blood, and must vow +eternal chastity, or at least were free to none but the ruler of the +realm. As long as they were consecrated to the fire, so long any carnal +ardor was degrading to their lofty duties. The sentiment of shame, one +of the first we find developed, led to the belief that to forego fleshly +pleasures was a meritorious sacrifice in the eyes of the gods. In this +persuasion certain of the Aztec priests practised complete abscission or +entire discerption of the virile parts, and a mutilation of females was +not unknown similar to that immemorially a custom in Egypt.[147-2] Such +enforced celibacy was, however, neither common nor popular. +Circumcision, if it can be proven to have existed among the red +race--and though there are plenty of assertions to that effect, they are +not satisfactory to an anatomist--was probably a symbolic renunciation +of the lusts of the flesh. The same cannot be said of the very common +custom with the Aztec race of anointing their idols with blood drawn +from the genitals, the tongue, and the ears. This was simply a form of +those voluntary scarifications, universally employed to mark contrition +or grief by savage tribes, and nowhere more in vogue than with the red +race. + +There was an ancient Christian heresy which taught that the true way to +conquer the passions was to satiate them, and therefore preached +unbounded licentiousness. Whether this agreeable doctrine was known to +the Indians I cannot say, but it is certainly the most creditable +explanation that can be suggested for the miscellaneous congress which +very often terminated their dances and ceremonies. Such orgies were of +common occurrence among the Algonkins and Iroquois at a very early date, +and are often mentioned in the Jesuit Relations; Venegas describes them +as frequent among the tribes of Lower California; and Oviedo refers to +certain festivals of the Nicaraguans, during which the women of all rank +extended to whosoever wished just such privileges as the matrons of +ancient Babylon, that mother of harlots and all abominations, used to +grant even to slaves and strangers in the temple of Melitta, as one of +the duties of religion. But in fact there is no ground whatever to +invest these debauches with any recondite meaning. They are simply +indications of the thorough and utter immorality which prevailed +throughout the race. And a still more disgusting proof of it is seen in +the frequent appearance among diverse tribes of men dressed as women and +yielding themselves to indescribable vices.[149-1] There was at first +nothing of a religious nature in such exhibitions. Lascivious priests +chose at times to invest them with some such meaning for their own +sensual gratification, just as in Brazil they still claim the _jus primæ +noctis_.[149-2] The pretended phallic worship of the Natchez and of +Culhuacan, cited by the Abbé Brasseur, rests on no good authority, and +if true, is like that of the Huastecas of Panuco, nothing but an +unrestrained and boundless profligacy which it were an absurdity to call +a religion.[149-3] That which Mr. Stephens attempts to show existed once +in Yucatan,[149-4] rests entirely by his own statement on a fancied +resemblance of no value whatever, and the arguments of Lafitau to the +same effect are quite insufficient. There is a decided indecency in the +remains of ancient American art, especially in Peru (Meyen), and great +lubricity in many ceremonies, but the proof is altogether wanting to +bind these with the recognition of a fecundating principle throughout +nature, or, indeed, to suppose for them any other origin than the +promptings of an impure fancy. I even doubt whether they often referred +to fire as the deity of sexual love. + +By a flight of fancy inspired by a study of oriental mythology, the +worship of the reciprocal principle in America has been connected with +that of the sun and moon, as the primitive pair from whose fecund union +all creatures proceeded. It is sufficient to say if such a myth exists +among the Indians--which is questionable--it justifies no such +deduction; that the moon is often mentioned in their languages merely as +the "night sun;" and that in such important stocks as the Iroquois, +Athapascas, Cherokees, and Tupis, the sun is said to be a feminine noun; +while the myths represent them more frequently as brother and sister +than as man and wife; nor did at least the northern tribes regard the +sun as the cause of fecundity in nature at all, but solely as giving +light and warmth.[150-1] + +In contrast to this, so much the more positive was their association of +the THUNDER-STORM as that which brings both warmth and rain with the +renewed vernal life of vegetation. The impressive phenomena which +characterize it, the prodigious noise, the awful flash, the portentous +gloom, the blast, the rain, have left a profound impression on the myths +of every land. Fire from water, warmth and moisture from the destructive +breath of the tempest, this was the riddle of riddles to the untutored +mind. "Out of the eater came forth meat, out of the strong came forth +sweetness." It was the visible synthesis of all the divine +manifestations, the winds, the waters, and the flames. + +The Dakotas conceived it as a struggle between the god of waters and the +thunder bird for the command of their nation,[150-2] and as a bird, one +of those which make a whirring sound with their wings, the turkey, the +pheasant, or the nighthawk, it was very generally depicted by their +neighbors, the Athapascas, Iroquois, and Algonkins.[151-1] As the +herald of the summer it was to them a good omen and a friendly power. It +was the voice of the Great Spirit of the four winds speaking from the +clouds and admonishing them that the time of corn planting was at +hand.[151-2] The flames kindled by the lightning were of a sacred +nature, proper to be employed in lighting the fires of the religious +rites, but on no account to be profaned by the base uses of daily life. +When the flash entered the ground it scattered in all directions those +stones, such as the flint, which betray their supernal origin by a gleam +of fire when struck. These were the thunderbolts, and from such an one, +significantly painted red, the Dakotas averred their race had +proceeded.[151-3] For are we not all in a sense indebted for our lives +to fire? "There is no end to the fancies entertained by the Sioux +concerning thunder," observes Mrs. Eastman. They typified the +paradoxical nature of the storm under the character of the giant Haokah. +To him cold was heat, and heat cold; when sad he laughed, when merry +groaned; the sides of his face and his eyes were of different colors and +expressions; he wore horns or a forked headdress to represent the +lightning, and with his hands he hurled the meteors. His manifestations +were fourfold, and one of the four winds was the drum-stick he used to +produce the thunder.[152-1] + +Omitting many others, enough that the sameness of this conception is +illustrated by the myth of Tupa, highest god and first man of the Tupis +of Brazil. During his incarnation, he taught them agriculture, gave them +fire, the cane, and the pisang, and now in the form of a huge bird +sweeps over the heavens, watching his children and watering their crops, +admonishing them of his presence by the mighty sound of his voice, the +rustling of his wings, and the flash of his eye. These are the thunder, +the lightning, and the roar of the tempest. He is depicted with horns; +he was one of four brothers, and only after a desperate struggle did he +drive his fraternal rivals from the field. In his worship, the priests +place pebbles in a dry gourd, deck it with feathers and arrows, and +rattling it vigorously, reproduce in miniature the tremendous drama of +the storm.[152-2] + +As nations rose in civilization these fancies put on a more complex form +and a more poetic fulness. Throughout the realm of the Incas the +Peruvians venerated as creator of all things, maker of heaven and earth, +and ruler of the firmament, the god Ataguju. The legend was that from +him proceeded the first of mortals, the man Guamansuri, who descended to +the earth and there seduced the sister of certain Guachemines, rayless +ones, or Darklings, who then possessed it. For this crime they destroyed +him, but their sister proved pregnant, and died in her labor, giving +birth to two eggs. From these emerged the twin brothers, Apocatequil +and Piguerao. The former was the more powerful. By touching the corpse +of his mother he brought her to life, he drove off and slew the +Guachemines, and, directed by Ataguju, released the race of Indians from +the soil by turning it up with a spade of gold. For this reason they +adored him as their maker. He it was, they thought, who produced the +thunder and the lightning by hurling stones with his sling; and the +thunderbolts that fall, said they, are his children. Few villages were +willing to be without one or more of these. They were in appearance +small, round, smooth stones, but had the admirable properties of +securing fertility to the fields, protecting from lightning, and, by a +transition easy to understand, were also adored as gods of the Fire, as +well material as of the passions, and were capable of kindling the +dangerous flames of desire in the most frigid bosom. Therefore they were +in great esteem as love charms. + +Apocatequil's statue was erected on the mountains, with that of his +mother on one hand, and his brother on the other. "He was Prince of Evil +and the most respected god of the Peruvians. From Quito to Cuzco not an +Indian but would give all he possessed to conciliate him. Five priests, +two stewards, and a crowd of slaves served his image. And his chief +temple was surrounded by a very considerable village whose inhabitants +had no other occupation than to wait on him." In memory of these +brothers, twins in Peru were deemed always sacred to the lightning, and +when a woman or even a llama brought them forth, a fast was held and +sacrifices offered to the two pristine brothers, with a chant +commencing: _A chuchu cachiqui_, O Thou who causest twins, words +mistaken by the Spaniards for the name of a deity.[154-1] + +Garcilasso de la Vega, a descendant of the Incas, has preserved an +ancient indigenous poem of his nation, presenting the storm myth in a +different form, which as undoubtedly authentic and not devoid of poetic +beauty I translate, preserving as much as possible the trochaic +tetrasyllabic verse of the original Quichua:-- + + "Beauteous princess, + Lo, thy brother + Breaks thy vessel + Now in fragments. + From the blow come + Thunder, lightning, + Strokes of lightning. + And thou, princess, + Tak'st the water, + With it rainest, + And the hail, or + Snow dispensest. + Viracocha, + World constructor, + World enliv'ner, + To this office + Thee appointed, + Thee created."[155-1] + +In this pretty waif that has floated down to us from the wreck of a +literature now forever lost, there is more than one point to attract the +notice of the antiquary. He may find in it a hint to decipher those +names of divinities so common in Peruvian legends, Contici and Illatici. +Both mean "the Thunder Vase," and both doubtless refer to the conception +here displayed of the phenomena of the thunder-storm.[155-2] + +Again, twice in this poem is the triple nature of the storm adverted to. +This is observable in many of the religions of America. It constitutes a +sort of Trinity, not in any point resembling that of Christianity, nor +yet the Trimurti of India, but the only one in the New World the least +degree authenticated, and which, as half seen by ignorant monks, has +caused its due amount of sterile astonishment. Thus, in the Quiché +legends we read: "The first of Hurakan is the lightning, the second the +track of the lightning, and the third the stroke of the lightning; and +these three are Hurakan, the Heart of the Sky."[156-1] It reappears with +characteristic uniformity of outline in Iroquois mythology. Heno, the +thunder, gathers the clouds and pours out the warm rains. Therefore he +was the patron of husbandry. He was invoked at seed time and harvest; +and as purveyor of nourishment he was addressed as grandfather, and his +worshippers styled themselves his grandchildren. He rode through the +heavens on the clouds, and the thunderbolts which split the forest trees +were the stones he hurled at his enemies. _Three_ assistants were +assigned him, whose names have unfortunately not been recorded, and +whose offices were apparently similar to those of the three companions +of Hurakan.[156-2] + +So also the Aztecs supposed that Tlaloc, god of rains and the waters, +ruler of the terrestrial paradise and the season of summer, manifested +himself under the three attributes of the flash, the thunderbolt, and +the thunder.[157-1] + +But this conception of three in one was above the comprehension of the +masses, and consequently these deities were also spoken of as fourfold +in nature, three _and_ one. Moreover, as has already been pointed out, +the thunder god was usually ruler of the winds, and thus another reason +for his quadruplicate nature was suggested. Hurakan, Haokah, Tlaloc, and +probably Heno, are plural as well as singular nouns, and are used as +nominatives to verbs in both numbers. Tlaloc was appealed to as +inhabiting each of the cardinal points and every mountain top. His +statue rested on a square stone pedestal, facing the east, and had in +one hand a serpent of gold. Ribbons of silver, crossing to form squares, +covered the robe, and the shield was composed of feathers of four +colors, yellow, green, red, and blue. Before it was a vase containing +all sorts of grain; and the clouds were called his companions, the winds +his messengers.[157-2] As elsewhere, the thunderbolts were believed to +be flints, and thus, as the emblem of fire and the storm, this stone +figures conspicuously in their myths. Tohil, the god who gave the +Quichés fire by shaking his sandals, was represented by a flint-stone. +He is distinctly said to be the same as Quetzalcoatl, one of whose +commonest symbols was a flint (tecpatl). Such a stone, in the beginning +of things, fell from heaven to earth, and broke into 1600 pieces, each +of which sprang up a god;[158-1] an ancient legend, which shadows forth +the subjection of all things to him who gathers the clouds from the four +corners of the earth, who thunders with his voice, who satisfies with +his rain "the desolate and waste ground, and causes the tender herb to +spring forth." This is the germ of the adoration of stones as emblems of +the fecundating rains. This is why, for example, the Navajos use as +their charm for rain certain long round stones, which they think fall +from the cloud when it thunders.[158-2] + +Mixcoatl, the Cloud Serpent, or Iztac-Mixcoatl, the White or Gleaming +Cloud Serpent, said to have been the only divinity of the ancient +Chichimecs, held in high honor by the Nahuas, Nicaraguans, and Otomis, +and identical with Taras, supreme god of the Tarascos and Camaxtli, god +of the Teo-Chichimecs, is another personification of the thunder-storm. +To this day this is the familiar name of the tropical tornado in the +Mexican language.[158-3] He was represented, like Jove, with a bundle of +arrows in his hand, the thunderbolts. Both the Nahuas and Tarascos +related legends in which he figured as father of the race of man. Like +other lords of the lightning he was worshipped as the dispenser of +riches and the patron of traffic; and in Nicaragua his image is +described as being "engraved stones,"[158-4] probably the supposed +products of the thunder. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[124-1] A. D'Orbigny, _L'Homme Américain_, i. p. 240. + +[125-1] Rivero and Tschudi, _Peruvian Antiquities_, 162, after J. Acosta. + +[125-2] Narrative of _Oceola Nikkanoche, Prince of Econchatti_, p. 141; +Schoolcraft, _Ind. Tribes_, iv. p. 650. + +[126-1] The term in Maya is _caput zihil_, corresponding exactly to the +Latin _renasci_, to be re-born, Landa, _Rel. de Yucatan_, p. 144. + +[126-2] Dumont, _Mems. Hist. sur la Louisiane_, i. p. 233. + +[127-1] Acosta, _Hist. of the New World_, lib. v. cap. 25. + +[127-2] _Senate Report on Condition of Indian Tribes_, p. 358: +Washington, 1867. + +[128-1] Sahagun, _Hist. de la Nueva España_, lib. vi. cap. 37. + +[128-2] Ternaux-Compans, _Pièces rel. à la Conq. du Mexique_, p. 233. + +[128-3] Velasco, _Hist. de la Royaume de Quito_, p. 106, and others. + +[128-4] Whipple, _Rep. on the Indian Tribes_, p. 35. I am not sure that +this practice was of native growth to the Cherokees. This people have +many customs and traditions strangely similar to those of Christians and +Jews. Their cosmogony is a paraphrase of that of Genesis (Squier, _Serp. +Symbol_, from Payne's MSS.); the number seven is as sacred with them as +it was with the Chaldeans (Whipple, u. s.); and they have improved and +increased by contact with the whites. Significant in this connection is +the remark of Bartram, who visited them in 1773, that some of their +females were "nearly as fair and blooming as European women," and +generally that their complexion was lighter than their neighbors +(_Travels_, p. 485). Two explanations of these facts may be suggested. +They may be descendants in part of the ancient white race near Cape +Hatteras, to whom I have referred in a previous note. More probably they +derived their peculiarities from the Spaniards of Florida. Mr. Shea is of +opinion that missions were established among them as early as 1566 and +1643 (_Hist. of Catholic Missions in the U. S._, pp. 58, 73). Certainly +in the latter half of the seventeenth century the Spaniards were +prosecuting mining operations in their territory (See _Am. Hist. Mag._, +x. p. 137). + +[129-1] Sprague, _Hist. of the Florida War_, p. 328. + +[129-2] Basanier, _Histoire Notable de la Floride_, p. 10. + +[130-1] Sahagun, _Hist. de la Nueva España_, lib. iii. app. cap. i.; +Meyen, _Ueber die Ureinwohner von Peru_, p. 29. + +[130-2] Gabriel Thomas, _Hist. of West New Jersey_, p. 6: London, 1698. + +[131-1] Gama, _Des. de las dos Piedras_, etc., i. p. 36. + +[131-2] Garcia, _Or. de los Indios_, p. 109. + +[131-3] Oviedo, _Rel. de la Prov. de Nicaragua_, p. 41. The name is a +corruption of the Aztec _Quiauhteotl_, Rain-God. + +[132-1] Gumilla, _Hist. del Orinoco_, ii. cap. 23. + +[132-2] _Doc. Hist. of New York_, iv. p. 130. + +[132-3] Gama, _Des. de las dos Piedras_, ii. p. 41; Gallatin, _Trans. Am. +Ethnol. Soc._, i. p. 343. + +[133-1] Adrian Van Helmont, _Workes_, p. 142, fol.: London, 1662. + +[133-2] The moon is _nipa_ or _nipaz_; _nipa_, I sleep; _nipawi_, night; +_nip_, I die; _nepua_, dead; _nipanoue_, cold. This odd relationship was +first pointed out by Volney (Duponceau, _Langues de l'Amérique du Nord_, +p. 317). But the kinship of these words to that for water, _nip_, _nipi_, +_nepi_, has not before been noticed. This proves the association of ideas +on which I lay so much stress in mythology. A somewhat similar +relationship exists in the Aztec and cognate languages, _miqui_, to die, +_micqui_, dead, _mictlan_, the realm of death, _te-miqui_, to dream, +_cec-miqui_, to freeze. Would it be going too far to connect these with +_metzli_, moon? (See Buschmann, _Spuren der Aztekischen Sprache im +Nördlichen Mexico_, p. 80.) + +[133-3] Schoolcraft, _Ind. Tribes_, vol. iii. p. 485. + +[134-1] _Rel. de la Nouv. France_, 1634, p. 16. + +[134-2] Humboldt, _Vues des Cordillères_, p. 21. + +[134-3] Spix and Martius, _Travels in Brazil_, ii. p. 247. + +[134-4] _Hist. de la Médecine_, i. p. 34. + +[134-5] Gama, _Des. de las dos Piedras_, etc., ii. pp. 100-102. Compare +Sahagun, _Hist. de la Nueva España_, lib. i. cap. vi. + +[135-1] Codex Chimalpopoca, in Brasseur, _Hist. du Mexique_, i. p. 183. +Gama and others translate Nanahuatl by _el buboso_, Brasseur by _le +syphilitique_, and the latter founds certain medical speculations on the +word. It is entirely unnecessary to say to a surgeon that it could not +possibly have had the latter meaning, inasmuch as the diagnosis between +secondary or tertiary syphilis and other similar diseases was unknown. +That it is so employed now is nothing to the purpose. The same or a +similar myth was found in Central America and on the Island of Haiti. + +[136-1] _Rel. de la Nouv. France_, 1648, p. 75. + +[136-2] Charlevoix is in error when he identifies Michabo with the Spirit +of the Waters, and may be corrected from his own statements elsewhere. +Compare his _Journal Historique_, pp. 281 and 344: ed. Paris, 1740. + +[137-1] Bradford, _American Antiquities_, p. 833; Martius, _Von dem +Rechtszustande unter den Ureinwohnern Brasiliens_, p. 32; Schoolcraft, +_Ind. Tribes_, i. p. 271. + +[138-1] La Vega, _Hist. des Incas_, liv. vi. cap. 9. + +[138-2] _Lett. sur les Superstitions du Pérou_, p. 111. + +[138-3] Schoolcraft, _Ind. Tribes_, iv. p. 224. + +[139-1] Chantico, according to Gama, means "Wolf's Head," though I cannot +verify this from the vocabularies within my reach. He is sometimes called +Cohuaxolotl Chantico, the snake-servant Chantico, considered by Gama as +one, by Torquemada as two deities (see Gama, _Des. de las dos Piedras_, +etc., i. p. 12; ii. p. 66). The English word _cantico_ in the phrase, for +instance, "to cut a cantico," though an Indian word, is not from this, +but from the Algonkin Delaware _gentkehn_, to dance a sacred dance. The +Dutch describe it as "a religious custom observed among them before +death" (_Doc. Hist. of New York_, iv. p. 63). William Penn says of the +Lenape, "their worship consists of two parts, sacrifice and cantico," the +latter "performed by round dances, sometimes words, sometimes songs, then +shouts; their postures very antic and differing." (_Letter to the Free +Society of Traders_, 1683, sec. 21.) + +[139-2] Charlevoix, _Hist. Gén. de la Nouv. France_, i. p. 394: Paris, +1740. On the different species of dogs indigenous to America, see a note +of Alex. von Humboldt, _Ansichten der Natur._, i. p. 134. It may be +noticed that Chichimec, properly Chichimecatl, the name of the Aztec +tribe who succeeded the ancient Toltecs in Mexico, means literally +"people of the dog," and was probably derived from some mythological +fable connected with that animal. + +[140-1] _Narr. of the Captiv. of John Tanner_, p. 362. From the word for +fire in many American tongues is formed the adjective _red_. Thus, +Algonkin, _skoda_, fire, _miskoda_, red; Kolosch, _kan_, fire, _kan_, +red; Ugalentz, _takak_, fire, _takak-uete_, red; Tahkali, _cūn_, fire, +_tenil-cūn_, red; Quiche, _cak_, fire, _cak_, red, etc. From the +adjective _red_ comes often the word for _blood_, and in symbolism the +color red may refer to either of these ideas. It was the royal color of +the Incas, brothers of the sun, and a llama swathed in a red garment was +the Peruvian sacrifice to fire (Garcia, _Or. de los Indios_, lib. iv. +caps. 16, 19). On the other hand the war quipus, the war wampum, and the +war paint were all of this hue, boding their sanguinary significance. The +word for fire in the language of the Delawares, Nanticokes, and +neighboring tribes puzzles me. It is _taenda_ or _tinda_. This is the +Swedish word _taenda_, from whose root comes our _tinder_. Yet it is +found in vocabularies as early as 1650, and is universally current +to-day. It has no resemblance to the word for fire in pure Algonkin. Was +it adopted from the Swedes? Was it introduced by wandering Vikings in +remote centuries? Or is it only a coincidence? + +[141-1] Compare D'Orbigny, _L'Homme Américain_, i. p. 243, Müller, +_Amer. Urreligionen_, p. 51, and Squier, _Serpent Symbol in America_, p. +111. This is a striking instance of the confusion of ideas introduced by +false systems of study, and also of the considerable misapprehension of +American mythology which has hitherto prevailed. + +[142-1] La Hontan, _Voy. dans l'Amér. Sept._, p. ii. 127; _Rel. Nouv. +France_, 1637, p. 54. + +[142-2] Copway, _Trad. Hist. of the Ojibway Nation_, p. 165. _Kesuch_ in +Algonkin signifies both sky and sun (Duponceau, _Langues de l'Amér. du +Nord_, p. 312). So apparently does _kin_ in the Maya. + +[142-3] Payne's manuscripts quoted by Mr. Squier in his Serpent Symbol in +America were compiled within this century, and from the extracts given +can be of no great value. + +[143-1] The words for fire and sun in American languages are usually from +distinct roots, but besides the example of the Natchez I may instance to +the contrary the Kolosch of British America, in whose tongue fire is +_kan_, sun, _kakan_ (_gake_, great), and the Tezuque of New Mexico, who +use _tah_ for both sun and fire. + +[144-1] _Doc. Hist. of New York_, ii. p. 634. + +[144-2] Emory, _Milt'y Reconnoissance[TN-6] of New Mexico_, p. 30. + +[144-3] _Narrative of John Tanner_, p. 161. + +[144-4] Loskiel, _Ges. der Miss. der evang. Brüder_, p. 55. + +[144-5] _Nar. of John Tanner_, p. 351. + +[144-6] Sahagun, _Hist. Nueva España_, lib. vi. cap. 4. + +[145-1] _Letts. Edifiantes et Curieuses_, iv. p. 104, Oviedo; _Hist. du +Nicaragua_, p. 49; Gomara, _Hist. del Orinoco_, ii. cap. 2. + +[145-2] Oviedo, _Hist. Gen. de las Indias_, p. 16, in Barcia's _Hist. +Prim._ + +[145-3] _Presdt's Message and Docs._ for 1851, pt. iii. p. 506. + +[146-1] Sahagun, _Hist. de la Nueva España_, i. cap. 13. + +[147-1] _Voyage Pittoresque dans le Yucatan_, p. 49. + +[147-2] Davila Padilla, _Hist. de la Prov. de Santiago de Mexico_, lib. +ii. cap. 88 (Brusselas, 1625); Palacios, _Des. de Guatemala_, p. 40; +Garcia, _Or. de los Indios_, p. 124. To such an extent did the priests of +the Algonkin tribes who lived near Manhattan Island carry their +austerity, such uncompromising celibates were they, that it is said on +authority as old as 1624, that they never so much as partook of food +prepared by a married woman. (_Doc. Hist. New York_, iv. p. 28.) + +[149-1] Martius, _Von dem Rechtzustande unter den Ureinwohnern +Brasiliens_, p. 28, gives many references. + +[149-2] Id. _ibid._, p. 61. + +[149-3] _Le Livre Sacré des Quichés_, Introd., pp. clxi., clxix. + +[149-4] _Travels in Yucatan_, i. p. 434. + +[150-1] Schoolcraft, _Ind. Tribes_, v. pp. 416, 417. + +[150-2] Mrs. Eastman, _Legends of the Sioux_, p. 161. + +[151-1] _Rel. de la Nouv. France_, 1634, p. 27; Schoolcraft, _Algic +Researches_, ii. p. 116; _Ind. Tribes_, v. p. 420. + +[151-2] De Smet, _Western Missions_, p. 135; Schoolcraft, _Ind. Tribes_, +i. p. 319. + +[151-3] Mrs. Eastman, _Legends of the Sioux_, p. 72. By another legend +they claimed that their first ancestor obtained his fire from the sparks +which a friendly panther struck from the rocks as he scampered up a stony +hill (McCoy, _Hist. of Baptist Indian Missions_, p. 364). + +[152-1] Mrs. Eastman, ubi sup., p. 158; Schoolcraft, _Ind. Tribes_, iv. +p. 645. + +[152-2] Waitz, _Anthropologie_, iii. p. 417; Müller, _Am. Urrelig._, p. +271. + +[154-1] On the myth of Catequil see particularly the _Lettre sur les +Superstitions du Pérou_, p. 95 sqq., and compare Montesinos, _Ancien +Pérou_, chaps. ii., xx. The letters g and j do not exist in Quichua, +therefore Ataguju should doubtless read _Ata-chuchu_, which means lord, +or ruler of the twins, from _ati_ root of _atini_, I am able, I control, +and _chuchu_, twins. The change of the root _ati_ to _ata_, though +uncommon in Quichua, occurs also in _ata-hualpa_, cock, from _ati_ and +_hualpa_, fowl. Apo-Catequil, or as given by Arriaga, another old writer +on Peruvian idolatry, Apocatequilla, I take to be properly +_apu-ccatec-quilla_, which literally means _chief of the followers of the +moon_. Acosta mentions that the native name for various constellations +was _catachillay_ or _catuchillay_, doubtless corruptions of _ccatec +quilla_, literally "following the moon." Catequil, therefore, the dark +spirit of the storm rack, was also appropriately enough, and perhaps +primarily, lord of the night and stars. Piguerao, where the g appears +again, is probably a compound of _piscu_, bird, and _uira_, white. +Guachemines seems clearly the word _huachi_, a ray of light or an arrow, +with the negative suffix _ymana_, thus meaning rayless, as in the text, +or _ymana_ may mean an excess as well as a want of anything beyond what +is natural, which would give the signification "very bright shining." +(Holguin, _Arte de la Lengua Quichua_, p. 106: Cuzco, 1607.) Is this +sister of theirs the Dawn, who, as in the Rig Veda, brings forth at the +cost of her own life the white and dark twins, the Day and the Night, the +latter of whom drives from the heavens the far-shooting arrows of light, +in order that he may restore his mother again to life? The answer may for +the present be deferred. It is a coincidence perhaps worth mentioning +that the Augustin monk who is our principal authority for this legend +mentions two other twin deities, Yamo and Yama, whose names are almost +identical with the twins Yama and Yami of the Veda. + +[155-1] _Hist. des Incas_, liv. ii. cap. 28, and corrected in Markham's +_Quichua Grammar_. + +[155-2] The latter is a compound of _tici_ or _ticcu_, a vase, and +_ylla_, the root of _yllani_, to shine, _yllapantac_, it thunders and +lightens. The former is from _tici_ and _cun_ or _con_, whence by +reduplication _cun-un-un-an_, it thunders. From _cun_ and _tura_, +brother, is probably derived _cuntur_, the condor, the flying +thunder-cloud being looked upon as a great bird also. Dr. Waitz has +pointed out that the Araucanians call by the title _con_, the messenger +who summons their chieftains to a general council. + +[156-1] _Le Livre Sacré_, p. 9. The name of the lightning in Quiché is +_cak ul ha_, literally, "fire coming from water." + +[156-2] Morgan, _League of the Iroquois_, p. 158. + +[157-1] "El rayo, el relámpago, y el trueno." Gama, _Des. de las dos +Piedras_, etc., ii. p. 76: Mexico, 1832. + +[157-2] Torquemada, _Monarquia Indiana_, lib. vi. cap. 23. Gama, ubi sup. +ii. 76, 77. + +[158-1] Torquemada, ibid., lib. vi. cap. 41. + +[158-2] _Senate Report on the Indian Tribes_, p. 358: Washington, 1867. + +[158-3] Brasseur, _Hist[TN-7] du Mexique_, i. p. 201, and on the extent +of his worship Waitz, _Anthropol._, iv. p. 144. + +[158-4] Oviedo, _Hist. du Nicaragua_, p. 47. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +THE SUPREME GODS OF THE RED RACE. + + Analysis of American culture myths.--The Manibozho or Michabo of + the Algonkins shown to be an impersonation of LIGHT, a hero of the + Dawn, and their highest deity.--The myths of Ioskeha of the + Iroquois, Viracocha of the Peruvians, and Quetzalcoatl of the + Toltecs essentially the same as that of Michabo.--Other + examples.--Ante-Columbian prophecies of the advent of a white race + from the east as conquerors.--Rise of later culture myths under + similar forms. + + +The philosopher Machiavelli, commenting on the books of Livy, lays it +down as a general truth that every form and reform has been brought +about by a single individual. Since a remorseless criticism has shorn so +many heroes of their laurels, our faith in the maxim of the great +Florentine wavers, and the suspicion is created that the popular fancy +which personifies under one figure every social revolution is an +illusion. It springs from that tendency to hero worship, ineradicable in +the heart of the race, which leads every nation to have an ideal, the +imagined author of its prosperity, the father of his country, and the +focus of its legends. As has been hinted, history is not friendly to +their renown, and dissipates them altogether into phantoms of the brain, +or sadly dims the lustre of their fame. Arthur, bright star of chivalry, +dwindles into a Welsh subaltern; the Cid Campeador, defender of the +faith, sells his sword as often to Moslem as to Christian, and _sells_ +it ever; while Siegfried and Feridun vanish into nothings. + +As elsewhere the world over, so in America many tribes had to tell of +such a personage, some such august character, who taught them what they +knew, the tillage of the soil, the properties of plants, the art of +picture writing, the secrets of magic; who founded their institutions +and established their religions, who governed them long with glory +abroad and peace at home; and finally, did not die, but like Frederick +Barbarossa, Charlemagne, King Arthur, and all great heroes, vanished +mysteriously, and still lives somewhere, ready at the right moment to +return to his beloved people and lead them to victory and happiness. +Such to the Algonkins was Michabo or Manibozho, to the Iroquois Ioskeha, +Wasi to the Cherokees, Tamoi to the Caribs; so the Mayas had Zamna, the +Toltecs Quetzalcoatl, the Muyscas Nemqueteba; such among the Aymaras was +Viracocha, among the Mandans Numock-muckenah, and among the natives of +the Orinoko Amalivaca; and the catalogue could be extended indefinitely. + +It is not always easy to pronounce upon these heroes, whether they +belong to history or mythology, their nation's poetry or its prose. In +arriving at a conclusion we must remember that a fiction built on an +idea is infinitely more tenacious of life than a story founded on fact. +Further, that if a striking similarity in the legends of two such heroes +be discovered under circumstances which forbid the thought that one was +derived from the other, then both are probably mythical. If this is the +case in not two but in half a dozen instances, then the probability +amounts to a certainty, and the only task remaining is to explain such +narratives on consistent mythological principles. If after sifting out +all foreign and later traits, it appears that when first known to +Europeans, these heroes were assigned all the attributes of highest +divinity, were the imagined creators and rulers of the world, and +mightiest of spiritual powers, then their position must be set far +higher than that of deified men. They must be accepted as the supreme +gods of the red race, the analogues in the western continent of Jupiter, +Osiris, and Odin in the eastern, and whatever opinions contrary to this +may have been advanced by writers and travellers must be set down to the +account of that prevailing ignorance of American mythology which has +fathered so many other blunders. To solve these knotty points I shall +choose for analysis the culture myths of the Algonkins, the Iroquois, +the Toltecs of Mexico, and the Aymaras or Peruvians, guided in my choice +by the fact that these four families are the best known, and, in many +points of view, the most important on the continent. + +From the remotest wilds of the northwest to the coast of the Atlantic, +from the southern boundaries of Carolina to the cheerless swamps of +Hudson's Bay, the Algonkins were never tired of gathering around the +winter fire and repeating the story of Manibozho or Michabo, the Great +Hare. With entire unanimity their various branches, the Powhatans of +Virginia, the Lenni Lenape of the Delaware, the warlike hordes of New +England, the Ottawas of the far north, and the western tribes perhaps +without exception, spoke of "this chimerical beast," as one of the old +missionaries calls it, as their common ancestor. The totem or clan +which bore his name was looked up to with peculiar respect. In many of +the tales which the whites have preserved of Michabo he seems half a +wizzard[TN-8], half a simpleton. He is full of pranks and wiles, but +often at a loss for a meal of victuals; ever itching to try his arts +magic on great beasts and often meeting ludicrous failures therein; +envious of the powers of others, and constantly striving to outdo them +in what they do best; in short, little more than a malicious buffoon +delighting in practical jokes, and abusing his superhuman powers for +selfish and ignoble ends. But this is a low, modern, and corrupt version +of the character of Michabo, bearing no more resemblance to his real and +ancient one than the language and acts of our Saviour and the apostles +in the coarse Mystery Plays of the Middle Ages do to those recorded by +the Evangelists. + +What he really was we must seek in the accounts of older travellers, in +the invocations of the jossakeeds or prophets, and in the part assigned +to him in the solemn mysteries of religion. In these we find him +portrayed as the patron and founder of the meda worship,[162-1] the +inventor of picture writing, the father and guardian of their nation, +the ruler of the winds, even the maker and preserver of the world and +creator of the sun and moon. From a grain of sand brought from the +bottom of the primeval ocean, he fashioned the habitable land and set +it floating on the waters, till it grew to such a size that a strong +young wolf, running constantly, died of old age ere he reached its +limits. Under the name Michabo Ovisaketchak, the Great Hare who created +the Earth, he was originally the highest divinity recognized by them, +"powerful and beneficent beyond all others, maker of the heavens and the +world." He was founder of the medicine hunt in which after appropriate +ceremonies and incantations the Indian sleeps, and Michabo appears to +him in a dream, and tells him where he may readily kill game. He himself +was a mighty hunter of old; one of his footsteps measured eight leagues, +the Great Lakes were the beaver dams he built, and when the cataracts +impeded his progress he tore them away with his hands. Attentively +watching the spider spread its web to trap unwary flies, he devised the +art of knitting nets to catch fish, and the signs and charms he tested +and handed down to his descendants are of marvellous efficacy in the +chase. In the autumn, in "the moon of the falling leaf," ere he composes +himself to his winter's sleep, he fills his great pipe and takes a +god-like smoke. The balmy clouds float over the hills and woodlands, +filling the air with the haze of the "Indian summer." + +Sometimes he was said to dwell in the skies with his brother the snow, +or, like many great spirits, to have built his wigwam in the far north +on some floe of ice in the Arctic Ocean, while the Chipeways localized +his birthplace and former home to the Island Michilimakinac at the +outlet of Lake Superior. But in the oldest accounts of the missionaries +he was alleged to reside toward the east, and in the holy formulæ of +the meda craft, when the winds are invoked to the medicine lodge, the +east is summoned in his name, the door opens in that direction, and +there, at the edge of the earth, where the sun rises, on the shore of +the infinite ocean that surrounds the land, he has his house and sends +the luminaries forth on their daily journies.[164-1] + +It is passing strange that such an insignificant creature as the rabbit +should have received this apotheosis. No explanation of it in the least +satisfactory has ever been offered. Some have pointed it out as a +senseless, meaningless brute worship. It leads to the suspicion that +there may lurk here one of those confusions of words which have so often +led to confusion of ideas in mythology. Manibozho, Nanibojou, Missibizi, +Michabo, Messou, all variations of the same name in different dialects +rendered according to different orthographies, scrutinize them closely +as we may, they all seem compounded according to well ascertained laws +of Algonkin euphony from the words corresponding to _great_ and _hare_ +or _rabbit_, or the first two perhaps from _spirit_ and _hare_ (_michi_, +great, _wabos_, hare, _manito wabos_, spirit hare, Chipeway dialect), +and so they have invariably been translated even by the Indians +themselves. But looking more narrowly at the second member of the word, +it is clearly capable of another and very different interpretation, of +an interpretation which discloses at once the origin and the secret +meaning of the whole story of Michabo, in the light of which it appears +no longer the incoherent fable of savages, but a true myth, instinct +with nature, pregnant with matter, nowise inferior to those which +fascinate in the chants of the Rig Veda, or the weird pages of the Edda. + +On a previous page I have emphasized with what might have seemed +superfluous force, how prominent in primitive mythology is the east, the +source of the morning, the day-spring on high, the cardinal point which +determines and controls all others. But I did not lay as much stress on +it as others have. "The whole theogony and philosophy of the ancient +world," says Max Müller, "centred in the Dawn, the mother of the bright +gods, of the Sun in his various aspects, of the morn, the day, the +spring; herself the brilliant image and visage of immortality."[165-1] +Now it appears on attentively examining the Algonkin root _wab_, that it +gives rise to words of very diverse meaning, that like many others in +all languages while presenting but one form it represents ideas of +wholly unlike origin and application, that in fact there are two +distinct roots having this sound. One is the initial syllable of the +word translated hare or rabbit, but the other means _white_, and from it +is derived the words for the east, the dawn, the light, the day and the +morning.[165-2] Beyond a doubt this is the compound in the names +Michabo and Manibozho which therefore mean the Great Light, the Spirit +of Light, of the Dawn, or the East, and in the literal sense of the word +the Great White One, as indeed he has sometimes been called. + +In this sense all the ancient and authentic myths concerning him are +plain and full of meaning. They divide themselves into two distinct +cycles. In the one Michabo is the spirit of light who dispels the +darkness; in the other as chief of the cardinal points he is lord of the +winds, prince of the powers of the air, whose voice is the thunder, +whose weapon the lightning, the supreme figure in the encounter of the +air currents, in the unending conflict which the Dakotas described as +waged by the waters and the winds. + +In the first he is grandson of the moon, his father is the West Wind, +and his mother, a maiden, dies in giving him birth at the moment of +conception. For the moon is the goddess of night, the Dawn is her +daughter, who brings forth the morning and perishes herself in the act, +and the West, the spirit of darkness as the East is of light, precedes +and as it were begets the latter as the evening does the morning. +Straightway, however, continues the legend, the son sought the unnatural +father to revenge the death of his mother, and then commenced a long and +desperate struggle. "It began on the mountains. The West was forced to +give ground. Manabozho drove him across rivers and over mountains and +lakes, and at last he came to the brink of this world. 'Hold,' cried he, +'my son, you know my power and that it is impossible to kill +me.'"[167-1] What is this but the diurnal combat of light and darkness, +carried on from what time "the jocund morn stands tiptoe on the misty +mountain tops," across the wide world to the sunset, the struggle that +knows no end, for both the opponents are immortal? + +In the second, and evidently to the native mind more important cycle of +legends, he was represented as one of four brothers, the North, the +South, the East, and the West, all born at a birth, whose mother died in +ushering them into the world;[167-2] for hardly has the kindling orient +served to fix the cardinal points than it is lost and dies in the +advancing day. Yet it is clear that he was something more than a +personification of the east or the east wind, for it is repeatedly said +that it was he who assigned their duties to all the winds, to that of +the east as well as the others. This is a blending of his two +characters. Here too his life is a battle. No longer with his father, +indeed, but with his brother Chakekenapok, the flint-stone, whom he +broke in pieces and scattered over the land, and changed his entrails +into fruitful vines. The conflict was long and terrible. The face of +nature was desolated as by a tornado, and the gigantic boulders and +loose rocks found on the prairies are the missiles hurled by the mighty +combatants. Or else his foe was the glittering prince of serpents whose +abode was the lake; or was the shining Manito whose home was guarded by +fiery serpents and a deep sea; or was the great king of fishes; all +symbols of the atmospheric waters, all figurative descriptions of the +wars of the elements. In these affrays the thunder and lightning are at +his command, and with them he destroys his enemies. For this reason the +Chipeway pictography represents him brandishing a rattlesnake, the +symbol of the electric flash,[168-1] and sometimes they called him the +Northwest Wind, which in the region they inhabit usually brings the +thunder-storms. + +As ruler of the winds he was, like Quetzalcoatl, father and protector of +all species of birds, their symbols.[168-2] He was patron of hunters, +for their course is guided by the cardinal points. Therefore, when the +medicine hunt had been successful, the prescribed sign of gratitude to +him was to scatter a handful of the animal's blood toward each of +these.[168-3] As daylight brings vision, and to see is to know, it was +no fable that gave him as the author of their arts, their wisdom, and +their institutions. + +In effect, his story is a world-wide truth, veiled under a thin garb of +fancy. It is but a variation of that narrative which every race has to +tell, out of gratitude to that beneficent Father who everywhere has +cared for His children. Michabo, giver of life and light, creator and +preserver, is no apotheosis of a prudent chieftain, still less the +fabrication of an idle fancy or a designing priestcraft, but in origin, +deeds, and name the not unworthy personification of the purest +conceptions they possessed concerning the Father of All. To Him at early +dawn the Indian stretched forth his hands in prayer; and to the sky or +the sun as his homes, he first pointed the pipe in his ceremonies, rites +often misinterpreted by travellers as indicative of sun worship. As +later observers tell us to this day the Algonkin prophet builds the +medicine lodge to face the sunrise, and in the name of Michabo, who +there has his home, summons the spirits of the four quarters of the +world and Gizhigooke, the day maker, to come to his fire and disclose +the hidden things of the distant and the future: so the earliest +explorers relate that when they asked the native priests who it was they +invoked, what demons or familiars, the invariable reply was, "the +Kichigouai, the genii of light, those who make the day."[169-1] + +Our authorities on Iroquois traditions, though numerous enough, are not +so satisfactory. The best, perhaps, is Father Brebeuf, a Jesuit +missionary, who resided among the Hurons in 1626. Their culture myth, +which he has recorded, is strikingly similar to that of the Algonkins. +Two brothers appear in it, Ioskeha and Tawiscara, names which find their +meaning in the Oneida dialect as the White one and the Dark one.[170-1] +They are twins, born of a virgin mother, who died in giving them life. +Their grandmother was the moon, called by the Hurons Ataensic, a word +which signifies literally _she bathes herself_, and which, in the +opinion of Father Bruyas, a most competent authority, is derived from +the word for water.[170-2] + +The brothers quarrelled, and finally came to blows; the former using the +horns of a stag, the latter the wild rose. He of the weaker weapon was +very naturally discomfited and sorely wounded. Fleeing for life, the +blood gushed from him at every step, and as it fell turned into +flint-stones. The victor returned to his grandmother, and established +his lodge in the far east, on the borders of the great ocean, whence +the sun comes. In time he became the father of mankind, and special +guardian of the Iroquois. The earth was at first arid and sterile, but +he destroyed the gigantic frog which had swallowed all the waters, and +guided the torrents into smooth streams and lakes.[171-1] The woods he +stocked with game; and having learned from the great tortoise, who +supports the world, how to make fire, taught his children, the Indians, +this indispensable art. He it was who watched and watered their crops; +and, indeed, without his aid, says the old missionary, quite out of +patience with such puerilities, "they think they could not boil a pot." +Sometimes they spoke of him as the sun, but this only figuratively.[171-2] + +From other writers of early date we learn that the essential outlines of +this myth were received by the Tuscaroras and the Mohawks, and as the +proper names of the two brothers are in the Oneida dialect, we cannot +err in considering this the national legend of the Iroquois stock. There +is strong likelihood that the Taronhiawagon, he who comes from the Sky, +of the Onondagas, who was their supreme God, who spoke to them in +dreams, and in whose honor the chief festival of their calendar was +celebrated about the winter solstice, was, in fact, Ioskeha under +another name.[172-1] As to the legend of the Good and Bad Minds given +by Cusic, to which I have referred in a previous chapter, and the later +and wholly spurious myth of Hiawatha, first made public by Mr. Clark in +his History of Onondaga (1849), and which, in the graceful poem of +Longfellow, is now familiar to the world, they are but pale and +incorrect reflections of the early native traditions. + +So strong is the resemblance Ioskeha bears to Michabo, that what has +been said in explanation of the latter will be sufficient for both. Yet +I do not imagine that the one was copied or borrowed from the other. We +cannot be too cautious in adopting such a conclusion. The two nations +were remote in everything but geographical position. I call to mind +another similar myth. In it a mother is also said to have brought forth +twins, or a pair of twins, and to have paid for them with her life. +Again the one is described as the bright, the other as the dark twin; +again it is said that they struggled one with the other for the mastery. +Scholars, likewise, have interpreted the mother to mean the Dawn, the +twins either Light and Darkness, or the Four Winds. Yet this is not +Algonkin theology; nor is it at all related to that of the Iroquois. It +is the story of Sarama in the Rig Veda, and was written in Sanscrit, +under the shadow of the Himalayas, centuries before Homer. + +Such uniformity points not to a common source in history, but in +psychology. Man, chiefly cognizant of his soul through his senses, +thought with an awful horror of the night which deprived him of the use +of one and foreshadowed the loss of all. Therefore _light_ and _life_ +were to him synonymous; therefore all religions promise to lead + + "From night to light, + From night to heavenly light;" + +therefore He who rescues is ever the Light of the World; therefore it is +said "to the upright ariseth light in darkness;" therefore everywhere +the kindling East, the pale Dawn, is the embodiment of his hopes and the +centre of his reminiscences. Who shall say that his instinct led him +here astray? For is not, in fact, all life dependent on light? Do not +all those marvellous and subtle forces known to the older chemists as +the imponderable elements, without which not even the inorganic crystal +is possible, proceed from the rays of light? Let us beware of that +shallow science so ready to shout Eureka, and reverently acknowledge a +mysterious intuition here displayed which joins with the latest +conquests of the human mind to repeat and emphasize that message which +the Evangelist heard of the Spirit and declared unto men, that "God is +Light."[173-1] + +Both these heroes, let it be observed, live in the uttermost east; both +are the mythical fathers of the race. To the east, therefore, should +these nations have pointed as their original dwelling place. This they +did in spite of history. Cusic, who takes up the story of the Iroquois a +thousand years before the Christian era, locates them first in the most +eastern region they ever possessed. While the Algonkins with one voice +called those of their tribes living nearest the rising sun _Abnakis_, +our ancestors at the east, or at the dawn; literally our _white_ +ancestors.[174-1] I designedly emphasize this literal rendering. It +reminds one of the white twin of Iroquois legend, and illustrates how +the color white came to be intimately associated with the morning light +and its beneficent effects. Moreover color has a specific effect on the +mind; there is a music to the eye as well as to the ear; and white, +which holds all hues in itself, disposes the soul to all pleasant and +elevating emotions.[174-2] Not fashion alone bids the bride wreathe her +brow with orange flowers, nor was it a mere figure of speech that led +the inspired poet to call his love "fairest among women," and to +prophecy a Messiah "fairer than the children of men," fulfilled in that +day when He appeared "in garments so white as no fuller on earth could +white them." No nation is free from the power of this law. "White," +observes Adair of the southern Indians, "is their fixed emblem of peace, +friendship, happiness, prosperity, purity, and holiness."[175-1] Their +priests dressed in white robes, as did those of Peru and Mexico; the +kings of the various species of animals were all supposed to be +white;[175-2] the cities of refuge established as asylums for alleged +criminals by the Cherokees in the manner of the Israelites were called +"white towns," and for sacrifices animals of this color were ever most +highly esteemed. All these sentiments were linked to the dawn. Language +itself is proof of it. Many Algonkin words for east, morning, dawn, day, +light, as we have already seen, are derived from a radical signifying +_white_. Or we can take a tongue nowise related, the Quiché, and find +its words for east, dawn, morning, light, bright, glorious, happy, +noble, all derived from _zak_, white. We read in their legends of the +earliest men that they were "white children," "white sons," leading "a +white life beyond the dawn," and the creation itself is attributed to +the Dawn, the White One, the White Sacrificer of Blood.[175-3] But why +insist upon the point when in European tongues we find the daybreak +called _l'aube_, _alva_, from _albus_, white? Enough for the purpose if +the error of those is manifest, who, in such expressions, would seek +support for any theory of ancient European immigration; enough if it +displays the true meaning of those traditions of the advent of +benevolent visitors of fair complexion in ante-Columbian times, which +both Algonkins and Iroquois[176-1] had in common with many other tribes +of the western continent. Their explanation will not be found in the +annals of Japan, the triads of the Cymric bards, nor the sagas of +Icelandic skalds, but in the propensity of the human mind to attribute +its own origin and culture to that white-shining orient where sun, moon, +and stars, are daily born in renovated glory, to that fair mother, who, +at the cost of her own life, gives light and joy to the world, to the +brilliant womb of Aurora, the glowing bosom of the Dawn. + +Even the complicated mythology of Peru yields to the judicious +application of these principles of interpretation. Its peculiar +obscurity arises from the policy of the Incas to blend the religions of +conquered provinces with their own. Thus about 1350 the Inca Pachacutec +subdued the country about Lima where the worship of Con and Pachacamà +prevailed.[176-2] The local myth represented these as father and son, +or brothers, children of the sun. They were without flesh or blood, +impalpable, invisible, and incredibly swift of foot. Con first possessed +the land, but Pachacamà attacked and drove him to the north. Irritated +at his defeat he took with him the rain, and consequently to this day +the sea-coast of Peru is largely an arid desert. Now when we are +informed that the south wind, that in other words which blows to the +north, is the actual cause of the aridity of the low-lands,[177-1] and +consider the light and airy character of these antagonists, we cannot +hesitate to accept this as a myth of the winds. The name of _Con tici_, +the Thunder Vase, was indeed applied to Viracocha in later times, but +they were never identical. Viracocha was the culture hero of the ancient +Aymara-Quichua stock. He was more than that, for in their creed he was +creator and possessor of all things. Lands and herds were assigned to +other gods to support their temples, and offerings were heaped on their +altars, but to him none. For, asked the Incas: "Shall the Lord and +Master of the whole world need these things from us?" To him, says +Acosta, "they did attribute the chief power and commandement over all +things;" and elsewhere "in all this realm the chief idoll they did +worship was Viracocha, and _after him_ the Sunne."[178-1] + +Ere sun or moon was made, he rose from the bosom of Lake Titicaca, and +presided over the erection of those wondrous cities whose ruins still +dot its islands and western shores, and whose history is totally lost in +the night of time. He himself constructed these luminaries and placed +them in the sky, and then peopled the earth with its present +inhabitants. From the lake he journeyed westward, not without +adventures, for he was attacked with murderous intent by the beings whom +he had created. When, however, scorning such unequal combat, he had +manifested his power by hurling the lightning on the hill-sides and +consuming the forests, they recognized their maker, and humbled +themselves before him. He was reconciled, and taught them arts and +agriculture, institutions and religion, meriting the title they gave him +of _Pachayachachic_, teacher of all things. At last he disappeared in +the western ocean. Four personages, companions or sons, were closely +connected with him. They rose together with him from the lake, or else +were his first creations. These are the four mythical civilizers of +Peru, who another legend asserts emerged from the cave Pacarin tampu the +Lodgings of the Dawn.[179-1] To these Viracocha gave the earth, to one +the north, to another the south, to a third the east, to a fourth the +west. Their names are very variously given, but as they have already +been identified with the four winds, we can omit their consideration +here.[179-2] Tradition, as has rightly been observed by the Inca +Garcilasso de la Vega,[179-3] transferred a portion of the story of +Viracocha to Manco Capac, first of the historical Incas. King Manco, +however, was a real character, the Rudolph of Hapsburg of their reigning +family, and flourished about the eleventh century. + +There is a general resemblance between this story and that of Michabo. +Both precede and create the sun, both journey to the west, overcoming +opposition with the thunderbolt, both divide the world between the four +winds, both were the fathers, gods, and teachers of their nations. Nor +does it cease here. Michabo, I have shown, is the white spirit of the +Dawn. Viracocha, all authorities translate "the fat or foam of the sea." +The idea conveyed is of whiteness, foam being called fat from its +color.[180-1] So true is this that to-day in Peru white men are called +_viracochas_, and the early explorers constantly received the same +epithet.[180-2] The name is a metaphor. The dawn rises above the horizon +as the snowy foam on the surface of a lake. As the Algonkins spoke of +the Abnakis, their white ancestors, as in Mexican legends the early +Toltecs were of fair complexion, so the Aymaras sometimes called the +first four brothers, _viracochas_, white men.[180-3] It is the ancient +story how + + "Light + Sprang from the deep, and from her native east + To journey through the airy gloom began." + +The central figure of Toltec mythology is Quetzalcoatl. Not an author on +ancient Mexico but has something to say about the glorious days when he +ruled over the land. No one denies him to have been a god, the god of +the air, highest deity of the Toltecs, in whose honor was erected the +pyramid of Cholula, grandest monument of their race. But many insist +that he was at first a man, some deified king. There were in truth many +Quetzalcoatls, for his high priest always bore his name, but he himself +is a pure creation of the fancy, and all his alleged history is nothing +but a myth. + +His emblematic name, the Bird-Serpent, and his rebus and cross at +Palenque, I have already explained. Others of his titles were, Ehecatl, +the air; Yolcuat, the rattlesnake; Tohil, the rumbler; Huemac, the +strong hand; Nani he hecatle, lord of the four winds. The same dualism +reappears in him that has been noted in his analogues elsewhere; He is +both lord of the eastern light and the winds. + +As the former, he was born of a virgin in the land of Tula or Tlapallan, +in the distant Orient, and was high priest of that happy realm. The +morning star was his symbol, and the temple of Cholula was dedicated to +him expressly as the author of light.[181-1] As by days we measure time, +he was the alleged inventor of the calendar. Like all the dawn heroes, +he too was represented as of white complexion, clothed in long white +robes, and, as most of the Aztec gods, with a full and flowing +beard.[181-2] When his earthly-work was done he too returned to the +east, assigning as a reason that the sun, the ruler of Tlapallan, +demanded his presence. But the real motive was that he had been +overcome by Tezcatlipoca, otherwise called Yoalliehecatl, the wind or +spirit of night, who had descended from heaven by a spider's web and +presented his rival with a draught pretended to confer immortality, but, +in fact, producing uncontrollable longing for home. For the wind and the +light both depart when the gloaming draws near, or when the clouds +spread their dark and shadowy webs along the mountains, and pour the +vivifying rain upon the fields. + +In his other character, he was begot of the breath of Tonacateotl, god +of our flesh or subsistence,[182-1] or (according to Gomara) was the son +of Iztac Mixcoatl, the white cloud serpent, the spirit of the tornado. +Messenger of Tlaloc, god of rains, he was figuratively said to sweep the +road for him, since in that country violent winds are the precursors of +the wet seasons. Wherever he went all manner of singing birds bore him +company, emblems of the whistling breezes. When he finally disappeared +in the far east, he sent back four trusty youths who had ever shared his +fortunes, "incomparably swift and light of foot," with directions to +divide the earth between them and rule it till he should return and +resume his power. When he would promulgate his decrees, his herald +proclaimed them from Tzatzitepec, the hill of shouting, with such a +mighty voice that it could be heard a hundred leagues around. The arrows +which he shot transfixed great trees, the stones he threw levelled +forests, and when he laid his hands on the rocks the mark was indelible. +Yet as thus emblematic of the thunder-storm, he possessed in full +measure its better attributes. By shaking his sandals he gave fire to +men, and peace, plenty, and riches blessed his subjects. Tradition says +he built many temples to Mictlanteuctli, the Aztec Pluto, and at the +creation of the sun that he slew all the other gods, for the advancing +dawn disperses the spectral shapes of night, and yet all its vivifying +power does but result in increasing the number doomed to fell before the +remorseless stroke of death.[183-1] + +His symbols were the bird, the serpent, the cross, and the flint, +representing the clouds, the lightning, the four winds, and the +thunderbolt. Perhaps, as Huemac, the Strong Hand, he was god of the +earthquakes. The Zapotecs worshipped such a deity under the image of +this member carved from a precious stone,[183-2] calling to mind the +"Kab ul," the Working Hand, adored by the Mayas,[183-3] and said to be +one of the images of Zamna, their hero god. The human hand, "that divine +tool," as it has been called, might well be regarded by the reflective +mind as the teacher of the arts and the amulet whose magic power has won +for man what vantage he has gained in his long combat with nature and +his fellows. + +I might next discuss the culture myth of the Muyscas, whose hero Bochica +or Nemqueteba bore the other name SUA, the White One, the Day, the +East, an appellation they likewise gave the Europeans on their arrival. +He had taught them in remotest times how to manufacture their clothing, +build their houses, cultivate the soil, and reckon time. When he +disappeared, he divided the land between four chiefs, and laid down many +minute rules of government which ever after were religiously +observed.[184-1] Or I might choose that of the Caribs, whose patron Tamu +called Grandfather, and Old Man of the Sky, was a man of light +complexion, who in the old times came from the east, instructed them in +agriculture and arts, and disappeared in the same direction, promising +them assistance in the future, and that at death he would receive their +souls on the summit of the sacred tree, and transport them safely to his +home in the sky.[184-2] Or from the more fragmentary mythology of ruder +nations, proof might be brought of the well nigh universal reception of +these fundamental views. As, for instance, when the Mandans of the Upper +Missouri speak of their first ancestor as a son of the West, who +preserved them at the flood, and whose garb was always of four +milk-white wolf skins;[185-1] and when the Pimos, a people of the valley +of the Rio Gila, relate that their birthplace was where the sun rises, +that there for generations they led a joyous life, until their +beneficent first parent disappeared in the heavens. From that time, say +they, God lost sight of them, and they wandered west, and further west +till they reached their present seats.[185-2] Or I might instance the +Tupis of Brazil, who were named after the first of men, Tupa, he who +alone survived the flood, who was one of four brothers, who is described +as an old man of fair complexion, _un vieillard blanc_,[185-3] and who +is now their highest divinity, ruler of the lightning and the storm, +whose voice is the thunder, and who is the guardian of their nation. But +is it not evident that these and all such legends are but variations of +those already analyzed? + +In thus removing one by one the wrappings of symbolism, and displaying +at the centre and summit of these various creeds, He who is throned in +the sky, who comes with the dawn, who manifests himself in the light and +the storm, and whose ministers are the four winds, I set up no new god. +The ancient Israelites prayed to him who was seated above the firmament, +who commanded the morning and caused the day-spring to know its place, +who answered out of the whirlwind, and whose envoys were the four winds, +the four cherubim described with such wealth of imagery in the +introduction to the book of Ezekiel. The Mahometan adores "the clement +and merciful Lord of the Daybreak," whose star is in the east, who rides +on the storm, and whose breath is the wind. The primitive man in the New +World also associated these physical phenomena as products of an +invisible power, conceived under human form, called by name, worshipped +as one, and of whom all related the same myth differing but in +unimportant passages. This was the primeval religion. It was not +monotheism, for there were many other gods; it was not pantheism, for +there was no blending of the cause with the effects; still less was it +fetichism, an adoration of sensuous objects, for these were recognized +as effects. It teaches us that the idea of God neither arose from the +phenomenal world nor was sunk in it, as is the shallow theory of the +day, but is as Kant long ago defined it, a conviction of a highest and +first principle which binds all phenomena into one. + +One point of these legends deserves closer attention for the influence +it exerted on the historical fortunes of the race. The dawn heroes were +conceived as of fair complexion, mighty in war, and though absent for a +season, destined to return and claim their ancient power. Here was one +of those unconscious prophecies, pointing to the advent of a white race +from the east, that wrote the doom of the red man in letters of fire. +Historians have marvelled at the instantaneous collapse of the empires +of Mexico, Peru, the Mayas, and the Natchez, before a handful of Spanish +filibusters. The fact was, wherever the whites appeared they were +connected with these ancient predictions of the spirit of the dawn +returning to claim his own. Obscure and ominous prophecies, "texts of +bodeful song," rose in the memory of the natives, and paralyzed their +arms. + +"For a very long time," said Montezuma, at his first interview with +Cortes, "has it been handed down that we are not the original possessors +of this land, but came hither from a distant region under the guidance +of a ruler who afterwards left us and returned. We have ever believed +that some day his descendants would come and resume dominion over us. +Inasmuch as you are from that direction, which is toward the rising of +the sun, and serve so great a king as you describe, we believe that he +is also our natural lord, and are ready to submit ourselves to +him."[187-1] + +The gloomy words of Nezahualcoyotl, a former prince of Tezcuco, +foretelling the arrival of white and bearded men from the east, who +would wrest the power from the hands of the rightful rulers and destroy +in a day the edifice of centuries, were ringing in his ears. But they +were not so gloomy to the minds of his down-trodden subjects, for that +day was to liberate them from the thralls of servitude. Therefore when +they first beheld the fair complexioned Spaniards, they rushed into the +water to embrace the prows of their vessels, and despatched messengers +throughout the land to proclaim the return of Quetzalcoatl.[188-1] + +The noble Mexican was not alone in his presentiments. When Hernando de +Soto on landing in Peru first met the Inca Huascar, the latter related +an ancient prophecy which his father Huayna Capac had repeated on his +dying bed, to the effect that in the reign of the thirteenth Inca, white +men (_viracochas_) of surpassing strength and valor would come from +their father the Sun and subject to their rule the nations of the world. +"I command you," said the dying monarch, "to yield them homage and +obedience, for they will be of a nature superior to ours."[188-2] + +The natives of Haiti told Columbus of similar predictions long anterior +to his arrival.[188-3] And Father Lizana has preserved in the original +Maya tongue several such foreboding chants. Doubtless he has adapted +them somewhat to proselytizing purposes, but they seem very likely to be +close copies of authentic aboriginal songs, referring to the return of +Zamna or Kukulcan, lord of the dawn and the four winds, worshipped at +Cozumel and Palenque under the sign of the cross. An extract will show +their character:-- + + "At the close of the thirteenth Age of the world, + While the cities of Itza and Tancah still flourish, + The sign of the Lord of the Sky will appear, + The light of the dawn will illumine the land, + And the cross will be seen by the nations of men. + A father to you, will He be, Itzalanos, + A brother to you, ye natives of Tancah; + Receive well the bearded guests who are coming, + Bringing the sign of the Lord from the daybreak, + Of the Lord of the Sky, so clement yet powerful."[189-1] + +The older writers, Gomara, Cogolludo, Villagutierre, have taken pains to +collect other instances of this presentiment of the arrival and +domination of a white race. Later historians, fashionably incredulous of +what they cannot explain, have passed them over in silence. That they +existed there can be no doubt, and that they arose in the way I have +stated, is almost proven by the fact that in Mexico, Bogota, and Peru, +the whites were at once called from the proper names of the heroes of +the Dawn, _Suas_, _Viracochas_, and _Quetzalcoatls_. + +When the church of Rome had crushed remorselessly the religions of +Mexico and Peru, all hope of the return of Quetzalcoatl and Viracocha +perished with the institutions of which they were the mythical founders. +But it was only to arise under new incarnations and later names. As well +forbid the heart of youth to bud forth in tender love, as that of +oppressed nationalities to cherish the faith that some ideal hero, some +royal man, will yet arise, and break in fragments their fetters, and +lead them to glory and honor. + +When the name of Quetzalcoatl was no longer heard from the teocalli of +Cholula, that of Montezuma took its place. From ocean to ocean, and from +the river Gila to the Nicaraguan lake, nearly every aboriginal nation +still cherishes the memory of Montezuma, not as the last unfortunate +ruler of a vanished state, but as the prince of their golden era, their +Saturnian age, lord of the winds and waters, and founder of their +institutions. When, in the depth of the tropical forests, the antiquary +disinters some statue of earnest mien, the natives whisper one to the +other, "Montezuma! Montezuma!"[190-1] In the legends of New Mexico he is +the founder of the pueblos, and intrusted to their guardianship the +sacred fire. Departing, he planted a tree, and bade them watch it well, +for when that tree should fall and the fire die out, then he would +return from the far East, and lead his loyal people to victory and +power. When the present generation saw their land glide, mile by mile, +into the rapacious hands of the Yankees--when new and strange diseases +desolated their homes--finally, when in 1846 the sacred tree was +prostrated, and the guardian of the holy fire was found dead on its cold +ashes, then they thought the hour of deliverance had come, and every +morning at earliest dawn a watcher mounted to the house-tops, and gazed +long and anxiously in the lightening east, hoping to descry the noble +form of Montezuma advancing through the morning beams at the head of a +conquering army.[191-1] + +Groaning under the iron rule of the Spaniards, the Peruvians would not +believe that the last of the Incas had perished an outcast and a +wanderer in the forests of the Cordilleras. For centuries they clung to +the persuasion that he had but retired to another mighty kingdom beyond +the mountains, and in due time would return and sweep the haughty +Castilian back into the ocean. In 1781, a mestizo, Jose Gabriel +Condorcanqui, of the province of Tinta, took advantage of this strong +delusion, and binding around his forehead the scarlet fillet of the +Incas, proclaimed himself the long lost Inca Tupac Amaru, and a true +child of the sun. Thousands of Indians flocked to his standard, and at +their head he took the field, vowing the extermination of every soul of +the hated race. Seized at last by the Spaniards, and condemned to a +public execution, so profound was the reverence with which he had +inspired his followers, so full their faith in his claims, that, +undeterred by the threats of the soldiery, they prostrated themselves on +their faces before this last of the children of the sun, as he passed on +to a felon's death.[191-2] + +These fancied reminiscences, these unfounded hopes, so vague, so +child-like, let no one dismiss them as the babblings of ignorance. +Contemplated in their broadest meaning as characteristics of the race of +man, they have an interest higher than any history, beyond that of any +poetry. They point to the recognized discrepancy between what man is, +and what he feels he should be, must be; they are the indignant protests +of the race against acquiescence in the world's evil as the world's law; +they are the incoherent utterances of those yearnings for nobler +conditions of existence, which no savagery, no ignorance, nothing but a +false and lying enlightenment can wholly extinguish. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[162-1] The _meda_ worship is the ordinary religious ritual of the +Algonkins. It consists chiefly in exhibitions of legerdemain, and in +conjuring and exorcising demons. A _jossakeed_ is an inspired prophet who +derives his power directly from the higher spirits, and not as the +_medawin_, by instruction and practice. + +[164-1] For these particulars see the _Rel. de la Nouv. France_, 1667, p. +12, 1670, p. 93; Charlevoix, _Journal Historique_, p. 344; Schoolcraft, +_Indian Tribes_, v. pp. 420 sqq., and Alex. Henry, _Travs. in Canada and +the Ind. Territories_, pp. 212 sqq. These are decidedly the best +references of the many that could be furnished. Peter Jones' _History of +the Ojibway Indians_, p. 35, may also be consulted. + +[165-1] _Science of Language_, Second Series, p. 518. + +[165-2] Dialectic forms in Algonkin for white, are _wabi_, _wape_, +_wompi_, _waubish_, _oppai_; for morning, _wapan_, _wapaneh_, _opah_; for +east, _wapa_, _waubun_, _waubamo_; for dawn, _wapa_, _waubun_; for day, +_wompan_, _oppan_; for light, _oppung_; and many others similar. In the +Abnaki dialect, _wanbighen_, it is white, is the customary idiom to +express the breaking of the day (Vetromile, _The Abnakis and their +History_, p. 27: New York, 1866). The loss in composition of the vowel +sound represented by the English w, and in the French writers by the +figure 8, is supported by frequent analogy. + +[167-1] Schoolcraft, _Algic Researches_, i. pp. 135-142. + +[167-2] The names of the four brothers, Wabun, Kabun, Kabibonokka, and +Shawano, express in Algonkin both the cardinal points and the winds which +blow from them. In another version of the legend, first reported by +Father De Smet and quoted by Schoolcraft without acknowledgment, they are +Nanaboojoo, Chipiapoos, Wabosso, and Chakekenapok. See for the support of +the text, Schoolcraft, _Algic Res._, ii. p. 214; De Smet, _Oregon +Missions_, p. 347. + +[168-1] _Narrative of John Tanner_, p. 351. + +[168-2] Schoolcraft, _Algic Res._, i. p. 216. + +[168-3] _Narrative of John Tanner_, p. 354. + +[169-1] Compare the _Rel. de la Nouv. France_, 1634 p. 14, 1637, p. 46, +with Schoolcraft, _Ind. Tribes_, v. p. 419. _Kichigouai_ is the same word +as _Gizhigooke_, according to a different orthography. + +[170-1] The names _I8skeha_ and _Ta8iscara_ I venture to identify with +the Oneida _owisske_ or _owiska_, white, and _tetiucalas_ (_tyokaras_, +_tewhgarlars_, Mohawk), dark or darkness. The prefix i to _owisske_ is +the impersonal third person singular; the suffix _ha_ gives a future +sense, so that _i-owisske-ha_ or _iouskeha_ means "it is going to become +white." Brebeuf gives a similar example of _gaon_, old; _a-gaon-ha_, _il +va devenir vieux_ (_Rel. Nouv. France_, 1636, p. 99). But "it is going to +become white," meant to the Iroquois that the dawn was about to appear, +just as _wanbighen_, it is white, did to the Abnakis (see note on page +166), and as the Eskimos say, _kau ma wok_, it is white, to express that +it is daylight (Richardson's Vocab. of Labrador Eskimo in his _Arctic +Expedition_). Therefore, that Ioskeha is an impersonation of the light of +the dawn admits of no dispute. + +[170-2] The orthography of Brebeuf is _aataentsic_. This may be analyzed +as follows: root _aouen_, water; prefix _at_, _il y a quelque chose là +dedans_; _ataouen_, _se baigner_; from which comes the form +_ataouensere_. (See Bruyas, _Rad. Verb. Iroquæor._, pp. 30, 31.) Here +again the mythological role of the moon as the goddess of water comes +distinctly to light. + +[171-1] This offers an instance of the uniformity which prevailed in +symbolism in the New World. The Aztecs adored the goddess of water under +the figure of a frog carved from a single emerald; or of human form, but +holding in her hand the leaf of a water lily ornamented with frogs. +(Brasseur, _Hist. du Mexique_, i. p. 324.) + +[171-2] _Rel. de la Nouv. France_, 1636, p. 101. + +[172-1] _Rel. de la Nouv. France_, 1671, p. 17. Cusic spells it +_Tarenyawagon_, and translates it Holder of the Heavens. But the name is +evidently a compound of _garonhia_, sky, softened in the Onondaga dialect +to _taronhia_ (see Gallatin's Vocabs. under the word sky), and _wagin_, I +come. + +[173-1] Ὁ Θεος φως εστι, The First Epistle General of John, i. 5. In +curious analogy to these myths is that of the Eskimos of Greenland. In +the beginning, they relate, were two brothers, one of whom said: "There +shall be night and there shall be day, and men shall die, one after +another." But the second said, "There shall be no day, but only night +all the time, and men shall live forever." They had a long struggle, but +here once more he who loved darkness rather than light was worsted, and +the day triumphed. (_Nachrichten von Grönland aus einem Tagebuche vom +Bischof Paul Egede_, p. 157: Kopenhagen, 1790. The date of the entry is +1738.) + +[174-1] I accept without hesitation the derivation of this word, proposed +and defended by that accomplished Algonkin scholar, the Rev. Eugene +Vetromile, from _wanb_, white or east, and _naghi_ ancestors (_The +Abnakis and their History_, p. 29: New York, 1866). + +[174-2] White light, remarks Goethe, has in it something cheerful and +ennobling; it possesses "eine heitere, muntere, sanft reizende +Eigenschaft." _Farbenlehre_, sec's 766, 770. + +[175-1] _Hist. of the N. Am. Indians_, p. 159. + +[175-2] La Hontan, _Voy. dans l'Amér. Sept._, ii. p. 42. + +[175-3] "Blanco pizote," Ximenes, p. 4, _Vocabulario Quiché_, s. v. +_zak_. In the far north the Eskimo tongue presents the same analogy. Day, +morning, bright, light, lightning, all are from the same root (_kau_), +signifying white (Richardson, Vocab. of Labrador Eskimo). + +[176-1] Some fragments of them may be found in Campanius, _Acc. of New +Sweden_, 1650, book iii. chap. 11, and in Byrd, _The Westover +Manuscripts_, 1733, p. 82. They were in both instances alleged to have +been white and bearded men, the latter probably a later trait in the +legend. + +[176-2] _Con_ or _Cun_ I have already explained to mean thunder, _Con +tici_, the mythical thunder vase. Pachacamà is doubtless, as M. Leonce +Angrand has suggested, from _ppacha_, source, and _camà_, all, the Source +of All things (Desjardins, _Le Pérou avant la Conq. Espagnole_, p. 23, +note). But he and all other writers have been in error in considering +this identical with _Pachacámac_, nor can the latter mean _creator of the +world_, as it has constantly been translated. It is a participial +adjective from _pacha_, place, especially the world, and _camac_, present +participle of _camani_, I animate, from which also comes _camakenc_, the +soul, and means _animating the world_. It was never used as a proper +name. The following trochaic lines from the Quichua poem translated in +the previous chapter, show its true meaning and correct accent:-- + + Pāchă rūrăc, World creating, + Pāchă cāmăc, World animating, + Viracocha, Viracocha, + Camasunqui, He animates thee. + +The last word is the second transition, present tense, of _camani_, while +_camac_ is its present participle. + +[177-1] Ulloa, _Mémoires Philosophiques sur l'Amérique_, i. p. 105. + +[178-1] Acosta, _Hist. of the New World_, bk. v. chap. 4, bk. vi. chap. +19, Eng. trans., 1704. + +[179-1] The name is derived from _tampu_, corrupted by the Spaniards to +_tambo_, an inn, and _paccari_ morning, or _paccarin_, it dawns, which +also has the figurative signification, it is born. It may therefore mean +either Lodgings of the Dawn, or as the Spaniards usually translated it, +House of Birth, or Production, _Casa de Producimiento_. + +[179-2] The names given by Balboa (_Hist. du Pérou_, p. 4) and Montesinos +(_Ancien Pérou_, p. 5) are Manco, Cacha, Auca, Uchu. The meaning of Manco +is unknown. The others signify, in their order, messenger, enemy or +traitor, and the little one. The myth of Viracocha is given in its most +antique form by Juan de Betanzos, in the _Historia de los Ingas_, +compiled in the first years of the conquest from the original songs and +legends. It is quoted in Garcia, _Origen de los Indios_, lib. v. cap. 7. +Balboa, Montesinos, Acosta, and others have also furnished me some +incidents. Whether Atachuchu mentioned in the last chapter was not +another name of Viracocha may well be questioned. It is every way +probable. + +[179-3] _Hist. des Incas_, liv. iii. chap. 25. + +[180-1] It is compounded of _vira_, fat, foam (which perhaps is akin to +_yurac_, _white_), and _cocha_, a pond or lake. + +[180-2] See Desjardins, _Le Pérou avant la Conq. Espagnole_, p. 67. + +[180-3] Gomara, _Hist. de las Indias_, cap. 119, in Müller. + +[181-1] Brasseur, _Hist. du Mexique_, i. p. 302. + +[181-2] There is no reason to lay any stress upon this feature. Beard was +nothing uncommon among the Aztecs and many other nations of the New +World. It was held to add dignity to the appearance, and therefore +Sahagun, in his description of the Mexican idols, repeatedly alludes to +their beards, and Müller quotes various authorities to show that the +priests wore them long and full (_Amer. Urreligionen_, p. 429). Not only +was Quetzalcoatl himself reported to have been of fair complexion--white +indeed--but the Creole historian Ixtlilxochitl says the old legends +asserted that all the Toltecs, natives of Tollan, or Tula, as their name +signifies, were so likewise. Still more, Aztlan, the traditional home of +the Nahuas, or Aztecs proper, means literally the white land, according +to one of our best authorities (Buschmann, _Ueber die Aztekischen +Ortsnamen_, 612: Berlin, 1852). + +[182-1] Kingsborough, _Antiquities of Mexico_, v. p. 109. + +[183-1] The myth of Quetzalcoatl I have taken chiefly from Sahagun, +_Hist. de la Nueva España_, lib. i. cap. 5; lib. iii. caps. 3, 13, 14; +lib. x. cap. 29; and Torquemada, _Monarquia Indiana_, lib. vi. cap. 24. +It must be remembered that the Quiché legends identify him positively +with the Tohil of Central America (_Le Livre Sacré_, p. 247). + +[183-2] Padilla Davila, _Hist. de la Prov. de Santiago de Mexico_, lib. +ii. cap. 89. + +[183-3] Cogolludo, _Hist. de Yucathan_, lib. iv. cap. 8. + +[184-1] He is also called Idacanzas and Nemterequetaba. Some have +maintained a distinction between Bochica and Sua, which, however, has not +been shown. The best authorities on the mythology of the Muyscas are +Piedrahita, _Hist. de las Conq. del Nuevo Reyno de Granada_, 1668 (who is +copied by Humboldt, _Vues des Cordillères_, pp. 246 sqq.), and Simon, +_Noticias de Tierra Firme_, Parte ii., in Kingsborough's _Mexico_. + +[184-2] D'Orbigny, _L'Homme Américain_, ii. p. 319, and Rochefort, +_Hist. des Isles Antilles_, p. 482 (Waitz). The name has various +orthographies, Tamu, Tamöi, Tamou, Itamoulou, etc. Perhaps the Ama-livaca +of the Orinoko Indians is another form. This personage corresponds even +minutely in many points with the Tamu of the island Caribs. + +[185-1] Catlin, _Letters and Notes_, Letter 22. + +[185-2] Journal of Capt. Johnson, in Emory, _Reconnoissance of New +Mexico_, p. 601. + +[185-3] M. De Charency, in the _Revue Américaine_, ii. p. 317. _Tupa_ it +may be observed means in Quichua, lord, or royal. Father Holguin gives as +an example _â tupa Dios_, O Lord God (_Vocabulario Quichua_, p. 348: +Ciudad de los Reyes, 1608). In the Quiché dialects _tepeu_ is one of the +common appellations of divinity and is also translated lord or ruler. We +are not yet sufficiently advanced in the study of American philology to +draw any inference from these resemblances, but they should not be +overlooked. + +[187-1] Cortes, _Carta Primera_, pp. 113, 114. + +[188-1] Sahagun, _Hist. de la Nueva España_, lib. xii. caps. 2, 3. + +[188-2] La Vega, _Hist. des Incas_, lib. ix. cap. 15. + +[188-3] Peter Martyr, _De Reb. Oceanicis_, Dec. iii. lib. vii. + +[189-1] Lizana, _Hist. de Nuestra Señora de Itzamal_, lib. ii. cap. i. in +Brasseur, _Hist. du Mexique_, ii. p. 605. The prophecies are of the +priest who bore the title--not name--_chilan balam_, and whose offices +were those of divination and astrology. The verse claims to date from +about 1450, and was very well known throughout Yucatan, so it is said. +The number thirteen which in many of these prophecies is the supposed +limit of the present order of things, is doubtless derived from the +observation that thirteen moons complete one solar year. + +[190-1] Squier, _Travels in Nicaragua_, ii. p. 35. + +[191-1] Whipple, _Report on the Ind. Tribes_, p. 36. Emory, _Recon. of +New Mexico_, p. 64. The latter adds that among the Pueblo Indians, the +Apaches, and Navajos, the name of Montezuma is "as familiar as Washington +to us." This is the more curious, as neither the Pueblo Indians nor +either of the other tribes are in any way related to the Aztec race by +language, as has been shown by Dr. Buschman, _Die Voelker und Sprachen +Neu Mexico's_, p. 262. + +[191-2] Humboldt, _Essay on New Spain_, bk. ii. chap. vi, Eng. trans.; +_Ansichten der Natur_, ii. pp. 357, 386. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +THE MYTHS OF THE CREATION, THE DELUGE, THE EPOCHS OF NATURE, AND THE +LAST DAY. + + Cosmogonies usually portray the action of the SPIRIT on the + WATERS.--Those of the Muscogees, Athapascas, Quichés, Mixtecs, + Iroquois, Algonkins, and others.--The Flood-Myth an unconscious + attempt to reconcile a creation in time with the eternity of + matter.--Proof of this from American mythology.--Characteristics of + American Flood-Myths.--The person saved usually the first man.--The + number seven.--Their Ararats.--The rôle of birds.--The confusion of + tongues.--The Aztec, Quiché, Algonkin, Tupi, and earliest Sanscrit + flood-myths.--The belief in Epochs of Nature a further result of + this attempt at reconciliation.--Its forms among Peruvians, Mayas, + and Aztecs.--The expectation of the End of the World a corollary of + this belief.--Views of various nations. + + +Could the reason rest content with the belief that the universe always +was as it now is, it would save much beating of brains. Such is the +comfortable condition of the Eskimos, the Rootdiggers of California, the +most brutish specimens of humanity everywhere. Vain to inquire their +story of creation, for, like the knife-grinder of anti-Jacobin renown, +they have no story to tell. It never occurred to them that the earth had +a beginning, or underwent any greater changes than those of the +seasons.[193-1] But no sooner does the mind begin to reflect, the +intellect to employ itself on higher themes than the needs of the body, +than the law of causality exerts its power, and the man, out of such +materials as he has at hand, manufactures for himself a Theory of +Things. + +What these materials were has been shown in the last few chapters. A +simple primitive substance, a divinity to mould it--these are the +requirements of every cosmogony. Concerning the first no nation ever +hesitated. All agree that before time began _water_ held all else in +solution, covered and concealed everything. The reasons for this assumed +priority of water have been already touched upon. Did a tribe dwell near +some great sea others can be imagined. The land is limited, peopled, +stable; the ocean fluctuating, waste, boundless. It insatiably swallows +all rains and rivers, quenches sun and moon in its dark chambers, and +raves against its bounds as a beast of prey. Awe and fear are the +sentiments it inspires; in Aryan tongues its synonyms are the _desert_ +and the _night_.[194-1] It produces an impression of immensity, +infinity, formlessness, and barren changeableness, well suited to a +notion of chaos. It is sterile, receiving all things, producing nothing. +Hence the necessity of a creative power to act upon it, as it were to +impregnate its barren germs. Some cosmogonies find this in one, some in +another personification of divinity. Commonest of all is that of the +wind, or its emblem the bird, types of the breath of life. + +Thus the venerable record in Genesis, translated in the authorized +version "and the Spirit of God moved on the face of the waters," may +with equal correctness be rendered "and a mighty wind brooded on the +surface of the waters," presenting the picture of a primeval ocean +fecundated by the wind as a bird.[195-1] The eagle that in the Finnish +epic of Kalewala floated over the waves and hatched the land, the egg +that in Chinese legend swam hither and thither until it grew to a +continent, the giant Ymir, the rustler (as wind in trees), from whose +flesh, says the Edda, our globe was made and set to float like a speck +in the vast sea between Muspel and Niflheim, all are the same tale +repeated by different nations in different ages. But why take +illustrations from the old world when they are so plenty in the new? + +Before the creation, said the Muscogees, a great body of water was alone +visible. Two pigeons flew to and fro over its waves, and at last spied a +blade of grass rising above the surface. Dry land gradually followed, +and the islands and continents took their present shapes.[195-2] Whether +this is an authentic aboriginal myth, is not beyond question. No such +doubt attaches to that of the Athapascas. With singular unanimity, most +of the northwest branches of this stock trace their descent from a +raven, "a mighty bird, whose eyes were fire, whose glances were +lightning, and the clapping of whose wings was thunder. On his descent +to the ocean, the earth instantly rose, and remained on the surface of +the water. This omnipotent bird then called forth all the variety of +animals."[196-1] + +Very similar, but with more of poetic finish, is the legend of the +Quichés:-- + +"This is the first word and the first speech. There were neither men nor +brutes; neither birds, fish, nor crabs, stick nor stone, valley nor +mountain, stubble nor forest, nothing but the sky. The face of the land +was hidden. There was naught but the silent sea and the sky. There was +nothing joined, nor any sound, nor thing that stirred; neither any to do +evil, nor to rumble in the heavens, nor a walker on foot; only the +silent waters, only the pacified ocean, only it in its calm. Nothing was +but stillness, and rest, and darkness, and the night; nothing but the +Maker and Moulder, the Hurler, the Bird-Serpent. In the waters, in a +limpid twilight, covered with green feathers, slept the mothers and the +fathers."[196-2] + +Over this passed Hurakan, the mighty wind, and called out Earth! and +straightway the solid land was there. + +The picture writings of the Mixtecs preserved a similar cosmogony: "In +the year and in the day of clouds, before ever were either years or +days, the world lay in darkness; all things were orderless, and a water +covered the slime and the ooze that the earth then was." By the efforts +of two winds, called, from astrological associations, that of Nine +Serpents and that of Nine Caverns, personified one as a bird and one as +a winged serpent, the waters subsided and the land dried.[197-1] + +In the birds that here play such conspicuous parts, we cannot fail to +recognize the winds and the clouds; but more especially the dark thunder +cloud, soaring in space at the beginning of things, most forcible emblem +of the aerial powers. They are the symbols of that divinity which acted +on the passive and sterile waters, the fitting result being the +production of a universe. Other symbols of the divine could also be +employed, and the meaning remain the same. Or were the fancy too +helpless to suggest any, they could be dispensed with, and purely +natural agencies take their place. Thus the unimaginative Iroquois +narrated that when their primitive female ancestor was kicked from the +sky by her irate spouse, there was as yet no land to receive her, but +that it "suddenly bubbled up under her feet, and waxed bigger, so that +ere long a whole country was perceptible."[197-2] Or that certain +amphibious animals, the beaver, the otter, and the muskrat, seeing her +descent, hastened to dive and bring up sufficient mud to construct an +island for her residence.[197-3] The muskrat is also the simple +machinery in the cosmogony of the Takahlis of the northwest coast, the +Osages and some Algonkin tribes. + +These latter were, indeed, keen enough to perceive that there was really +no _creation_ in such an account. Dry land was wanting, but earth was +there, though hidden by boundless waters. Consequently, they spoke +distinctly of the action of the muskrat in bringing it to the surface as +a formation only. Michabo directed him, and from the mud formed islands +and main land. But when the subject of creation was pressed, they +replied they knew nothing of that, or roundly answered the questioner +that he was talking nonsense.[198-1] Their myth, almost identical with +that of their neighbors, was recognized by them to be not of a +construction, but a reconstruction only; a very judicious distinction, +but one which has a most important corollary. A reconstruction supposes +a previous existence. This they felt, and had something to say about an +earth anterior to this of ours, but one without light or human +inhabitants. A lake burst its bounds and submerged it wholly. This is +obviously nothing but a mere and meagre fiction, invented to explain the +origin of the primeval ocean. But mark it well, for this is the germ of +those marvellous myths of the Epochs of Nature, the catastrophes of the +universe, the deluges of water and of fire, which have laid such strong +hold on the human fancy in every land and in every age. + +The purpose for which this addition was made to the simpler legend is +clear enough. It was to avoid the dilemma of a creation from nothing on +the one hand, and the eternity of matter on the other. _Ex nihilo nihil_ +is an apothegm indorsed alike by the profoundest metaphysicians and the +rudest savages. But the other horn was no easier. To escape accepting +the theory that the world had ever been as it now is, was the only +object of a legend of its formation. As either lemma conflicts with +fundamental laws of thought, this escape was eagerly adopted, and in the +suggestive words of Prescott, men "sought relief from the oppressive +idea of eternity by breaking it up into distinct cycles or periods of +time."[199-1] Vain but characteristic attempt of the ambitious mind of +man! The Hindoo philosopher reconciles to his mind the suspension of the +world in space by imagining it supported by an elephant, the elephant by +a tortoise, and the tortoise by a serpent. We laugh at the Hindoo, and +fancy we diminish the difficulty by explaining that it revolves around +the sun, and the sun around some far-off star. Just so the general mind +of humanity finds some satisfaction in supposing a world or a series of +worlds anterior to the present, thus escaping the insoluble enigma of +creation by removing it indefinitely in time. + +The support lent to these views by the presence of marine shells on high +lands, or by faint reminiscences of local geologic convulsions, I +estimate very low. Savages are not inductive philosophers, and by +nothing short of a miracle could they preserve the remembrance of even +the most terrible catastrophe beyond a few generations. Nor has any such +occurred within the ken of history of sufficient magnitude to make a +very permanent or wide-spread impression. Not physics, but metaphysics, +is the exciting cause of these beliefs in periodical convulsions of the +globe. The idea of matter cannot be separated from that of time, and +time and eternity are contradictory terms. Common words show this +connection. World, for example, in the old language _waereld_, from the +root to wear, by derivation means an age or cycle (Grimm). + +In effect a myth of creation is nowhere found among primitive nations. +It seems repugnant to their reason. Dry land and animate life had a +beginning, but not matter. A series of constructions and demolitions may +conveniently be supposed for these. The analogy of nature, as seen in +the vernal flowers springing up after the desolation of winter, of the +sapling sprouting from the fallen trunk, of life everywhere rising from +death, suggests such a view. Hence arose the belief in Epochs of Nature, +elaborated by ancient philosophers into the Cycles of the Stoics, the +Great Days of Brahm, long periods of time rounded off by sweeping +destructions, the Cataclysms and Ekpyrauses of the universe. Some +thought in these all beings perished; others that a few survived.[200-1] +This latter and more common view is the origin of the myth of the +deluge. How familiar such speculations were to the aborigines of America +there is abundant evidence to show. + +The early Algonkin legends do not speak of an antediluvian race, nor of +any family who escaped the waters. Michabo, the spirit of the dawn, +their supreme deity, alone existed, and by his power formed and peopled +it. Nor did their neighbors, the Dakotas, though firm in the belief that +the globe had once been destroyed by the waters, suppose that any had +escaped.[201-1] The same view was entertained by the Nicaraguans[201-2] +and the Botocudos of Brazil. The latter attributed its destruction to +the moon falling to the earth from time to time.[201-3] + +Much the most general opinion, however, was that some few escaped the +desolating element by one of those means most familiar to the narrator, +by ascending some mountain, on a raft or canoe, in a cave, or even by +climbing a tree. No doubt some of these legends have been modified by +Christian teachings; but many of them are so connected with local +peculiarities and ancient religious ceremonies, that no unbiased student +can assign them wholly to that source, as Professor Vater has done, even +if the authorities for many of them were less trustworthy than they are. +There are no more common heirlooms in the traditional lore of the red +race. Nearly every old author quotes one or more of them. They present +great uniformity of outline, and rather than engage in repetitions of +little interest, they can be more profitably studied in the aggregate +than in detail. + +By far the greater number represent the last destruction of the world to +have been by water. A few, however, the Takahlis of the North Pacific +coast, the Yurucares of the Bolivian Cordilleras, and the Mbocobi of +Paraguay, attribute it to a general conflagration which swept over the +earth, consuming every living thing except a few who took refuge in a +deep cave.[202-1] The more common opinion of a submersion gave rise to +those traditions of a universal flood so frequently recorded by +travellers, and supposed by many to be reminiscences of that of Noah. + +There are, indeed, some points of striking similarity between the deluge +myths of Asia and America. It has been called a peculiarity of the +latter that in them the person saved is always the first man. This, +though not without exception, is certainly the general rule. But these +first men were usually the highest deities known to their nations, the +only creators of the world, and the guardians of the race.[202-2] + +Moreover, in the oldest Sanscrit legend of the flood in the Zatapatha +Brahmana, Manu is also the first man, and by his own efforts creates +offspring.[202-3] + +A later Sanscrit work assigns to Manu the seven Richis or shining ones +as companions. Seven was also the number of persons in the ark of Noah. +Curiously enough one Mexican and one early Peruvian myth give out +exactly seven individuals as saved in their floods.[203-1] This +coincidence arises from the mystic powers attached to the number seven, +derived from its frequent occurrence in astrology. Proof of this appears +by comparing the later and the older versions of this myth, either in +the book of Genesis, where the latter is distinguished by the use of the +word Elohim for Jehovah,[203-2] or the Sanscrit account in the Zatapatha +Brahmana with those in the later Puranas.[203-3] In both instances the +number seven hardly or at all occurs in the oldest version, while it is +constantly repeated in those of later dates. + +As the mountain or rather mountain chain of Ararat was regarded with +veneration wherever the Semitic accounts were known, so in America +heights were pointed out with becoming reverence as those on which the +few survivors of the dreadful scenes of the deluge were preserved. On +the Red River near the village of the Caddoes was one of these, a small +natural eminence, "to which all the Indian tribes for a great distance +around pay devout homage," according to Dr. Sibley.[203-4] The Cerro +Naztarny on the Rio Grande, the peak of Old Zuñi in New Mexico, that of +Colhuacan on the Pacific Coast, Mount Apoala in Upper Mixteca, and +Mount Neba in the province of Guaymi, are some of many elevations +asserted by the neighboring nations to have been places of refuge for +their ancestors when the fountains of the great deep broke forth. + +One of the Mexican traditions related by Torquemada identified this with +the mountain of Tlaloc in the terrestrial paradise, and added that one +of the seven demigods who escaped commenced the pyramid of Cholula in +its memory. He intended that its summit should reach the clouds, but the +gods, angry at his presumption, drove away the builders with lightning. +This has a suspicious resemblance to Bible stories. Equally fabulous was +the retreat of the Araucanians. It was a three-peaked mountain which had +the property of floating on water, called Theg-Theg, the Thunderer. This +they believed would preserve them in the next as it did in the last +cataclysm, and as its only inconvenience was that it approached too near +the sun, they always kept on hand wooden bowls to use as +parasols.[204-1] + +The intimate connection that once existed between the myths of the +deluge and those of the creation is illustrated by the part assigned to +birds in so many of them. They fly to and fro over the waves ere any +land appears, though they lose in great measure the significance of +bringing it forth, attached to them in the cosmogonies as emblems of the +divine spirit. The dove in the Hebrew account appears in that of the +Algonkins as a raven, which Michabo sent out to search for land before +the muskrat brought it to him from the bottom. A raven also in the +Athapascan myth saved their ancestors from the general flood, and in +this instance it is distinctly identified with the mighty thunder bird, +who at the beginning ordered the earth from the depths. Prometheus-like, +it brought fire from heaven, and saved them from a second death by +cold.[205-1] Precisely the same beneficent actions were attributed by +the Natchez to the small red cardinal bird,[205-2] and by the Mandans +and Cherokees an active participation in the event was assigned to wild +pigeons. The Navajos and Aztecs thought that instead of being drowned by +the waters the human race were transformed into birds and thus escaped. +In all these and similar legends, the bird is a relic of the cosmogonal +myth which explained the origin of the world from the action of the +winds, under the image of the bird, on the primeval ocean. + +The Mexican Codex Vaticanus No. 3738 represents after the picture of the +deluge a bird perched on the summit of a tree, and at its foot men in +the act of marching. This has been interpreted to mean that after the +deluge men were dumb until a dove distributed to them the gift of +speech. The New Mexican tribes related that all except the leader of +those who escaped to the mountains lost the power of utterance by +terror,[205-3] and the Quichés that the antediluvian race were "puppets, +men of wood, without intelligence or language." These stories, so +closely resembling that of the confusion of tongues at the tower of +Babel or Borsippa, are of doubtful authenticity. The first is an +entirely erroneous interpretation, as has been shown by Señor Ramirez, +director of the Museum of Antiquities at Mexico. The name of the bird in +the Aztec tongue was identical with the word _departure_, and this is +its signification in the painting.[206-1] + +Stories of giants in the days of old, figures of mighty proportions +looming up through the mist of ages, are common property to every +nation. The Mexicans and Peruvians had them as well as others, but their +connection with the legends of the flood and the creation is incidental +and secondary. Were the case otherwise, it would offer no additional +point of similarity to the Hebrew myth, for the word rendered _giants_ +in the phrase, "and there were giants in those days," has no such +meaning in the original. It is a blunder which crept into the +Septuagint, and has been cherished ever since, along with so many others +in the received text. + +A few specimens will serve as examples of all these American flood +myths. The Abbé Brasseur has translated one from the Codex Chimalpopoca, +a work in the Nahuatl language of Ancient Mexico, written about half a +century after the conquest. It is as follows:-- + +"And this year was that of Ce-calli, and on the first day all was lost. +The mountain itself was submerged in the water, and the water remained +tranquil for fifty-two springs. + +"Now towards the close of the year, Titlahuan had forewarned the man +named Nata and his wife named Nena, saying, 'Make no more pulque, but +straightway hollow out a large cypress, and enter it when in the month +Tozoztli the water shall approach the sky.' They entered it, and when +Titlacahuan had closed the door he said, 'Thou shalt eat but a single +ear of maize, and thy wife but one also.' + +"As soon as they had finished [eating], they went forth and the water +was tranquil; for the log did not move any more; and opening it they saw +many fish. + +"Then they built a fire, rubbing together pieces of wood, and they +roasted the fish. The gods Citlallinicue and Citlallatonac looking below +exclaimed, 'Divine Lord, what means that fire below? Why do they thus +smoke the heavens?' + +"Straightway descended Titlacahuan Tezcatlipoca, and commenced to scold, +saying, 'What is this fire doing here?' And seizing the fishes he +moulded their hinder parts and changed their heads, and they were at +once transformed into dogs."[207-1] + +That found in the oft quoted legends of the Quichés is to this effect:-- + +"Then by the will of the Heart of Heaven the waters were swollen and a +great flood came upon the mannikins of wood. For they did not think nor +speak of the Creator who had created them, and who had caused their +birth. They were drowned, and a thick resin fell from heaven. + +"The bird Xecotcovach tore out their eyes; the bird Camulatz cut off +their heads; the bird Cotzbalam devoured their flesh; the bird +Tecumbalam broke their bones and sinews, and ground them into +powder."[207-2] + +"Because they had not thought of their Mother and Father, the Heart of +Heaven, whose name is Hurakan, therefore the face of the earth grew dark +and a pouring rain commenced, raining by day, raining by night. + +"Then all sorts of beings, little and great, gathered together to abuse +the men to their faces; and all spoke, their mill-stones, their plates, +their cups, their dogs, their hens. + +"Said the dogs and hens, 'Very badly have you treated us, and you have +bitten us. Now we bite you in turn.' + +"Said the mill-stones, 'Very much were we tormented by you, and daily, +daily, night and day, it was _squeak, squeak, screech, screech_, for +your sake. Now yourselves shall feel our strength, and we will grind +your flesh, and make meal of your bodies,' said the mill-stones.[208-1] + +"And this is what the dogs said, 'Why did you not give us our food? No +sooner did we come near than you drove us away, and the stick was always +within reach when you were eating, because, forsooth, we were not able +to talk. Now we will use our teeth and eat you,' said the dogs, tearing +their faces. + +"And the cups and dishes said, 'Pain and misery you gave us, smoking our +tops and sides, cooking us over the fire, burning and hurting us as if +we had no feeling.[209-1] Now it is your turn, and you shall burn,' said +the cups insultingly. + +"Then ran the men hither and thither in despair. They climbed to the +roofs of the houses, but the houses crumbled under their feet; they +tried to mount to the tops of the trees, but the trees hurled them far +from them; they sought refuge in the caverns, but the caverns shut +before them. + +"Thus was accomplished the ruin of this race, destined to be destroyed +and overthrown; thus were they given over to destruction and contempt. +And it is said that their posterity are those little monkeys who live in +the woods."[209-2] + +The Algonkin tradition has often been referred to. Many versions of it +are extant, the oldest and most authentic of which is that translated +from the Montagnais dialect by Father le Jeune, in 1634. + +"One day as Messou was hunting, the wolves which he used as dogs entered +a great lake and were detained there. + +"Messou looking for them everywhere, a bird said to him, 'I see them in +the middle of this lake.' + +"He entered the lake to rescue them, but the lake overflowing its banks +covered the land and destroyed the world. + +"Messou, very much astonished at this, sent out the raven to find a +piece of earth wherewith to rebuild the land, but the bird could find +none; then he ordered the otter to dive for some, but the animal +returned empty; at last he sent down the muskrat, who came back with +ever so small a piece, which, however, was enough for Messou to form the +land on which we are. + +"The trees having lost their branches, he shot arrows at their naked +trunks which became their limbs, revenged himself on those who had +detained his wolves, and having married the muskrat, by it peopled the +world." + +Finally may be given the meagre legend of the Tupis of Brazil, as heard +by Hans Staden, a prisoner among them about 1550, and Coreal, a later +voyager. Their ancient songs relate that a long time ago a certain very +powerful Mair, that is to say, a stranger, who bitterly hated their +ancestors, compassed their destruction by a violent inundation. Only a +very few succeeded in escaping--some by climbing trees, others in caves. +When the waters subsided the remnant came together, and by gradual +increase populated the world.[210-1] + +Or, it is given by an equally ancient authority as follows:-- + +"Monan, without beginning or end, author of all that is, seeing the +ingratitude of men, and their contempt for him who had made them thus +joyous, withdrew from them, and sent upon them _tata_, the divine fire, +which burned all that was on the surface of the earth. He swept about +the fire in such a way that in places he raised mountains, and in others +dug valleys. Of all men one alone, Irin Monge, was saved, whom Monan +carried into the heaven. He, seeing all things destroyed, spoke thus to +Monan: 'Wilt thou also destroy the heavens and their garniture? Alas! +henceforth where will be our home? Why should I live, since there is +none other of my kind?' Then Monan was so filled with pity that he +poured a deluging rain on the earth, which quenched the fire, and, +flowing from all sides, formed the ocean, which we call _parana_, the +bitter waters."[211-1] + +In these narratives I have not attempted to soften the asperities nor +conceal the childishness which run through them. But there is no +occasion to be astonished at these peculiarities, nor to found upon them +any disadvantageous opinion of the mental powers of their authors and +believers. We can go back to the cradle of our own race in Central +Asia, and find traditions every whit as infantile. I cannot refrain from +adding the earliest Aryan myth of the same great occurrence, as it is +handed down to us in ancient Sanscrit literature. It will be seen that +it is little, if at all, superior to those just rehearsed. + +"Early in the morning they brought to Manu water to wash himself; when +he had well washed, a fish came into his hands. + +"It said to him these, words: 'Take care of me; I will save thee.' 'What +wilt thou save me from?' 'A deluge will sweep away all creatures; I wish +thee to escape.' 'But how shall I take care of thee?' + +"The fish said: 'While we are small there is more than one danger of +death, for one fish swallows another. Thou must, in the first place, put +me in a vase. Then, when I shall exceed it in size, thou must dig a deep +ditch, and place me in it. When I grow too large for it, throw me in the +sea, for I shall then be beyond the danger of death.' + +"Soon it became a great fish; it grew, in fact, astonishingly. Then it +said to Manu, 'In such a year the Deluge will come. Thou must build a +vessel, and then pay me homage. When the waters of the Deluge mount up, +enter the vessel. I will save thee.' + +"When Manu had thus taken care of the fish, he put it in the sea. The +same year that the fish had said, in this very year, having built the +vessel, he paid the fish homage. Then the Deluge mounting, he entered +the vessel. The fish swam near him. To its horn Manu fastened the ship's +rope, with which the fish passed the Mountain of the North. + +"The fish said, 'See! I have saved thee. Fasten the vessel to a tree, so +that the water does not float thee onward when thou art on the mountain +top. As the water decreases, thou wilt descend little by little.' Thus +Manu descended gradually. Therefore to the mountain of the north remains +the name, Descent of Manu. The Deluge had destroyed all creatures; Manu +survived alone."[213-1] + +Hitherto I have spoken only of the last convulsion which swept over the +face of the globe, and of but one cycle which preceded the present. Most +of the more savage tribes contented themselves with this, but it is +instructive to observe how, as they advanced in culture, and the mind +dwelt more intently on the great problems of Life and Time, they were +impelled to remove further and further the dim and mysterious Beginning. +The Peruvians imagined that _two_ destructions had taken place, the +first by a famine, the second by a flood--according to some a few only +escaping--but, after the more widely accepted opinion, accompanied by +the absolute extirpation of the race. Three eggs, which dropped from +heaven, hatched out the present race; one of gold, from which came the +priests; one of silver, which produced the warriors; and the last of +copper, source of the common people.[213-2] + +The Mayas of Yucatan increased the previous worlds by one, making the +present the _fourth_. Two cycles had terminated by devastating plagues. +They were called "the sudden deaths," for it was said so swift and +mortal was the pest, that the buzzards and other foul birds dwelt in the +houses of the cities, and ate the bodies of their former owners. The +third closed either by a hurricane, which blew from all four of the +cardinal points at once, or else, as others said, by an inundation, +which swept across the world, swallowing all things in its mountainous +surges.[214-1] + +As might be expected, the vigorous intellects of the Aztecs impressed +upon this myth a fixity of outline nowhere else met with on the +continent, and wove it intimately into their astrological reveries and +religious theories. Unaware of its prevalence under more rudimentary +forms throughout the continent, Alexander von Humboldt observed that, +"of all the traits of analogy which can be pointed out between the +monuments, manners, and traditions of Asia and America, the most +striking is that offered by the Mexican mythology in the cosmogonical +fiction of the periodical destructions and regenerations of the +universe."[215-1] Yet it is but the same fiction that existed elsewhere, +somewhat more definitely outlined. There exists great discrepancy +between the different authorities, both as to the number of Aztec ages +or Suns, as they were called, their durations, their terminations, and +their names. The preponderance of testimony is in favor of _four_ +antecedent cycles, the present being the _fifth_. The interval from the +first creation to the commencement of the present epoch, owing to the +equivocal meaning of the numeral signs expressing it in the picture +writings, may have been either 15228, 2316, or 1404 solar years. Why +these numbers should have been chosen, no one has guessed. It has been +looked for in combinations of numbers connected with the calendar, but +so far in vain. + +While most authorities agree as to the character of the destructions +which terminated the suns, they vary much as to their sequence. Water, +winds, fire, and hunger, are the agencies, and in one Codex (Vaticanus) +occur in this order. Gama gives the sequence, hunger, winds, fire, and +water; Humboldt hunger, fire, winds, and water; Boturini water, hunger, +winds, fire. As the cycle ending by a famine, is called the Age of +Earth, Ternaux-Compans, the distinguished French _Américaniste_, has +imagined that the four Suns correspond mystically to the domination +exercised in turn over the world by its four constituent elements. But +proof is wanting that Aztec philosophers knew the theory on which this +explanation reposes. + +Baron Humboldt suggested that the suns were "fictions of mythological +astronomy, modified either by obscure reminiscences of some great +revolution suffered by our planet, or by physical hypotheses, suggested +by the sight of marine petrifactions and fossil remains,"[216-1] while +the Abbé Brasseur, in his late works on ancient Mexico, interprets them +as exaggerated references to historical events. As no solution can be +accepted not equally applicable to the same myth as it appears in +Yucatan, Peru, and the hunting tribes, and to the exactly parallel +teachings of the Edda,[216-2] the Stoics, the Celts, and the Brahmans, +both of these must be rejected. And although the Hindoo legend is so +close to the Aztec, that it, too, defines four ages, each terminating by +a general catastrophe, and each catastrophe exactly the same in +both,[216-3] yet this is not at all indicative of a derivation from one +original, but simply an illustration how the human mind, under the +stimulus of the same intellectual cravings, produces like results. What +these cravings are has already been shown. + +The reason for adopting four ages, thus making the present the fifth, +probably arose from the sacredness of that number in general; but +directly, because this was the number of secular days in the Mexican +week. A parallel is offered by the Hebrew narrative. In it six epochs or +days precede the seventh or present cycle, in which the creative power +rests. This latter corresponded to the Jewish Sabbath, the day of +repose; and in the Mexican calendar each fifth day was also a day of +repose, employed in marketing and pleasure. + +Doubtless the theory of the Ages of the world was long in vogue among +the Aztecs before it received the definite form in which we now have it; +and as this was acquired long after the calendar was fixed, it is every +way probable that the latter was used as a guide to the former. +Echevarria, a good authority on such matters, says the number of the +Suns was agreed upon at a congress of astrologists, within the memory of +tradition.[217-1] Now in the calendar, these signs occur in the order, +earth, air, water, fire, corresponding to the days distinguished by the +symbols house, rabbit, reed, and flint. This sequence, commencing with +Tochtli (rabbit, air), is that given as that of the Suns in the Codex +Chimalpopoca, translated by Brasseur, though it seems a taint of +European teaching, when it is added that on the _seventh_ day of the +creation man was formed.[217-2] + +Neither Jews nor Aztecs, nor indeed any American nation, appear to have +supposed, with some of the old philosophers, that the present was an +exact repetition of previous cycles,[218-1] but rather that each was an +improvement on the preceding, a step in endless progress. Nor did either +connect these beliefs with astronomical reveries of a great year, +defined by the return of the heavenly bodies to one relative position in +the heavens. The latter seems characteristic of the realism of Europe, +the former of the idealism of the Orient; both inconsistent with the +meagre astronomy and more scanty metaphysics of the red race. + +The expectation of the end of the world is a natural complement to the +belief in periodical destructions of our globe. As at certain times past +the equipoise of nature was lost, and the elements breaking the chain of +laws that bound them ran riot over the universe, involving all life in +one mad havoc and desolation, so in the future we have to expect that +day of doom, when the ocean tides shall obey no shore, but overwhelm the +continents with their mountainous billows, or the fire, now chafing in +volcanic craters and smoking springs, will leap forth on the forests and +grassy meadows, wrapping all things in a winding sheet of flame, and +melting the very elements with fervid heat. Then, in the language of the +Norse prophetess, "shall the sun grow dark, the land sink in the waters, +the bright stars be quenched, and high flames climb heaven +itself."[218-2] These fearful foreboding shave[TN-9] cast their dark +shadow on every literature. The seeress of the north does but paint in +wilder colors the terrible pictures of Seneca,[219-1] and the sibyl of +the capitol only re-echoes the inspired predictions of Malachi. Well has +the Christian poet said:-- + + Dies iræ, dies illa, + Solvet sæclum in favillâ, + _Testis David cum Sibylâ_. + +Savage races, isolated in the impenetrable forests of another continent, +could not escape this fearful looking for of destruction to come. It +oppressed their souls like a weight of lead. On the last night of each +cycle of fifty-two years, the Aztecs extinguished every fire, and +proceeded, in solemn procession, to some sacred spot. Then the priests, +with awe and trembling, sought to kindle a new fire by friction. +Momentous was the endeavor, for did it fail, their fathers had taught +them on the morrow no sun would rise, and darkness, death, and the +waters would descend forever on this beautiful world. + +The same terror inspired the Peruvians at every eclipse, for some day, +taught the Amautas, the shadow will veil the sun forever, and land, +moon, and stars will be wrapt in the vortex of a devouring conflagration +to know no regeneration; or a drought will wither every herb of the +field, suck up the waters, and leave the race to perish to the last +creature; or the moon will fall from her place in the heavens and +involve all things in her own ruin, a figure of speech meaning that the +waters would submerge the land.[220-1] In that dreadful day, thought +the Algonkins, when in anger Michabo will send a mortal pestilence to +destroy the nations, or, stamping his foot on the ground, flames will +burst forth to consume the habitable land, only a pair, or only, at +most, those who have maintained inviolate the institutions he ordained, +will he protect and preserve to inhabit the new world he will then +fabricate. Therefore they do not speak of this catastrophe as the end of +the world, but use one of those nice grammatical distinctions so +frequent in American aboriginal languages and which can only be +imitated, not interpreted, in ours, signifying "when it will be near its +end," "when it will no longer be available for man."[220-2] + +An ancient prophecy handed down from their ancestors warns the +Winnebagoes that their nation shall be annihilated at the close of the +thirteenth generation. Ten have already passed, and that now living has +appointed ceremonies to propitiate the powers of heaven, and mitigate +its stern decree.[220-3] Well may they be about it, for there is a +gloomy probability that the warning came from no false prophet. Few +tribes were destitute of such presentiments. The Chikasaw, the Mandans +of the Missouri, the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico, the Muyscas of +Bogota, the Botocudos of Brazil, the Araucanians of Chili, have been +asserted on testimony that leaves no room for scepticism, to have +entertained such forebodings from immemorial time. Enough for the +purpose if the list is closed with the prediction of a Maya priest, +cherished by the inhabitants of Yucatan long before the Spaniard +desolated their stately cities. It is one of those preserved by Father +Lizana, curé of Itzamal, and of which he gives the original. Other +witnesses inform us that this nation "had a tradition that the world +would end,"[221-1] and probably, like the Greeks and Aztecs, they +supposed the gods would perish with it. + + "At the close of the ages, it hath been decreed, + Shall perish and vanish each weak god of men, + And the world shall be purged with a ravening fire. + Happy the man in that terrible day, + Who bewails with contrition the sins of his life,[221-2] + And meets without flinching the fiery ordeal." + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[193-1] So far as this applies to the Eskimos, it might be questioned on +the authority of Paul Egede, whose valuable _Nachrichten von Grönland_ +contains several flood-myths, &c. But these Eskimos had had for +generations intercourse with European missionaries and sailors, and as +the other tribes of their stock were singularly devoid of corresponding +traditions, it is likely that in Greenland they were of foreign origin. + +[194-1] Pictet, _Origines Indo-Européennes_ in Michelet, _La Mer_. The +latter has many eloquent and striking remarks on the impressions left by +the great ocean. + +[195-1] "Spiritus Dei incubuit superficei aquarum" is the translation of +one writer. The word for spirit in Hebrew, as in Latin, originally meant +wind, as I have before remarked. + +[195-2] Schoolcraft, _Ind. Tribes_, i. p. 266. + +[196-1] Mackenzie, _Hist. of the Fur Trade_, p. 83; Richardson, _Arctic +Expedition_, p. 239. + +[196-2] Ximenes, _Or. de los Ind. de Guat._, pp. 5-7. I translate freely, +following Ximenes rather than Brasseur. + +[197-1] Garcia, _Or. de los Indios_, lib. v. cap. 4. + +[197-2] _Doc. Hist. of New York_, iv. p. 130 (circ. 1650). + +[197-3] _Rel. de la Nouv. France_, An 1636, p. 101. + +[198-1] _Rel. de la Nouv. France_, An 1634, p. 13. + +[199-1] _Conquest of Mexico_, i. p. 61. + +[200-1] For instance, Epictetus favors the opinion that at the solstices +of the great year not only all human beings, but even the gods, are +annihilated; and speculates whether at such times Jove feels lonely +(_Discourses_, bk. iii. chap. 13). Macrobius, so far from coinciding with +him, explains the great antiquity of Egyptian civilization by the +hypothesis that that country is so happily situated between the pole and +equator, as to escape both the deluge and conflagration of the great +cycle (_Somnium Scipionis_, lib. ii. cap. 10). + +[201-1] Schoolcraft, _Ind. Tribes_, iii. p. 263, iv. p. 230. + +[201-2] Oviedo, _Hist. du Nicaragua_, pp. 22, 27. + +[201-3] Müller, _Amer. Urrelig._, p. 254, from Max and Denis. + +[202-1] Morse, _Rep. on the Ind. Tribes_, App. p. 346; D'Orbigny, _Frag. +d'un Voyage dans l'Amér. Mérid._, p. 512. + +[202-2] When, as in the case of one of the Mexican Noahs, Coxcox, this +does not seem to hold good, it is probably owing to a loss of the real +form of the myth. Coxcox is also known by the name of Cipactli, Fish-god, +and Huehue tonaca cipactli, Old Fish-god of Our Flesh. + +[202-3] My knowledge of the Sanscrit form of the flood-myth is drawn +principally from the dissertation of Professor Felix Nève, entitled _La +Tradition Indienne du Deluge dans sa Forme la plus ancienne_, Paris, +1851. There is in the oldest versions no distinct reference to an +antediluvian race, and in India Manu is by common consent the Adam as +well as the Noah of their legends. + +[203-1] Prescott, _Conquest of Peru_, i. p. 88; _Codex Vaticanus_, No. +3776, in Kingsborough. + +[203-2] And also various peculiarities of style and language lost in +translation. The two accounts of the Deluge are given side by side in Dr. +Smith's _Dictionary of the Bible_ under the word Pentateuch. + +[203-3] See the dissertation of Prof. Nève referred to above. + +[203-4] _American State Papers_, Indian Affairs, i. p. 729. Date of +legend, 1801. + +[204-1] Molina, _Hist. of Chili_, ii. p. 82. + +[205-1] Richardson, _Arctic Expedition_, p. 239. + +[205-2] Dumont, _Mems. Hist. sur la Louisiane_, i. p. 163. + +[205-3] Schoolcraft, _Ind. Tribes_, v. p. 686. + +[206-1] Desjardins, _Le Pérou avant la Conq. Espagn._, p. 27. + +[207-1] Cod. Chimalpopoca, in Brasseur, _Hist. du Mexique_, Pièces +Justificatives. + +[207-2] These four birds, whose names have lost their signification, +represent doubtless the four winds, or the four rivers, which, as in so +many legends, are the active agents in overwhelming the world in its +great crises. + +[208-1] The word rendered mill-stone, in the original means those large +hollowed stones on which the women were accustomed to bruise the maize. +The imitative sounds for which I have substituted others in English, are +in Quiché, _holi, holi, huqui, huqui_. + +[209-1] Brasseur translates "quoique nous ne sentissions rien," but +Ximenes, "nos quemasteis, y sentimos el dolor." As far as I can make out +the original, it is the negative conditional as I have given it in the +text. + +[209-2] _Le Livre Sacré_, p. 27; Ximenes, _Or. de los Indios_, p. 13. + +[210-1] The American nations among whom a distinct and well-authenticated +myth of the deluge was found are as follows: Athapascas, Algonkins, +Iroquois, Cherokees, Chikasaws, Caddos, Natchez, Dakotas, Apaches, +Navajos, Mandans, Pueblo Indians, Aztecs, Mixtecs, Zapotecs, Tlascalans, +Mechoacans, Toltecs, Nahuas, Mayas, Quiches, Haitians, natives of Darien +and Popoyan, Muyscas, Quichuas, Tuppinambas, Achaguas, Araucanians, and +doubtless others. The article by M. de Charency in the _Revue Américaine, +Le Deluge, d'après les Traditions Indiennes de l'Amérique du Nord_, +contains some valuable extracts, but is marred by a lack of criticism of +sources, and makes no attempt at analysis, nor offers for their existence +a rational explanation. + +[211-1] _Une Fête Brésilienne célébré à Rouen en 1550, par M. Ferdinand +Denis_, p. 82 (quoted in the _Revue Américaine_, ii. p. 317). The native +words in this account guarantee its authenticity. In the Tupi language, +_tata_ means fire; _parana_, ocean; Monan, perhaps from _monáne_, to +mingle, to temper, as the potter the clay (_Dias, Diccionario da Lingua +Tupy_: Lipsia, 1858). Irin monge may be an old form from _mongat-iron_, +to set in order, to restore, to improve (_Martius, Beiträge zur +Ethnographie und Sprachenkunde Amerika's_, ii. p. 70). + +[213-1] Professor Nève, _ubi supra_, from the Zatapatha Brahmana. + +[213-2] Avendano, _Sermones_, Lima, 1648, in Rivero and Tschudi, _Peruv. +Antiqs._, p. 114. In the year 1600, Oñate found on the coast of +California a tribe whose idol held in one hand a shell containing three +eggs, in the other an ear of maize, while before it was placed a cup of +water. Vizcaino, who visited the same people a few years afterwards, +mentions that they kept in their temples tame ravens, and looked upon +them as sacred birds (Torquemada, _Mon. Ind._, lib. v. cap. 40 in Waitz). +Thus, in all parts of the continent do we find the bird, as a symbol of +the clouds, associated with the rains and the harvests. + +[214-1] The deluge was called _hun yecil_, which, according to Cogolludo, +means _the inundation of the trees_, for all the forests were swept away +(_Hist. de Yucathan_, lib. iv. cap. 5). Bishop Landa adds, to +substantiate the legend, that all the woods of the peninsula appear as if +they had been planted at one time, and that to look at them one would say +they had been trimmed with scissors (_Rel. de las Cosas de Yucatan_, 58, +60). + +[215-1] _Vues des Cordillères_, p. 202. + +[216-1] Ubi sup., p. 207. + +[216-2] The Scandinavians believed the universe had been destroyed nine +times:-- + + Ni Verdener yeg husker, + Og ni Himle, + +says the Voluspa (i. 2, in Klee, _Le Deluge_, p. 220). I observe some +English writers have supposed from these lines that the Northmen believed +in the existence of nine abodes for the blessed. Such is not the sense of +the original. + +[216-3] At least this is the doctrine of one of the Shastas. The race, it +teaches, has been destroyed four times; first by water, secondly by +winds, thirdly the earth swallowed them, and lastly fire consumed them +(Sepp., _Heidenthum und Christenthum_, i. p. 191). + +[217-1] Echevarria y Veitia, _Hist. de la Nueva España_, lib. i. cap. 4, +in Waitz. + +[217-2] Brasseur, _Hist. du Mexique_, iii. p. 495. + +[218-1] The contrary has indeed been inferred from such expressions of +the writer of the book of Ecclesiastes as, "that which hath been, is now, +and that which is to be, hath already been" (chap. iii. 15), and the +like, but they are susceptible of an application entirely subjective. + +[218-2] Voluspa, xiv. 51, in Klee, _Le Deluge_. + +[219-1] _Natur. Quæstiones_, iii. cap. 27. + +[220-1] Velasco, _Hist. du Royaume du Quito_, p. 105; Navarrete, +_Viages_, iii. p. 444. + +[220-2] _Rel. de la Nouv. France_, An 1637, p. 54; Schoolcraft, _Ind. +Tribes_, i. p. 319, iv. p. 420. + +[220-3] Schoolcraft, ibid., iv. p. 240. + +[221-1] Cogolludo, _Hist. de Yucathan_, lib. iv. cap. 7. + +[221-2] The Spanish of Lizana is-- + + "En la ultima edad, segun esta determinado, + Avra fin el culto de dioses vanos; + Y el mundo sera purificado con fuego. + El que esto viere sera llamado dichoso + Si con dolor lloraré sus pecados." + +(_Hist. de Nuestra Señora de Itzamal_, in Brasseur, _Hist. du Mexique_, +ii. p. 603). I have attempted to obtain a more literal rendering from the +original Maya, but have not been successful. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +THE ORIGIN OF MAN. + + Usually man is the EARTH-BORN, both in language and + myths.--Illustrations from the legends of the Caribs, Apalachians, + Iroquois, Quichuas, Aztecs, and others.--The underworld.--Man the + product of one of the primal creative powers, the Spirit, or the + Water, in the myths of the Athapascas, Eskimos, Moxos, and + others.--Never literally derived from an inferior species. + + +No man can escape the importunate question, whence am I? The first +replies framed to meet it possess an interest to the thoughtful mind, +beyond that of mere fables. They illustrate the position in creation +claimed by our race, and the early workings of self-consciousness. Often +the oldest terms for man are synopses of these replies, and merit a more +than passing contemplation. + +The seed is hidden in the earth. Warmed by the sun, watered by the rain, +presently it bursts its dark prison-house, unfolds its delicate leaves, +blossoms, and matures its fruit. Its work done, the earth draws it to +itself again, resolves the various structures into their original mould, +and the unending round recommences. + +This is the marvellous process that struck the primitive mind. Out of +the Earth rises life, to it it returns. She it is who guards all germs, +nourishes all beings. The Aztecs painted her as a woman with countless +breasts, the Peruvians called her Mama Allpa, _mother_ Earth. _Homo_, +_Adam_, _chamaigenēs_, what do all these words mean but the +earth-born, the son of the soil, repeated in the poetic language of +Attica in _anthropos_, he who springs up as a flower? + +The word that corresponds to the Latin _homo_ in American languages has +such singular uniformity in so many of them, that we might be tempted to +regard it as a fragment of some ancient and common tongue, their parent +stem. In the Eskimo it is _inuk_, _innuk_, plural _innuit_; in Athapasca +it is _dinni_, _tenné_; in Algonkin, _inini_, _lenni_, _inwi_; in +Iroquois, _onwi_, _eniha_; in the Otomi of Mexico _n-aniehe_; in the +Maya, _inic_, _winic_, _winak_; all in North America, and the number +might be extended. Of these only the last mentioned can plausibly be +traced to a radical (unless the Iroquois _onwi_ is from _onnha_ life, +_onnhe_ to live). This Father Ximenes derives from _win_, meaning to +grow, to gain, to increase,[223-1] in which the analogy to vegetable +life is not far off, an analogy strengthened by the myth of that stock, +which relates that the first of men were formed of the flour of +maize.[223-2] + +In many other instances religious legend carries out this idea. The +mythical ancestor of the Caribs created his offspring by sowing the soil +with stones or with the fruit of the Mauritius palm, which sprouted +forth into men and women,[224-1] while the Yurucares, much of whose +mythology was perhaps borrowed from the Peruvians, clothed this crude +tenet in a somewhat more poetic form, fabling that at the beginning the +first of men were pegged, Ariel-like, in the knotty entrails of an +enormous hole, until the god Tiri--a second Prospero--released them by +cleaving it in twain.[224-2] + +As in oriental legends the origin of man from the earth was veiled under +the story that he was the progeny of some mountain fecundated by the +embrace of Mithras or Jupiter, so the Indians often pointed to some +height or some cavern, as the spot whence the first of men issued, adult +and armed, from the womb of the All-mother Earth. The oldest name of the +Alleghany Mountains is Paemotinck or Pemolnick, an Algonkin word, the +meaning of which is said to be "the origin of the Indians."[224-3] + +The Witchitas, who dwelt on the Red River among the mountains named +after them, have a tradition that their progenitors issued from the +rocks about their homes,[225-1] and many other tribes the Tahkalis, +Navajos, Coyoteras, and the Haitians, for instance, set up this claim to +be autochthones. Most writers have interpreted this simply to mean that +they knew nothing at all about their origin, or that they coined these +fables merely to strengthen the title to the territory they inhabited +when they saw the whites eagerly snatching it away on every pretext. No +doubt there is some truth in this, but if they be carefully sifted, +there is sometimes a deep historical significance in these myths, which +has hitherto escaped the observation of students. An instance presents +itself in our own country. + +All those tribes, the Creeks, Seminoles, Choctaws, Chicasaws, and +Natchez, who, according to tradition, were in remote times banded into +one common confederacy under the headship of the last mentioned, +unanimously located their earliest ancestry near an artificial eminence +in the valley of the Big Black River, in the Natchez country, whence +they pretended to have emerged. Fortunately we have a description, +though a brief one, of this interesting monument from the pen of an +intelligent traveller. It is described as "an elevation of earth about +half a mile square and fifteen or twenty feet high. From its northeast +corner a wall of equal height extends for near half a mile to the high +land." This was the Nunne Chaha or Nunne Hamgeh, the High Hill, or the +Bending Hill, famous in Choctaw stories, and which Captain Gregg found +they have not yet forgotten in their western home. The legend was that +in its centre was a cave, the house of the Master of Breath. Here he +made the first men from the clay around him, and as at that time the +waters covered the earth, he raised the wall to dry them on. When the +soft mud had hardened into elastic flesh and firm bone, he banished the +waters to their channels and beds, and gave the dry land to his +creatures.[226-1] When in 1826 Albert Gallatin obtained from some +Natchez chiefs a vocabulary of their language, they gave to him as their +word for _hill_ precisely the same word that a century and a quarter +before the French had found among them as their highest term for +God;[226-2] reversing the example of the ancient Greeks who came in time +to speak of Olympus, at first the proper name of a peak in Thessaly, as +synonymous with heaven and Jove. + +A parallel to this southern legend occurs among the Six Nations of the +north. They with one consent, if we may credit the account of Cusic, +looked to a mountain near the falls of the Oswego River in the State of +New York, as the locality where their forefathers first saw the light of +day, and that they had some such legend the name Oneida, people of the +Stone, would seem to testify. + +The cave of Pacari Tampu, the Lodgings of the Dawn, was five leagues +distant from Cuzco, surrounded by a sacred grove and inclosed with +temples of great antiquity. From its hallowed recesses the mythical +civilizers of Peru, the first of men, emerged, and in it during the time +of the flood, the remnants of the race escaped the fury of the +waves.[227-1] Viracocha himself is said to have dwelt there, though it +hardly needed this evidence to render it certain that this consecrated +cavern is but a localization of the general myth of the dawn rising from +the deep. It refers us for its prototype to the Aymara allegory of the +morning light flinging its beams like snow-white foam athwart the waves +of Lake Titicaca. + +An ancient legend of the Aztecs derived their nation from a place called +Chicomoztoc, the Seven Caverns, located north of Mexico. Antiquaries +have indulged in all sorts of speculations as to what this means. +Sahagun explains it as a valley so named; Clavigero supposes it to have +been a city; Hamilton Smith, and after him Schoolcraft, construed +caverns to be a figure of speech for the _boats_ in which the early +Americans paddled across from Asia(!); the Abbé Brasseur confounds it +with Aztlan, and very many have discovered in it a distinct reference +to the fabulous "seven cities of Cibola" and the Casas Grandes, ruins of +large buildings of unburnt brick in the valley of the River Gila. From +this story arose the supposed sevenfold division of the Nahuas, a +division which never existed except in the imagination of Europeans. +When Torquemada adds that _seven_ hero gods ruled in Chicomoztoc and +were the progenitors of all its inhabitants, when one of them turns out +to be Xelhua, the giant who with six others escaped the flood by +ascending the mountain of Tlaloc in the terrestrial paradise and +afterwards built the pyramid of Cholula, and when we remember that in +one of the flood-myths _seven_ persons were said to have escaped the +waters, the whole narrative acquires a fabulous aspect that shuts it out +from history, and brands it as one of those fictions of the origin of +man from the earth so common to the race. Fictions yet truths; for +caverns and hollow trees were in fact the houses and temples of our +first parents, and from them they went forth to conquer and adorn the +world; and from the inorganic constituents of the soil acted on by +Light, touched by Divine Force, vivified by the Spirit, did in reality +the first of men proceed. + +This cavern, which thus dimly lingered in the memories of nations, +occasionally expanded to a nether world, imagined to underlie this of +ours, and still inhabited by beings of our kind, who have never been +lucky enough to discover its exit. The Mandans and Minnetarees on the +Missouri River supposed this exit was near a certain hill in their +territory, and as it had been, as it were, the womb of the earth, the +same power was attributed to it that in ancient times endowed certain +shrines with such charms; and thither the barren wives of their nation +made frequent pilgrimages when they would become mothers.[229-1] The +Mandans added the somewhat puerile fable that the means of ascent had +been a grapevine, by which many ascended and descended, until one day an +immoderately fat old lady, anxious to get a look at the upper earth, +broke it with her weight, and prevented any further communication. + +Such tales of an under-world are very frequent among the Indians, and +are a very natural outgrowth of the literal belief that the race is +earth-born. + +Man is indeed like the grass that springs up and soon withers away; but +he is also more than this. The quintessence of dust, he is a son of the +gods as well as a son of the soil. He is the direct product of the great +creative power; therefore all the Athapascan tribes west of the Rocky +Mountains--the Kenai, the Kolushes, and the Atnai--claim descent from a +raven--from that same mighty cloud-bird, who in the beginning of things +seized the elements and brought the world from the abyss of the +primitive ocean. Those of the same stock situate more eastwardly, the +Dogribs, the Chepewyans, the Hare Indians, and also the west coast +Eskimos, and the natives of the Aleutian Isles, all believe that they +have sprung from a dog.[229-2] The latter animal, we have already seen, +both in the old and new world was the fixed symbol of the water goddess. +Therefore in these myths, which are found over so many thousand square +leagues, we cannot be in error in perceiving a reflex of their +cosmogonical traditions already discussed, in which from the winds and +the waters, represented here under their emblems of the bird and the +dog, all animate life proceeded. + +Without this symbolic coloring, a tribe to the south of them, a band of +the Minnetarees, had the crude tradition that their first progenitor +emerged from the waters, bearing in his hand an ear of maize,[230-1] +very much as Viracocha and his companions rose from the sacred waves of +Lake Titicaca, or as the Moxos imagined that they were descended from +the lakes and rivers on whose banks their villages were situated. + +These myths, and many others, hint of general conceptions of life and +the world, wide-spread theories of ancient date, such as we are not +accustomed to expect among savage nations, such as may very excusably +excite a doubt as to their native origin, but a doubt infallibly +dispelled by a careful comparison of the best authorities. Is it that +hitherto, in the pride of intellectual culture, we have never done +justice to the thinking faculty of those whom we call barbarians? Or +shall we accept the only other alternative, that these are the +unappreciated heirlooms bequeathed a rude race by a period of higher +civilization, long since extinguished by constant wars and ceaseless +fear? We are not yet ready to answer these questions. With almost +unanimous consent the latter has been accepted as the true solution, but +rather from the preconceived theory of a state of primitive +civilization from which man fell, than from ascertained facts. + +It would, perhaps, be pushing symbolism too far to explain as an emblem +of the primitive waters the coyote, which, according to the Root-Diggers +of California, brought their ancestors into the world; or the wolf, +which the Lenni Lenape pretended released mankind from the dark bowels +of the earth by scratching away the soil. They should rather be +interpreted by the curious custom of the Toukaways, a wild people in +Texas, of predatory and unruly disposition. They celebrate their origin +by a grand annual dance. One of them, naked as he was born, is buried in +the earth. The others, clothed in wolf-skins, walk over him, snuff +around him, howl in lupine style, and finally dig him up with their +nails. The leading wolf then solemnly places a bow and arrow in his +hands, and to his inquiry as to what he must do for a living, paternally +advises him "to do as the wolves do--rob, kill, and murder, rove from +place to place, and never cultivate the soil."[231-1] Most wise and +fatherly counsel! But what is there new under the sun? Three thousand +years ago the Hirpini, or Wolves, an ancient Sabine tribe, were wont to +collect on Mount Soracte, and there go through certain rites in memory +of an oracle which predicted their extinction when they ceased to gain +their living as wolves by violence and plunder. Therefore they dressed +in wolf-skins, ran with barks and howls over burning coals, and gnawed +wolfishly whatever they could seize.[231-2] + +Though hasty writers have often said that the Indian tribes claim +literal descent from different wild beasts, probably in all other +instances, as in these, this will prove, on examination, to be an error +resting on a misapprehension arising from the habit of the natives of +adopting as their totem or clan-mark the figure and name of some animal, +or else, in an ignorance of the animate symbols employed with such +marked preference by the red race to express abstract ideas. In some +cases, doubtless, the natives themselves came, in time, to confound the +symbol with the idea, by that familiar process of personification and +consequent debasement exemplified in the history of every religion; but +I do not believe that a single example could be found where an Indian +tribe had a tradition whose real purport was that man came by natural +process of descent from an ancestor, a brute. + +The reflecting mind will not be offended at the contradictions in these +different myths, for a myth is, in one sense, a theory of natural +phenomena expressed in the form of a narrative. Often several +explanations seem equally satisfactory for the same fact, and the mind +hesitates to choose, and rather accepts them all than rejects any. Then, +again, an expression current as a metaphor by-and-by crystallizes into a +dogma, and becomes the nucleus of a new mythological growth. These are +familiar processes to one versed in such studies, and involve no logical +contradiction, because they are never required to be reconciled. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[223-1] _Vocabulario Quiche_, s. v., ed. Brasseur, Paris, 1862. + +[223-2] The Eskimo _innuk_, man, means also a possessor or owner; the +yelk[TN-10] of an egg; and the pus of an abscess (Egede, _Nachrichten von +Grönland_, p. 106). From it is derived _innuwok_, to live, life. Probably +_innuk_ also means the _semen masculinum_, and in its identification with +pus, may not there be the solution of that strange riddle which in so +many myths of the West Indies and Central America makes the first of men +to be "the purulent one?" (See ante, p. 135.) + +[224-1] Müller, _Amer. Urrelig._, pp. 109, 229. + +[224-2] D'Orbigny, _Frag. d'une Voy. dans l'Amér. Mérid._, p. 512. It is +still a mooted point whence Shakspeare drew the plot of The Tempest. The +coincidence mentioned in the text between some parts of it and South +American mythology does not stand alone. Caliban, the savage and brutish +native of the island, is undoubtedly the word Carib, often spelt +Caribani, and Calibani in older writers; and his "dam's god Setebos" was +the supreme divinity of the Patagonians when first visited by Magellan. +(Pigafetta, _Viaggio intorno al Globo_, Germ. Trans.: Gotha, 1801, p. +247.) + +[224-3] Both Lederer and John Bartram assign it this meaning. Gallatin +gives in the Powhatan dialect the word for mountain as _pomottinke_, +doubtless another form of the same. + +[225-1] Marcy, _Exploration of the Red River_, p. 69. + +[226-1] Compare Romans, _Hist. of Florida_, pp. 58, 71; Adair, _Hist. of +the North Am. Indians_, p. 195; and Gregg, _Commerce of the Prairies_, +ii. p. 235. The description of the mound is by Major Heart, in the +_Trans. of the Am. Philos. Soc._, iii. p. 216. (1st series.) + +[226-2] The French writers give for Great Spirit _coyocopchill_; Gallatin +for hill, _kweya koopsel_. The blending of these two ideas, at first +sight so remote, is easily enough explained when we remember that on "the +hill of heaven" in all religions is placed the throne of the mightiest of +existences. The Natchez word can be analyzed as follows: _sel_, _sil_, or +_chill_, great; _cop_, a termination very frequent in their language, +apparently signifying existence; _kweya_, _coyo_, for _kue ya_, from the +Maya _kue_, god; the great living God. The Tarahumara language of Sonora +offers an almost parallel instance. In it _regui_, is _above_[TN-11], up, +over, _reguiki_, heaven, _reguiguiki_, a hill or mountain (Buschmann, +_Spuren der Aztek. Sprache im nörd. Mexico_, p. 244). In the Quiché +dialects _tepeu_ is lord, ruler, and is often applied to the Supreme +Being. With some probability Brasseur derives it from the Aztec _tepetl_, +mountain (_Hist. du Mexique_, i. p. 106). + +[227-1] Balboa, _Hist. du Pérou_, p. 4. + +[229-1] Long's _Expedition to the Rocky Mountains_, i. p. 274; Catlin's +_Letters_, i. p. 178. + +[229-2] Richardson, _Arctic Expedition_, pp. 239, 247; Klemm, +_Culturgeschichte der Menschheit_, ii. p. 316. + +[230-1] Long, _Exped. to the Rocky Mountains_, i. p. 326. + +[231-1] Schoolcraft, _Ind. Tribes_, v. p. 683. + +[231-2] Schwarz, _Ursprung der Mythologie_, p. 121. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +THE SOUL AND ITS DESTINY. + + Universality of the belief in a soul and a future state + shown by the aboriginal tongues, by expressed opinions, + and by sepulchral rites.--The future world never a place + of rewards and punishments.--The house of the Sun the + heaven of the red man.--The terrestrial paradise and the + under-world.--Çupay.--Xibalba.--Mictlan.--Metempsychosis?--Belief + in a resurrection of the dead almost universal. + + +The missionary Charlevoix wrote several excellent works on America +toward the beginning of the last century, and he is often quoted by +later authors; but probably no one of his sayings has been thus honored +more frequently than this: "The belief the best established among our +Americans is that of the immortality of the soul."[233-1] The tremendous +stake that every one of us has on the truth of this dogma makes it quite +a satisfaction to be persuaded that no man is willing to live wholly +without it. Certainly exceptions are very rare, and most of those which +materialistic philosophers have taken such pains to collect, rest on +misunderstandings or superficial observation. + +In the new world I know of only one well authenticated instance where +all notion of a future state appears to have been entirely wanting, and +this in quite a small clan, the Lower Pend d'Oreilles, of Oregon. This +people had no burial ceremonies, no notion of a life hereafter, no word +for soul, spiritual existence, or vital principle. They thought that +when they died, that was the last of them. The Catholic missionaries who +undertook the unpromising task of converting them to Christianity, were +at first obliged to depend upon the imperfect translations of half-breed +interpreters. These "made the idea of soul intelligible to their hearers +by telling them they had a gut which never rotted, and that this was +their living principle!" Yet even they were not destitute of religious +notions. No tribe was more addicted to the observance of charms, omens, +dreams, and guardian spirits, and they believed that illness and bad +luck generally were the effects of the anger of a fabulous old +woman.[234-1] The aborigines of the Californian peninsula were as near +beasts as men ever become. The missionaries likened them to "herds of +swine, who neither worshipped the true and only God, nor adored false +deities." Yet they must have had some vague notion of an +after.world[TN-12], for the writer who paints the darkest picture of +their condition remarks, "I saw them frequently putting shoes on the +feet of the dead, which seems to indicate that they entertain the idea +of a journey after death."[234-2] + +Proof of Charlevoix's opinion may be derived from three independent +sources. The aboriginal languages may be examined for terms +corresponding to the word soul, the opinions of the Indians themselves +may be quoted, and the significance of sepulchral rites as indicative of +a belief in life after death may be determined. + +The most satisfactory is the first of these. _We_ call the soul a ghost +or spirit, and often a shade. In these words, the _breath_ and the +_shadow_ are the sensuous perceptions transferred to represent the +immaterial object of our thought. Why the former was chosen, I have +already explained; and for the latter, that it is man's intangible +image, his constant companion, and is of a nature akin to darkness, +earth, and night, are sufficiently obvious reasons. + +These same tropes recur in American languages in the same connection. +The New England tribes called the soul _chemung_, the shadow, and in +Quiché _natub_, in Eskimo _tarnak_, express both these ideas. In Mohawk +_atonritz_, the soul, is from _atonrion_, to breathe, and other examples +to the same purpose have already been given.[235-1] + +Of course no one need demand that a strict immateriality be attached to +these words. Such a colorless negative abstraction never existed for +them, neither does it for us, though we delude ourselves into believing +that it does. The soul was to them the invisible man, material as ever, +but lost to the appreciation of the senses. + +Nor let any one be astonished if its unity was doubted, and several +supposed to reside in one body. This is nothing more than a somewhat +gross form of a doctrine upheld by most creeds and most philosophies. It +seems the readiest solution of certain psychological enigmas, and may, +for aught we know, be an instinct of fact. The Rabbis taught a threefold +division--_nephesh_, the animal, _ruah_, the human, and _neshamah_, the +divine soul, which corresponds to that of Plato into _thumos_, +_epithumia_, and _nous_. And even Saint Paul seems to have recognized +such inherent plurality when he distinguishes between the bodily soul, +the intellectual soul, and the spiritual gift, in his Epistle to the +Romans. No such refinements of course as these are to be expected among +the red men; but it may be looked upon either as the rudiments of these +teachings, or as a gradual debasement of them to gross and material +expression, that an old and wide-spread notion was found among both +Iroquois and Algonkins, that man has two souls, one of a vegetative +character, which gives bodily life, and remains with the corpse after +death, until it is called to enter another body; another of more +ethereal texture, which in life can depart from the body in sleep or +trance, and wander over the world, and at death goes directly to the +land of Spirits.[236-1] + +The Sioux extended it to Plato's number, and are said to have looked +forward to one going to a cold place, another to a warm and comfortable +country, while the third was to watch the body. Certainly a most +impartial distribution of rewards and punishments.[237-1] Some other +Dakota tribes shared their views on this point, but more commonly, +doubtless owing to the sacredness of the number, imagined _four_ souls, +with separate destinies, one to wander about the world, one to watch the +body, the third to hover around the village, and the highest to go to +the spirit land.[237-2] Even this number is multiplied by certain Oregon +tribes, who imagine one in every member; and by the Caribs of +Martinique, who, wherever they could detect a pulsation, located a +spirit, all subordinate, however, to a supreme one throned in the heart, +which alone would be transported to the skies at death.[237-3] For the +heart that so constantly sympathizes with our emotions and actions, is, +in most languages and most nations, regarded as the seat of life; and +when the priests of bloody religions tore out the heart of the victim +and offered it to the idol, it was an emblem of the life that was thus +torn from the field of this world and consecrated to the rulers of the +next. + +Various motives impel the living to treat with respect the body from +which life has departed. Lowest of them is a superstitious dread of +death and the dead. The stoicism of the Indian, especially the northern +tribes, in the face of death, has often been the topic of poets, and has +often been interpreted to be a fearlessness of that event. This is by +no means true. Savages have an awful horror of death; it is to them the +worst of ills; and for this very reason was it that they thought to meet +it without flinching was the highest proof of courage. Everything +connected with the deceased was, in many tribes, shunned with +superstitious terror. His name was not mentioned, his property left +untouched, all reference to him was sedulously avoided. A Tupi tribe +used to hurry the body at once to the nearest water, and toss it in; the +Akanzas left it in the lodge and burned over it the dwelling and +contents; and the Algonkins carried it forth by a hole cut opposite the +door, and beat the walls with sticks to fright away the lingering ghost. +Burying places were always avoided, and every means taken to prevent the +departed spirits exercising a malicious influence on those remaining +behind. + +These craven fears do but reveal the natural repugnance of the animal to +a cessation of existence, and arise from the instinct of +self-preservation essential to organic life. Other rites, undertaken +avowedly for the behoof of the soul, prove and illustrate a simple but +unshaken faith in its continued existence after the decay of the body. + +None of these is more common or more natural than that which attributes +to the emancipated spirit the same wants that it felt while on earth, +and with loving foresight provides for their satisfaction. Clothing and +utensils of war and the chase were, in ancient times, uniformly placed +by the body, under the impression that they would be of service to the +departed in his new home. Some few tribes in the far west still retain +the custom, but most were soon ridiculed into its neglect, or were +forced to omit it by the violation of tombs practised by depraved whites +in hope of gain. To these harmless offerings the northern tribes often +added a dog slain on the grave; and doubtless the skeletons of these +animals in so many tombs in Mexico and Peru point to similar customs +there. It had no deeper meaning than to give a companion to the spirit +in its long and lonesome journey to the far off land of shades. The +peculiar appropriateness of the dog arose not only from the guardianship +it exerts during life, but further from the symbolic signification it so +often had as representative of the goddess of night and the grave. + +Where a despotic form of government reduced the subject almost to the +level of a slave and elevated the ruler almost to that of a superior +being, not animals only, but men, women, and children were frequently +immolated at the tomb of the cacique. The territory embraced in our own +country was not without examples of this horrid custom. On the lower +Mississippi, the Natchez Indians brought it with them from Central +America in all its ghastliness. When a sun or chief died, one or several +of his wives and his highest officers were knocked on the head and +buried with him, and at such times the barbarous privilege was allowed +to any of the lowest caste to at once gain admittance to the highest by +the deliberate murder of their own children on the funeral pyre--a +privilege which respectable writers tell us human beings were found base +enough to take advantage of.[239-1] + +Oviedo relates that in the province of Guataro, in Guatemala, an actual +rivalry prevailed among the people to be slain at the death of their +cacique, for they had been taught that only such as went with him would +ever find their way to the paradise of the departed.[240-1] Theirs was +therefore somewhat of a selfish motive, and only in certain parts of +Peru, where polygamy prevailed, and the rule was that only one wife was +to be sacrificed, does the deportment of husbands seem to have been so +creditable that their widows actually disputed one with another for the +pleasure of being buried alive with the dead body, and bearing their +spouse company to the other world.[240-2] Wives who have found few +parallels since the famous matron of Ephesus! + +The fire built nightly on the grave was to light the spirit on his +journey. By a coincidence to be explained by the universal sacredness of +the number, both Algonkins and Mexicans maintained it for _four_ nights +consecutively. The former related the tradition that one of their +ancestors returned from the spirit land and informed their nation that +the journey thither consumed just _four_ days, and that collecting fuel +every night added much to the toil and fatigue the soul encountered, all +of which could be spared it by the relatives kindling nightly a fire on +the grave. Or as Longfellow has told it:-- + + "Four days is the spirit's journey + To the land of ghosts and shadows, + Four its lonely night encampments. + Therefore when the dead are buried, + Let a fire as night approaches + Four times on the grave be kindled, + That the soul upon its journey + May not grope about in darkness." + +The same length of time, say the Navajos, does the departed soul wander +over a gloomy marsh ere it can discover the ladder leading to the world +below, where are the homes of the setting and the rising sun, a land of +luxuriant plenty, stocked with game and covered with corn. To that land, +say they, sink all lost seeds and germs which fall on the earth and do +not sprout. There below they take root, bud, and ripen their +fruit.[241-1] + +After four days, once more, in the superstitions of the Greenland +Eskimos, does the soul, for that term after death confined in the body, +at last break from its prison-house and either rise in the sky to dance +in the aurora borealis or descend into the pleasant land beneath the +earth, according to the manner of death.[241-2] + +That there are logical contradictions in this belief and these +ceremonies, that the fire is always in the same spot, that the weapons +and utensils are not carried away by the departed, and that the food +placed for his sustenance remains untouched, is very true. But those who +would therefore argue that they were not intended for the benefit of the +soul, and seek some more recondite meaning in them as "unconscious +emblems of struggling faith or expressions of inward emotions,"[242-1] +are led astray by the very simplicity of their real intention. Where is +the faith, where the science, that does not involve logical +contradictions just as gross as these? They are tolerable to us merely +because we are used to them. What value has the evidence of the senses +anywhere against a religious faith? None whatever. A stumbling block +though this be to the materialist, it is the universal truth, and as +such it is well to accept it as an experimental fact. + +The preconceived opinions that saw in the meteorological myths of the +Indian, a conflict between the Spirit of Good and the Spirit of Evil, +have with like unconscious error falsified his doctrine of a future +life, and almost without an exception drawn it more or less in the +likeness of the Christian heaven, hell, and purgatory. Very faint traces +of any such belief except where derived from the missionaries are +visible in the New World. Nowhere was any well-defined doctrine that +moral turpitude was judged and punished in the next-world. No contrast +is discoverable between a place of torments and a realm of joy; at the +worst but a negative castigation awaited the liar, the coward, or the +niggard. The typical belief of the tribes of the United States was well +expressed in the reply of Esau Hajo, great medal chief and speaker for +the Creek nation in the National Council, to the question, Do the red +people believe in a future state of rewards and punishments? "We have an +opinion that those who have behaved well are taken under the care of +Esaugetuh Emissee, and assisted; and that those who have behaved ill +are left to shift for themselves; and that there is no other +punishment."[243-1] + +Neither the delights of a heaven on the one hand, nor the terrors of a +hell on the other, were ever held out by priests or sages as an +incentive to well-doing, or a warning to the evil-disposed. Different +fates, indeed, awaited the departed souls, but these rarely, if ever, +were decided by their conduct while in the flesh, but by the manner of +death, the punctuality with which certain sepulchral rites were +fulfilled by relatives, or other similar arbitrary circumstance beyond +the power of the individual to control. This view, which I am well aware +is directly at variance with that of all previous writers, may be shown +to be that natural to the uncultivated intellect everywhere, and the +real interpretation of the creeds of America. Whether these arbitrary +circumstances were not construed to signify the decision of the Divine +Mind on the life of the man, is a deeper question, which there is no +means at hand to solve. + +Those who have complained of the hopeless confusion of American +religions have but proven the insufficiency of their own means of +analyzing them. The uniformity which they display in so many points is +nowhere more fully illustrated than in the unanimity with which they all +point to the _sun_ as the land of the happy souls, the realm of the +blessed, the scene of the joyous hunting-grounds of the hereafter. Its +perennial glory, its comfortable warmth, its daily analogy to the life +of man, marked its abode as the pleasantest spot in the universe. It +matters not whether the eastern Algonkins pointed to the south, others +of their nation, with the Iroquois and Creeks, to the west, or many +tribes to the east, as the direction taken by the spirit; all these +myths but mean that its bourn is the home of the sun, which is perhaps +in the Orient whence he comes forth, in the Occident where he makes his +bed, or in the South whither he retires in the chilling winter. Where +the sun lives, they informed the earliest foreign visitors, were the +villages of the deceased, and the milky way which nightly spans the arch +of heaven, was, in their opinion, the road that led thither, and was +called the path of the souls (_le chemin des ames_).[244-1] To _hueyu +ku_, the mansion of the sun, said the Caribs, the soul passes when death +overtakes the body.[244-2] Our knowledge is scanty of the doctrines +taught by the Incas concerning the soul, but this much we do know, that +they looked to the sun, their recognized lord and protector, as he who +would care for them at death, and admit them to his palaces. There--not, +indeed, exquisite joys--but a life of unruffled placidity, void of +labor, vacant of strong emotions, a sort of material Nirvana, awaited +them.[244-3] For these reasons, they, with most other American nations, +interred the corpse lying east and west, and not as the traveller Meyen +has suggested,[244-4] from the reminiscences of some ancient migration. +Beyond the Cordilleras, quite to the coast of Brazil, the innumerable +hordes who wandered through the sombre tropical forests of that immense +territory, also pointed to the west, to the region beyond the mountains, +as the land where the souls of their ancestors lived in undisturbed +serenity; or, in the more brilliant imaginations of the later +generations, in a state of perennial inebriety, surrounded by infinite +casks of rum, and with no white man to dole it out to them.[245-1] The +natives of the extreme south, of the Pampas and Patagonia, suppose the +stars are the souls of the departed. At night they wander about the sky, +but the moment the sun rises they hasten to the cheerful light, and are +seen no more until it disappears in the west. So the Eskimo of the +distant north, in the long winter nights when the aurora bridges the sky +with its changing hues and arrowy shafts of light, believes he sees the +spirits of his ancestors clothed in celestial raiment, disporting +themselves in the absence of the sun, and calls the phenomenon _the +dance of the dead_. + +The home of the sun was the heaven of the red man; but to this joyous +abode not every one without distinction, no miscellaneous crowd, could +gain admittance. The conditions were as various as the national +temperaments. As the fierce gods of the Northmen would admit no soul to +the banquets of Walhalla but such as had met the "spear-death" in the +bloody play of war, and shut out pitilessly all those who feebly +breathed their last in the "straw death" on the couch of sickness, so +the warlike Aztec race in Nicaragua held that the shades of those who +died in their beds went downward and to naught; but of those who fell +in battle for their country to the east, "to the place whence comes the +sun."[246-1] In ancient Mexico not only the warriors who were thus +sacrificed on the altar of their country, but with a delicate and +poetical sense of justice that speaks well for the refinement of the +race, also those women who perished in child-birth, were admitted to the +home of the sun. For are not they also heroines in the battle of life? +Are they not also its victims? And do they not lay down their lives for +country and kindred? Every morning, it was imagined, the heroes came +forth in battle array, and with shout and song and the ring of weapons, +accompanied the sun to the zenith, where at every noon the souls of the +mothers, the Cihuapipilti, received him with dances, music, and flowers, +and bore him company to his western couch.[246-2] Except these, +none--without, it may be, the victims sacrificed to the gods, and this +is doubtful--were deemed worthy of the highest heaven. + +A mild and unwarlike tribe of Guatemala, on the other hand, were +persuaded that to die by any other than a natural death was to forfeit +all hope of life hereafter, and therefore left the bodies of the slain +to the beasts and vultures. + +The Mexicans had another place of happiness for departed souls, not +promising perpetual life as the home of the sun, but unalloyed pleasure +for a certain term of years. This was Tlalocan, the realm of the god of +rains and waters, the terrestrial paradise, whence flowed all the +rivers of the earth, and all the nourishment of the race. The diseases +of which persons died marked this destination. Such as were drowned, or +struck by lightning, or succumbed to humoral complaints, as dropsies and +leprosy, were by these tokens known to be chosen as the subjects of +Tlaloc. To such, said the natives, "death is the commencement of another +life, it is as waking from a dream, and the soul is no more human but +divine (_teot_)." Therefore they addressed their dying in terms like +these: "Sir, or lady, awake, awake; already does the dawn appear; even +now is the light approaching; already do the birds of yellow plumage +begin their songs to greet thee; already are the gayly-tinted +butterflies flitting around thee."[247-1] + +Before proceeding to the more gloomy portion of the subject, to the +destiny of those souls who were not chosen for the better part, I must +advert to a curious coincidence in the religious reveries of many +nations which finds its explanation in the belief that the house of the +sun is the home of the blessed, and proves that this was the first +conception of most natural religions. It is seen in the events and +obstacles of the journey to the happy land. We everywhere hear of a +water which the soul must cross, and an opponent, either a dog or an +evil spirit, which it has to contend with. We are all familiar with the +dog Cerberus (called by Homer simply "the dog"), which disputed the +passage of the river Styx over which the souls must cross; and with the +custom of the vikings, to be buried in a boat so that they might cross +the waters of Ginunga-gap to the inviting strands of Godheim. Relics of +this belief are found in the Koran which describes the bridge _el +Sirat_, thin as a hair and sharp as a scimetar,[TN-13] stretched in a +single span from heaven to earth; in the Persian legend, where the +rainbow arch Chinevad is flung across the gloomy depths between this +world and the home of the happy; and even in the current Christian +allegory which represents the waters of the mythical Jordan rolling +between us and the Celestial City. + +How strange at first sight does it seem that the Hurons and Iroquois +should have told the earliest missionaries that after death the soul +must cross a deep and swift river on a bridge formed by a single slender +tree most lightly supported, where it had to defend itself against the +attacks of a dog?[248-1] If only they had expressed this belief, it +might have passed for a coincidence merely. But the Athapascas +(Chepewyans) also told of a great water, which the soul must cross in a +stone canoe; the Algonkins and Dakotas, of a stream bridged by an +enormous snake, or a narrow and precipitous rock, and the Araucanians of +Chili of a sea in the west, in crossing which the soul was required to +pay toll to a malicious old woman. Were it unluckily impecunious, she +deprived it of an eye.[248-2] With the Aztecs this water was called +Chicunoapa, the Nine Rivers. It was guarded by a dog and a green dragon, +to conciliate which the dead were furnished with slips of paper by way +of toll. The Greenland Eskimos thought that the waters roared through +an unfathomable abyss over which there was no other bridge than a wheel +slippery with ice, forever revolving with fearful rapidity, or a path +narrow as a cord with nothing to hold on by. On the other side sits a +horrid old woman gnashing her teeth and tearing her hair with rage. As +each soul approaches she burns a feather under its nose; if it faints +she seizes it for her prisoner, but if the soul's guardian spirit can +overcome her, it passes through in safety.[249-1] + +The similarity to the passage of the soul across the Styx, and the toll +of the obolus to Charon is in the Aztec legend still more striking, when +we remember that the Styx was the ninth head of Oceanus (omitting the +Cocytus, often a branch of the Styx). The Nine Rivers probably refer to +the nine Lords of the Night, ancient Aztec deities guarding the +nocturnal hours, and introduced into their calendar. The Tupis and +Caribs, the Mayas and Creeks, entertained very similar expectations. + +We are to seek the explanation of these wide-spread theories of the +soul's journey in the equally prevalent tenet that the sun is its +destination, and that that luminary has his abode beyond the ocean +stream, which in all primitive geographies rolls its waves around the +habitable land. This ocean stream is the water which all have to attempt +to pass, and woe to him whom the spirit of the waters, represented +either as the old woman, the dragon, or the dog of Hecate, seizes and +overcomes. In the lush fancy of the Orient, the spirit of the waters +becomes the spirit of evil, the ocean stream the abyss of hell, and +those who fail in the passage the damned, who are foredoomed to evil +deeds and endless torture. + +No such ethical bearing as this was ever assigned the myth by the red +race before they were taught by Europeans. Father Brebeuf could only +find that the souls of suicides and those killed in war were supposed to +live apart from the others; "but as to the souls of scoundrels," he +adds, "so far from being shut out, they are the welcome guests, though +for that matter if it were not so, their paradise would be a total +desert, as Huron and scoundrel (_Huron et larron_) are one and the +same."[250-1] When the Minnetarees told Major Long and the Mannicicas of +the La Plata the Jesuits,[250-2] that the souls of the bad fell into the +waters and were swept away, these are, beyond doubt, attributable either +to a false interpretation, or to Christian instruction. No such +distinction is probable among savages. The Brazilian natives divided the +dead into classes, supposing that the drowned, those killed by violence, +and those yielding to disease, lived in separate regions; but no ethical +reason whatever seems to have been connected with this.[250-3] If the +conception of a place of moral retribution was known at all to the race, +it should be found easily recognizable in Mexico, Yucatan, or Peru. But +the so-called "hells" of their religions have no such significance, and +the spirits of evil, who were identified by early writers with Satan, no +more deserve the name than does the Greek Pluto. + +Çupay or Supay, the Shadow, in Peru was supposed to rule the land of +shades in the centre of the earth. To him went all souls not destined to +be the companions of the Sun. This is all we know of his attributes; and +the assertion of Garcilasso de la Vega, that he was the analogue of the +Christian Devil, and that his name was never pronounced without spitting +and muttering a curse on his head, may be invalidated by the testimony +of an earlier and better authority on the religion of Peru, who calls +him the god of rains, and adds that the famous Inca, Huayna Capac, was +his high priest.[251-1] + +"The devil," says Cogolludo of the Mayas, "is called by them +Xibilha,[TN-14] which means he who disappears or vanishes."[251-2] In the +legends of the Quichés, the name Xibalba is given as that of the +under-world ruled by the grim lords One Death and Seven Deaths. The +derivation of the name is from a root meaning to fear, from which comes +the term in Maya dialects for a ghost or phantom.[251-3] Under the +influence of a century of Christian catechizing, the Quiché legends +portray this really as a place of torment, and its rulers as malignant +and powerful; but as I have before pointed out, they do so, protesting +that such was not the ancient belief, and they let fall no word that +shows that it was regarded as the destination of the morally bad. The +original meaning of the name given by Cogolludo points unmistakably to +the simple fact of disappearance from among men, and corresponds in +harmlessness to the true sense of those words of fear, Scheol, Hades, +Hell, all signifying hidden from sight, and only endowed with more grim +associations by the imaginations of later generations.[252-1] + +Mictlanteuctli, Lord of Mictlan, from a word meaning to die, was the +Mexican Pluto. Like Çupay, he dwelt in the subterranean regions, and his +palace was named Tlalxicco, the navel of the earth. Yet he was also +located in the far north, and that point of the compass and the north +wind were named after him. Those who descended to him were oppressed by +the darkness of his abode, but were subjected to no other trials; nor +were they sent thither as a punishment, but merely from having died of +diseases unfitting them for Tlalocan. Mictlanteuctli was said to be the +most powerful of the gods. For who is stronger than Death? And who dare +defy the Grave? As the skald lets Odin say to Bragi: "Our lot is +uncertain; even on the hosts of the gods gazes the gray Fenris +wolf."[252-2] + +These various abodes to which the incorporeal man took flight were not +always his everlasting home. It will be remembered that where a +plurality of souls was believed, one of these, soon after death, +entered another body to recommence life on earth. Acting under this +persuasion, the Algonkin women who desired to become mothers, flocked to +the couch of those about to die, in hope that the vital principle, as it +passed from the body, would enter theirs, and fertilize their sterile +wombs; and when, among the Seminoles of Florida, a mother died in +childbirth, the infant was held over her face to receive her parting +spirit, and thus acquire strength and knowledge for its future +use.[253-1] So among the Tahkalis, the priest is accustomed to lay his +hand on the head of the nearest relative of the deceased, and to blow +into him the soul of the departed, which is supposed to come to life in +his next child.[253-2] Probably, with a reference to the current +tradition that ascribes the origin of man to the earth, and likens his +life to that of the plant, the Mexicans were accustomed to say that at +one time all men have been stones, and that at last they would all +return to stones;[253-3] and, acting literally on this conviction, they +interred with the bones of the dead a small green stone, which was +called the principle of life. + +Whether any nations accepted the doctrine of metempsychosis, and thought +that "the souls of their grandams might haply inhabit a partridge," we +are without the means of knowing. La Hontan denies it positively of the +Algonkins; but the natives of Popoyan refused to kill doves, says +Coreal,[254-1] because they believe them inspired by the souls of the +departed. And Father Ignatius Chomé relates that he heard a woman of the +Chiriquanes in Buenos Ayres say of a fox: "May that not be the spirit of +my dead daughter?"[254-2] But before accepting such testimony as +decisive, we must first inquire whether these tribes believed in a +multiplicity of souls, whether these animals had a symbolical value, and +if not, whether the soul was not simply presumed to put on this shape in +its journey to the land of the hereafter: inquiries which are +unanswered. Leaving, therefore, the question open, whether the sage of +Samos had any disciples in the new world, another and more fruitful +topic is presented by their well-ascertained notions of the resurrection +of the dead. + +This seemingly extraordinary doctrine, which some have asserted was +entirely unknown and impossible to the American Indians,[254-3] was in +fact one of their most deeply-rooted and wide-spread convictions, +especially among the tribes of the eastern United States. It is +indissolubly connected with their highest theories of a future life, +their burial ceremonies, and their modes of expression. The Moravian +Brethren give the grounds of this belief with great clearness: "That +they hold the soul to be immortal, and perhaps think the body will rise +again, they give not unclearly to understand when they say, 'We Indians +shall not for ever die; even the grains of corn we put under the earth, +grow up and become living things.' They conceive that when the soul has +been a while with God, it can, if it chooses, return to earth and be +born again."[255-1] This is the highest and typical creed of the +aborigines. But instead of simply being born again in the ordinary sense +of the word, they thought the soul would return to the bones, that these +would clothe themselves with flesh, and that the man would rejoin his +tribe. That this was the real, though often doubtless the dimly +understood reason of the custom of preserving the bones of the deceased, +can be shown by various arguments. + +This practice was almost universal. East of the Mississippi nearly every +nation was accustomed, at stated periods--usually once in eight or ten +years--to collect and clean the osseous remains of those of its number +who had died in the intervening time, and inter them in one common +sepulchre, lined with choice furs, and marked with a mound of wood, +stone, and earth. Such is the origin of those immense tumuli filled with +the mortal remains of nations and generations which the antiquary, with +irreverent curiosity, so frequently chances upon in all portions of our +territory. Throughout Central America the same usage obtained in various +localities, as early writers and existing monuments abundantly testify. +Instead of interring the bones, were they those of some distinguished +chieftain, they were deposited in the temples or the council-houses, +usually in small chests of canes or splints. Such were the +charnel-houses which the historians of De Soto's expedition so often +mention, and these are the "arks" which Adair and other authors, who +have sought to trace the descent of the Indians from the Jews, have +likened to that which the ancient Israelites bore with them on their +migrations. A widow among the Tahkalis was obliged to carry the bones of +her deceased husband wherever she went for four years, preserving them +in such a casket handsomely decorated with feathers.[256-1] The Caribs +of the mainland adopted the custom for all without exception. About a +year after death the bones were cleaned, bleached, painted, wrapped in +odorous balsams, placed in a wicker basket, and kept suspended from the +door of their dwellings.[256-2] When the quantity of these heirlooms +became burdensome, they were removed to some inaccessible cavern, and +stowed away with reverential care. Such was the cave Ataruipe, a visit +to which has been so eloquently described by Alexander von Humboldt in +his "Views of Nature." + +So great was the filial respect for these remains by the Indians, that +on the Mississippi, in Peru, and elsewhere, no tyranny, no cruelty, so +embittered the indigenes against the white explorers as the sacrilegious +search for treasures perpetrated among the sepulchres of past +generations. Unable to understand the meaning of such deep feeling, so +foreign to the European who, without a second thought, turns a cemetery +into a public square, or seeds it down in wheat, the Jesuit missionaries +in Paraguay accuse the natives of worshipping the skeletons of their +forefathers,[257-1] and the English in Virginia repeated it of the +Powhatans. + +The question has been debated and variously answered, whether the art of +mummification was known and practised in America. Without entering into +the discussion, it is certain that preservation of the corpse by a long +and thorough process of exsiccation over a slow fire was nothing +unusual, not only in Peru, Popoyan, the Carib countries, and Nicaragua, +but among many of the tribes north of the Gulf of Mexico, as I have +elsewhere shown.[257-2] The object was essentially the same as when the +bones alone were preserved; and in the case of rulers, the same homage +was often paid to their corpses as had been the just due of their living +bodies. + +The opinion underlying all these customs was, that a part of the soul, +or one of the souls, dwelt in the bones; that these were the seeds +which, planted in the earth, or preserved unbroken in safe places, +would, in time, put on once again a garb of flesh, and germinate into +living human beings. Language illustrates this not unusual theory. The +Iroquois word for bone is _esken_--for soul, _atisken_, literally that +which is within the bone.[257-3] In an Athapascan dialect bone is +_yani_, soul _i-yune_.[257-4] The Hebrew Rabbis taught that in the bone +_lutz_, the coccyx, remained at death the germ of a second life, which, +at the proper time, would develop into the purified body, as the plant +from the seed. + +But mythology and supersitions[TN-15] add more decisive testimony. One of +the Aztec legends of the origin of man was, that after one of the +destructions of the world the gods took counsel together how to renew +the species. It was decided that one of their number, Xolotl, should +descend to Mictlan, the realm of the dead, and bring thence a bone of +the perished race. The fragments of this they sprinkled with blood, and +on the fourth day it grew into a youth, the father of the present +race.[258-1] The profound mystical significance of this legend is +reflected in one told by the Quichés, in which the hero gods Hunahpu and +Xblanque succumb to the rulers of Xibalba, the darksome powers of death. +Their bodies are burned, but their bones are ground in a mill and thrown +in the waters, lest they should come to life. Even this precaution is +insufficient--"for these ashes did not go far; they sank to the bottom +of the stream, where, in the twinkling of an eye, they were changed into +handsome youths, and their very same features appeared anew. On the +fifth day they displayed themselves anew, and were seen in the water by +the people,"[258-2] whence they emerged to overcome and destroy the +powers of death and hell (Xibalba). + +The strongest analogies to these myths are offered by the superstitious +rites of distant tribes. Some of the Tupis of Brazil were wont on the +death of a relative to dry and pulverize his bones and then mix them +with their food, a nauseous practice they defended by asserting that the +soul of the dead remained in the bones and lived again in the +living.[259-1] Even the lower animals were supposed to follow the same +law. Hardly any of the hunting tribes, before their original manners +were vitiated by foreign influence, permitted the bones of game slain in +the chase to be broken, or left carelessly about the encampment. They +were collected in heaps, or thrown into the water. Mrs. Eastman observes +that even yet the Dakotas deem it an omen of ill luck in the hunt, if +the dogs gnaw the bones or a woman inadvertently steps over them; and +the Chipeway interpreter, John Tanner, speaks of the same fear among +that tribe. The Yurucares of Bolivia carried it to such an inconvenient +extent, that they carefully put by even small fish bones, saying that +unless this was done the fish and game would disappear from the +country.[259-2] The traveller on our western prairies often notices the +buffalo skulls, countless numbers of which bleach on those vast plains, +arranged in circles and symmetrical piles by the careful hands of the +native hunters. The explanation they offer for this custom gives the key +to the whole theory and practice of preserving the osseous relics of the +dead, as well human as brute. They say that, "the bones contain the +spirits of the slain animals, and that some time in the future they will +rise from the earth, re-clothe themselves with flesh, and stock the +prairies anew."[259-3] This explanation, which comes to us from +indisputable authority, sets forth in its true light the belief of the +red race in a resurrection. It is not possible to trace it out in the +subtleties with which theologians have surrounded it as a dogma. The +very attempt would be absurd. They never occurred to the Indian. He +thought that the soul now enjoying the delights of the happy hunting +grounds would some time return to the bones, take on flesh, and live +again. Such is precisely the much discussed statement that Garcilasso de +la Vega says he often heard from the native Peruvians. He adds that so +careful were they lest any of the body should be lost that they +preserved even the parings of their nails and clippings of the +hair.[260-1] In contradiction to this the writer Acosta has been quoted, +who says that the Peruvians embalmed their dead because they "had no +knowledge that the bodies should rise with the soul."[260-2] But, +rightly understood, this is a confirmation of La Vega's account. Acosta +means that the Christian doctrine of the body rising from the dust being +unknown to the Peruvians (which is perfectly true), they preserved the +body just as it was, so that the soul when it returned to earth, as all +expected, might not be at a loss for a house of flesh. + +The notions thus entertained by the red race on the resurrection are +peculiar to it, and stand apart from those of any other. They did not +look for the second life to be either better or worse than the present +one; they regarded it neither as a reward nor a punishment to be sent +back to the world of the living; nor is there satisfactory evidence that +it was ever distinctly connected with a moral or physical theory of the +destiny of the universe, or even with their prevalent expectation of +recurrent epochs in the course of nature. It is true that a writer whose +personal veracity is above all doubt, Mr. Adam Hodgson, relates an +ancient tradition of the Choctaws, to the effect that the present world +will be consumed by a general conflagration, after which it will be +reformed pleasanter than it now is, and that then the spirits of the +dead will return to the bones in the bone mounds, flesh will knit +together their loose joints, and they shall again inhabit their ancient +territory.[261-1] + +There was also a similar belief among the Eskimos. They said that in the +course of time the waters would overwhelm the land, purify it of the +blood of the dead, melt the icebergs, and wash away the steep rocks. A +wind would then drive off the waters, and the new land would be peopled +by reindeers and young seals. Then would He above blow once on the bones +of the men and twice on those of the women, whereupon they would at once +start into life, and lead thereafter a joyous existence.[261-2] + +But though there is nothing in these narratives alien to the course of +thought in the native mind, yet as the date of the first is recent +(1820), as they are not supported (so far as I know) by similar +traditions elsewhere, and as they may have arisen from Christian +doctrines of a millennium, I leave them for future investigation. + +What strikes us the most in this analysis of the opinions entertained by +the red race on a future life is the clear and positive hope of a +hereafter, in such strong contrast to the feeble and vague notions of +the ancient Israelites, Greeks, and Romans, and yet the entire inertness +of this hope in leading them to a purer moral life. It offers another +proof that the fulfilment of duty is in its nature nowise connected with +or derived from a consideration of ultimate personal consequences. It is +another evidence that the religious is wholly distinct from the moral +sentiment, and that the origin of ethics is not to be sought in +connection with the ideas of divinity and responsibility. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[233-1] _Journal Historique_, p. 351: Paris, 1740. + +[234-1] _Rep. of the Commissioner of Ind. Affairs_, 1854, pp. 211, 212. +The old woman is once more a personification of the water and the moon. + +[234-2] Bægert, _Acc. of the Aborig. Tribes of the Californian +Peninsula_, translated by Chas. Rau, in Ann. Rep. Smithson. Inst., 1866, +p. 387. + +[235-1] Of the Nicaraguans Oviedo says: "Ce n'est pas leur cœur qui va +en haut, mais ce qui les faisait vivre; c'est-à-dire, le souffle qui leur +sort par la bouche, et que l'on nomme _Julio_" (_Hist. du Nicaragua_, p. +36). The word should be _yulia_, kindred with _yoli_, to live. +(Buschmann, _Uber die Aztekischen Ortsnamen_, p. 765.) In the Aztec and +cognate languages we have already seen that _ehecatl_ means both _wind_, +_soul_, and _shadow_ (Buschmann, _Spuren der Aztek. Spr. in Nördlichen +Mexico_, p. 74). + +[236-1] _Rel. de la Nouv. France_, An 1636, p. 104; "Keating's +_Narrative_," i. pp. 232, 410. + +[237-1] French, _Hist. Colls. of Louisiana_, iii. p. 26. + +[237-2] Mrs. Eastman, _Legends of the Sioux_, p. 129. + +[237-3] _Voy. à la Louisiane fait en 1720_, p. 155: Paris, 1768. + +[239-1] Dupratz, _Hist. of Louisiana_, ii. p. 219; Dumont, _Mems. Hist. +sur la Louisiane_, i. chap. 26. + +[240-1] _Rel. de la Prov. de Cueba_, p. 140. + +[240-2] Coreal, _Voiages aux Indes Occidentales_, ii. p. 94: Amsterdam, +1722. + +[241-1] _Senate Rep. on the Ind. Tribes_, p. 358: Wash. 1867. + +[241-2] Egede, _Nachrichten von Grönland_, p. 145. + +[242-1] Alger, _Hist. of the Doctrine of a Future Life_, p. 76. + +[243-1] Hawkins, _Sketch of the Creek Country_, p. 80. + +[244-1] _Rel. de la Nouv. France_, 1634, pp. 17, 18. + +[244-2] Müller, _Amer. Urreligionen_, p. 229. + +[244-3] La Vega, _Hist. des Incas._, lib. ii. cap. 7. + +[244-4] _Ueber die Ureinwohner von Peru_, p. 41. + +[245-1] Coreal, _Voy. aux Indes Occident._, i. p. 224; Müller, _Amer. +Urrelig._, p. 289. + +[246-1] Oviedo, _Hist. du Nicaragua_, p. 22. + +[246-2] Torquemada, _Monarquia Indiana_, lib. vi. cap. 27. + +[247-1] Sahagun, _Hist. de la Nueva España_, lib. x. cap. 29. + +[248-1] _Rel. de la Nouv. France_, 1636, p. 105. + +[248-2] Molina, _Hist. of Chili_, ii. p. 81, and others in Waitz, +_Anthropologie_, iii. p. 197. + +[249-1] _Nachrichten von Grönland aus dem Tagebuche vom Bischof Paul +Egede_, p. 104: Kopenhagen, 1790. + +[250-1] _Rel. de la Nouv. France_, 1636, p. 105. + +[250-2] Long's _Expedition_, i. p. 280; Waitz, _Anthropologie_, iii. p. +531. + +[250-3] Müller, _Amer. Urreligionen_, p. 287. + +[251-1] Compare Garcilasso de la Vega, _Hist. des Incas._, liv. ii. chap. +ii., with _Lett. sur les Superstitions du Pérou_, p. 104. Çupay is +undoubtedly a personal form from _Çupan_, a shadow. (See Holguin, _Vocab. +de la Lengua Quichua_, p. 80: Cuzco, 1608.) + +[251-2] "El que desparece ô desvanece," _Hist. de Yucathan_, lib. iv. +cap. 7. + +[251-3] Ximenes, _Vocab. Quiché_, p. 224. The attempt of the Abbé +Brasseur to make of Xibalba an ancient kingdom of renown with Palenque as +its capital, is so utterly unsupported and wildly hypothetical, as to +justify the humorous flings which have so often been cast at antiquaries. + +[252-1] Scheol is from a Hebrew word, signifying to dig, to hide in the +earth. Hades signifies the _unseen_ world. Hell Jacob Grimm derives from +_hilan_, to conceal in the earth, and it is cognate with _hole_ and +_hollow_. + +[252-2] Pennock, _Religion of the Northmen_, p. 148. + +[253-1] La Hontan, _Voy. dans l'Am. Sept._, i. p. 232; _Narrative of +Oceola Nikkanoche_, p. 75. + +[253-2] Morse, _Rep. on the Ind. Tribes_, App. p. 345. + +[253-3] Garcia, _Or. de los Indios_, lib. iv. cap. 26, p. 310. + +[254-1] _Voiages aux Indes Oc._, ii. p. 132. + +[254-2] _Lettres Edif. et Cur._, v. p. 203. + +[254-3] Alger, _Hist. of the Doctrine of a Future Life_, p. 72. + +[255-1] Loskiel, _Ges. der Miss. der evang. Brüder_, p. 49. + +[256-1] Richardson, _Arctic Expedition_, p. 260. + +[256-2] Gumilla, _Hist. del Orinoco_, i. pp. 199, 202, 204. + +[257-1] Ruis, _Conquista Espiritual del Paraguay_, p. 48, in Lafitau. + +[257-2] _Notes on the Floridian Peninsula_, pp. 191 sqq. + +[257-3] Bruyas, _Rad. Verborum Iroquæorum_. + +[257-4] Buschmann, _Athapask. Sprachstamm_, pp. 182, 188. + +[258-1] Torquemada, _Monarquia Indiana_, lib. vi. cap. 41. + +[258-2] _Le Livre Sacré des Quichés_, pp. 175-177. + +[259-1] Müller, _Amer. Urrelig._, p. 290, after Spix. + +[259-2] D'Orbigny, _Annuaire des Voyages_, 1845, p. 77. + +[259-3] Long's _Expedition_, i. p. 278. + +[260-1] _Hist. des Incas_, lib. iii. chap. 7. + +[260-2] _Hist. of the New World_, bk. v. chap. 7. + +[261-1] _Travels in North America_, p. 280. + +[261-2] Egede, _Nachrichten von Grönland_, p. 156. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +THE NATIVE PRIESTHOOD. + + Their titles.--Practitioners of the healing art by supernatural + means.--Their power derived from natural magic and the exercise of + the clairvoyant and mesmeric faculties.--Examples.--Epidemic + hysteria.--Their social position.--Their duties as religious + functionaries.--Terms of admission to the Priesthood.--Inner + organization in various nations.--Their esoteric languages and + secret societies. + + +Thus picking painfully amid the ruins of a race gone to wreck centuries +ago, thus rejecting much foreign rubbish and scrutinizing each stone +that lies around, if we still are unable to rebuild the edifice in its +pristine symmetry and beauty, yet we can at least discern and trace the +ground plan and outlines of the fane it raised to God. Before leaving +the field to the richer returns of more fortunate workmen, it will not +be inappropriate to add a sketch of the ministers of these religions, +the servants in this temple. + +Shamans, conjurers, sorcerers, medicine men, wizards, and many another +hard name have been given them, but I shall call them _priests_, for in +their poor way, as well as any other priesthood, they set up to be the +agents of the gods, and the interpreters of divinity. No tribe was so +devoid of religious sentiment as to be without them. Their power was +terrible, and their use of it unscrupulous. Neither men nor gods, death +nor life, the winds nor the waves, were beyond their control. Like Old +Men of the Sea, they have clung to the neck of their nations, throttling +all attempts at progress, binding them to the thraldom of superstition +and profligacy, dragging them down to wretchedness and death. +Christianity and civilization meet in them their most determined, most +implacable foes. But what is this but the story of priestcraft and +intolerance everywhere, which Old Spain can repeat as well as New Spain, +the white race as well as the red? Blind leaders of the blind, dupers +and duped fall into the ditch. + +In their own languages they are variously called; by the Algonkins and +Dakotas, "those knowing divine things" and "dreamers of the gods" +(_manitousiou_, _wakanwacipi_); in Mexico, "masters or guardians of the +divine things" (_teopixqui_, _teotecuhtli_); in Cherokee, their title +means, "possessed of the divine fire" (_atsilung kelawhi_); in Iroquois, +"keepers of the faith" (_honundeunt_); in Quichua, "the learned" +(_amauta_); in Maya, "the listeners" (_cocome_). The popular term in +French and English of "medicine men" is not such a misnomer as might be +supposed. The noble science of medicine is connected with divinity not +only by the rudest savage but the profoundest philosopher, as has been +already adverted to. When sickness is looked upon as the effect of the +anger of a god, or as the malicious infliction of a sorcerer, it is +natural to seek help from those who assume to control the unseen world, +and influence the fiats of the Almighty. The recovery from disease is +the kindliest exhibition of divine power. Therefore the earliest canons +of medicine in India and Egypt are attributed to no less distinguished +authors than the gods Brahma and Thoth;[265-1] therefore the earliest +practitioners of the healing art are universally the ministers of +religion. + +But, however creditable this origin is to medicine, its partnership with +theology was no particular advantage to it. These mystical doctors +shared the contempt still so prevalent among ourselves for a treatment +based on experiment and reason, and regarded the administration of +emetics and purgatives, baths and diuretics, with a contempt quite equal +to that of the disciples of Hahnemann. The practitioners of the rational +school formed a separate class among the Indians, and had nothing to do +with amulets, powwows, or spirits.[265-2] They were of different name +and standing, and though held in less estimation, such valuable +additions to the pharmacopœia as guaiacum, cinchona, and ipecacuanha, +were learned from them. The priesthood scorned such ignoble means. Were +they summoned to a patient, they drowned his groans in a barbarous +clangor of instruments in order to fright away the demon that possessed +him; they sucked and blew upon the diseased organ, they sprinkled him +with water, and catching it again threw it on the ground, thus drowning +out the disease; they rubbed the part with their hands, and exhibiting a +bone or splinter asserted that they drew it from the body, and that it +had been the cause of the malady, they manufactured a little image to +represent the spirit of sickness, and spitefully knocked it to pieces, +thus vicariously destroying its prototype; they sang doleful and +monotonous chants at the top of their voices, screwed their +countenances into hideous grimaces, twisted their bodies into unheard of +contortions, and by all accounts did their utmost to merit the +honorarium they demanded for their services. A double motive spurred +them to spare no pains. For if they failed, not only was their +reputation gone, but the next expert called in was likely enough to +hint, with that urbanity so traditional in the profession, that the +illness was in fact caused or much increased by the antagonistic nature +of the remedies previously employed, whereupon the chances were that the +doctor's life fell into greater jeopardy than that of his quondam +patient. + +Considering the probable result of this treatment, we may be allowed to +doubt whether it redounded on the whole very much to the honor of the +fraternity. Their strong points are rather to be looked for in the real +knowledge gained by a solitary and reflective life, by an earnest study +of the appearances of nature, and of those hints and forest signs which +are wholly lost on the white man and beyond the ordinary insight of a +native. Travellers often tell of changes of the weather predicted by +them with astonishing foresight, and of information of singular accuracy +and extent gleaned from most meagre materials. There is nothing in this +to shock our sense of probability--much to elevate our opinion of the +native sagacity. They were also adepts in tricks of sleight of hand, and +had no mean acquaintance with what is called natural magic. They would +allow themselves to be tied hand and foot with knots innumerable, and at +a sign would shake them loose as so many wisps of straw; they would spit +fire and swallow hot coals, pick glowing stones from the flames, walk +naked through a fire, and plunge their arms to the shoulder in kettles +of boiling water with apparent impunity.[267-1] Nor was this all. With a +skill not inferior to that of the jugglers of India, they could plunge +knives into vital parts, vomit blood, or kill one another out and out to +all appearances, and yet in a few minutes be as well as ever; they could +set fire to articles of clothing and even houses, and by a touch of +their magic restore them instantly as perfect as before.[267-2] If it +were not within our power to see most of these miracles performed any +night in one of our great cities by a well dressed professional, we +would at once deny their possibility. As it is, they astonish us only +too little. + +One of the most peculiar and characteristic exhibitions of their power, +was to summon a spirit to answer inquiries concerning the future and the +absent. A great similarity marked this proceeding in all northern tribes +from the Eskimos to the Mexicans. A circular or conical lodge of stout +poles four or eight in number planted firmly in the ground, was covered +with skins or mats, a small aperture only being left for the seer to +enter. Once in, he carefully closed the hole and commenced his +incantations. Soon the lodge trembles, the strong poles shake and bend +as with the united strength of a dozen men, and strange, unearthly +sounds, now far aloft in the air, now deep in the ground, anon +approaching near and nearer, reach the ears of the spectators. At length +the priest announces that the spirit is present, and is prepared to +answer questions. An indispensable preliminary to any inquiry is to +insert a handful of tobacco, or a string of beads, or some such douceur +under the skins, ostensibly for the behoof of the celestial visitor, who +would seem not to be above earthly wants and vanities. 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. 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. + +But there is something more than these vulgar arts now and then to be +perceived. There are statements supported by unquestionable testimony, +which ought not to be passed over in silence, and yet I cannot but +approach them with hesitation. They are so revolting to the laws of +exact science, so alien, I had almost said, to the experience of our +lives. Yet is this true, or are such experiences only ignored and put +aside without serious consideration? Are there not in the history of +each of us passages which strike our retrospective thought with awe, +almost with terror? Are there not in nearly every community individuals +who possess a mysterious power, concerning whose origin, mode of action, +and limits, we and they are alike in the dark? I refer to such organic +forces as are popularly summed up under the words clairvoyance, +mesmerism, rhabdomancy, animal magnetism, physical spiritualism. +Civilized thousands stake their faith and hope here and hereafter, on +the truths of these manifestations; rational medicine recognizes their +existence, and while it attributes them to morbid and exceptional +influences, confesses its want of more exact knowledge, and refrains +from barren theorizing. Let us follow her example, and hold it enough to +show that such powers, whatever they are, were known to the native +priesthood as well as the modern spiritualists, and the miracle mongers +of the Middle Ages. + +Their highest development is what our ancestors called "second sight." +That under certain conditions knowledge can pass from one mind to +another otherwise than through the ordinary channels of the senses, is +familiarly shown by the examples of persons _en rapport_. The limit to +this we do not know, but it is not unlikely that clairvoyance or second +sight is based upon it. In his autobiography, the celebrated Sac chief +Black Hawk, relates that his great grandfather "was inspired by a belief +that at the end of four years, he should see a white man, who would be +to him a father." Under the direction of this vision he travelled +eastward to a certain spot, and there, as he was forewarned, met a +Frenchman, through whom the nation was brought into alliance with +France.[269-1] No one at all versed in the Indian character will doubt +the implicit faith with which this legend was told and heard. But we may +be pardoned our scepticism, seeing there are so many chances of error. +It is not so with an anecdote related by Captain Jonathan Carver, a +cool-headed English trader, whose little book of travels is an +unquestioned authority. In 1767, he was among the Killistenoes at a time +when they were in great straits for food, and depending upon the arrival +of the traders to rescue them from starvation. They persuaded the chief +priest to consult the divinities as to when the relief would arrive. +After the usual preliminaries, this magnate announced that next day, +precisely when the sun reached the zenith, a canoe would arrive with +further tidings. At the appointed hour the whole village, together with +the incredulous Englishman, was on the beach, and sure enough, at the +minute specified, a canoe swung round a distant point of land, and +rapidly approaching the shore brought the expected news.[270-1] + +Charlevoix is nearly as trustworthy a writer as Carver. Yet he +deliberately relates an equally singular instance.[270-2] + +But these examples are surpassed by one described in the _Atlantic +Monthly_ of July, 1866, the author of which, John Mason Brown, Esq., has +assured me of its accuracy in every particular. Some years since, at the +head of a party of voyageurs, he set forth in search of a band of +Indians somewhere on the vast plains along the tributaries of the +Copper-mine and Mackenzie rivers. Danger, disappointment, and the +fatigues of the road, induced one after another to turn back, until of +the original ten only three remained. They also were on the point of +giving up the apparently hopeless quest, when they were met by some +warriors of the very band they were seeking. These had been sent out by +one of their medicine men to find three whites, whose horses, arms, +attire, and personal appearance he minutely described, which description +was repeated to Mr. Brown by the warriors before they saw his two +companions. When afterwards, the priest, a frank and simple-minded man, +was asked to explain this extraordinary occurrence, he could offer no +other explanation than that "he saw them coming, and heard them talk on +their journey."[271-1] + +Many tales such as these have been recorded by travellers, and however +much they may shock our sense of probability, as well-authenticated +exhibitions of a power which sways the Indian mind, and which has ever +prejudiced it so unchangeably against Christianity and civilization, +they cannot be disregarded. Whether they too are but specimens of +refined knavery, whether they are instigations of the Devil, or whether +they must be classed with other facts as illustrating certain obscure +and curious mental faculties, each may decide as the bent of his mind +inclines him, for science makes no decision. + +Those nervous conditions associated with the name of Mesmer were nothing +new to the Indian magicians. Rubbing and stroking the sick, and the +laying on of hands, were very common parts of their clinical procedures, +and at the initiations to their societies they were frequently +exhibited. Observers have related that among the Nez Percés of Oregon, +the novice was put to sleep by songs, incantations, and "certain passes +of the hand," and that with the Dakotas he would be struck lightly on +the breast at a preconcerted moment, and instantly "would drop prostrate +on his face, his muscles rigid and quivering in every fibre."[272-1] + +There is no occasion to suppose deceit in this. It finds its parallel in +every race and every age, and rests on a characteristic trait of certain +epochs and certain men, which leads them to seek the divine, not in +thoughtful contemplation on the laws of the universe and the facts of +self-consciousness, but in an entire immolation of the latter, a sinking +of their own individuality in that of the spirits whose alliance they +seek. This is an outgrowth of that ignoring of the universality of Law, +which belongs to the lower stages of enlightenment.[273-1] And as this +is never done with impunity, but with iron certainty brings its +punishment with it, the study of the mental conditions thus evoked, and +the results which follow them, offers a salutary subject of reflection +to the theologian as well as the physician. For these examples of +nervous pathology are identical in kind, and alike in consequences, +whether witnessed in the primitive forests of the New World, among the +convulsionists of St. Medard, or in the excited scenes of a religious +revival in one of our own churches. + +Sleeplessness and abstemiousness, carried to the utmost verge of human +endurance--seclusion, and the pertinacious fixing of the mind on one +subject--obstinate gloating on some morbid fancy, rarely failed to bring +about hallucinations with all the garb of reality. Physicians are well +aware that the more frequently these diseased conditions of the mind are +sought, the more readily they are found. Then, again, they were often +induced by intoxicating and narcotic herbs. Tobacco, the maguey, coca; +in California the chucuaco; among the Mexicans the snake plant, +ollinhiqui or coaxihuitl; and among the southern tribes of our own +country the cassine yupon and iris versicolor,[273-2] were used; and, it +is even said, were cultivated for this purpose. The seer must work +himself up to a prophetic fury, or speechless lie in apparent death +before the mind of the gods would be opened to him. Trance and ecstasy +were the two avenues he knew to divinity; fasting and seclusion the +means employed to discover them. His ideal was of a prophet who dwelt +far from men, without need of food, in constant communion with divinity. +Such an one, in the legends of the Tupis, resided on a mountain +glittering with gold and silver, near the river Uaupe, his only +companion a dog, his only occupation dreaming of the gods. When, +however, an eclipse was near, his dog would bark; and then, taking the +form of a bird, he would fly over the villages, and learn the changes +that had taken place.[274-1] + +But man cannot trample with impunity on the laws of his physical life, +and the consequences of these deprivations and morbid excitements of the +brain show themselves in terrible pictures. Not unfrequently they were +carried to the pitch of raving mania, reminding one of the worst forms +of the Berserker fury of the Scandinavians, or the Bacchic rage of +Greece. The enthusiast, maddened with the fancies of a disordered +intellect, would start forth from his seclusion in an access of demoniac +frenzy. Then woe to the dog, the child, the slave, or the woman who +crossed his path; for nothing but blood could satisfy his inappeasable +craving, and they fell instant victims to his madness. But were it a +strong man, he bared his arm, and let the frenzied hermit bury his teeth +in the quivering flesh. Such is a scene at this day not uncommon on the +northwest coast, and few of the natives around Milbank Sound are without +the scars the result of this horrid custom.[275-1] + +This frenzy, terrible enough in individuals, had its most disastrous +effects when with that peculiar facility of contagion which marks +hysterical maladies, it swept through whole villages, transforming them +into bedlams filled with unrestrained madmen. Those who have studied the +strange and terrible mental epidemics that visited Europe in the middle +ages, such as the tarantula dance of Apulia, the chorea Germanorum, and +the great St. Vitus' dance, will be prepared to appreciate the nature of +a scene at a Huron village, described by Father le Jeune in 1639. A +festival of three days and three nights had been in progress to relieve +a woman who, from the description, seems to have been suffering from +some obscure nervous complaint. Toward the close of this vigil, which +throughout was marked by all sorts of debaucheries and excesses, all the +participants seemed suddenly seized by ten thousand devils. They ran +howling and shrieking through the town, breaking everything destructible +in the cabins, killing dogs, beating the women and children, tearing +their garments, and scattering the fires in every direction with bare +hands and feet. Some of them dropped senseless, to remain long or +permanently insane, but the others continued until worn out with +exhaustion. The Father learned that during these orgies not unfrequently +whole villages were consumed, and the total extirpation of some families +had resulted. No wonder that he saw in them the diabolical workings of +the prince of evil, but the physician is rather inclined to class them +with those cases of epidemic hysteria, the common products of violent +and ill-directed mental stimuli.[276-1] + +These various considerations prove beyond a doubt that the power of the +priesthood did by no means rest exclusively on deception. They indorse +and explain the assertions of converted natives, that their power as +prophets was something real, and entirely inexplicable to themselves. +And they make it easily understood how those missionaries failed who +attempted to persuade them that all this boasted power was false. More +correct views than these ought to have been suggested by the facts +themselves, for it is indisputable that these magicians did not +hesitate at times to test their strength on each other. In these strange +duels _à l'outrance_, one would be seated opposite his antagonist, +surrounded with the mysterious emblems of his craft, and call upon his +gods one after another to strike his enemy dead. Sometimes one, +"gathering his medicine," as it was termed, feeling within himself that +hidden force of will which makes itself acknowledged even without words, +would rise in his might, and in a loud and severe voice command his +opponent to die! Straightway the latter would drop dead, or yielding in +craven fear to a superior volition, forsake the implements of his art, +and with an awful terror at his heart, creep to his lodge, refuse all +nourishment, and presently perish. Still more terrible was the tyranny +they exerted on the superstitious minds of the masses. Let an Indian +once be possessed of the idea that he is bewitched, and he will probably +reject all food, and sink under the phantoms of his own fancy. + +How deep the superstitious veneration of these men has struck its roots +in the soul of the Indian, it is difficult for civilized minds to +conceive. Their power is currently supposed to be without any bounds, +"extending to the raising of the dead and the control of all laws of +nature."[277-1] The grave offers no escape from their omnipotent arms. +The Sacs and Foxes, Algonkin tribes, think that the soul cannot leave +the corpse until set free by the medicine men at their great annual +feast;[277-2] and the Puelches of Buenos Ayres guard a profound silence +as they pass by the tomb of some redoubted necromancer, lest they should +disturb his repose, and suffer from his malignant skill.[278-1] + +While thus investigating their real and supposed power over the physical +and mental world, their strictly priestly functions, as performers of +the rites of religion, have not been touched upon. Among the ruder +tribes these, indeed, were of the most rudimentary character. +Sacrifices, chiefly in the form of feasts, where every one crammed to +his utmost, dances, often winding up with the wildest scenes of +licentiousness, the repetition of long and monotonous chants, the making +of the new fire, these are the ceremonies that satisfy the religious +wants of savages. The priest finds a further sphere for his activity in +manufacturing and consecrating amulets to keep off ill luck, in +interpreting dreams, and especially in lifting the veil of the future. +In Peru, for example, they were divided into classes, who made the +various means of divination specialties. Some caused the idols to speak, +others derived their foreknowledge from words spoken by the dead, others +predicted by leaves of tobacco or the grains and juice of cocoa, while +to still other classes, the shapes of grains of maize taken at random, +the appearance of animal excrement, the forms assumed by the smoke +rising from burning victims, the entrails and viscera of animals, the +course taken by a certain species of spider, the visions seen in +drunkeness,[TN-16] the flights of birds, and the directions in which +fruits would fall, all offered so many separate fields of +prognostication, the professors of which were distinguished by different +ranks and titles.[279-1] + +As the intellectual force of the nation was chiefly centred in this +class, they became the acknowledged depositaries of its sacred legends, +the instructors in the art of preserving thought; and from their duty to +regulate festivals, sprang the observation of the motions of the +heavenly bodies, the adjustment of the calendars, and the pseudo-science +of judicial astrology. The latter was carried to as subtle a pitch of +refinement in Mexico as in the old world; and large portions of the +ancient writers are taken up with explaining the method adopted by the +native astrologers to cast the horoscope, and reckon the nativity of the +newly-born infant. + +How was this superior power obtained? What were the terms of admission +to this privileged class? In the ruder communities the power was +strictly personal. It was revealed to its possessor by the character of +the visions he perceived at the ordeal he passed through on arriving at +puberty; and by the northern nations was said to be the manifestation of +a more potent personal spirit than ordinary. It was not a faculty, but +an inspiration; not an inborn strength, but a spiritual gift. The +curious theory of the Dakotas, as recorded by the Rev. Mr. Pond, was +that the necromant first wakes to consciousness as a winged seed, wafted +hither and thither by the intelligent action of the Four Winds. In this +form he visits the homes of the different classes of divinities, and +learns the chants, feasts, and dances, which it is proper for the human +race to observe, the art of omnipresence or clairvoyance, the means of +inflicting and healing diseases, and the occult secrets of nature, man, +and divinity. This is called "dreaming of the gods." When this +instruction is completed, the seed enters one about to become a mother, +assumes human form, and in due time manifests his powers. _Four_ such +incarnations await it, each of increasing might, and then the spirit +returns to its original nothingness. The same necessity of death and +resurrection was entertained by the Eskimos. To become of the highest +order of priests, it was supposed requisite, says Bishop Egede, that one +of the lower order should be drowned and eaten by sea monsters. Then, +when his bones, one after another, were all washed ashore, his spirit, +which meanwhile had been learning the secrets of the invisible world, +would return to them, and, clothed in flesh, he would go back to his +tribe. At other times a vague and indescribable longing seizes a young +person, a morbid appetite possesses them, or they fall a prey to an +inappeasable and aimless restlessness, or a causeless melancholy. These +signs the old priests recognize as the expression of a personal spirit +of the higher order. They take charge of the youth, and educate him to +the mysteries of their craft. For months or years he is condemned to +entire seclusion, receiving no visits but from the brethren of his +order. At length he is initiated with ceremonies of more or less pomp +into the brotherhood, and from that time assumes that gravity of +demeanor, sententious style of expression, and general air of mystery +and importance, everywhere deemed so eminently becoming in a doctor and +a priest. A peculiarity of the Moxos was, that they thought none +designated for the office but such as had escaped from the claws of the +South American tiger, which, indeed, it is said they worshipped as a +god.[281-1] + +Occasionally, in very uncultivated tribes, some family or totem claimed +a monopoly of the priesthood. Thus, among the Nez Percès of Oregon, it +was transmitted in one family from father to son and daughter, but +always with the proviso that the children at the proper age reported +dreams of a satisfactory character.[281-2] Perhaps alone of the Algonkin +tribes the Shawnees confined it to one totem, but it is remarkable that +the greatest of their prophets, Elskataway, brother of Tecumseh, was not +a member of this clan. From the most remote times, the Cherokees have +had one family set apart for the priestly office. This was when first +known to the whites that of the Nicotani, but its members, puffed up +with pride and insolence, abused their birthright so shamefully, and +prostituted it so flagrantly to their own advantage, that with savage +justice they were massacred to the last man. Another was appointed in +their place who to this day officiates in all religious rites. They +have, however, the superstition, possibly borrowed from Europeans, that +the _seventh_ son is a natural born prophet, with the gift of healing by +touch.[281-3] Adair states that their former neighbors, the Choctaws, +permitted the office of high priest, or Great Beloved Man, to remain in +one family, passing from father to eldest son, and the very influential +_piaches_ of the Carib tribes very generally transmitted their rank and +position to their children. + +In ancient Anahuac the prelacy was as systematic and its rules as well +defined, as in the Church of Rome. Except those in the service of +Huitzilopochtli, and perhaps a few other gods, none obtained the +priestly office by right of descent, but were dedicated to it from early +childhood. Their education was completed at the _Calmecac_, a sort of +ecclesiastical college, where instruction was given in all the wisdom of +the ancients, and the esoteric lore of their craft. The art of mixing +colors and tracing designs, the ideographic writing and phonetic +hieroglyphs, the songs and prayers used in public worship, the national +traditions and the principles of astrology, the hidden meaning of +symbols and the use of musical instruments, all formed parts of the +really extensive course of instruction they there received. When they +manifested a satisfactory acquaintance with this curriculum, they were +appointed by their superiors to such positions as their natural talents +and the use they had made of them qualified them for, some to instruct +children, others to the service of the temples, and others again to take +charge of what we may call country parishes. Implicit subordination of +all to the high priest of Huitzilopochtli, hereditary _pontifex +maximus_, chastity, or at least temperate indulgence in pleasure, +gravity of carriage, and strict attention to duty, were laws laid upon +all. + +The state religion of Peru was conducted under the supervision of a +high priest of the Inca family, and its ministers, as in Mexico, could +be of either sex, and hold office either by inheritance, education, or +election. For political reasons, the most important posts were usually +enjoyed by relatives of the ruler, but this was usage, not law. It is +stated by Garcilasso de la Vega[283-1] that they served in the temples +by turns, each being on duty the fourth of a lunar month at a time. Were +this substantiated it would offer the only example of the regulation of +public life by a week of seven days to be found in the New World. + +In every country there is perceptible a desire in this class of men to +surround themselves with mystery, and to concentrate and increase their +power by forming an intimate alliance among themselves. They affected +singularity in dress and a professional costume. Bartram describes the +junior priests of the Creeks as dressed in white robes and carrying on +their head or arm "a great owlskin, stuffed very ingeniously, as an +insignia of wisdom and divination. These bachelors are also +distinguishable from the other people by their taciturnity, grave and +solemn countenance, dignified step, and singing to themselves songs or +hymns, in a low sweet voice, as they stroll about the towns."[283-2] The +priests of the civilized nations adopted various modes of dress to +typify the divinity which they served, and their appearance was often in +the highest degree unprepossessing. + +To add to their self-importance they pretended to converse in a tongue +different from that used in ordinary life, and the chants containing +the prayers and legends were often in this esoteric dialect. Fragments +of one or two of these have floated down to us from the Aztec +priesthood. The travellers Balboa and Coreal, mention that the temple +services of Peru were conducted in a language not understood by the +masses,[284-1] and the incantations of the priests of Powhatan were not +in ordinary Algonkin, but some obscure jargon.[284-2] The same +peculiarity has been observed among the Dakotas and Eskimos, and in +these nations, fortunately, it fell under the notice of competent +linguistic scholars, who have submitted it to a searching examination. +The results of their labors prove that certainly in these two instances +the supposed foreign tongues were nothing more than the ordinary +dialects of the country modified by an affected accentuation, by the +introduction of a few cabalistic terms, and by the use of descriptive +circumlocutions and figurative words in place of ordinary expressions, a +slang, in short, such as rascals and pedants invariably coin whenever +they associate.[285-1] + +All these stratagems were intended to shroud with impenetrable secrecy +the mysteries of the brotherhood. With the same motive, the priests +formed societies of different grades of illumination, only to be entered +by those willing to undergo trying ordeals, whose secrets were not to be +revealed under the severest penalties. The Algonkins had three such +grades, the _waubeno_, the _meda_, and the _jossakeed_, the last being +the highest. To this no white man was ever admitted. All tribes appear +to have been controlled by these secret societies. Alexander von +Humboldt mentions one, called that of the Botuto or Holy Trumpet, among +the Indians of the Orinoko, whose members must vow celibacy and submit +to severe scourgings and fasts. The Collahuayas of Peru were a guild of +itinerant quacks and magicians, who never remained permanently in one +spot. + +Withal, there was no class of persons who so widely and deeply +influenced the culture and shaped the destiny of the Indian tribes, as +their priests. In attempting to gain a true conception of the race's +capacities and history, there is no one element of their social life +which demands closer attention than the power of these teachers. +Hitherto, they have been spoken of with a contempt which I hope this +chapter shows is unjustifiable. However much we may deplore the use they +made of their skill, we must estimate it fairly, and grant it its due +weight in measuring the influence of the religious sentiment on the +history of man. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[265-1] Haeser, _Geschichte der Medicin_, pp. 4, 7: Jena, 1845. + +[265-2] Schoolcraft, _Ind. Tribes_, v. p. 440. + +[267-1] Carver, _Travels in North America_, p. 73: Boston, 1802; +_Narrative of John Tanner_, p. 135. + +[267-2] Sahagun, _Hist. de la Nueva España_, lib. x. cap. 20; _Le Livre +Sacré des Quichés_, p. 177; _Lett. sur les Superstit. du Pérou_, pp. 89, +91. + +[269-1] _Life of Black Hawk_, p. 13. + +[270-1] _Travs. in North America_, p. 74. + +[270-2] _Journal Historique_, p. 362. + +[271-1] Sometimes facts like this can be explained by the quickness of +perception acquired by constant exposure to danger. The mind takes +cognizance unconsciously of trifling incidents, the sum of which leads it +to a conviction which the individual regards almost as an inspiration. +This is the explanation of _presentiments_. But this does not apply to +cases like that of Swedenborg, who described a conflagration going on at +Stockholm, when he was at Gottenberg, three hundred miles away. +Psychologists who scorn any method of studying the mind but through +physiology, are at a loss in such cases, and take refuge in refusing them +credence. Theologians call them inspirations either of devils or angels, +as they happen to agree or disagree in religious views with the person +experiencing them. True science reserves its opinion until further +observation enlightens it. + +[272-1] Schoolcraft, _Indian Tribes_, iii. p. 287; v. p. 652. + +[273-1] "The progress from deepest ignorance to highest enlightenment," +remarks Herbert Spencer in his _Social Statics_, "is a progress from +entire unconsciousness of law, to the conviction that law is universal +and inevitable." + +[273-2] The Creeks had, according to Hawkins, not less than seven sacred +plants; chief of them were the cassine yupon, called by botanists _Ilex +vomitoria_, or _Ilex cassina_, of the natural order Aquifoliaceæ; and the +blue flag, _Iris versicolor_, natural order Iridaceæ. The former is a +powerful diuretic and mild emetic, and grows only near the sea. The +latter is an active emeto-cathartic, and is abundant on swampy grounds +throughout the Southern States. From it was formed the celebrated "black +drink," with which they opened their councils, and which served them in +place of spirits. + +[274-1] Martius, _Von dem Rechtzustande unter den Ureinwohnern +Brasiliens_, p. 32. + +[275-1] Mr. Anderson, in the _Am. Hist. Mag._, vii. p. 79. + +[276-1] Such spectacles were nothing uncommon. They are frequently +mentioned in the Jesuit Relations, and they were the chief obstacles to +missionary labor. In the debauches and excesses that excited these +temporary manias, in the recklessness of life and property they fostered, +and in their disastrous effects on mind and body, are depicted more than +in any other one trait the thorough depravity of the race and its +tendency to ruin. In the quaint words of one of the Catholic fathers, "If +the old proverb is true that every man has a grain of madness in his +composition, it must be confessed that this is a people where each has at +least half an ounce" (De Quen, _Rel. de la Nouv. France_, 1656, p. 27). +For the instance in the text see _Rel. de la Nouv. France_, An 1639, pp. +88-94. + +[277-1] Schoolcraft, _Indian Tribes_, v. p. 423. + +[277-2] J. M. Stanley, in the _Smithsonian Miscellaneous Contributions_, +ii. p. 38. + +[278-1] D'Orbigny, _L'Homme Américain_, ii. p. 81. + +[279-1] See Balboa, _Hist. du Pérou_, pp. 28-30. + +[281-1] D'Orbigny, _L'Homme Américain_, ii. p. 235. + +[281-2] Schoolcraft, _Ind. Tribes_, v. p. 652. + +[281-3] Dr. Mac Gowan, in the _Amer. Hist. Mag._, x. p. 139; Whipple, +_Rep. on the Ind. Tribes_, p. 35. + +[283-1] _Hist. des Incas_, lib. iii. ch. 22. + +[283-2] _Travels in the Carolinas_, p. 504. + +[284-1] _Hist. du Pérou_, p. 128; _Voiages aux Indes Occidentales_, ii. +p. 97. + +[284-2] Beverly, _Hist. de la Virginie_, p. 266. The dialect he specifies +is "celle d'Occaniches," and on page 252 he says, "On dit que la langue +universelle des Indiens de ces Quartiers est celle des _Occaniches_, +quoiqu'ils ne soient qu'une petite Nation, depuis que les Anglois +connoissent ce Pais; mais je ne sais pas la difference qui'l y a entre +cette langue et celle des Algonkins." (French trans., Orleans, 1707.) +This is undoubtedly the same people that Johannes Lederer, a German +traveller, visited in 1670, and calls _Akenatzi_. They dwelt on an +island, in a branch of the Chowan River, the Sapona, or Deep River +(Lederer's _Discovery of North America_, in Harris, Voyages, p. 20). +Thirty years later the English surveyor, Lawson, found them in the same +spot, and speaks of them as the _Acanechos_ (see _Am. Hist. Mag._, i. p. +163). Their totem was that of the serpent, and their name is not +altogether unlike the Tuscarora name of this animal _usquauhne_. As the +serpent was so widely a sacred animal, this gives Beverly's remarks an +unusual significance. It by no means follows from this name that they +were of Iroquois descent. Lederer travelled with a Tuscarora (Iroquois) +interpreter, who gave them their name in his own tongue. On the contrary, +it is extremely probable that they were an Algonkin totem, which had the +exclusive right to the priesthood. + +[285-1] Riggs, _Gram. and Dict. of the Dakota_, p. ix; Kane, _Second +Grinnell Expedition_, ii. p. 127. Paul Egede gives a number of words and +expressions in the dialect of the sorcerers, _Nachrichten von Grönland_, +p. 122. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +THE INFLUENCE OF THE NATIVE RELIGIONS ON THE MORAL AND SOCIAL LIFE OF +THE RACE. + + Natural religions hitherto considered of Evil rather than of + Good.--Distinctions to be drawn.--Morality not derived from + religion.--The positive side of natural religions in incarnations + of divinity.--Examples.--Prayers as indices of religious + progress.--Religion and social advancement.--Conclusion. + + +Drawing toward the conclusion of my essay, I I am sensible that the vast +field of American mythology remains for most part untouched--that I have +but proved that it is not an absolute wilderness, pathless as the +tropical jungles which now conceal the temples of the race; but that, go +where we will, certain landmarks and guide-posts are visible, revealing +uniformity of design and purpose, and refuting, by their presence, the +oft-repeated charge of entire incoherence and aimlessness. It remains to +examine the subjective power of the native religions, their influence on +those who held them, and the place they deserve in the history of the +race. What are their merits, if merits they have? what their demerits? +Did they purify the life and enlighten the mind, or the contrary? Are +they in short of evil or of good? The problem is complex--its solution +most difficult. The author who of late years has studied most profoundly +the savage races of the globe, expresses the discouraging conviction: +"Their religions have not acted as levers to raise them to +civilization; they have rather worked, and that powerfully, to impede +every step in advance, in the first place by ascribing everything +unintelligible in nature to spiritual agency, and then by making the +fate of man dependent on mysterious and capricious forces, not on his +own skill and foresight."[288-1] + +It would ill accord with the theory of mythology which I have all along +maintained if this verdict were final. But in fact these false doctrines +brought with them their own antidotes, at least to some extent, and +while we give full weight to their evil, let us also acknowledge their +good. By substituting direct divine interference for law, belief for +knowledge, a dogma for a fact, the highest stimulus to mental endeavor +was taken away. Nature, to the heathen, is no harmonious whole swayed by +eternal principles, but a chaos of causeless effects, the meaningless +play of capricious ghosts. He investigates not, because he doubts not. +All events are to him miracles. Therefore his faith knows no bounds, and +those who teach that doubt is sinful must contemplate him with +admiration. The damsels of Nicaragua destined to be thrown into the +seething craters of volcanoes, went to their fate, says Pascual de +Andagoya, "happy as if they were going to be saved,"[288-2] and +doubtless believing so. The subjects of a Central American chieftain, +remarks Oviedo, "look upon it as the crown of favors to be permitted to +die with their cacique, and thus to acquire immortality."[288-3] The +terrible power exerted by the priests rested, as they themselves often +saw, largely on the implicit and literal acceptance of their dicta. + +In some respects the contrast here offered to enlightened nations is not +always in favor of the latter. Borrowing the pointed antithesis of the +poet, the mind is often tempted to exclaim-- + + "This is all + The gain we reap from all the wisdom sown + Through ages: Nothing doubted those first sons + Of Time, while we, the schooled of centuries, + Nothing believe." + +But the complaint is unfounded. Faith is dearly bought at the cost of +knowledge; nor in a better sense has it yet gone from among us. Far more +sublime than any known to the barbarian is the faith of the astronomer, +who spends the nights in marking the seemingly wayward motions of the +stars, or of the anatomist, who studies with unwearied zeal the minute +fibres of the organism, each upheld by the unshaken conviction that from +least to greatest throughout this universe, purpose and order everywhere +prevail. + +Natural religions rarely offer more than this negative opposition to +reason. They are tolerant to a degree. The savage, void of any clear +conception of a supreme deity, sets up no claim that his is the only +true church. If he is conquered in battle, he imagines that it is owing +to the inferiority of his own gods to those of his victor, and he rarely +therefore requires any other reasons to make him a convert. Acting on +this principle, the Incas, when they overcame a strange province, sent +its most venerated idol for a time to the temple of the Sun at Cuzco, +thus proving its inferiority to their own divinity, but took no more +violent steps to propagate their creeds.[290-1] So in the city of Mexico +there was a temple appropriated to the idols of conquered nations in +which they were shut up, both to prove their weakness and prevent them +from doing mischief. A nation, like an individual, was not inclined to +patronize a deity who had manifested his incompetence by allowing his +charge to be gradually worn away by constant disaster. As far as can now +be seen, in matters intellectual, the religions of ancient Mexico and +Peru were far more liberal than that introduced by the Spanish +conquerors, which, claiming the monopoly of truth, sought to enforce its +claim by inquisitions and censorships. + +In this view of the relative powers of deities lay a potent corrective +to the doctrine that the fate of man was dependent on the caprices of +the gods. For no belief was more universal than that which assigned to +each individual a guardian spirit. This invisible monitor was an ever +present help in trouble. He suggested expedients, gave advice and +warning in dreams, protected in danger, and stood ready to foil the +machinations of enemies, divine or human. With unlimited faith in this +protector, attributing to him the devices suggested by his own quick +wits and the fortunate chances of life, the savage escaped the +oppressive thought that he was the slave of demoniac forces, and dared +the dangers of the forest and the war path without anxiety. + +By far the darkest side of such a religion is that which it presents to +morality. The religious sense is by no means the voice of conscience. +The Takahli Indian when sick makes a full and free confession of sins, +but a murder, however unnatural and unprovoked, he does not mention, not +counting it crime.[291-1] Scenes of brutal licentiousness were approved +and sustained throughout the continent as acts of worship; maidenhood +was in many parts freely offered up or claimed by the priests as a +right; in Central America twins were slain for religious motives; human +sacrifice was common throughout the tropics, and was not unusual in +higher latitudes; cannibalism was often enjoined; and in Peru, Florida, +and Central America it was not uncommon for parents to slay their own +children at the behest of a priest.[291-2] The philosophical moralist, +contemplating such spectacles, has thought to recognize in them one +consoling trait. All history, it has been said, shows man living under +an irritated God, and seeking to appease him by sacrifice of blood; the +essence of all religion, it has been added, lies in that of which +sacrifice is the symbol, namely, in the offering up of self, in the +rendering up of our will to the will of God.[291-3] But sacrifice, when +not a token of gratitude, cannot be thus explained. It is not a +rendering up, but a _substitution_ of our will for God's will. A deity +is angered by neglect of his dues; he will revenge, certainly, terribly, +we know not how or when. But as punishment is all he desires, if we +punish ourselves he will be satisfied; and far better is such +self-inflicted torture than a fearful looking for of judgment to come. +Craven fear, not without some dim sense of the implacability of nature's +laws, is at its root. Looking only at this side of religion, the ancient +philosopher averred that the gods existed solely in the apprehensions of +their votaries, and the moderns have asserted that "fear is the father +of religion, love her late-born daughter;"[292-1] that "the first form +of religious belief is nothing else but a horror of the unknown," and +that "no natural religion appears to have been able to develop from a +germ within itself anything whatever of real advantage to +civilization."[292-2] + +Far be it from me to excuse the enormities thus committed under the garb +of religion, or to ignore their disastrous consequences on human +progress. Yet this question is a fair one--If the natural religious +belief has in it no germ of anything better, whence comes the manifest +and undeniable improvement occasionally witnessed--as, for example, +among the Toltecs, the Peruvians, and the Mayas? The reply is, by the +influence of great men, who cultivated within themselves a purer faith, +lived it in their lives, preached it successfully to their fellows, and, +at their death, still survived in the memory of their nation, +unforgotten models of noble qualities.[293-1] Where, in America, is any +record of such men? We are pointed, in answer, to Quetzalcoatl, +Viracocha, Zamna, and their congeners. But these august figures I have +shown to be wholly mythical, creations of the religious fancy, parts and +parcels of the earliest religion itself. The entire theory falls to +nothing, therefore, and we discover a positive side to natural +religions--one that conceals a germ of endless progress, which +vindicates their lofty origin, and proves that He "is not far from every +one of us." + +I have already analyzed these figures under their physical aspect. Let +it be observed in what antithesis they stand to most other mythological +creations. Let it be remembered that they primarily correspond to the +stable, the regular, the cosmical phenomena, that they are always +conceived under human form, not as giants, fairies, or strange beasts; +that they were said at one time to have been visible leaders of their +nations, that they did not suffer death, and that, though absent, they +are ever present, favoring those who remain mindful of their precepts. I +touched but incidentally on their moral aspects. This was likewise in +contrast to the majority of inferior deities. The worship of the latter +was a tribute extorted by fear. The Indian deposits tobacco on the rocks +of a rapid, that the spirit of the swift waters may not swallow his +canoe; in a storm he throws overboard a dog to appease the siren of the +angry waves. He used to tear the hearts from his captives to gain the +favor of the god of war. He provides himself with talismans to bind +hostile deities. He fees[TN-17] the conjurer to exorcise the demon of +disease. He loves none of them, he respects none of them; he only fears +their wayward tempers. They are to him mysterious, invisible, capricious +goblins. But, in his highest divinity, he recognized a Father and a +Preserver, a benign Intelligence, who provided for him the comforts of +life--man, like himself, yet a god--God of All. "Go and do good," was +the parting injunction of his father to Michabo in Algonkin +legend;[294-1] and in their ancient and uncorrupted stories such is ever +his object. "The worship of Tamu," the culture hero of the Guaranis, +says the traveller D'Orbigny, "is one of reverence, not of fear."[294-2] +They were ideals, summing up in themselves the best traits, the most +approved virtues of whole nations, and were adored in a very different +spirit from other divinities. + +None of them has more humane and elevated traits than Quetzalcoatl. He +was represented of majestic stature and dignified demeanor. In his train +came skilled artificers and men of learning. He was chaste and temperate +in life, wise in council, generous of gifts, conquering rather by arts +of peace than of war; delighting in music, flowers, and brilliant +colors, and so averse to human sacrifices that he shut his ears with +both hands when they were even mentioned.[295-1] Such was the ideal man +and supreme god of a people who even a Spanish monk of the sixteenth +century felt constrained to confess were "a good people, attached to +virtue, urbane and simple in social intercourse, shunning lies, skilful +in arts, pious toward their gods."[295-2] Is it likely, is it possible, +that with such a model as this before their minds, they received no +benefit from it? Was not this a lever, and a mighty one, lifting the +race toward civilization and a purer faith? + +Transfer the field of observation to Yucatan, and we find in Zamna, to +New Granada and in Nemqueteba, to Peru and in Viracocha, or his reflex +Manco Capac, the lineaments of Quetzalcoatl--modified, indeed, by +difference of blood and temperament, but each combining in himself all +the qualities most esteemed by their several nations. Were one or all of +these proved to be historical personages, still the fact remains that +the primitive religious sentiment, investing them with the best +attributes of humanity, dwelling on them as its models, worshipping them +as gods, contained a kernel of truth potent to encourage moral +excellence. But if they were mythical, then this truth was of +spontaneous growth, self-developed by the growing distinctness of the +idea of God, a living witness that the religious sense, like every +other faculty, has within itself a power of endless evolution. + +If we inquire the secret of the happier influence of this element in +natural worship, it is all contained in one word--its _humanity_. "The +Ideal of Morality," says the contemplative Novalis, "has no more +dangerous rival than the Ideal of the Greatest Strength, of the most +vigorous life, the Brute Ideal" (_das Thier-Ideal_).[296-1] Culture +advances in proportion as man recognizes what faculties are peculiar to +him _as man_, and devotes himself to their education. The moral value of +religions can be very precisely estimated by the human or the brutal +character of their gods. The worship of Quetzalcoatl in the city of +Mexico was subordinate to that of lower conceptions, and consequently +the more sanguinary and immoral were the rites there practised. The +Algonkins, who knew no other meaning for Michabo than the Great Hare, +had lost, by a false etymology, the best part of their religion. + +Looking around for other standards wherewith to measure the progress of +the knowledge of divinity in the New World, _prayer_ suggests itself as +one of the least deceptive. "Prayer," to quote again the words of +Novalis,[296-2] "is in religion what thought is in philosophy. The +religious sense prays, as the reason thinks." Guizot, carrying the +analysis farther, thinks that it is prompted by a painful conviction of +the inability of our will to conform to the dictates of reason.[296-3] +Originally it was connected with the belief that divine caprice, not +divine law, governs the universe, and that material benefits rather than +spiritual gifts are to be desired. The gradual recognition of its +limitations and proper objects marks religious advancement. The Lord's +Prayer contains seven petitions, only one of which is for a temporal +advantage, and it the least that can be asked for. What immeasurable +interval between it and the prayer of the Nootka Indian on preparing for +war!-- + +"Great Quahootze, let me live, not be sick, find the enemy, not fear +him, find him asleep, and kill a great many of him."[297-1] + +Or again, between it and the petition of a Huron to a local god, heard +by Father Brebeuf:-- + +"Oki, thou who livest in this spot, I offer thee tobacco. Help us, save +us from shipwreck, defend us from our enemies, give us a good trade, and +bring us back safe and sound to our villages."[297-2] + +This is a fair specimen of the supplications of the lowest religion. +Another equally authentic is given by Father Allouez.[297-3] In 1670 he +penetrated to an outlying Algonkin village, never before visited by a +white man. The inhabitants, startled by his pale face and long black +gown, took him for a divinity. They invited him to the council lodge, a +circle of old men gathered around him, and one of them, approaching him +with a double handful of tobacco, thus addressed him, the others +grunting approval:-- + +"This, indeed, is well, Blackrobe, that thou dost visit us. Have mercy +upon us. Thou art a Manito. We give thee to smoke. + +"The Naudowessies and Iroquois are devouring us. Have mercy upon us. + +"We are often sick; our children die; we are hungry. Have mercy upon us. +Hear me, O Manito, I give thee to smoke. + +"Let the earth yield us corn; the rivers give us fish; sickness not slay +us; nor hunger so torment us. Hear us, O Manito, we give thee to smoke." + +In this rude but touching petition, wrung from the heart of a miserable +people, nothing but their wretchedness is visible. Not the faintest +trace of an aspiration for spiritual enlightenment cheers the eye of the +philanthropist, not the remotest conception that through suffering we +are purified can be detected. + +By the side of these examples we may place the prayers of Peru and +Mexico, forms composed by the priests, written out, committed to memory, +and repeated at certain seasons. They are not less authentic, having +been collected and translated in the first generation after the +conquest. One to Viracocha Pachacamac, was as follows:-- + +"O Pachacamac, thou who hast existed from the beginning and shalt exist +unto the end, powerful and pitiful; who createdst man by saying, let man +be; who defendest us from evil and preservest our life and health; art +thou in the sky or in the earth, in the clouds or in the depths? Hear +the voice of him who implores thee, and grant him his petitions. Give +us life everlasting, preserve us, and accept this our sacrifice."[299-1] + +In the voluminous specimens of Aztec prayers preserved by Sahagun, moral +improvement, the "spiritual gift," is very rarely if at all the object +desired. Health, harvests, propitious rains, release from pain, +preservation from dangers, illness, and defeat, these are the almost +unvarying themes. But here and there we catch a glimpse of something +better, some dim sense of the divine beauty of suffering, some feeble +glimmering of the grand truth so nobly expressed by the poet:-- + + aus des Busens Tiefe strömt Gedeihn + Der festen Duldung und entschlossner That. + Nicht Schmerz ist Unglück, Glück nicht immer Freude; + Wer sein Geschick erfüllt, dem lächeln beide. + +"Is it possible," says one of them, "that this scourge, this affliction, +is sent to us not for our correction and improvement, but for our +destruction and annihilation? O Merciful Lord, let this chastisement +with which thou hast visited us, thy people, be as those which a father +or mother inflicts on their children, not out of anger, but to the end +that they may be free from follies and vices." Another formula, used +when a chief was elected to some important position, reads: "O Lord, +open his eyes and give him light, sharpen his ears and give him +understanding, not that he may use them to his own advantage, but for +the good of the people he rules. Lead him to know and to do thy will, +let him be as a trumpet which sounds thy words. Keep him from the +commission of injustice and oppression."[300-1] + +At first, good and evil are identical with pleasure and pain, luck and +ill-luck. "The good are good warriors and hunters," said a Pawnee +chief,[300-2] which would also be the opinion of a wolf, if he could +express it. Gradually the eyes of the mind are opened, and it is +perceived that "whom He loveth, He chastiseth," and physical give[TN-18] +place to moral ideas of good and evil. Finally, as the idea of God rises +more distinctly before the soul, as "the One by whom, in whom, and +through whom all things are," evil is seen to be the negation, not the +opposite of good, and itself "a porch oft opening on the sun." + +The influence of these religions on art, science, and social life, must +also be weighed in estimating their value. + +Nearly all the remains of American plastic art, sculpture, and painting, +were obviously designed for religious purposes. Idols of stone, wood, or +baked clay, were found in every Indian tribe, without exception, so far +as I can judge; and in only a few directions do these arts seem to have +been applied to secular purposes. The most ambitious attempts of +architecture, it is plain, were inspired by religious fervor. The great +pyramid of Cholula, the enormous mounds of the Mississippi valley, the +elaborate edifices on artificial hills in Yucatan, were miniature +representations of the mountains hallowed by tradition, the "Hill of +Heaven," the peak on which their ancestors escaped in the flood, or that +in the terrestrial paradise from which flow the rains. Their +construction took men away from war and the chase, encouraged +agriculture, peace, and a settled disposition, and fostered the love of +property, of country, and of the gods. The priests were also close +observers of nature, and were the first to discover its simpler laws. +The Aztec sages were as devoted star-gazers as the Chaldeans, and their +calendar bears unmistakable marks of native growth, and of its original +purpose to fix the annual festivals. Writing by means of pictures and +symbols was cultivated chiefly for religious ends, and the word +_hieroglyph_ is a witness that the phonetic alphabet was discovered +under the stimulus of the religious sentiment. Most of the aboriginal +literature was composed and taught by the priests, and most of it refers +to matters connected with their superstitions. As the gifts of votaries +and the erection of temples enriched the sacerdotal order individually +and collectively, the terrors of religion were lent to the secular arm +to enforce the rights of property. Music, poetic, scenic, and historical +recitations, formed parts of the ceremonies of the more civilized +nations, and national unity was strengthened by a common shrine. An +active barter in amulets, lucky stones, and charms, existed all over the +continent, to a much greater extent than we might think. As experience +demonstrates that nothing so efficiently promotes civilization as the +free and peaceful intercourse of man with man, I lay particular stress +on the common custom of making pilgrimages. + +The temple on the island of Cozumel in Yucatan was visited every year by +such multitudes from all parts of the peninsula, that roads, paved with +cut stones, had been constructed from the neighboring shore to the +principal cities of the interior.[302-1] Each village of the Muyscas is +said to have had a beaten path to Lake Guatavita, so numerous were the +devotees who journeyed to the shrine there located.[302-2] In Peru the +temples of Pachacamà, Rimac, and other famous gods, were repaired to by +countless numbers from all parts of the realm, and from other provinces +within a radius of three hundred leagues around. Houses of entertainment +were established on all the principal roads, and near the temples, for +their accommodation; and when they made known the object of their +journey, they were allowed a safe passage even through an enemy's +territory.[302-3] + + * * * * * + +The more carefully we study history, the more important in our eyes will +become the religious sense. It is almost the only faculty peculiar to +man. It concerns him nearer than aught else. It is the key to his origin +and destiny. As such it merits in all its developments the most earnest +attention, an attention we shall find well repaid in the clearer +conceptions we thus obtain of the forces which control the actions and +fates of individuals and nations. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[288-1] Waitz, _Anthropologie der Naturvoelker_, i. p. 459. + +[288-2] Navarrete, _Viages_, iii. p. 415. + +[288-3] _Relation de Cueba_, p. 140. Ed. Ternaux-Compans. + +[290-1] La Vega, _Hist. des Incas_, liv. v. cap. 12. + +[291-1] Morse, _Rep. on the Ind. Tribes_, App. p. 345. + +[291-2] Ximenes, _Origen de los Indios de Guatemala_, p. 192; Acosta, +_Hist. of the New World_, lib. v. chap. 18. + +[291-3] Joseph de Maistre, _Eclaircissement sur les Sacrifices_; Trench, +_Hulsean Lectures_, p. 180. The famed Abbé Lammenaais and Professor Sepp, +of Munich, with these two writers, may be taken as the chief exponents of +a school of mythologists, all of whom start from the theories first laid +down by Count de Maistre in his _Soirées de St. Petersbourg_. To them the +strongest proof of Christianity lies in the traditions and observances of +heathendom. For these show the wants of the religious sense, and +Christianity, they maintain, purifies and satisfies them all. The rites, +symbols, and legends of every natural religion, they say, are true and +not false; all that is required is to assign them their proper places and +their real meaning. Therefore the strange resemblances in heathen myths +to what is revealed in the Scriptures, as well as the ethical +anticipations which have been found in ancient philosophies, all, so far +from proving that Christianity is a natural product of the human mind, in +fact, are confirmations of it, unconscious prophecies, and presentiments +of the truth. + +[292-1] Alfred Maury, _La Magie et l'Astrologie dans l'Antiquité et au +Moyen Age_, p. 8: Paris, 1860. + +[292-2] Waitz, _Anthropologie_, i. pp. 325, 465. + +[293-1] So says Dr. Waitz, _ibid._, p. 465. + +[294-1] Schoolcraft, _Algic Researches_, i. p. 143. + +[294-2] _L'Homme Américain_, ii. p. 319. + +[295-1] Brasseur, _Hist. du Mexique_, liv. iii. chaps. 1 and 2. + +[295-2] Sahagun, _Hist. de la Nueva España_, lib. x. cap. 29. + +[296-1] Novalis, _Schriften_, i. p. 244: Berlin, 1837. + +[296-2] Ibid., p. 267. + +[296-3] _Hist. de la Civilisation en France_, i. pp. 122, 130. + +[297-1] _Narrative of J. R. Jewett among the Savages of Nootka Sound_, p. +121. + +[297-2] _Rel. de la Nouv. France_, An 1636, p. 109. + +[297-3] Ibid., An 1670, p. 99. + +[299-1] Geronimo de Ore, _Symbolo Catholico Indiano_, chap, ix., quoted +by Ternaux-Compans. De Ore was a native of Peru and held the position of +Professor of Theology in Cuzco in the latter half of the sixteenth +century. He was a man of great erudition, and there need be no hesitation +in accepting this extraordinary prayer as genuine. For his life and +writings see Nic. Antonio, _Bib. Hisp. Nova_, tom. ii. p. 43. + +[300-1] Sahagun, _Hist. de la Nueva España_, lib. vi. caps. 1, 4. + +[300-2] Morse, _Rep. on the Ind. Tribes_, App. p. 250. + +[302-1] Cogolludo, _Hist. de Yucathan_, lib. iv. cap. 9. Compare +Stephens, _Travs. in Yucatan_, ii. p. 122, who describes the remains of +these roads as they now exist. + +[302-2] Rivero and Tschudi, _Antiqs. of Peru_, p. 162. + +[302-3] La Vega, _Hist. des Incas_, lib. vi. chap. 30; Xeres, _Rel de la +Conq. du Pérou_, p. 151; _Let. sur les Superstit. du Pérou_, p. 98, and +others. + + + + +INDEX. + + +Abnakis, 174 + +Acagchemem, a Californian tribe, 105 + +Age of man in America, 35-37 + +Ages of the world, 213 sq. + +Akakanet, 61 + +Akanzas, 238 + +Akenatzi, 284 + +Algonkins, location, 26 + name of God, 58 n.[TN-19] + mythical ancestors, 77 + veneration of birds, 103 + of serpents, 108, 109, 113, 116 + myths and rites, 133, 136, 144, 147, 151, 161, 174, 198, 209, 220, + 224, 236, 240, 244, 248, 277, 297 + +Aluberi, a name of God, 58 n.[TN-19] + +Anahuac, 29, 282 + +Angont, a mythical serpent, 136 + +Apalachian tribes, 27, 225 + +Apocatequil, a Peruvian deity, 153 + +Ararats, of America, 203 + +Araucanians, 33 + name of God, 48, 61 + myths, 204, 248 + +Arks, 255 + +Arowacks, 58 n.[TN-19] + +Ataensic, an Iroquois deity, 123, 131, 170 + +Ataguju, or Atachuchu, 152 + +Atatarho, mythical Iroquois chief, 118 + +Athapascan tribes, 24 + myths, 104, 150, 195, 205, 229, 248, 257 + +Atl, an Aztec deity, 131 + +Aurora borealis, 245 + +Aymaras, 31, 34, 177 + +Aztecs, their books and characters, 10 + divisions, 29 + names of God, 48, 50, 58 n.[TN-19] + government, 69 + rites, 72, 126, 127, 147 + calendar, 74 + worship of cross, 95 + names of cardinal points, 93 + worship of birds, 102, 106, 107 + of serpents, 111 + myths, 132, 133, 134, 138, 144, 156, 171, 181, 205, 214 sq., 227, + 240, 246, 248, 252, 258 + priests, 282 + prayers, 292 + +Aztlan, 181 + + +Bacab, Maya gods, 80 + +Baptism, 125 seq. + +Bimini, 87 + +Bird, symbol of, 101 sq., 195 sq., 229, 254 + +Blue, symbolic meaning of, 47 + +Bochica, 183 + +Boiuca, a mythical isle, 87 + +Bones, preservation of, 255 + soul in the, 257 + +Botocudos, 123, 201 + +Brasseur, Abbé, his works, 41 + +Brazilian tribes, 102, 134, 250 + (See _Tupis_, _Botocudos_.) + +Busk, a Creek festival, 71, 96 + + +Caddoes, 93, 203 + +Camaxtli, 158 + +Cardinal points, adoration of, 67 sq. + names of, 93 sq. + +Caribs, 32 + theory of lightning, 104, 114 + myths and rites, 145, 184, 223, 237, 244, 256 + priests, 282 + +Catequil. (See _Apocatequil_.) + +Centeotl, goddess of maize, 22, 134 + +Chac, Maya gods, 80 + +Chalchihuitlycue, an Aztec god, 123 + +Chantico, an Aztec god, 138 + +Cherokees, location, 25 + name of God, 51 + serpent myth, 115 + baptism, 128 + deluge, 205 + priests, 281 + +Chia, goddess of Muyscas, 134 + +Chichimec, 139 n., 158 + +Chicomoztoc, the Seven Caves, 227 + +Chicunoapa, the Aztec Styx, 249 + +Chipeways, picture-writing, 10 + records, 17 + magicians, 71 + myths, 163, 168 + +Choctaws, location, 27 + name of God, 51 + myths, 84 n.,[TN-20] 225, 261 + priests, 281 + +Cholula, 180, 181, 204, 228 + +Cihuacoatl, the Serpent Woman, 120 + +Cihuapipilti, 246 + +Circumcision, 147 + +Citatli, 131 + +Clairvoyance, 269 + +Coatlicue, 118 + +Colors, symbolism of, 47, 80, 140, 165 + +Con or Contici, 155, 176 + +Coxcox, 202 + +Craniology, American, 35 + +Creation, myths of, 193 seq. + +Creeks, location, 27 + name of God, 50 + rites, 71, 96 + mythical ancestors, 77 + serpent myth, 115 + other myths, 137, 225, 242, 244 + priests, 273, 283 + +Cross, symbolic meaning of, 95-7, 183, 188 + of Palenque, 118 + +Cupay,[TN-21] the Quichua Pluto, 61, 251 + +Cusic, his Iroquois legends, 63, 108 n. + + +Dakotas, location, 28 + rites, 71 + language, 75 + mythical ancestors, 77 + myths, 62, 103, 133, 150, 237, 259, 279 + +Dawn, myths of, 166, 167, 175, 227 + +Delawares, 140 n., 144 + (See _Lenni Lenape_.) + +Deluge, myth, origin, etc., 198-212 + +Devil, idea of unknown to red race, 59, 251 + +Divination, 278 + +Dobayba, 123 + +Dog, as a symbol, 137, 229, 247-9 + +Dove, as a a[TN-22] symbol, 107 + +Dualism, moral, not found in America, 59 + sexual not found, 146 + + +Eagle, as a symbol, 104 + +East, myths, concerning, 91, 165, 174, 180 + (See _Dawn_.) + +Eastman, Mrs., her _Legends of the Sioux_, 103 + +Eldorado,[TN-23] 87 + +Enigorio and Enigohahetgea, 63 + +Epochs of nature, 200 seq. + +Esaugetuh Emissee, 50 + +Eskimos, location, 23 + name of chief god, 50, 76 + term for south, 94 + veneration of birds, 101 + myths, 173 n., 193, 226, 229, 241, 245, 261, 280 + + +Fear in religion, 141, 292 + +Fire-worship, 140 seq. + +Flood-myth. (See _Deluge_.) + +Florida, 87 + +Forty, a sacred number, 94 + +Fountain of youth, 129 + +Four, the sacred number of red race, 66 sq., 105, 157, 167, 178, 182, + 184, 240 + +Four brothers, the myth of, 76-83, 152, 167, 178, 182 + + +Garhonia, Iroquois deity, 48 + +Gizhigooke, the day-maker, 169 + +Guaranis, 32, 84 n.[TN-20] + +Guatavita Lake, 124 + +Gucumatz, the bird-serpent, 118 + +Gumongo, god of the Monquis, 93 + + +Haitians, myths of, 78, 85, 135, 188 + +Hand, symbol of the, 183 + +Haokah, Dakota thunder god, 151 + +Hawaneu. (See _Neo_.) + +Heaven, the, of the red race, 243 + +Hell, the hidden world, 252 + +Heno, Iroquois thunder-god, 156 + +Hiawatha, myth of, 172 + +Hobbamock, 60 + +Huemac, the Strong-hand, 181, 183 + +Huitzilopochtli, the god of war, 118, 282 + +Hunting, its effect on the mind, 21, 67, 100 + +Hurakan or hurricane, meaning of, 51 + a Maya god, 81, 82, 114, 156, 196 + +Hurons, 25, 48, 114, 136, 169, 248, 250, 275 + +Hushtoli, Choctaw name of God, 51 + + +Illatici, Quichua name of God, 55, 155 + +Incas, secret language, 31 + official title, 69 + ancestors, 82, 153 + arms, 120 + sun-worship, 142 + myths, 188, 191, 244 + +Ioskeha, supreme god of Iroquois, 63, 170-2 + +Iroquois, location, 25 + name of God, 48, 53 + myths of, 83, 85, 169-72, 196, 227, 236 + veneration of serpents, 108, 116, 118 + of fire, 148 + +Isolation of the red race, 20, 34 + +Itzcuinan, the Bitch-Mother, 138 + + +Jarvis, Dr., his Discourse on American Religions, 39 + +Juripari, 61 + + +Killistenoes, 270 + +Kittanitowit, 58, 60 + +Ku, a name of divinity, 46, 47 + +Kukulcan, god of air, 118 + + +Languages of America, 7 + esoteric of priests, 284 + +Lenni Lenape, 26, 96, 161, 231 + +Light, universal symbol of divinity, 173 + +Lightning, the, 112 seq., 151 seq., 168 + + +Madness, as inspiration, 274 seq. + +Magic, natural, 266 + +Maistre, Joseph de, his theory of mythology, 291, n.[TN-24] + +Maize, distribution of, 22, 37 + +Man, origin of, 222 sq., 258 + word for, 223 + +Mandans, 71, 85, 107, 184, 205, 228 + +Manibozho. (See _Michabo_.) + +Mannacicas, 250 + +Manoa, 87 + +Manes, 111 + +Mayas, alphabet, 13 + location, 30 + calendar, 74, 80 + mythical ancestors, 79, 80, 85 + myths and rites, 93, 146, 183, 188, 214, 221 + name of cross, 97 + +Mbocobi, 201 + +Meda worship, 162 n. + +Medicine, 45 + lodge, 267 + men, 264, 277 seq. + +Memory, cultivated by picture-writing, 18 + +Mesmerism, 272 + +Messou, 209 + (See _Michabo_.) + +Metempsychosis, 253 + +Mexicans, (See _Aztecs_.) + +Meztli, 132, 135 + +Michabo, supreme Algonkin god, 63, 116, 136, 161-9, 198, 220, 294 + +Mictlan, god of the dead, 92, 252 + +Migrations, coarse of, 34 + +Milky-way, 244 + +Millennium, 261 + +Minnetarees, 228, 230, 250 + +Mixcoatl, or Mixcohuatl, 22, 51, 158 + +Mixtecas, 90, 196 + +Monan, 211 + +Monquis, 93, 106 + +Montezuma, 187, 190 + +Moon, worship of, 130 seq. + +Moxos, 124, 230 + +Müller, J. G., his work on American religions, 40, 59, 61 + +Mummies, 257-60 + +Muscogees, 195 + (See _Creeks_.) + +Muyscas, 31 + myths, 84 n.,[TN-20] 183-4 + + +Nahuas, 29, 73 + myths, 84 n.,[TN-20] 118, 138, 158, 206 + (See _Aztecs_.) + +Nanahuatl, 135 + +Natchez, 27, 28 n.[TN-25] + myths, 126, 142, 149, 205, 225, 239 + +Natural religions, 3 + +Navajos, 79, 84 n.,[TN-20] 103, 127, 205, 241 + +Neo, Iroquois corruption of _Dieu_, 53 + +Nemqueteba, 183 + +Netelas, 50, 105 n. + +Nez Percés[TN-26] 272, 281 + +Nicaraguans, 145, 158, 201, 245, 288 + +Nine Rivers, the, 248 + +Nootka Indians, 297 + +North, myths concerning, 82 + +Nottoways, 25, 84 + +Numbers, sacred, 66, 98 + (See _Four_, _Three_, _Seven_.) + + +Occaniches, 284 + +Oki, name of God, 46-8 + +Onniont, a mythical serpent, 114 + +Onondagas, 171 + +Oonawleh unggi, 51 + +Otomis, 6, 158 + +Ottawas, 93, 145, 161 + +Ottoes, 84 n.[TN-20] + + +Pacari Tampu, 82, 179, 227 + +Pachacamac, 56, 176-7, 298 + +Panos, 13 + +Paradise, myth of, 86 seq. + +Paria, 87 + +Passions, worship of, 146, 149 + +Pawnees, 71 n., 84 n.[TN-20] + +Pend d'Oreilles, 233 + +Peru, 69 + rites and myths, 82, 102, 106, 131, 132, 137, 138, 142, 149, + 152 sq,[TN-27] 176-9, 188, 213, 219, 227, 240, 251, 260 + priests, 278, 282, 284 + (See _Aymaras_, _Incas_.) + +Phallic worship, 146, 149 + +Picture writing, 9 + +Pilgrimages, custom of, 301 + +Pimos, 185 + +Prayers, specimens of, 296-300 + +Priesthood, native, 263 sq. + +Puelches, 277 + + +Quetzalcoatl, the supreme Aztec god, 106, 118, 157, 180-3, 188, 294-6 + +Quiateot, a rain god, 131 + +Quichés, 30 + Sacred Book, 41 + names for God, 51, 58 n.[TN-19] + evil deities, 64 + myth of first four brothers, 81 + of paradise, 89 + of creation, 196 + of flood, 207 + of hell, 251, 258 + +Quichuas, 31 + religion, 55 + ancestors, 82, 153 + names of cardinal points, 93 n. + myths, 155 + (_See_ Peru, Incas.)[TN-28] + +Quipus, 14 + + +Rattlesnake, as a symbol, 108 sq. + +Raven, as a symbol, 195, 204, 213, 229 + +Red, symbolic meaning, 80, 88, 140 + + +Sacrifice, its meaning, 291 + +Sacs, 84, 277 + +Sanscrit flood-myth, 212 + +Schwarz, Dr., his views of mythology, 112 + +Seminoles, 129 + +Serpent, as a symbol, 107 sq., 136, 158 + +Seven, a sacred number, 66, 128 n., 202, 204, 273 n., 281, 283 + +Shawnees, 26, 84 n.,[TN-20] 110, 113, 114, 144, 281 + +Shoshonees, 28, 138 + +Sillam Innua, 50, 76 + +Sioux, 28, 151, 236 + +Soul, notions concerning, 235 sq., 277 + +Sua, the Muysca God, 184 + +Sun-worship, 141 sq., 149, 243-9 + +Suns, Aztec, 215 sq. + + +Takahlis, 127, 197, 201, 253, 256 + +Tamu, 184, 294 + +Taras, 158 + +Taronhiawagon, 171 + +Tawiscara, 170 + +Teczistecatl, 132 + +Teatihuacan,[TN-29] 46, 69 + +Three, a sacred number, 66, 98, 156 + +Thunder-storm, in myths, 150 sq. + +Tici, the vase, 130 + +Timberlake, Lt., his _Memoirs_, 115 + +Titicaca, Lake, 124, 178 + +Tlacatecolotl, supposed Aztec Satan, 106 + +Tlaloc, god of rain, 75, 88, 156-7 + +Tlalocan, 88, 246 + +Tlapallan, 88, 91, 181 + +Tloque nahuaque, 58 n.[TN-19] + +Tohil, 157 + +Toltecs, 29, 180 + +Tonacatepec, 88 + +Toukaways, 231 + +Trinity, in American religions, 156 + +Tulan, 88, 89, 181 + +Tupa, 32, 84, 152, 185 + +Tupis, 32 + myths, 83 n., 152, 185, 210, 258, 274 + +Twins, sacred to lightning, 153-4 + + +Unktahe, a Dakota god, 133 + + +Vase, symbol of, 130, 155 + +Viracocha, supreme god in Peru, 124, 155, 177-80 + + +Waitz, Dr., his _Anthropology_, 40, 288 + +Wampum, 15 + +Water, myths of, 122 seq., 194 + +West, myths of, 92, 93, 166 + +White, as a symbol, 165, 174-6 + +Whiteman's land, 21 n. + +Winds, myths of, 49-52, 74 sq., 96, 103, 166, 182 + +Winnebagoes, 220 + +Witchitas, 224 + +Writing, modes of, 9-13 + + +Xelhua, 228 + +Xibalba, 64, 251 + +Xochiquetzal, 137 + +Xolotl, 258 + + +Yakama language, 50 + +Yamo and Yama, twin deities, 154 n. + +Yoalli-ehecatl, 50 + +Yohualticitl, 132 + +Yupanqui, Inca, 55 + +Yurucares, 201, 224, 259 + + +Zac, empire of, 31, 124 + +Zamna, culture hero of Mayas, 93, 183, 188 + +Zapotecs, 183 + + + + +ERRATA. + + + Page 31, note, for "_Ureinbewohner_" read "_Ureinwohner_."[TN-30] + " 101, line 10 from bottom, _for_ "clouds" _read_ "clods." + " 145, note 1, _for_ "Gomara" _read_ "Gumilla." + + + + +Transcriber's Note + +The following typographical errors were noted in the original text. + + Page Error + TN-1 57 the Inds. p. should read the Inds., p. + TN-2 89 Orstnamen should read Ortsnamen + TN-3 115 o should read of + TN-4 134 knaws should read gnaws + TN-5 140 extingish should read extinguish + TN-6 144 fn. 2 Reconnoissance was spelled this way in the title of + original publication, quoted correctly + TN-7 158 fn. 3 Hist du Mexique should read Hist. du Mexique + TN-8 162 wizzard should read wizard + TN-9 218 foreboding shave should read forebodings have + TN-10 223 fn. 2 yelk should read yolk + TN-11 226 fn. 2 _above_ should read above + TN-12 234 after.world should read after world + TN-13 248 scimetar should read scimitar + TN-14 251 Xibilha should read Xibalba + TN-15 258 supersitions should read superstitions + TN-16 278 drunkeness should read drunkenness + TN-17 294 fees should read frees or feeds? + TN-18 300 give should read gives + TN-19 303 (and elsewhere) 58 n. refers to footnote 57-3, the + continued text of this footnote was printed on p. 58 in + the original book + TN-20 304 (and elsewhere) 84 n. refers to footnote 83-3, the + continued text of this footnote was printed on p. 84 in + the original book + TN-21 304 Cupay should read Çupay + TN-22 304 a a symbol should read a symbol + TN-23 304 Eldorado should read El Dorado + TN-24 305 291, n. should read 291 n. + TN-25 305 28 n. refers to footnote 27-2, the continued text of this + footnote was printed on p. 28 in the original book + TN-26 306 Nez Percés should read Nez Percés, + TN-27 306 152 sq, should read 152 sq., + TN-28 306 _See_ Peru, Incas should read See _Peru_, _Incas_ + TN-29 306 Teatihuacan should read Teotihuacan + TN-30 307 Ureinbewohner was not found in the text + +The following words were inconsistently spelled: + + Mannacicas / Mannicicas + Percès / Percés + Quiché / Quiche + rôle / role + Tamöi / Tamoi + +The following words were inconsistently hyphenated: + + Aka-kanet / Akakanet + Ama-livaca / Amalivaca + child-birth / childbirth + Teo-tihuacan / Teotihuacan + under-world / underworld + Ur-religionen / Urreligionen + Yoalli-ehecatl / Yoalliehecatl + +Other inconsistencies + +Titles of works referred to in the footnotes are occasionally not +italicized. Author names of the works referred to in the footnotes are +occasionally italicized. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Myths of the New World, by Daniel G. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/19347-8.txt b/19347-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fd163ca --- /dev/null +++ b/19347-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10194 @@ +Project Gutenberg's The Myths of the New World, by Daniel G. Brinton + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Myths of the New World + A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America + +Author: Daniel G. Brinton + +Release Date: September 22, 2006 [EBook #19347] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MYTHS OF THE NEW WORLD *** + + + + +Produced by Robert Cicconetti, Julia Miller and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by the Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions +(www.canadiana.org)) + + + + + +Transcriber's Note + +A number of typographical errors and inconsistencies have been +maintained in this version of this book. They have been marked with a +[TN-#], which refers to a description in the complete list found at the +end of the text. + +Text printed in Greek letters in the original has been surrounded by ~s. + +Oe ligatures used in the original text have been expanded. The following +codes are used for characters that are not able to be represented in the +text format used for this version of the book. + + [)a] a with breve + [=a] a with macron + [=e] e with macron + [=u] u with macron + + + + + THE MYTHS + OF + THE NEW WORLD + + + A TREATISE ON THE + SYMBOLISM AND MYTHOLOGY + OF THE + RED RACE OF AMERICA + + + BY + + DANIEL G. BRINTON, A. M., M. D. + _Memb. Hist. Soc. of Penn.; of Numismat. and + Antiq. Soc. of Philada.; Corresp. Memb. + Amer. Ethnolog. Soc.; author of + "Notes on the Floridian + Peninsula," Etc._ + + + NEW YORK + LEYPOLDT & HOLT + LONDON: TRBNER & CO. + 1868 + + + + + Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1868, by + DANIEL G. BRINTON, + + In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the + Eastern District of Pennsylvania. + + + + +PREFACE. + + +I have written this work more for the thoughtful general reader than the +antiquary. It is a study of an obscure portion of the intellectual +history of our species as exemplified in one of its varieties. + +What are man's earliest ideas of a soul and a God, and of his own origin +and destiny? Why do we find certain myths, such as of a creation, a +flood, an after-world; certain symbols, as the bird, the serpent, the +cross; certain numbers, as the three, the four, the seven--intimately +associated with these ideas by every race? What are the laws of growth +of natural religions? How do they acquire such an influence, and is this +influence for good or evil? Such are some of the universally interesting +questions which I attempt to solve by an analysis of the simple faiths +of a savage race. + +If in so doing I succeed in investing with a more general interest the +fruitful theme of American ethnology, my objects will have been +accomplished. + + PHILADELPHIA, + April, 1868. + + + + +CONTENTS. + + +CHAPTER I. + +GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS OF THE RED RACE. + PAGE +Natural religions the unaided attempts of man to find out God, +modified by peculiarities of race and nation.--The peculiarities of +the red race: 1. Its languages unfriendly to abstract ideas. Native +modes of writing by means of pictures, symbols, objects, and phonetic +signs. These various methods compared in their influence on the +intellectual faculties. 2. Its isolation, unique in the history of the +world. 3. Beyond all others, a hunting race.--Principal linguistic +subdivisions: 1. The Eskimos. 2. The Athapascas. 3. The Algonkins and +Iroquois. 4. The Apalachian tribes. 5. The Dakotas. 6. The Aztecs. 7. +The Mayas. 8. The Muyscas. 9. The Quichuas. 10. The Caribs and Tupis. +11. The Araucanians.--General course of migrations.--Age of man in +America.--Unity of type in the red race 1 + + +CHAPTER II. + +THE IDEA OF GOD. + +An intuition common to the species.--Words expressing it in American +languages derived either from ideas of above in space, or of life +manifested by breath.--Examples.--No conscious monotheism, and but +little idea of immateriality discoverable.--Still less any moral +dualism of deities, the Great Good Spirit and the Great Bad Spirit +being alike terms and notions of foreign importation 43 + + +CHAPTER III. + +THE SACRED NUMBER, ITS ORIGIN AND APPLICATIONS. + +The number Four sacred in all American religions, and the key to their +symbolism.--Derived from the CARDINAL POINTS.--Appears constantly in +government, arts, rites, and myths.--The Cardinal Points identified +with the Four Winds, who in myths are the four ancestors of the human +race, and the four celestial rivers watering the terrestrial +Paradise.--Associations grouped around each Cardinal Point.--From the +number four was derived the symbolic value of the number _Forty_ and +the _Sign of the Cross_ 66 + + +CHAPTER IV. + +THE SYMBOLS OF THE BIRD AND THE SERPENT. + +Relations of man to the lower animals.--Two of these, the BIRD and the +SERPENT, chosen as symbols beyond all others.--The Bird throughout +America the symbol of the Clouds and Winds.--Meaning of certain +species.--The symbolic meaning of the Serpent derived from its mode of +locomotion, its poisonous bite, and its power of charming.--Usually +the symbol of the lightning and the Waters.--The Rattlesnake the +symbolic species in America.--The war charm.--The Cross of +Palenque.--The god of riches.--Both symbols devoid of moral +significance 99 + + +CHAPTER V. + +THE MYTHS OF WATER, FIRE, AND THE THUNDER-STORM. + +Water the oldest element.--Its use in purification.--Holy water.--The +Rite of Baptism.--The Water of Life.--Its symbols.--The Vase.--The +Moon.--The latter the goddess of love and agriculture, but also of +sickness, night, and pain.--Often represented by a dog.--Fire worship +under the form of Sun worship.--The perpetual fire.--The new +fire.--Burning the dead.--A worship of the passions, but no sexual +dualism in myths, nor any phallic worship in America.--Synthesis of +the worship of Fire, Water, and the Winds in the THUNDER-STORM, +personified as Haokah, Tupa, Catequil, Contici, Heno, Tlaloc, +Mixcoatl, and other deities, many of them triune 122 + + +CHAPTER VI. + +THE SUPREME GODS OF THE RED RACE. + +Analysis of American culture myths.--The Manibozho or Michabo of +the Algonkins shown to be an impersonation of LIGHT, a hero of the +Dawn, and their highest deity.--The myths of Ioskeha of the +Iroquois, Viracocha of the Peruvians, and Quetzalcoatl of the +Toltecs essentially the same as that of Michabo.--Other +examples.--Ante-Columbian prophecies of the advent of a white race +from the east as conquerors.--Rise of later culture myths under +similar forms 159 + + +CHAPTER VII. + +THE MYTHS OF THE CREATION, THE DELUGE, THE EPOCHS OF NATURE, AND THE +LAST DAY. + +Cosmogonies usually portray the action of the SPIRIT on the +WATERS.--Those of the Muscogees, Athapascas, Quichs, Mixtecs, +Iroquois, Algonkins, and others.--The Flood-Myth an unconscious +attempt to reconcile a creation in time with the eternity of +matter.--Proof of this from American mythology.--Characteristics of +American Flood-Myths.--The person saved usually the first man.--The +number seven.--Their Ararats.--The rle of birds.--The confusion of +tongues.--The Aztec, Quich, Algonkin, Tupi, and earliest Sanscrit +flood-myths.--The belief in Epochs of Nature a further result of this +attempt at reconciliation.--Its forms among Peruvians, Mayas, and +Aztecs.--The expectation of the End of the World a corollary of this +belief.--Views of various nations 193 + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +THE ORIGIN OF MAN. + +Usually man is the EARTH-BORN, both in language and +myths.--Illustrations from the legends of the Caribs, Apalachians, +Iroquois, Quichuas, Aztecs, and others.--The under-world.--Man the +product of one of the primal creative powers, the Spirit, or the +Water, in the myths of the Athapascas, Eskimos, Moxos, and +others--Never literally derived from an inferior species 222 + + +CHAPTER IX. + +THE SOUL AND ITS DESTINY. + +Universality of the belief in a soul and a future state shown by the +aboriginal tongues, by expressed opinions, and by sepulchral rites. +The future world never a place of rewards and punishments.--The house +of the Son the heaven of the red man.--The terrestrial paradise and +the under-world.--upay.--Xibalba.--Mictlan.--Metempsychosis?--Belief +in a resurrection of the dead almost universal 233 + + +CHAPTER X. + +THE NATIVE PRIESTHOOD. + +Their titles.--Practitioners of the healing art by supernatural +means.--Their power derived from natural magic and the exercise of the +clairvoyant and mesmeric faculties.--Examples.--Epidemic +hysteria.--Their social position.--Their duties as religious +functionaries.--Terms of admission to the Priesthood.--Inner +organization in various nations.--Their esoteric language and secret +societies 263 + + +CHAPTER XI. + +THE INFLUENCE OF THE NATIVE RELIGIONS ON THE MORAL +AND SOCIAL LIFE OF THE RACE. + +Natural religions hitherto considered of Evil rather than of +Good.--Distinctions to be drawn.--Morality not derived from +religion.--The positive side of natural religions in incarnations of +divinity.--Examples.--Prayers as indices of religious +progress.--Religion and social advancement.--Conclusion 287 + + + + +THE MYTHS OF THE NEW WORLD. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE RED RACE. + + Natural religions the unaided attempts of man to find out God, + modified by peculiarities of race and nation.--The peculiarities of + the red race: 1. Its languages unfriendly to abstract ideas. Native + modes of writing by means of pictures, symbols, objects, and + phonetic signs. These various methods compared in their influence + on the intellectual faculties. 2. Its isolation, unique in the + history of the world. 3. Beyond all others, a hunting + race.--Principal linguistic subdivisions: 1. The Eskimos. 2. The + Athapascas. 3. The Algonkins and Iroquois. 4. The Apalachian + tribes. 5. The Dakotas. 6. The Aztecs. 7. The Mayas. 8. The + Muyscas. 9. The Quichuas. 10. The Caribs and Tupis. 11. The + Araucanians.--General course of migrations.--Age of man in + America.--Unity of type in the red race. + + +When Paul, at the request of the philosophers of Athens, explained to +them his views on divine things, he asserted, among other startling +novelties, that "God has made of one blood all nations of the earth, +that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him and +find him, though he is not far from every one of us." + +Here was an orator advocating the unity of the human species, affirming +that the chief end of man is to develop an innate idea of God, and that +all religions, except the one he preached, were examples of more or +less unsuccessful attempts to do so. No wonder the Athenians, who +acknowledged no kinship to barbarians, who looked dubiously at the +doctrine of innate ideas, and were divided in opinion as to whether +their mythology was a shrewd device of legislators to keep the populace +in subjection, a veiled natural philosophy, or the celestial reflex of +their own history, mocked at such a babbler and went their ways. The +generations of philosophers that followed them partook of their doubts +and approved their opinions, quite down to our own times. But now, after +weighing the question maturely, we are compelled to admit that the +Apostle was not so wide of the mark after all--that, in fact, the latest +and best authorities, with no bias in his favor, support his position +and may almost be said to paraphrase his words. For according to a +writer who ranks second to none in the science of ethnology, the +severest and most recent investigations show that "not only do +acknowledged facts permit the assumption of the unity of the human +species, but this opinion is attended with fewer discrepancies, and has +greater inner consistency than the opposite one of specific +diversity."[2-1] And as to the religions of heathendom, the view of +Saint Paul is but expressed with a more poetic turn by a distinguished +living author when he calls them "not fables, but truths, though clothed +in a garb woven by fancy, wherein the web is the notion of God, the +ideal of reason in the soul of man, the thought of the Infinite."[2-2] + +Inspiration and science unite therefore to bid us dismiss the effete +prejudice that natural religions either arise as the ancient +philosophies taught, or that they are, as the Dark Ages imagined, subtle +nets of the devil spread to catch human souls. They are rather the +unaided attempts of man to find out God; they are the efforts of the +reason struggling to define the infinite; they are the expressions of +that "yearning after the gods" which the earliest of poets discerned in +the hearts of all men. Studied in this sense they are rich in teachings. +Would we estimate the intellectual and sthetic culture of a people, +would we generalize the laws of progress, would we appreciate the +sublimity of Christianity, and read the seals of its authenticity: the +natural conceptions of divinity reveal them. No mythologies are so +crude, therefore, none so barbarous, but deserve the attention of the +philosophic mind, for they are never the empty fictions of an idle +fancy, but rather the utterances, however inarticulate, of an immortal +and ubiquitous intuition. + +These considerations embolden me to approach with some confidence even +the aboriginal religions of America, so often stigmatized as incoherent +fetichisms, so barren, it has been said, in grand or beautiful +creations. The task bristles with difficulties. Carelessness, +prepossessions, and ignorance have disfigured them with false colors and +foreign additions without number. The first maxim, therefore, must be to +sift and scrutinize authorities, and to reject whatever betrays the +plastic hand of the European. For the religions developed by the red +race, not those mixed creeds learned from foreign invaders, are to be +the subjects of our study. Then will remain the formidable undertaking +of reducing the authentic materials thus obtained to system and order, +and this not by any preconceived theory of what they ought to conform +to, but learning from them the very laws of religious growth they +illustrate. The historian traces the birth of arts, science, and +government to man's dependence on nature and his fellows for the means +of self-preservation. Not that man receives these endowments from +without, but that the stern step-mother, Nature, forces him by threats +and stripes to develop his own inherent faculties. So with religion: The +idea of God does not, and cannot, proceed from the external world, but, +nevertheless, it finds its _historical_ origin also in the desperate +struggle for life, in the satisfaction of the animal wants and passions, +in those vulgar aims and motives which possessed the mind of the +primitive man to the exclusion of everything else. + +There is an ever present embarrassment in such inquiries. In dealing +with these matters beyond the cognizance of the senses, the mind is +forced to express its meaning in terms transferred from sensuous +perceptions, or under symbols borrowed from the material world. These +transfers must be understood, these symbols explained, before the real +meaning of a myth can be reached. He who fails to guess the riddle of +the sphynx, need not hope to gain admittance to the shrine. With +delicate ear the faint whispers of thought must be apprehended which +prompt the intellect when it names the immaterial from the material; +when it chooses from the infinity of visible forms those meet to shadow +forth Divinity. + +Two lights will guide us on this venturesome path. Mindful of the +watchword of inductive science, to proceed from the known to the +unknown, the inquiry will be put whether the aboriginal languages of +America employ the same tropes to express such ideas as deity, spirit, +and soul, as our own and kindred tongues. If the answer prove +affirmative, then not only have we gained a firm foothold whence to +survey the whole edifice of their mythology; but from an unexpected +quarter arises evidence of the unity of our species far weightier than +any mere anatomy can furnish, evidence from the living soul, not from +the dead body. True that the science of American linguistics is still in +its infancy, and that a proper handling of the materials it even now +offers involves a more critical acquaintance with its innumerable +dialects than I possess; but though the gleaning be sparse, it is enough +that I break the ground. Secondly, religious rites are living +commentaries on religious beliefs. At first they are rude +representations of the supposed doings of the gods. The Indian +rain-maker mounts to the roof of his hut, and rattling vigorously a dry +gourd containing pebbles, to represent the thunder, scatters water +through a reed on the ground beneath, as he imagines up above in the +clouds do the spirits of the storm. Every spring in ancient Delphi was +repeated in scenic ceremony the combat of Apollo and the Dragon, the +victory of the lord of bright summer over the demon of chilling winter. +Thus do forms and ceremonies reveal the meaning of mythology, and the +origin of its fables. + +Let it not be objected that this proposed method of analysis assumes +that religions begin and develop under the operation of inflexible laws. +The soul is shackled by no fatalism. Formative influences there are, +deep seated, far reaching, escaped by few, but like those which of yore +astrologers imputed to the stars, they potently incline, they do not +coerce. Language, pursuits, habits, geographical position, and those +subtle mental traits which make up the characteristics of races and +nations, all tend to deflect from a given standard the religious life of +the individual and the mass. It is essential to give these due weight, +and a necessary preface therefore to an analysis of the myths of the red +race is an enumeration of its peculiarities, and of its chief families +as they were located when first known to the historian. + +Of all such modifying circumstances none has greater importance than the +means of expressing and transmitting intellectual action. The spoken and +the written language of a nation reveal to us its prevailing, and to a +certain degree its unavoidable mode of thought. Here the red race offers +a striking phenomenon. There is no other trait that binds together its +scattered clans, and brands them as members of one great family, so +unmistakably as this of language. From the Frozen Ocean to the Land of +Fire, without a single exception, the native dialects, though varying +infinitely in words, are marked by a peculiarity in construction which +is found nowhere else on the globe,[6-1] and which is so foreign to the +genius of _our_ tongue that it is no easy matter to explain it. It is +called by philologists the _polysynthetic_ construction. What it is will +best appear by comparison. Every grammatical sentence conveys one +leading idea with its modifications and relations. Now a Chinese would +express these latter by unconnected syllables, the precise bearing of +which could only be guessed by their position; a Greek or a German would +use independent words, indicating their relations by terminations +meaningless in themselves; an Englishman gains the same end chiefly by +the use of particles and by position. Very different from all these is +the spirit of a polysynthetic language. It seeks to unite in the most +intimate manner all relations and modifications with the leading idea, +to merge one in the other by altering the forms of the words themselves +and welding them together, to express the whole in one word, and to +banish any conception except as it arises in relation to others. Thus in +many American tongues there is, in fact, no word for father, mother, +brother, but only for my, your, his father, etc. This has advantages and +defects. It offers marvellous facilities for defining the perceptions of +the senses with the utmost accuracy, but regarding everything in the +concrete, it is unfriendly to the nobler labors of the mind, to +abstraction and generalization. In the numberless changes of these +languages, their bewildering flexibility, their variable forms, and +their rapid deterioration, they seem to betray a lack of individuality, +and to resemble the vague and tumultuous history of the tribes who +employ them. They exhibit an almost incredible laxity. It is nothing +uncommon for the two sexes to use different names for the same object, +and for nobles and vulgar, priests and people, the old and the young, +nay, even the married and single, to observe what seem to the European +ear quite different modes of expression. Families and whole villages +suddenly drop words and manufacture others in their places out of mere +caprice or superstition, and a few years' separation suffices to produce +a marked dialectic difference. In their copious forms and facility of +reproduction they remind one of those anomalous animals, in whom, when a +limb is lopped, it rapidly grows again, or even if cut in pieces each +part will enter on a separate life quite unconcerned about his fellows. +But as the naturalist is far from regarding this superabundant vitality +as a characteristic of a higher type, so the philologist justly assigns +these tongues a low position in the linguistic scale. Fidelity to form, +here as everywhere, is the test of excellence. At the outset, we divine +there can be nothing very subtle in the mythologies of nations with such +languages. Much there must be that will be obscure, much that is vague, +an exhausting variety in repetition, and a strong tendency to lose the +idea in the symbol. + +What definiteness of outline might be preserved must depend on the care +with which the old stories of the gods were passed from one person and +one generation to another. The fundamental myths of a race have a +surprising tenacity of life. How many centuries had elapsed between the +period the Germanic hordes left their ancient homes in Central Asia, and +when Tacitus listened to their wild songs on the banks of the Rhine? Yet +we know that through those unnumbered ages of barbarism and aimless +roving, these songs, "their only sort of history or annals," says the +historian, had preserved intact the story of Mannus, the Sanscrit Manu, +and his three sons, and of the great god Tuisco, the Indian Dyu.[9-1] So +much the more do all means invented by the red race to record and +transmit thought merit our careful attention. Few and feeble they seem +to us, mainly shifts to aid the memory. Of some such, perhaps, not a +single tribe was destitute. The tattoo marks on the warrior's breast, +his string of gristly scalps, the bear's claws around his neck, were not +only trophies of his prowess, but records of his exploits, and to the +contemplative mind contain the rudiments of the beneficent art of +letters. Did he draw in rude outline on his skin tent figures of men +transfixed with arrows as many as he had slain enemies, his education +was rapidly advancing. He had mastered the elements of _picture +writing_, beyond which hardly the wisest of his race progressed. Figures +of the natural objects connected by symbols having fixed meanings make +up the whole of this art. The relative frequency of the latter marks its +advancement from a merely figurative to an ideographic notation. On what +principle of mental association a given sign was adopted to express a +certain idea, why, for instance, on the Chipeway scrolls a circle means +_spirits_, and a horned snake _life_, it is often hard to guess. The +difficulty grows when we find that to the initiated the same sign calls +up quite different ideas, as the subject of the writer varies from war +to love, or from the chase to religion. The connection is generally +beyond the power of divination, and the key to ideographic writing once +lost can never be recovered. + +The number of such arbitrary characters in the Chipeway notation is said +to be over two hundred, but if the distinction between a figure and a +symbol were rigidly applied, it would be much reduced. This kind of +writing, if it deserves the name, was common throughout the continent, +and many specimens of it, scratched on the plane surfaces of stones, +have been preserved to the present day. Such is the once celebrated +inscription on Dighton Rock, Massachusetts, long supposed to be a record +of the Northmen of Vinland; such those that mark the faces of the cliffs +which overhang the waters of the Orinoco, and those that in Oregon, +Peru, and La Plata have been the subject of much curious speculation. +They are alike the mute and meaningless epitaphs of vanished +generations. + +I would it could be said that in favorable contrast to our ignorance of +these inscriptions is our comprehension of the highly wrought +pictography of the Aztecs. No nation ever reduced it more to a system. +It was in constant use in the daily transactions of life. They +manufactured for writing purposes a thick, coarse paper from the leaves +of the agave plant by a process of maceration and pressure. An Aztec +book closely resembles one of our quarto volumes. It is made of a +single sheet, twelve to fifteen inches wide, and often sixty or seventy +feet long, and is not rolled, but folded either in squares or zigzags in +such a manner that on opening it there are two pages exposed to view. +Thin wooden boards are fastened to each of the outer leaves, so that the +whole presents as neat an appearance, remarks Peter Martyr, as if it had +come from the shop of a skilful bookbinder. They also covered buildings, +tapestries, and scrolls of parchment with these devices, and for +trifling transactions were familiar with the use of _slates_ of soft +stone from which the figures could readily be erased with water.[11-1] +What is still more astonishing, there is reason to believe, in some +instances, their figures were not painted, but actually _printed_ with +movable blocks of wood on which the symbols were carved in relief, +though this was probably confined to those intended for ornament only. + +In these records we discern something higher than a mere symbolic +notation. They contain the germ of a phonetic alphabet, and represent +sounds of spoken language. The symbol is often not connected with the +_idea_ but with the _word_. The mode in which this is done corresponds +precisely to that of the rebus. It is a simple method, readily +suggesting itself. In the middle ages it was much in vogue in Europe for +the same purpose for which it was chiefly employed in Mexico at the same +time--the writing of proper names. For example, the English family +Bolton was known in heraldry by a _tun_ transfixed by a _bolt_. +Precisely so the Mexican emperor Ixcoatl is mentioned in the Aztec +manuscripts under the figure of a serpent _coatl_, pierced by obsidian +knives _ixtli_, and Moquauhzoma by a mouse-trap _montli_, an eagle +_quauhtli_, a lancet _zo_, and a hand _maitl_. As a syllable could be +expressed by any object whose name commenced with it, as few words can +be given the form of a rebus without some change, as the figures +sometimes represent their full phonetic value, sometimes only that of +their initial sound, and as universally the attention of the artist was +directed less to the sound than to the idea, the didactic painting of +the Mexicans, whatever it might have been to them, is a sealed book to +us, and must remain so in great part. Moreover, it is entirely +undetermined whether it should be read from the first to the last page, +or _vice versa_, whether from right to left or from left to right, from +bottom to top or from top to bottom, around the edges of the page toward +the centre, or each line in the opposite direction from the preceding +one. There are good authorities for all these methods,[12-1] and they +may all be correct, for there is no evidence that any fixed rule had +been laid down in this respect. + +Immense masses of such documents were stored in the imperial archives of +ancient Mexico. Torquemada asserts that five cities alone yielded to the +Spanish governor on one requisition no less than sixteen thousand +volumes or scrolls! Every leaf was destroyed. Indeed, so thorough and +wholesale was the destruction of these memorials now so precious in our +eyes that hardly enough remain to whet the wits of antiquaries. In the +libraries of Paris, Dresden, Pesth, and the Vatican are, however, a +sufficient number to make us despair of deciphering them had we for +comparison all which the Spaniards destroyed. + +Beyond all others the Mayas, resident on the peninsula of Yucatan, would +seem to have approached nearest a true phonetic system. They had a +regular and well understood alphabet of twenty seven elementary sounds, +the letters of which are totally different from those of any other +nation, and evidently original with themselves. But besides these they +used a large number of purely conventional symbols, and moreover were +accustomed constantly to employ the ancient pictographic method in +addition as a sort of commentary on the sound represented. What is more +curious, if the obscure explanation of an ancient writer can be depended +upon, they not only aimed to employ an alphabet after the manner of +ours, but to express the sound absolutely like our phonographic signs +do.[13-1] With the aid of this alphabet, which has fortunately been +preserved, we are enabled to spell out a few words on the Yucatecan +manuscripts and faades, but thus far with no positive results. The loss +of the ancient pronunciation is especially in the way of such studies. + +In South America, also, there is said to have been a nation who +cultivated the art of picture writing, the Panos, on the river Ucayale. +A missionary, Narcisso Gilbar by name, once penetrated, with great toil, +to one of their villages. As he approached he beheld a venerable man +seated under the shade of a palm tree, with a great book open before him +from which he was reading to an attentive circle of auditors the wars +and wanderings of their forefathers. With difficulty the priest got a +sight of the precious volume, and found it covered with figures and +signs in marvellous symmetry and order.[14-1] No wonder such a romantic +scene left a deep impression on his memory. + +The Peruvians adopted a totally different and unique system of records, +that by means of the _quipu_. This was a base cord, the thickness of the +finger, of any required length, to which were attached numerous small +strings of different colors, lengths, and textures, variously knotted +and twisted one with another. Each of these peculiarities represented a +certain number, a quality, quantity, or other idea, but _what_, not the +most fluent _quipu_ reader could tell unless he was acquainted with the +general topic treated of. Therefore, whenever news was sent in this +manner a person accompanied the bearer to serve as verbal commentator, +and to prevent confusion the _quipus_ relating to the various +departments of knowledge were placed in separate storehouses, one for +war, another for taxes, a third for history, and so forth. On what +principle or mnemotechnics the ideas were connected with the knots and +colors we are totally in the dark; it has even been doubted whether they +had any application beyond the art of numeration.[14-2] Each combination +had, however, a fixed ideographic value in a certain branch of +knowledge, and thus the _quipu_ differed essentially from the Catholic +rosary, the Jewish phylactery, or the knotted strings of the natives of +North America and Siberia, to all of which it has at times been +compared. + +The _wampum_ used by the tribes of the north Atlantic coast was, in many +respects, analogous to the quipu. In early times it was composed chiefly +of bits of wood of equal size, but different colors. These were hung on +strings which were woven into belts and bands, the hues, shapes, sizes, +and combinations of the strings hinting their general significance. Thus +the lighter shades were invariable harbingers of peaceful or pleasant +tidings, while the darker portended war and danger. The substitution of +beads or shells in place of wood, and the custom of embroidering figures +in the belts were, probably, introduced by European influence. + +Besides these, various simpler mnemonic aids were employed, such as +parcels of reeds of different lengths, notched sticks, knots in cords, +strings of pebbles or fruit-stones, circular pieces of wood or slabs +pierced with different figures which the English liken to "cony holes," +and at a victory, a treaty, or the founding of a village, sometimes a +pillar or heap of stones was erected equalling in number the persons +present at the occasion, or the number of the fallen. + +This exhausts the list. All other methods of writing, the hieroglyphs of +the Micmacs of Acadia, the syllabic alphabet of the Cherokees, the +pretended traces of Greek, Hebrew, and Celtiberic letters which have +from time to time been brought to the notice of the public, have been +without exception the products of foreign civilization or simply frauds. +Not a single coin, inscription, or memorial of any kind whatever, has +been found on the American continent showing the existence, either +generally or locally, of any other means of writing than those +specified. + +Poor as these substitutes for a developed phonetic system seem to us, +they were of great value to the uncultivated man. In his legends their +introduction is usually ascribed to some heaven-sent benefactor, the +antique characters were jealously adhered to, and the pictured scroll of +bark, the quipu ball, the belt of wampum, were treasured with provident +care, and their import minutely expounded to the most intelligent of the +rising generation. In all communities beyond the stage of barbarism a +class of persons was set apart for this duty and no other. Thus, for +example, in ancient Peru, one college of priests styled _amauta_, +learned, had exclusive charge over the quipus containing the +mythological and historical traditions; a second, the _haravecs_, +singers, devoted themselves to those referring to the national ballads +and dramas; while a third occupied their time solely with those +pertaining to civil affairs. Such custodians preserved and prepared the +archives, learned by heart with their aid what their fathers knew, and +in some countries, as, for instance, among the Panos mentioned above, +and the Quiches of Guatemala,[16-1] repeated portions of them at times +to the assembled populace. It has even been averred by one of their +converted chiefs, long a missionary to his fellows, that the Chipeways +of Lake Superior have a college composed of ten "of the wisest and most +venerable of their nation," who have in charge the pictured records +containing the ancient history of their tribe. These are kept in an +underground chamber, and are disinterred every fifteen years by the +assembled guardians, that they may be repaired, and their contents +explained to new members of the society.[17-1] + +In spite of these precautions, the end seems to have been very +imperfectly attained. The most distinguished characters, the weightiest +events in national history faded into oblivion after a few generations. +The time and circumstances of the formation of the league of the Five +Nations, the dispersion of the mound builders of the Ohio valley in the +fifteenth century, the chronicles of Peru or Mexico beyond a century or +two anterior to the conquest, are preserved in such a vague and +contradictory manner that they have slight value as history. Their +mythology fared somewhat better, for not only was it kept fresh in the +memory by frequent repetition; but being itself founded in nature, it +was constantly nourished by the truths which gave it birth. +Nevertheless, we may profit by the warning to remember that their myths +are myths only, and not the reflections of history or heroes. + +Rising from these details to a general comparison of the symbolic and +phonetic systems in their reactions on the mind, the most obvious are +their contrasted effects on the faculty of memory. Letters represent +elementary sounds, which are few in any language, while symbols stand +for ideas, and they are numerically infinite. The transmission of +knowledge by means of the latter is consequently attended with most +disproportionate labor. It is almost as if we could quote nothing from +an author unless we could recollect his exact words. We have a right to +look for excellent memories where such a mode is in vogue, and in the +present instance we are not disappointed. "These savages," exclaims La +Hontan, "have the happiest memories in the world!" It was etiquette at +their councils for each speaker to repeat verbatim all his predecessors +had said, and the whites were often astonished and confused at the +verbal fidelity with which the natives recalled the transactions of long +past treaties. Their songs were inexhaustible. An instance is on record +where an Indian sang two hundred on various subjects.[18-1] Such a fact +reminds us of a beautiful expression of the elder Humboldt: "Man," he +says, "regarded as an animal, belongs to one of the singing species; but +his notes are always associated with ideas." The youth who were educated +at the public schools of ancient Mexico--for that realm, so far from +neglecting the cause of popular education, established houses for +gratuitous instruction, and to a certain extent made the attendance upon +them obligatory--learned by rote long orations, poems, and prayers with +a facility astonishing to the conquerors, and surpassing anything they +were accustomed to see in the universities of Old Spain. A phonetic +system actually weakens the retentive powers of the mind by offering a +more facile plan for preserving thought. "_Ce que je mets sur papier, je +remets de ma mmoire_" is an expression of old Montaigne which he could +never have used had he employed ideographic characters. + +Memory, however, is of far less importance than a free activity of +thought, untrammelled by forms or precedents, and ever alert to novel +combinations of ideas. Give a race this and it will guide it to +civilization as surely as the needle directs the ship to its haven. It +is here that ideographic writing reveals its fatal inferiority. It is +forever specifying, materializing, dealing in minuti. In the Egyptian +symbolic alphabet there is a figure for a virgin, another for a married +woman, for a widow without offspring, for a widow with one child, two +children, and I know not in how many other circumstances, but for +_woman_ there is no sign. It must be so in the nature of things, for the +symbol represents the object as it appears or is fancied to appear, and +not as it is _thought_. Furthermore, the constant learning by heart +infallibly leads to slavish repetition and mental servility. + +A symbol when understood is independent of language, and is as +universally current as an Arabic numeral. But this divorce of spoken and +written language is of questionable advantage. It at once destroys all +permanent improvement in a tongue through elegance of style, sonorous +periods, or delicacy of expression, and the life of the language itself +is weakened when its forms are left to fluctuate uncontrolled. Written +poetry, grammar, rhetoric, all are impossible to the student who draws +his knowledge from such a source. + +Finally, it has been justly observed by the younger Humboldt that the +painful fidelity to the antique figures transmitted from barbarous to +polished generations is injurious to the sthetic sense, and dulls the +mind to the beautiful in art and nature. + +The transmission of thought by figures and symbols would, on the whole, +therefore, foster those narrow and material tendencies which the genius +of polysynthetic languages would seem calculated to produce. Its one +redeeming trait of strengthening the memory will serve to explain the +strange tenacity with which certain myths have been preserved through +widely dispersed families, as we shall hereafter see. + +Besides this of language there are two traits in the history of the red +man without parallel in that of any other variety of our species which +has achieved any notable progress in civilization. + +The one is his _isolation_. Cut off time out of mind from the rest of +the world, he never underwent those crossings of blood and culture which +so modified and on the whole promoted the growth of the old world +nationalities. In his own way he worked out his own destiny, and what he +won was his with a more than ordinary right of ownership. For all those +old dreams of the advent of the Ten Lost Tribes, of Buddhist priests, of +Welsh princes, or of Phenician merchants on American soil, and there +exerting a permanent influence, have been consigned to the dustbin by +every unbiased student, and when we see such men as Mr. Schoolcraft and +the Abb E. C. Brasseur essaying to resuscitate them, we regretfully +look upon it in the light of a literary anachronism. + +The second trait is the entire absence of the herdsman's life with its +softening associations. Throughout the continent there is not a single +authentic instance of a pastoral tribe, not one of an animal raised for +its milk,[21-1] nor for the transportation of persons, and very few for +their flesh. It was essentially a hunting race. The most civilized +nations looked to the chase for their chief supply of meat, and the +courts of Cuzco and Mexico enacted stringent game and forest laws, and +at certain periods the whole population turned out for a general crusade +against the denizens of the forest. In the most densely settled +districts the conquerors found vast stretches of primitive woods. + +If we consider the life of a hunter, pitting his skill and strength +against the marvellous instincts and quick perceptions of the brute, +training his senses to preternatural acuteness, but blunting his more +tender feelings, his sole aim to shed blood and take life, dependent on +luck for his food, exposed to deprivations, storms, and long +wanderings, his chief diet flesh, we may more readily comprehend that +conspicuous disregard of human suffering, those sanguinary rites, that +vindictive spirit, that inappeasable restlessness, which we so often +find in the chronicles of ancient America. The law with reason objects +to accepting a butcher as a juror on a trial for life; here is a whole +race of butchers. + +The one mollifying element was agriculture. On the altar of Mixcoatl, +god of hunting, the Aztec priest tore the heart from the human victim +and smeared with the spouting blood the snake that coiled its lengths +around the idol; flowers and fruits, yellow ears of maize and clusters +of rich bananas decked the shrine of Centeotl, beneficent patroness of +agriculture, and bloodless offerings alone were her appropriate dues. +This shows how clear, even to the native mind, was the contrast between +these two modes of subsistence. By substituting a sedentary for a +wandering life, by supplying a fixed dependence for an uncertain +contingency, and by admonishing man that in preservation, not in +destruction, lies his most remunerative sphere of activity, we can +hardly estimate too highly the wide distribution of the zea mays. This +was their only cereal, and it was found in cultivation from the southern +extremity of Chili to the fiftieth parallel of north latitude, beyond +which limits the low temperature renders it an uncertain crop. In their +legends it is represented as the gift of the Great Spirit (Chipeways), +brought from the terrestrial Paradise by the sacred animals (Quiches), +and symbolically the mother of the race (Nahuas), and the material from +which was moulded the first of men (Quiches). + +As the races, so the great families of man who speak dialects of the +same tongue are, in a sense, individuals, bearing each its own +physiognomy. When the whites first heard the uncouth gutturals of the +Indians, they frequently proclaimed that hundreds of radically diverse +languages, invented, it was piously suggested, by the Devil for the +annoyance of missionaries, prevailed over the continent. Earnest +students of such matters--Vater, Duponceau, Gallatin, and +Buschmann--have, however, demonstrated that nine-tenths of the area of +America, at its discovery, were occupied by tribes using dialects +traceable to ten or a dozen primitive stems. The names of these, their +geographical position in the sixteenth century, and, so far as it is +safe to do so, their individual character, I shall briefly mention. + +Fringing the shores of the Northern Ocean from Mount St. Elias on the +west to the Gulf of St. Lawrence on the east, rarely seen a hundred +miles from the coast, were the Eskimos.[23-1] They are the connecting +link between the races of the Old and New Worlds, in physical appearance +and mental traits more allied to the former, but in language betraying +their near kinship to the latter. An amphibious race, born fishermen, in +their buoyant skin kayaks they brave fearlessly the tempests, make long +voyages, and merit the sobriquet bestowed upon them by Von Baer, "the +Phenicians of the north." Contrary to what one might suppose, they are, +amid their snows, a contented, light-hearted people, knowing no longing +for a sunnier clime, given to song, music, and merry tales. They are +cunning handicraftsmen to a degree, but withal wholly ingulfed in a +sensuous existence. The desperate struggle for life engrosses them, and +their mythology is barren. + +South of them, extending in a broad band across the continent from +Hudson's Bay to the Pacific, and almost to the Great Lakes below, is the +Athapascan stock. Its affiliated tribes rove far north to the mouth of +the Mackenzie River, and wandering still more widely in an opposite +direction along both declivities of the Rocky Mountains, people portions +of the coast of Oregon south of the mouth of the Columbia, and spreading +over the plains of New Mexico under the names of Apaches, Navajos, and +Lipans, almost reach the tropics at the delta of the Rio Grande del +Norte, and on the shores of the Gulf of California. No wonder they +deserted their fatherland and forgot it altogether, for it is a very +_terra damnata_, whose wretched inhabitants are cut off alike from the +harvest of the sea and the harvest of the soil. The profitable culture of +maize does not extend beyond the fiftieth parallel of latitude, and less +than seven degrees farther north the mean annual temperature everywhere +east of the mountains sinks below the freezing point.[25-1] Agriculture +is impossible, and the only chance for life lies in the uncertain +fortunes of the chase and the penurious gifts of an arctic flora. The +denizens of these wilds are abject, slovenly, hopelessly savage, "at the +bottom of the scale of humanity in North America," says Dr. Richardson, +and their relatives who have wandered to the more genial climes of the +south are as savage as they, as perversely hostile to a sedentary life, +as gross and narrow in their moral notions. This wide-spread stock, +scattered over forty-five degrees of latitude, covering thousands of +square leagues, reaching from the Arctic Ocean to the confines of the +empire of the Montezumas, presents in all its subdivisions the same +mental physiognomy and linguistic peculiarities.[25-2] + +Best known to us of all the Indians are the Algonkins and Iroquois, who, +at the time of the discovery, were the sole possessors of the region now +embraced by Canada and the eastern United States north of the +thirty-fifth parallel. The latter, under the names of the Five Nations, +Hurons, Tuscaroras, Susquehannocks, Nottoways and others, occupied much +of the soil from the St. Lawrence and Lake Ontario to the Roanoke, and +perhaps the Cherokees, whose homes were in the secluded vales of East +Tennessee, were one of their early offshoots.[25-3] They were a race of +warriors, courageous, cruel, unimaginative, but of rare political +sagacity. They are more like ancient Romans than Indians, and are leading +figures in the colonial wars. + +The Algonkins surrounded them on every side, occupying the rest of the +region mentioned and running westward to the base of the Rocky +Mountains, where one of their famous bands, the Blackfeet, still hunts +over the valley of the Saskatchewan. They were more genial than the +Iroquois, of milder manners and more vivid fancy, and were regarded by +these with a curious mixture of respect and contempt. Some writer has +connected this difference with their preference for the open prairie +country in contrast to the endless and sombre forests where were the +homes of the Iroquois. Their history abounds in great men, whose +ambitious plans were foiled by the levity of their allies and their want +of persistence. They it was who under King Philip fought the Puritan +fathers; who at the instigation of Pontiac doomed to death every white +trespasser on their soil; who led by Tecumseh and Black Hawk gathered +the clans of the forest and mountain for the last pitched battle of the +races in the Mississippi valley. To them belonged the mild mannered +Lenni Lenape, who little foreboded the hand of iron that grasped their +own so softly under the elm tree of Shackamaxon, to them the restless +Shawnee, the gypsy of the wilderness, the Chipeways of Lake Superior, +and also to them the Indian girl Pocahontas, who in the legend averted +from the head of the white man the blow which, rebounding, swept away +her father and all his tribe.[27-1] + +Between their southernmost outposts and the Gulf of Mexico were a number +of clans, mostly speaking the Muscogee tongue, Creeks, Choctaws, +Chikasaws, and others, in later times summed up as Apalachian Indians, +but by early writers sometimes referred to as "The Empire of the +Natchez." For tradition says that long ago this small tribe, whose home +was in the Big Black country, was at the head of a loose confederation +embracing most of the nations from the Atlantic coast quite into Texas; +and adds that the expedition of De Soto severed its lax bonds and shook +it irremediably into fragments. Whether this is worth our credence or +not, the comparative civilization of the Natchez, and the analogy their +language bears to that of the Mayas of Yucatan, the builders of those +ruined cities which Stephens and Catherwood have made so familiar to the +world, attach to them a peculiar interest.[27-2] + +North of the Arkansas River on the right bank of the Mississippi, quite +to its source, stretching over to Lake Michigan at Green Bay, and up the +valley of the Missouri west to the mountains, resided the Dakotas, an +erratic folk, averse to agriculture, but daring hunters and bold +warriors, tall and strong of body.[28-1] Their religious notions have +been carefully studied, and as they are remarkably primitive and +transparent, they will often be referred to. The Sioux and the +Winnebagoes are well-known branches of this family. + +We have seen that Dr. Richardson assigned to a portion of the Athapascas +the lowest place among North American tribes, but there are some in New +Mexico who might contest the sad distinction, the Root Diggers, +Comanches and others, members of the Snake or Shoshonee family, +scattered extensively northwest of Mexico. It has been said of a part of +these that they are "nearer the brutes than probably any other portion +of the human race on the face of the globe."[28-2] Their habits in some +respects are more brutish than those of any brute, for there is no +limit to man's moral descent or ascent, and the observer might well be +excused for doubting whether such a stock ever had a history in the +past, or the possibility of one in the future. Yet these debased +creatures speak a related dialect, and are beyond a doubt largely of the +same blood as the famous Aztec race, who founded the empire of Anahuac, +and raised architectural monuments rivalling the most famous structures +of the ancient world. This great family, whose language has been traced +from Nicaragua to Vancouver's Island, and whose bold intellects colored +all the civilization of the northern continent, was composed in that +division of it found in New Spain chiefly of two bands, the Toltecs, +whose traditions point to the mountain ranges of Guatemala as their +ancient seat, and the Nahuas, who claim to have come at a later period +from the northwest coast, and together settled in and near the valley of +Mexico.[29-1] Outlying colonies on the shore of Lake Nicaragua and in +the mountains of Vera Paz rose to a civilization that rivalled that of +the Montezumas, while others remained in utter barbarism in the far +north. + +The Aztecs not only conquered a Maya colony, and founded the empire of +the Quiches in Central America, a complete body of whose mythology has +been brought to light in late years, but seem to have made a marked +imprint on the Mayas themselves. These possessed, as has already been +said, the peninsula of Yucatan. There is some reason to suppose they +came thither originally from the Greater Antilles, and none to doubt but +that the Huastecas who lived on the river Panuco and the Natchez of +Louisiana were offshoots from them. Their language is radically distinct +from that of the Aztecs, but their calendar and a portion of their +mythology are common property. They seem an ancient race of mild manners +and considerable polish. No American nation offers a more promising +field for study. Their stone temples still bear testimony to their +uncommon skill in the arts. A trustworthy tradition dates the close of +the golden age of Yucatan a century anterior to its discovery by +Europeans. Previously it had been one kingdom, under one ruler, and +prolonged peace had fostered the growth of the fine arts; but when +their capital Mayapan fell, internal dissensions ruined most of their +cities. + +No connection whatever has been shown between the civilization of North +and South America. In the latter continent it was confined to two +totally foreign tribes, the Muyscas, whose empire, called that of the +Zacs, was in the neighborhood of Bogota, and the Peruvians, who in their +two related divisions of Quichuas and Aymaras extended their language +and race along the highlands of the Cordilleras from the equator to the +thirtieth degree of south latitude. Lake Titicaca seems to have been the +cradle of their civilization, offering another example how inland seas +and well-watered plains favor the change from a hunting to an +agricultural life. These four nations, the Aztecs, the Mayas, the +Muyscas and the Peruvians, developed spontaneously and independently +under the laws of human progress what civilization was found among the +red race. They owed nothing to Asiatic or European teachers. The Incas +it was long supposed spoke a language of their own, and this has been +thought evidence of foreign extraction; but Wilhelm von Humboldt has +shown conclusively that it was but a dialect of the common tongue of +their country.[31-1] + +When Columbus first touched the island of Cuba, he was regaled with +horrible stories of one-eyed monsters who dwelt on the other islands, +but plundered indiscriminately on every hand. These turned out to be the +notorious Caribs, whose other name, _Cannibals_, has descended as a +common noun to our language, expressive of one of their inhuman +practices. They had at that time seized many of the Antilles, and had +gained a foothold on the coast of Honduras and Darien, but pointed for +their home to the mainland of South America. This they possessed along +the whole northern shore, inland at least as far as the south bank of +the Amazon, and west nearly to the Cordilleras. It is still an open +question whether the Tupis and Guaranis who inhabit the vast region +between the Amazon and the Pampas of Buenos Ayres are affined to them. +The traveller D'Orbigny zealously maintains the affirmative, and there +is certainly some analogy of language, but withal an inexplicable +contrast of character. The latter were, and are, in the main, a +peaceable, inoffensive, apathetic set, dull and unambitious, while the +Caribs won a terrible renown as bold warriors, daring navigators, +skilful in handicrafts; and their poisoned arrows, cruel and disgusting +habits, and enterprise, rendered them a terror and a by-word for +generations.[32-1] + +Our information of the natives of the Pampas, Patagonia, and the Land of +Fire, is too vague to permit their positive identification with the +Araucanians of Chili; but there is much to render the view plausible. +Certain physical peculiarities, a common unconquerable love of freedom, +and a delight in war, bring them together, and at the same time place +them both in strong contrast to their northern neighbors.[33-1] + +There are many tribes whose affinities remain to be decided, especially +on the Pacific coast. The lack of inland water communication, the +difficult nature of the soil, and perhaps the greater antiquity of the +population there, seem to have isolated and split up beyond recognition +the indigenous families on that shore of the continent; while the great +river systems and broad plains of the Atlantic slope facilitated +migration and intercommunication, and thus preserved national +distinctions over thousands of square leagues. + +These natural features of the continent, compared with the actual +distribution of languages, offer our only guides in forming an opinion +as to the migrations of these various families in ancient times. Their +traditions, take even the most cultivated, are confused, contradictory, +and in great part manifestly fabulous. To construct from them by means +of daring combinations and forced interpretations a connected account of +the race during the centuries preceding Columbus were with the aid of a +vivid fancy an easy matter, but would be quite unworthy the name of +history. The most that can be said with certainty is that the general +course of migrations in both Americas was from the high latitudes toward +the tropics, and from the great western chain of mountains toward the +east. No reasonable doubt exists but that the Athapascas, Algonkins, +Iroquois, Apalachians, and Aztecs all migrated from the north and west +to the regions they occupied. In South America, curiously enough, the +direction is reversed. If the Caribs belong to the Tupi-Guaranay stem, +and if the Quichuas belong to the Aymaras, as there is strong +likelihood,[34-1] then nine-tenths of the population of that vast +continent wandered forth from the steppes and valleys at the head waters +of the Rio de la Plata toward the Gulf of Mexico, where they came in +collision with that other wave of migration surging down from high +northern latitudes. For the banks of the river Paraguay and the steppes +of the Bolivian Cordilleras are unquestionably the earliest traditional +homes of both Tupis and Aymaras. + +These movements took place not in large bodies under the stimulus of a +settled purpose, but step by step, family by family, as the older +hunting grounds became too thickly peopled. This fact hints unmistakably +at the gray antiquity of the race. It were idle even to guess how great +this must be, but it is possible to set limits to it in both directions. +On the one hand, not a tittle of evidence is on record to carry the age +of man in America beyond the present geological epoch. Dr. Lund examined +in Brazil more than eight hundred caverns, out of which number only six +contained human bones, and of these six only one had with the human +bones those of animals now extinct. Even in that instance the original +stratification had been disturbed, and probably the bones had been +interred there.[35-1] This is strong negative evidence. So in every +other example where an unbiased and competent geologist has made the +examination, the alleged discoveries of human remains in the older +strata have proved erroneous. + +The cranial forms of the American aborigines have by some been supposed +to present anomalies distinguishing their race from all others, and even +its chief families from one another. This, too, falls to the ground +before a rigid analysis. The last word of craniology, which at one time +promised to revolutionize ethnology and even history, is that no one form +of the skull is peculiar to the natives of the New World; that in the +same linguistic family one glides into another by imperceptible degrees; +and that there is as much diversity, and the same diversity among them in +this respect as among the races of the Old Continent.[35-2] Peculiarities +of structure, though they may pass as general truths, offer no firm +foundation whereon to construct a scientific ethnology. Anatomy shows +nothing unique in the Indian, nothing demanding for its development any +special antiquity, still less an original diversity of type. + +On the other hand, the remains of primeval art and the impress he made +upon nature bespeak for man a residence in the New World coeval with the +most distant events of history. By remains of art I do not so much refer +to those desolate palaces which crumble forgotten in the gloom of +tropical woods, nor even the enormous earthworks of the Mississippi +valley covered with the mould of generations of forest trees, but rather +to the humbler and less deceptive relics of his kitchens and his hunts. +On the Atlantic coast one often sees the refuse of Indian villages, +where generation after generation have passed their summers in fishing, +and left the bones, shells, and charcoal as their only epitaph. How many +such summers would it require for one or two hundred people to thus +gradually accumulate a mound of offal eight or ten feet high and a +hundred yards across, as is common enough? How many generations to heap +up that at the mouth of the Altamaha River, examined and pronounced +exclusively of this origin by Sir Charles Lyell,[36-1] which is about +this height, and covers ten acres of ground? Those who, like myself, +have tramped over many a ploughed field in search of arrow-heads must +have sometimes been amazed at the numbers which are sown over the face +of our country, betokening a most prolonged possession of the soil by +their makers. For a hunting population is always sparse, and the +collector finds only those arrow-heads which lie upon the surface. + +Still more forcibly does nature herself bear witness to this antiquity +of possession. Botanists declare that a very lengthy course of +cultivation is required so to alter the form of a plant that it can no +longer be identified with the wild species; and still more protracted +must be the artificial propagation for it to lose its power of +independent life, and to rely wholly on man to preserve it from +extinction. Now this is precisely the condition of the maize, tobacco, +cotton, quinoa, and mandioca plants, and of that species of palm called +by botanists the _Gulielma speciosa_; all have been cultivated from +immemorial time by the aborigines of America, and, except cotton, by no +other race; all no longer are to be identified with any known wild +species; several are sure to perish unless fostered by human care.[37-1] +What numberless ages does this suggest? How many centuries elapsed ere +man thought of cultivating Indian corn? How many more ere it had spread +over nearly a hundred degrees of latitude, and lost all semblance to its +original form? Who has the temerity to answer these questions? The +judicious thinker will perceive in them satisfactory reasons for +dropping once for all the vexed inquiry, "how America was peopled," and +will smile at its imaginary solutions, whether they suggest Jews, +Japanese, or, as the latest theory is, Egyptians. + +While these and other considerations testify forcibly to that isolation +I have already mentioned, they are almost equally positive for an +extensive intercourse in very distant ages between the great families of +the race, and for a prevalent unity of mental type, or perhaps they hint +at a still visible oneness of descent. In their stage of culture, the +maize, cotton, and tobacco could hardly have spread so widely by +commerce alone. Then there are verbal similarities running through wide +families of languages which, in the words of Professor Buschmann, are +"calculated to fill us with bewildering amazement,"[38-1] some of which +will hereafter be pointed out; and lastly, passing to the psychological +constitution of the race, we may quote the words of a sharp-sighted +naturalist, whose monograph on one of its tribes is unsurpassed for +profound reflections: "Not only do all the primitive inhabitants of +America stand on one scale of related culture, but that mental condition +of all in which humanity chiefly mirrors itself, to wit, their religious +and moral consciousness, this source of all other inner and outer +conditions, is one with all, however diverse the natural influences +under which they live."[38-2] + +Penetrated with the truth of these views, all artificial divisions into +tropical or temperate, civilized or barbarous, will in the present work, +so far as possible, be avoided, and the race will be studied as a unit, +its religion as the development of ideas common to all its members, and +its myths as the garb thrown around these ideas by imaginations more or +less fertile, but seeking everywhere to embody the same notions. + + +BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE. + + As the subject of American mythology is a new one to most readers, + and as in its discussion everything depends on a careful selection + of authorities, it is well at the outset to review very briefly + what has already been written upon it, and to assign the relative + amount of weight that in the following pages will be given to the + works most frequently quoted. The conclusions I have arrived at are + so different from those who have previously touched upon the topic + that such a step seems doubly advisable. + + The first who undertook a philosophical survey of American + religions was Dr. Samuel Farmer Jarvis, in 1819 (A Discourse on the + Religion of the Indian Tribes of North America, Collections of the + New York Historical Society, vol. iii., New York, 1821). He + confined himself to the tribes north of Mexico, a difficult portion + of the field, and at that time not very well known. The notion of a + state of primitive civilization prevented Dr. Jarvis from forming + any correct estimate of the native religions, as it led him to look + upon them as deteriorations from purer faiths instead of + developments. Thus he speaks of them as having "departed less than + among any other nation from the form of primeval truth," and also + mentions their "wonderful uniformity" (pp. 219, 221). + + The well-known American ethnologist, Mr. E. G. Squier, has also + published a work on the subject, of wider scope than its title + indicates (The Serpent Symbol in America, New York, 1851). Though + written in a much more liberal spirit than the preceding, it is + wholly in the interests of one school of mythology, and it the + rather shallow physical one, so fashionable in Europe half a + century ago. Thus, with a sweeping generalization, he says, "The + religions or superstitions of the American nations, however + different they may appear to the superficial glance, are + rudimentally the same, and are only modifications of that primitive + system which under its physical aspect has been denominated Sun or + Fire worship" (p. 111). With this he combines the favorite and (may + I add?) characteristic French doctrine, that the chief topic of + mythology is the adoration of the generative power, and to rescue + such views from their materializing tendencies, imagines to + counterbalance them a clear, universal monotheism. "We claim to + have shown," he says (p. 154), "that the grand conception of a + Supreme Unity and the doctrine of the reciprocal principles existed + in America in a well defined and clearly recognized form;" and + elsewhere that "the monotheistic idea stands out clearly in _all_ + the religions of America" (p. 151). + + If with a hope of other views we turn to our magnificent national + work on the Indians (History, Conditions, and Prospects of the + Indian Tribes of the United States: Washington, 1851-9), a great + disappointment awaits us. That work was unfortunate in its editor. + It is a monument of American extravagance and superficiality. Mr. + Schoolcraft was a man of deficient education and narrow prejudices, + pompous in style, and inaccurate in statements. The information + from original observers it contains is often of real value, but the + general views on aboriginal history and religion are shallow and + untrustworthy in the extreme. + + A German professor, Dr. J. G. Mller, has written quite a + voluminous work on American Primitive Religions (_Geschichte der + Amerikanischen Ur-religionen_, pp. 707: Basel, 1855). His theory is + that "at the south a worship of nature with the adoration of the + sun as its centre, at the north a fear of spirits combined with + fetichism, made up the two fundamental divisions of the religion of + the red race" (pp. 89, 90). This imaginary antithesis he traces out + between the Algonkin and Apalachian tribes, and between the Toltecs + of Guatemala and the Aztecs of Mexico. His quotations are nearly + all at second hand, and so little does he criticize his facts as to + confuse the Vaudoux worship of the Haitian negroes with that of + Votan in Chiapa. His work can in no sense be considered an + authority. + + Very much better is the Anthropology of the late Dr. Theodore Waitz + (_Anthropologie der Naturvoelker_: Leipzig, 1862-66). No more + comprehensive, sound, and critical work on the indigenes of America + has ever been written. But on their religions the author is + unfortunately defective, being led astray by the hasty and + groundless generalizations of others. His great anxiety, moreover, + to subject all moral sciences to a realistic philosophy, was + peculiarly fatal to any correct appreciation of religious growth, + and his views are neither new nor tenable. + + For a different reason I must condemn in the most unqualified + manner the attempt recently made by the enthusiastic and + meritorious antiquary, the Abb E. Charles Brasseur (de Bourbourg), + to explain American mythology after the example of Euhemerus, of + Thessaly, as the apotheosis of history. This theory, which has been + repeatedly applied to other mythologies with invariable failure, is + now disowned by every distinguished student of European and + Oriental antiquity; and to seek to introduce it into American + religions is simply to render them still more obscure and + unattractive, and to deprive them of the only general interest they + now have, that of illustrating the gradual development of the + religious ideas of humanity. + + But while thus regretting the use he has made of them, all + interested in American antiquity cannot too much thank this + indefatigable explorer for the priceless materials he has unearthed + in the neglected libraries of Spain and Central America, and laid + before the public. For the present purpose the most significant of + these is the Sacred National Book of the Quiches, a tribe of + Guatemala. This contains their legends, written in the original + tongue, and transcribed by Father Francisco Ximenes about 1725. The + manuscripts of this missionary were used early in the present + century, by Don Felix Cabrera, but were supposed to be entirely + lost even by the Abb Brasseur himself in 1850 (_Lettre M. le Duc + de Valmy_, Mexique, Oct. 15, 1850). Made aware of their importance + by the expressions of regret used in the Abb's letters, Dr. C. + Sherzer, in 1854, was fortunate enough to discover them in the + library of the University of San Carlos in the city of Guatemala. + The legends were in Quiche with a Spanish translation and scholia. + The Spanish was copied by Dr. Scherzer and published in Vienna, in + 1856, under the title _Las Historias del Origen de los Indios de + Guatemala, por el R. P. F. Francisco Ximenes_. In 1855 the Abb + Brasseur took a copy of the original which he brought out at Paris + in 1861, with a translation of his own, under the title _Vuh Popol: + Le Livre Sacr des Quichs et les Mythes de l'Antiquit Amricaine_. + Internal evidence proves that these legends were written down by a + converted native some time in the seventeenth century. They carry + the national history back about two centuries, beyond which all is + professedly mythical. Although both translations are colored by the + peculiar views of their makers, this is incomparably the most + complete and valuable work on American mythology extant. + + Another authority of inestimable value has been placed within the + reach of scholars during the last few years. This is the _Relations + de la Nouvelle France_, containing the annual reports of the + Jesuit missionaries among the Iroquois and Algonkins from and + after 1611. My references to this are always to the reprint at + Quebec, 1858. Of not less excellence for another tribe, the Creeks, + is the brief "Sketch of the Creek Country," by Col. Benjamin + Hawkins, written about 1800, and first published in full by the + Georgia Historical Society in 1848. Most of the other works to + which I have referred are too well known to need any special + examination here, or will be more particularly mentioned in the + foot-notes when quoted. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[2-1] Waitz, _Anthropologie der Naturvoelker_, i. p. 256. + +[2-2] Carriere, _Die Kunst im Zusammenhang der Culturentwickelung_, i. p. +66. + +[6-1] It is said indeed that the Yebus, a people on the west coast of +Africa, speak a polysynthetic language, and _per contra_, that the Otomis +of Mexico have a monosyllabic one like the Chinese. Max Mueller goes +further, and asserts that what is called the process of agglutination in +the Turanian languages is the same as what has been named polysynthesis +in America. This is not to be conceded. In the former the root is +unchangeable, the formative elements follow it, and prefixes are not +used; in the latter prefixes are common, and the formative elements are +blended with the root, both undergoing changes of structure. Very +important differences. + +[9-1] Grimm, _Geschichte der Deutschen Sprache_, p. 571. + +[11-1] Peter Martyr, _De Insulis nuper Repertis_, p. 354: Colon. 1574. + +[12-1] They may be found in Waitz, _Anthrop. der Naturvoelker_, iv. p. +173. + +[13-1] The only authority is Diego de Landa, _Relacion de las Cosas de +Yucatan_, ed. Brasseur, Paris, 1864, p. 318. The explanation is extremely +obscure in the original. I have given it in the only sense in which the +author's words seem to have any meaning. + +[14-1] Humboldt, _Vues des Cordillres_, p. 72. + +[14-2] Desjardins, _Le Prou avant la Conqute Espagnole_, p. 122: Paris, +1858. + +[16-1] An instance is given by Ximenes, _Origen de los Indios de +Guatemala_, p. 186: Vienna, 1856. + +[17-1] George Copway, _Traditional History of the Ojibway Nation_, p. +130: London, 1850. + +[18-1] Morse, _Report on the Indian Tribes_, App. p. 352. + +[21-1] Gomara states that De Ayllon found tribes on the Atlantic shore +not far from Cape Hatteras keeping flocks of deer (_ciervos_) and from +their milk making cheese (_Hist. de las Indias_, cap. 43). I attach no +importance to this statement, and only mention it to connect it with some +other curious notices of the tribe now extinct who occupied that +locality. Both De Ayllon and Lawson mention their very light complexions, +and the latter saw many with blonde hair, blue eyes, and a fair skin; +they cultivated when first visited the potato (or the groundnut), +tobacco, and cotton (Humboldt); they reckoned time by disks of wood +divided into sixty segments (Lederer); and just in this latitude the most +careful determination fixes the mysterious White-man's-land, or Great +Ireland of the Icelandic Sagas (see the _American Hist. Mag._, ix. p. +364), where the Scandinavian sea rovers in the eleventh century found men +of their own color, clothed in long woven garments, and not less +civilized than themselves. + +[23-1] The name Eskimo is from the Algonkin word _Eskimantick_, eaters of +raw flesh. There is reason to believe that at one time they possessed the +Atlantic coast considerably to the south. The Northmen, in the year 1000, +found the natives of Vinland, probably near Rhode Island, of the same +race as they were familiar with in Labrador. They call them _Skralingar_, +chips, and describe them as numerous and short of stature (Eric Rothens +Saga, in Mueller, _Sagnbibliothek_, p. 214). It is curious that the +traditions of the Tuscaroras, who placed their arrival on the Virginian +coast about 1300, spoke of the race they found there as eaters of raw +flesh and ignorant of maize (Lederer, _Account of North America_, in +Harris, Voyages). + +[25-1] Richardson, _Arctic Expedition_, p. 374. + +[25-2] The late Professor W. W. Turner of Washington, and Professor +Buschmann of Berlin, are the two scholars who have traced the boundaries +of this widely dispersed family. The name is drawn from Lake Athapasca in +British America. + +[25-3] The Cherokee tongue has a limited number of words in common with +the Iroquois, and its structural similarity is close. The name is of +unknown origin. It should doubtless be spelled _Tsalakie_, a plural form, +almost the same as that of the river Tellico, properly Tsaliko (Ramsey, +_Annals of Tennessee_, p. 87), on the banks of which their principal +towns were situated. Adair's derivation from _cheera_, fire, is +worthless, as no such word exists in their language. + +[27-1] The term Algonkin may be a corruption of _agomeegwin_, people of +the other shore. Algic, often used synonymously, is an adjective +manufactured by Mr. Schoolcraft "from the words Alleghany and Atlantic" +(Algic Researches, ii. p. 12). There is no occasion to accept it, as +there is no objection to employing Algonkin both as substantive and +adjective. Iroquois is a French compound of the native words _hiro_, I +have said, and _kou_, an interjection of assent or applause, terms +constantly heard in their councils. + +[27-2] Apalachian, which should be spelt with one p, is formed of two +Creek words, _apala_, the great sea, the ocean, and the suffix _chi_, +people, and means those dwelling by the ocean. That the Natchez were +offshoots of the Mayas I was the first to surmise and to prove by a +careful comparison of one hundred Natchez words with their equivalents in +the Maya dialects. Of these, _five_ have affinities more or less marked +to words peculiar to the Huastecas of the river Panuco (a Maya colony), +_thirteen_ to words common to Huasteca and Maya, and _thirty-nine_ to +words of similar meaning in the latter language. This resemblance may be +exemplified by the numerals, one, two, four, seven, eight, twenty. In +Natchez they are _hu_, _ah_, _gan_, _uk-woh_, _upku-tepish_, _oka-poo_: +in Maya, _hu_, _ca_, _can_, _uk_, _uapx_, _hunkal_. (See the Am. Hist. +Mag., New Series, vol. i. p. 16, Jan. 1867.) + +[28-1] Dakota, a native word, means friends or allies. + +[28-2] Rep. of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1854, p. 209. + +[29-1] According to Professor Buschmann Aztec is probably from _iztac_, +white, and Nahuatlacatl signifies those who speak the language _Nahuatl_, +clear sounding, sonorous. The Abb Brasseur (de Bourbourg), on the other +hand, derives the latter from the Quiche _nawal_, intelligent, and adds +the amazing information that this is identical with the English _know +all_!! (_Hist. du Mexique_, etc., i. p. 102). For in his theory several +languages of Central America are derived from the same old Indo-Germanic +stock as the English, German, and cognate tongues. Toltec, from +_Toltecatl_, means inhabitant of Tollan, which latter may be from +_tolin_, rush, and signify the place of rushes. The signification +_artificer_, often assigned to Toltecatl, is of later date, and was +derived from the famed artistic skill of this early folk (Buschmann, +_Aztek. Ortsnamen_, p. 682: Berlin, 1852). The Toltecs are usually spoken +of as anterior to the Nahuas, but the Tlascaltecs and natives of +Cholollan or Cholula were in fact Toltecs, unless we assign to this +latter name a merely mythical signification. The early migrations of the +two Aztec bands and their relationship, it may be said in passing, are as +yet extremely obscure. The Shoshonees when first known dwelt as far north +as the head waters of the Missouri, and in the country now occupied by +the Black Feet. Their language, which includes that of the Comanche, +Wihinasht, Utah, and kindred bands, was first shown to have many and +marked affinities with that of the Aztecs by Professor Buschmann in his +great work, _Ueber die Spuren der Aztekischen Sprache im nrdlichen +Mexico und hheren Amerikanischen Norden_, p. 648: Berlin, 1854. + +[31-1] His opinion was founded on an analysis of fifteen words of the +secret language of the Incas preserved in the Royal Commentaries of +Garcilasso de la Vega. On examination, they all proved to be modified +forms from the _lengua general_ (Meyen, _Ueber die Ureinwohner von Peru_, +p. 6). The Quichuas of Peru must not be confounded with the Quiches of +Guatemala. Quiche is the name of a place, and means "many trees;" the +derivation of Quichua is unknown. Muyscas means "men." This nation also +called themselves Chibchas. + +[32-1] The significance of Carib is probably warrior. It may be the same +word as Guarani, which also has this meaning. Tupi or Tupa is the name +given the thunder, and can only be understood mythically. + +[33-1] The Araucanians probably obtained their name from two Quichua +words, _ari auccan_, yes! they fight; an idiom very expressive of their +warlike character. They had had long and terrible wars with the Incas +before the arrival of Pizarro. + +[34-1] Since writing the text I have received the admirable work of Dr. +von Martius, _Beitrge zur Ethnographie und Sprachenkunde Amerika's zumal +Brasilians_, Leipzig, 1867, in which I observe that that profound student +considers that there is no doubt but that the Island Caribs, and the +Galibis of the main land are descendants from the same stock as the Tupis +and Guaranis. + +[35-1] _Comptes Rendus_, vol. xxi. p. 1368 sqq. + +[35-2] The two best authorities are Daniel Wilson, _The American Cranial +Type_, in _Ann. Rep. of the Smithson. Inst._, 1862, p. 240, and J. A. +Meigs, _Cranial Forms of the Amer. Aborigs._: Phila. 1866. They accord in +the views expressed in the text and in the rejection of those advocated +by Dr. S. G. Morton in the Crania Americana. + +[36-1] _Second Visit to the United States_, i. p. 252. + +[37-1] Martius, _Von dem Rechtzustande unter den Ureinwohnern +Brasiliens_, p. 80: Muenchen, 1832; recently republished in his _Beitrge +zur Ethnographie und Sprachenkunde Amerika's_: Leipzig, 1867. + +[38-1] _Athapaskische Sprachstamm_, p. 164: Berlin, 1856. + +[38-2] Martius, _Von dem Rechtzustande unter den Ureinwohnern +Brasiliens_, p. 77. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +THE IDEA OF GOD. + + An intuition common to the species.--Words expressing it in + American languages derived either from ideas of above in space, or + of life manifested by breath.--Examples.--No conscious monotheism, + and but little idea of immateriality discoverable.--Still less any + moral dualism of deities, the Great Good Spirit and the Great Bad + Spirit being alike terms and notions of foreign importation. + + +If we accept the definition that mythology is the idea of God expressed +in symbol, figure, and narrative, and always struggling toward a clearer +utterance, it is well not only to trace this idea in its very earliest +embodiment in language, but also, for the sake of comparison, to ask +what is its latest and most approved expression. The reply to this is +given us by Immanuel Kant. He has shown that our reason, dwelling on the +facts of experience, constantly seeks the principles which connect them +together, and only rests satisfied in the conviction that there is a +highest and first principle which reconciles all their discrepancies and +binds them into one. This he calls the Ideal of Reason. It must be true, +for it is evolved from the laws of reason, our only test of truth. +Furthermore, the sense of personality and the voice of conscience, +analyzed to their sources, can only be explained by the assumption of an +infinite personality and an absolute standard of right. Or, if to some +all this appears but wire-drawn metaphysical subtlety, they are welcome +to the definition of the realist, that the idea of God is the sum of +those intelligent activities which the individual, reasoning from the +analogy of his own actions, imagines to be behind and to bring about +natural phenomena.[44-1] If either of these be correct, it were hard to +conceive how any tribe or even any sane man could be without some notion +of divinity. + +Certainly in America no instance of its absence has been discovered. +Obscure, grotesque, unworthy it often was, but everywhere man was +oppressed with a _sensus numinis_, a feeling that invisible, powerful +agencies were at work around him, who, as they willed, could help or +hurt him. In every heart was an altar to the Unknown God. Not that it +was customary to attach any idea of unity to these unseen powers. The +supposition that in ancient times and in very unenlightened conditions, +before mythology had grown, a monotheism prevailed, which afterwards at +various times was revived by reformers, is a belief that should have +passed away when the delights of savage life and the praises of a state +of nature ceased to be the themes of philosophers. We are speaking of a +people little capable of abstraction. The exhibitions of force in nature +seemed to them the manifestations of that mysterious power felt by their +self-consciousness; to combine these various manifestations and +recognize them as the operations of one personality, was a step not +easily taken. Yet He is not far from every one of us. "Whenever man +thinks clearly, or feels deeply, he conceives God as self-conscious +unity," says Carriere, with admirable insight; and elsewhere, "we have +monotheism, not in contrast to polytheism, not clear to the thought, but +in living intuition in the religious sentiments."[45-1] + +Thus it was among the Indians. Therefore a word is usually found in +their languages analogous to none in any European tongue, a word +comprehending all manifestations of the unseen world, yet conveying no +sense of personal unity. It has been rendered spirit, demon, God, devil, +mystery, magic, but commonly and rather absurdly by the English and +French, "medicine." In the Algonkin dialects this word is _manito_ and +_oki_, in Iroquois _oki_ and _otkon_, the Dakota has _wakan_, the Aztec +_teotl_, the Quichua _huaca_, and the Maya _ku_. They all express in its +most general form the idea of the supernatural. And as in this word, +supernatural, we see a transfer of a conception of place, and that it +literally means that which is _above_ the natural world, so in such as +we can analyze of these vague and primitive terms the same trope appears +discoverable. _Wakan_ as an adverb means _above_, _oki_ is but another +orthography for _oghee_, and _otkon_ seems allied to _hetken_, both of +which have the same signification.[46-1] + +The transfer is no mere figure of speech, but has its origin in the very +texture of the human mind. The heavens, the upper regions, are in every +religion the supposed abode of the divine. What is higher is always the +stronger and the nobler; a _superior_ is one who is better than we are, +and therefore a chieftain in Algonkin is called _oghee-ma_, the higher +one. There is, moreover, a naif and spontaneous instinct which leads man +in his ecstasies of joy, and in his paroxysms of fear or pain, to lift +his hands and eyes to the overhanging firmament. There the sun and +bright stars sojourn, emblems of glory and stability. Its azure vault +has a mysterious attraction which invites the eye to gaze longer and +longer into its infinite depths.[46-2] Its color brings thoughts of +serenity, peace, sunshine, and warmth. Even the rudest hunting tribes +felt these sentiments, and as a metaphor in their speeches, and as a +paint expressive of friendly design, blue was in wide use among +them.[47-1] + +So it came to pass that the idea of God was linked to the heavens long +ere man asked himself, are the heavens material and God spiritual, is He +one, or is He many? Numerous languages bear trace of this. The Latin +Deus, the Greek Zeus, the Sanscrit Dyaus, the Chinese Tien, all +originally meant the sky above, and our own word heaven is often +employed synonymously with God. There is at first no personification in +these expressions. They embrace all unseen agencies, they are void of +personality, and yet to the illogical primitive man there is nothing +contradictory in making them the object of his prayers. The Mayas had +legions of gods; "_ku_," says their historian,[47-2] "does not signify +any particular god; yet their prayers are sometimes addressed to _kue_," +which is the same word in the vocative case. + +As the Latins called their united divinities _Superi_, those above, so +Captain John Smith found that the Powhatans of Virginia employed the +word _oki_, above, in the same sense, and it even had passed into a +definite personification among them in the shape of an "idol of wood +evil-favoredly carved." In purer dialects of the Algonkin it is always +indefinite, as in the terms _nipoon oki_, spirit of summer, _pipoon +oki_, spirit of winter. Perhaps the word was introduced into Iroquois +by the Hurons, neighbors and associates of the Algonkins. The Hurons +applied it to that demoniac power "who rules the seasons of the year, +who holds the winds and the waves in leash, who can give fortune to +their undertakings, and relieve all their wants."[48-1] In another and +far distant branch of the Iroquois, the Nottoways of southern Virginia, +it reappears under, the curious form _quaker_, doubtless a corruption of +the Powhatan _qui-oki_, lesser gods.[48-2] The proper Iroquois name of +him to whom they prayed was _garonhia_, which again turns out on +examination to be their common word for _sky_, and again in all +probability from the verbal root _gar_, to be above.[48-3] In the +legends of the Aztecs and Quiches such phrases as "Heart of the Sky," +"Lord of the Sky," "Prince of the Azure Planisphere," "He above all," +are of frequent occurrence, and by a still bolder metaphor, the +Araucanians, according to Molina, entitled their greatest god "The Soul +of the Sky." + +This last expression leads to another train of thought. As the +philosopher, pondering on the workings of self-consciousness, recognizes +that various pathways lead up to God, so the primitive man, in forming +his language, sometimes trod one, sometimes another. Whatever else +sceptics have questioned, no one has yet presumed to doubt that if a God +and a soul exist at all, they are of like essence. This firm belief has +left its impress on language in the names devised to express the +supernal, the spiritual world. If we seek hints from languages more +familiar to us than the tongues of the Indians, and take for example +this word _spiritual_; we find it is from the Latin _spirare_, to blow, +to breathe. If in Latin again we look for the derivation of _animus_, +the mind, _anima_, the soul, they point to the Greek _anemos_, wind, and +_ami_, to blow. In Greek the words for soul or spirit, _psuche_, +_pneuma_, _thumos_, all are directly from verbal roots expressing the +motion of the wind or the breath. The Hebrew word _ruah_ is translated +in the Old Testament sometimes by wind, sometimes by spirit, sometimes +by breath. Etymologically, in fact, ghosts and gusts, breaths and +breezes, the Great Spirit and the Great Wind, are one and the same. It +is easy to guess the reason of this. The soul is the life, the life is +the breath. Invisible, imponderable, quickening with vigorous motion, +slackening in rest and sleep, passing quite away in death, it is the +most obvious sign of life. All nations grasped the analogy and +identified the one with the other. But the breath is nothing but wind. +How easy, therefore, to look upon the wind that moves up and down and to +and fro upon the earth, that carries the clouds, itself unseen, that +calls forth the terrible tempests and the various seasons, as the +breath, the spirit of God, as God himself? So in the Mosaic record of +creation, it is said "a mighty wind" passed over the formless sea and +brought forth the world, and when the Almighty gave to the clay a living +soul, he is said to have breathed into it "the wind of lives." + +Armed with these analogies, we turn to the primitive tongues of America, +and find them there as distinct as in the Old World. In Dakota _niya_ is +literally breath, figuratively life; in Netela _piuts_ is life, breath, +and soul; _silla_, in Eskimo, means air, it means wind, but it is also +the word that conveys the highest idea of the world as a whole, and the +reasoning faculty. The supreme existence they call _Sillam Innua_, Owner +of the Air, or of the All; or _Sillam Nelega_, Lord of the Air or Wind. +In the Yakama tongue of Oregon _wkrisha_ signifies there is wind, +_wkrishwit_, life; with the Aztecs, _ehecatl_ expressed both air, life, +and the soul, and personified in their myths it was said to have been +born of the breath of Tezcatlipoca, their highest divinity, who himself +is often called Yoalliehecatl, the Wind of Night.[50-1] + +The descent is, indeed, almost imperceptible which leads to the +personification of the wind as God, which merges this manifestation of +life and power in one with its unseen, unknown cause. Thus it was a +worthy epithet which the Creeks applied to their supreme invisible +ruler, when they addressed him as ESAUGETUH EMISSEE, Master of Breath, +and doubtless it was at first but a title of equivalent purport which +the Cherokees, their neighbors, were wont to employ, OONAWLEH UNGGI, +Eldest of Winds, but rapidly leading to a complete identification of the +divine with the natural phenomena of meteorology. This seems to have +taken place in the same group of nations, for the original Choctaw word +for Deity was HUSHTOLI, the Storm Wind.[51-1] The idea, indeed, was +constantly being lost in the symbol. In the legends of the Quiches, the +mysterious creative power is HURAKAN, a name of no signification in +their language, one which their remote ancestors brought with them from +the Antilles, which finds its meaning in the ancient tongue of Haiti, +and which, under the forms of _hurricane_, _ouragan_, _orkan_, was +adopted into European marine languages as the native name of the +terrible tornado of the Caribbean Sea.[51-2] Mixcohuatl, the Cloud +Serpent, chief divinity of several tribes in ancient Mexico, is to this +day the correct term in their language for the tropical whirlwind, and +the natives of Panama worshipped the same phenomenon under the name +Tuyra.[52-1] To kiss the air was in Peru the commonest and simplest sign +of adoration to the collective divinities.[52-2] + +Many writers on mythology have commented on the prominence so frequently +given to the winds. None have traced it to its true source. The facts of +meteorology have been thought all sufficient for a solution. As if man +ever did or ever could draw the idea of God from nature! In the identity +of wind with breath, of breath with life, of life with soul, of soul +with God, lies the far deeper and far truer reason, whose insensible +development I have here traced, in outline indeed, but confirmed by the +evidence of language itself. + +Let none of these expressions, however, be construed to prove the +distinct recognition of One Supreme Being. Of monotheism either as +displayed in the one personal definite God of the Semitic races, or in +the dim pantheistic sense of the Brahmins, there was not a single +instance on the American continent. The missionaries found no word in +any of their languages fit to interpret _Deus_, God. How could they +expect it? The associations we attach to that name are the accumulated +fruits of nigh two thousand years of Christianity. The phrases Good +Spirit, Great Spirit, and similar ones, have occasioned endless +discrepancies in the minds of travellers. In most instances they are +entirely of modern origin, coined at the suggestion of missionaries, +applied to the white man's God. Very rarely do they bring any +conception of personality to the native mind, very rarely do they +signify any object of worship, perhaps never did in the olden times. The +Jesuit Relations state positively that there was no one immaterial god +recognized by the Algonkin tribes, and that the title, the Great Manito, +was introduced first by themselves in its personal sense.[53-1] The +supreme Iroquois Deity Neo or Hawaneu, triumphantly adduced by many +writers to show the monotheism underlying the native creeds, and upon +whose name Mr. Schoolcraft has built some philological reveries, turns +out on closer scrutiny to be the result of Christian instruction, and +the words themselves to be but corruptions of the French _Dieu_ and _le +bon Dieu_![53-2] + +Innumerable mysterious forces are in activity around the child of +nature; he feels within him something that tells him they are not of his +kind, and yet not altogether different from him; he sums them up in one +word drawn from sensuous experience. Does he wish to express still more +forcibly this sentiment, he doubles the word, or prefixes an adjective, +or adds an affix, as the genius of his language may dictate. But it +still remains to him but an unapplied abstraction, a mere category of +thought, a frame for the All. It is never the object of veneration or +sacrifice, no myth brings it down to his comprehension, it is not +installed in his temples. Man cannot escape the belief that behind all +form is one essence; but the moment he would seize and define it, it +eludes his grasp, and by a sorcery more sadly ludicrous than that which +blinded Titania, he worships not the Infinite he thinks but a base idol +of his own making. As in the Zend Avesta behind the eternal struggle of +Ormuzd and Ahriman looms up the undisturbed and infinite Zeruana +Akerana, as in the pages of the Greek poets we here and there catch +glimpses of a Zeus who is not he throned on Olympus, nor he who takes +part in the wrangles of the gods, but stands far off and alone, one yet +all, "who was, who is, who will be," so the belief in an Unseen Spirit, +who asks neither supplication nor sacrifice, who, as the natives of +Texas told Joutel in 1684, "does not concern himself about things here +below,"[54-1] who has no name to call him by, and is never a figure in +mythology, was doubtless occasionally present to their minds. It was +present not more but far less distinctly and often not at all in the +more savage tribes, and no assertion can be more contrary to the laws of +religious progress than that which pretends that a purer and more +monotheistic religion exists among nations devoid of mythology. There +are only two instances on the American continent where the worship of an +immaterial God was definitely instituted, and these as the highest +conquests of American natural religions deserve especial mention. + +They occurred, as we might expect, in the two most civilized nations, +the Quichuas of Peru, and the Nahuas of Tezcuco. It is related that +about the year 1440, at a grand religious council held at the +consecration of the newly-built temple of the Sun at Cuzco, the Inca +Yupanqui rose before the assembled multitude and spoke somewhat as +follows:-- + +"Many say that the Sun is the Maker of all things. But he who makes +should abide by what he has made. Now many things happen when the Sun is +absent; therefore he cannot be the universal creator. And that he is +alive at all is doubtful, for his trips do not tire him. Were he a +living thing, he would grow weary like ourselves; were he free, he would +visit other parts of the heavens. He is like a tethered beast who makes +a daily round under the eye of a master; he is like an arrow, which must +go whither it is sent, not whither it wishes. I tell you that he, our +Father and Master the Sun, must have a lord and master more powerful +than himself, who constrains him to his daily circuit without pause or +rest."[55-1] + +To express this greatest of all existences, a name was proclaimed, based +upon that of the highest divinities known to the ancient Aymara race, +Illatici Viracocha Pachacamac, literally, the thunder vase, the foam of +the sea, animating the world, mysterious and symbolic names drawn from +the deepest religious instincts of the soul, whose hidden meanings will +be unravelled hereafter. A temple was constructed in a vale by the sea +near Callao, wherein his worship was to be conducted without images or +human sacrifices. The Inca was ahead of his age, however, and when the +Spaniards visited the temple of Pachacamac in 1525, they found not only +the walls adorned with hideous paintings, but an ugly idol of wood +representing a man of colossal proportions set up therein, and receiving +the prayers of the votaries.[56-1] + +No better success attended the attempt of Nezahuatl, lord of Tezcuco, +which took place about the same time. He had long prayed to the gods of +his forefathers for a son to inherit his kingdom, and the altars had +smoked vainly with the blood of slaughtered victims. At length, in +indignation and despair, the prince exclaimed, "Verily, these gods that +I am adoring, what are they but idols of stone without speech or +feeling? They could not have made the beauty of the heaven, the sun, the +moon, and the stars which adorn it, and which light the earth, with its +countless streams, its fountains and waters, its trees and plants, and +its various inhabitants. There must be some god, invisible and unknown, +who is the universal creator. He alone can console me in my affliction +and take away my sorrow." Strengthened in this conviction by a timely +fulfilment of his heart's desire, he erected a temple nine stories high +to represent the nine heavens, which he dedicated "to the Unknown God, +the Cause of Causes." This temple, he ordained, should never be polluted +by blood, nor should any graven image ever be set up within its +precincts.[57-1] + +In neither case, be it observed, was any attempt made to substitute +another and purer religion for the popular one. The Inca continued to +receive the homage of his subjects as a brother of the sun, and the +regular services to that luminary were never interrupted. Nor did the +prince of Tezcuco afterwards neglect the honors due his national gods, +nor even refrain himself from plunging the knife into the breasts of +captives on the altar of the god of war.[57-2] They were but expressions +of that monotheism which is ever present, "not in contrast to +polytheism, but in living intuition in the religious sentiments." If +this subtle but true distinction be rightly understood, it will excite +no surprise to find such epithets as "endless," "omnipotent," +"invisible," "adorable," such appellations as "the Maker and Moulder of +All," "the Mother and Father of Life," "the One God complete in +perfection and unity," "the Creator of all that is," "the Soul of the +World," in use and of undoubted indigenous origin not only among the +civilized Aztecs, but even among the Haitians, the Araucanians, the +Lenni Lenape, and others.[57-3] It will not seem contradictory to hear +of them in a purely polytheistic worship; we shall be far from +regarding them as familiar to the popular mind, and we shall never be +led so far astray as to adduce them in evidence of a monotheism in +either technical sense of that word. In point of fact they were not +applied to any particular god even in the most enlightened nations, but +were terms of laudation and magniloquence used by the priests and +devotees of every several god to do him honor. They prove something in +regard to a consciousness of divinity hedging us about, but nothing at +all in favor of a recognition of one God; they exemplify how profound is +the conviction of a highest and first principle, but they do not offer +the least reason to surmise that this was a living reality in doctrine +or practice. + +The confusion of these distinct ideas has led to much misconception of +the native creeds. But another and more fatal error was that which +distorted them into a dualistic form, ranging on one hand the good +spirit with his legions of angels, on the other the evil one with his +swarms of fiends, representing the world as the scene of their unending +conflict, man as the unlucky football who gets all the blows. This +notion, which has its historical origin among the Parsees of ancient +Iran, is unknown to savage nations. "The idea of the Devil," justly +observes Jacob Grimm, "is foreign to all primitive religions." Yet +Professor Mueller, in his voluminous work on those of America, after +approvingly quoting this saying, complacently proceeds to classify the +deities as good or bad spirits![59-1] + +This view, which has obtained without question in every work on the +native religions of America, has arisen partly from habits of thought +difficult to break, partly from mistranslations of native words, partly +from the foolish axiom of the early missionaries, "The gods of the +gentiles are devils." Yet their own writings furnish conclusive proof +that no such distinction existed out of their own fancies. The same word +(_otkon_) which Father Bruyas employs to translate into Iroquois the +term "devil," in the passage "the Devil took upon himself the figure of +a serpent," he is obliged to use for "spirit" in the phrase, "at the +resurrection we shall be spirits,"[59-2] which is a rather amusing +illustration how impossible it was by any native word to convey the idea +of the spirit of evil. When, in 1570, Father Rogel commenced his labors +among the tribes near the Savannah River, he told them that the deity +they adored was a demon who loved all evil things, and they must hate +him; whereupon his auditors replied, that so far from this being the +case, whom he called a wicked being was the power that sent them all +good things, and indignantly left the missionary to preach to the +winds.[60-1] + +A passage often quoted in support of this mistaken view is one in +Winslow's "Good News from New England," written in 1622. The author says +that the Indians worship a good power called Kiehtan, and another "who, +as farre as wee can conceive, is the Devill," named Hobbamock, or +Hobbamoqui. The former of these names is merely the word "great," in +their dialect of Algonkin, with a final _n_, and is probably an +abbreviation of Kittanitowit, the great manito, a vague term mentioned +by Roger Williams and other early writers, not the appellation of any +personified deity.[60-2] The latter, so far from corresponding to the +power of evil, was, according to Winslow's own statement, the kindly god +who cured diseases, aided them in the chase, and appeared to them in +dreams as their protector. Therefore, with great justice, Dr. Jarvis has +explained it to mean "the _oke_ or tutelary deity which each Indian +worships," as the word itself signifies.[61-1] + +So in many instances it turns out that what has been reported to be the +evil divinity of a nation, to whom they pray to the neglect of a better +one, is in reality the highest power they recognize. Thus Juripari, +worshipped by certain tribes of the Pampas of Buenos Ayres, and said to +be their wicked spirit, is in fact the only name in their language for +spiritual existence in general; and Aka-kanet, sometimes mentioned as +the father of evil in the mythology of the Araucanians, is the benign +power appealed to by their priests, who is throned in the Pleiades, who +sends fruits and flowers to the earth, and is addressed as +"grandfather."[61-2] The upay of the Peruvians never was, as Prescott +would have us believe, "the shadowy embodiment of evil," but simply and +solely their god of the dead, the Pluto of their pantheon, corresponding +to the Mictla of the Mexicans. + +The evidence on the point is indeed conclusive. The Jesuit missionaries +very rarely distinguish between good and evil deities when speaking of +the religion of the northern tribes; and the Moravian Brethren among the +Algonkins and Iroquois place on record their unanimous testimony that +"the idea of a devil, a prince of darkness, they first received in +later times through the Europeans."[62-1] So the Cherokees, remarks an +intelligent observer, "know nothing of the Evil One and his domains, +except what they have learned from white men."[62-2] The term Great +Spirit conveys, for instance, to the Chipeway just as much the idea of a +bad as of a good spirit; he is unaware of any distinction until it is +explained to him.[62-3] "I have never been able to discover from the +Dakotas themselves," remarks the Rev. G. H. Pond, who had lived among +them as a missionary for eighteen years,[62-4] "the least degree of +evidence that they divide the gods into classes of good and evil, and am +persuaded that those persons who represent them as doing so, do it +inconsiderately, and because it is so natural to subscribe to a long +cherished popular opinion." + +Very soon after coming in contact with the whites, the Indians caught +the notion of a bad and good spirit, pitted one against the other in +eternal warfare, and engrafted it on their ancient traditions. Writers +anxious to discover Jewish or Christian analogies, forcibly construed +myths to suit their pet theories, and for indolent observers it was +convenient to catalogue their gods in antithetical classes. In Mexican +and Peruvian mythology this is so plainly false that historians no +longer insist upon it, but as a popular error it still holds its ground +with reference to the more barbarous and less known tribes. + +Perhaps no myth has been so often quoted in its confirmation as that of +the ancient Iroquois, which narrates the conflict between the first two +brothers of our race. It is of undoubted native origin and venerable +antiquity. The version given by the Tuscarora chief Cusic in 1825, +relates that in the beginning of things there were two brothers, +Enigorio and Enigohahetgea, names literally meaning the Good Mind and +the Bad Mind.[63-1] The former went about the world furnishing it with +gentle streams, fertile plains, and plenteous fruits, while the latter +maliciously followed him creating rapids, thorns, and deserts. At length +the Good Mind turned upon his brother in anger, and crushed him into the +earth. He sank out of sight in its depths, but not to perish, for in the +dark realms of the underworld he still lives, receiving the souls of the +dead and being the author of all evil. Now when we compare this with the +version of the same legend given by Father Brebeuf, missionary to the +Hurons in 1636, we find its whole complexion altered; the moral dualism +vanishes; the names Good Mind and Bad Mind do not appear; it is the +struggle of Ioskeha, the White one, with his brother Tawiscara, the Dark +one, and we at once perceive that Christian influence in the course of +two centuries had given the tale a meaning foreign to its original +intent. + +So it is with the story the Algonkins tell of their hero Manibozho, who, +in the opinion of a well-known writer, "is always placed in antagonism +to a great serpent, a spirit of evil."[64-1] It is to the effect that +after conquering many animals, this famous magician tried his arts on +the prince of serpents. After a prolonged struggle, which brought on the +general deluge and the destruction of the world, he won the victory. The +first authority we have for this narrative is even later than Cusic; it +is Mr. Schoolcraft in our own day; the legendary cause of the deluge as +related by Father Le Jeune, in 1634, is quite dissimilar, and makes no +mention of a serpent; and as we shall hereafter see, neither among the +Algonkins nor any other Indians, was the serpent usually a type of evil, +but quite the reverse.[64-2] + +The comparatively late introduction of such views into the native +legends finds a remarkable proof in the myths of the Quiches, which were +committed to writing in the seventeenth century. They narrate the +struggles between the rulers of the upper and the nether world, the +descent of the former into Xibalba, the Realm of Phantoms, and their +victory over its lords, One Death and Seven Deaths. The writer adds of +the latter, who clearly represent to his mind the Evil One and his +adjutants, "in the old times they did not have much power; they were but +annoyers and opposers of men, and in truth they were not regarded as +gods. But when they appeared it was terrible. They were of evil, they +were owls, fomenting trouble and discord." In this passage, which, be it +said, seems to have impressed the translators very differently, the +writer appears to compare the great power assigned by the Christian +religion to Satan and his allies, with the very much less potency +attributed to their analogues in heathendom, the rulers of the world of +the dead.[65-1] + +A little reflection will convince the most incredulous that any such +dualism as has been fancied to exist in the native religions, could not +have been of indigenous growth. The gods of the primitive man are beings +of thoroughly human physiognomy, painted with colors furnished by +intercourse with his fellows. These are his enemies or his friends, as +he conciliates or insults them. No mere man, least of all a savage, is +kind and benevolent in spite of neglect and injury, nor is any man +causelessly and ceaselessly malicious. Personal, family, or national +feuds render some more inimical than others, but always from a desire to +guard their own interests, never out of a delight in evil for its own +sake. Thus the cruel gods of death, disease, and danger, were never of +Satanic nature, while the kindliest divinities were disposed to punish, +and that severely, any neglect of their ceremonies. Moral dualism can +only arise in minds where the ideas of good and evil are not synonymous +with those of pleasure and pain, for the conception of a wholly good or +a wholly evil nature requires the use of these terms in their higher, +ethical sense. The various deities of the Indians, it may safely be said +in conclusion, present no stronger antithesis in this respect than those +of ancient Greece and Rome. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[44-1] But there is no ground for the most positive of philosophers to +reject the doctrine of innate ideas when put in a certain way. The +instincts and habits of the lower animals by which they obtain food, +migrate, and perpetuate their kind, are in obedience to particular +congenital impressions, and correspond to definite anatomical and +morphological relations. No one pretends their knowledge is experimental. +Just so the human cerebrum has received, by descent or otherwise, various +sensory impressions peculiar to man as a species, which are just as +certain to guide his thoughts, actions, and destiny, as is the cerebrum +of the insectivorous aye-aye to lead it to hunt successfully for larv. + +[45-1] _Die Kunst im Zusammenhang der Culturentwickelung_, i. pp. 50, +252. + +[46-1] I offer these derivations with a certain degree of reserve, for +such an extraordinary similarity in the sound of these words is +discoverable in North and portions of South America, that one might +almost be tempted to claim for them one original form. Thus in the Maya +dialects it is _ku_, vocative _ kue_, in Natchez _kue-ya_, in the Uchee +of West Florida _kauhwu_, in Otomi _okha_, in Mandan _okee_, Sioux +_ogha_, _waughon_, _wakan_, in Quichua _waka_, _huaca_, in Iroquois +_quaker_, _oki_, Algonkin _oki_, _okee_, Eskimo _aghatt_, which last has +a singular likeness in sound to the German or Norse, _O Gott_, as some of +the others have to the corresponding Finnish word _ukko_. _Ku_ in the +Carib tongue means _house_, especially a temple or house of the gods. The +early Spanish explorers adopted the word with the orthography _cue_, and +applied it to the sacred edifices of whatever nation they discovered. For +instance, they speak of the great cemetery of Teotihuacan, near Tezcuco, +as the _Llano de los Cues_. + +[46-2] "As the high heavens, the far-off mountains look to us blue, so a +blue superficies seems to recede from us. As we would fain pursue an +attractive object that flees from us, so we like to gaze at the blue, not +that it urges itself upon us, but that it draws us after it." Goethe, +_Farbenlehre_, secs. 780, 781. + +[47-1] Loskiel, _Geschichte der Mission der Evang. Brueder_, p. 63: +Barby, 1789. + +[47-2] Cogolludo, _Historia de Yucathan_, lib. iv. cap. vii. + +[48-1] _Rel. de la Nouv. France._ An 1636, p. 107. + +[48-2] This word is found in Gallatin's vocabularies (_Transactions of +the Am. Antiq. Soc._, vol. ii.), and may have partially induced that +distinguished ethnologist to ascribe, as he does in more than one place, +whatever notions the eastern tribes had of a Supreme Being to the +teachings of the Quakers. + +[48-3] Bruyas, _Radices Verborum Iroquorum_, p. 84. This work is in +Shea's Library of American Linguistics, and is a most valuable +contribution to philology. The same etymology is given by Lafitau, +_Moeurs des Sauvages_, etc., Germ. trans., p. 65. + +[50-1] My authorities are Riggs, _Dict. of the Dakota_, Boscana, _Account +of New California_, Richardson's and Egede's Eskimo Vocabularies, +Pandosy, _Gram. and Dict. of the Yakama_ (Shea's Lib. of Am. +Linguistics), and the Abb Brasseur for the Aztec. + +[51-1] These terms are found in Gallatin's vocabularies. The last +mentioned is not, as Adair thought, derived from _issto ulla_ or _ishto +hoollo_, great man, for in Choctaw the adjective cannot precede the noun +it qualifies. Its true sense is visible in the analogous Creek words +_ishtali_, the storm wind, and _hustolah_, the windy season. + +[51-2] Webster derives hurricane from the Latin _furio_. But Oviedo tells +us in his description of Hispaniola that "Hurakan, in lingua di questa +isola vuole dire propriamente fortuna tempestuosa molto eccessiva, perche +en effetto non altro que un grandissimo vento pioggia insieme." +_Historia dell' Indie_, lib. vi. cap. iii. It is a coincidence--perhaps +something more--that in the Quichua language _huracan_, third person +singular present indicative of the verbal noun _huraca_, means "a stream +of water falls perpendicularly." (Markham, _Quichua Dictionary_, p. 132.) + +[52-1] Oviedo, _Rel. de la Prov. de Cueba_, p. 141, ed. Ternaux-Compans. + +[52-2] Garcia, _Origen de los Indios_, lib. iv. cap. xxii. + +[53-1] See the _Rel. de la Nouv. France pour l'An 1637_, p. 49. + +[53-2] Mr. Morgan, in his excellent work, _The League of the Iroquois_, +has been led astray by an ignorance of the etymology of these terms. For +Schoolcraft's views see his _Oneota_, p. 147. The matter is ably +discussed in the _Etudes Philologiques sur Quelques Langues Sauvages de +l'Amrique_, p. 14: Montreal, 1866; but comp. Shea, _Dict. +Franais-Onontagu_, preface. + +[54-1] "Qui ne prend aucun soin des choses icy bas." _Jour. Hist. d'un +Voyage de l'Amrique_, p. 225: Paris, 1713. + +[55-1] In attributing this speech to the Inca Yupanqui, I have followed +Balboa, who expressly says this was the general opinion of the Indians +(_Hist. du Prou_, p. 62, ed. Ternaux-Compans). Others assign it to other +Incas. See Garcilasso de la Vega, _Hist. des Incas_, lib. viii. chap. 8, +and Acosta, _Nat. and Morall Hist. of the New World_, chap. 5. The fact +and the approximate time are beyond question. + +[56-1] Xeres, _Rel. de la Conq. du Prou_, p. 151, ed. Ternaux-Compans. + +[57-1] Prescott, _Conq. of Mexico_, i. pp. 192, 193, on the authority of +Ixtlilxochitl. + +[57-2] Brasseur, _Hist. du Mexique_, iii. p. 297, note. + +[57-3] Of very many authorities that I have at hand, I shall only mention +Heckewelder, _Acc. of the Inds._[TN-1] p. 422, Duponceau, _Mm. sur les +Langues de l'Amr. du Nord_, p. 310, Peter Martyr _De Rebus Oceanicis_, +Dec. i., cap. 9, Molina, _Hist. of Chili_, ii. p. 75, Ximenes, _Origen de +los Indios de Guatemala_, pp. 4, 5, Ixtlilxochitl, _Rel. des Conq. du +Mexique_, p. 2. These terms bear the severest scrutiny. The Aztec +appellation of the Supreme Being _Tloque nahuaque_ is compounded of +_tloc_, together, with, and _nahuac_, at, by, with, with possessive forms +added, giving the signification, Lord of all existence and coexistence +(alles Mitseyns und alles Beiseyns, bei welchem das Seyn aller Dinge ist. +Buschmann, _Ueber die Aztekischen Ortsnamen_, p. 642). The Algonkin term +_Kittanittowit_ is derived from _kitta_, great, _manito_, spirit, _wit_, +an adjective termination indicating a mode of existence, and means the +Great Living Spirit (Duponceau, u. s.). Both these terms are undoubtedly +of native origin. In the Quiche legends the Supreme Being is called +_Bitol_, the substantive form of _bit_, to make pottery, to form, and +_Tzakol_, substantive form of _tzak_, to build, the Creator, the +Constructor. The Arowacks of Guyana applied the term _Aluberi_ to their +highest conception of a first cause, from the verbal form _alin_, he who +makes (Martius, _Ethnographie und Sprachenkunde Amerika's_, i. p. 696). + +[59-1] _Geschichte der Amerikanischen Urreligionen_, p. 403. + +[59-2] Bruyas, _Rad. Verb. Iroquorum_, p. 38. + +[60-1] Alcazar, _Chrono-historia de la Prov. de Toledo_, Dec. iii., Ao +viii., cap. iv: Madrid, 1710. This rare work contains the only faithful +copies of Father Rogel's letters extant. Mr. Shea, in his History of +Catholic Missions, calls him erroneously Roger. + +[60-2] It is fully analyzed by Duponceau, _Langues de l'Amrique du +Nord_, p. 309. + +[61-1] _Discourse on the Religion of the Ind. Tribes of N. Am._, p. 252 +in the Trans. N. Y. Hist. Soc. + +[61-2] Mueller, _Amer. Urreligionen_, pp. 265, 272, 274. Well may he +remark: "The dualism is not very striking among these tribes;" as a few +pages previous he says of the Caribs, "The dualism of gods is anything +but rigidly observed. The good gods do more evil than good. Fear is the +ruling religious sentiment." To such a lame conclusion do these venerable +prepossessions lead. "_Grau ist alle Theorie_." + +[62-1] Loskiel, _Ges. der Miss. der evang. Brueder_, p. 46. + +[62-2] Whipple, _Report on the Ind. Tribes_, p. 33: Washington, 1855. +Pacific Railroad Docs. + +[62-3] Schoolcraft, _Indian Tribes_, i. p. 359. + +[62-4] In Schoolcraft, _Ibid._, iv. p. 642. + +[63-1] Or more exactly, the Beautiful Spirit, the Ugly Spirit. In +Onondaga the radicals are _onigonra_, spirit, _hio_ beautiful, _ahetken_ +ugly. _Dictionnaire Franais-Onontagu, dit par Jean-Marie Shea_: New +York, 1859. + +[64-1] Squier, _The Serpent Symbol in America_. + +[64-2] Both these legends will be analyzed in a subsequent chapter, and +an attempt made not only to restore them their primitive form, but to +explain their meaning. + +[65-1] Compare the translation and remarks of Ximenes, _Or. de los Indios +de Guat._, p. 76, with those of Brasseur, _Le Livre Sacr des Quichs_, +p. 189. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +THE SACRED NUMBER, ITS ORIGIN AND APPLICATIONS. + + The number FOUR sacred in all American religions, and the key to + their symbolism.--Derived from the CARDINAL POINTS.--Appears + constantly in government, arts, rites, and myths.--The Cardinal + Points identified with the Four Winds, who in myths are the four + ancestors of the human race, and the four celestial rivers watering + the terrestrial Paradise.--Associations grouped around each + Cardinal Point.--From the number four was derived the symbolic + value of the number _Forty_, and the _Sign of the Cross_. + + +Every one familiar with the ancient religions of the world must have +noticed the mystic power they attach to certain numbers, and how these +numbers became the measures and formative quantities, as it were, of +traditions and ceremonies, and had a symbolical meaning nowise connected +with their arithmetical value. For instance, in many eastern religions, +that of the Jews among the rest, _seven_ was the most sacred number, and +after it, _four_ and _three_. The most cursory reader must have observed +in how many connections the seven is used in the Hebrew Scriptures, +occurring, in all, something over three hundred and sixty times, it is +said. Why these numbers were chosen rather than others has not been +clearly explained. Their sacred character dates beyond the earliest +history, and must have been coeval with the first expressions of the +religious sentiment. Only one of them, the FOUR, has any prominence in +the religions of the red race, but this is so marked and so universal, +that at a very early period in my studies I felt convinced that if the +reason for its adoption could be discovered, much of the apparent +confusion which reigns among them would be dispelled. + +Such a reason must take its rise from some essential relation of man to +nature, everywhere prominent, everywhere the same. It is found in the +_adoration of the cardinal points_. + +The red man, as I have said, was a hunter; he was ever wandering through +pathless forests, coursing over boundless prairies. It seems to the +white race not a faculty, but an instinct that guides him so unerringly. +He is never at a loss. Says a writer who has deeply studied his +character: "The Indian ever has the points of the compass present to his +mind, and expresses himself accordingly in words, although it shall be +of matters in his own house."[67-1] + +The assumption of precisely four cardinal points is not of chance; it is +recognized in every language; it is rendered essential by the anatomical +structure of the body; it is derived from the immutable laws of the +universe. Whether we gaze at the sunset or the sunrise, or whether at +night we look for guidance to the only star of the twinkling thousands +that is constant to its place, the anterior and posterior planes of our +bodies, our right hands and our left coincide with the parallels and +meridians. Very early in his history did man take note of these four +points, and recognizing in them his guides through the night and the +wilderness, call them his gods. Long afterwards, when centuries of slow +progress had taught him other secrets of nature--when he had discerned +in the motions of the sun, the elements of matter, and the radicals of +arithmetic a repetition of this number--they were to him further +warrants of its sacredness. He adopted it as a regulating quantity in +his institutions and his arts; he repeated it in its multiples and +compounds; he imagined for it novel applications; he constantly +magnified its mystic meaning; and finally, in his philosophical +reveries, he called it the key to the secrets of the universe, "the +source of ever-flowing nature."[68-1] + +In primitive geography the figure of the earth is a square plain; in the +legend of the Quich's it is "shaped as a square, divided into four +parts, marked with lines, measured with cords, and suspended from the +heavens by a cord to its four corners and its four sides."[68-2] The +earliest divisions of territory were in conformity to this view. Thus it +was with ancient Egypt, Syria, Mesopotamia, and China;[68-3] and in the +new world, the states of Peru, Araucania, the Muyscas, the Quichs, and +Tlascala were tetrarchies divided in accordance with, and in the first +two instances named after, the cardinal points. So their chief +cities--Cuzco, Quito, Tezcuco, Mexico, Cholula--were quartered by +streets running north, south, east, and west. It was a necessary result +of such a division that the chief officers of the government were four +in number, that the inhabitants of town and country, that the whole +social organization acquired a quadruplicate form. The official title of +the Incas was "Lord of the four quarters of the earth," and the +venerable formality in taking possession of land, both in their domain +and that of the Aztecs, was to throw a stone, to shoot an arrow, or to +hurl a firebrand to each of the cardinal points.[69-1] They carried out +the idea in their architecture, building their palaces in squares with +doors opening, their tombs with their angles pointing, their great +causeways running in these directions. These architectural principles +repeat themselves all over the continent; they recur in the sacred +structures of Yucatan, in the ancient cemetery of Teo-tihuacan near +Mexico, where the tombs are arranged along avenues corresponding exactly +to the parallels and meridians of the central tumuli of the sun and +moon;[69-2] and however ignorant we are about the mound builders of the +Mississippi valley, we know that they constructed their earthworks with +a constant regard to the quarters of the compass. + +Nothing can be more natural than to take into consideration the regions +of the heavens in the construction of buildings; I presume that at any +time no one plans an edifice of pretensions without doing so. Yet this +is one of those apparently trifling transactions which in their origin +and applications have exerted a controlling influence on the history of +the human race. + +When we reflect how indissolubly the mind of the primitive man is welded +to his superstitions, it were incredible that his social life and his +architecture could thus be as it were in subjection to one idea, and his +rites and myths escape its sway. As one might expect, it reappears in +these latter more vividly than anywhere else. If there is one formula +more frequently mentioned by travellers than another as an indispensable +preliminary to all serious business, it is that of smoking, and the +prescribed and traditional rule was that the first puff should be to the +sky, and then one to each of the corners of the earth, or the cardinal +points.[70-1] These were the spirits who made and governed the earth, +and under whatever difference of guise the uncultivated fancy portrayed +them, they were the leading figures in the tales and ceremonies of +nearly every tribe of the red race. These were the divine powers +summoned by the Chipeway magicians when initiating neophytes into the +mysteries of the meda craft. They were asked to a lodge of four poles, +to four stones that lay before its fire, there to remain four days, and +attend four feasts. At every step of the proceeding this number or its +multiples were repeated.[71-1] With their neighbors the Dakotas the +number was also distinctly sacred; it was intimately inwoven in all +their tales concerning the wakan power and the spirits of the air, and +their religious rites. The artist Catlin has given a vivid description +of the great annual festival of the Mandans, a Dakota tribe, and brings +forward with emphasis the ceaseless reiteration of this number from +first to last.[71-2] He did not detect its origin in the veneration of +the cardinal points, but the information that has since been furnished +of the myths of this stock leaves no doubt that such was the case.[71-3] + +Proximity of place had no part in this similarity of rite. In the grand +commemorative festival of the Creeks called the Busk, which wiped out +the memory of all crimes but murder, which reconciled the proscribed +criminal to his nation and atoned for his guilt, when the new fire was +kindled and the green corn served up, every dance, every invocation, +every ceremony, was shaped and ruled by the application of the number +four and its multiples in every imaginable relation. So it was at that +solemn probation which the youth must undergo to prove himself worthy of +the dignities of manhood and to ascertain his guardian spirit; here +again his fasts, his seclusions, his trials, were all laid down in +fourfold arrangement.[72-1] + +Not alone among these barbarous tribes were the cardinal points thus the +foundation of the most solemn mysteries of religion. An excellent +authority relates that the Aztecs of Micla, in Guatemala, celebrated +their chief festival four times a year, and that four priests solemnized +its rites. They commenced by invoking and offering incense to the sky +and the four cardinal points; they conducted the human victim four times +around the temple, then tore out his heart, and catching the blood in +four vases scattered it in the same directions.[72-2] So also the +Peruvians had four principal festivals annually, and at every new moon +one of four days' duration. In fact the repetition of the number in all +their religious ceremonies is so prominent that it has been a subject of +comment by historians. They have attributed it to the knowledge of the +solstices and equinoxes, but assuredly it is of more ancient date than +this. The same explanation has been offered for its recurrence among the +Nahuas of Mexico, whose whole lives were subjected to its operation. At +birth the mother was held unclean for four days, a fire was kindled and +kept burning for a like length of time, at the baptism of the child an +arrow was shot to each of the cardinal points. Their prayers were +offered four times a day, the greatest festivals were every fourth year, +and their offerings of blood were to the four points of the compass. At +death food was placed on the grave, as among the Eskimos, Creeks, and +Algonkins, for four days (for all these nations supposed that the +journey to the land of souls was accomplished in that time), and +mourning for the dead was for four months or four years.[73-1] + +It were fatiguing and unnecessary to extend the catalogue much further. +Yet it is not nearly exhausted. From tribes of both continents and all +stages of culture, the Muyscas of Columbia and the Natchez of Louisiana, +the Quichs of Guatemala and the Caribs of the Orinoko, instance after +instance might be marshalled to illustrate how universally a sacred +character was attached to this number, and how uniformly it is traceable +to a veneration of the cardinal points. It is sufficient that it be +displayed in some of its more unusual applications. + +It is well known that the calendar common to the Aztecs and Mayas +divides the month into four weeks, each containing a like number of +secular days; that their indiction is divided into four periods; and +that they believed the world had passed through four cycles. It has not +been sufficiently emphasized that in many of the picture writings these +days of the week are placed respectively north, south, east, and west, +and that in the Maya language the quarters of the indiction still bear +the names of the cardinal points, hinting the reason of their +adoption.[74-1] This cannot be fortuitous. Again, the division of the +year into four seasons--a division as devoid of foundation in nature as +that of the ancient Aryans into three, and unknown among many tribes, +yet obtained in very early times among Algonkins, Cherokees, Choctaws, +Creeks, Aztecs, Muyscas, Peruvians, and Araucanians. They were supposed +to be produced by the unending struggles and varying fortunes of the +four aerial giants who rule the winds. + +We must seek in mythology the key to the monotonous repetition and the +sanctity of this number; and furthermore, we must seek it in those +natural modes of expression of the religious sentiment which are above +the power of blood or circumstance to control. One of these modes, we +have seen, was that which led to the identification of the divinity with +the wind, and this it is that solves the enigma in the present instance. +Universally the spirits of the cardinal points were imagined to be in +the winds that blew from them. The names of these directions and of the +corresponding winds are often the same, and when not, there exists an +intimate connection between them. For example, take the languages of the +Mayas, Huastecas, and Moscos of Central America; in all of them the word +for _north_ is synonymous with _north wind_, and so on for the other +three points of the compass. Or again, that of the Dakotas, and the word +_tate-ouye-toba_, translated "the four quarters of the heavens," means +literally, "whence the four winds come."[75-1] It were not difficult to +extend the list; but illustrations are all that is required. Let it be +remembered how closely the motions of the air are associated in thought +and language with the operations of the soul and the idea of God; let it +further be considered what support this association receives from the +power of the winds on the weather, bringing as they do the lightning and +the storm, the zephyr that cools the brow, and the tornado that levels +the forest; how they summon the rain to fertilize the seed and refresh +the shrivelled leaves; how they aid the hunter to stalk the game, and +usher in the varying seasons; how, indeed, in a hundred ways, they +intimately concern his comfort and his life; and it will not seem +strange that they almost occupied the place of all other gods in the +mind of the child of nature. Especially as those who gave or withheld +the rains were they objects of his anxious solicitation. "Ye who dwell +at the four corners of the earth--at the north, at the south, at the +east, and at the west," commenced the Aztec prayer to the Tlalocs, gods +of the showers.[75-2] For they, as it were, hold the food, the life of +man in their power, garnered up on high, to grant or deny, as they see +fit. It was from them that the prophet of old was directed to call back +the spirits of the dead to the dry bones of the valley. "Prophesy unto +the wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, thus saith the Lord +God, come forth from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these +slain, that they may live." (Ezek. xxxvii. 9.) + +In the same spirit the priests of the Eskimos prayed to _Sillam Innua_, +the Owner of the Winds, as the highest existence; the abode of the dead +they called _Sillam Aipane_, the House of the Winds; and in their +incantations, when they would summon a new soul to the sick, or order +back to its home some troublesome spirit, their invocations were ever +addressed to the winds from the cardinal points--to Pauna the East and +Sauna the West, to Kauna the South and Auna the North.[76-1] + +As the rain-bringers, as the life-givers, it were no far-fetched +metaphor to call them the fathers of our race. Hardly a nation on the +continent but seems to have had some vague tradition of an origin from +four brothers, to have at some time been led by four leaders or princes, +or in some manner to have connected the appearance and action of four +important personages with its earliest traditional history. Sometimes +the myth defines clearly these fabled characters as the spirits of the +winds, sometimes it clothes them in uncouth, grotesque metaphors, +sometimes again it so weaves them into actual history that we are at a +loss where to draw the line that divides fiction from truth. + +I shall attempt to follow step by step the growth of this myth from its +simplest expression, where the transparent drapery makes no pretence to +conceal its true meaning, through the ever more elaborate narratives, +the more strongly marked personifications of more cultivated nations, +until it assumes the outlines of, and has palmed itself upon the world +as actual history. + +This simplest form is that which alone appears among the Algonkins and +Dakotas. They both traced their lives back to four ancestors, personages +concerned in various ways with the first things of time, not rightly +distinguished as men or gods, but very positively identified with the +four winds. Whether from one or all of these the world was peopled, +whether by process of generation or some other more obscure way, the old +people had not said, or saying, had not agreed.[77-1] + +It is a shade more complex when we come to the Creeks. They told of four +men who came from the four corners of the earth, who brought them the +sacred fire, and pointed out the seven sacred plants. They were called +the Hi-you-yul-gee. Having rendered them this service, the kindly +visitors disappeared in a cloud, returning whence they came. When +another and more ancient legend informs us that the Creeks were at first +divided into four clans, and alleged a descent from four female +ancestors, it will hardly be venturing too far to recognize in these +four ancestors the four friendly patrons from the cardinal points.[78-1] + +The ancient inhabitants of Haiti, when first discovered by the +Spaniards, had a similar genealogical story, which Peter Martyr relates +with various excuses for its silliness and exclamations at its +absurdity. Perhaps the fault lay less in its lack of meaning than in his +want of insight. It was to the effect that men lived in caves, and were +destroyed by the parching rays of the sun, and were destitute of means +to prolong their race, until they caught and subjected to their use four +women who were swift of foot and slippery as eels. These were the +mothers of the race of men. Or again, it was said that a certain king +had a huge gourd which contained all the waters of the earth; four +brothers, who coming into the world at one birth had cost their mother +her life, ventured to the gourd to fish, picked it up, but frightened by +the old king's approach, dropped it on the ground, broke it into +fragments, and scattered the waters over the earth, forming the seas, +lakes, and rivers, as they now are. These brothers in time became the +fathers of a nation, and to them they traced their lineage.[78-2] With +the previous examples before our eyes, it asks no vivid fancy to see in +these quaternions once more the four winds, the bringers of rain, so +swift and so slippery. + +The Navajos are a rude tribe north of Mexico. Yet even they have an +allegory to the effect that when the first man came up from the ground +under the figure of the moth-worm, the four spirits of the cardinal +points were already there, and hailed him with the exclamation, "Lo, he +is of our race."[79-1] It is a poor and feeble effort to tell the same +old story. + +The Haitians were probably relatives of the Mayas of Yucatan. Certainly +the latter shared their ancestral legends, for in an ancient manuscript +found by Mr. Stephens during his travels, it appears they looked back to +four parents or leaders called the Tutul Xiu. But, indeed, this was a +trait of all the civilized nations of Central America and Mexico. An +author who would be very unwilling to admit any mythical interpretation +of the coincidence, has adverted to it in tones of astonishment: "In all +the Aztec and Toltec histories there are four characters who constantly +reappear; either as priests or envoys of the gods, or of hidden and +disguised majesty; or as guides and chieftains of tribes during their +migrations; or as kings and rulers of monarchies after their foundation; +and even to the time of the conquest, there are always four princes who +compose the supreme government, whether in Guatemala, or in +Mexico."[79-2] This fourfold division points not to a common history, +but to a common nature. The ancient heroes and demigods, who, four in +number, figure in all these antique traditions, were not men of flesh +and blood, but the invisible currents of air who brought the fertilizing +showers. + +They corresponded to the four gods Bacab, who in the Yucatecan mythology +were supposed to stand one at each corner of the world, supporting, like +gigantic caryatides, the overhanging firmament. When at the general +deluge all other gods and men were swallowed by the waters they alone +escaped to people it anew. These four, known by the names of Kan, Muluc, +Ix, and Cauac, represented respectively the east, north, west, and +south, and as in Oriental symbolism, so here each quarter of the compass +was distinguished by a color, the east by yellow, the south by red, the +west by black, and the north by white. The names of these mysterious +personages, employed somewhat as we do the Dominical letters, adjusted +the calendar of the Mayas, and by their propitious or portentous +combinations was arranged their system of judicial astrology. They were +the gods of rain, and under the title Chac, the Red Ones, were the chief +ministers of the highest power. As such they were represented in the +religious ceremonies by four old men, constant attendants on the high +priest in his official functions.[80-1] In this most civilized branch +of the red race, as everywhere else, we thus find four mythological +characters prominent beyond all others, giving a peculiar physiognomy to +the national legends, arts, and sciences, and in them once more we +recognize by signs infallible, personifications of the four cardinal +points and the four winds. + +They rarely lose altogether their true character. The Quich legends +tell us that the four men who were first created by the Heart of Heaven, +Hurakan, the Air in Motion, were infinitely keen of eye and swift of +foot, that "they measured and saw all that exists at the four corners +and the four angles of the sky and the earth;" that they did not fulfil +the design of their maker "to bring forth and produce when the season of +harvest was near," until he blew into their eyes a cloud, "until their +faces were obscured as when one breathes on a mirror." Then he gave them +as wives the four mothers of our species, whose names were Falling +Water, Beautiful Water, Water of Serpents, and Water of Birds.[81-1] +Truly he who can see aught but a transparent myth in this recital, is a +realist that would astonish Euhemerus himself. + +There is in these Aztec legends a quaternion besides this of the first +men, one that bears marks of a profound contemplation on the course of +nature, one that answers to the former as the heavenly phase of the +earthly conception. It is seen in the four personages, or perhaps we +should say modes of action, that make up the one Supreme Cause of All, +Hurakan, the breath, the wind, the Divine Spirit. They are He who +creates, He who gives Form, He who gives Life, and He who +reproduces.[82-1] This acute and extraordinary analysis of the origin +and laws of organic life, clothed under the ancient belief in the action +of the winds, reveals a depth of thought for which we were hardly +prepared, and is perhaps the single instance of anything like +metaphysics among the red race. It is clearly visible in the earlier +portions of the legends of the Quichs, and is the more surely of native +origin as it has been quite lost on both their translators. + +Go where we will, the same story meets us. The empire of the Incas was +attributed in the sacred chants of the Amautas, the priests assigned to +take charge of the records, to four brothers and their wives. These +mythical civilizers are said to have emerged from a cave called _Pacari +tampu_, which may mean "the House of Subsistence," reminding us of the +four heroes who in Aztec legend set forth to people the world from +Tonacatepec, the mountain of our subsistence; or again it may mean--for +like many of these mythical names it seems to have been designedly +chosen to bear a double construction--the Lodgings of the Dawn, +recalling another Aztec legend which points for the birthplace of the +race to Tula in the distant orient. The cave itself suggests to the +classical reader that of Eolus, or may be paralleled with that in which +the Iroquois fabled the winds were imprisoned by their lord.[83-1] These +brothers were of no common kin. Their voices could shake the earth and +their hands heap up mountains. Like the thunder god, they stood on the +hills and hurled their sling-stones to the four corners of the earth. +When one was overpowered he fled upward to the heaven or was turned into +stone, and it was by their aid and counsel that the savages who +possessed the land renounced their barbarous habits and commenced to +till the soil. There can be no doubt but that this in turn is but +another transformation of the Protean myth we have so long +pursued.[83-2] + +There are traces of the same legend among many other tribes of the +continent, but the trustworthy reports we have of them are too scanty to +permit analysis. Enough that they are mentioned in a note, for it is +every way likely that could we resolve their meaning they too would +carry us back to the four winds.[83-3] + +Let no one suppose, however, that this was the only myth of the origin +of man. Far from it. It was but one of many, for, as I shall hereafter +attempt to show, the laws that governed the formations of such myths not +only allowed but enjoined great divergence of form. Equally far was it +from being the only image which the inventive fancy hit upon to express +the action of the winds as the rain bringers. They too were many, but +may all be included in a twofold division, either as the winds were +supposed to flow in from the corners of the earth or outward from its +central point. Thus they are spoken of under such figures as four +tortoises at the angles of the earthly plane who vomit forth the +rains,[85-1] or four gigantic caryatides who sustain the heavens and +blow the winds from their capacious lungs,[85-2] or more frequently as +four rivers flowing from the broken calabash on high, as the Haitians, +draining the waters of the primitive world,[85-3] as four animals who +bring from heaven the maize,[85-4] as four messengers whom the god of +air sends forth, or under a coarser trope as the spittle he ejects +toward the cardinal points which is straightway transformed into wild +rice, tobacco, and maize.[85-5] + +Constantly from the palace of the lord of the world, seated on the high +hill of heaven, blow four winds, pour four streams, refreshing and +fecundating the earth. Therefore, in the myths of ancient Iran there is +mention of a celestial fountain, Arduisur, the virgin daughter of +Ormuzd, whence four all nourishing rivers roll their waves toward the +cardinal points; therefore the Thibetans believe that on the sacred +mountain Himavata grows the tree of life Zampu, from whose foot once +more flow the waters of life in four streams to the four quarters of the +world; and therefore it is that the same tale is told by the Chinese of +the mountain Kouantun, by the Brahmins of Mount Meru, and by the Parsees +of Mount Albors in the Caucasus.[85-6] Each nation called their sacred +mountain "the navel of the earth;" for not only was it the supposed +centre of the habitable world, but through it, as the foetus through +the umbilical cord, the earth drew her increase. Beyond all other spots +were they accounted fertile, scenes of joyous plaisance, of repose, and +eternal youth; there rippled the waters of health, there blossomed the +tree of life; they were fit trysting spots of gods and men. Hence came +the tales of the terrestrial paradise, the rose garden of Feridun, the +Eden gardens of the world. The name shows the origin, for paradise (in +Sanscrit, _para desa_) means literally _high land_. There, in the +unanimous opinion of the Orient, dwelt once in unalloyed delight the +first of men; thence driven by untoward fate, no more anywhere could +they find the path thither. Some thought that in the north among the +fortunate Hyperboreans, others that in the mountains of the moon where +dwelt the long lived Ethiopians, and others again that in the furthest +east, underneath the dawn, was situate the seat of pristine happiness; +but many were of opinion that somewhere in the western sea, beyond the +pillars of Hercules and the waters of the Outer Ocean, lay the garden of +the Hesperides, the Islands of the Blessed, the earthly Elysion. + +It is not without design that I recall this early dream of the religious +fancy. When Christopher Columbus, fired by the hope of discovering this +terrestrial paradise, broke the enchantment of the cloudy sea and found +a new world, it was but to light upon the same race of men, deluding +themselves with the same hope of earthly joys, the same fiction of a +long lost garden of their youth. They told him that still to the west, +amid the mountains of Paria, was a spot whence flowed mighty streams +over all lands, and which in sooth was the spot he sought;[87-1] and +when that baseless fabric had vanished, there still remained the fabled +island of Boiuca, or Bimini, hundreds of leagues north of Hispaniola, +whose glebe was watered by a fountain of such noble virtue as to restore +youth and vigor to the worn out and the aged.[87-2] This was no fiction +of the natives to rid themselves of burdensome guests. Long before the +white man approached their shores, families had started from Cuba, +Yucatan, and Honduras in search of these renovating waters, and not +returning, were supposed by their kindred to have been detained by the +delights of that enchanted land, and to be revelling in its seductive +joys, forgetful of former ties.[87-3] + +Perhaps it was but another rendering of the same belief that pointed to +the impenetrable forests of the Orinoko, the ancient homes of the Caribs +and Arowacks, and there located the famous realm of El Dorado with its +imperial capital Manoa, abounding in precious metals and all manner of +gems, peopled by a happy race, and governed by an equitable ruler. + +The Aztec priests never chanted more regretful dirges than when they +sang of Tulan, the cradle of their race, where once it dwelt in peaceful +indolent happiness, whose groves were filled with birds of sweet voices +and gay plumage, whose generous soil brought forth spontaneously maize, +cocoa, aromatic gums, and fragrant flowers. "Land of riches and plenty, +where the gourds grow an arm's length across, where an ear of corn is a +load for a stout man, and its stalks are as high as trees; land where +the cotton ripens of its own accord of all rich tints; land abounding +with limpid emeralds, turquoises, gold, and silver."[88-1] This land was +also called Tlalocan, from Tlaloc, the god of rain, who there had his +dwelling place, and Tlapallan, the land of colors, or the red land, for +the hues of the sky at sunrise floated over it. Its inhabitants were +surnamed children of the air, or of Quetzalcoatl, and from its centre +rose the holy mountain Tonacatepec, the mountain of our life or +subsistence. Its supposed location was in the east, whence in that +country blow the winds that bring mild rains, says Sahagun, and that +missionary was himself asked, as coming from the east, whether his home +was in Tlapallan; more definitely by some it was situated among the +lofty peaks on the frontiers of Guatemala, and all the great rivers that +water the earth were supposed to have their sources there.[88-2] But +here, as elsewhere, its site was not determined. "There is a Tulan," +says an ancient authority, "where the sun rises, and there is another in +the land of shades, and another where the sun reposes, and thence came +we; and still another where the sun reposes, and there dwells +God."[89-1] + +The myth of the Quichs but changes the name of this pleasant land. With +them it was _Pan-paxil-pa-cayala_, where the waters divide in falling, +or between the waters parcelled out and mucky. This was "an excellent +land, full of pleasant things, where was store of white corn and yellow +corn, where one could not count the fruits, nor estimate the quantity of +honey and food." Over it ruled the lord of the air, and from it the +four sacred animals carried the corn to make the flesh of men.[90-1] + +Once again, in the legends of the Mixtecas, we hear the old story +repeated of the garden where the first two brothers dwelt. It lay +between a meadow and that lofty peak which supports the heavens and the +palaces of the gods. "Many trees were there, such as yield flowers and +roses, very luscious fruits, divers herbs, and aromatic spices." The +names of the brothers were the Wind of Nine Serpents and the Wind of +Nine Caverns. The first was as an eagle, and flew aloft over the waters +that poured around their enchanted garden; the second was as a serpent +with wings, who proceeded with such velocity that he pierced rocks and +walls. They were too swift to be seen by the sharpest eye, and were one +near as they passed, he was only aware of a whisper and a rustling like +that of the wind in the leaves.[90-2] + +Wherever, in short, the lust of gold lured the early adventurers, they +were told of some nation a little further on, some wealthy and +prosperous land, abundant and fertile, satisfying the desire of the +heart. It was sometimes deceit, and it was sometimes the credited +fiction of the earthly paradise, that in all ages has with a promise of +perfect joy consoled the aching heart of man. + +It is instructive to study the associations that naturally group +themselves around each of the cardinal points, and watch how these are +mirrored on the surface of language, and have directed the current of +thought. Jacob Grimm has performed this task with fidelity and beauty as +regards the Aryan race, but the means are wanting to apply his searching +method to the indigenous tongues of America. Enough if in general terms +their mythological value be determined. + +When the day begins, man wakes from his slumbers, faces the rising sun, +and prays. The east is before him; by it he learns all other directions; +it is to him what the north is to the needle; with reference to it he +assigns in his mind the position of the three other cardinal +points.[91-1] There is the starting place of the celestial fires, the +home of the sun, the womb of the morning. It represents in space the +beginning of things in time, and as the bright and glorious creatures of +the sky come forth thence, man conceits that his ancestors also in +remote ages wandered from the orient; there in the opinion of many in +both the old and new world was the cradle of the race; there in Aztec +legend was the fabled land of Tlapallan, and the wind from the east was +called the wind of Paradise, Tlalocavitl. + +From this direction came, according to the almost unanimous opinion of +the Indian tribes, those hero gods who taught them arts and religion, +thither they returned, and from thence they would again appear to resume +their ancient sway. As the dawn brings light, and with light is +associated in every human mind the ideas of knowledge, safety, +protection, majesty, divinity, as it dispels the spectres of night, as +it defines the cardinal points, and brings forth the sun and the day, +it occupied the primitive mind to an extent that can hardly be magnified +beyond the truth. It is in fact the central figure in most natural +religions. + +The west, as the grave of the heavenly luminaries, or rather as their +goal and place of repose, brings with it thoughts of sleep, of death, of +tranquillity, of rest from labor. When the evening of his days was come, +when his course was run, and man had sunk from sight, he was supposed to +follow the sun and find some spot of repose for his tired soul in the +distant west. There, with general consent, the tribes north of the Gulf +of Mexico supposed the happy hunting grounds; there, taught by the same +analogy, the ancient Aryans placed the Nerriti, the exodus, the land of +the dead. "The old notion among us," said on one occasion a +distinguished chief of the Creek nation, "is that when we die, the +spirit goes the way the sun goes, to the west, and there joins its +family and friends who went before it."[92-1] + +In the northern hemisphere the shadows fall to the north, thence blow +cold and furious winds, thence come the snow and early thunder. Perhaps +all its primitive inhabitants, of whatever race, thought it the seat of +the mighty gods.[92-2] A floe of ice in the Arctic Sea was the home of +the guardian spirit of the Algonkins;[92-3] on a mountain near the north +star the Dakotas thought Heyoka dwelt who rules the seasons; and the +realm of Mictla, the Aztec god of death, lay where the shadows pointed. +From that cheerless abode his sceptre reached over all creatures, even +the gods themselves, for sooner or later all must fall before him. The +great spirit of the dead, said the Ottawas, lives in the dark +north,[93-1] and there, in the opinion of the Monquis of California, +resided their chief god, Gumongo.[93-2] + +Unfortunately the makers of vocabularies have rarely included the words +north, south, east, and west, in their lists, and the methods of +expressing these ideas adopted by the Indians can only be partially +discovered. The east and west were usually called from the rising and +setting of the sun as in our words orient and occident, but occasionally +from traditional notions. The Mayas named the west the greater, the east +the lesser debarkation; believing that while their culture hero Zamna +came from the east with a few attendants, the mass of the population +arrived from the opposite direction.[93-3] The Aztecs spoke of the east +as "the direction of Tlalocan," the terrestrial paradise. But for north +and south there were no such natural appellations, and consequently the +greatest diversity is exhibited in the plans adopted to express them. +The north in the Caddo tongue is "the place of cold," in Dakota "the +situation of the pines," in Creek "the abode of the (north) star," in +Algonkin "the home of the soul," in Aztec "the direction of Mictla" the +realm of death, in Quich and Quichua, "to the right hand;"[93-4] while +for the south we find such terms as in Dakota "the downward direction," +in Algonkin "the place of warmth," in Quich "to the left hand," while +among the Eskimos, who look in this direction for the sun, its name +implies "before one," just as does the Hebrew word _kedem_, which, +however, this more southern tribe applied to the east. + +We can trace the sacredness of the number four in other curious and +unlooked-for developments. Multiplied into the number of the +fingers--the arithmetic of every child and ignorant man--or by adding +together the first four members of its arithmetical series (4 + 8 + 12 + +16), it gives the number forty. This was taken as a limit to the sacred +dances of some Indian tribes, and by others as the highest number of +chants to be employed in exorcising diseases. Consequently it came to be +fixed as a limit in exercises of preparation or purification. The +females of the Orinoko tribes fasted forty days before marriage, and +those of the upper Mississippi were held unclean the same length of time +after childbirth; such was the term of the Prince of Tezcuco's fast when +he wished an heir to his throne, and such the number of days the Mandans +supposed it required to wash clean the world at the deluge.[94-1] + +No one is ignorant how widely this belief was prevalent in the old +world, nor how the quadrigesimal is still a sacred term with some +denominations of Christianity. But a more striking parallelism awaits +us. The symbol that beyond all others has fascinated the human mind, THE +CROSS, finds here its source and meaning. Scholars have pointed out its +sacredness in many natural religions, and have reverently accepted it as +a mystery, or offered scores of conflicting and often debasing +interpretations. It is but another symbol of the four cardinal points, +the four winds of heaven. This will luminously appear by a study of its +use and meaning in America. + +The Catholic missionaries found it was no new object of adoration to the +red race, and were in doubt whether to ascribe the fact to the pious +labors of Saint Thomas or the sacrilegious subtlety of Satan. It was the +central object in the great temple of Cozumel, and is still preserved on +the bas-reliefs of the ruined city of Palenque. From time immemorial it +had received the prayers and sacrifices of the Aztecs and Toltecs, and +was suspended as an august emblem from the walls of temples in Popoyan +and Cundinamarca. In the Mexican tongue it bore the significant and +worthy name "Tree of Our Life," or "Tree of our Flesh" (Tonacaquahuitl). +It represented the god of rains and of health, and this was everywhere +its simple meaning. "Those of Yucatan," say the chroniclers, "prayed to +the cross as the god of rains when they needed water." The Aztec goddess +of rains bore one in her hand, and at the feast celebrated to her honor +in the early spring victims were nailed to a cross and shot with arrows. +Quetzalcoatl, god of the winds, bore as his sign of office "a mace like +the cross of a bishop;" his robe was covered with them strown like +flowers, and its adoration was throughout connected with his +worship.[96-1] When the Muyscas would sacrifice to the goddess of waters +they extended cords across the tranquil depths of some lake, thus +forming a gigantic cross, and at their point of intersection threw in +their offerings of gold, emeralds, and precious oils.[96-2] The arms of +the cross were designed to point to the cardinal points and represent +the four winds, the rain bringers. To confirm this explanation, let us +have recourse to the simpler ceremonies of the less cultivated tribes, +and see the transparent meaning of the symbol as they employed it. + +When the rain maker of the Lenni Lenape would exert his power, he +retired to some secluded spot and drew upon the earth the figure of a +cross (its arms toward the cardinal points?), placed upon it a piece of +tobacco, a gourd, a bit of some red stuff, and commenced to cry aloud to +the spirits of the rains.[96-3] The Creeks at the festival of the Busk, +celebrated, as we have seen, to the four winds, and according to their +legends instituted by them, commenced with making the new fire. The +manner of this was "to place four logs in the centre of the square, end +to end, forming a cross, the outer ends pointing to the cardinal points; +in the centre of the cross the new fire is made."[97-1] + +As the emblem of the winds who dispense the fertilizing showers it is +emphatically the tree of our life, our subsistence, and our health. It +never had any other meaning in America, and if, as has been said,[97-2] +the tombs of the Mexicans were cruciform, it was perhaps with reference +to a resurrection and a future life as portrayed under this symbol, +indicating that the buried body would rise by the action of the four +spirits of the world, as the buried seed takes on a new existence when +watered by the vernal showers. It frequently recurs in the ancient +Egyptian writings, where it is interpreted _life_; doubtless, could we +trace the hieroglyph to its source, it would likewise prove to be +derived from the four winds. + +While thus recognizing the natural origin of this consecrated symbol, +while discovering that it is based on the sacredness of numbers, and +this in turn on the structure and necessary relations of the human +body, thus disowning the meaningless mysticism that Joseph de Maistre +and his disciples have advocated, let us on the other hand be equally on +our guard against accepting the material facts which underlie these +beliefs as their deepest foundation and their exhaustive explanation. +That were but withered fruit for our labors, and it might well be asked, +where is here the divine idea said to be dimly prefigured in mythology? +The universal belief in the sacredness of numbers is an instinctive +faith in an immortal truth; it is a direct perception of the soul, akin +to that which recognizes a God. The laws of chemical combination, of the +various modes of motion, of all organic growth, show that simple +numerical relations govern all the properties and are inherent to the +very constitution of matter; more marvellous still, the most recent and +severe inductions of physicists show that precisely those two numbers on +whose symbolical value much of the edifice of ancient mythology was +erected, the _four_ and the _three_, regulate the molecular distribution +of matter and preside over the symmetrical development of organic forms. +This asks no faith, but only knowledge; it is science, not revelation. +In view of such facts is it presumptuous to predict that experiment +itself will prove the truth of Kepler's beautiful saying: "The universe +is a harmonious whole, the soul of which is God; numbers, figures, the +stars, all nature, indeed, are in unison with the mysteries of +religion"? + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[67-1] Buckingham Smith, _Gram. Notices of the Heve Language_, p. 26 +(Shea's Lib. Am. Linguistics). + +[68-1] I refer to the four "ultimate elementary particles" of +Empedocles. The number was sacred to Hermes, and lay at the root of the +physical philosophy of Pythagoras. The quotation in the text is from the +"Golden Verses," given in Passow's lexicon under the word ~tetraktys: +nai ma ton hametera psycha paradonta tetraktyn, pagan aenaou physes~. +"The most sacred of all things," said this famous teacher, "is Number; +and next to it, that which gives Names;" a truth that the lapse of three +thousand years is just enabling us to appreciate. + +[68-2] Ximenes, _Or. de los Indios_, etc., p. 5. + +[68-3] See Sepp, _Heidenthum und dessen Bedeutung fr das Christenthum_, +i. p. 464 sqq., a work full of learning, but written in the wildest vein +of Joseph de Maistre's school of Romanizing mythology. + +[69-1] Brasseur, _Hist. du Mexique_, ii. p. 227, _Le Livre Sacr des +Quichs_, introd. p. ccxlii. The four provinces of Peru were Anti, Cunti, +Chincha, and Colla. The meaning of these names has been lost, but to +repeat them, says La Vega, was the same as to use our words, east, west, +north, and south (_Hist. des Incas_, lib. ii. cap. 11). + +[69-2] Humboldt, _Polit. Essay on New Spain_, ii. p. 44. + +[70-1] This custom has been often mentioned among the Iroquois. +Algonkins, Dakotas, Creeks, Natchez, Araucanians, and other tribes. +Nuttall points out its recurrence among the Tartars of Siberia also. +(_Travels_, p. 175.) + +[71-1] Schoolcraft, _Indian Tribes_, v. pp. 424 et seq. + +[71-2] _Letters on the North American Indians_, vol. i., Letter 22. + +[71-3] Schoolcraft, _Indian Tribes_, iv. p. 643 sq. "Four is their sacred +number," says Mr. Pond (p. 646). Their neighbors, the Pawnees, though not +the most remote affinity can be detected between their languages, +coincide with them in this sacred number, and distinctly identified it +with the cardinal points. See De Smet, _Oregon Missions_, pp. 360, 361. + +[72-1] Benj. Hawkins, _Sketch of the Creek Country_, pp. 75, 78: +Savannah, 1848. The description he gives of the ceremonies of the Creeks +was transcribed word for word and published in the first volume of the +American Antiquarian Society's Transactions as of the Shawnees of Ohio. +This literary theft has not before been noticed. + +[72-2] Palacios, _Des. de la Prov. de Guatemala_, pp. 31, 32, ed. +Ternaux-Compans. + +[73-1] All familiar with Mexican antiquity will recall many such +examples. I may particularly refer to Kingsborough, _Antiqs. of Mexico_, +v. p. 480, Ternaux-Compans' _Recueil de pices rel. la Conq. du +Mexique_, pp. 307, 310, and Gama, _Des. de las dos Piedras que se +hallaron en la plaza principal de Mexico_, ii. sec. 126 (Mexico, 1832), +who gives numerous instances beyond those I have cited, and directs with +emphasis the attention of the reader to this constant repetition. + +[74-1] Albert Gallatin, _Trans. Am. Ethnol. Soc._, ii. p. 316, from the +Codex Vaticanus, No. 3738. + +[75-1] Riggs, _Gram. and Dict. of the Dakota Lang._, s. v. + +[75-2] Sahagun, _Hist. de la Nueva Espaa_, in Kingsborough, v. p. 375. + +[76-1] Egede, _Nachrichten von Grnland_, pp. 137, 173, 285. (Kopenhagen, +1790.) + +[77-1] Schoolcraft, _Algic Researches_, i. p. 139, and _Indian Tribes_, +iv. p. 229. + +[78-1] Hawkins, _Sketch of the Creek Country_, pp. 81, 82, and Blomes, +_Acc. of his Majesty's Colonies_, p. 156, London, 1687, in Castiglioni, +_Viaggi nelle Stati Uniti_, i. p. 294. + +[78-2] Peter Martyr, _De Reb. Ocean._, Dec. i. lib. ix. The story is also +told more at length by the Brother Romain Pane, in the essay on the +ancient histories of the natives he drew up by the order of Columbus. It +has been reprinted with notes by the Abb Brasseur, Paris, 1864, p. 438 +sqq. + +[79-1] Schoolcraft, _Ind. Tribes_, iv. p. 89. + +[79-2] Brasseur, _Le Liv. Sac._, Introd., p. cxvii. + +[80-1] Diego de Landa, _Rel. de las Cosas de Yucatan_, pp. 160, 206, 208, +ed. Brasseur. The learned editor, in a note to p. 208, states erroneously +the disposition of the colors, as may be seen by comparing the document +on p. 395. This dedication of colors to the cardinal points is universal +in Central Asia. The geographical names of the Red Sea, the Black Sea, +the Yellow Sea or Persian Gulf, and the White Sea or the Mediterranean, +are derived from this association. The cities of China, many of them at +least, have their gates which open toward the cardinal points painted of +certain colors, and precisely these four, the white, the black, the red, +and the yellow, are those which in Oriental myth the mountain in the +centre of Paradise shows to the different cardinal points. (Sepp, +_Heidenthum und Christenthum_, i. p. 177.) The coincidence furnishes food +for reflection. + +[81-1] _Le Livre Sacr des Quichs_, pp. 203-5, note. + +[82-1] The analogy is remarkable between these and the "quatre actes de +la puissance generatrice jusqu' l'entier developpment des corps +organiss," portrayed by four globes in the Mycenean bas-reliefs. See +Guigniaut, _Religions de l'Antiquit_, i. p. 374. It were easy to +multiply the instances of such parallelism in the growth of religious +thought in the Old and New World, but I designedly refrain from doing so. +They have already given rise to false theories enough, and moreover my +purpose in this work is not "comparative mythology." + +[83-1] Mller, _Amer. Urreligionen_, p. 105, after Strahlheim, who is, +however, no authority. + +[83-2] Mller, _ubi supra_, pp. 308 sqq., gives a good rsum of the +different versions of the myth of the four brothers in Peru. + +[83-3] The Tupis of Brazil claim a descent from four brothers, three of +whose names are given by Hans Staden, a prisoner among them about 1550, +as Krimen, Hermittan, and Coem; the latter he explains to mean the +morning, the east (_le matin_, printed by mistake _le mutin_, _Relation +de Hans Staden de Homberg_, p. 274, ed. Ternaux-Compans, compare Dias, +_Dicc. da Lingua Tupy_, p. 47). Their southern relatives, the Guaranis of +Paraguay, also spoke of the four brothers and gave two of their names as +Tupi and Guarani, respectively parents of the tribes called after them +(Guevara, _Hist. del Paraguay_, lib. i. cap. ii., in Waitz). The fourfold +division of the Muyscas of Bogota was traced back to four chieftains +created by their hero god Nemqueteba (A. von Humboldt, _Vues des +Cordillres_, p. 246). The Nahuas of Mexico much more frequently spoke of +themselves as descendants of four or eight original families than of +seven (Humboldt, _ibid._, p. 317, and others in Waitz, _Anthropologie_, +iv. pp. 36, 37). The Sacs or Sauks of the Upper Mississippi supposed that +two men and two women were first created, and from these four sprang all +men (Morse, _Rep. on Ind. Affairs_, App. p. 138). The Ottoes, Pawnees, +"and other Indians," had a tradition that from eight ancestors all +nations and races were descended (Id., p. 249). This duplication of the +number probably arose from assigning the first four men four women as +wives. The division into clans or totems which prevails in most northern +tribes rests theoretically on descent from different ancestors. The +Shawnees and Natchez were divided into four such clans, the Choctaws, +Navajos, and Iroquois into eight, thus proving that in those tribes also +the myth I have been discussing was recognized. + +[85-1] Mandans in Catlin, _Letts. and Notes_, i. p. 181. + +[85-2] The Mayas, Cogolludo, _Hist. de Yucathan_, lib. iv. cap. 8. + +[85-3] The Navajos, Schoolcraft, _Ind. Tribes_, iv. p. 89. + +[85-4] The Quichs, Ximenes, _Or. de los Indios_, p. 79. + +[85-5] The Iroquois, Mller, _Amer. Urreligionen_, p. 109. + +[85-6] For these myths see Sepp, _Das Heidenthum und dessen Bedeutung fr +das Christenthum_, i. p. 111 sqq. The interpretation is of course my own. + +[87-1] Peter Martyr, _De Reb. Ocean._, Dec. iii., lib. ix. p. 195; Colon, +1574. + +[87-2] Ibid., Dec. iii., lib. x. p. 202. + +[87-3] Florida was also long supposed to be the site of this wondrous +spring, and it is notorious that both Juan Ponce de Leon and De Soto had +some lurking hope of discovering it in their expeditions thither. I have +examined the myth somewhat at length in _Notes on the Floridian +Peninsula, its Literary History, Indian Tribes, and Antiquities_, pp. 99, +100: Philadelphia, 1859. + +[88-1] Sahagun, _Hist. de la Nueva Espaa_, lib. iii. cap. iii. + +[88-2] _Le Livre Sacr des Quichs_, Introd., p. clviii. + +[89-1] Memorial de Tecpan Atitlan, in Brasseur, _Hist. du Mexique_, i. p. +167. The derivation of Tulan, or Tula, is extremely uncertain. The Abb +Brasseur sees in it the _ultima Thule_ of the ancient geographers, which +suits his idea of early American history. Hernando De Soto found a +village of this name on the Mississippi, or near it. But on looking into +Gallatin's vocabularies, _tulla_ turns out to be the Choctaw word for +_stone_, and as De Soto was then in the Choctaw country, the coincidence +is explained at once. Buschmann, who spells it _Tollan_, takes it from +_tolin_, a rush, and translates, _juncetum_, _Ort der Binsen. Ueber die +Aztekischen Orstnamen_,[TN-2] p. 682. Those who have attempted to make +history from these mythological fables have been much puzzled about the +location of this mystic land. Humboldt has placed it on the northwest +coast, Cabrera at Palenque, Clavigero north of Anahuac, etc. etc. Aztlan, +literally, the White Land, is another name of wholly mythical purport, +which it would be equally vain to seek on the terrestrial globe. In the +extract in the text, the word translated God is _Qabavil_, an old word +for the highest god, either from a root meaning to open, to disclose, or +from one of similar form signifying to wonder, to marvel; literally, +therefore, the Revealer, or the Wondrous One (_Vocab. de la Lengua +Quich_, p. 209: Paris, 1862). + +[90-1] Ximenes, _Or. de los Indios_, p. 80, _Le Livre Sacr_, p. 195. + +[90-2] Garcia, _Origen de los Indios_, lib. iv. cap. 4. + +[91-1] Compare the German expression _sich orientiren_, to right oneself +by the east, to understand one's surroundings. + +[92-1] Hawkins, _Sketch of the Creek Country_, p. 80. + +[92-2] See Jacob Grimm, _Geschichte der Deutschen Sprache_, p. 681 + +[92-3] De Smet, Oregon Missions, p. 352. + +[93-1] Bressani, _Relation Abrg_, p. 93. + +[93-2] Venegas, _Hist. of California_, i. p. 91: London, 1759. + +[93-3] Cogolludo, _Hist. de Yucathan_, lib. iv. cap. iii. + +[93-4] Alexander von Humboldt has asserted that the Quichuas had other +and very circumstantial terms to express the cardinal points drawn from +the positions of the son (_Ansichten der Natur_, ii. p. 368). But the +distinguished naturalist overlooked the literal meaning of the phrases he +quotes for north and south, _intip chaututa chayananpata_ and _intip +chaupunchau chayananpata_, literally, the sun arriving toward the +midnight, the sun arriving toward the midday. These are evidently +translations of the Spanish _hacia la media noche_, _hacia el medio dia_, +for they could not have originated among a people under or south of the +equatorial line. + +[94-1] Catlin, _Letters and Notes_, i., Letter 22; La Hontan, _Mmoires_, +ii. p. 151; Gumilla, _Hist. del Orinoco_, p. 159 + +[96-1] On the worship of the cross in Mexico and Yucatan and its +invariable meaning as representing the gods of rain, consult +Ixtlilxochitl, _Hist. des Chichimeques_, p. 5; Sahagun, _Hist. de la +Nueva Espaa_, lib. i. cap. ii.; Garcia, _Or. de los Indios_, lib. iii. +cap. vi. p. 109; Palacios, _Des. de la Prov. de Guatemala_, p. 29; +Cogolludo, _Hist. de Yucathan_, lib. iv. cap. ix.; Villagutierre +Sotomayor, _Hist. de el Itza y de el Lacandon_, lib. iii. cap. 8; and +many others might be mentioned. + +[96-2] Rivero and Tschudi, _Peruvian Antiquities_, p. 162, after J. +Acosta. + +[96-3] Loskiel, _Ges. der Miss. der evang. Brder_, p. 60. + +[97-1] Hawkins, _Sketch of the Creek Country_, p. 75. Lapham and Pidgeon +mention that in the State of Wisconsin many low mounds are found in the +form of a cross with the arms directed to the cardinal points. They +contain no remains. Were they not altars built to the Four Winds? In the +mythology of the Dakotas, who inhabited that region, the winds were +always conceived as birds, and for the cross they have a native name +literally signifying "the musquito hawk spread out" (Riggs, _Dict. of the +Dakota_, s. v.). Its Maya name is _vahom che_, the tree erected or set +up, the adjective being drawn from the military language and implying as +a defence or protection, as the warrior lifts his lance or shield (Landa, +_Rel. de las Cosas de Yucatan_, p. 65). + +[97-2] Squier, _The Serpent Symbol in America_, p. 98. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +THE SYMBOLS OF THE BIRD AND THE SERPENT. + + Relations of man to the lower animals.--Two of these, the BIRD and + the SERPENT, chosen as symbols beyond all others.--The Bird + throughout America the symbol of the Clouds and Winds.--Meaning of + certain species.--The symbolic meaning of the Serpent derived from + its mode of locomotion, its poisonous bite, and its power of + charming.--Usually the symbol of the Lightning and the Waters.--The + Rattlesnake the symbolic species in America.--The war charm.--The + Cross of Palenque.--The god of riches.--Both symbols devoid of + moral significance. + + +Those stories which the Germans call _Thierfabeln_, wherein the actors +are different kinds of brutes, seem to have a particular relish for +children and uncultivated nations. Who cannot recall with what delight +he nourished his childish fancy on the pranks of Reynard the Fox, or the +tragic adventures of Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf? Every nation +has a congeries of such tales, and it is curious to mark how the same +animal reappears with the same imputed physiognomy in all of them. The +fox is always cunning, the wolf ravenous, the owl wise, and the ass +foolish. The question has been raised whether such traits were at first +actually ascribed to animals, or whether their introduction in story was +intended merely as an agreeable figure of speech for classes of men. We +cannot doubt but that the former was the case. Going back to the dawn of +civilization, we find these relations not as amusing fictions, but as +myths, embodying religious tenets, and the brute heroes held up as the +ancestors of mankind, even as rightful claimants of man's prayers and +praises. + +Man, the paragon of animals, praying to the beast, is a spectacle so +humiliating that, for the sake of our common humanity, we may seek the +explanation of it least degrading to the dignity of our race. We must +remember that as a hunter the primitive man was always matched against +the wild creatures of the woods, so superior to him in their dumb +certainty of instinct, their swift motion, their muscular force, their +permanent and sufficient clothing. Their ways were guided by a wit +beyond his divination, and they gained a living with little toil or +trouble. They did not mind the darkness so terrible to him, but through +the night called one to the other in a tongue whose meaning he could not +fathom, but which, he doubted not, was as full of purport as his own. He +did not recognize in himself those god-like qualities destined to endow +him with the royalty of the world, while far more clearly than we do he +saw the sly and strange faculties of his antagonists. They were to him, +therefore, not inferiors, but equals--even superiors. He doubted not +that once upon a time he had possessed their instinct, they his +language, but that some necromantic spell had been flung on them both to +keep them asunder. None but a potent sorcerer could break this charm, +but such an one could understand the chants of birds and the howls of +savage beasts, and on occasion transform himself into one or another +animal, and course the forest, the air, or the waters, as he saw fit. +Therefore, it was not the beast that he worshipped, but that share of +the omnipresent deity which he thought he perceived under its +form.[101-1] + +Beyond all others, two subdivisions of the animal kingdom have so +riveted the attention of men by their unusual powers, and enter so +frequently into the myths of every nation of the globe, that a right +understanding of their symbolic value is an essential preliminary to the +discussion of the divine legends. They are the BIRD and the SERPENT. We +shall not go amiss if we seek the reasons of their pre-eminence in the +facility with which their peculiarities offered sensuous images under +which to convey the idea of divinity, ever present in the soul of man, +ever striving at articulate expression. + +The bird has the incomprehensible power of flight; it floats in the +atmosphere, it rides on the winds, it soars toward heaven where dwell +the gods; its plumage is stained with the hues of the rainbow and the +sunset; its song was man's first hint of music; it spurns the clouds +that impede his footsteps, and flies proudly over the mountains and +moors where he toils wearily along. He sees no more enviable creature; +he conceives the gods and angels must also have wings; and pleases +himself with the fancy that he, too, some day will shake off this coil +of clay, and rise on pinions to the heavenly mansions. All living +beings, say the Eskimos, have the faculty of soul (_tarrak_), but +especially the birds.[101-2] As messengers from the upper world and +interpreters of its decrees, the flight and the note of birds have ever +been anxiously observed as omens of grave import. "There is one bird +especially," remarks the traveller Coreal, of the natives of Brazil, +"which they regard as of good augury. Its mournful chant is heard rather +by night than day. The savages say it is sent by their deceased friends +to bring them news from the other world, and to encourage them against +their enemies."[102-1] In Peru and in Mexico there was a College of +Augurs, corresponding in purpose to the auspices of ancient Rome, who +practised no other means of divination than watching the course and +professing to interpret the songs of fowls. So natural and so general is +such a superstition, and so wide-spread is the respect it still obtains +in civilized and Christian lands, that it is not worth while to summon +witnesses to show that it prevailed universally among the red race also. +What imprinted it with redoubled force on their imagination was the +common belief that birds were not only divine nuncios, but the visible +spirits of their departed friends. The Powhatans held that a certain +small wood bird received the souls of their princes at death, and they +refrained religiously from doing it harm;[102-2] while the Aztecs and +various other nations thought that all good people, as a reward of +merit, were metamorphosed at the close of life into feathered songsters +of the grove, and in this form passed a certain term in the umbrageous +bowers of Paradise. + +But the usual meaning of the bird as a symbol looks to a different +analogy--to that which appears in such familiar expressions as "the +wings of the wind," "the flying clouds." Like the wind, the bird sweeps +through the aerial spaces, sings in the forests, and rustles on its +course; like the cloud, it floats in mid-air and casts its shadow on the +earth; like the lightning, it darts from heaven to earth to strike its +unsuspecting prey. These tropes were truths to savage nations, and led +on by that law of language which forced them to conceive everything as +animate or inanimate, itself the product of a deeper law of thought +which urges us to ascribe life to whatever has motion, they found no +animal so appropriate for their purpose here as the bird. Therefore the +Algonkins say that birds always make the winds, that they create the +water spouts, and that the clouds are the spreading and agitation of +their wings;[103-1] the Navajos, that at each cardinal point stands a +white swan, who is the spirit of the blasts which blow from its +dwelling; and the Dakotas, that in the west is the house of the +Wakinyan, the Flyers, the breezes that send the storms. So, also, they +frequently explain the thunder as the sound of the cloud-bird flapping +his wings, and the lightning as the fire that flashes from his tracks, +like the sparks which the buffalo scatters when he scours over a stony +plain.[103-2] The thunder cloud was also a bird to the Caribs, and they +imagined it produced the lightning in true Carib fashion by blowing it +through a hollow reed, just as they to this day hurl their poisoned +darts.[104-1] Tupis, Iroquois, Athapascas, for certain, perhaps all the +families of the red race, were the subject pursued, partook of this +persuasion; among them all it would probably be found that the same +figures of speech were used in comparing clouds and winds with the +feathered species as among us, with however this most significant +difference, that whereas among us they are figures and nothing more, to +them they expressed literal facts. + +How important a symbol did they thus become! For the winds, the clouds, +producing the thunder and the changes that take place in the +ever-shifting panorama of the sky, the rain bringers, lords of the +seasons, and not this only, but the primary type of the soul, the life, +the breath of man and the world, these in their role in mythology are +second to nothing. Therefore as the symbol of these august powers, as +messenger of the gods, and as the embodiment of departed spirits, no one +will be surprised if they find the bird figure most prominently in the +myths of the red race. + +Sometimes some particular species seems to have been chosen as most +befitting these dignified attributes. No citizen of the United States +will be apt to assert that their instinct led the indigenes of our +territory astray when they chose with nigh unanimous consent the great +American eagle as that fowl beyond all others proper to typify the +supreme control and the most admirable qualities. Its feathers composed +the war flag of the Creeks, and its images carved in wood or its stuffed +skin surmounted their council lodges (Bartram); none but an approved +warrior dare wear it among the Cherokees (Timberlake); and the Dakotas +allowed such an honor only to him who had first touched the corpse of +the common foe (De Smet). The Natchez and Akanzas seem to have paid it +even religious honors, and to have installed it in their most sacred +shrines (Sieur de Tonty, Du Pratz); and very clearly it was not so much +for ornament as for a mark of dignity and a recognized sign of worth +that its plumes were so highly prized. The natives of Zui, in New +Mexico, employed four of its feathers to represent the four winds in +their invocations for rain (Whipple), and probably it was the eagle +which a tribe in Upper California (the Acagchemem) worshipped under the +name Panes. Father Geronimo Boscana describes it as a species of +vulture, and relates that one of them was immolated yearly, with solemn +ceremony, in the temple of each village. Not a drop of blood was +spilled, and the body burned. Yet with an amount of faith that staggered +even the Romanist, the natives maintained and believed that it was the +same individual bird they sacrificed each year; more than this, that the +same bird was slain by each of the villages![105-1] + +The owl was regarded by Aztecs, Quichs, Mayas, Peruvians, Araucanians, +and Algonkins as sacred to the lord of the dead. "The Owl" was one of +the names of the Mexican Pluto, whose realm was in the north,[106-1] and +the wind from that quarter was supposed by the Chipeways to be made by +the owl as the south by the butterfly.[106-2] As the bird of night, it +was the fit emissary of him who rules the darkness of the grave. +Something in the looks of the creature as it sapiently stares and blinks +in the light, or perhaps that it works while others sleep, got for it +the character of wisdom. So the Creek priests carried with them as the +badge of their learned profession the stuffed skin of one of these +birds, thus modestly hinting their erudite turn of mind,[106-3] and the +culture hero of the Monquis of California was represented, like Pallas +Athene, having one as his inseparable companion (Venegas). + +As the associate of the god of light and air, and as the antithesis +therefore of the owl, the Aztecs reverenced a bird called _quetzal_, +which I believe is a species of parroquet. Its plumage is of a bright +green hue, and was prized extravagantly as a decoration. It was one of +the symbols and part of the name of Quetzalcoatl, their mythical +civilizer, and the prince of all sorts of singing birds, myriads of whom +were fabled to accompany him on his journeys. + +The tender and hallowed associations that have so widely shielded the +dove from harm, which for instance Xenophon mentions among the ancient +Persians, were not altogether unknown to the tribes of the New World. +Neither the Hurons nor Mandans would kill them, for they believed they +were inhabited by the souls of the departed,[107-1] and it is said, but +on less satisfactory authority, that they enjoyed similar immunity among +the Mexicans. Their soft and plaintive note and sober russet hue widely +enlisted the sympathy of man, and linked them with his more tender +feelings. + +"As wise as the serpent, as harmless as the dove," is an antithesis that +might pass current in any human language. They are the emblems of +complementary, often contrasted qualities. Of all animals, the serpent +is the most mysterious. No wonder it possessed the fancy of the +observant child of nature. Alone of creatures it swiftly progresses +without feet, fins, or wings. "There be three things which are too +wonderful for me, yea, four which I know not," said wise King Solomon; +and the chief of them were, "the way of an eagle in the air, the way of +a serpent upon a rock." + +Its sinuous course is like to nothing so much as that of a winding +river, which therefore we often call serpentine. So did the Indians. +Kennebec, a stream in Maine, in the Algonkin means snake, and Antietam, +the creek in Maryland of tragic celebrity, in an Iroquois dialect has +the same significance. How easily would savages, construing the figure +literally, make the serpent a river or water god! Many species being +amphibious would confirm the idea. A lake watered by innumerable +tortuous rills wriggling into it, is well calculated for the fabled +abode of the king of the snakes. Thus doubtless it happened that both +Algonkins and Iroquois had a myth that in the great lakes dwelt a +monster serpent, of irascible temper, who unless appeased by meet +offerings raised a tempest or broke the ice beneath the feet of those +venturing on his domain, and swallowed them down.[108-1] + +The rattlesnake was the species almost exclusively honored by the red +race. It is slow to attack, but venomous in the extreme, and possesses +the power of the basilisk to attract within reach of its spring small +birds and squirrels. Probably this much talked of fascination is nothing +more than by its presence near their nests to incite them to attack, and +to hazard near and nearer approaches to their enemy in hope to force him +to retreat, until once within the compass of his fell swoop they fall +victims to their temerity. I have often watched a cat act thus. Whatever +explanation may be received, the fact cannot be questioned, and is ever +attributed by the unreflecting, to some diabolic spell cast upon them by +the animal. They have the same strange susceptibility to the influence +of certain sounds as the vipers, in which lies the secret of snake +charming. Most of the Indian magicians were familiar with this +singularity. They employed it with telling effect to put beyond question +their intercourse with the unseen powers, and to vindicate the potency +of their own guardian spirits who thus enabled them to handle with +impunity the most venomous of reptiles.[109-1] The well-known antipathy +of these serpents to certain plants, for instance the hazel, which bound +around the ankles is an efficient protection against their attacks, and +perhaps some antidote to their poison used by the magicians, led to +their frequent introduction in religious ceremonies. Such exhibitions +must have made a profound impression on the spectators, and redounded in +a corresponding degree to the glory of the performer. "Who is a manito?" +asks the mystic meda chant of the Algonkins. "He," is the reply, "he who +walketh with a serpent, walking on the ground, he is a manito."[109-2] +And the intimate alliance of this symbol with the most sacred mysteries +of religion, the darkest riddles of the Unknown, is reflected in their +language, and also in that of their neighbors the Dakotas, in both of +which the same words _manito_, _wakan_, which express divinity in its +broadest sense, are also used as generic terms signifying this species +of animals! This strange fact is not without a parallel, for in both +Arabic and Hebrew, the word for serpent has many derivatives, meaning to +have intercourse with demoniac powers, to practise magic, and to consult +familiar spirits.[110-1] + +The pious founder of the Moravian brotherhood, the Count of Zinzendorf, +owed his life on one occasion to this deeply rooted superstition. He was +visiting a missionary station among the Shawnees, in the Wyoming valley. +Recent quarrels with the whites had unusually irritated this unruly +folk, and they resolved to make him their first victim. After he had +retired to his secluded hut, several of their braves crept upon him, and +cautiously lifting the corner of the lodge, peered in. The venerable man +was seated before a little fire, a volume of the Scriptures on his +knees, lost in the perusal of the sacred words. While they gazed, a huge +rattlesnake, unnoticed by him, trailed across his feet, and rolled +itself into a coil in the comfortable warmth of the fire. Immediately +the would-be murderers forsook their purpose and noiselessly retired, +convinced that this was indeed a man of God. + +A more unique trait than any of these is its habit of casting its skin +every spring, thus as it were renewing its life. In temperate latitudes +the rattlesnake, like the leaves and flowers, retires from sight during +the cold season, and at the return of kindly warmth puts on a new and +brilliant coat. Its cast-off skin was carefully collected by the savages +and stored in the medicine bag as possessing remedial powers of high +excellence. Itself thus immortal, they thought it could impart its +vitality to them. So when the mother was travailing in sore pain, and +the danger neared that the child would be born silent, the attending +women hastened to catch some serpent and give her its blood to +drink.[111-1] + +It is well known that in ancient art this animal was the symbol of +sculapius, and to this day, Professor Agassiz found that the Maues +Indians, who live between the upper Tapajos and Madeira Rivers in +Brazil, whenever they assign a form to any "remedio," give it that of a +serpent.[111-2] + +Probably this notion that it was annually rejuvenated led to its +adoption as a symbol of Time among the Aztecs; or, perchance, as they +reckoned by suns, and the figure of the sun, a circle, corresponds to +nothing animate but a serpent with its tail in its mouth, eating itself, +as it were, this may have been its origin. Either of them is more likely +than that the symbol arose from the recondite reflection that time is +"never ending, still beginning, still creating, still destroying," as +has been suggested. + +Only, however, within the last few years has the significance of the +serpent symbol in its length and breadth been satisfactorily explained, +and its frequent recurrence accounted for. By a searching analysis of +Greek and German mythology, Dr. Schwarz, of Berlin, has shown that the +meaning which is paramount to all others in this emblem is _the +lightning_; a meaning drawn from the close analogy which the serpent in +its motion, its quick spring, and mortal bite, has to the zigzag course, +the rapid flash, and sudden stroke of the electric discharge. He even +goes so far as to imagine that by this resemblance the serpent first +acquired the veneration of men. But this is an extravagance not +supported by more thorough research. He has further shown with great +aptness of illustration how, by its dread effects, the lightning, the +heavenly serpent, became the god of terror and the opponent of such +heroes as Beowulf, St. George, Thor, Perseus, and others, mythical +representations of the fearful war of the elements in the thunder storm; +how from its connection with the advancing summer and fertilizing +showers it bore the opposite character of the deity of fruitfulness, +riches, and plenty; how, as occasionally kindling the woods where it +strikes, it was associated with the myths of the descent of fire from +heaven, and as in popular imagination where it falls it scatters the +thunderbolts in all directions, the flint-stones which flash when struck +were supposed to be these fragments, and gave rise to the stone worship +so frequent in the old world; and how, finally, the prevalent myth of a +king of serpents crowned with a glittering stone or wearing a horn is +but another type of the lightning.[113-1] Without accepting unreservedly +all these conclusions, I shall show how correct they are in the main +when applied to the myths of the New World, and thereby illustrate how +the red race is of one blood and one faith with our own remote ancestors +in heathen Europe and Central Asia. + +It asks no elaborate effort of the imagination to liken the lightning to +a serpent. It does not require any remarkable acuteness to guess the +conundrum of Schiller:-- + + "Unter allen Schlangen ist eine + Auf Erden nicht gezeugt, + Mit der an Schnelle keine, + An Wuth sich keine vergleicht." + +When Father Buteux was a missionary among the Algonkins, in 1637, he +asked them their opinion of the nature of lightning. "It is an immense +serpent," they replied, "which the Manito is vomiting forth; you can see +the twists and folds that he leaves on the trees which he strikes; and +underneath such trees we have often found huge snakes." "Here is a novel +philosophy for you!" exclaims the Father.[113-2] So the Shawnees called +the thunder "the hissing of the great snake;"[113-3] and Tlaloc, the +Toltec thunder god, held in his hand a serpent of gold to represent the +lightning.[114-1] For this reason the Caribs spoke of the god of the +thunder storm as a great serpent dwelling in the fruit forests,[114-2] +and in the Quich legends other names for Hurakan, the hurricane or +thunder-storm, are the Strong Serpent, He who hurls below, referring to +the lightning.[114-3] + +Among the Hurons, in 1648, the Jesuits found a legend current that there +existed somewhere a monster serpent called Onniont, who wore on his head +a horn that pierced rocks, trees, hills, in short everything he +encountered. Whoever could get a piece of this horn was a fortunate man, +for it was a sovereign charm and bringer of good luck. The Hurons +confessed that none of them had had the good hap to find the monster and +break his horn, nor indeed had they any idea of his whereabouts; but +their neighbors, the Algonkins, furnished them at times small fragments +for a large consideration.[114-4] Clearly the myth had been taught them +for venal purposes by their trafficking visitors. Now among the +Algonkins, the Shawnee tribe did more than all others combined to +introduce and carry about religious legends and ceremonies. From the +earliest times they seem to have had peculiar aptitude for the +ecstasies, deceits, and fancies that made up the spiritual life of their +associates. Their constantly roving life brought them in contact with +the myths of many nations. And it is extremely probable that they first +brought the tale of the horned serpent from the Creeks and Cherokees. It +figured extensively in the legends of both these tribes. + +The latter related that once upon a time among the glens of their +mountains dwelt the prince of rattlesnakes. Obedient subjects guarded +his palace, and on his head glittered in place of a crown a gem of +marvellous magic virtues. Many warriors and magicians tried to get +possession of this precious talisman, but were destroyed by the poisoned +fangs of its defenders. Finally, one more inventive than the rest hit +upon the bright idea of encasing himself in leather, and by this device +marched unharmed through the hissing and snapping court, tore off the +shining jewel, and bore it in triumph to his nation. They preserved it +with religious care, brought it forth on state occasions with solemn +ceremony, and about the middle of the last century, when Captain +Timberlake penetrated to their towns, told him its origin.[115-1] + +The charm which the Creeks presented their young men when they set out +on the war path was of very similar character. It was composed of the +bones of the panther and the horn of the fabulous horned snake. +According to a legend taken down by an unimpeachable authority toward +the close of the last century, the great snake dwelt in the waters; the +old people went to the brink and sang the sacred songs. The monster rose +to the surface. The sages recommenced the mystic chants. He rose a +little out o[TN-3] the water. Again they repeated the songs. This time +he showed his horns and they cut one off. Still a fourth time did they +sing, and as he rose to listen cut off the remaining horn. A fragment of +these in the "war physic" protected from inimical arrows and gave +success in the conflict.[116-1] + +In these myths, which attribute good fortune to the horn of the snake, +that horn which pierces trees and rocks, which rises from the waters, +which glitters as a gem, which descends from the ravines of the +mountains, we shall not overstep the bounds of prudent reasoning if we +see the thunderbolt, sign of the fructifying rain, symbol of the +strength of the lightning, horn of the heavenly serpent. They are +strictly meteorological in their meaning. And when in later Algonkin +tradition the hero Michabo appears in conflict with the shining prince +of serpents who lives in the lake and floods the earth with its waters, +and destroys the reptile with a dart, and further when the conqueror +clothes himself with the skin of his foe and drives the rest of the +serpents to the south where in that latitude the lightnings are last +seen in the autumn;[116-2] or when in the traditional history of the +Iroquois we hear of another great horned serpent rising out of the lake +and preying upon the people until a similar hero-god destroys it with a +thunderbolt,[116-3] we cannot be wrong in rejecting any historical or +ethical interpretation, and in construing them as allegories which at +first represented the atmospheric changes which accompany the advancing +seasons and the ripening harvests. They are narratives conveying under +agreeable personifications the tidings of that unending combat which the +Dakotas said was being waged with varying fortunes by Unktahe against +Wauhkeon, the God of Waters against the Thunder Bird.[117-1] They are +the same stories which in the old world have been elaborated into the +struggles of Ormuzd and Ahriman, of Thor and Midgard, of St. George and +the Dragon, and a thousand others. + +Yet it were but a narrow theory of natural religion that allowed no +other meaning to these myths. Many another elemental warfare is being +waged around us, and applications as various as nature herself lie in +these primitive creations of the human fancy. Let it only be remembered +that there was never any moral, never any historical purport in them in +the infancy of religious life. + +In snake charming as a proof of proficiency in magic, and in the symbol +of the lightning, which brings both fire and water, which in its might +controls victory in war, and in its frequency, plenteous crops at home, +lies the secret of the serpent symbol. As the "war physic" among the +tribes of the United States was a fragment of a serpent, and as thus +signifying his incomparable skill in war, the Iroquois represent their +mythical king Atatarho clothed in nothing but black snakes; so that when +he wished to don a new suit he simply drove away one set and ordered +another to take their places,[118-1] so, by a precisely similar mental +process, the myth of the Nahuas assigns as a mother to their war god +Huitzilapochtli, Coatlicue, the robe of serpents; her dwelling place +Coatepec, the hill of serpents; and at her lying-in say that she brought +forth a serpent. Her son's image was surrounded by serpents, his sceptre +was in the shape of one, his great drum was of serpents' skins, and his +statue rested on four vermiform caryatides. + +As the symbol of the fertilizing summer showers the lightning serpent +was the god of fruitfulness. Born in the atmospheric waters, it was an +appropriate attribute of the ruler of the winds. But we have already +seen that the winds were often spoken of as great birds. Hence the union +of these two emblems in such names as Quetzalcoatl, Gucumatz, Kukulkan, +all titles of the god of the air in the languages of Central America, +all signifying the "Bird-serpent." Here also we see the solution of that +monument which has so puzzled American antiquaries, the cross at +Palenque. It is a tablet on the wall of an altar representing a cross +surmounted by a bird and supported by the head of a serpent. The latter +is not well defined in the plate in Mr. Stephens' Travels, but is very +distinct in the photographs taken by M. Charnay, which that gentleman +was kind enough to show me. The cross I have previously shown was the +symbol of the four winds, and the bird and serpent are simply the rebus +of the air god, their ruler.[119-1] Quetzalcoatl, called also Yolcuat, +the rattlesnake, was no less intimately associated with serpents than +with birds. The entrance to his temple at Mexico represented the jaws of +one of these reptiles, and he finally disappeared in the province of +Coatzacoalco, the hiding place of the serpent, sailing towards the east +in a bark of serpents' skins. All this refers to his power over the +lightning serpent. + +He was also said to be the god of riches and the patron consequently of +merchants. For with the summer lightning come the harvest and the +ripening fruits, come riches and traffic. Moreover "the golden color of +the liquid fire," as Lucretius expresses it, naturally led where this +metal was known, to its being deemed the product of the lightning. Thus +originated many of those tales of a dragon who watches a treasure in the +earth, and of a serpent who is the dispenser of riches, such as were +found among the Greeks and ancient Germans.[119-2] So it was in Peru +where the god of riches was worshipped under the image of a rattlesnake +horned and hairy, with a tail of gold. It was said to have descended +from the heavens in the sight of all the people, and to have been seen +by the whole army of the Inca.[119-3] Whether it was in reference to +it, or as emblems of their prowess, that the Incas themselves chose as +their arms two serpents with their tails interlaced, is uncertain; +possibly one for each of these significations. + +Because the rattlesnake, the lightning serpent, is thus connected with +the food of man, and itself seems never to die but annually to renew its +youth, the Algonkins called it "grandfather" and "king of snakes;" they +feared to injure it; they believed it could grant prosperous breezes, or +raise disastrous tempests; crowned with the lunar crescent it was the +constant symbol of life in their picture writing; and in the meda signs +the mythical grandmother of mankind _me suk kum me go kwa_ was +indifferently represented by an old woman or a serpent.[120-1] For like +reasons Cihuacoatl, the Serpent Woman, in the myths of the Nahuas was +also called Tonantzin, our mother.[120-2] + +The serpent symbol in America has, however, been brought into undue +prominence. It had such an ominous significance in Christian art, and +one which chimed so well with the favorite proverb of the early +missionaries--"the gods of the heathens are devils"--that wherever they +saw a carving or picture of a serpent they at once recognized the sign +manual of the Prince of Darkness, and inscribed the fact in their +note-books as proof positive of their cherished theory. After going +over the whole ground, I am convinced that none of the tribes of the red +race attached to this symbol any ethical significance whatever, and that +as employed to express atmospheric phenomena, and the recognition of +divinity in natural occurrences, it far more frequently typified what +was favorable and agreeable than the reverse. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[101-1] That these were the real views entertained by the Indians in +regard to the brute creation, see Heckewelder, _Acc. of the Ind. +Nations_, p. 247; Schoolcraft, _Ind. Tribes_, iii. p. 520. + +[101-2] Egede, _Nachrichten von Grnland_, p. 156. + +[102-1] _Voiages aux Indes Occidentales_, pt. ii. p. 203: Amst. 1722. + +[102-2] Beverly, _Hist. de la Virginie_, liv. iii. chap. viii. + +[103-1] Schoolcraft, _Ind. Tribes_, v. p. 420. + +[103-2] Mrs. Eastman, _Legends of the Sioux_, p. 191: New York, 1849. +This is a trustworthy and meritorious book, which can be said of very few +collections of Indian traditions. They were collected during a residence +of seven years in our northwestern territories, and are usually verbally +faithful to the native narrations. + +[104-1] Mller, _Amer. Urreligionen_, p. 222, after De la Borde. + +[105-1] _Acc. of the Inds. of California_, ch. ix. Eng. trans. by +Robinson: New York, 1847. The Acagchemem were a branch of the Netela +tribe, who dwelt near the mission San Juan Capistrano (see Buschmann, +_Spuren der Aztek. Sprache_, etc., p. 548). + +[106-1] Called in the Aztec tongue _Tecolotl_, night owl; literally, the +stone scorpion. The transfer was mythological. The Christians prefixed to +this word _tlaca_, man, and thus formed a name for Satan, which Prescott +and others have translated "rational owl." No such deity existed in +ancient Anahuac (see Buschmann, _Die Voelker und Sprachen Neu Mexico's_, +p. 262). + +[106-2] Schoolcraft, _Ind. Tribes_, v. p. 420. + +[106-3] William Bartram, Travels, p. 504. Columbus found the natives of +the Antilles wearing tunics with figures of these birds embroidered upon +them. Prescott, _Conq. of Mexico_, i. p. 58, note. + +[107-1] _Rel. de la Nouv. France_, An 1636, ch. ix. Catlin, _Letters and +notes_, Lett. 22. + +[108-1] _Rel. de la Nouv. France_, An 1648, p. 75; Cusic, _Trad. Hist. of +the Six Nations_, pt. iii. The latter is the work of a native Tuscarora +chief. It is republished in Schoolcraft's Indian Tribes, but is of little +value. + +[109-1] For example, in Brazil, Mller, _Amer. Urrelig._, p. 277; in +Yucatan, Cogolludo, _Hist. de Yucathan_, lib. iv. cap. 4; among the +western Algonkins, _Hennepin, Decouverte dans l'Amer. Septen_. chap. 33. +Dr. Hammond has expressed the opinion that the North American Indians +enjoy the same immunity from the virus of the rattlesnake, that certain +African tribes do from some vegetable poisons (_Hygiene_, p. 73). But his +observation must be at fault, for many travellers mention the dread these +serpents inspired, and the frequency of death from their bites, e. g. +_Rel. Nouv. France_. 1667, p. 22. + +[109-2] _Narrative of the Captivity and Adventures of John Tanner_, p. +356. + +[110-1] See Gallatin's vocabularies in the second volume of the _Trans. +Am. Antiq. Soc._ under the word _Snake_. In Arabic _dzann_ is serpent; +_dzanan_ a spirit, a soul, or the heart. So in Hebrew _nachas_, serpent, +has many derivatives signifying to hold intercourse with demons, to +conjure, a magician, etc. See Noldeke in the _Zeitschrift fr +Voelkerpsychologie und Sprachwissenschaft_, i. p. 413. + +[111-1] Alexander Henry, _Travels_, p. 117. + +[111-2] _Bost. Med. and Surg. Journal_, vol. 76, p. 21. + +[113-1] Schwarz, _Der Ursprung der Mythologie dargelegt an Griechischer +und Deutscher Sage_: Berlin, 1860, _passim_. + +[113-2] _Rel. de la Nouv. France_: An 1637, p. 53. + +[113-3] _Sagen der Nord-Amer. Indianer_, p. 21. This is a German +translation of part of Jones's _Legends of the N. Am. Inds._: London, +1820. Their value as mythological material is very small. + +[114-1] Torquemada, _Monarquia Indiana_, lib. vi. cap. 37. + +[114-2] Mller, _Amer. Urrelig._, 221, after De la Borde. + +[114-3] _Le Livre Sacr des Quichs_, p. 3. + +[114-4] _Rel. de la Nouv. France_, 1648, p. 75. + +[115-1] _Memoirs of Lieut. Henry Timberlake_, p. 48: London, 1765. This +little book gives an account of the Cherokees at an earlier date than is +elsewhere found. + +[116-1] Hawkins, _Sketch of the Creek Country_, p. 80. + +[116-2] Schoolcraft, _Algic Researches_, i. p. 179 sq.; compare ii. p. +117. + +[116-3] Morgan, _League of the Iroquois_, p. 159; Cusic, _Trad. Hist. of +the Six Nations_, pt. ii. + +[117-1] Mrs. Eastman, _Legends of the Sioux_, pp. 161, 212. In this +explanation I depart from Prof. Schwarz, who has collected various +legends almost identical with these of the Indians (with which he was not +acquainted), and interpreted the precious crown or horn to be the summer +sun, brought forth by the early vernal lightning. _Ursprung der +Mythologie_, p. 27, note. + +[118-1] Cusic, u. s., pt. ii. + +[119-1] This remarkable relic has been the subject of a long and able +article in the _Revue Amricaine_ (tom. ii. p. 69), by the venerable +traveller De Waldeck. Like myself--and I had not seen his opinion until +after the above was written--he explains the cruciform design as +indicating the four cardinal points, but offers the explanation merely as +a suggestion, and without referring to these symbols as they appear in so +many other connections. + +[119-2] Schwarz, _Ursprung der Mythologie_, pp. 62 sqq. + +[119-3] "I have examined many Indians in reference to these details," +says the narrator, an Augustin monk writing in 1554, "and they have all +confirmed them as eye-witnesses" (_Lettre sur les Superstitions du +Prou_, p. 106, ed. Ternaux-Compans. This document is very valuable). + +[120-1] _Narrative of John Tanner_, p. 355; Henry, _Travels_, p. 176. + +[120-2] Torquemada, _Monarquia Indiana_, lib. vi. cap. 31. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +THE MYTHS OF WATER, FIRE, AND THE THUNDER-STORM. + + Water the oldest element.--Its use in purification.--Holy + water.--The Rite of Baptism.--The Water of Life.--Its symbols.--The + Vase.--The Moon.--The latter the goddess of love and agriculture, + but also of sickness, night, and pain.--Often represented by a + dog.--Fire worship under the form of Sun worship.--The perpetual + fire.--The new fire--Burning the dead.--A worship of the passions, + but no sexual dualism in myths, nor any phallic worship in + America.--Synthesis of the worship of Fire, Water, and the Winds in + the THUNDER-STORM, personified as Haokah, Tupa, Catequil, Contici, + Heno, Tlaloc, Mixcoatl, and other deities, many of them triune. + + +The primitive man was a brute in everything but the susceptibility to +culture; the chief market of his time was to sleep, fight, and feed; his +bodily comfort alone had any importance in his eyes; and his gods were +nothing, unless they touched him here. Cold, hunger, thirst, these were +the hounds that were ever on his track; these were the fell powers he +saw constantly snatching away his fellows, constantly aiming their +invisible shafts at himself. Fire, food, and water were the gods that +fought on his side; they were the chief figures in his pantheon, his +kindliest, perhaps his earliest, divinities. + +With a nearly unanimous voice mythologies assign the priority to water. +It was the first of all things, the parent of all things. Even the gods +themselves were born of water, said the Greeks and the Aztecs. +Cosmogonies reach no further than the primeval ocean that rolled its +shoreless waves through a timeless night. + +"Omnia pontus erant, deerant quoque litora ponto." + +Earth, sun, stars, lay concealed in its fathomless abysses. "All of us," +ran the Mexican baptismal formula, "are children of Chalchihuitlycue, +Goddess of Water," and the like was said by the Peruvians of Mama Cocha, +by the Botocudos of Taru, by the natives of Darien of Dobayba, by the +Iroquois of Ataensic--all of them mothers of mankind, all +personifications of water. + +How account for such unanimity? Not by supposing some ancient +intercourse between remote tribes, but by the uses of water as the +originator and supporter, the essential prerequisite of life. Leaving +aside the analogy presented by the motherly waters which nourish the +unborn child, nor emphasizing how indispensable it is as a beverage, the +many offices this element performs in nature lead easily to the +supposition that it must have preceded all else. By quenching thirst, it +quickens life; as the dew and the rain it feeds the plant, and when +withheld the seed perishes in the ground and forests and flowers alike +wither away; as the fountain, the river, and the lake, it enriches the +valley, offers safe retreats, and provides store of fishes; as the +ocean, it presents the most fitting type of the infinite. It cleanses, +it purifies; it produces, it preserves. "Bodies, unless dissolved, +cannot act," is a maxim of the earliest chemistry. Very plausibly, +therefore, was it assumed as the source of all things. + +The adoration of streams, springs, and lakes, or rather of the spirits +their rulers, prevailed everywhere; sometimes avowedly because they +provided food, as was the case with the Moxos, who called themselves +children of the lake or river on which their village was, and were +afraid to migrate lest their parent should be vexed;[124-1] sometimes +because they were the means of irrigation, as in Peru, or on more +general mythical grounds. A grove by a fountain is in all nature worship +the ready-made shrine of the sylphs who live in its limpid waves and +chatter mysteriously in its shallows. On such a spot in our Gulf States +one rarely fails to find the sacrificial mound of the ancient +inhabitants, and on such the natives of Central America were wont to +erect their altars (Ximenes). Lakes are the natural centres of +civilization. Like the lacustrine villages which the Swiss erected in +ante-historic times, like ancient Venice, the city of Mexico was first +built on piles in a lake, and for the same reason--protection from +attack. Security once obtained, growth and power followed. Thus we can +trace the earliest rays of Aztec civilization rising from lake Tezcuco, +of the Peruvian from Lake Titicaca, of the Muyscas from Lake Guatavita. +These are the centres of legendary cycles. Their waters were hallowed by +venerable reminiscences. From the depths of Titicaca rose Viracocha, +mythical civilizer of Peru. Guatavita was the bourne of many a foot-sore +pilgrim in the ancient empire of the Zac. Once a year the high priest +poured the collective offerings of the multitude into its waves, and +anointed with oils and glittering with gold dust, dived deep in its +midst, professing to hold communion with the goddess who there had her +home.[125-1] + +Not only does the life of man but his well-being depends on water. As an +ablution it invigorates him bodily and mentally. No institution was in +higher honor among the North American Indians than the sweat-bath +followed by the cold douche. It was popular not only as a remedy in +every and any disease, but as a preliminary to a council or an important +transaction. Its real value in cold climates is proven by the sustained +fondness for the Russian bath in the north of Europe. The Indians, +however, with their usual superstition attributed its good effects to +some mysterious healing power in water itself. Therefore, when the +patient was not able to undergo the usual process, or when his medical +attendant was above the vulgar and routine practice of his profession, +it was administered on the infinitesimal system. The quack muttered a +formula over a gourd filled from a neighboring spring and sprinkled it +on his patient, or washed the diseased part, or sucked out the evil +spirit and blew it into a bowl of water, and then scattered the liquid +on the fire or earth.[125-2] + +The use of such "holy water" astonished the Romanist missionaries, and +they at once detected Satan parodying the Scriptures. But their +astonishment rose to horror when they discovered among various nations a +rite of baptism of appalling similarity to their own, connected with +the imposing of a name, done avowedly for the purpose of freeing from +inherent sin, believed to produce a regeneration of the spiritual +nature, nay, in more than one instance called by an indigenous word +signifying "to be born again."[126-1] Such a rite was of immemorial +antiquity among the Cherokees, Aztecs, Mayas, and Peruvians. Had the +missionaries remembered that it was practised in Asia with all these +meanings long before it was chosen as the sign of the new covenant, they +need have invoked neither Satan nor Saint Thomas to explain its presence +in America. + +As corporeal is near akin to spiritual pollution, and cleanliness to +godliness, ablution preparatory to engaging in religious acts came early +to have an emblematic as well as a real significance. The water freed +the soul from sin as it did the skin from stain. We should come to God +with clean hands and a clean heart. As Pilate washed his hands before +the multitude to indicate that he would not accept the moral +responsibility of their acts, so from a similar motive a Natchez chief, +who had been persuaded against his sense of duty not to sacrifice +himself on the pyre of his ruler, took clean water, washed his hands, +and threw it upon live coals.[126-2] When an ancient Peruvian had laid +bare his guilt by confession, he bathed himself in a neighboring river +and repeated this formula:-- + +"O thou River, receive the sins I have this day confessed unto the Sun, +carry them down to the sea, and let them never more appear."[127-1] + +The Navajo who has been deputed to carry a dead body to burial, holds +himself unclean until he has thoroughly washed himself in water prepared +for the purpose by certain ceremonies.[127-2] A bath was an +indispensable step in the mysteries of Mithras, the initiation at +Eleusis, the meda worship of the Algonkins, the Busk of the Creeks, the +ceremonials of religion everywhere. Baptism was at first always +immersion. It was a bath meant to solemnize the reception of the child +into the guild of mankind, drawn from the prior custom of ablution at +any solemn occasion. In both the object is greater purity, bodily and +spiritual. As certainly as there is a law of conscience, as certainly as +our actions fall short of our volitions, so certainly is man painfully +aware of various imperfections and shortcomings. What he feels he +attributes to the infant. Avowedly to free themselves from this sense of +guilt the Delawares used an emetic (Loskiel), the Cherokees a potion +cooked up by an order of female warriors (Timberlake), the Takahlies of +Washington Territory, the Aztecs, Mayas, and Peruvians, auricular +confession. Formulize these feelings and we have the dogmas of "original +sin," and of "spiritual regeneration." The order of baptism among the +Aztecs commenced, "O child, receive the water of the Lord of the world, +which is our life; it is to wash and to purify; may these drops remove +the sin which was given to thee before the creation of the world, since +all of us are under its power;" and concluded, "Now he liveth anew and +is born anew, now is he purified and cleansed, now our mother the Water +again bringeth him into the world."[128-1] + +A name was then assigned to the child, usually that of some ancestor, +who it was supposed would thus be induced to exercise a kindly +supervision over the little one's future. In after life should the +person desire admittance to a superior class of the population and had +the wealth to purchase it--for here as in more enlightened lands +nobility was a matter of money--he underwent a second baptism and +received another name, but still ostensibly from the goddess of +water.[128-2] + +In Peru the child was immersed in the fluid, the priest exorcised the +evil and bade it enter the water, which was then buried in the +ground.[128-3] In either country sprinkling could take the place of +immersion. The Cherokees believe that unless the rite is punctually +performed when the child is three days old, it will inevitably +die.[128-4] + +As thus curative and preservative, it was imagined that there was water +of which whoever should drink would not die, but live forever. I have +already alluded to the Fountain of Youth, supposed long before Columbus +saw the surf of San Salvador to exist in the Bahama Islands or Florida. +It seems to have lingered long on that peninsula. Not many years ago, +Coacooche, a Seminole chieftain, related a vision which had nerved him +to a desperate escape from the Castle of St. Augustine. "In my dream," +said he, "I visited the happy hunting grounds and saw my twin sister, +long since gone. She offered me a cup of pure water, which she said came +from the spring of the Great Spirit, and if I should drink of it, I +should return and live with her forever."[129-1] Some such mystical +respect for the element, rather than as a mere outfit for his spirit +home, probably induced the earlier tribes of the same territory to place +the conch-shell which the deceased had used for a cup conspicuously on +his grave,[129-2] and the Mexicans and Peruvians to inter a vase filled +with water with the corpse, or to sprinkle it with the liquid, baptizing +it, as it were, into its new associations.[130-1] It was an emblem of +the hope that should cheer the dwellings of the dead, a symbol of the +resurrection which is in store for those who have gone down to the +grave. + +The vase or the gourd as a symbol of water, the source and preserver of +life, is a conspicuous figure in the myths of ancient America. As Akbal +or Huecomitl, the great or original vase, in Aztec and Maya legends it +plays important parts in the drama of creation; as Tici (Ticcu) in Peru +it is the symbol of the rains, and as a gourd it is often mentioned by +the Caribs and Tupis as the parent of the atmospheric waters. + +As the MOON is associated with the dampness and dews of night, an +ancient and wide-spread myth identified her with the Goddess of Water. +Moreover, in spite of the expostulations of the learned, the common +people the world over persist in attributing to her a marked influence +on the rains. Whether false or true, this familiar opinion is of great +antiquity, and was decidedly approved by the Indians, who were all, in +the words of an old author, "great observers of the weather by the +moon."[130-2] They looked upon her not only as forewarning them by her +appearance of the approach of rains and fogs, but as being their actual +cause. + +Isis, her Egyptian title, literally means moisture; Ataensic, whom the +Hurons said was the moon, is derived from the word for water; and +Citatli and Atl, moon and water, are constantly confounded in Aztec +theology. Their attributes were strikingly alike. They were both the +mythical mothers of the race, and both protect women in child-birth, the +babe in the cradle, the husbandman in the field, and the youth and +maiden in their tender affections. As the transfer of legends was nearly +always from the water to its lunar goddess, by bringing them in at this +point their true meaning will not fail to be apparent. + +We must ever bear in mind that the course of mythology is from many gods +toward one, that it is a synthesis not an analysis, and that in this +process the tendency is to blend in one the traits and stories of +originally separate divinities. As has justly been observed by the +Mexican antiquarian Gama: "It was a common trait among the Indians to +worship many gods under the figure of one, principally those whose +activities lay in the same direction, or those in some way related among +themselves."[131-1] + +The time of full moon was chosen both in Mexico and Peru to celebrate +the festival of the deities of water, the patrons of agriculture,[131-2] +and very generally the ceremonies connected with the crops were +regulated by her phases. The Nicaraguans said that the god of rains, +Quiateot, rose in the east,[131-3] thus hinting how this connection +originated. At a lunar eclipse the Orinoko Indians seized their hoes and +labored with exemplary vigor on their growing corn, saying the moon was +veiling herself in anger at their habitual laziness;[132-1] and a +description of the New Netherlands, written about 1650, remarks that the +savages of that land "ascribe great influence to the moon over +crops."[132-2] This venerable superstition, common to all races, still +lingers among our own farmers, many of whom continue to observe "the +signs of the moon" in sowing grain, setting out trees, cutting timber, +and other rural avocations. + +As representing water, the universal mother, the moon was the +protectress of women in child-birth, the goddess of love and babes, the +patroness of marriage. To her the mother called in travail, whether by +the name of "Diana, diva triformis" in pagan Rome, by that of Mama +Quilla in Peru, or of Meztli in Anahuac. Under the title of +Yohualticitl, the Lady of Night, she was also in this latter country the +guardian of babes, and as Teczistecatl, the cause of generation.[132-3] + +Very different is another aspect of the moon goddess, and well might the +Mexicans paint her with two colors. The beneficent dispenser of harvests +and offspring, she nevertheless has a portentous and terrific phase. She +is also the goddess of the night, the dampness, and the cold; she +engenders the miasmatic poisons that rack our bones; she conceals in her +mantle the foe who takes us unawares; she rules those vague shapes which +fright us in the dim light; the causeless sounds of night or its more +oppressive silence are familiar to her; she it is who sends dreams +wherein gods and devils have their sport with man, and slumber, the twin +brother of the grave. In the occult philosophy of the middle ages she +was "Chief over the Night, Darkness, Rest, Death, and the +Waters;"[133-1] in the language of the Algonkins, her name is identical +with the words for night, death, cold, sleep, and water.[133-2] + +She is the evil minded woman who thus brings diseases upon men, who at +the outset introduced pain and death in the world--our common mother, +yet the cruel cause of our present woes. Sometimes it is the moon, +sometimes water, of whom this is said: "We are all of us under the power +of evil and sin, _because_ we are children of the Water," says the +Mexican baptismal formula. That Unktahe, spirit of water, is the master +of dreams and witchcraft, is the belief of the Dakotas.[133-3] A female +spirit, wife of the great manito whose heart is the sun, the ancient +Algonkins believed brought death and disease to the race; "it is she +who kills men, otherwise they would never die; she eats their flesh and +knaws[TN-4] their vitals, till they fall away and miserably +perish."[134-1] Who is this woman? In the legend of the Muyscas it is +Chia, the moon, who was also goddess of water and flooded the earth out +of spite.[134-2] Her reputation was notoriously bad. The Brazilian +mother carefully shielded her infant from the lunar rays, believing that +they would produce sickness;[134-3] the hunting tribes of our own +country will not sleep in its light, nor leave their game exposed to its +action. We ourselves have not outgrown such words as lunatic, +moon-struck, and the like. Where did we get these ideas? The +philosophical historian of medicine, Kurt Sprengel, traces them to the +primitive and popular medical theories of ancient Egypt, in accordance +with which all maladies were the effects of the anger of the goddess +Isis, the Moisture, the Moon.[134-4] + +We have here the key to many myths. Take that of Centeotl, the Aztec +goddess of Maize. She was said at times to appear as a woman of +surpassing beauty, and allure some unfortunate to her embraces, destined +to pay with his life for his brief moments of pleasure. Even to see her +in this shape was a fatal omen. She was also said to belong to a class +of gods whose home was in the west, and who produced sickness and +pains.[134-5] Here we see the evil aspect of the moon reflected on +another goddess, who was at first solely the patroness of agriculture. + +As the goddess of sickness, it was supposed that persons afflicted with +certain diseases had been set apart by the moon for her peculiar +service. These diseases were those of a humoral type, especially such as +are characterized by issues and ulcers. As in Hebrew the word _accursed_ +is derived from a root meaning _consecrated to God_, so in the Aztec, +Quich, and other tongues, the word for _leprous_, _eczematous_, or +_syphilitic_, means also _divine_. This bizarre change of meaning is +illustrated in a very ancient myth of their family. It is said that in +the absence of the sun all mankind lingered in darkness. Nothing but a +human sacrifice could hasten his arrival. Then Metzli, the moon, led +forth one Nanahuatl, the leprous, and building a pyre, the victim threw +himself in its midst. Straightway Metzli followed his example, and as +she disappeared in the bright flames the sun rose over the +horizon.[135-1] Is not this a reference to the kindling rays of the +aurora, in which the dark and baleful night is sacrificed, and in whose +light the moon presently fades away, and the sun comes forth? + +Another reaction in the mythological laboratory is here disclosed. As +the good qualities of water were attributed to the goddess of night, +sleep, and death, so her malevolent traits were in turn reflected back +on this element. Other thoughts aided the transfer. In primitive +geography the Ocean Stream coils its infinite folds around the speck of +land we inhabit, biding its time to swallow it wholly. Unwillingly did +it yield the earth from its bosom, daily does it steal it away piece by +piece. Every evening it hides the light in its depths, and Night and the +Waters resume their ancient sway. The word for ocean (_mare_) in the +Latin tongue means by derivation a desert, and the Greeks spoke of it as +"the barren brine." Water is a treacherous element. Man treads boldly on +the solid earth, but the rivers and lakes constantly strive to swallow +those who venture within their reach. As streams run in tortuous +channels, and as rains accompany the lightning serpent, this animal was +occasionally the symbol of the waters in their dangerous manifestations. +The Huron magicians fabled that in the lakes and rivers dwelt one of +vast size called _Angont_, who sent sickness, death, and other mishaps, +and the least mite of whose flesh was a deadly poison. They added--and +this was the point of the tale--that they always kept on hand portions +of the monster for the benefit of any who opposed their designs.[136-1] +The legends of the Algonkins mention a rivalry between Michabo, creator +of the earth, and the Spirit of the Waters, who was unfriendly to the +project.[136-2] In later tales this antagonism becomes more and more +pronounced, and borrows an ethical significance which it did not have at +first. Taking, however, American religions as a whole, water is far more +frequently represented as producing beneficent effects than the reverse. + +Dogs were supposed to stand in some peculiar relation to the moon, +probably because they howl at it and run at night, uncanny practices +which have cost them dear in reputation. The custom prevailed among +tribes so widely asunder as Peruvians, Tupis, Creeks, Iroquois, +Algonkins, and Greenland Eskimos to thrash the curs most soundly during +an eclipse.[137-1] The Creeks explained this by saying that the big dog +was swallowing the sun, and that by whipping the little ones they could +make him desist. What the big dog was they were not prepared to say. We +know. It was the night goddess, represented by the dog, who was thus +shrouding the world at midday. The ancient Romans sacrificed dogs to +Hecate and Diana, in Egypt they were sacred to Isis, and thus as +traditionally connected with night and its terrors, the Prince of +Darkness, in the superstition of the middle ages, preferably appeared +under the form of a cur, as that famous poodle which accompanied +Cornelius Agrippa, or that which grew to such enormous size behind the +stove of Dr. Faustus. In a better sense, they represented the more +agreeable characteristics of the lunar goddess. Xochiquetzal, most +fecund of Aztec divinities, patroness of love, of sexual pleasure, and +of childbirth, was likewise called _Itzcuinan_, which, literally +translated, is _bitch-mother_. This strange and to us so repugnant title +for a goddess was not without parallel elsewhere. When in his wars the +Inca Pachacutec carried his arms into the province of Huanca, he found +its inhabitants had installed in their temples the figure of a dog as +their highest deity. They were accustomed also to select one as his +living representative, to pray to it and offer it sacrifice, and when +well fattened, to serve it up with solemn ceremonies at a great feast, +eating their god _substantialiter_. The priests in this province +summoned their attendants to the temples by blowing through an +instrument fashioned from a dog's skull.[138-1] This canine canonization +explains why in some parts of Peru a priest was called by way of honor +_allco_, dog![138-2] And why in many tombs both there and in Mexico +their skeletons are found carefully interred with the human remains. +Wherever the Aztec race extended they seem to have carried the adoration +of a wild species, the coyote, the _canis latrans_ of naturalists. The +Shoshonees of New Mexico call it their progenitor,[138-3] and with the +Nahuas it was in such high honor that it had a temple of its own, a +congregation of priests devoted to its service, statues carved in stone, +an elaborate tomb at death, and is said to be meant by the god Chantico, +whose audacity caused the destruction of the world. The story was that +he made a sacrifice to the gods without observing a preparatory fast, +for which he was punished by being changed into a dog. He then invoked +the god of death to deliver him, which attempt to evade a just +punishment so enraged the divinities that they immersed the world in +water.[139-1] + +During a storm on our northern lakes the Indians think no offering so +likely to appease the angry water god who is raising the tempest as a +dog. Therefore they hasten to tie the feet of one and toss him +overboard.[139-2] One meets constantly in their tales and superstitions +the mysterious powers of the animals, and the distinguished actions he +has at times performed bear usually a close parallelism to those +attributed to water and the moon. + +Hunger and thirst were thus alleviated by water. Cold remained, and +against this _fire_ was the shield. It gives man light in darkness and +warmth in winter; it shows him his friends and warns him of his foes; +the flames point toward heaven and the smoke makes the clouds. Around it +social life begins. For his home and his hearth the savage has but one +word, and what of tender emotion his breast can feel, is linked to the +circle that gathers around his fire. The council fire, the camp fire, +and the war fire, are so many epochs in his history. By its aid many +arts become possible, and it is a civilizer in more ways than one. In +the figurative language of the red race, it is constantly used as "an +emblem of peace, happiness, and abundance."[140-1] To extingish[TN-5] an +enemy's fire is to slay him; to light a visitor's fire is to bid him +welcome. Fire worship was closely related to that of the sun, and so +much has been said of sun worship among the aborigines of America that +it is well at once to assign it its true position. + +A generation ago it was a fashion very much approved to explain all +symbols and myths by the action of this orb on nature. This short and +easy method with mythology has, in Carlylian phrase, had its bottom +pulled from under it in these later times. Nowhere has it manifested its +inefficiency more palpably than in America. One writer, while thus +explaining the religions of the tribes of colder regions and higher +latitudes, denies sun worship among the natives of hot climates; another +asserts that only among the latter did it exist at all; while a third +lays down the maxim that the religion of the red race everywhere "was +but a modification of Sun or Fire worship."[141-1] All such sweeping +generalizations are untrue, and must be so. No one key can open all the +arcana of symbolism. Man devised means as varied as nature herself to +express the idea of God within him. The sun was but one of these, and +not the first nor the most important. Fear, said the wise Epicurean, +first made the gods. The sun with its regular course, its kindly warmth, +its beneficent action, no wise inspires that sentiment. It conjures no +phantasms to appal the superstitious fancy, and its place in primitive +mythology is conformably inferior. The myths of the Eskimos and +northern Athapascas omit its action altogether. The Algonkins by no +means imagined it the highest god, and at most but one of his +emblems.[142-1] That it often appears in their prayers is true, but this +arose from the fact that in many of their dialects, as well as in the +language of the Mayas and others, the word for heaven or sky was +identical with that for sun, and the former, as I have shown, was the +supposed abode of deity, "the wigwam of the Great Spirit."[142-2] The +alleged sun worship of the Cherokees rests on testimony modern, +doubtful, and unsupported.[142-3] In North America the Natchez alone +were avowed worshippers of this luminary. Yet they adored it under the +name Great Fire (_wah sil_), clearly pointing to a prior adoration of +that element. The heliolatry organized principally for political ends by +the Incas of Peru, stands alone in the religions of the red race. Those +shrewd legislators at an early date officially announced that Inti, the +sun, their own elder brother, was ruler of the cohorts of heaven by like +divine right that they were of the four corners of the earth. This +scheme ignominiously failed, as every attempt to fetter the liberty of +conscience must and should. The later Incas finally indulged publicly in +heterodox remarks, and compromised the matter by acknowledging a +divinity superior even to their brother, the sun, as we have seen in a +previous chapter. + +The myths of creation never represent the sun as anterior to the world, +but as manufactured by the "old people" (Navajos), as kindled and set +going by the first of men (Algonkins), or as freed from some cave by a +kindly deity (Haitians). It is always spoken of as a fire; only in Peru +and Mexico had the precession of the equinoxes been observed, and +without danger of error we can merge the consideration of its worship +almost altogether in that of this element.[143-1] + +The institutions of a perpetual fire, of obtaining new fire, and of +burning the dead, prevailed extensively in the New World. In the present +discussion the origin of such practices, rather than the ceremonies with +which they were attended, have an interest. The savage knew that fire +was necessary to his life. Were it lost, he justly foreboded dire +calamities and the ruin of his race. Therefore at stated times with due +solemnity he produced it anew by friction or the flint, or else was +careful to keep one fire constantly alive. These not unwise precautions +soon fell to mere superstitions. If the Aztec priest at the stated time +failed to obtain a spark from his pieces of wood, if the sacred fire by +chance became extinguished, the end of the world or the destruction of +mankind was apprehended. "You know it was a saying among our +ancestors," said an Iroquois chief in 1753, "that when the fire at +Onondaga goes out, we shall no longer be a people."[144-1] So deeply +rooted was this notion, that the Catholic missionaries in New Mexico +were fain to wink at it, and perform the sacrifice of the mass in the +same building where the flames were perpetually burning, that were not +to be allowed to die until Montezuma and the fabled glories of ancient +Anahuac with its heathenism should return.[144-2] Thus fire became the +type of life. "Know that the life in your body and the fire on your +hearth are one and the same thing, and that both proceed from one +source," said a Shawnee prophet.[144-3] Such an expression was wholly in +the spirit of his race. The greatest feast of the Delawares was that to +their "grandfather, the fire."[144-4] "Their fire burns forever," was +the Algonkin figure of speech to express the immortality of their +gods.[144-5] "The ancient God, the Father and Mother of all Gods," says +an Aztec prayer, "is the God of the Fire which is in the centre of the +court with four walls, and which is covered with gleaming feathers like +unto wings;"[144-6] dark sayings of the priests, referring to the +glittering lightning fire borne from the four sides of the earth. + +As the path to a higher life hereafter, the burning of the dead was +first instituted. It was a privilege usually confined to a select few. +Among the Algonkin-Ottawas, only, those of the distinguished totem of +the Great Hare, among the Nicaraguans none but the caciques, among the +Caribs exclusively the priestly caste, were entitled to this peculiar +honor.[145-1] The first gave as the reason for such an exceptional +custom, that the members of such an illustrious clan as that of Michabo, +the Great Hare, should not rot in the ground as common folks, but rise +to the heavens on the flames and smoke. Those of Nicaragua seemed to +think it the sole path to immortality, holding that only such as offered +themselves on the pyre of their chieftain would escape annihilation at +death;[145-2] and the tribes of upper California were persuaded that +such as were not burned at death were liable to be transformed into the +lower orders of brutes.[145-3] Strangely, enough, we thus find a sort of +baptism by fire deemed essential to a higher life beyond the grave. + +Another analogy strengthened the symbolic force of fire as life. This is +that which exists between the sensation of warmth and those passions +whose physiological end is the perpetuation of the species. We see how +native it is to the mind from such coarse expressions as "hot lust," "to +burn," "to be in heat," "stews," and the like, figures not of the +poetic, but the vulgar tongue. They occur in all languages, and hint how +readily the worship of fire glided into that of the reproductive +principle, into extravagances of chastity and lewdness, into the +shocking orgies of the so-called phallic worship. + +Some have supposed that a sexual dualism pervades all natural religions +and this too has been assumed as the solution of all their myths. It has +been said that the action of heat upon moisture, of the sun on the +waters, the mysteries of reproduction, and the satisfaction of the +sexual instincts, are the unvarying themes of primitive mythology. So +far as the red race is concerned, this is a most gratuitous assumption. +The facts that have been eagerly collated by Dulaure and others to +bolster such a detestable theory lend themselves fairly to no such +interpretation. + +There existed, indeed, a worship of the passions. Apparently it was +grafted upon or rose out of that of fire by the analogy I have pointed +out. Thus the Mexican god of fire was supposed to govern the generative +proclivities,[146-1] and there is good reason to believe that the sacred +fire watched by unspotted virgins among the Mayas had decidedly such a +signification. Certainly it was so, if we can depend upon the authority +of a ballad translated from the original immediately after the conquest, +cited by the venerable traveller and artist Count de Waldeck. It +purports to be from the lover of one of these vestals, and referring to +her occupation asks with a fine allusion to its mystic meaning-- + + "O virge, quand pourrai-je te possder pour ma compagne cherie? + Combien de temps faut-il encore que tes voeux soient accomplis? + Dis-moi le jour qui doit devancer la belle nuit o tous deux, + Alimenterons le feu qui nous fit naitre et que nous devons + perpetuer."[147-1] + +There is a bright as well as a dark side even to such a worship. In +Mexico, Peru, and Yucatan, the women who watched the flames must be +undoubted virgins; they were usually of noble blood, and must vow +eternal chastity, or at least were free to none but the ruler of the +realm. As long as they were consecrated to the fire, so long any carnal +ardor was degrading to their lofty duties. The sentiment of shame, one +of the first we find developed, led to the belief that to forego fleshly +pleasures was a meritorious sacrifice in the eyes of the gods. In this +persuasion certain of the Aztec priests practised complete abscission or +entire discerption of the virile parts, and a mutilation of females was +not unknown similar to that immemorially a custom in Egypt.[147-2] Such +enforced celibacy was, however, neither common nor popular. +Circumcision, if it can be proven to have existed among the red +race--and though there are plenty of assertions to that effect, they are +not satisfactory to an anatomist--was probably a symbolic renunciation +of the lusts of the flesh. The same cannot be said of the very common +custom with the Aztec race of anointing their idols with blood drawn +from the genitals, the tongue, and the ears. This was simply a form of +those voluntary scarifications, universally employed to mark contrition +or grief by savage tribes, and nowhere more in vogue than with the red +race. + +There was an ancient Christian heresy which taught that the true way to +conquer the passions was to satiate them, and therefore preached +unbounded licentiousness. Whether this agreeable doctrine was known to +the Indians I cannot say, but it is certainly the most creditable +explanation that can be suggested for the miscellaneous congress which +very often terminated their dances and ceremonies. Such orgies were of +common occurrence among the Algonkins and Iroquois at a very early date, +and are often mentioned in the Jesuit Relations; Venegas describes them +as frequent among the tribes of Lower California; and Oviedo refers to +certain festivals of the Nicaraguans, during which the women of all rank +extended to whosoever wished just such privileges as the matrons of +ancient Babylon, that mother of harlots and all abominations, used to +grant even to slaves and strangers in the temple of Melitta, as one of +the duties of religion. But in fact there is no ground whatever to +invest these debauches with any recondite meaning. They are simply +indications of the thorough and utter immorality which prevailed +throughout the race. And a still more disgusting proof of it is seen in +the frequent appearance among diverse tribes of men dressed as women and +yielding themselves to indescribable vices.[149-1] There was at first +nothing of a religious nature in such exhibitions. Lascivious priests +chose at times to invest them with some such meaning for their own +sensual gratification, just as in Brazil they still claim the _jus prim +noctis_.[149-2] The pretended phallic worship of the Natchez and of +Culhuacan, cited by the Abb Brasseur, rests on no good authority, and +if true, is like that of the Huastecas of Panuco, nothing but an +unrestrained and boundless profligacy which it were an absurdity to call +a religion.[149-3] That which Mr. Stephens attempts to show existed once +in Yucatan,[149-4] rests entirely by his own statement on a fancied +resemblance of no value whatever, and the arguments of Lafitau to the +same effect are quite insufficient. There is a decided indecency in the +remains of ancient American art, especially in Peru (Meyen), and great +lubricity in many ceremonies, but the proof is altogether wanting to +bind these with the recognition of a fecundating principle throughout +nature, or, indeed, to suppose for them any other origin than the +promptings of an impure fancy. I even doubt whether they often referred +to fire as the deity of sexual love. + +By a flight of fancy inspired by a study of oriental mythology, the +worship of the reciprocal principle in America has been connected with +that of the sun and moon, as the primitive pair from whose fecund union +all creatures proceeded. It is sufficient to say if such a myth exists +among the Indians--which is questionable--it justifies no such +deduction; that the moon is often mentioned in their languages merely as +the "night sun;" and that in such important stocks as the Iroquois, +Athapascas, Cherokees, and Tupis, the sun is said to be a feminine noun; +while the myths represent them more frequently as brother and sister +than as man and wife; nor did at least the northern tribes regard the +sun as the cause of fecundity in nature at all, but solely as giving +light and warmth.[150-1] + +In contrast to this, so much the more positive was their association of +the THUNDER-STORM as that which brings both warmth and rain with the +renewed vernal life of vegetation. The impressive phenomena which +characterize it, the prodigious noise, the awful flash, the portentous +gloom, the blast, the rain, have left a profound impression on the myths +of every land. Fire from water, warmth and moisture from the destructive +breath of the tempest, this was the riddle of riddles to the untutored +mind. "Out of the eater came forth meat, out of the strong came forth +sweetness." It was the visible synthesis of all the divine +manifestations, the winds, the waters, and the flames. + +The Dakotas conceived it as a struggle between the god of waters and the +thunder bird for the command of their nation,[150-2] and as a bird, one +of those which make a whirring sound with their wings, the turkey, the +pheasant, or the nighthawk, it was very generally depicted by their +neighbors, the Athapascas, Iroquois, and Algonkins.[151-1] As the +herald of the summer it was to them a good omen and a friendly power. It +was the voice of the Great Spirit of the four winds speaking from the +clouds and admonishing them that the time of corn planting was at +hand.[151-2] The flames kindled by the lightning were of a sacred +nature, proper to be employed in lighting the fires of the religious +rites, but on no account to be profaned by the base uses of daily life. +When the flash entered the ground it scattered in all directions those +stones, such as the flint, which betray their supernal origin by a gleam +of fire when struck. These were the thunderbolts, and from such an one, +significantly painted red, the Dakotas averred their race had +proceeded.[151-3] For are we not all in a sense indebted for our lives +to fire? "There is no end to the fancies entertained by the Sioux +concerning thunder," observes Mrs. Eastman. They typified the +paradoxical nature of the storm under the character of the giant Haokah. +To him cold was heat, and heat cold; when sad he laughed, when merry +groaned; the sides of his face and his eyes were of different colors and +expressions; he wore horns or a forked headdress to represent the +lightning, and with his hands he hurled the meteors. His manifestations +were fourfold, and one of the four winds was the drum-stick he used to +produce the thunder.[152-1] + +Omitting many others, enough that the sameness of this conception is +illustrated by the myth of Tupa, highest god and first man of the Tupis +of Brazil. During his incarnation, he taught them agriculture, gave them +fire, the cane, and the pisang, and now in the form of a huge bird +sweeps over the heavens, watching his children and watering their crops, +admonishing them of his presence by the mighty sound of his voice, the +rustling of his wings, and the flash of his eye. These are the thunder, +the lightning, and the roar of the tempest. He is depicted with horns; +he was one of four brothers, and only after a desperate struggle did he +drive his fraternal rivals from the field. In his worship, the priests +place pebbles in a dry gourd, deck it with feathers and arrows, and +rattling it vigorously, reproduce in miniature the tremendous drama of +the storm.[152-2] + +As nations rose in civilization these fancies put on a more complex form +and a more poetic fulness. Throughout the realm of the Incas the +Peruvians venerated as creator of all things, maker of heaven and earth, +and ruler of the firmament, the god Ataguju. The legend was that from +him proceeded the first of mortals, the man Guamansuri, who descended to +the earth and there seduced the sister of certain Guachemines, rayless +ones, or Darklings, who then possessed it. For this crime they destroyed +him, but their sister proved pregnant, and died in her labor, giving +birth to two eggs. From these emerged the twin brothers, Apocatequil +and Piguerao. The former was the more powerful. By touching the corpse +of his mother he brought her to life, he drove off and slew the +Guachemines, and, directed by Ataguju, released the race of Indians from +the soil by turning it up with a spade of gold. For this reason they +adored him as their maker. He it was, they thought, who produced the +thunder and the lightning by hurling stones with his sling; and the +thunderbolts that fall, said they, are his children. Few villages were +willing to be without one or more of these. They were in appearance +small, round, smooth stones, but had the admirable properties of +securing fertility to the fields, protecting from lightning, and, by a +transition easy to understand, were also adored as gods of the Fire, as +well material as of the passions, and were capable of kindling the +dangerous flames of desire in the most frigid bosom. Therefore they were +in great esteem as love charms. + +Apocatequil's statue was erected on the mountains, with that of his +mother on one hand, and his brother on the other. "He was Prince of Evil +and the most respected god of the Peruvians. From Quito to Cuzco not an +Indian but would give all he possessed to conciliate him. Five priests, +two stewards, and a crowd of slaves served his image. And his chief +temple was surrounded by a very considerable village whose inhabitants +had no other occupation than to wait on him." In memory of these +brothers, twins in Peru were deemed always sacred to the lightning, and +when a woman or even a llama brought them forth, a fast was held and +sacrifices offered to the two pristine brothers, with a chant +commencing: _A chuchu cachiqui_, O Thou who causest twins, words +mistaken by the Spaniards for the name of a deity.[154-1] + +Garcilasso de la Vega, a descendant of the Incas, has preserved an +ancient indigenous poem of his nation, presenting the storm myth in a +different form, which as undoubtedly authentic and not devoid of poetic +beauty I translate, preserving as much as possible the trochaic +tetrasyllabic verse of the original Quichua:-- + + "Beauteous princess, + Lo, thy brother + Breaks thy vessel + Now in fragments. + From the blow come + Thunder, lightning, + Strokes of lightning. + And thou, princess, + Tak'st the water, + With it rainest, + And the hail, or + Snow dispensest. + Viracocha, + World constructor, + World enliv'ner, + To this office + Thee appointed, + Thee created."[155-1] + +In this pretty waif that has floated down to us from the wreck of a +literature now forever lost, there is more than one point to attract the +notice of the antiquary. He may find in it a hint to decipher those +names of divinities so common in Peruvian legends, Contici and Illatici. +Both mean "the Thunder Vase," and both doubtless refer to the conception +here displayed of the phenomena of the thunder-storm.[155-2] + +Again, twice in this poem is the triple nature of the storm adverted to. +This is observable in many of the religions of America. It constitutes a +sort of Trinity, not in any point resembling that of Christianity, nor +yet the Trimurti of India, but the only one in the New World the least +degree authenticated, and which, as half seen by ignorant monks, has +caused its due amount of sterile astonishment. Thus, in the Quich +legends we read: "The first of Hurakan is the lightning, the second the +track of the lightning, and the third the stroke of the lightning; and +these three are Hurakan, the Heart of the Sky."[156-1] It reappears with +characteristic uniformity of outline in Iroquois mythology. Heno, the +thunder, gathers the clouds and pours out the warm rains. Therefore he +was the patron of husbandry. He was invoked at seed time and harvest; +and as purveyor of nourishment he was addressed as grandfather, and his +worshippers styled themselves his grandchildren. He rode through the +heavens on the clouds, and the thunderbolts which split the forest trees +were the stones he hurled at his enemies. _Three_ assistants were +assigned him, whose names have unfortunately not been recorded, and +whose offices were apparently similar to those of the three companions +of Hurakan.[156-2] + +So also the Aztecs supposed that Tlaloc, god of rains and the waters, +ruler of the terrestrial paradise and the season of summer, manifested +himself under the three attributes of the flash, the thunderbolt, and +the thunder.[157-1] + +But this conception of three in one was above the comprehension of the +masses, and consequently these deities were also spoken of as fourfold +in nature, three _and_ one. Moreover, as has already been pointed out, +the thunder god was usually ruler of the winds, and thus another reason +for his quadruplicate nature was suggested. Hurakan, Haokah, Tlaloc, and +probably Heno, are plural as well as singular nouns, and are used as +nominatives to verbs in both numbers. Tlaloc was appealed to as +inhabiting each of the cardinal points and every mountain top. His +statue rested on a square stone pedestal, facing the east, and had in +one hand a serpent of gold. Ribbons of silver, crossing to form squares, +covered the robe, and the shield was composed of feathers of four +colors, yellow, green, red, and blue. Before it was a vase containing +all sorts of grain; and the clouds were called his companions, the winds +his messengers.[157-2] As elsewhere, the thunderbolts were believed to +be flints, and thus, as the emblem of fire and the storm, this stone +figures conspicuously in their myths. Tohil, the god who gave the +Quichs fire by shaking his sandals, was represented by a flint-stone. +He is distinctly said to be the same as Quetzalcoatl, one of whose +commonest symbols was a flint (tecpatl). Such a stone, in the beginning +of things, fell from heaven to earth, and broke into 1600 pieces, each +of which sprang up a god;[158-1] an ancient legend, which shadows forth +the subjection of all things to him who gathers the clouds from the four +corners of the earth, who thunders with his voice, who satisfies with +his rain "the desolate and waste ground, and causes the tender herb to +spring forth." This is the germ of the adoration of stones as emblems of +the fecundating rains. This is why, for example, the Navajos use as +their charm for rain certain long round stones, which they think fall +from the cloud when it thunders.[158-2] + +Mixcoatl, the Cloud Serpent, or Iztac-Mixcoatl, the White or Gleaming +Cloud Serpent, said to have been the only divinity of the ancient +Chichimecs, held in high honor by the Nahuas, Nicaraguans, and Otomis, +and identical with Taras, supreme god of the Tarascos and Camaxtli, god +of the Teo-Chichimecs, is another personification of the thunder-storm. +To this day this is the familiar name of the tropical tornado in the +Mexican language.[158-3] He was represented, like Jove, with a bundle of +arrows in his hand, the thunderbolts. Both the Nahuas and Tarascos +related legends in which he figured as father of the race of man. Like +other lords of the lightning he was worshipped as the dispenser of +riches and the patron of traffic; and in Nicaragua his image is +described as being "engraved stones,"[158-4] probably the supposed +products of the thunder. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[124-1] A. D'Orbigny, _L'Homme Amricain_, i. p. 240. + +[125-1] Rivero and Tschudi, _Peruvian Antiquities_, 162, after J. Acosta. + +[125-2] Narrative of _Oceola Nikkanoche, Prince of Econchatti_, p. 141; +Schoolcraft, _Ind. Tribes_, iv. p. 650. + +[126-1] The term in Maya is _caput zihil_, corresponding exactly to the +Latin _renasci_, to be re-born, Landa, _Rel. de Yucatan_, p. 144. + +[126-2] Dumont, _Mems. Hist. sur la Louisiane_, i. p. 233. + +[127-1] Acosta, _Hist. of the New World_, lib. v. cap. 25. + +[127-2] _Senate Report on Condition of Indian Tribes_, p. 358: +Washington, 1867. + +[128-1] Sahagun, _Hist. de la Nueva Espaa_, lib. vi. cap. 37. + +[128-2] Ternaux-Compans, _Pices rel. la Conq. du Mexique_, p. 233. + +[128-3] Velasco, _Hist. de la Royaume de Quito_, p. 106, and others. + +[128-4] Whipple, _Rep. on the Indian Tribes_, p. 35. I am not sure that +this practice was of native growth to the Cherokees. This people have +many customs and traditions strangely similar to those of Christians and +Jews. Their cosmogony is a paraphrase of that of Genesis (Squier, _Serp. +Symbol_, from Payne's MSS.); the number seven is as sacred with them as +it was with the Chaldeans (Whipple, u. s.); and they have improved and +increased by contact with the whites. Significant in this connection is +the remark of Bartram, who visited them in 1773, that some of their +females were "nearly as fair and blooming as European women," and +generally that their complexion was lighter than their neighbors +(_Travels_, p. 485). Two explanations of these facts may be suggested. +They may be descendants in part of the ancient white race near Cape +Hatteras, to whom I have referred in a previous note. More probably they +derived their peculiarities from the Spaniards of Florida. Mr. Shea is of +opinion that missions were established among them as early as 1566 and +1643 (_Hist. of Catholic Missions in the U. S._, pp. 58, 73). Certainly +in the latter half of the seventeenth century the Spaniards were +prosecuting mining operations in their territory (See _Am. Hist. Mag._, +x. p. 137). + +[129-1] Sprague, _Hist. of the Florida War_, p. 328. + +[129-2] Basanier, _Histoire Notable de la Floride_, p. 10. + +[130-1] Sahagun, _Hist. de la Nueva Espaa_, lib. iii. app. cap. i.; +Meyen, _Ueber die Ureinwohner von Peru_, p. 29. + +[130-2] Gabriel Thomas, _Hist. of West New Jersey_, p. 6: London, 1698. + +[131-1] Gama, _Des. de las dos Piedras_, etc., i. p. 36. + +[131-2] Garcia, _Or. de los Indios_, p. 109. + +[131-3] Oviedo, _Rel. de la Prov. de Nicaragua_, p. 41. The name is a +corruption of the Aztec _Quiauhteotl_, Rain-God. + +[132-1] Gumilla, _Hist. del Orinoco_, ii. cap. 23. + +[132-2] _Doc. Hist. of New York_, iv. p. 130. + +[132-3] Gama, _Des. de las dos Piedras_, ii. p. 41; Gallatin, _Trans. Am. +Ethnol. Soc._, i. p. 343. + +[133-1] Adrian Van Helmont, _Workes_, p. 142, fol.: London, 1662. + +[133-2] The moon is _nipa_ or _nipaz_; _nipa_, I sleep; _nipawi_, night; +_nip_, I die; _nepua_, dead; _nipanoue_, cold. This odd relationship was +first pointed out by Volney (Duponceau, _Langues de l'Amrique du Nord_, +p. 317). But the kinship of these words to that for water, _nip_, _nipi_, +_nepi_, has not before been noticed. This proves the association of ideas +on which I lay so much stress in mythology. A somewhat similar +relationship exists in the Aztec and cognate languages, _miqui_, to die, +_micqui_, dead, _mictlan_, the realm of death, _te-miqui_, to dream, +_cec-miqui_, to freeze. Would it be going too far to connect these with +_metzli_, moon? (See Buschmann, _Spuren der Aztekischen Sprache im +Nrdlichen Mexico_, p. 80.) + +[133-3] Schoolcraft, _Ind. Tribes_, vol. iii. p. 485. + +[134-1] _Rel. de la Nouv. France_, 1634, p. 16. + +[134-2] Humboldt, _Vues des Cordillres_, p. 21. + +[134-3] Spix and Martius, _Travels in Brazil_, ii. p. 247. + +[134-4] _Hist. de la Mdecine_, i. p. 34. + +[134-5] Gama, _Des. de las dos Piedras_, etc., ii. pp. 100-102. Compare +Sahagun, _Hist. de la Nueva Espaa_, lib. i. cap. vi. + +[135-1] Codex Chimalpopoca, in Brasseur, _Hist. du Mexique_, i. p. 183. +Gama and others translate Nanahuatl by _el buboso_, Brasseur by _le +syphilitique_, and the latter founds certain medical speculations on the +word. It is entirely unnecessary to say to a surgeon that it could not +possibly have had the latter meaning, inasmuch as the diagnosis between +secondary or tertiary syphilis and other similar diseases was unknown. +That it is so employed now is nothing to the purpose. The same or a +similar myth was found in Central America and on the Island of Haiti. + +[136-1] _Rel. de la Nouv. France_, 1648, p. 75. + +[136-2] Charlevoix is in error when he identifies Michabo with the Spirit +of the Waters, and may be corrected from his own statements elsewhere. +Compare his _Journal Historique_, pp. 281 and 344: ed. Paris, 1740. + +[137-1] Bradford, _American Antiquities_, p. 833; Martius, _Von dem +Rechtszustande unter den Ureinwohnern Brasiliens_, p. 32; Schoolcraft, +_Ind. Tribes_, i. p. 271. + +[138-1] La Vega, _Hist. des Incas_, liv. vi. cap. 9. + +[138-2] _Lett. sur les Superstitions du Prou_, p. 111. + +[138-3] Schoolcraft, _Ind. Tribes_, iv. p. 224. + +[139-1] Chantico, according to Gama, means "Wolf's Head," though I cannot +verify this from the vocabularies within my reach. He is sometimes called +Cohuaxolotl Chantico, the snake-servant Chantico, considered by Gama as +one, by Torquemada as two deities (see Gama, _Des. de las dos Piedras_, +etc., i. p. 12; ii. p. 66). The English word _cantico_ in the phrase, for +instance, "to cut a cantico," though an Indian word, is not from this, +but from the Algonkin Delaware _gentkehn_, to dance a sacred dance. The +Dutch describe it as "a religious custom observed among them before +death" (_Doc. Hist. of New York_, iv. p. 63). William Penn says of the +Lenape, "their worship consists of two parts, sacrifice and cantico," the +latter "performed by round dances, sometimes words, sometimes songs, then +shouts; their postures very antic and differing." (_Letter to the Free +Society of Traders_, 1683, sec. 21.) + +[139-2] Charlevoix, _Hist. Gn. de la Nouv. France_, i. p. 394: Paris, +1740. On the different species of dogs indigenous to America, see a note +of Alex. von Humboldt, _Ansichten der Natur._, i. p. 134. It may be +noticed that Chichimec, properly Chichimecatl, the name of the Aztec +tribe who succeeded the ancient Toltecs in Mexico, means literally +"people of the dog," and was probably derived from some mythological +fable connected with that animal. + +[140-1] _Narr. of the Captiv. of John Tanner_, p. 362. From the word for +fire in many American tongues is formed the adjective _red_. Thus, +Algonkin, _skoda_, fire, _miskoda_, red; Kolosch, _kan_, fire, _kan_, +red; Ugalentz, _takak_, fire, _takak-uete_, red; Tahkali, _c[=u]n_, fire, +_tenil-c[=u]n_, red; Quiche, _cak_, fire, _cak_, red, etc. From the +adjective _red_ comes often the word for _blood_, and in symbolism the +color red may refer to either of these ideas. It was the royal color of +the Incas, brothers of the sun, and a llama swathed in a red garment was +the Peruvian sacrifice to fire (Garcia, _Or. de los Indios_, lib. iv. +caps. 16, 19). On the other hand the war quipus, the war wampum, and the +war paint were all of this hue, boding their sanguinary significance. The +word for fire in the language of the Delawares, Nanticokes, and +neighboring tribes puzzles me. It is _taenda_ or _tinda_. This is the +Swedish word _taenda_, from whose root comes our _tinder_. Yet it is +found in vocabularies as early as 1650, and is universally current +to-day. It has no resemblance to the word for fire in pure Algonkin. Was +it adopted from the Swedes? Was it introduced by wandering Vikings in +remote centuries? Or is it only a coincidence? + +[141-1] Compare D'Orbigny, _L'Homme Amricain_, i. p. 243, Mller, +_Amer. Urreligionen_, p. 51, and Squier, _Serpent Symbol in America_, p. +111. This is a striking instance of the confusion of ideas introduced by +false systems of study, and also of the considerable misapprehension of +American mythology which has hitherto prevailed. + +[142-1] La Hontan, _Voy. dans l'Amr. Sept._, p. ii. 127; _Rel. Nouv. +France_, 1637, p. 54. + +[142-2] Copway, _Trad. Hist. of the Ojibway Nation_, p. 165. _Kesuch_ in +Algonkin signifies both sky and sun (Duponceau, _Langues de l'Amr. du +Nord_, p. 312). So apparently does _kin_ in the Maya. + +[142-3] Payne's manuscripts quoted by Mr. Squier in his Serpent Symbol in +America were compiled within this century, and from the extracts given +can be of no great value. + +[143-1] The words for fire and sun in American languages are usually from +distinct roots, but besides the example of the Natchez I may instance to +the contrary the Kolosch of British America, in whose tongue fire is +_kan_, sun, _kakan_ (_gake_, great), and the Tezuque of New Mexico, who +use _tah_ for both sun and fire. + +[144-1] _Doc. Hist. of New York_, ii. p. 634. + +[144-2] Emory, _Milt'y Reconnoissance[TN-6] of New Mexico_, p. 30. + +[144-3] _Narrative of John Tanner_, p. 161. + +[144-4] Loskiel, _Ges. der Miss. der evang. Brder_, p. 55. + +[144-5] _Nar. of John Tanner_, p. 351. + +[144-6] Sahagun, _Hist. Nueva Espaa_, lib. vi. cap. 4. + +[145-1] _Letts. Edifiantes et Curieuses_, iv. p. 104, Oviedo; _Hist. du +Nicaragua_, p. 49; Gomara, _Hist. del Orinoco_, ii. cap. 2. + +[145-2] Oviedo, _Hist. Gen. de las Indias_, p. 16, in Barcia's _Hist. +Prim._ + +[145-3] _Presdt's Message and Docs._ for 1851, pt. iii. p. 506. + +[146-1] Sahagun, _Hist. de la Nueva Espaa_, i. cap. 13. + +[147-1] _Voyage Pittoresque dans le Yucatan_, p. 49. + +[147-2] Davila Padilla, _Hist. de la Prov. de Santiago de Mexico_, lib. +ii. cap. 88 (Brusselas, 1625); Palacios, _Des. de Guatemala_, p. 40; +Garcia, _Or. de los Indios_, p. 124. To such an extent did the priests of +the Algonkin tribes who lived near Manhattan Island carry their +austerity, such uncompromising celibates were they, that it is said on +authority as old as 1624, that they never so much as partook of food +prepared by a married woman. (_Doc. Hist. New York_, iv. p. 28.) + +[149-1] Martius, _Von dem Rechtzustande unter den Ureinwohnern +Brasiliens_, p. 28, gives many references. + +[149-2] Id. _ibid._, p. 61. + +[149-3] _Le Livre Sacr des Quichs_, Introd., pp. clxi., clxix. + +[149-4] _Travels in Yucatan_, i. p. 434. + +[150-1] Schoolcraft, _Ind. Tribes_, v. pp. 416, 417. + +[150-2] Mrs. Eastman, _Legends of the Sioux_, p. 161. + +[151-1] _Rel. de la Nouv. France_, 1634, p. 27; Schoolcraft, _Algic +Researches_, ii. p. 116; _Ind. Tribes_, v. p. 420. + +[151-2] De Smet, _Western Missions_, p. 135; Schoolcraft, _Ind. Tribes_, +i. p. 319. + +[151-3] Mrs. Eastman, _Legends of the Sioux_, p. 72. By another legend +they claimed that their first ancestor obtained his fire from the sparks +which a friendly panther struck from the rocks as he scampered up a stony +hill (McCoy, _Hist. of Baptist Indian Missions_, p. 364). + +[152-1] Mrs. Eastman, ubi sup., p. 158; Schoolcraft, _Ind. Tribes_, iv. +p. 645. + +[152-2] Waitz, _Anthropologie_, iii. p. 417; Mller, _Am. Urrelig._, p. +271. + +[154-1] On the myth of Catequil see particularly the _Lettre sur les +Superstitions du Prou_, p. 95 sqq., and compare Montesinos, _Ancien +Prou_, chaps. ii., xx. The letters g and j do not exist in Quichua, +therefore Ataguju should doubtless read _Ata-chuchu_, which means lord, +or ruler of the twins, from _ati_ root of _atini_, I am able, I control, +and _chuchu_, twins. The change of the root _ati_ to _ata_, though +uncommon in Quichua, occurs also in _ata-hualpa_, cock, from _ati_ and +_hualpa_, fowl. Apo-Catequil, or as given by Arriaga, another old writer +on Peruvian idolatry, Apocatequilla, I take to be properly +_apu-ccatec-quilla_, which literally means _chief of the followers of the +moon_. Acosta mentions that the native name for various constellations +was _catachillay_ or _catuchillay_, doubtless corruptions of _ccatec +quilla_, literally "following the moon." Catequil, therefore, the dark +spirit of the storm rack, was also appropriately enough, and perhaps +primarily, lord of the night and stars. Piguerao, where the g appears +again, is probably a compound of _piscu_, bird, and _uira_, white. +Guachemines seems clearly the word _huachi_, a ray of light or an arrow, +with the negative suffix _ymana_, thus meaning rayless, as in the text, +or _ymana_ may mean an excess as well as a want of anything beyond what +is natural, which would give the signification "very bright shining." +(Holguin, _Arte de la Lengua Quichua_, p. 106: Cuzco, 1607.) Is this +sister of theirs the Dawn, who, as in the Rig Veda, brings forth at the +cost of her own life the white and dark twins, the Day and the Night, the +latter of whom drives from the heavens the far-shooting arrows of light, +in order that he may restore his mother again to life? The answer may for +the present be deferred. It is a coincidence perhaps worth mentioning +that the Augustin monk who is our principal authority for this legend +mentions two other twin deities, Yamo and Yama, whose names are almost +identical with the twins Yama and Yami of the Veda. + +[155-1] _Hist. des Incas_, liv. ii. cap. 28, and corrected in Markham's +_Quichua Grammar_. + +[155-2] The latter is a compound of _tici_ or _ticcu_, a vase, and +_ylla_, the root of _yllani_, to shine, _yllapantac_, it thunders and +lightens. The former is from _tici_ and _cun_ or _con_, whence by +reduplication _cun-un-un-an_, it thunders. From _cun_ and _tura_, +brother, is probably derived _cuntur_, the condor, the flying +thunder-cloud being looked upon as a great bird also. Dr. Waitz has +pointed out that the Araucanians call by the title _con_, the messenger +who summons their chieftains to a general council. + +[156-1] _Le Livre Sacr_, p. 9. The name of the lightning in Quich is +_cak ul ha_, literally, "fire coming from water." + +[156-2] Morgan, _League of the Iroquois_, p. 158. + +[157-1] "El rayo, el relmpago, y el trueno." Gama, _Des. de las dos +Piedras_, etc., ii. p. 76: Mexico, 1832. + +[157-2] Torquemada, _Monarquia Indiana_, lib. vi. cap. 23. Gama, ubi sup. +ii. 76, 77. + +[158-1] Torquemada, ibid., lib. vi. cap. 41. + +[158-2] _Senate Report on the Indian Tribes_, p. 358: Washington, 1867. + +[158-3] Brasseur, _Hist[TN-7] du Mexique_, i. p. 201, and on the extent +of his worship Waitz, _Anthropol._, iv. p. 144. + +[158-4] Oviedo, _Hist. du Nicaragua_, p. 47. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +THE SUPREME GODS OF THE RED RACE. + + Analysis of American culture myths.--The Manibozho or Michabo of + the Algonkins shown to be an impersonation of LIGHT, a hero of the + Dawn, and their highest deity.--The myths of Ioskeha of the + Iroquois, Viracocha of the Peruvians, and Quetzalcoatl of the + Toltecs essentially the same as that of Michabo.--Other + examples.--Ante-Columbian prophecies of the advent of a white race + from the east as conquerors.--Rise of later culture myths under + similar forms. + + +The philosopher Machiavelli, commenting on the books of Livy, lays it +down as a general truth that every form and reform has been brought +about by a single individual. Since a remorseless criticism has shorn so +many heroes of their laurels, our faith in the maxim of the great +Florentine wavers, and the suspicion is created that the popular fancy +which personifies under one figure every social revolution is an +illusion. It springs from that tendency to hero worship, ineradicable in +the heart of the race, which leads every nation to have an ideal, the +imagined author of its prosperity, the father of his country, and the +focus of its legends. As has been hinted, history is not friendly to +their renown, and dissipates them altogether into phantoms of the brain, +or sadly dims the lustre of their fame. Arthur, bright star of chivalry, +dwindles into a Welsh subaltern; the Cid Campeador, defender of the +faith, sells his sword as often to Moslem as to Christian, and _sells_ +it ever; while Siegfried and Feridun vanish into nothings. + +As elsewhere the world over, so in America many tribes had to tell of +such a personage, some such august character, who taught them what they +knew, the tillage of the soil, the properties of plants, the art of +picture writing, the secrets of magic; who founded their institutions +and established their religions, who governed them long with glory +abroad and peace at home; and finally, did not die, but like Frederick +Barbarossa, Charlemagne, King Arthur, and all great heroes, vanished +mysteriously, and still lives somewhere, ready at the right moment to +return to his beloved people and lead them to victory and happiness. +Such to the Algonkins was Michabo or Manibozho, to the Iroquois Ioskeha, +Wasi to the Cherokees, Tamoi to the Caribs; so the Mayas had Zamna, the +Toltecs Quetzalcoatl, the Muyscas Nemqueteba; such among the Aymaras was +Viracocha, among the Mandans Numock-muckenah, and among the natives of +the Orinoko Amalivaca; and the catalogue could be extended indefinitely. + +It is not always easy to pronounce upon these heroes, whether they +belong to history or mythology, their nation's poetry or its prose. In +arriving at a conclusion we must remember that a fiction built on an +idea is infinitely more tenacious of life than a story founded on fact. +Further, that if a striking similarity in the legends of two such heroes +be discovered under circumstances which forbid the thought that one was +derived from the other, then both are probably mythical. If this is the +case in not two but in half a dozen instances, then the probability +amounts to a certainty, and the only task remaining is to explain such +narratives on consistent mythological principles. If after sifting out +all foreign and later traits, it appears that when first known to +Europeans, these heroes were assigned all the attributes of highest +divinity, were the imagined creators and rulers of the world, and +mightiest of spiritual powers, then their position must be set far +higher than that of deified men. They must be accepted as the supreme +gods of the red race, the analogues in the western continent of Jupiter, +Osiris, and Odin in the eastern, and whatever opinions contrary to this +may have been advanced by writers and travellers must be set down to the +account of that prevailing ignorance of American mythology which has +fathered so many other blunders. To solve these knotty points I shall +choose for analysis the culture myths of the Algonkins, the Iroquois, +the Toltecs of Mexico, and the Aymaras or Peruvians, guided in my choice +by the fact that these four families are the best known, and, in many +points of view, the most important on the continent. + +From the remotest wilds of the northwest to the coast of the Atlantic, +from the southern boundaries of Carolina to the cheerless swamps of +Hudson's Bay, the Algonkins were never tired of gathering around the +winter fire and repeating the story of Manibozho or Michabo, the Great +Hare. With entire unanimity their various branches, the Powhatans of +Virginia, the Lenni Lenape of the Delaware, the warlike hordes of New +England, the Ottawas of the far north, and the western tribes perhaps +without exception, spoke of "this chimerical beast," as one of the old +missionaries calls it, as their common ancestor. The totem or clan +which bore his name was looked up to with peculiar respect. In many of +the tales which the whites have preserved of Michabo he seems half a +wizzard[TN-8], half a simpleton. He is full of pranks and wiles, but +often at a loss for a meal of victuals; ever itching to try his arts +magic on great beasts and often meeting ludicrous failures therein; +envious of the powers of others, and constantly striving to outdo them +in what they do best; in short, little more than a malicious buffoon +delighting in practical jokes, and abusing his superhuman powers for +selfish and ignoble ends. But this is a low, modern, and corrupt version +of the character of Michabo, bearing no more resemblance to his real and +ancient one than the language and acts of our Saviour and the apostles +in the coarse Mystery Plays of the Middle Ages do to those recorded by +the Evangelists. + +What he really was we must seek in the accounts of older travellers, in +the invocations of the jossakeeds or prophets, and in the part assigned +to him in the solemn mysteries of religion. In these we find him +portrayed as the patron and founder of the meda worship,[162-1] the +inventor of picture writing, the father and guardian of their nation, +the ruler of the winds, even the maker and preserver of the world and +creator of the sun and moon. From a grain of sand brought from the +bottom of the primeval ocean, he fashioned the habitable land and set +it floating on the waters, till it grew to such a size that a strong +young wolf, running constantly, died of old age ere he reached its +limits. Under the name Michabo Ovisaketchak, the Great Hare who created +the Earth, he was originally the highest divinity recognized by them, +"powerful and beneficent beyond all others, maker of the heavens and the +world." He was founder of the medicine hunt in which after appropriate +ceremonies and incantations the Indian sleeps, and Michabo appears to +him in a dream, and tells him where he may readily kill game. He himself +was a mighty hunter of old; one of his footsteps measured eight leagues, +the Great Lakes were the beaver dams he built, and when the cataracts +impeded his progress he tore them away with his hands. Attentively +watching the spider spread its web to trap unwary flies, he devised the +art of knitting nets to catch fish, and the signs and charms he tested +and handed down to his descendants are of marvellous efficacy in the +chase. In the autumn, in "the moon of the falling leaf," ere he composes +himself to his winter's sleep, he fills his great pipe and takes a +god-like smoke. The balmy clouds float over the hills and woodlands, +filling the air with the haze of the "Indian summer." + +Sometimes he was said to dwell in the skies with his brother the snow, +or, like many great spirits, to have built his wigwam in the far north +on some floe of ice in the Arctic Ocean, while the Chipeways localized +his birthplace and former home to the Island Michilimakinac at the +outlet of Lake Superior. But in the oldest accounts of the missionaries +he was alleged to reside toward the east, and in the holy formul of +the meda craft, when the winds are invoked to the medicine lodge, the +east is summoned in his name, the door opens in that direction, and +there, at the edge of the earth, where the sun rises, on the shore of +the infinite ocean that surrounds the land, he has his house and sends +the luminaries forth on their daily journies.[164-1] + +It is passing strange that such an insignificant creature as the rabbit +should have received this apotheosis. No explanation of it in the least +satisfactory has ever been offered. Some have pointed it out as a +senseless, meaningless brute worship. It leads to the suspicion that +there may lurk here one of those confusions of words which have so often +led to confusion of ideas in mythology. Manibozho, Nanibojou, Missibizi, +Michabo, Messou, all variations of the same name in different dialects +rendered according to different orthographies, scrutinize them closely +as we may, they all seem compounded according to well ascertained laws +of Algonkin euphony from the words corresponding to _great_ and _hare_ +or _rabbit_, or the first two perhaps from _spirit_ and _hare_ (_michi_, +great, _wabos_, hare, _manito wabos_, spirit hare, Chipeway dialect), +and so they have invariably been translated even by the Indians +themselves. But looking more narrowly at the second member of the word, +it is clearly capable of another and very different interpretation, of +an interpretation which discloses at once the origin and the secret +meaning of the whole story of Michabo, in the light of which it appears +no longer the incoherent fable of savages, but a true myth, instinct +with nature, pregnant with matter, nowise inferior to those which +fascinate in the chants of the Rig Veda, or the weird pages of the Edda. + +On a previous page I have emphasized with what might have seemed +superfluous force, how prominent in primitive mythology is the east, the +source of the morning, the day-spring on high, the cardinal point which +determines and controls all others. But I did not lay as much stress on +it as others have. "The whole theogony and philosophy of the ancient +world," says Max Mller, "centred in the Dawn, the mother of the bright +gods, of the Sun in his various aspects, of the morn, the day, the +spring; herself the brilliant image and visage of immortality."[165-1] +Now it appears on attentively examining the Algonkin root _wab_, that it +gives rise to words of very diverse meaning, that like many others in +all languages while presenting but one form it represents ideas of +wholly unlike origin and application, that in fact there are two +distinct roots having this sound. One is the initial syllable of the +word translated hare or rabbit, but the other means _white_, and from it +is derived the words for the east, the dawn, the light, the day and the +morning.[165-2] Beyond a doubt this is the compound in the names +Michabo and Manibozho which therefore mean the Great Light, the Spirit +of Light, of the Dawn, or the East, and in the literal sense of the word +the Great White One, as indeed he has sometimes been called. + +In this sense all the ancient and authentic myths concerning him are +plain and full of meaning. They divide themselves into two distinct +cycles. In the one Michabo is the spirit of light who dispels the +darkness; in the other as chief of the cardinal points he is lord of the +winds, prince of the powers of the air, whose voice is the thunder, +whose weapon the lightning, the supreme figure in the encounter of the +air currents, in the unending conflict which the Dakotas described as +waged by the waters and the winds. + +In the first he is grandson of the moon, his father is the West Wind, +and his mother, a maiden, dies in giving him birth at the moment of +conception. For the moon is the goddess of night, the Dawn is her +daughter, who brings forth the morning and perishes herself in the act, +and the West, the spirit of darkness as the East is of light, precedes +and as it were begets the latter as the evening does the morning. +Straightway, however, continues the legend, the son sought the unnatural +father to revenge the death of his mother, and then commenced a long and +desperate struggle. "It began on the mountains. The West was forced to +give ground. Manabozho drove him across rivers and over mountains and +lakes, and at last he came to the brink of this world. 'Hold,' cried he, +'my son, you know my power and that it is impossible to kill +me.'"[167-1] What is this but the diurnal combat of light and darkness, +carried on from what time "the jocund morn stands tiptoe on the misty +mountain tops," across the wide world to the sunset, the struggle that +knows no end, for both the opponents are immortal? + +In the second, and evidently to the native mind more important cycle of +legends, he was represented as one of four brothers, the North, the +South, the East, and the West, all born at a birth, whose mother died in +ushering them into the world;[167-2] for hardly has the kindling orient +served to fix the cardinal points than it is lost and dies in the +advancing day. Yet it is clear that he was something more than a +personification of the east or the east wind, for it is repeatedly said +that it was he who assigned their duties to all the winds, to that of +the east as well as the others. This is a blending of his two +characters. Here too his life is a battle. No longer with his father, +indeed, but with his brother Chakekenapok, the flint-stone, whom he +broke in pieces and scattered over the land, and changed his entrails +into fruitful vines. The conflict was long and terrible. The face of +nature was desolated as by a tornado, and the gigantic boulders and +loose rocks found on the prairies are the missiles hurled by the mighty +combatants. Or else his foe was the glittering prince of serpents whose +abode was the lake; or was the shining Manito whose home was guarded by +fiery serpents and a deep sea; or was the great king of fishes; all +symbols of the atmospheric waters, all figurative descriptions of the +wars of the elements. In these affrays the thunder and lightning are at +his command, and with them he destroys his enemies. For this reason the +Chipeway pictography represents him brandishing a rattlesnake, the +symbol of the electric flash,[168-1] and sometimes they called him the +Northwest Wind, which in the region they inhabit usually brings the +thunder-storms. + +As ruler of the winds he was, like Quetzalcoatl, father and protector of +all species of birds, their symbols.[168-2] He was patron of hunters, +for their course is guided by the cardinal points. Therefore, when the +medicine hunt had been successful, the prescribed sign of gratitude to +him was to scatter a handful of the animal's blood toward each of +these.[168-3] As daylight brings vision, and to see is to know, it was +no fable that gave him as the author of their arts, their wisdom, and +their institutions. + +In effect, his story is a world-wide truth, veiled under a thin garb of +fancy. It is but a variation of that narrative which every race has to +tell, out of gratitude to that beneficent Father who everywhere has +cared for His children. Michabo, giver of life and light, creator and +preserver, is no apotheosis of a prudent chieftain, still less the +fabrication of an idle fancy or a designing priestcraft, but in origin, +deeds, and name the not unworthy personification of the purest +conceptions they possessed concerning the Father of All. To Him at early +dawn the Indian stretched forth his hands in prayer; and to the sky or +the sun as his homes, he first pointed the pipe in his ceremonies, rites +often misinterpreted by travellers as indicative of sun worship. As +later observers tell us to this day the Algonkin prophet builds the +medicine lodge to face the sunrise, and in the name of Michabo, who +there has his home, summons the spirits of the four quarters of the +world and Gizhigooke, the day maker, to come to his fire and disclose +the hidden things of the distant and the future: so the earliest +explorers relate that when they asked the native priests who it was they +invoked, what demons or familiars, the invariable reply was, "the +Kichigouai, the genii of light, those who make the day."[169-1] + +Our authorities on Iroquois traditions, though numerous enough, are not +so satisfactory. The best, perhaps, is Father Brebeuf, a Jesuit +missionary, who resided among the Hurons in 1626. Their culture myth, +which he has recorded, is strikingly similar to that of the Algonkins. +Two brothers appear in it, Ioskeha and Tawiscara, names which find their +meaning in the Oneida dialect as the White one and the Dark one.[170-1] +They are twins, born of a virgin mother, who died in giving them life. +Their grandmother was the moon, called by the Hurons Ataensic, a word +which signifies literally _she bathes herself_, and which, in the +opinion of Father Bruyas, a most competent authority, is derived from +the word for water.[170-2] + +The brothers quarrelled, and finally came to blows; the former using the +horns of a stag, the latter the wild rose. He of the weaker weapon was +very naturally discomfited and sorely wounded. Fleeing for life, the +blood gushed from him at every step, and as it fell turned into +flint-stones. The victor returned to his grandmother, and established +his lodge in the far east, on the borders of the great ocean, whence +the sun comes. In time he became the father of mankind, and special +guardian of the Iroquois. The earth was at first arid and sterile, but +he destroyed the gigantic frog which had swallowed all the waters, and +guided the torrents into smooth streams and lakes.[171-1] The woods he +stocked with game; and having learned from the great tortoise, who +supports the world, how to make fire, taught his children, the Indians, +this indispensable art. He it was who watched and watered their crops; +and, indeed, without his aid, says the old missionary, quite out of +patience with such puerilities, "they think they could not boil a pot." +Sometimes they spoke of him as the sun, but this only figuratively.[171-2] + +From other writers of early date we learn that the essential outlines of +this myth were received by the Tuscaroras and the Mohawks, and as the +proper names of the two brothers are in the Oneida dialect, we cannot +err in considering this the national legend of the Iroquois stock. There +is strong likelihood that the Taronhiawagon, he who comes from the Sky, +of the Onondagas, who was their supreme God, who spoke to them in +dreams, and in whose honor the chief festival of their calendar was +celebrated about the winter solstice, was, in fact, Ioskeha under +another name.[172-1] As to the legend of the Good and Bad Minds given +by Cusic, to which I have referred in a previous chapter, and the later +and wholly spurious myth of Hiawatha, first made public by Mr. Clark in +his History of Onondaga (1849), and which, in the graceful poem of +Longfellow, is now familiar to the world, they are but pale and +incorrect reflections of the early native traditions. + +So strong is the resemblance Ioskeha bears to Michabo, that what has +been said in explanation of the latter will be sufficient for both. Yet +I do not imagine that the one was copied or borrowed from the other. We +cannot be too cautious in adopting such a conclusion. The two nations +were remote in everything but geographical position. I call to mind +another similar myth. In it a mother is also said to have brought forth +twins, or a pair of twins, and to have paid for them with her life. +Again the one is described as the bright, the other as the dark twin; +again it is said that they struggled one with the other for the mastery. +Scholars, likewise, have interpreted the mother to mean the Dawn, the +twins either Light and Darkness, or the Four Winds. Yet this is not +Algonkin theology; nor is it at all related to that of the Iroquois. It +is the story of Sarama in the Rig Veda, and was written in Sanscrit, +under the shadow of the Himalayas, centuries before Homer. + +Such uniformity points not to a common source in history, but in +psychology. Man, chiefly cognizant of his soul through his senses, +thought with an awful horror of the night which deprived him of the use +of one and foreshadowed the loss of all. Therefore _light_ and _life_ +were to him synonymous; therefore all religions promise to lead + + "From night to light, + From night to heavenly light;" + +therefore He who rescues is ever the Light of the World; therefore it is +said "to the upright ariseth light in darkness;" therefore everywhere +the kindling East, the pale Dawn, is the embodiment of his hopes and the +centre of his reminiscences. Who shall say that his instinct led him +here astray? For is not, in fact, all life dependent on light? Do not +all those marvellous and subtle forces known to the older chemists as +the imponderable elements, without which not even the inorganic crystal +is possible, proceed from the rays of light? Let us beware of that +shallow science so ready to shout Eureka, and reverently acknowledge a +mysterious intuition here displayed which joins with the latest +conquests of the human mind to repeat and emphasize that message which +the Evangelist heard of the Spirit and declared unto men, that "God is +Light."[173-1] + +Both these heroes, let it be observed, live in the uttermost east; both +are the mythical fathers of the race. To the east, therefore, should +these nations have pointed as their original dwelling place. This they +did in spite of history. Cusic, who takes up the story of the Iroquois a +thousand years before the Christian era, locates them first in the most +eastern region they ever possessed. While the Algonkins with one voice +called those of their tribes living nearest the rising sun _Abnakis_, +our ancestors at the east, or at the dawn; literally our _white_ +ancestors.[174-1] I designedly emphasize this literal rendering. It +reminds one of the white twin of Iroquois legend, and illustrates how +the color white came to be intimately associated with the morning light +and its beneficent effects. Moreover color has a specific effect on the +mind; there is a music to the eye as well as to the ear; and white, +which holds all hues in itself, disposes the soul to all pleasant and +elevating emotions.[174-2] Not fashion alone bids the bride wreathe her +brow with orange flowers, nor was it a mere figure of speech that led +the inspired poet to call his love "fairest among women," and to +prophecy a Messiah "fairer than the children of men," fulfilled in that +day when He appeared "in garments so white as no fuller on earth could +white them." No nation is free from the power of this law. "White," +observes Adair of the southern Indians, "is their fixed emblem of peace, +friendship, happiness, prosperity, purity, and holiness."[175-1] Their +priests dressed in white robes, as did those of Peru and Mexico; the +kings of the various species of animals were all supposed to be +white;[175-2] the cities of refuge established as asylums for alleged +criminals by the Cherokees in the manner of the Israelites were called +"white towns," and for sacrifices animals of this color were ever most +highly esteemed. All these sentiments were linked to the dawn. Language +itself is proof of it. Many Algonkin words for east, morning, dawn, day, +light, as we have already seen, are derived from a radical signifying +_white_. Or we can take a tongue nowise related, the Quich, and find +its words for east, dawn, morning, light, bright, glorious, happy, +noble, all derived from _zak_, white. We read in their legends of the +earliest men that they were "white children," "white sons," leading "a +white life beyond the dawn," and the creation itself is attributed to +the Dawn, the White One, the White Sacrificer of Blood.[175-3] But why +insist upon the point when in European tongues we find the daybreak +called _l'aube_, _alva_, from _albus_, white? Enough for the purpose if +the error of those is manifest, who, in such expressions, would seek +support for any theory of ancient European immigration; enough if it +displays the true meaning of those traditions of the advent of +benevolent visitors of fair complexion in ante-Columbian times, which +both Algonkins and Iroquois[176-1] had in common with many other tribes +of the western continent. Their explanation will not be found in the +annals of Japan, the triads of the Cymric bards, nor the sagas of +Icelandic skalds, but in the propensity of the human mind to attribute +its own origin and culture to that white-shining orient where sun, moon, +and stars, are daily born in renovated glory, to that fair mother, who, +at the cost of her own life, gives light and joy to the world, to the +brilliant womb of Aurora, the glowing bosom of the Dawn. + +Even the complicated mythology of Peru yields to the judicious +application of these principles of interpretation. Its peculiar +obscurity arises from the policy of the Incas to blend the religions of +conquered provinces with their own. Thus about 1350 the Inca Pachacutec +subdued the country about Lima where the worship of Con and Pachacam +prevailed.[176-2] The local myth represented these as father and son, +or brothers, children of the sun. They were without flesh or blood, +impalpable, invisible, and incredibly swift of foot. Con first possessed +the land, but Pachacam attacked and drove him to the north. Irritated +at his defeat he took with him the rain, and consequently to this day +the sea-coast of Peru is largely an arid desert. Now when we are +informed that the south wind, that in other words which blows to the +north, is the actual cause of the aridity of the low-lands,[177-1] and +consider the light and airy character of these antagonists, we cannot +hesitate to accept this as a myth of the winds. The name of _Con tici_, +the Thunder Vase, was indeed applied to Viracocha in later times, but +they were never identical. Viracocha was the culture hero of the ancient +Aymara-Quichua stock. He was more than that, for in their creed he was +creator and possessor of all things. Lands and herds were assigned to +other gods to support their temples, and offerings were heaped on their +altars, but to him none. For, asked the Incas: "Shall the Lord and +Master of the whole world need these things from us?" To him, says +Acosta, "they did attribute the chief power and commandement over all +things;" and elsewhere "in all this realm the chief idoll they did +worship was Viracocha, and _after him_ the Sunne."[178-1] + +Ere sun or moon was made, he rose from the bosom of Lake Titicaca, and +presided over the erection of those wondrous cities whose ruins still +dot its islands and western shores, and whose history is totally lost in +the night of time. He himself constructed these luminaries and placed +them in the sky, and then peopled the earth with its present +inhabitants. From the lake he journeyed westward, not without +adventures, for he was attacked with murderous intent by the beings whom +he had created. When, however, scorning such unequal combat, he had +manifested his power by hurling the lightning on the hill-sides and +consuming the forests, they recognized their maker, and humbled +themselves before him. He was reconciled, and taught them arts and +agriculture, institutions and religion, meriting the title they gave him +of _Pachayachachic_, teacher of all things. At last he disappeared in +the western ocean. Four personages, companions or sons, were closely +connected with him. They rose together with him from the lake, or else +were his first creations. These are the four mythical civilizers of +Peru, who another legend asserts emerged from the cave Pacarin tampu the +Lodgings of the Dawn.[179-1] To these Viracocha gave the earth, to one +the north, to another the south, to a third the east, to a fourth the +west. Their names are very variously given, but as they have already +been identified with the four winds, we can omit their consideration +here.[179-2] Tradition, as has rightly been observed by the Inca +Garcilasso de la Vega,[179-3] transferred a portion of the story of +Viracocha to Manco Capac, first of the historical Incas. King Manco, +however, was a real character, the Rudolph of Hapsburg of their reigning +family, and flourished about the eleventh century. + +There is a general resemblance between this story and that of Michabo. +Both precede and create the sun, both journey to the west, overcoming +opposition with the thunderbolt, both divide the world between the four +winds, both were the fathers, gods, and teachers of their nations. Nor +does it cease here. Michabo, I have shown, is the white spirit of the +Dawn. Viracocha, all authorities translate "the fat or foam of the sea." +The idea conveyed is of whiteness, foam being called fat from its +color.[180-1] So true is this that to-day in Peru white men are called +_viracochas_, and the early explorers constantly received the same +epithet.[180-2] The name is a metaphor. The dawn rises above the horizon +as the snowy foam on the surface of a lake. As the Algonkins spoke of +the Abnakis, their white ancestors, as in Mexican legends the early +Toltecs were of fair complexion, so the Aymaras sometimes called the +first four brothers, _viracochas_, white men.[180-3] It is the ancient +story how + + "Light + Sprang from the deep, and from her native east + To journey through the airy gloom began." + +The central figure of Toltec mythology is Quetzalcoatl. Not an author on +ancient Mexico but has something to say about the glorious days when he +ruled over the land. No one denies him to have been a god, the god of +the air, highest deity of the Toltecs, in whose honor was erected the +pyramid of Cholula, grandest monument of their race. But many insist +that he was at first a man, some deified king. There were in truth many +Quetzalcoatls, for his high priest always bore his name, but he himself +is a pure creation of the fancy, and all his alleged history is nothing +but a myth. + +His emblematic name, the Bird-Serpent, and his rebus and cross at +Palenque, I have already explained. Others of his titles were, Ehecatl, +the air; Yolcuat, the rattlesnake; Tohil, the rumbler; Huemac, the +strong hand; Nani he hecatle, lord of the four winds. The same dualism +reappears in him that has been noted in his analogues elsewhere; He is +both lord of the eastern light and the winds. + +As the former, he was born of a virgin in the land of Tula or Tlapallan, +in the distant Orient, and was high priest of that happy realm. The +morning star was his symbol, and the temple of Cholula was dedicated to +him expressly as the author of light.[181-1] As by days we measure time, +he was the alleged inventor of the calendar. Like all the dawn heroes, +he too was represented as of white complexion, clothed in long white +robes, and, as most of the Aztec gods, with a full and flowing +beard.[181-2] When his earthly-work was done he too returned to the +east, assigning as a reason that the sun, the ruler of Tlapallan, +demanded his presence. But the real motive was that he had been +overcome by Tezcatlipoca, otherwise called Yoalliehecatl, the wind or +spirit of night, who had descended from heaven by a spider's web and +presented his rival with a draught pretended to confer immortality, but, +in fact, producing uncontrollable longing for home. For the wind and the +light both depart when the gloaming draws near, or when the clouds +spread their dark and shadowy webs along the mountains, and pour the +vivifying rain upon the fields. + +In his other character, he was begot of the breath of Tonacateotl, god +of our flesh or subsistence,[182-1] or (according to Gomara) was the son +of Iztac Mixcoatl, the white cloud serpent, the spirit of the tornado. +Messenger of Tlaloc, god of rains, he was figuratively said to sweep the +road for him, since in that country violent winds are the precursors of +the wet seasons. Wherever he went all manner of singing birds bore him +company, emblems of the whistling breezes. When he finally disappeared +in the far east, he sent back four trusty youths who had ever shared his +fortunes, "incomparably swift and light of foot," with directions to +divide the earth between them and rule it till he should return and +resume his power. When he would promulgate his decrees, his herald +proclaimed them from Tzatzitepec, the hill of shouting, with such a +mighty voice that it could be heard a hundred leagues around. The arrows +which he shot transfixed great trees, the stones he threw levelled +forests, and when he laid his hands on the rocks the mark was indelible. +Yet as thus emblematic of the thunder-storm, he possessed in full +measure its better attributes. By shaking his sandals he gave fire to +men, and peace, plenty, and riches blessed his subjects. Tradition says +he built many temples to Mictlanteuctli, the Aztec Pluto, and at the +creation of the sun that he slew all the other gods, for the advancing +dawn disperses the spectral shapes of night, and yet all its vivifying +power does but result in increasing the number doomed to fell before the +remorseless stroke of death.[183-1] + +His symbols were the bird, the serpent, the cross, and the flint, +representing the clouds, the lightning, the four winds, and the +thunderbolt. Perhaps, as Huemac, the Strong Hand, he was god of the +earthquakes. The Zapotecs worshipped such a deity under the image of +this member carved from a precious stone,[183-2] calling to mind the +"Kab ul," the Working Hand, adored by the Mayas,[183-3] and said to be +one of the images of Zamna, their hero god. The human hand, "that divine +tool," as it has been called, might well be regarded by the reflective +mind as the teacher of the arts and the amulet whose magic power has won +for man what vantage he has gained in his long combat with nature and +his fellows. + +I might next discuss the culture myth of the Muyscas, whose hero Bochica +or Nemqueteba bore the other name SUA, the White One, the Day, the +East, an appellation they likewise gave the Europeans on their arrival. +He had taught them in remotest times how to manufacture their clothing, +build their houses, cultivate the soil, and reckon time. When he +disappeared, he divided the land between four chiefs, and laid down many +minute rules of government which ever after were religiously +observed.[184-1] Or I might choose that of the Caribs, whose patron Tamu +called Grandfather, and Old Man of the Sky, was a man of light +complexion, who in the old times came from the east, instructed them in +agriculture and arts, and disappeared in the same direction, promising +them assistance in the future, and that at death he would receive their +souls on the summit of the sacred tree, and transport them safely to his +home in the sky.[184-2] Or from the more fragmentary mythology of ruder +nations, proof might be brought of the well nigh universal reception of +these fundamental views. As, for instance, when the Mandans of the Upper +Missouri speak of their first ancestor as a son of the West, who +preserved them at the flood, and whose garb was always of four +milk-white wolf skins;[185-1] and when the Pimos, a people of the valley +of the Rio Gila, relate that their birthplace was where the sun rises, +that there for generations they led a joyous life, until their +beneficent first parent disappeared in the heavens. From that time, say +they, God lost sight of them, and they wandered west, and further west +till they reached their present seats.[185-2] Or I might instance the +Tupis of Brazil, who were named after the first of men, Tupa, he who +alone survived the flood, who was one of four brothers, who is described +as an old man of fair complexion, _un vieillard blanc_,[185-3] and who +is now their highest divinity, ruler of the lightning and the storm, +whose voice is the thunder, and who is the guardian of their nation. But +is it not evident that these and all such legends are but variations of +those already analyzed? + +In thus removing one by one the wrappings of symbolism, and displaying +at the centre and summit of these various creeds, He who is throned in +the sky, who comes with the dawn, who manifests himself in the light and +the storm, and whose ministers are the four winds, I set up no new god. +The ancient Israelites prayed to him who was seated above the firmament, +who commanded the morning and caused the day-spring to know its place, +who answered out of the whirlwind, and whose envoys were the four winds, +the four cherubim described with such wealth of imagery in the +introduction to the book of Ezekiel. The Mahometan adores "the clement +and merciful Lord of the Daybreak," whose star is in the east, who rides +on the storm, and whose breath is the wind. The primitive man in the New +World also associated these physical phenomena as products of an +invisible power, conceived under human form, called by name, worshipped +as one, and of whom all related the same myth differing but in +unimportant passages. This was the primeval religion. It was not +monotheism, for there were many other gods; it was not pantheism, for +there was no blending of the cause with the effects; still less was it +fetichism, an adoration of sensuous objects, for these were recognized +as effects. It teaches us that the idea of God neither arose from the +phenomenal world nor was sunk in it, as is the shallow theory of the +day, but is as Kant long ago defined it, a conviction of a highest and +first principle which binds all phenomena into one. + +One point of these legends deserves closer attention for the influence +it exerted on the historical fortunes of the race. The dawn heroes were +conceived as of fair complexion, mighty in war, and though absent for a +season, destined to return and claim their ancient power. Here was one +of those unconscious prophecies, pointing to the advent of a white race +from the east, that wrote the doom of the red man in letters of fire. +Historians have marvelled at the instantaneous collapse of the empires +of Mexico, Peru, the Mayas, and the Natchez, before a handful of Spanish +filibusters. The fact was, wherever the whites appeared they were +connected with these ancient predictions of the spirit of the dawn +returning to claim his own. Obscure and ominous prophecies, "texts of +bodeful song," rose in the memory of the natives, and paralyzed their +arms. + +"For a very long time," said Montezuma, at his first interview with +Cortes, "has it been handed down that we are not the original possessors +of this land, but came hither from a distant region under the guidance +of a ruler who afterwards left us and returned. We have ever believed +that some day his descendants would come and resume dominion over us. +Inasmuch as you are from that direction, which is toward the rising of +the sun, and serve so great a king as you describe, we believe that he +is also our natural lord, and are ready to submit ourselves to +him."[187-1] + +The gloomy words of Nezahualcoyotl, a former prince of Tezcuco, +foretelling the arrival of white and bearded men from the east, who +would wrest the power from the hands of the rightful rulers and destroy +in a day the edifice of centuries, were ringing in his ears. But they +were not so gloomy to the minds of his down-trodden subjects, for that +day was to liberate them from the thralls of servitude. Therefore when +they first beheld the fair complexioned Spaniards, they rushed into the +water to embrace the prows of their vessels, and despatched messengers +throughout the land to proclaim the return of Quetzalcoatl.[188-1] + +The noble Mexican was not alone in his presentiments. When Hernando de +Soto on landing in Peru first met the Inca Huascar, the latter related +an ancient prophecy which his father Huayna Capac had repeated on his +dying bed, to the effect that in the reign of the thirteenth Inca, white +men (_viracochas_) of surpassing strength and valor would come from +their father the Sun and subject to their rule the nations of the world. +"I command you," said the dying monarch, "to yield them homage and +obedience, for they will be of a nature superior to ours."[188-2] + +The natives of Haiti told Columbus of similar predictions long anterior +to his arrival.[188-3] And Father Lizana has preserved in the original +Maya tongue several such foreboding chants. Doubtless he has adapted +them somewhat to proselytizing purposes, but they seem very likely to be +close copies of authentic aboriginal songs, referring to the return of +Zamna or Kukulcan, lord of the dawn and the four winds, worshipped at +Cozumel and Palenque under the sign of the cross. An extract will show +their character:-- + + "At the close of the thirteenth Age of the world, + While the cities of Itza and Tancah still flourish, + The sign of the Lord of the Sky will appear, + The light of the dawn will illumine the land, + And the cross will be seen by the nations of men. + A father to you, will He be, Itzalanos, + A brother to you, ye natives of Tancah; + Receive well the bearded guests who are coming, + Bringing the sign of the Lord from the daybreak, + Of the Lord of the Sky, so clement yet powerful."[189-1] + +The older writers, Gomara, Cogolludo, Villagutierre, have taken pains to +collect other instances of this presentiment of the arrival and +domination of a white race. Later historians, fashionably incredulous of +what they cannot explain, have passed them over in silence. That they +existed there can be no doubt, and that they arose in the way I have +stated, is almost proven by the fact that in Mexico, Bogota, and Peru, +the whites were at once called from the proper names of the heroes of +the Dawn, _Suas_, _Viracochas_, and _Quetzalcoatls_. + +When the church of Rome had crushed remorselessly the religions of +Mexico and Peru, all hope of the return of Quetzalcoatl and Viracocha +perished with the institutions of which they were the mythical founders. +But it was only to arise under new incarnations and later names. As well +forbid the heart of youth to bud forth in tender love, as that of +oppressed nationalities to cherish the faith that some ideal hero, some +royal man, will yet arise, and break in fragments their fetters, and +lead them to glory and honor. + +When the name of Quetzalcoatl was no longer heard from the teocalli of +Cholula, that of Montezuma took its place. From ocean to ocean, and from +the river Gila to the Nicaraguan lake, nearly every aboriginal nation +still cherishes the memory of Montezuma, not as the last unfortunate +ruler of a vanished state, but as the prince of their golden era, their +Saturnian age, lord of the winds and waters, and founder of their +institutions. When, in the depth of the tropical forests, the antiquary +disinters some statue of earnest mien, the natives whisper one to the +other, "Montezuma! Montezuma!"[190-1] In the legends of New Mexico he is +the founder of the pueblos, and intrusted to their guardianship the +sacred fire. Departing, he planted a tree, and bade them watch it well, +for when that tree should fall and the fire die out, then he would +return from the far East, and lead his loyal people to victory and +power. When the present generation saw their land glide, mile by mile, +into the rapacious hands of the Yankees--when new and strange diseases +desolated their homes--finally, when in 1846 the sacred tree was +prostrated, and the guardian of the holy fire was found dead on its cold +ashes, then they thought the hour of deliverance had come, and every +morning at earliest dawn a watcher mounted to the house-tops, and gazed +long and anxiously in the lightening east, hoping to descry the noble +form of Montezuma advancing through the morning beams at the head of a +conquering army.[191-1] + +Groaning under the iron rule of the Spaniards, the Peruvians would not +believe that the last of the Incas had perished an outcast and a +wanderer in the forests of the Cordilleras. For centuries they clung to +the persuasion that he had but retired to another mighty kingdom beyond +the mountains, and in due time would return and sweep the haughty +Castilian back into the ocean. In 1781, a mestizo, Jose Gabriel +Condorcanqui, of the province of Tinta, took advantage of this strong +delusion, and binding around his forehead the scarlet fillet of the +Incas, proclaimed himself the long lost Inca Tupac Amaru, and a true +child of the sun. Thousands of Indians flocked to his standard, and at +their head he took the field, vowing the extermination of every soul of +the hated race. Seized at last by the Spaniards, and condemned to a +public execution, so profound was the reverence with which he had +inspired his followers, so full their faith in his claims, that, +undeterred by the threats of the soldiery, they prostrated themselves on +their faces before this last of the children of the sun, as he passed on +to a felon's death.[191-2] + +These fancied reminiscences, these unfounded hopes, so vague, so +child-like, let no one dismiss them as the babblings of ignorance. +Contemplated in their broadest meaning as characteristics of the race of +man, they have an interest higher than any history, beyond that of any +poetry. They point to the recognized discrepancy between what man is, +and what he feels he should be, must be; they are the indignant protests +of the race against acquiescence in the world's evil as the world's law; +they are the incoherent utterances of those yearnings for nobler +conditions of existence, which no savagery, no ignorance, nothing but a +false and lying enlightenment can wholly extinguish. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[162-1] The _meda_ worship is the ordinary religious ritual of the +Algonkins. It consists chiefly in exhibitions of legerdemain, and in +conjuring and exorcising demons. A _jossakeed_ is an inspired prophet who +derives his power directly from the higher spirits, and not as the +_medawin_, by instruction and practice. + +[164-1] For these particulars see the _Rel. de la Nouv. France_, 1667, p. +12, 1670, p. 93; Charlevoix, _Journal Historique_, p. 344; Schoolcraft, +_Indian Tribes_, v. pp. 420 sqq., and Alex. Henry, _Travs. in Canada and +the Ind. Territories_, pp. 212 sqq. These are decidedly the best +references of the many that could be furnished. Peter Jones' _History of +the Ojibway Indians_, p. 35, may also be consulted. + +[165-1] _Science of Language_, Second Series, p. 518. + +[165-2] Dialectic forms in Algonkin for white, are _wabi_, _wape_, +_wompi_, _waubish_, _oppai_; for morning, _wapan_, _wapaneh_, _opah_; for +east, _wapa_, _waubun_, _waubamo_; for dawn, _wapa_, _waubun_; for day, +_wompan_, _oppan_; for light, _oppung_; and many others similar. In the +Abnaki dialect, _wanbighen_, it is white, is the customary idiom to +express the breaking of the day (Vetromile, _The Abnakis and their +History_, p. 27: New York, 1866). The loss in composition of the vowel +sound represented by the English w, and in the French writers by the +figure 8, is supported by frequent analogy. + +[167-1] Schoolcraft, _Algic Researches_, i. pp. 135-142. + +[167-2] The names of the four brothers, Wabun, Kabun, Kabibonokka, and +Shawano, express in Algonkin both the cardinal points and the winds which +blow from them. In another version of the legend, first reported by +Father De Smet and quoted by Schoolcraft without acknowledgment, they are +Nanaboojoo, Chipiapoos, Wabosso, and Chakekenapok. See for the support of +the text, Schoolcraft, _Algic Res._, ii. p. 214; De Smet, _Oregon +Missions_, p. 347. + +[168-1] _Narrative of John Tanner_, p. 351. + +[168-2] Schoolcraft, _Algic Res._, i. p. 216. + +[168-3] _Narrative of John Tanner_, p. 354. + +[169-1] Compare the _Rel. de la Nouv. France_, 1634 p. 14, 1637, p. 46, +with Schoolcraft, _Ind. Tribes_, v. p. 419. _Kichigouai_ is the same word +as _Gizhigooke_, according to a different orthography. + +[170-1] The names _I8skeha_ and _Ta8iscara_ I venture to identify with +the Oneida _owisske_ or _owiska_, white, and _tetiucalas_ (_tyokaras_, +_tewhgarlars_, Mohawk), dark or darkness. The prefix i to _owisske_ is +the impersonal third person singular; the suffix _ha_ gives a future +sense, so that _i-owisske-ha_ or _iouskeha_ means "it is going to become +white." Brebeuf gives a similar example of _gaon_, old; _a-gaon-ha_, _il +va devenir vieux_ (_Rel. Nouv. France_, 1636, p. 99). But "it is going to +become white," meant to the Iroquois that the dawn was about to appear, +just as _wanbighen_, it is white, did to the Abnakis (see note on page +166), and as the Eskimos say, _kau ma wok_, it is white, to express that +it is daylight (Richardson's Vocab. of Labrador Eskimo in his _Arctic +Expedition_). Therefore, that Ioskeha is an impersonation of the light of +the dawn admits of no dispute. + +[170-2] The orthography of Brebeuf is _aataentsic_. This may be analyzed +as follows: root _aouen_, water; prefix _at_, _il y a quelque chose l +dedans_; _ataouen_, _se baigner_; from which comes the form +_ataouensere_. (See Bruyas, _Rad. Verb. Iroquor._, pp. 30, 31.) Here +again the mythological role of the moon as the goddess of water comes +distinctly to light. + +[171-1] This offers an instance of the uniformity which prevailed in +symbolism in the New World. The Aztecs adored the goddess of water under +the figure of a frog carved from a single emerald; or of human form, but +holding in her hand the leaf of a water lily ornamented with frogs. +(Brasseur, _Hist. du Mexique_, i. p. 324.) + +[171-2] _Rel. de la Nouv. France_, 1636, p. 101. + +[172-1] _Rel. de la Nouv. France_, 1671, p. 17. Cusic spells it +_Tarenyawagon_, and translates it Holder of the Heavens. But the name is +evidently a compound of _garonhia_, sky, softened in the Onondaga dialect +to _taronhia_ (see Gallatin's Vocabs. under the word sky), and _wagin_, I +come. + +[173-1] ~Ho Theos phs esti~, The First Epistle General of John, i. 5. +In curious analogy to these myths is that of the Eskimos of Greenland. +In the beginning, they relate, were two brothers, one of whom said: +"There shall be night and there shall be day, and men shall die, one +after another." But the second said, "There shall be no day, but only +night all the time, and men shall live forever." They had a long +struggle, but here once more he who loved darkness rather than light was +worsted, and the day triumphed. (_Nachrichten von Grnland aus einem +Tagebuche vom Bischof Paul Egede_, p. 157: Kopenhagen, 1790. The date of +the entry is 1738.) + +[174-1] I accept without hesitation the derivation of this word, proposed +and defended by that accomplished Algonkin scholar, the Rev. Eugene +Vetromile, from _wanb_, white or east, and _naghi_ ancestors (_The +Abnakis and their History_, p. 29: New York, 1866). + +[174-2] White light, remarks Goethe, has in it something cheerful and +ennobling; it possesses "eine heitere, muntere, sanft reizende +Eigenschaft." _Farbenlehre_, sec's 766, 770. + +[175-1] _Hist. of the N. Am. Indians_, p. 159. + +[175-2] La Hontan, _Voy. dans l'Amr. Sept._, ii. p. 42. + +[175-3] "Blanco pizote," Ximenes, p. 4, _Vocabulario Quich_, s. v. +_zak_. In the far north the Eskimo tongue presents the same analogy. Day, +morning, bright, light, lightning, all are from the same root (_kau_), +signifying white (Richardson, Vocab. of Labrador Eskimo). + +[176-1] Some fragments of them may be found in Campanius, _Acc. of New +Sweden_, 1650, book iii. chap. 11, and in Byrd, _The Westover +Manuscripts_, 1733, p. 82. They were in both instances alleged to have +been white and bearded men, the latter probably a later trait in the +legend. + +[176-2] _Con_ or _Cun_ I have already explained to mean thunder, _Con +tici_, the mythical thunder vase. Pachacam is doubtless, as M. Leonce +Angrand has suggested, from _ppacha_, source, and _cam_, all, the Source +of All things (Desjardins, _Le Prou avant la Conq. Espagnole_, p. 23, +note). But he and all other writers have been in error in considering +this identical with _Pachacmac_, nor can the latter mean _creator of the +world_, as it has constantly been translated. It is a participial +adjective from _pacha_, place, especially the world, and _camac_, present +participle of _camani_, I animate, from which also comes _camakenc_, the +soul, and means _animating the world_. It was never used as a proper +name. The following trochaic lines from the Quichua poem translated in +the previous chapter, show its true meaning and correct accent:-- + + P[=a]ch[)a] r[=u]r[)a]c, World creating, + P[=a]ch[)a] c[=a]m[)a]c, World animating, + Viracocha, Viracocha, + Camasunqui, He animates thee. + +The last word is the second transition, present tense, of _camani_, while +_camac_ is its present participle. + +[177-1] Ulloa, _Mmoires Philosophiques sur l'Amrique_, i. p. 105. + +[178-1] Acosta, _Hist. of the New World_, bk. v. chap. 4, bk. vi. chap. +19, Eng. trans., 1704. + +[179-1] The name is derived from _tampu_, corrupted by the Spaniards to +_tambo_, an inn, and _paccari_ morning, or _paccarin_, it dawns, which +also has the figurative signification, it is born. It may therefore mean +either Lodgings of the Dawn, or as the Spaniards usually translated it, +House of Birth, or Production, _Casa de Producimiento_. + +[179-2] The names given by Balboa (_Hist. du Prou_, p. 4) and Montesinos +(_Ancien Prou_, p. 5) are Manco, Cacha, Auca, Uchu. The meaning of Manco +is unknown. The others signify, in their order, messenger, enemy or +traitor, and the little one. The myth of Viracocha is given in its most +antique form by Juan de Betanzos, in the _Historia de los Ingas_, +compiled in the first years of the conquest from the original songs and +legends. It is quoted in Garcia, _Origen de los Indios_, lib. v. cap. 7. +Balboa, Montesinos, Acosta, and others have also furnished me some +incidents. Whether Atachuchu mentioned in the last chapter was not +another name of Viracocha may well be questioned. It is every way +probable. + +[179-3] _Hist. des Incas_, liv. iii. chap. 25. + +[180-1] It is compounded of _vira_, fat, foam (which perhaps is akin to +_yurac_, _white_), and _cocha_, a pond or lake. + +[180-2] See Desjardins, _Le Prou avant la Conq. Espagnole_, p. 67. + +[180-3] Gomara, _Hist. de las Indias_, cap. 119, in Mller. + +[181-1] Brasseur, _Hist. du Mexique_, i. p. 302. + +[181-2] There is no reason to lay any stress upon this feature. Beard was +nothing uncommon among the Aztecs and many other nations of the New +World. It was held to add dignity to the appearance, and therefore +Sahagun, in his description of the Mexican idols, repeatedly alludes to +their beards, and Mller quotes various authorities to show that the +priests wore them long and full (_Amer. Urreligionen_, p. 429). Not only +was Quetzalcoatl himself reported to have been of fair complexion--white +indeed--but the Creole historian Ixtlilxochitl says the old legends +asserted that all the Toltecs, natives of Tollan, or Tula, as their name +signifies, were so likewise. Still more, Aztlan, the traditional home of +the Nahuas, or Aztecs proper, means literally the white land, according +to one of our best authorities (Buschmann, _Ueber die Aztekischen +Ortsnamen_, 612: Berlin, 1852). + +[182-1] Kingsborough, _Antiquities of Mexico_, v. p. 109. + +[183-1] The myth of Quetzalcoatl I have taken chiefly from Sahagun, +_Hist. de la Nueva Espaa_, lib. i. cap. 5; lib. iii. caps. 3, 13, 14; +lib. x. cap. 29; and Torquemada, _Monarquia Indiana_, lib. vi. cap. 24. +It must be remembered that the Quich legends identify him positively +with the Tohil of Central America (_Le Livre Sacr_, p. 247). + +[183-2] Padilla Davila, _Hist. de la Prov. de Santiago de Mexico_, lib. +ii. cap. 89. + +[183-3] Cogolludo, _Hist. de Yucathan_, lib. iv. cap. 8. + +[184-1] He is also called Idacanzas and Nemterequetaba. Some have +maintained a distinction between Bochica and Sua, which, however, has not +been shown. The best authorities on the mythology of the Muyscas are +Piedrahita, _Hist. de las Conq. del Nuevo Reyno de Granada_, 1668 (who is +copied by Humboldt, _Vues des Cordillres_, pp. 246 sqq.), and Simon, +_Noticias de Tierra Firme_, Parte ii., in Kingsborough's _Mexico_. + +[184-2] D'Orbigny, _L'Homme Amricain_, ii. p. 319, and Rochefort, +_Hist. des Isles Antilles_, p. 482 (Waitz). The name has various +orthographies, Tamu, Tami, Tamou, Itamoulou, etc. Perhaps the Ama-livaca +of the Orinoko Indians is another form. This personage corresponds even +minutely in many points with the Tamu of the island Caribs. + +[185-1] Catlin, _Letters and Notes_, Letter 22. + +[185-2] Journal of Capt. Johnson, in Emory, _Reconnoissance of New +Mexico_, p. 601. + +[185-3] M. De Charency, in the _Revue Amricaine_, ii. p. 317. _Tupa_ it +may be observed means in Quichua, lord, or royal. Father Holguin gives as +an example _ tupa Dios_, O Lord God (_Vocabulario Quichua_, p. 348: +Ciudad de los Reyes, 1608). In the Quich dialects _tepeu_ is one of the +common appellations of divinity and is also translated lord or ruler. We +are not yet sufficiently advanced in the study of American philology to +draw any inference from these resemblances, but they should not be +overlooked. + +[187-1] Cortes, _Carta Primera_, pp. 113, 114. + +[188-1] Sahagun, _Hist. de la Nueva Espaa_, lib. xii. caps. 2, 3. + +[188-2] La Vega, _Hist. des Incas_, lib. ix. cap. 15. + +[188-3] Peter Martyr, _De Reb. Oceanicis_, Dec. iii. lib. vii. + +[189-1] Lizana, _Hist. de Nuestra Seora de Itzamal_, lib. ii. cap. i. in +Brasseur, _Hist. du Mexique_, ii. p. 605. The prophecies are of the +priest who bore the title--not name--_chilan balam_, and whose offices +were those of divination and astrology. The verse claims to date from +about 1450, and was very well known throughout Yucatan, so it is said. +The number thirteen which in many of these prophecies is the supposed +limit of the present order of things, is doubtless derived from the +observation that thirteen moons complete one solar year. + +[190-1] Squier, _Travels in Nicaragua_, ii. p. 35. + +[191-1] Whipple, _Report on the Ind. Tribes_, p. 36. Emory, _Recon. of +New Mexico_, p. 64. The latter adds that among the Pueblo Indians, the +Apaches, and Navajos, the name of Montezuma is "as familiar as Washington +to us." This is the more curious, as neither the Pueblo Indians nor +either of the other tribes are in any way related to the Aztec race by +language, as has been shown by Dr. Buschman, _Die Voelker und Sprachen +Neu Mexico's_, p. 262. + +[191-2] Humboldt, _Essay on New Spain_, bk. ii. chap. vi, Eng. trans.; +_Ansichten der Natur_, ii. pp. 357, 386. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +THE MYTHS OF THE CREATION, THE DELUGE, THE EPOCHS OF NATURE, AND THE +LAST DAY. + + Cosmogonies usually portray the action of the SPIRIT on the + WATERS.--Those of the Muscogees, Athapascas, Quichs, Mixtecs, + Iroquois, Algonkins, and others.--The Flood-Myth an unconscious + attempt to reconcile a creation in time with the eternity of + matter.--Proof of this from American mythology.--Characteristics of + American Flood-Myths.--The person saved usually the first man.--The + number seven.--Their Ararats.--The rle of birds.--The confusion of + tongues.--The Aztec, Quich, Algonkin, Tupi, and earliest Sanscrit + flood-myths.--The belief in Epochs of Nature a further result of + this attempt at reconciliation.--Its forms among Peruvians, Mayas, + and Aztecs.--The expectation of the End of the World a corollary of + this belief.--Views of various nations. + + +Could the reason rest content with the belief that the universe always +was as it now is, it would save much beating of brains. Such is the +comfortable condition of the Eskimos, the Rootdiggers of California, the +most brutish specimens of humanity everywhere. Vain to inquire their +story of creation, for, like the knife-grinder of anti-Jacobin renown, +they have no story to tell. It never occurred to them that the earth had +a beginning, or underwent any greater changes than those of the +seasons.[193-1] But no sooner does the mind begin to reflect, the +intellect to employ itself on higher themes than the needs of the body, +than the law of causality exerts its power, and the man, out of such +materials as he has at hand, manufactures for himself a Theory of +Things. + +What these materials were has been shown in the last few chapters. A +simple primitive substance, a divinity to mould it--these are the +requirements of every cosmogony. Concerning the first no nation ever +hesitated. All agree that before time began _water_ held all else in +solution, covered and concealed everything. The reasons for this assumed +priority of water have been already touched upon. Did a tribe dwell near +some great sea others can be imagined. The land is limited, peopled, +stable; the ocean fluctuating, waste, boundless. It insatiably swallows +all rains and rivers, quenches sun and moon in its dark chambers, and +raves against its bounds as a beast of prey. Awe and fear are the +sentiments it inspires; in Aryan tongues its synonyms are the _desert_ +and the _night_.[194-1] It produces an impression of immensity, +infinity, formlessness, and barren changeableness, well suited to a +notion of chaos. It is sterile, receiving all things, producing nothing. +Hence the necessity of a creative power to act upon it, as it were to +impregnate its barren germs. Some cosmogonies find this in one, some in +another personification of divinity. Commonest of all is that of the +wind, or its emblem the bird, types of the breath of life. + +Thus the venerable record in Genesis, translated in the authorized +version "and the Spirit of God moved on the face of the waters," may +with equal correctness be rendered "and a mighty wind brooded on the +surface of the waters," presenting the picture of a primeval ocean +fecundated by the wind as a bird.[195-1] The eagle that in the Finnish +epic of Kalewala floated over the waves and hatched the land, the egg +that in Chinese legend swam hither and thither until it grew to a +continent, the giant Ymir, the rustler (as wind in trees), from whose +flesh, says the Edda, our globe was made and set to float like a speck +in the vast sea between Muspel and Niflheim, all are the same tale +repeated by different nations in different ages. But why take +illustrations from the old world when they are so plenty in the new? + +Before the creation, said the Muscogees, a great body of water was alone +visible. Two pigeons flew to and fro over its waves, and at last spied a +blade of grass rising above the surface. Dry land gradually followed, +and the islands and continents took their present shapes.[195-2] Whether +this is an authentic aboriginal myth, is not beyond question. No such +doubt attaches to that of the Athapascas. With singular unanimity, most +of the northwest branches of this stock trace their descent from a +raven, "a mighty bird, whose eyes were fire, whose glances were +lightning, and the clapping of whose wings was thunder. On his descent +to the ocean, the earth instantly rose, and remained on the surface of +the water. This omnipotent bird then called forth all the variety of +animals."[196-1] + +Very similar, but with more of poetic finish, is the legend of the +Quichs:-- + +"This is the first word and the first speech. There were neither men nor +brutes; neither birds, fish, nor crabs, stick nor stone, valley nor +mountain, stubble nor forest, nothing but the sky. The face of the land +was hidden. There was naught but the silent sea and the sky. There was +nothing joined, nor any sound, nor thing that stirred; neither any to do +evil, nor to rumble in the heavens, nor a walker on foot; only the +silent waters, only the pacified ocean, only it in its calm. Nothing was +but stillness, and rest, and darkness, and the night; nothing but the +Maker and Moulder, the Hurler, the Bird-Serpent. In the waters, in a +limpid twilight, covered with green feathers, slept the mothers and the +fathers."[196-2] + +Over this passed Hurakan, the mighty wind, and called out Earth! and +straightway the solid land was there. + +The picture writings of the Mixtecs preserved a similar cosmogony: "In +the year and in the day of clouds, before ever were either years or +days, the world lay in darkness; all things were orderless, and a water +covered the slime and the ooze that the earth then was." By the efforts +of two winds, called, from astrological associations, that of Nine +Serpents and that of Nine Caverns, personified one as a bird and one as +a winged serpent, the waters subsided and the land dried.[197-1] + +In the birds that here play such conspicuous parts, we cannot fail to +recognize the winds and the clouds; but more especially the dark thunder +cloud, soaring in space at the beginning of things, most forcible emblem +of the aerial powers. They are the symbols of that divinity which acted +on the passive and sterile waters, the fitting result being the +production of a universe. Other symbols of the divine could also be +employed, and the meaning remain the same. Or were the fancy too +helpless to suggest any, they could be dispensed with, and purely +natural agencies take their place. Thus the unimaginative Iroquois +narrated that when their primitive female ancestor was kicked from the +sky by her irate spouse, there was as yet no land to receive her, but +that it "suddenly bubbled up under her feet, and waxed bigger, so that +ere long a whole country was perceptible."[197-2] Or that certain +amphibious animals, the beaver, the otter, and the muskrat, seeing her +descent, hastened to dive and bring up sufficient mud to construct an +island for her residence.[197-3] The muskrat is also the simple +machinery in the cosmogony of the Takahlis of the northwest coast, the +Osages and some Algonkin tribes. + +These latter were, indeed, keen enough to perceive that there was really +no _creation_ in such an account. Dry land was wanting, but earth was +there, though hidden by boundless waters. Consequently, they spoke +distinctly of the action of the muskrat in bringing it to the surface as +a formation only. Michabo directed him, and from the mud formed islands +and main land. But when the subject of creation was pressed, they +replied they knew nothing of that, or roundly answered the questioner +that he was talking nonsense.[198-1] Their myth, almost identical with +that of their neighbors, was recognized by them to be not of a +construction, but a reconstruction only; a very judicious distinction, +but one which has a most important corollary. A reconstruction supposes +a previous existence. This they felt, and had something to say about an +earth anterior to this of ours, but one without light or human +inhabitants. A lake burst its bounds and submerged it wholly. This is +obviously nothing but a mere and meagre fiction, invented to explain the +origin of the primeval ocean. But mark it well, for this is the germ of +those marvellous myths of the Epochs of Nature, the catastrophes of the +universe, the deluges of water and of fire, which have laid such strong +hold on the human fancy in every land and in every age. + +The purpose for which this addition was made to the simpler legend is +clear enough. It was to avoid the dilemma of a creation from nothing on +the one hand, and the eternity of matter on the other. _Ex nihilo nihil_ +is an apothegm indorsed alike by the profoundest metaphysicians and the +rudest savages. But the other horn was no easier. To escape accepting +the theory that the world had ever been as it now is, was the only +object of a legend of its formation. As either lemma conflicts with +fundamental laws of thought, this escape was eagerly adopted, and in the +suggestive words of Prescott, men "sought relief from the oppressive +idea of eternity by breaking it up into distinct cycles or periods of +time."[199-1] Vain but characteristic attempt of the ambitious mind of +man! The Hindoo philosopher reconciles to his mind the suspension of the +world in space by imagining it supported by an elephant, the elephant by +a tortoise, and the tortoise by a serpent. We laugh at the Hindoo, and +fancy we diminish the difficulty by explaining that it revolves around +the sun, and the sun around some far-off star. Just so the general mind +of humanity finds some satisfaction in supposing a world or a series of +worlds anterior to the present, thus escaping the insoluble enigma of +creation by removing it indefinitely in time. + +The support lent to these views by the presence of marine shells on high +lands, or by faint reminiscences of local geologic convulsions, I +estimate very low. Savages are not inductive philosophers, and by +nothing short of a miracle could they preserve the remembrance of even +the most terrible catastrophe beyond a few generations. Nor has any such +occurred within the ken of history of sufficient magnitude to make a +very permanent or wide-spread impression. Not physics, but metaphysics, +is the exciting cause of these beliefs in periodical convulsions of the +globe. The idea of matter cannot be separated from that of time, and +time and eternity are contradictory terms. Common words show this +connection. World, for example, in the old language _waereld_, from the +root to wear, by derivation means an age or cycle (Grimm). + +In effect a myth of creation is nowhere found among primitive nations. +It seems repugnant to their reason. Dry land and animate life had a +beginning, but not matter. A series of constructions and demolitions may +conveniently be supposed for these. The analogy of nature, as seen in +the vernal flowers springing up after the desolation of winter, of the +sapling sprouting from the fallen trunk, of life everywhere rising from +death, suggests such a view. Hence arose the belief in Epochs of Nature, +elaborated by ancient philosophers into the Cycles of the Stoics, the +Great Days of Brahm, long periods of time rounded off by sweeping +destructions, the Cataclysms and Ekpyrauses of the universe. Some +thought in these all beings perished; others that a few survived.[200-1] +This latter and more common view is the origin of the myth of the +deluge. How familiar such speculations were to the aborigines of America +there is abundant evidence to show. + +The early Algonkin legends do not speak of an antediluvian race, nor of +any family who escaped the waters. Michabo, the spirit of the dawn, +their supreme deity, alone existed, and by his power formed and peopled +it. Nor did their neighbors, the Dakotas, though firm in the belief that +the globe had once been destroyed by the waters, suppose that any had +escaped.[201-1] The same view was entertained by the Nicaraguans[201-2] +and the Botocudos of Brazil. The latter attributed its destruction to +the moon falling to the earth from time to time.[201-3] + +Much the most general opinion, however, was that some few escaped the +desolating element by one of those means most familiar to the narrator, +by ascending some mountain, on a raft or canoe, in a cave, or even by +climbing a tree. No doubt some of these legends have been modified by +Christian teachings; but many of them are so connected with local +peculiarities and ancient religious ceremonies, that no unbiased student +can assign them wholly to that source, as Professor Vater has done, even +if the authorities for many of them were less trustworthy than they are. +There are no more common heirlooms in the traditional lore of the red +race. Nearly every old author quotes one or more of them. They present +great uniformity of outline, and rather than engage in repetitions of +little interest, they can be more profitably studied in the aggregate +than in detail. + +By far the greater number represent the last destruction of the world to +have been by water. A few, however, the Takahlis of the North Pacific +coast, the Yurucares of the Bolivian Cordilleras, and the Mbocobi of +Paraguay, attribute it to a general conflagration which swept over the +earth, consuming every living thing except a few who took refuge in a +deep cave.[202-1] The more common opinion of a submersion gave rise to +those traditions of a universal flood so frequently recorded by +travellers, and supposed by many to be reminiscences of that of Noah. + +There are, indeed, some points of striking similarity between the deluge +myths of Asia and America. It has been called a peculiarity of the +latter that in them the person saved is always the first man. This, +though not without exception, is certainly the general rule. But these +first men were usually the highest deities known to their nations, the +only creators of the world, and the guardians of the race.[202-2] + +Moreover, in the oldest Sanscrit legend of the flood in the Zatapatha +Brahmana, Manu is also the first man, and by his own efforts creates +offspring.[202-3] + +A later Sanscrit work assigns to Manu the seven Richis or shining ones +as companions. Seven was also the number of persons in the ark of Noah. +Curiously enough one Mexican and one early Peruvian myth give out +exactly seven individuals as saved in their floods.[203-1] This +coincidence arises from the mystic powers attached to the number seven, +derived from its frequent occurrence in astrology. Proof of this appears +by comparing the later and the older versions of this myth, either in +the book of Genesis, where the latter is distinguished by the use of the +word Elohim for Jehovah,[203-2] or the Sanscrit account in the Zatapatha +Brahmana with those in the later Puranas.[203-3] In both instances the +number seven hardly or at all occurs in the oldest version, while it is +constantly repeated in those of later dates. + +As the mountain or rather mountain chain of Ararat was regarded with +veneration wherever the Semitic accounts were known, so in America +heights were pointed out with becoming reverence as those on which the +few survivors of the dreadful scenes of the deluge were preserved. On +the Red River near the village of the Caddoes was one of these, a small +natural eminence, "to which all the Indian tribes for a great distance +around pay devout homage," according to Dr. Sibley.[203-4] The Cerro +Naztarny on the Rio Grande, the peak of Old Zui in New Mexico, that of +Colhuacan on the Pacific Coast, Mount Apoala in Upper Mixteca, and +Mount Neba in the province of Guaymi, are some of many elevations +asserted by the neighboring nations to have been places of refuge for +their ancestors when the fountains of the great deep broke forth. + +One of the Mexican traditions related by Torquemada identified this with +the mountain of Tlaloc in the terrestrial paradise, and added that one +of the seven demigods who escaped commenced the pyramid of Cholula in +its memory. He intended that its summit should reach the clouds, but the +gods, angry at his presumption, drove away the builders with lightning. +This has a suspicious resemblance to Bible stories. Equally fabulous was +the retreat of the Araucanians. It was a three-peaked mountain which had +the property of floating on water, called Theg-Theg, the Thunderer. This +they believed would preserve them in the next as it did in the last +cataclysm, and as its only inconvenience was that it approached too near +the sun, they always kept on hand wooden bowls to use as +parasols.[204-1] + +The intimate connection that once existed between the myths of the +deluge and those of the creation is illustrated by the part assigned to +birds in so many of them. They fly to and fro over the waves ere any +land appears, though they lose in great measure the significance of +bringing it forth, attached to them in the cosmogonies as emblems of the +divine spirit. The dove in the Hebrew account appears in that of the +Algonkins as a raven, which Michabo sent out to search for land before +the muskrat brought it to him from the bottom. A raven also in the +Athapascan myth saved their ancestors from the general flood, and in +this instance it is distinctly identified with the mighty thunder bird, +who at the beginning ordered the earth from the depths. Prometheus-like, +it brought fire from heaven, and saved them from a second death by +cold.[205-1] Precisely the same beneficent actions were attributed by +the Natchez to the small red cardinal bird,[205-2] and by the Mandans +and Cherokees an active participation in the event was assigned to wild +pigeons. The Navajos and Aztecs thought that instead of being drowned by +the waters the human race were transformed into birds and thus escaped. +In all these and similar legends, the bird is a relic of the cosmogonal +myth which explained the origin of the world from the action of the +winds, under the image of the bird, on the primeval ocean. + +The Mexican Codex Vaticanus No. 3738 represents after the picture of the +deluge a bird perched on the summit of a tree, and at its foot men in +the act of marching. This has been interpreted to mean that after the +deluge men were dumb until a dove distributed to them the gift of +speech. The New Mexican tribes related that all except the leader of +those who escaped to the mountains lost the power of utterance by +terror,[205-3] and the Quichs that the antediluvian race were "puppets, +men of wood, without intelligence or language." These stories, so +closely resembling that of the confusion of tongues at the tower of +Babel or Borsippa, are of doubtful authenticity. The first is an +entirely erroneous interpretation, as has been shown by Seor Ramirez, +director of the Museum of Antiquities at Mexico. The name of the bird in +the Aztec tongue was identical with the word _departure_, and this is +its signification in the painting.[206-1] + +Stories of giants in the days of old, figures of mighty proportions +looming up through the mist of ages, are common property to every +nation. The Mexicans and Peruvians had them as well as others, but their +connection with the legends of the flood and the creation is incidental +and secondary. Were the case otherwise, it would offer no additional +point of similarity to the Hebrew myth, for the word rendered _giants_ +in the phrase, "and there were giants in those days," has no such +meaning in the original. It is a blunder which crept into the +Septuagint, and has been cherished ever since, along with so many others +in the received text. + +A few specimens will serve as examples of all these American flood +myths. The Abb Brasseur has translated one from the Codex Chimalpopoca, +a work in the Nahuatl language of Ancient Mexico, written about half a +century after the conquest. It is as follows:-- + +"And this year was that of Ce-calli, and on the first day all was lost. +The mountain itself was submerged in the water, and the water remained +tranquil for fifty-two springs. + +"Now towards the close of the year, Titlahuan had forewarned the man +named Nata and his wife named Nena, saying, 'Make no more pulque, but +straightway hollow out a large cypress, and enter it when in the month +Tozoztli the water shall approach the sky.' They entered it, and when +Titlacahuan had closed the door he said, 'Thou shalt eat but a single +ear of maize, and thy wife but one also.' + +"As soon as they had finished [eating], they went forth and the water +was tranquil; for the log did not move any more; and opening it they saw +many fish. + +"Then they built a fire, rubbing together pieces of wood, and they +roasted the fish. The gods Citlallinicue and Citlallatonac looking below +exclaimed, 'Divine Lord, what means that fire below? Why do they thus +smoke the heavens?' + +"Straightway descended Titlacahuan Tezcatlipoca, and commenced to scold, +saying, 'What is this fire doing here?' And seizing the fishes he +moulded their hinder parts and changed their heads, and they were at +once transformed into dogs."[207-1] + +That found in the oft quoted legends of the Quichs is to this effect:-- + +"Then by the will of the Heart of Heaven the waters were swollen and a +great flood came upon the mannikins of wood. For they did not think nor +speak of the Creator who had created them, and who had caused their +birth. They were drowned, and a thick resin fell from heaven. + +"The bird Xecotcovach tore out their eyes; the bird Camulatz cut off +their heads; the bird Cotzbalam devoured their flesh; the bird +Tecumbalam broke their bones and sinews, and ground them into +powder."[207-2] + +"Because they had not thought of their Mother and Father, the Heart of +Heaven, whose name is Hurakan, therefore the face of the earth grew dark +and a pouring rain commenced, raining by day, raining by night. + +"Then all sorts of beings, little and great, gathered together to abuse +the men to their faces; and all spoke, their mill-stones, their plates, +their cups, their dogs, their hens. + +"Said the dogs and hens, 'Very badly have you treated us, and you have +bitten us. Now we bite you in turn.' + +"Said the mill-stones, 'Very much were we tormented by you, and daily, +daily, night and day, it was _squeak, squeak, screech, screech_, for +your sake. Now yourselves shall feel our strength, and we will grind +your flesh, and make meal of your bodies,' said the mill-stones.[208-1] + +"And this is what the dogs said, 'Why did you not give us our food? No +sooner did we come near than you drove us away, and the stick was always +within reach when you were eating, because, forsooth, we were not able +to talk. Now we will use our teeth and eat you,' said the dogs, tearing +their faces. + +"And the cups and dishes said, 'Pain and misery you gave us, smoking our +tops and sides, cooking us over the fire, burning and hurting us as if +we had no feeling.[209-1] Now it is your turn, and you shall burn,' said +the cups insultingly. + +"Then ran the men hither and thither in despair. They climbed to the +roofs of the houses, but the houses crumbled under their feet; they +tried to mount to the tops of the trees, but the trees hurled them far +from them; they sought refuge in the caverns, but the caverns shut +before them. + +"Thus was accomplished the ruin of this race, destined to be destroyed +and overthrown; thus were they given over to destruction and contempt. +And it is said that their posterity are those little monkeys who live in +the woods."[209-2] + +The Algonkin tradition has often been referred to. Many versions of it +are extant, the oldest and most authentic of which is that translated +from the Montagnais dialect by Father le Jeune, in 1634. + +"One day as Messou was hunting, the wolves which he used as dogs entered +a great lake and were detained there. + +"Messou looking for them everywhere, a bird said to him, 'I see them in +the middle of this lake.' + +"He entered the lake to rescue them, but the lake overflowing its banks +covered the land and destroyed the world. + +"Messou, very much astonished at this, sent out the raven to find a +piece of earth wherewith to rebuild the land, but the bird could find +none; then he ordered the otter to dive for some, but the animal +returned empty; at last he sent down the muskrat, who came back with +ever so small a piece, which, however, was enough for Messou to form the +land on which we are. + +"The trees having lost their branches, he shot arrows at their naked +trunks which became their limbs, revenged himself on those who had +detained his wolves, and having married the muskrat, by it peopled the +world." + +Finally may be given the meagre legend of the Tupis of Brazil, as heard +by Hans Staden, a prisoner among them about 1550, and Coreal, a later +voyager. Their ancient songs relate that a long time ago a certain very +powerful Mair, that is to say, a stranger, who bitterly hated their +ancestors, compassed their destruction by a violent inundation. Only a +very few succeeded in escaping--some by climbing trees, others in caves. +When the waters subsided the remnant came together, and by gradual +increase populated the world.[210-1] + +Or, it is given by an equally ancient authority as follows:-- + +"Monan, without beginning or end, author of all that is, seeing the +ingratitude of men, and their contempt for him who had made them thus +joyous, withdrew from them, and sent upon them _tata_, the divine fire, +which burned all that was on the surface of the earth. He swept about +the fire in such a way that in places he raised mountains, and in others +dug valleys. Of all men one alone, Irin Monge, was saved, whom Monan +carried into the heaven. He, seeing all things destroyed, spoke thus to +Monan: 'Wilt thou also destroy the heavens and their garniture? Alas! +henceforth where will be our home? Why should I live, since there is +none other of my kind?' Then Monan was so filled with pity that he +poured a deluging rain on the earth, which quenched the fire, and, +flowing from all sides, formed the ocean, which we call _parana_, the +bitter waters."[211-1] + +In these narratives I have not attempted to soften the asperities nor +conceal the childishness which run through them. But there is no +occasion to be astonished at these peculiarities, nor to found upon them +any disadvantageous opinion of the mental powers of their authors and +believers. We can go back to the cradle of our own race in Central +Asia, and find traditions every whit as infantile. I cannot refrain from +adding the earliest Aryan myth of the same great occurrence, as it is +handed down to us in ancient Sanscrit literature. It will be seen that +it is little, if at all, superior to those just rehearsed. + +"Early in the morning they brought to Manu water to wash himself; when +he had well washed, a fish came into his hands. + +"It said to him these, words: 'Take care of me; I will save thee.' 'What +wilt thou save me from?' 'A deluge will sweep away all creatures; I wish +thee to escape.' 'But how shall I take care of thee?' + +"The fish said: 'While we are small there is more than one danger of +death, for one fish swallows another. Thou must, in the first place, put +me in a vase. Then, when I shall exceed it in size, thou must dig a deep +ditch, and place me in it. When I grow too large for it, throw me in the +sea, for I shall then be beyond the danger of death.' + +"Soon it became a great fish; it grew, in fact, astonishingly. Then it +said to Manu, 'In such a year the Deluge will come. Thou must build a +vessel, and then pay me homage. When the waters of the Deluge mount up, +enter the vessel. I will save thee.' + +"When Manu had thus taken care of the fish, he put it in the sea. The +same year that the fish had said, in this very year, having built the +vessel, he paid the fish homage. Then the Deluge mounting, he entered +the vessel. The fish swam near him. To its horn Manu fastened the ship's +rope, with which the fish passed the Mountain of the North. + +"The fish said, 'See! I have saved thee. Fasten the vessel to a tree, so +that the water does not float thee onward when thou art on the mountain +top. As the water decreases, thou wilt descend little by little.' Thus +Manu descended gradually. Therefore to the mountain of the north remains +the name, Descent of Manu. The Deluge had destroyed all creatures; Manu +survived alone."[213-1] + +Hitherto I have spoken only of the last convulsion which swept over the +face of the globe, and of but one cycle which preceded the present. Most +of the more savage tribes contented themselves with this, but it is +instructive to observe how, as they advanced in culture, and the mind +dwelt more intently on the great problems of Life and Time, they were +impelled to remove further and further the dim and mysterious Beginning. +The Peruvians imagined that _two_ destructions had taken place, the +first by a famine, the second by a flood--according to some a few only +escaping--but, after the more widely accepted opinion, accompanied by +the absolute extirpation of the race. Three eggs, which dropped from +heaven, hatched out the present race; one of gold, from which came the +priests; one of silver, which produced the warriors; and the last of +copper, source of the common people.[213-2] + +The Mayas of Yucatan increased the previous worlds by one, making the +present the _fourth_. Two cycles had terminated by devastating plagues. +They were called "the sudden deaths," for it was said so swift and +mortal was the pest, that the buzzards and other foul birds dwelt in the +houses of the cities, and ate the bodies of their former owners. The +third closed either by a hurricane, which blew from all four of the +cardinal points at once, or else, as others said, by an inundation, +which swept across the world, swallowing all things in its mountainous +surges.[214-1] + +As might be expected, the vigorous intellects of the Aztecs impressed +upon this myth a fixity of outline nowhere else met with on the +continent, and wove it intimately into their astrological reveries and +religious theories. Unaware of its prevalence under more rudimentary +forms throughout the continent, Alexander von Humboldt observed that, +"of all the traits of analogy which can be pointed out between the +monuments, manners, and traditions of Asia and America, the most +striking is that offered by the Mexican mythology in the cosmogonical +fiction of the periodical destructions and regenerations of the +universe."[215-1] Yet it is but the same fiction that existed elsewhere, +somewhat more definitely outlined. There exists great discrepancy +between the different authorities, both as to the number of Aztec ages +or Suns, as they were called, their durations, their terminations, and +their names. The preponderance of testimony is in favor of _four_ +antecedent cycles, the present being the _fifth_. The interval from the +first creation to the commencement of the present epoch, owing to the +equivocal meaning of the numeral signs expressing it in the picture +writings, may have been either 15228, 2316, or 1404 solar years. Why +these numbers should have been chosen, no one has guessed. It has been +looked for in combinations of numbers connected with the calendar, but +so far in vain. + +While most authorities agree as to the character of the destructions +which terminated the suns, they vary much as to their sequence. Water, +winds, fire, and hunger, are the agencies, and in one Codex (Vaticanus) +occur in this order. Gama gives the sequence, hunger, winds, fire, and +water; Humboldt hunger, fire, winds, and water; Boturini water, hunger, +winds, fire. As the cycle ending by a famine, is called the Age of +Earth, Ternaux-Compans, the distinguished French _Amricaniste_, has +imagined that the four Suns correspond mystically to the domination +exercised in turn over the world by its four constituent elements. But +proof is wanting that Aztec philosophers knew the theory on which this +explanation reposes. + +Baron Humboldt suggested that the suns were "fictions of mythological +astronomy, modified either by obscure reminiscences of some great +revolution suffered by our planet, or by physical hypotheses, suggested +by the sight of marine petrifactions and fossil remains,"[216-1] while +the Abb Brasseur, in his late works on ancient Mexico, interprets them +as exaggerated references to historical events. As no solution can be +accepted not equally applicable to the same myth as it appears in +Yucatan, Peru, and the hunting tribes, and to the exactly parallel +teachings of the Edda,[216-2] the Stoics, the Celts, and the Brahmans, +both of these must be rejected. And although the Hindoo legend is so +close to the Aztec, that it, too, defines four ages, each terminating by +a general catastrophe, and each catastrophe exactly the same in +both,[216-3] yet this is not at all indicative of a derivation from one +original, but simply an illustration how the human mind, under the +stimulus of the same intellectual cravings, produces like results. What +these cravings are has already been shown. + +The reason for adopting four ages, thus making the present the fifth, +probably arose from the sacredness of that number in general; but +directly, because this was the number of secular days in the Mexican +week. A parallel is offered by the Hebrew narrative. In it six epochs or +days precede the seventh or present cycle, in which the creative power +rests. This latter corresponded to the Jewish Sabbath, the day of +repose; and in the Mexican calendar each fifth day was also a day of +repose, employed in marketing and pleasure. + +Doubtless the theory of the Ages of the world was long in vogue among +the Aztecs before it received the definite form in which we now have it; +and as this was acquired long after the calendar was fixed, it is every +way probable that the latter was used as a guide to the former. +Echevarria, a good authority on such matters, says the number of the +Suns was agreed upon at a congress of astrologists, within the memory of +tradition.[217-1] Now in the calendar, these signs occur in the order, +earth, air, water, fire, corresponding to the days distinguished by the +symbols house, rabbit, reed, and flint. This sequence, commencing with +Tochtli (rabbit, air), is that given as that of the Suns in the Codex +Chimalpopoca, translated by Brasseur, though it seems a taint of +European teaching, when it is added that on the _seventh_ day of the +creation man was formed.[217-2] + +Neither Jews nor Aztecs, nor indeed any American nation, appear to have +supposed, with some of the old philosophers, that the present was an +exact repetition of previous cycles,[218-1] but rather that each was an +improvement on the preceding, a step in endless progress. Nor did either +connect these beliefs with astronomical reveries of a great year, +defined by the return of the heavenly bodies to one relative position in +the heavens. The latter seems characteristic of the realism of Europe, +the former of the idealism of the Orient; both inconsistent with the +meagre astronomy and more scanty metaphysics of the red race. + +The expectation of the end of the world is a natural complement to the +belief in periodical destructions of our globe. As at certain times past +the equipoise of nature was lost, and the elements breaking the chain of +laws that bound them ran riot over the universe, involving all life in +one mad havoc and desolation, so in the future we have to expect that +day of doom, when the ocean tides shall obey no shore, but overwhelm the +continents with their mountainous billows, or the fire, now chafing in +volcanic craters and smoking springs, will leap forth on the forests and +grassy meadows, wrapping all things in a winding sheet of flame, and +melting the very elements with fervid heat. Then, in the language of the +Norse prophetess, "shall the sun grow dark, the land sink in the waters, +the bright stars be quenched, and high flames climb heaven +itself."[218-2] These fearful foreboding shave[TN-9] cast their dark +shadow on every literature. The seeress of the north does but paint in +wilder colors the terrible pictures of Seneca,[219-1] and the sibyl of +the capitol only re-echoes the inspired predictions of Malachi. Well has +the Christian poet said:-- + + Dies ir, dies illa, + Solvet sclum in favill, + _Testis David cum Sibyl_. + +Savage races, isolated in the impenetrable forests of another continent, +could not escape this fearful looking for of destruction to come. It +oppressed their souls like a weight of lead. On the last night of each +cycle of fifty-two years, the Aztecs extinguished every fire, and +proceeded, in solemn procession, to some sacred spot. Then the priests, +with awe and trembling, sought to kindle a new fire by friction. +Momentous was the endeavor, for did it fail, their fathers had taught +them on the morrow no sun would rise, and darkness, death, and the +waters would descend forever on this beautiful world. + +The same terror inspired the Peruvians at every eclipse, for some day, +taught the Amautas, the shadow will veil the sun forever, and land, +moon, and stars will be wrapt in the vortex of a devouring conflagration +to know no regeneration; or a drought will wither every herb of the +field, suck up the waters, and leave the race to perish to the last +creature; or the moon will fall from her place in the heavens and +involve all things in her own ruin, a figure of speech meaning that the +waters would submerge the land.[220-1] In that dreadful day, thought +the Algonkins, when in anger Michabo will send a mortal pestilence to +destroy the nations, or, stamping his foot on the ground, flames will +burst forth to consume the habitable land, only a pair, or only, at +most, those who have maintained inviolate the institutions he ordained, +will he protect and preserve to inhabit the new world he will then +fabricate. Therefore they do not speak of this catastrophe as the end of +the world, but use one of those nice grammatical distinctions so +frequent in American aboriginal languages and which can only be +imitated, not interpreted, in ours, signifying "when it will be near its +end," "when it will no longer be available for man."[220-2] + +An ancient prophecy handed down from their ancestors warns the +Winnebagoes that their nation shall be annihilated at the close of the +thirteenth generation. Ten have already passed, and that now living has +appointed ceremonies to propitiate the powers of heaven, and mitigate +its stern decree.[220-3] Well may they be about it, for there is a +gloomy probability that the warning came from no false prophet. Few +tribes were destitute of such presentiments. The Chikasaw, the Mandans +of the Missouri, the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico, the Muyscas of +Bogota, the Botocudos of Brazil, the Araucanians of Chili, have been +asserted on testimony that leaves no room for scepticism, to have +entertained such forebodings from immemorial time. Enough for the +purpose if the list is closed with the prediction of a Maya priest, +cherished by the inhabitants of Yucatan long before the Spaniard +desolated their stately cities. It is one of those preserved by Father +Lizana, cur of Itzamal, and of which he gives the original. Other +witnesses inform us that this nation "had a tradition that the world +would end,"[221-1] and probably, like the Greeks and Aztecs, they +supposed the gods would perish with it. + + "At the close of the ages, it hath been decreed, + Shall perish and vanish each weak god of men, + And the world shall be purged with a ravening fire. + Happy the man in that terrible day, + Who bewails with contrition the sins of his life,[221-2] + And meets without flinching the fiery ordeal." + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[193-1] So far as this applies to the Eskimos, it might be questioned on +the authority of Paul Egede, whose valuable _Nachrichten von Grnland_ +contains several flood-myths, &c. But these Eskimos had had for +generations intercourse with European missionaries and sailors, and as +the other tribes of their stock were singularly devoid of corresponding +traditions, it is likely that in Greenland they were of foreign origin. + +[194-1] Pictet, _Origines Indo-Europennes_ in Michelet, _La Mer_. The +latter has many eloquent and striking remarks on the impressions left by +the great ocean. + +[195-1] "Spiritus Dei incubuit superficei aquarum" is the translation of +one writer. The word for spirit in Hebrew, as in Latin, originally meant +wind, as I have before remarked. + +[195-2] Schoolcraft, _Ind. Tribes_, i. p. 266. + +[196-1] Mackenzie, _Hist. of the Fur Trade_, p. 83; Richardson, _Arctic +Expedition_, p. 239. + +[196-2] Ximenes, _Or. de los Ind. de Guat._, pp. 5-7. I translate freely, +following Ximenes rather than Brasseur. + +[197-1] Garcia, _Or. de los Indios_, lib. v. cap. 4. + +[197-2] _Doc. Hist. of New York_, iv. p. 130 (circ. 1650). + +[197-3] _Rel. de la Nouv. France_, An 1636, p. 101. + +[198-1] _Rel. de la Nouv. France_, An 1634, p. 13. + +[199-1] _Conquest of Mexico_, i. p. 61. + +[200-1] For instance, Epictetus favors the opinion that at the solstices +of the great year not only all human beings, but even the gods, are +annihilated; and speculates whether at such times Jove feels lonely +(_Discourses_, bk. iii. chap. 13). Macrobius, so far from coinciding with +him, explains the great antiquity of Egyptian civilization by the +hypothesis that that country is so happily situated between the pole and +equator, as to escape both the deluge and conflagration of the great +cycle (_Somnium Scipionis_, lib. ii. cap. 10). + +[201-1] Schoolcraft, _Ind. Tribes_, iii. p. 263, iv. p. 230. + +[201-2] Oviedo, _Hist. du Nicaragua_, pp. 22, 27. + +[201-3] Mller, _Amer. Urrelig._, p. 254, from Max and Denis. + +[202-1] Morse, _Rep. on the Ind. Tribes_, App. p. 346; D'Orbigny, _Frag. +d'un Voyage dans l'Amr. Mrid._, p. 512. + +[202-2] When, as in the case of one of the Mexican Noahs, Coxcox, this +does not seem to hold good, it is probably owing to a loss of the real +form of the myth. Coxcox is also known by the name of Cipactli, Fish-god, +and Huehue tonaca cipactli, Old Fish-god of Our Flesh. + +[202-3] My knowledge of the Sanscrit form of the flood-myth is drawn +principally from the dissertation of Professor Felix Nve, entitled _La +Tradition Indienne du Deluge dans sa Forme la plus ancienne_, Paris, +1851. There is in the oldest versions no distinct reference to an +antediluvian race, and in India Manu is by common consent the Adam as +well as the Noah of their legends. + +[203-1] Prescott, _Conquest of Peru_, i. p. 88; _Codex Vaticanus_, No. +3776, in Kingsborough. + +[203-2] And also various peculiarities of style and language lost in +translation. The two accounts of the Deluge are given side by side in Dr. +Smith's _Dictionary of the Bible_ under the word Pentateuch. + +[203-3] See the dissertation of Prof. Nve referred to above. + +[203-4] _American State Papers_, Indian Affairs, i. p. 729. Date of +legend, 1801. + +[204-1] Molina, _Hist. of Chili_, ii. p. 82. + +[205-1] Richardson, _Arctic Expedition_, p. 239. + +[205-2] Dumont, _Mems. Hist. sur la Louisiane_, i. p. 163. + +[205-3] Schoolcraft, _Ind. Tribes_, v. p. 686. + +[206-1] Desjardins, _Le Prou avant la Conq. Espagn._, p. 27. + +[207-1] Cod. Chimalpopoca, in Brasseur, _Hist. du Mexique_, Pices +Justificatives. + +[207-2] These four birds, whose names have lost their signification, +represent doubtless the four winds, or the four rivers, which, as in so +many legends, are the active agents in overwhelming the world in its +great crises. + +[208-1] The word rendered mill-stone, in the original means those large +hollowed stones on which the women were accustomed to bruise the maize. +The imitative sounds for which I have substituted others in English, are +in Quich, _holi, holi, huqui, huqui_. + +[209-1] Brasseur translates "quoique nous ne sentissions rien," but +Ximenes, "nos quemasteis, y sentimos el dolor." As far as I can make out +the original, it is the negative conditional as I have given it in the +text. + +[209-2] _Le Livre Sacr_, p. 27; Ximenes, _Or. de los Indios_, p. 13. + +[210-1] The American nations among whom a distinct and well-authenticated +myth of the deluge was found are as follows: Athapascas, Algonkins, +Iroquois, Cherokees, Chikasaws, Caddos, Natchez, Dakotas, Apaches, +Navajos, Mandans, Pueblo Indians, Aztecs, Mixtecs, Zapotecs, Tlascalans, +Mechoacans, Toltecs, Nahuas, Mayas, Quiches, Haitians, natives of Darien +and Popoyan, Muyscas, Quichuas, Tuppinambas, Achaguas, Araucanians, and +doubtless others. The article by M. de Charency in the _Revue Amricaine, +Le Deluge, d'aprs les Traditions Indiennes de l'Amrique du Nord_, +contains some valuable extracts, but is marred by a lack of criticism of +sources, and makes no attempt at analysis, nor offers for their existence +a rational explanation. + +[211-1] _Une Fte Brsilienne clbr Rouen en 1550, par M. Ferdinand +Denis_, p. 82 (quoted in the _Revue Amricaine_, ii. p. 317). The native +words in this account guarantee its authenticity. In the Tupi language, +_tata_ means fire; _parana_, ocean; Monan, perhaps from _monne_, to +mingle, to temper, as the potter the clay (_Dias, Diccionario da Lingua +Tupy_: Lipsia, 1858). Irin monge may be an old form from _mongat-iron_, +to set in order, to restore, to improve (_Martius, Beitrge zur +Ethnographie und Sprachenkunde Amerika's_, ii. p. 70). + +[213-1] Professor Nve, _ubi supra_, from the Zatapatha Brahmana. + +[213-2] Avendano, _Sermones_, Lima, 1648, in Rivero and Tschudi, _Peruv. +Antiqs._, p. 114. In the year 1600, Oate found on the coast of +California a tribe whose idol held in one hand a shell containing three +eggs, in the other an ear of maize, while before it was placed a cup of +water. Vizcaino, who visited the same people a few years afterwards, +mentions that they kept in their temples tame ravens, and looked upon +them as sacred birds (Torquemada, _Mon. Ind._, lib. v. cap. 40 in Waitz). +Thus, in all parts of the continent do we find the bird, as a symbol of +the clouds, associated with the rains and the harvests. + +[214-1] The deluge was called _hun yecil_, which, according to Cogolludo, +means _the inundation of the trees_, for all the forests were swept away +(_Hist. de Yucathan_, lib. iv. cap. 5). Bishop Landa adds, to +substantiate the legend, that all the woods of the peninsula appear as if +they had been planted at one time, and that to look at them one would say +they had been trimmed with scissors (_Rel. de las Cosas de Yucatan_, 58, +60). + +[215-1] _Vues des Cordillres_, p. 202. + +[216-1] Ubi sup., p. 207. + +[216-2] The Scandinavians believed the universe had been destroyed nine +times:-- + + Ni Verdener yeg husker, + Og ni Himle, + +says the Voluspa (i. 2, in Klee, _Le Deluge_, p. 220). I observe some +English writers have supposed from these lines that the Northmen believed +in the existence of nine abodes for the blessed. Such is not the sense of +the original. + +[216-3] At least this is the doctrine of one of the Shastas. The race, it +teaches, has been destroyed four times; first by water, secondly by +winds, thirdly the earth swallowed them, and lastly fire consumed them +(Sepp., _Heidenthum und Christenthum_, i. p. 191). + +[217-1] Echevarria y Veitia, _Hist. de la Nueva Espaa_, lib. i. cap. 4, +in Waitz. + +[217-2] Brasseur, _Hist. du Mexique_, iii. p. 495. + +[218-1] The contrary has indeed been inferred from such expressions of +the writer of the book of Ecclesiastes as, "that which hath been, is now, +and that which is to be, hath already been" (chap. iii. 15), and the +like, but they are susceptible of an application entirely subjective. + +[218-2] Voluspa, xiv. 51, in Klee, _Le Deluge_. + +[219-1] _Natur. Qustiones_, iii. cap. 27. + +[220-1] Velasco, _Hist. du Royaume du Quito_, p. 105; Navarrete, +_Viages_, iii. p. 444. + +[220-2] _Rel. de la Nouv. France_, An 1637, p. 54; Schoolcraft, _Ind. +Tribes_, i. p. 319, iv. p. 420. + +[220-3] Schoolcraft, ibid., iv. p. 240. + +[221-1] Cogolludo, _Hist. de Yucathan_, lib. iv. cap. 7. + +[221-2] The Spanish of Lizana is-- + + "En la ultima edad, segun esta determinado, + Avra fin el culto de dioses vanos; + Y el mundo sera purificado con fuego. + El que esto viere sera llamado dichoso + Si con dolor llorar sus pecados." + +(_Hist. de Nuestra Seora de Itzamal_, in Brasseur, _Hist. du Mexique_, +ii. p. 603). I have attempted to obtain a more literal rendering from the +original Maya, but have not been successful. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +THE ORIGIN OF MAN. + + Usually man is the EARTH-BORN, both in language and + myths.--Illustrations from the legends of the Caribs, Apalachians, + Iroquois, Quichuas, Aztecs, and others.--The underworld.--Man the + product of one of the primal creative powers, the Spirit, or the + Water, in the myths of the Athapascas, Eskimos, Moxos, and + others.--Never literally derived from an inferior species. + + +No man can escape the importunate question, whence am I? The first +replies framed to meet it possess an interest to the thoughtful mind, +beyond that of mere fables. They illustrate the position in creation +claimed by our race, and the early workings of self-consciousness. Often +the oldest terms for man are synopses of these replies, and merit a more +than passing contemplation. + +The seed is hidden in the earth. Warmed by the sun, watered by the rain, +presently it bursts its dark prison-house, unfolds its delicate leaves, +blossoms, and matures its fruit. Its work done, the earth draws it to +itself again, resolves the various structures into their original mould, +and the unending round recommences. + +This is the marvellous process that struck the primitive mind. Out of +the Earth rises life, to it it returns. She it is who guards all germs, +nourishes all beings. The Aztecs painted her as a woman with countless +breasts, the Peruvians called her Mama Allpa, _mother_ Earth. _Homo_, +_Adam_, _chamaigen[=e]s_, what do all these words mean but the +earth-born, the son of the soil, repeated in the poetic language of +Attica in _anthropos_, he who springs up as a flower? + +The word that corresponds to the Latin _homo_ in American languages has +such singular uniformity in so many of them, that we might be tempted to +regard it as a fragment of some ancient and common tongue, their parent +stem. In the Eskimo it is _inuk_, _innuk_, plural _innuit_; in Athapasca +it is _dinni_, _tenn_; in Algonkin, _inini_, _lenni_, _inwi_; in +Iroquois, _onwi_, _eniha_; in the Otomi of Mexico _n-aniehe_; in the +Maya, _inic_, _winic_, _winak_; all in North America, and the number +might be extended. Of these only the last mentioned can plausibly be +traced to a radical (unless the Iroquois _onwi_ is from _onnha_ life, +_onnhe_ to live). This Father Ximenes derives from _win_, meaning to +grow, to gain, to increase,[223-1] in which the analogy to vegetable +life is not far off, an analogy strengthened by the myth of that stock, +which relates that the first of men were formed of the flour of +maize.[223-2] + +In many other instances religious legend carries out this idea. The +mythical ancestor of the Caribs created his offspring by sowing the soil +with stones or with the fruit of the Mauritius palm, which sprouted +forth into men and women,[224-1] while the Yurucares, much of whose +mythology was perhaps borrowed from the Peruvians, clothed this crude +tenet in a somewhat more poetic form, fabling that at the beginning the +first of men were pegged, Ariel-like, in the knotty entrails of an +enormous hole, until the god Tiri--a second Prospero--released them by +cleaving it in twain.[224-2] + +As in oriental legends the origin of man from the earth was veiled under +the story that he was the progeny of some mountain fecundated by the +embrace of Mithras or Jupiter, so the Indians often pointed to some +height or some cavern, as the spot whence the first of men issued, adult +and armed, from the womb of the All-mother Earth. The oldest name of the +Alleghany Mountains is Paemotinck or Pemolnick, an Algonkin word, the +meaning of which is said to be "the origin of the Indians."[224-3] + +The Witchitas, who dwelt on the Red River among the mountains named +after them, have a tradition that their progenitors issued from the +rocks about their homes,[225-1] and many other tribes the Tahkalis, +Navajos, Coyoteras, and the Haitians, for instance, set up this claim to +be autochthones. Most writers have interpreted this simply to mean that +they knew nothing at all about their origin, or that they coined these +fables merely to strengthen the title to the territory they inhabited +when they saw the whites eagerly snatching it away on every pretext. No +doubt there is some truth in this, but if they be carefully sifted, +there is sometimes a deep historical significance in these myths, which +has hitherto escaped the observation of students. An instance presents +itself in our own country. + +All those tribes, the Creeks, Seminoles, Choctaws, Chicasaws, and +Natchez, who, according to tradition, were in remote times banded into +one common confederacy under the headship of the last mentioned, +unanimously located their earliest ancestry near an artificial eminence +in the valley of the Big Black River, in the Natchez country, whence +they pretended to have emerged. Fortunately we have a description, +though a brief one, of this interesting monument from the pen of an +intelligent traveller. It is described as "an elevation of earth about +half a mile square and fifteen or twenty feet high. From its northeast +corner a wall of equal height extends for near half a mile to the high +land." This was the Nunne Chaha or Nunne Hamgeh, the High Hill, or the +Bending Hill, famous in Choctaw stories, and which Captain Gregg found +they have not yet forgotten in their western home. The legend was that +in its centre was a cave, the house of the Master of Breath. Here he +made the first men from the clay around him, and as at that time the +waters covered the earth, he raised the wall to dry them on. When the +soft mud had hardened into elastic flesh and firm bone, he banished the +waters to their channels and beds, and gave the dry land to his +creatures.[226-1] When in 1826 Albert Gallatin obtained from some +Natchez chiefs a vocabulary of their language, they gave to him as their +word for _hill_ precisely the same word that a century and a quarter +before the French had found among them as their highest term for +God;[226-2] reversing the example of the ancient Greeks who came in time +to speak of Olympus, at first the proper name of a peak in Thessaly, as +synonymous with heaven and Jove. + +A parallel to this southern legend occurs among the Six Nations of the +north. They with one consent, if we may credit the account of Cusic, +looked to a mountain near the falls of the Oswego River in the State of +New York, as the locality where their forefathers first saw the light of +day, and that they had some such legend the name Oneida, people of the +Stone, would seem to testify. + +The cave of Pacari Tampu, the Lodgings of the Dawn, was five leagues +distant from Cuzco, surrounded by a sacred grove and inclosed with +temples of great antiquity. From its hallowed recesses the mythical +civilizers of Peru, the first of men, emerged, and in it during the time +of the flood, the remnants of the race escaped the fury of the +waves.[227-1] Viracocha himself is said to have dwelt there, though it +hardly needed this evidence to render it certain that this consecrated +cavern is but a localization of the general myth of the dawn rising from +the deep. It refers us for its prototype to the Aymara allegory of the +morning light flinging its beams like snow-white foam athwart the waves +of Lake Titicaca. + +An ancient legend of the Aztecs derived their nation from a place called +Chicomoztoc, the Seven Caverns, located north of Mexico. Antiquaries +have indulged in all sorts of speculations as to what this means. +Sahagun explains it as a valley so named; Clavigero supposes it to have +been a city; Hamilton Smith, and after him Schoolcraft, construed +caverns to be a figure of speech for the _boats_ in which the early +Americans paddled across from Asia(!); the Abb Brasseur confounds it +with Aztlan, and very many have discovered in it a distinct reference +to the fabulous "seven cities of Cibola" and the Casas Grandes, ruins of +large buildings of unburnt brick in the valley of the River Gila. From +this story arose the supposed sevenfold division of the Nahuas, a +division which never existed except in the imagination of Europeans. +When Torquemada adds that _seven_ hero gods ruled in Chicomoztoc and +were the progenitors of all its inhabitants, when one of them turns out +to be Xelhua, the giant who with six others escaped the flood by +ascending the mountain of Tlaloc in the terrestrial paradise and +afterwards built the pyramid of Cholula, and when we remember that in +one of the flood-myths _seven_ persons were said to have escaped the +waters, the whole narrative acquires a fabulous aspect that shuts it out +from history, and brands it as one of those fictions of the origin of +man from the earth so common to the race. Fictions yet truths; for +caverns and hollow trees were in fact the houses and temples of our +first parents, and from them they went forth to conquer and adorn the +world; and from the inorganic constituents of the soil acted on by +Light, touched by Divine Force, vivified by the Spirit, did in reality +the first of men proceed. + +This cavern, which thus dimly lingered in the memories of nations, +occasionally expanded to a nether world, imagined to underlie this of +ours, and still inhabited by beings of our kind, who have never been +lucky enough to discover its exit. The Mandans and Minnetarees on the +Missouri River supposed this exit was near a certain hill in their +territory, and as it had been, as it were, the womb of the earth, the +same power was attributed to it that in ancient times endowed certain +shrines with such charms; and thither the barren wives of their nation +made frequent pilgrimages when they would become mothers.[229-1] The +Mandans added the somewhat puerile fable that the means of ascent had +been a grapevine, by which many ascended and descended, until one day an +immoderately fat old lady, anxious to get a look at the upper earth, +broke it with her weight, and prevented any further communication. + +Such tales of an under-world are very frequent among the Indians, and +are a very natural outgrowth of the literal belief that the race is +earth-born. + +Man is indeed like the grass that springs up and soon withers away; but +he is also more than this. The quintessence of dust, he is a son of the +gods as well as a son of the soil. He is the direct product of the great +creative power; therefore all the Athapascan tribes west of the Rocky +Mountains--the Kenai, the Kolushes, and the Atnai--claim descent from a +raven--from that same mighty cloud-bird, who in the beginning of things +seized the elements and brought the world from the abyss of the +primitive ocean. Those of the same stock situate more eastwardly, the +Dogribs, the Chepewyans, the Hare Indians, and also the west coast +Eskimos, and the natives of the Aleutian Isles, all believe that they +have sprung from a dog.[229-2] The latter animal, we have already seen, +both in the old and new world was the fixed symbol of the water goddess. +Therefore in these myths, which are found over so many thousand square +leagues, we cannot be in error in perceiving a reflex of their +cosmogonical traditions already discussed, in which from the winds and +the waters, represented here under their emblems of the bird and the +dog, all animate life proceeded. + +Without this symbolic coloring, a tribe to the south of them, a band of +the Minnetarees, had the crude tradition that their first progenitor +emerged from the waters, bearing in his hand an ear of maize,[230-1] +very much as Viracocha and his companions rose from the sacred waves of +Lake Titicaca, or as the Moxos imagined that they were descended from +the lakes and rivers on whose banks their villages were situated. + +These myths, and many others, hint of general conceptions of life and +the world, wide-spread theories of ancient date, such as we are not +accustomed to expect among savage nations, such as may very excusably +excite a doubt as to their native origin, but a doubt infallibly +dispelled by a careful comparison of the best authorities. Is it that +hitherto, in the pride of intellectual culture, we have never done +justice to the thinking faculty of those whom we call barbarians? Or +shall we accept the only other alternative, that these are the +unappreciated heirlooms bequeathed a rude race by a period of higher +civilization, long since extinguished by constant wars and ceaseless +fear? We are not yet ready to answer these questions. With almost +unanimous consent the latter has been accepted as the true solution, but +rather from the preconceived theory of a state of primitive +civilization from which man fell, than from ascertained facts. + +It would, perhaps, be pushing symbolism too far to explain as an emblem +of the primitive waters the coyote, which, according to the Root-Diggers +of California, brought their ancestors into the world; or the wolf, +which the Lenni Lenape pretended released mankind from the dark bowels +of the earth by scratching away the soil. They should rather be +interpreted by the curious custom of the Toukaways, a wild people in +Texas, of predatory and unruly disposition. They celebrate their origin +by a grand annual dance. One of them, naked as he was born, is buried in +the earth. The others, clothed in wolf-skins, walk over him, snuff +around him, howl in lupine style, and finally dig him up with their +nails. The leading wolf then solemnly places a bow and arrow in his +hands, and to his inquiry as to what he must do for a living, paternally +advises him "to do as the wolves do--rob, kill, and murder, rove from +place to place, and never cultivate the soil."[231-1] Most wise and +fatherly counsel! But what is there new under the sun? Three thousand +years ago the Hirpini, or Wolves, an ancient Sabine tribe, were wont to +collect on Mount Soracte, and there go through certain rites in memory +of an oracle which predicted their extinction when they ceased to gain +their living as wolves by violence and plunder. Therefore they dressed +in wolf-skins, ran with barks and howls over burning coals, and gnawed +wolfishly whatever they could seize.[231-2] + +Though hasty writers have often said that the Indian tribes claim +literal descent from different wild beasts, probably in all other +instances, as in these, this will prove, on examination, to be an error +resting on a misapprehension arising from the habit of the natives of +adopting as their totem or clan-mark the figure and name of some animal, +or else, in an ignorance of the animate symbols employed with such +marked preference by the red race to express abstract ideas. In some +cases, doubtless, the natives themselves came, in time, to confound the +symbol with the idea, by that familiar process of personification and +consequent debasement exemplified in the history of every religion; but +I do not believe that a single example could be found where an Indian +tribe had a tradition whose real purport was that man came by natural +process of descent from an ancestor, a brute. + +The reflecting mind will not be offended at the contradictions in these +different myths, for a myth is, in one sense, a theory of natural +phenomena expressed in the form of a narrative. Often several +explanations seem equally satisfactory for the same fact, and the mind +hesitates to choose, and rather accepts them all than rejects any. Then, +again, an expression current as a metaphor by-and-by crystallizes into a +dogma, and becomes the nucleus of a new mythological growth. These are +familiar processes to one versed in such studies, and involve no logical +contradiction, because they are never required to be reconciled. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[223-1] _Vocabulario Quiche_, s. v., ed. Brasseur, Paris, 1862. + +[223-2] The Eskimo _innuk_, man, means also a possessor or owner; the +yelk[TN-10] of an egg; and the pus of an abscess (Egede, _Nachrichten von +Grnland_, p. 106). From it is derived _innuwok_, to live, life. Probably +_innuk_ also means the _semen masculinum_, and in its identification with +pus, may not there be the solution of that strange riddle which in so +many myths of the West Indies and Central America makes the first of men +to be "the purulent one?" (See ante, p. 135.) + +[224-1] Mller, _Amer. Urrelig._, pp. 109, 229. + +[224-2] D'Orbigny, _Frag. d'une Voy. dans l'Amr. Mrid._, p. 512. It is +still a mooted point whence Shakspeare drew the plot of The Tempest. The +coincidence mentioned in the text between some parts of it and South +American mythology does not stand alone. Caliban, the savage and brutish +native of the island, is undoubtedly the word Carib, often spelt +Caribani, and Calibani in older writers; and his "dam's god Setebos" was +the supreme divinity of the Patagonians when first visited by Magellan. +(Pigafetta, _Viaggio intorno al Globo_, Germ. Trans.: Gotha, 1801, p. +247.) + +[224-3] Both Lederer and John Bartram assign it this meaning. Gallatin +gives in the Powhatan dialect the word for mountain as _pomottinke_, +doubtless another form of the same. + +[225-1] Marcy, _Exploration of the Red River_, p. 69. + +[226-1] Compare Romans, _Hist. of Florida_, pp. 58, 71; Adair, _Hist. of +the North Am. Indians_, p. 195; and Gregg, _Commerce of the Prairies_, +ii. p. 235. The description of the mound is by Major Heart, in the +_Trans. of the Am. Philos. Soc._, iii. p. 216. (1st series.) + +[226-2] The French writers give for Great Spirit _coyocopchill_; Gallatin +for hill, _kweya koopsel_. The blending of these two ideas, at first +sight so remote, is easily enough explained when we remember that on "the +hill of heaven" in all religions is placed the throne of the mightiest of +existences. The Natchez word can be analyzed as follows: _sel_, _sil_, or +_chill_, great; _cop_, a termination very frequent in their language, +apparently signifying existence; _kweya_, _coyo_, for _kue ya_, from the +Maya _kue_, god; the great living God. The Tarahumara language of Sonora +offers an almost parallel instance. In it _regui_, is _above_[TN-11], up, +over, _reguiki_, heaven, _reguiguiki_, a hill or mountain (Buschmann, +_Spuren der Aztek. Sprache im nrd. Mexico_, p. 244). In the Quich +dialects _tepeu_ is lord, ruler, and is often applied to the Supreme +Being. With some probability Brasseur derives it from the Aztec _tepetl_, +mountain (_Hist. du Mexique_, i. p. 106). + +[227-1] Balboa, _Hist. du Prou_, p. 4. + +[229-1] Long's _Expedition to the Rocky Mountains_, i. p. 274; Catlin's +_Letters_, i. p. 178. + +[229-2] Richardson, _Arctic Expedition_, pp. 239, 247; Klemm, +_Culturgeschichte der Menschheit_, ii. p. 316. + +[230-1] Long, _Exped. to the Rocky Mountains_, i. p. 326. + +[231-1] Schoolcraft, _Ind. Tribes_, v. p. 683. + +[231-2] Schwarz, _Ursprung der Mythologie_, p. 121. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +THE SOUL AND ITS DESTINY. + + Universality of the belief in a soul and a future state + shown by the aboriginal tongues, by expressed opinions, + and by sepulchral rites.--The future world never a place + of rewards and punishments.--The house of the Sun the + heaven of the red man.--The terrestrial paradise and the + under-world.--upay.--Xibalba.--Mictlan.--Metempsychosis?--Belief + in a resurrection of the dead almost universal. + + +The missionary Charlevoix wrote several excellent works on America +toward the beginning of the last century, and he is often quoted by +later authors; but probably no one of his sayings has been thus honored +more frequently than this: "The belief the best established among our +Americans is that of the immortality of the soul."[233-1] The tremendous +stake that every one of us has on the truth of this dogma makes it quite +a satisfaction to be persuaded that no man is willing to live wholly +without it. Certainly exceptions are very rare, and most of those which +materialistic philosophers have taken such pains to collect, rest on +misunderstandings or superficial observation. + +In the new world I know of only one well authenticated instance where +all notion of a future state appears to have been entirely wanting, and +this in quite a small clan, the Lower Pend d'Oreilles, of Oregon. This +people had no burial ceremonies, no notion of a life hereafter, no word +for soul, spiritual existence, or vital principle. They thought that +when they died, that was the last of them. The Catholic missionaries who +undertook the unpromising task of converting them to Christianity, were +at first obliged to depend upon the imperfect translations of half-breed +interpreters. These "made the idea of soul intelligible to their hearers +by telling them they had a gut which never rotted, and that this was +their living principle!" Yet even they were not destitute of religious +notions. No tribe was more addicted to the observance of charms, omens, +dreams, and guardian spirits, and they believed that illness and bad +luck generally were the effects of the anger of a fabulous old +woman.[234-1] The aborigines of the Californian peninsula were as near +beasts as men ever become. The missionaries likened them to "herds of +swine, who neither worshipped the true and only God, nor adored false +deities." Yet they must have had some vague notion of an +after.world[TN-12], for the writer who paints the darkest picture of +their condition remarks, "I saw them frequently putting shoes on the +feet of the dead, which seems to indicate that they entertain the idea +of a journey after death."[234-2] + +Proof of Charlevoix's opinion may be derived from three independent +sources. The aboriginal languages may be examined for terms +corresponding to the word soul, the opinions of the Indians themselves +may be quoted, and the significance of sepulchral rites as indicative of +a belief in life after death may be determined. + +The most satisfactory is the first of these. _We_ call the soul a ghost +or spirit, and often a shade. In these words, the _breath_ and the +_shadow_ are the sensuous perceptions transferred to represent the +immaterial object of our thought. Why the former was chosen, I have +already explained; and for the latter, that it is man's intangible +image, his constant companion, and is of a nature akin to darkness, +earth, and night, are sufficiently obvious reasons. + +These same tropes recur in American languages in the same connection. +The New England tribes called the soul _chemung_, the shadow, and in +Quich _natub_, in Eskimo _tarnak_, express both these ideas. In Mohawk +_atonritz_, the soul, is from _atonrion_, to breathe, and other examples +to the same purpose have already been given.[235-1] + +Of course no one need demand that a strict immateriality be attached to +these words. Such a colorless negative abstraction never existed for +them, neither does it for us, though we delude ourselves into believing +that it does. The soul was to them the invisible man, material as ever, +but lost to the appreciation of the senses. + +Nor let any one be astonished if its unity was doubted, and several +supposed to reside in one body. This is nothing more than a somewhat +gross form of a doctrine upheld by most creeds and most philosophies. It +seems the readiest solution of certain psychological enigmas, and may, +for aught we know, be an instinct of fact. The Rabbis taught a threefold +division--_nephesh_, the animal, _ruah_, the human, and _neshamah_, the +divine soul, which corresponds to that of Plato into _thumos_, +_epithumia_, and _nous_. And even Saint Paul seems to have recognized +such inherent plurality when he distinguishes between the bodily soul, +the intellectual soul, and the spiritual gift, in his Epistle to the +Romans. No such refinements of course as these are to be expected among +the red men; but it may be looked upon either as the rudiments of these +teachings, or as a gradual debasement of them to gross and material +expression, that an old and wide-spread notion was found among both +Iroquois and Algonkins, that man has two souls, one of a vegetative +character, which gives bodily life, and remains with the corpse after +death, until it is called to enter another body; another of more +ethereal texture, which in life can depart from the body in sleep or +trance, and wander over the world, and at death goes directly to the +land of Spirits.[236-1] + +The Sioux extended it to Plato's number, and are said to have looked +forward to one going to a cold place, another to a warm and comfortable +country, while the third was to watch the body. Certainly a most +impartial distribution of rewards and punishments.[237-1] Some other +Dakota tribes shared their views on this point, but more commonly, +doubtless owing to the sacredness of the number, imagined _four_ souls, +with separate destinies, one to wander about the world, one to watch the +body, the third to hover around the village, and the highest to go to +the spirit land.[237-2] Even this number is multiplied by certain Oregon +tribes, who imagine one in every member; and by the Caribs of +Martinique, who, wherever they could detect a pulsation, located a +spirit, all subordinate, however, to a supreme one throned in the heart, +which alone would be transported to the skies at death.[237-3] For the +heart that so constantly sympathizes with our emotions and actions, is, +in most languages and most nations, regarded as the seat of life; and +when the priests of bloody religions tore out the heart of the victim +and offered it to the idol, it was an emblem of the life that was thus +torn from the field of this world and consecrated to the rulers of the +next. + +Various motives impel the living to treat with respect the body from +which life has departed. Lowest of them is a superstitious dread of +death and the dead. The stoicism of the Indian, especially the northern +tribes, in the face of death, has often been the topic of poets, and has +often been interpreted to be a fearlessness of that event. This is by +no means true. Savages have an awful horror of death; it is to them the +worst of ills; and for this very reason was it that they thought to meet +it without flinching was the highest proof of courage. Everything +connected with the deceased was, in many tribes, shunned with +superstitious terror. His name was not mentioned, his property left +untouched, all reference to him was sedulously avoided. A Tupi tribe +used to hurry the body at once to the nearest water, and toss it in; the +Akanzas left it in the lodge and burned over it the dwelling and +contents; and the Algonkins carried it forth by a hole cut opposite the +door, and beat the walls with sticks to fright away the lingering ghost. +Burying places were always avoided, and every means taken to prevent the +departed spirits exercising a malicious influence on those remaining +behind. + +These craven fears do but reveal the natural repugnance of the animal to +a cessation of existence, and arise from the instinct of +self-preservation essential to organic life. Other rites, undertaken +avowedly for the behoof of the soul, prove and illustrate a simple but +unshaken faith in its continued existence after the decay of the body. + +None of these is more common or more natural than that which attributes +to the emancipated spirit the same wants that it felt while on earth, +and with loving foresight provides for their satisfaction. Clothing and +utensils of war and the chase were, in ancient times, uniformly placed +by the body, under the impression that they would be of service to the +departed in his new home. Some few tribes in the far west still retain +the custom, but most were soon ridiculed into its neglect, or were +forced to omit it by the violation of tombs practised by depraved whites +in hope of gain. To these harmless offerings the northern tribes often +added a dog slain on the grave; and doubtless the skeletons of these +animals in so many tombs in Mexico and Peru point to similar customs +there. It had no deeper meaning than to give a companion to the spirit +in its long and lonesome journey to the far off land of shades. The +peculiar appropriateness of the dog arose not only from the guardianship +it exerts during life, but further from the symbolic signification it so +often had as representative of the goddess of night and the grave. + +Where a despotic form of government reduced the subject almost to the +level of a slave and elevated the ruler almost to that of a superior +being, not animals only, but men, women, and children were frequently +immolated at the tomb of the cacique. The territory embraced in our own +country was not without examples of this horrid custom. On the lower +Mississippi, the Natchez Indians brought it with them from Central +America in all its ghastliness. When a sun or chief died, one or several +of his wives and his highest officers were knocked on the head and +buried with him, and at such times the barbarous privilege was allowed +to any of the lowest caste to at once gain admittance to the highest by +the deliberate murder of their own children on the funeral pyre--a +privilege which respectable writers tell us human beings were found base +enough to take advantage of.[239-1] + +Oviedo relates that in the province of Guataro, in Guatemala, an actual +rivalry prevailed among the people to be slain at the death of their +cacique, for they had been taught that only such as went with him would +ever find their way to the paradise of the departed.[240-1] Theirs was +therefore somewhat of a selfish motive, and only in certain parts of +Peru, where polygamy prevailed, and the rule was that only one wife was +to be sacrificed, does the deportment of husbands seem to have been so +creditable that their widows actually disputed one with another for the +pleasure of being buried alive with the dead body, and bearing their +spouse company to the other world.[240-2] Wives who have found few +parallels since the famous matron of Ephesus! + +The fire built nightly on the grave was to light the spirit on his +journey. By a coincidence to be explained by the universal sacredness of +the number, both Algonkins and Mexicans maintained it for _four_ nights +consecutively. The former related the tradition that one of their +ancestors returned from the spirit land and informed their nation that +the journey thither consumed just _four_ days, and that collecting fuel +every night added much to the toil and fatigue the soul encountered, all +of which could be spared it by the relatives kindling nightly a fire on +the grave. Or as Longfellow has told it:-- + + "Four days is the spirit's journey + To the land of ghosts and shadows, + Four its lonely night encampments. + Therefore when the dead are buried, + Let a fire as night approaches + Four times on the grave be kindled, + That the soul upon its journey + May not grope about in darkness." + +The same length of time, say the Navajos, does the departed soul wander +over a gloomy marsh ere it can discover the ladder leading to the world +below, where are the homes of the setting and the rising sun, a land of +luxuriant plenty, stocked with game and covered with corn. To that land, +say they, sink all lost seeds and germs which fall on the earth and do +not sprout. There below they take root, bud, and ripen their +fruit.[241-1] + +After four days, once more, in the superstitions of the Greenland +Eskimos, does the soul, for that term after death confined in the body, +at last break from its prison-house and either rise in the sky to dance +in the aurora borealis or descend into the pleasant land beneath the +earth, according to the manner of death.[241-2] + +That there are logical contradictions in this belief and these +ceremonies, that the fire is always in the same spot, that the weapons +and utensils are not carried away by the departed, and that the food +placed for his sustenance remains untouched, is very true. But those who +would therefore argue that they were not intended for the benefit of the +soul, and seek some more recondite meaning in them as "unconscious +emblems of struggling faith or expressions of inward emotions,"[242-1] +are led astray by the very simplicity of their real intention. Where is +the faith, where the science, that does not involve logical +contradictions just as gross as these? They are tolerable to us merely +because we are used to them. What value has the evidence of the senses +anywhere against a religious faith? None whatever. A stumbling block +though this be to the materialist, it is the universal truth, and as +such it is well to accept it as an experimental fact. + +The preconceived opinions that saw in the meteorological myths of the +Indian, a conflict between the Spirit of Good and the Spirit of Evil, +have with like unconscious error falsified his doctrine of a future +life, and almost without an exception drawn it more or less in the +likeness of the Christian heaven, hell, and purgatory. Very faint traces +of any such belief except where derived from the missionaries are +visible in the New World. Nowhere was any well-defined doctrine that +moral turpitude was judged and punished in the next-world. No contrast +is discoverable between a place of torments and a realm of joy; at the +worst but a negative castigation awaited the liar, the coward, or the +niggard. The typical belief of the tribes of the United States was well +expressed in the reply of Esau Hajo, great medal chief and speaker for +the Creek nation in the National Council, to the question, Do the red +people believe in a future state of rewards and punishments? "We have an +opinion that those who have behaved well are taken under the care of +Esaugetuh Emissee, and assisted; and that those who have behaved ill +are left to shift for themselves; and that there is no other +punishment."[243-1] + +Neither the delights of a heaven on the one hand, nor the terrors of a +hell on the other, were ever held out by priests or sages as an +incentive to well-doing, or a warning to the evil-disposed. Different +fates, indeed, awaited the departed souls, but these rarely, if ever, +were decided by their conduct while in the flesh, but by the manner of +death, the punctuality with which certain sepulchral rites were +fulfilled by relatives, or other similar arbitrary circumstance beyond +the power of the individual to control. This view, which I am well aware +is directly at variance with that of all previous writers, may be shown +to be that natural to the uncultivated intellect everywhere, and the +real interpretation of the creeds of America. Whether these arbitrary +circumstances were not construed to signify the decision of the Divine +Mind on the life of the man, is a deeper question, which there is no +means at hand to solve. + +Those who have complained of the hopeless confusion of American +religions have but proven the insufficiency of their own means of +analyzing them. The uniformity which they display in so many points is +nowhere more fully illustrated than in the unanimity with which they all +point to the _sun_ as the land of the happy souls, the realm of the +blessed, the scene of the joyous hunting-grounds of the hereafter. Its +perennial glory, its comfortable warmth, its daily analogy to the life +of man, marked its abode as the pleasantest spot in the universe. It +matters not whether the eastern Algonkins pointed to the south, others +of their nation, with the Iroquois and Creeks, to the west, or many +tribes to the east, as the direction taken by the spirit; all these +myths but mean that its bourn is the home of the sun, which is perhaps +in the Orient whence he comes forth, in the Occident where he makes his +bed, or in the South whither he retires in the chilling winter. Where +the sun lives, they informed the earliest foreign visitors, were the +villages of the deceased, and the milky way which nightly spans the arch +of heaven, was, in their opinion, the road that led thither, and was +called the path of the souls (_le chemin des ames_).[244-1] To _hueyu +ku_, the mansion of the sun, said the Caribs, the soul passes when death +overtakes the body.[244-2] Our knowledge is scanty of the doctrines +taught by the Incas concerning the soul, but this much we do know, that +they looked to the sun, their recognized lord and protector, as he who +would care for them at death, and admit them to his palaces. There--not, +indeed, exquisite joys--but a life of unruffled placidity, void of +labor, vacant of strong emotions, a sort of material Nirvana, awaited +them.[244-3] For these reasons, they, with most other American nations, +interred the corpse lying east and west, and not as the traveller Meyen +has suggested,[244-4] from the reminiscences of some ancient migration. +Beyond the Cordilleras, quite to the coast of Brazil, the innumerable +hordes who wandered through the sombre tropical forests of that immense +territory, also pointed to the west, to the region beyond the mountains, +as the land where the souls of their ancestors lived in undisturbed +serenity; or, in the more brilliant imaginations of the later +generations, in a state of perennial inebriety, surrounded by infinite +casks of rum, and with no white man to dole it out to them.[245-1] The +natives of the extreme south, of the Pampas and Patagonia, suppose the +stars are the souls of the departed. At night they wander about the sky, +but the moment the sun rises they hasten to the cheerful light, and are +seen no more until it disappears in the west. So the Eskimo of the +distant north, in the long winter nights when the aurora bridges the sky +with its changing hues and arrowy shafts of light, believes he sees the +spirits of his ancestors clothed in celestial raiment, disporting +themselves in the absence of the sun, and calls the phenomenon _the +dance of the dead_. + +The home of the sun was the heaven of the red man; but to this joyous +abode not every one without distinction, no miscellaneous crowd, could +gain admittance. The conditions were as various as the national +temperaments. As the fierce gods of the Northmen would admit no soul to +the banquets of Walhalla but such as had met the "spear-death" in the +bloody play of war, and shut out pitilessly all those who feebly +breathed their last in the "straw death" on the couch of sickness, so +the warlike Aztec race in Nicaragua held that the shades of those who +died in their beds went downward and to naught; but of those who fell +in battle for their country to the east, "to the place whence comes the +sun."[246-1] In ancient Mexico not only the warriors who were thus +sacrificed on the altar of their country, but with a delicate and +poetical sense of justice that speaks well for the refinement of the +race, also those women who perished in child-birth, were admitted to the +home of the sun. For are not they also heroines in the battle of life? +Are they not also its victims? And do they not lay down their lives for +country and kindred? Every morning, it was imagined, the heroes came +forth in battle array, and with shout and song and the ring of weapons, +accompanied the sun to the zenith, where at every noon the souls of the +mothers, the Cihuapipilti, received him with dances, music, and flowers, +and bore him company to his western couch.[246-2] Except these, +none--without, it may be, the victims sacrificed to the gods, and this +is doubtful--were deemed worthy of the highest heaven. + +A mild and unwarlike tribe of Guatemala, on the other hand, were +persuaded that to die by any other than a natural death was to forfeit +all hope of life hereafter, and therefore left the bodies of the slain +to the beasts and vultures. + +The Mexicans had another place of happiness for departed souls, not +promising perpetual life as the home of the sun, but unalloyed pleasure +for a certain term of years. This was Tlalocan, the realm of the god of +rains and waters, the terrestrial paradise, whence flowed all the +rivers of the earth, and all the nourishment of the race. The diseases +of which persons died marked this destination. Such as were drowned, or +struck by lightning, or succumbed to humoral complaints, as dropsies and +leprosy, were by these tokens known to be chosen as the subjects of +Tlaloc. To such, said the natives, "death is the commencement of another +life, it is as waking from a dream, and the soul is no more human but +divine (_teot_)." Therefore they addressed their dying in terms like +these: "Sir, or lady, awake, awake; already does the dawn appear; even +now is the light approaching; already do the birds of yellow plumage +begin their songs to greet thee; already are the gayly-tinted +butterflies flitting around thee."[247-1] + +Before proceeding to the more gloomy portion of the subject, to the +destiny of those souls who were not chosen for the better part, I must +advert to a curious coincidence in the religious reveries of many +nations which finds its explanation in the belief that the house of the +sun is the home of the blessed, and proves that this was the first +conception of most natural religions. It is seen in the events and +obstacles of the journey to the happy land. We everywhere hear of a +water which the soul must cross, and an opponent, either a dog or an +evil spirit, which it has to contend with. We are all familiar with the +dog Cerberus (called by Homer simply "the dog"), which disputed the +passage of the river Styx over which the souls must cross; and with the +custom of the vikings, to be buried in a boat so that they might cross +the waters of Ginunga-gap to the inviting strands of Godheim. Relics of +this belief are found in the Koran which describes the bridge _el +Sirat_, thin as a hair and sharp as a scimetar,[TN-13] stretched in a +single span from heaven to earth; in the Persian legend, where the +rainbow arch Chinevad is flung across the gloomy depths between this +world and the home of the happy; and even in the current Christian +allegory which represents the waters of the mythical Jordan rolling +between us and the Celestial City. + +How strange at first sight does it seem that the Hurons and Iroquois +should have told the earliest missionaries that after death the soul +must cross a deep and swift river on a bridge formed by a single slender +tree most lightly supported, where it had to defend itself against the +attacks of a dog?[248-1] If only they had expressed this belief, it +might have passed for a coincidence merely. But the Athapascas +(Chepewyans) also told of a great water, which the soul must cross in a +stone canoe; the Algonkins and Dakotas, of a stream bridged by an +enormous snake, or a narrow and precipitous rock, and the Araucanians of +Chili of a sea in the west, in crossing which the soul was required to +pay toll to a malicious old woman. Were it unluckily impecunious, she +deprived it of an eye.[248-2] With the Aztecs this water was called +Chicunoapa, the Nine Rivers. It was guarded by a dog and a green dragon, +to conciliate which the dead were furnished with slips of paper by way +of toll. The Greenland Eskimos thought that the waters roared through +an unfathomable abyss over which there was no other bridge than a wheel +slippery with ice, forever revolving with fearful rapidity, or a path +narrow as a cord with nothing to hold on by. On the other side sits a +horrid old woman gnashing her teeth and tearing her hair with rage. As +each soul approaches she burns a feather under its nose; if it faints +she seizes it for her prisoner, but if the soul's guardian spirit can +overcome her, it passes through in safety.[249-1] + +The similarity to the passage of the soul across the Styx, and the toll +of the obolus to Charon is in the Aztec legend still more striking, when +we remember that the Styx was the ninth head of Oceanus (omitting the +Cocytus, often a branch of the Styx). The Nine Rivers probably refer to +the nine Lords of the Night, ancient Aztec deities guarding the +nocturnal hours, and introduced into their calendar. The Tupis and +Caribs, the Mayas and Creeks, entertained very similar expectations. + +We are to seek the explanation of these wide-spread theories of the +soul's journey in the equally prevalent tenet that the sun is its +destination, and that that luminary has his abode beyond the ocean +stream, which in all primitive geographies rolls its waves around the +habitable land. This ocean stream is the water which all have to attempt +to pass, and woe to him whom the spirit of the waters, represented +either as the old woman, the dragon, or the dog of Hecate, seizes and +overcomes. In the lush fancy of the Orient, the spirit of the waters +becomes the spirit of evil, the ocean stream the abyss of hell, and +those who fail in the passage the damned, who are foredoomed to evil +deeds and endless torture. + +No such ethical bearing as this was ever assigned the myth by the red +race before they were taught by Europeans. Father Brebeuf could only +find that the souls of suicides and those killed in war were supposed to +live apart from the others; "but as to the souls of scoundrels," he +adds, "so far from being shut out, they are the welcome guests, though +for that matter if it were not so, their paradise would be a total +desert, as Huron and scoundrel (_Huron et larron_) are one and the +same."[250-1] When the Minnetarees told Major Long and the Mannicicas of +the La Plata the Jesuits,[250-2] that the souls of the bad fell into the +waters and were swept away, these are, beyond doubt, attributable either +to a false interpretation, or to Christian instruction. No such +distinction is probable among savages. The Brazilian natives divided the +dead into classes, supposing that the drowned, those killed by violence, +and those yielding to disease, lived in separate regions; but no ethical +reason whatever seems to have been connected with this.[250-3] If the +conception of a place of moral retribution was known at all to the race, +it should be found easily recognizable in Mexico, Yucatan, or Peru. But +the so-called "hells" of their religions have no such significance, and +the spirits of evil, who were identified by early writers with Satan, no +more deserve the name than does the Greek Pluto. + +upay or Supay, the Shadow, in Peru was supposed to rule the land of +shades in the centre of the earth. To him went all souls not destined to +be the companions of the Sun. This is all we know of his attributes; and +the assertion of Garcilasso de la Vega, that he was the analogue of the +Christian Devil, and that his name was never pronounced without spitting +and muttering a curse on his head, may be invalidated by the testimony +of an earlier and better authority on the religion of Peru, who calls +him the god of rains, and adds that the famous Inca, Huayna Capac, was +his high priest.[251-1] + +"The devil," says Cogolludo of the Mayas, "is called by them +Xibilha,[TN-14] which means he who disappears or vanishes."[251-2] In the +legends of the Quichs, the name Xibalba is given as that of the +under-world ruled by the grim lords One Death and Seven Deaths. The +derivation of the name is from a root meaning to fear, from which comes +the term in Maya dialects for a ghost or phantom.[251-3] Under the +influence of a century of Christian catechizing, the Quich legends +portray this really as a place of torment, and its rulers as malignant +and powerful; but as I have before pointed out, they do so, protesting +that such was not the ancient belief, and they let fall no word that +shows that it was regarded as the destination of the morally bad. The +original meaning of the name given by Cogolludo points unmistakably to +the simple fact of disappearance from among men, and corresponds in +harmlessness to the true sense of those words of fear, Scheol, Hades, +Hell, all signifying hidden from sight, and only endowed with more grim +associations by the imaginations of later generations.[252-1] + +Mictlanteuctli, Lord of Mictlan, from a word meaning to die, was the +Mexican Pluto. Like upay, he dwelt in the subterranean regions, and his +palace was named Tlalxicco, the navel of the earth. Yet he was also +located in the far north, and that point of the compass and the north +wind were named after him. Those who descended to him were oppressed by +the darkness of his abode, but were subjected to no other trials; nor +were they sent thither as a punishment, but merely from having died of +diseases unfitting them for Tlalocan. Mictlanteuctli was said to be the +most powerful of the gods. For who is stronger than Death? And who dare +defy the Grave? As the skald lets Odin say to Bragi: "Our lot is +uncertain; even on the hosts of the gods gazes the gray Fenris +wolf."[252-2] + +These various abodes to which the incorporeal man took flight were not +always his everlasting home. It will be remembered that where a +plurality of souls was believed, one of these, soon after death, +entered another body to recommence life on earth. Acting under this +persuasion, the Algonkin women who desired to become mothers, flocked to +the couch of those about to die, in hope that the vital principle, as it +passed from the body, would enter theirs, and fertilize their sterile +wombs; and when, among the Seminoles of Florida, a mother died in +childbirth, the infant was held over her face to receive her parting +spirit, and thus acquire strength and knowledge for its future +use.[253-1] So among the Tahkalis, the priest is accustomed to lay his +hand on the head of the nearest relative of the deceased, and to blow +into him the soul of the departed, which is supposed to come to life in +his next child.[253-2] Probably, with a reference to the current +tradition that ascribes the origin of man to the earth, and likens his +life to that of the plant, the Mexicans were accustomed to say that at +one time all men have been stones, and that at last they would all +return to stones;[253-3] and, acting literally on this conviction, they +interred with the bones of the dead a small green stone, which was +called the principle of life. + +Whether any nations accepted the doctrine of metempsychosis, and thought +that "the souls of their grandams might haply inhabit a partridge," we +are without the means of knowing. La Hontan denies it positively of the +Algonkins; but the natives of Popoyan refused to kill doves, says +Coreal,[254-1] because they believe them inspired by the souls of the +departed. And Father Ignatius Chom relates that he heard a woman of the +Chiriquanes in Buenos Ayres say of a fox: "May that not be the spirit of +my dead daughter?"[254-2] But before accepting such testimony as +decisive, we must first inquire whether these tribes believed in a +multiplicity of souls, whether these animals had a symbolical value, and +if not, whether the soul was not simply presumed to put on this shape in +its journey to the land of the hereafter: inquiries which are +unanswered. Leaving, therefore, the question open, whether the sage of +Samos had any disciples in the new world, another and more fruitful +topic is presented by their well-ascertained notions of the resurrection +of the dead. + +This seemingly extraordinary doctrine, which some have asserted was +entirely unknown and impossible to the American Indians,[254-3] was in +fact one of their most deeply-rooted and wide-spread convictions, +especially among the tribes of the eastern United States. It is +indissolubly connected with their highest theories of a future life, +their burial ceremonies, and their modes of expression. The Moravian +Brethren give the grounds of this belief with great clearness: "That +they hold the soul to be immortal, and perhaps think the body will rise +again, they give not unclearly to understand when they say, 'We Indians +shall not for ever die; even the grains of corn we put under the earth, +grow up and become living things.' They conceive that when the soul has +been a while with God, it can, if it chooses, return to earth and be +born again."[255-1] This is the highest and typical creed of the +aborigines. But instead of simply being born again in the ordinary sense +of the word, they thought the soul would return to the bones, that these +would clothe themselves with flesh, and that the man would rejoin his +tribe. That this was the real, though often doubtless the dimly +understood reason of the custom of preserving the bones of the deceased, +can be shown by various arguments. + +This practice was almost universal. East of the Mississippi nearly every +nation was accustomed, at stated periods--usually once in eight or ten +years--to collect and clean the osseous remains of those of its number +who had died in the intervening time, and inter them in one common +sepulchre, lined with choice furs, and marked with a mound of wood, +stone, and earth. Such is the origin of those immense tumuli filled with +the mortal remains of nations and generations which the antiquary, with +irreverent curiosity, so frequently chances upon in all portions of our +territory. Throughout Central America the same usage obtained in various +localities, as early writers and existing monuments abundantly testify. +Instead of interring the bones, were they those of some distinguished +chieftain, they were deposited in the temples or the council-houses, +usually in small chests of canes or splints. Such were the +charnel-houses which the historians of De Soto's expedition so often +mention, and these are the "arks" which Adair and other authors, who +have sought to trace the descent of the Indians from the Jews, have +likened to that which the ancient Israelites bore with them on their +migrations. A widow among the Tahkalis was obliged to carry the bones of +her deceased husband wherever she went for four years, preserving them +in such a casket handsomely decorated with feathers.[256-1] The Caribs +of the mainland adopted the custom for all without exception. About a +year after death the bones were cleaned, bleached, painted, wrapped in +odorous balsams, placed in a wicker basket, and kept suspended from the +door of their dwellings.[256-2] When the quantity of these heirlooms +became burdensome, they were removed to some inaccessible cavern, and +stowed away with reverential care. Such was the cave Ataruipe, a visit +to which has been so eloquently described by Alexander von Humboldt in +his "Views of Nature." + +So great was the filial respect for these remains by the Indians, that +on the Mississippi, in Peru, and elsewhere, no tyranny, no cruelty, so +embittered the indigenes against the white explorers as the sacrilegious +search for treasures perpetrated among the sepulchres of past +generations. Unable to understand the meaning of such deep feeling, so +foreign to the European who, without a second thought, turns a cemetery +into a public square, or seeds it down in wheat, the Jesuit missionaries +in Paraguay accuse the natives of worshipping the skeletons of their +forefathers,[257-1] and the English in Virginia repeated it of the +Powhatans. + +The question has been debated and variously answered, whether the art of +mummification was known and practised in America. Without entering into +the discussion, it is certain that preservation of the corpse by a long +and thorough process of exsiccation over a slow fire was nothing +unusual, not only in Peru, Popoyan, the Carib countries, and Nicaragua, +but among many of the tribes north of the Gulf of Mexico, as I have +elsewhere shown.[257-2] The object was essentially the same as when the +bones alone were preserved; and in the case of rulers, the same homage +was often paid to their corpses as had been the just due of their living +bodies. + +The opinion underlying all these customs was, that a part of the soul, +or one of the souls, dwelt in the bones; that these were the seeds +which, planted in the earth, or preserved unbroken in safe places, +would, in time, put on once again a garb of flesh, and germinate into +living human beings. Language illustrates this not unusual theory. The +Iroquois word for bone is _esken_--for soul, _atisken_, literally that +which is within the bone.[257-3] In an Athapascan dialect bone is +_yani_, soul _i-yune_.[257-4] The Hebrew Rabbis taught that in the bone +_lutz_, the coccyx, remained at death the germ of a second life, which, +at the proper time, would develop into the purified body, as the plant +from the seed. + +But mythology and supersitions[TN-15] add more decisive testimony. One of +the Aztec legends of the origin of man was, that after one of the +destructions of the world the gods took counsel together how to renew +the species. It was decided that one of their number, Xolotl, should +descend to Mictlan, the realm of the dead, and bring thence a bone of +the perished race. The fragments of this they sprinkled with blood, and +on the fourth day it grew into a youth, the father of the present +race.[258-1] The profound mystical significance of this legend is +reflected in one told by the Quichs, in which the hero gods Hunahpu and +Xblanque succumb to the rulers of Xibalba, the darksome powers of death. +Their bodies are burned, but their bones are ground in a mill and thrown +in the waters, lest they should come to life. Even this precaution is +insufficient--"for these ashes did not go far; they sank to the bottom +of the stream, where, in the twinkling of an eye, they were changed into +handsome youths, and their very same features appeared anew. On the +fifth day they displayed themselves anew, and were seen in the water by +the people,"[258-2] whence they emerged to overcome and destroy the +powers of death and hell (Xibalba). + +The strongest analogies to these myths are offered by the superstitious +rites of distant tribes. Some of the Tupis of Brazil were wont on the +death of a relative to dry and pulverize his bones and then mix them +with their food, a nauseous practice they defended by asserting that the +soul of the dead remained in the bones and lived again in the +living.[259-1] Even the lower animals were supposed to follow the same +law. Hardly any of the hunting tribes, before their original manners +were vitiated by foreign influence, permitted the bones of game slain in +the chase to be broken, or left carelessly about the encampment. They +were collected in heaps, or thrown into the water. Mrs. Eastman observes +that even yet the Dakotas deem it an omen of ill luck in the hunt, if +the dogs gnaw the bones or a woman inadvertently steps over them; and +the Chipeway interpreter, John Tanner, speaks of the same fear among +that tribe. The Yurucares of Bolivia carried it to such an inconvenient +extent, that they carefully put by even small fish bones, saying that +unless this was done the fish and game would disappear from the +country.[259-2] The traveller on our western prairies often notices the +buffalo skulls, countless numbers of which bleach on those vast plains, +arranged in circles and symmetrical piles by the careful hands of the +native hunters. The explanation they offer for this custom gives the key +to the whole theory and practice of preserving the osseous relics of the +dead, as well human as brute. They say that, "the bones contain the +spirits of the slain animals, and that some time in the future they will +rise from the earth, re-clothe themselves with flesh, and stock the +prairies anew."[259-3] This explanation, which comes to us from +indisputable authority, sets forth in its true light the belief of the +red race in a resurrection. It is not possible to trace it out in the +subtleties with which theologians have surrounded it as a dogma. The +very attempt would be absurd. They never occurred to the Indian. He +thought that the soul now enjoying the delights of the happy hunting +grounds would some time return to the bones, take on flesh, and live +again. Such is precisely the much discussed statement that Garcilasso de +la Vega says he often heard from the native Peruvians. He adds that so +careful were they lest any of the body should be lost that they +preserved even the parings of their nails and clippings of the +hair.[260-1] In contradiction to this the writer Acosta has been quoted, +who says that the Peruvians embalmed their dead because they "had no +knowledge that the bodies should rise with the soul."[260-2] But, +rightly understood, this is a confirmation of La Vega's account. Acosta +means that the Christian doctrine of the body rising from the dust being +unknown to the Peruvians (which is perfectly true), they preserved the +body just as it was, so that the soul when it returned to earth, as all +expected, might not be at a loss for a house of flesh. + +The notions thus entertained by the red race on the resurrection are +peculiar to it, and stand apart from those of any other. They did not +look for the second life to be either better or worse than the present +one; they regarded it neither as a reward nor a punishment to be sent +back to the world of the living; nor is there satisfactory evidence that +it was ever distinctly connected with a moral or physical theory of the +destiny of the universe, or even with their prevalent expectation of +recurrent epochs in the course of nature. It is true that a writer whose +personal veracity is above all doubt, Mr. Adam Hodgson, relates an +ancient tradition of the Choctaws, to the effect that the present world +will be consumed by a general conflagration, after which it will be +reformed pleasanter than it now is, and that then the spirits of the +dead will return to the bones in the bone mounds, flesh will knit +together their loose joints, and they shall again inhabit their ancient +territory.[261-1] + +There was also a similar belief among the Eskimos. They said that in the +course of time the waters would overwhelm the land, purify it of the +blood of the dead, melt the icebergs, and wash away the steep rocks. A +wind would then drive off the waters, and the new land would be peopled +by reindeers and young seals. Then would He above blow once on the bones +of the men and twice on those of the women, whereupon they would at once +start into life, and lead thereafter a joyous existence.[261-2] + +But though there is nothing in these narratives alien to the course of +thought in the native mind, yet as the date of the first is recent +(1820), as they are not supported (so far as I know) by similar +traditions elsewhere, and as they may have arisen from Christian +doctrines of a millennium, I leave them for future investigation. + +What strikes us the most in this analysis of the opinions entertained by +the red race on a future life is the clear and positive hope of a +hereafter, in such strong contrast to the feeble and vague notions of +the ancient Israelites, Greeks, and Romans, and yet the entire inertness +of this hope in leading them to a purer moral life. It offers another +proof that the fulfilment of duty is in its nature nowise connected with +or derived from a consideration of ultimate personal consequences. It is +another evidence that the religious is wholly distinct from the moral +sentiment, and that the origin of ethics is not to be sought in +connection with the ideas of divinity and responsibility. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[233-1] _Journal Historique_, p. 351: Paris, 1740. + +[234-1] _Rep. of the Commissioner of Ind. Affairs_, 1854, pp. 211, 212. +The old woman is once more a personification of the water and the moon. + +[234-2] Bgert, _Acc. of the Aborig. Tribes of the Californian +Peninsula_, translated by Chas. Rau, in Ann. Rep. Smithson. Inst., 1866, +p. 387. + +[235-1] Of the Nicaraguans Oviedo says: "Ce n'est pas leur coeur qui va +en haut, mais ce qui les faisait vivre; c'est--dire, le souffle qui leur +sort par la bouche, et que l'on nomme _Julio_" (_Hist. du Nicaragua_, p. +36). The word should be _yulia_, kindred with _yoli_, to live. +(Buschmann, _Uber die Aztekischen Ortsnamen_, p. 765.) In the Aztec and +cognate languages we have already seen that _ehecatl_ means both _wind_, +_soul_, and _shadow_ (Buschmann, _Spuren der Aztek. Spr. in Nrdlichen +Mexico_, p. 74). + +[236-1] _Rel. de la Nouv. France_, An 1636, p. 104; "Keating's +_Narrative_," i. pp. 232, 410. + +[237-1] French, _Hist. Colls. of Louisiana_, iii. p. 26. + +[237-2] Mrs. Eastman, _Legends of the Sioux_, p. 129. + +[237-3] _Voy. la Louisiane fait en 1720_, p. 155: Paris, 1768. + +[239-1] Dupratz, _Hist. of Louisiana_, ii. p. 219; Dumont, _Mems. Hist. +sur la Louisiane_, i. chap. 26. + +[240-1] _Rel. de la Prov. de Cueba_, p. 140. + +[240-2] Coreal, _Voiages aux Indes Occidentales_, ii. p. 94: Amsterdam, +1722. + +[241-1] _Senate Rep. on the Ind. Tribes_, p. 358: Wash. 1867. + +[241-2] Egede, _Nachrichten von Grnland_, p. 145. + +[242-1] Alger, _Hist. of the Doctrine of a Future Life_, p. 76. + +[243-1] Hawkins, _Sketch of the Creek Country_, p. 80. + +[244-1] _Rel. de la Nouv. France_, 1634, pp. 17, 18. + +[244-2] Mller, _Amer. Urreligionen_, p. 229. + +[244-3] La Vega, _Hist. des Incas._, lib. ii. cap. 7. + +[244-4] _Ueber die Ureinwohner von Peru_, p. 41. + +[245-1] Coreal, _Voy. aux Indes Occident._, i. p. 224; Mller, _Amer. +Urrelig._, p. 289. + +[246-1] Oviedo, _Hist. du Nicaragua_, p. 22. + +[246-2] Torquemada, _Monarquia Indiana_, lib. vi. cap. 27. + +[247-1] Sahagun, _Hist. de la Nueva Espaa_, lib. x. cap. 29. + +[248-1] _Rel. de la Nouv. France_, 1636, p. 105. + +[248-2] Molina, _Hist. of Chili_, ii. p. 81, and others in Waitz, +_Anthropologie_, iii. p. 197. + +[249-1] _Nachrichten von Grnland aus dem Tagebuche vom Bischof Paul +Egede_, p. 104: Kopenhagen, 1790. + +[250-1] _Rel. de la Nouv. France_, 1636, p. 105. + +[250-2] Long's _Expedition_, i. p. 280; Waitz, _Anthropologie_, iii. p. +531. + +[250-3] Mller, _Amer. Urreligionen_, p. 287. + +[251-1] Compare Garcilasso de la Vega, _Hist. des Incas._, liv. ii. chap. +ii., with _Lett. sur les Superstitions du Prou_, p. 104. upay is +undoubtedly a personal form from _upan_, a shadow. (See Holguin, _Vocab. +de la Lengua Quichua_, p. 80: Cuzco, 1608.) + +[251-2] "El que desparece desvanece," _Hist. de Yucathan_, lib. iv. +cap. 7. + +[251-3] Ximenes, _Vocab. Quich_, p. 224. The attempt of the Abb +Brasseur to make of Xibalba an ancient kingdom of renown with Palenque as +its capital, is so utterly unsupported and wildly hypothetical, as to +justify the humorous flings which have so often been cast at antiquaries. + +[252-1] Scheol is from a Hebrew word, signifying to dig, to hide in the +earth. Hades signifies the _unseen_ world. Hell Jacob Grimm derives from +_hilan_, to conceal in the earth, and it is cognate with _hole_ and +_hollow_. + +[252-2] Pennock, _Religion of the Northmen_, p. 148. + +[253-1] La Hontan, _Voy. dans l'Am. Sept._, i. p. 232; _Narrative of +Oceola Nikkanoche_, p. 75. + +[253-2] Morse, _Rep. on the Ind. Tribes_, App. p. 345. + +[253-3] Garcia, _Or. de los Indios_, lib. iv. cap. 26, p. 310. + +[254-1] _Voiages aux Indes Oc._, ii. p. 132. + +[254-2] _Lettres Edif. et Cur._, v. p. 203. + +[254-3] Alger, _Hist. of the Doctrine of a Future Life_, p. 72. + +[255-1] Loskiel, _Ges. der Miss. der evang. Brder_, p. 49. + +[256-1] Richardson, _Arctic Expedition_, p. 260. + +[256-2] Gumilla, _Hist. del Orinoco_, i. pp. 199, 202, 204. + +[257-1] Ruis, _Conquista Espiritual del Paraguay_, p. 48, in Lafitau. + +[257-2] _Notes on the Floridian Peninsula_, pp. 191 sqq. + +[257-3] Bruyas, _Rad. Verborum Iroquorum_. + +[257-4] Buschmann, _Athapask. Sprachstamm_, pp. 182, 188. + +[258-1] Torquemada, _Monarquia Indiana_, lib. vi. cap. 41. + +[258-2] _Le Livre Sacr des Quichs_, pp. 175-177. + +[259-1] Mller, _Amer. Urrelig._, p. 290, after Spix. + +[259-2] D'Orbigny, _Annuaire des Voyages_, 1845, p. 77. + +[259-3] Long's _Expedition_, i. p. 278. + +[260-1] _Hist. des Incas_, lib. iii. chap. 7. + +[260-2] _Hist. of the New World_, bk. v. chap. 7. + +[261-1] _Travels in North America_, p. 280. + +[261-2] Egede, _Nachrichten von Grnland_, p. 156. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +THE NATIVE PRIESTHOOD. + + Their titles.--Practitioners of the healing art by supernatural + means.--Their power derived from natural magic and the exercise of + the clairvoyant and mesmeric faculties.--Examples.--Epidemic + hysteria.--Their social position.--Their duties as religious + functionaries.--Terms of admission to the Priesthood.--Inner + organization in various nations.--Their esoteric languages and + secret societies. + + +Thus picking painfully amid the ruins of a race gone to wreck centuries +ago, thus rejecting much foreign rubbish and scrutinizing each stone +that lies around, if we still are unable to rebuild the edifice in its +pristine symmetry and beauty, yet we can at least discern and trace the +ground plan and outlines of the fane it raised to God. Before leaving +the field to the richer returns of more fortunate workmen, it will not +be inappropriate to add a sketch of the ministers of these religions, +the servants in this temple. + +Shamans, conjurers, sorcerers, medicine men, wizards, and many another +hard name have been given them, but I shall call them _priests_, for in +their poor way, as well as any other priesthood, they set up to be the +agents of the gods, and the interpreters of divinity. No tribe was so +devoid of religious sentiment as to be without them. Their power was +terrible, and their use of it unscrupulous. Neither men nor gods, death +nor life, the winds nor the waves, were beyond their control. Like Old +Men of the Sea, they have clung to the neck of their nations, throttling +all attempts at progress, binding them to the thraldom of superstition +and profligacy, dragging them down to wretchedness and death. +Christianity and civilization meet in them their most determined, most +implacable foes. But what is this but the story of priestcraft and +intolerance everywhere, which Old Spain can repeat as well as New Spain, +the white race as well as the red? Blind leaders of the blind, dupers +and duped fall into the ditch. + +In their own languages they are variously called; by the Algonkins and +Dakotas, "those knowing divine things" and "dreamers of the gods" +(_manitousiou_, _wakanwacipi_); in Mexico, "masters or guardians of the +divine things" (_teopixqui_, _teotecuhtli_); in Cherokee, their title +means, "possessed of the divine fire" (_atsilung kelawhi_); in Iroquois, +"keepers of the faith" (_honundeunt_); in Quichua, "the learned" +(_amauta_); in Maya, "the listeners" (_cocome_). The popular term in +French and English of "medicine men" is not such a misnomer as might be +supposed. The noble science of medicine is connected with divinity not +only by the rudest savage but the profoundest philosopher, as has been +already adverted to. When sickness is looked upon as the effect of the +anger of a god, or as the malicious infliction of a sorcerer, it is +natural to seek help from those who assume to control the unseen world, +and influence the fiats of the Almighty. The recovery from disease is +the kindliest exhibition of divine power. Therefore the earliest canons +of medicine in India and Egypt are attributed to no less distinguished +authors than the gods Brahma and Thoth;[265-1] therefore the earliest +practitioners of the healing art are universally the ministers of +religion. + +But, however creditable this origin is to medicine, its partnership with +theology was no particular advantage to it. These mystical doctors +shared the contempt still so prevalent among ourselves for a treatment +based on experiment and reason, and regarded the administration of +emetics and purgatives, baths and diuretics, with a contempt quite equal +to that of the disciples of Hahnemann. The practitioners of the rational +school formed a separate class among the Indians, and had nothing to do +with amulets, powwows, or spirits.[265-2] They were of different name +and standing, and though held in less estimation, such valuable +additions to the pharmacopoeia as guaiacum, cinchona, and ipecacuanha, +were learned from them. The priesthood scorned such ignoble means. Were +they summoned to a patient, they drowned his groans in a barbarous +clangor of instruments in order to fright away the demon that possessed +him; they sucked and blew upon the diseased organ, they sprinkled him +with water, and catching it again threw it on the ground, thus drowning +out the disease; they rubbed the part with their hands, and exhibiting a +bone or splinter asserted that they drew it from the body, and that it +had been the cause of the malady, they manufactured a little image to +represent the spirit of sickness, and spitefully knocked it to pieces, +thus vicariously destroying its prototype; they sang doleful and +monotonous chants at the top of their voices, screwed their +countenances into hideous grimaces, twisted their bodies into unheard of +contortions, and by all accounts did their utmost to merit the +honorarium they demanded for their services. A double motive spurred +them to spare no pains. For if they failed, not only was their +reputation gone, but the next expert called in was likely enough to +hint, with that urbanity so traditional in the profession, that the +illness was in fact caused or much increased by the antagonistic nature +of the remedies previously employed, whereupon the chances were that the +doctor's life fell into greater jeopardy than that of his quondam +patient. + +Considering the probable result of this treatment, we may be allowed to +doubt whether it redounded on the whole very much to the honor of the +fraternity. Their strong points are rather to be looked for in the real +knowledge gained by a solitary and reflective life, by an earnest study +of the appearances of nature, and of those hints and forest signs which +are wholly lost on the white man and beyond the ordinary insight of a +native. Travellers often tell of changes of the weather predicted by +them with astonishing foresight, and of information of singular accuracy +and extent gleaned from most meagre materials. There is nothing in this +to shock our sense of probability--much to elevate our opinion of the +native sagacity. They were also adepts in tricks of sleight of hand, and +had no mean acquaintance with what is called natural magic. They would +allow themselves to be tied hand and foot with knots innumerable, and at +a sign would shake them loose as so many wisps of straw; they would spit +fire and swallow hot coals, pick glowing stones from the flames, walk +naked through a fire, and plunge their arms to the shoulder in kettles +of boiling water with apparent impunity.[267-1] Nor was this all. With a +skill not inferior to that of the jugglers of India, they could plunge +knives into vital parts, vomit blood, or kill one another out and out to +all appearances, and yet in a few minutes be as well as ever; they could +set fire to articles of clothing and even houses, and by a touch of +their magic restore them instantly as perfect as before.[267-2] If it +were not within our power to see most of these miracles performed any +night in one of our great cities by a well dressed professional, we +would at once deny their possibility. As it is, they astonish us only +too little. + +One of the most peculiar and characteristic exhibitions of their power, +was to summon a spirit to answer inquiries concerning the future and the +absent. A great similarity marked this proceeding in all northern tribes +from the Eskimos to the Mexicans. A circular or conical lodge of stout +poles four or eight in number planted firmly in the ground, was covered +with skins or mats, a small aperture only being left for the seer to +enter. Once in, he carefully closed the hole and commenced his +incantations. Soon the lodge trembles, the strong poles shake and bend +as with the united strength of a dozen men, and strange, unearthly +sounds, now far aloft in the air, now deep in the ground, anon +approaching near and nearer, reach the ears of the spectators. At length +the priest announces that the spirit is present, and is prepared to +answer questions. An indispensable preliminary to any inquiry is to +insert a handful of tobacco, or a string of beads, or some such douceur +under the skins, ostensibly for the behoof of the celestial visitor, who +would seem not to be above earthly wants and vanities. 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. 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. + +But there is something more than these vulgar arts now and then to be +perceived. There are statements supported by unquestionable testimony, +which ought not to be passed over in silence, and yet I cannot but +approach them with hesitation. They are so revolting to the laws of +exact science, so alien, I had almost said, to the experience of our +lives. Yet is this true, or are such experiences only ignored and put +aside without serious consideration? Are there not in the history of +each of us passages which strike our retrospective thought with awe, +almost with terror? Are there not in nearly every community individuals +who possess a mysterious power, concerning whose origin, mode of action, +and limits, we and they are alike in the dark? I refer to such organic +forces as are popularly summed up under the words clairvoyance, +mesmerism, rhabdomancy, animal magnetism, physical spiritualism. +Civilized thousands stake their faith and hope here and hereafter, on +the truths of these manifestations; rational medicine recognizes their +existence, and while it attributes them to morbid and exceptional +influences, confesses its want of more exact knowledge, and refrains +from barren theorizing. Let us follow her example, and hold it enough to +show that such powers, whatever they are, were known to the native +priesthood as well as the modern spiritualists, and the miracle mongers +of the Middle Ages. + +Their highest development is what our ancestors called "second sight." +That under certain conditions knowledge can pass from one mind to +another otherwise than through the ordinary channels of the senses, is +familiarly shown by the examples of persons _en rapport_. The limit to +this we do not know, but it is not unlikely that clairvoyance or second +sight is based upon it. In his autobiography, the celebrated Sac chief +Black Hawk, relates that his great grandfather "was inspired by a belief +that at the end of four years, he should see a white man, who would be +to him a father." Under the direction of this vision he travelled +eastward to a certain spot, and there, as he was forewarned, met a +Frenchman, through whom the nation was brought into alliance with +France.[269-1] No one at all versed in the Indian character will doubt +the implicit faith with which this legend was told and heard. But we may +be pardoned our scepticism, seeing there are so many chances of error. +It is not so with an anecdote related by Captain Jonathan Carver, a +cool-headed English trader, whose little book of travels is an +unquestioned authority. In 1767, he was among the Killistenoes at a time +when they were in great straits for food, and depending upon the arrival +of the traders to rescue them from starvation. They persuaded the chief +priest to consult the divinities as to when the relief would arrive. +After the usual preliminaries, this magnate announced that next day, +precisely when the sun reached the zenith, a canoe would arrive with +further tidings. At the appointed hour the whole village, together with +the incredulous Englishman, was on the beach, and sure enough, at the +minute specified, a canoe swung round a distant point of land, and +rapidly approaching the shore brought the expected news.[270-1] + +Charlevoix is nearly as trustworthy a writer as Carver. Yet he +deliberately relates an equally singular instance.[270-2] + +But these examples are surpassed by one described in the _Atlantic +Monthly_ of July, 1866, the author of which, John Mason Brown, Esq., has +assured me of its accuracy in every particular. Some years since, at the +head of a party of voyageurs, he set forth in search of a band of +Indians somewhere on the vast plains along the tributaries of the +Copper-mine and Mackenzie rivers. Danger, disappointment, and the +fatigues of the road, induced one after another to turn back, until of +the original ten only three remained. They also were on the point of +giving up the apparently hopeless quest, when they were met by some +warriors of the very band they were seeking. These had been sent out by +one of their medicine men to find three whites, whose horses, arms, +attire, and personal appearance he minutely described, which description +was repeated to Mr. Brown by the warriors before they saw his two +companions. When afterwards, the priest, a frank and simple-minded man, +was asked to explain this extraordinary occurrence, he could offer no +other explanation than that "he saw them coming, and heard them talk on +their journey."[271-1] + +Many tales such as these have been recorded by travellers, and however +much they may shock our sense of probability, as well-authenticated +exhibitions of a power which sways the Indian mind, and which has ever +prejudiced it so unchangeably against Christianity and civilization, +they cannot be disregarded. Whether they too are but specimens of +refined knavery, whether they are instigations of the Devil, or whether +they must be classed with other facts as illustrating certain obscure +and curious mental faculties, each may decide as the bent of his mind +inclines him, for science makes no decision. + +Those nervous conditions associated with the name of Mesmer were nothing +new to the Indian magicians. Rubbing and stroking the sick, and the +laying on of hands, were very common parts of their clinical procedures, +and at the initiations to their societies they were frequently +exhibited. Observers have related that among the Nez Percs of Oregon, +the novice was put to sleep by songs, incantations, and "certain passes +of the hand," and that with the Dakotas he would be struck lightly on +the breast at a preconcerted moment, and instantly "would drop prostrate +on his face, his muscles rigid and quivering in every fibre."[272-1] + +There is no occasion to suppose deceit in this. It finds its parallel in +every race and every age, and rests on a characteristic trait of certain +epochs and certain men, which leads them to seek the divine, not in +thoughtful contemplation on the laws of the universe and the facts of +self-consciousness, but in an entire immolation of the latter, a sinking +of their own individuality in that of the spirits whose alliance they +seek. This is an outgrowth of that ignoring of the universality of Law, +which belongs to the lower stages of enlightenment.[273-1] And as this +is never done with impunity, but with iron certainty brings its +punishment with it, the study of the mental conditions thus evoked, and +the results which follow them, offers a salutary subject of reflection +to the theologian as well as the physician. For these examples of +nervous pathology are identical in kind, and alike in consequences, +whether witnessed in the primitive forests of the New World, among the +convulsionists of St. Medard, or in the excited scenes of a religious +revival in one of our own churches. + +Sleeplessness and abstemiousness, carried to the utmost verge of human +endurance--seclusion, and the pertinacious fixing of the mind on one +subject--obstinate gloating on some morbid fancy, rarely failed to bring +about hallucinations with all the garb of reality. Physicians are well +aware that the more frequently these diseased conditions of the mind are +sought, the more readily they are found. Then, again, they were often +induced by intoxicating and narcotic herbs. Tobacco, the maguey, coca; +in California the chucuaco; among the Mexicans the snake plant, +ollinhiqui or coaxihuitl; and among the southern tribes of our own +country the cassine yupon and iris versicolor,[273-2] were used; and, it +is even said, were cultivated for this purpose. The seer must work +himself up to a prophetic fury, or speechless lie in apparent death +before the mind of the gods would be opened to him. Trance and ecstasy +were the two avenues he knew to divinity; fasting and seclusion the +means employed to discover them. His ideal was of a prophet who dwelt +far from men, without need of food, in constant communion with divinity. +Such an one, in the legends of the Tupis, resided on a mountain +glittering with gold and silver, near the river Uaupe, his only +companion a dog, his only occupation dreaming of the gods. When, +however, an eclipse was near, his dog would bark; and then, taking the +form of a bird, he would fly over the villages, and learn the changes +that had taken place.[274-1] + +But man cannot trample with impunity on the laws of his physical life, +and the consequences of these deprivations and morbid excitements of the +brain show themselves in terrible pictures. Not unfrequently they were +carried to the pitch of raving mania, reminding one of the worst forms +of the Berserker fury of the Scandinavians, or the Bacchic rage of +Greece. The enthusiast, maddened with the fancies of a disordered +intellect, would start forth from his seclusion in an access of demoniac +frenzy. Then woe to the dog, the child, the slave, or the woman who +crossed his path; for nothing but blood could satisfy his inappeasable +craving, and they fell instant victims to his madness. But were it a +strong man, he bared his arm, and let the frenzied hermit bury his teeth +in the quivering flesh. Such is a scene at this day not uncommon on the +northwest coast, and few of the natives around Milbank Sound are without +the scars the result of this horrid custom.[275-1] + +This frenzy, terrible enough in individuals, had its most disastrous +effects when with that peculiar facility of contagion which marks +hysterical maladies, it swept through whole villages, transforming them +into bedlams filled with unrestrained madmen. Those who have studied the +strange and terrible mental epidemics that visited Europe in the middle +ages, such as the tarantula dance of Apulia, the chorea Germanorum, and +the great St. Vitus' dance, will be prepared to appreciate the nature of +a scene at a Huron village, described by Father le Jeune in 1639. A +festival of three days and three nights had been in progress to relieve +a woman who, from the description, seems to have been suffering from +some obscure nervous complaint. Toward the close of this vigil, which +throughout was marked by all sorts of debaucheries and excesses, all the +participants seemed suddenly seized by ten thousand devils. They ran +howling and shrieking through the town, breaking everything destructible +in the cabins, killing dogs, beating the women and children, tearing +their garments, and scattering the fires in every direction with bare +hands and feet. Some of them dropped senseless, to remain long or +permanently insane, but the others continued until worn out with +exhaustion. The Father learned that during these orgies not unfrequently +whole villages were consumed, and the total extirpation of some families +had resulted. No wonder that he saw in them the diabolical workings of +the prince of evil, but the physician is rather inclined to class them +with those cases of epidemic hysteria, the common products of violent +and ill-directed mental stimuli.[276-1] + +These various considerations prove beyond a doubt that the power of the +priesthood did by no means rest exclusively on deception. They indorse +and explain the assertions of converted natives, that their power as +prophets was something real, and entirely inexplicable to themselves. +And they make it easily understood how those missionaries failed who +attempted to persuade them that all this boasted power was false. More +correct views than these ought to have been suggested by the facts +themselves, for it is indisputable that these magicians did not +hesitate at times to test their strength on each other. In these strange +duels _ l'outrance_, one would be seated opposite his antagonist, +surrounded with the mysterious emblems of his craft, and call upon his +gods one after another to strike his enemy dead. Sometimes one, +"gathering his medicine," as it was termed, feeling within himself that +hidden force of will which makes itself acknowledged even without words, +would rise in his might, and in a loud and severe voice command his +opponent to die! Straightway the latter would drop dead, or yielding in +craven fear to a superior volition, forsake the implements of his art, +and with an awful terror at his heart, creep to his lodge, refuse all +nourishment, and presently perish. Still more terrible was the tyranny +they exerted on the superstitious minds of the masses. Let an Indian +once be possessed of the idea that he is bewitched, and he will probably +reject all food, and sink under the phantoms of his own fancy. + +How deep the superstitious veneration of these men has struck its roots +in the soul of the Indian, it is difficult for civilized minds to +conceive. Their power is currently supposed to be without any bounds, +"extending to the raising of the dead and the control of all laws of +nature."[277-1] The grave offers no escape from their omnipotent arms. +The Sacs and Foxes, Algonkin tribes, think that the soul cannot leave +the corpse until set free by the medicine men at their great annual +feast;[277-2] and the Puelches of Buenos Ayres guard a profound silence +as they pass by the tomb of some redoubted necromancer, lest they should +disturb his repose, and suffer from his malignant skill.[278-1] + +While thus investigating their real and supposed power over the physical +and mental world, their strictly priestly functions, as performers of +the rites of religion, have not been touched upon. Among the ruder +tribes these, indeed, were of the most rudimentary character. +Sacrifices, chiefly in the form of feasts, where every one crammed to +his utmost, dances, often winding up with the wildest scenes of +licentiousness, the repetition of long and monotonous chants, the making +of the new fire, these are the ceremonies that satisfy the religious +wants of savages. The priest finds a further sphere for his activity in +manufacturing and consecrating amulets to keep off ill luck, in +interpreting dreams, and especially in lifting the veil of the future. +In Peru, for example, they were divided into classes, who made the +various means of divination specialties. Some caused the idols to speak, +others derived their foreknowledge from words spoken by the dead, others +predicted by leaves of tobacco or the grains and juice of cocoa, while +to still other classes, the shapes of grains of maize taken at random, +the appearance of animal excrement, the forms assumed by the smoke +rising from burning victims, the entrails and viscera of animals, the +course taken by a certain species of spider, the visions seen in +drunkeness,[TN-16] the flights of birds, and the directions in which +fruits would fall, all offered so many separate fields of +prognostication, the professors of which were distinguished by different +ranks and titles.[279-1] + +As the intellectual force of the nation was chiefly centred in this +class, they became the acknowledged depositaries of its sacred legends, +the instructors in the art of preserving thought; and from their duty to +regulate festivals, sprang the observation of the motions of the +heavenly bodies, the adjustment of the calendars, and the pseudo-science +of judicial astrology. The latter was carried to as subtle a pitch of +refinement in Mexico as in the old world; and large portions of the +ancient writers are taken up with explaining the method adopted by the +native astrologers to cast the horoscope, and reckon the nativity of the +newly-born infant. + +How was this superior power obtained? What were the terms of admission +to this privileged class? In the ruder communities the power was +strictly personal. It was revealed to its possessor by the character of +the visions he perceived at the ordeal he passed through on arriving at +puberty; and by the northern nations was said to be the manifestation of +a more potent personal spirit than ordinary. It was not a faculty, but +an inspiration; not an inborn strength, but a spiritual gift. The +curious theory of the Dakotas, as recorded by the Rev. Mr. Pond, was +that the necromant first wakes to consciousness as a winged seed, wafted +hither and thither by the intelligent action of the Four Winds. In this +form he visits the homes of the different classes of divinities, and +learns the chants, feasts, and dances, which it is proper for the human +race to observe, the art of omnipresence or clairvoyance, the means of +inflicting and healing diseases, and the occult secrets of nature, man, +and divinity. This is called "dreaming of the gods." When this +instruction is completed, the seed enters one about to become a mother, +assumes human form, and in due time manifests his powers. _Four_ such +incarnations await it, each of increasing might, and then the spirit +returns to its original nothingness. The same necessity of death and +resurrection was entertained by the Eskimos. To become of the highest +order of priests, it was supposed requisite, says Bishop Egede, that one +of the lower order should be drowned and eaten by sea monsters. Then, +when his bones, one after another, were all washed ashore, his spirit, +which meanwhile had been learning the secrets of the invisible world, +would return to them, and, clothed in flesh, he would go back to his +tribe. At other times a vague and indescribable longing seizes a young +person, a morbid appetite possesses them, or they fall a prey to an +inappeasable and aimless restlessness, or a causeless melancholy. These +signs the old priests recognize as the expression of a personal spirit +of the higher order. They take charge of the youth, and educate him to +the mysteries of their craft. For months or years he is condemned to +entire seclusion, receiving no visits but from the brethren of his +order. At length he is initiated with ceremonies of more or less pomp +into the brotherhood, and from that time assumes that gravity of +demeanor, sententious style of expression, and general air of mystery +and importance, everywhere deemed so eminently becoming in a doctor and +a priest. A peculiarity of the Moxos was, that they thought none +designated for the office but such as had escaped from the claws of the +South American tiger, which, indeed, it is said they worshipped as a +god.[281-1] + +Occasionally, in very uncultivated tribes, some family or totem claimed +a monopoly of the priesthood. Thus, among the Nez Percs of Oregon, it +was transmitted in one family from father to son and daughter, but +always with the proviso that the children at the proper age reported +dreams of a satisfactory character.[281-2] Perhaps alone of the Algonkin +tribes the Shawnees confined it to one totem, but it is remarkable that +the greatest of their prophets, Elskataway, brother of Tecumseh, was not +a member of this clan. From the most remote times, the Cherokees have +had one family set apart for the priestly office. This was when first +known to the whites that of the Nicotani, but its members, puffed up +with pride and insolence, abused their birthright so shamefully, and +prostituted it so flagrantly to their own advantage, that with savage +justice they were massacred to the last man. Another was appointed in +their place who to this day officiates in all religious rites. They +have, however, the superstition, possibly borrowed from Europeans, that +the _seventh_ son is a natural born prophet, with the gift of healing by +touch.[281-3] Adair states that their former neighbors, the Choctaws, +permitted the office of high priest, or Great Beloved Man, to remain in +one family, passing from father to eldest son, and the very influential +_piaches_ of the Carib tribes very generally transmitted their rank and +position to their children. + +In ancient Anahuac the prelacy was as systematic and its rules as well +defined, as in the Church of Rome. Except those in the service of +Huitzilopochtli, and perhaps a few other gods, none obtained the +priestly office by right of descent, but were dedicated to it from early +childhood. Their education was completed at the _Calmecac_, a sort of +ecclesiastical college, where instruction was given in all the wisdom of +the ancients, and the esoteric lore of their craft. The art of mixing +colors and tracing designs, the ideographic writing and phonetic +hieroglyphs, the songs and prayers used in public worship, the national +traditions and the principles of astrology, the hidden meaning of +symbols and the use of musical instruments, all formed parts of the +really extensive course of instruction they there received. When they +manifested a satisfactory acquaintance with this curriculum, they were +appointed by their superiors to such positions as their natural talents +and the use they had made of them qualified them for, some to instruct +children, others to the service of the temples, and others again to take +charge of what we may call country parishes. Implicit subordination of +all to the high priest of Huitzilopochtli, hereditary _pontifex +maximus_, chastity, or at least temperate indulgence in pleasure, +gravity of carriage, and strict attention to duty, were laws laid upon +all. + +The state religion of Peru was conducted under the supervision of a +high priest of the Inca family, and its ministers, as in Mexico, could +be of either sex, and hold office either by inheritance, education, or +election. For political reasons, the most important posts were usually +enjoyed by relatives of the ruler, but this was usage, not law. It is +stated by Garcilasso de la Vega[283-1] that they served in the temples +by turns, each being on duty the fourth of a lunar month at a time. Were +this substantiated it would offer the only example of the regulation of +public life by a week of seven days to be found in the New World. + +In every country there is perceptible a desire in this class of men to +surround themselves with mystery, and to concentrate and increase their +power by forming an intimate alliance among themselves. They affected +singularity in dress and a professional costume. Bartram describes the +junior priests of the Creeks as dressed in white robes and carrying on +their head or arm "a great owlskin, stuffed very ingeniously, as an +insignia of wisdom and divination. These bachelors are also +distinguishable from the other people by their taciturnity, grave and +solemn countenance, dignified step, and singing to themselves songs or +hymns, in a low sweet voice, as they stroll about the towns."[283-2] The +priests of the civilized nations adopted various modes of dress to +typify the divinity which they served, and their appearance was often in +the highest degree unprepossessing. + +To add to their self-importance they pretended to converse in a tongue +different from that used in ordinary life, and the chants containing +the prayers and legends were often in this esoteric dialect. Fragments +of one or two of these have floated down to us from the Aztec +priesthood. The travellers Balboa and Coreal, mention that the temple +services of Peru were conducted in a language not understood by the +masses,[284-1] and the incantations of the priests of Powhatan were not +in ordinary Algonkin, but some obscure jargon.[284-2] The same +peculiarity has been observed among the Dakotas and Eskimos, and in +these nations, fortunately, it fell under the notice of competent +linguistic scholars, who have submitted it to a searching examination. +The results of their labors prove that certainly in these two instances +the supposed foreign tongues were nothing more than the ordinary +dialects of the country modified by an affected accentuation, by the +introduction of a few cabalistic terms, and by the use of descriptive +circumlocutions and figurative words in place of ordinary expressions, a +slang, in short, such as rascals and pedants invariably coin whenever +they associate.[285-1] + +All these stratagems were intended to shroud with impenetrable secrecy +the mysteries of the brotherhood. With the same motive, the priests +formed societies of different grades of illumination, only to be entered +by those willing to undergo trying ordeals, whose secrets were not to be +revealed under the severest penalties. The Algonkins had three such +grades, the _waubeno_, the _meda_, and the _jossakeed_, the last being +the highest. To this no white man was ever admitted. All tribes appear +to have been controlled by these secret societies. Alexander von +Humboldt mentions one, called that of the Botuto or Holy Trumpet, among +the Indians of the Orinoko, whose members must vow celibacy and submit +to severe scourgings and fasts. The Collahuayas of Peru were a guild of +itinerant quacks and magicians, who never remained permanently in one +spot. + +Withal, there was no class of persons who so widely and deeply +influenced the culture and shaped the destiny of the Indian tribes, as +their priests. In attempting to gain a true conception of the race's +capacities and history, there is no one element of their social life +which demands closer attention than the power of these teachers. +Hitherto, they have been spoken of with a contempt which I hope this +chapter shows is unjustifiable. However much we may deplore the use they +made of their skill, we must estimate it fairly, and grant it its due +weight in measuring the influence of the religious sentiment on the +history of man. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[265-1] Haeser, _Geschichte der Medicin_, pp. 4, 7: Jena, 1845. + +[265-2] Schoolcraft, _Ind. Tribes_, v. p. 440. + +[267-1] Carver, _Travels in North America_, p. 73: Boston, 1802; +_Narrative of John Tanner_, p. 135. + +[267-2] Sahagun, _Hist. de la Nueva Espaa_, lib. x. cap. 20; _Le Livre +Sacr des Quichs_, p. 177; _Lett. sur les Superstit. du Prou_, pp. 89, +91. + +[269-1] _Life of Black Hawk_, p. 13. + +[270-1] _Travs. in North America_, p. 74. + +[270-2] _Journal Historique_, p. 362. + +[271-1] Sometimes facts like this can be explained by the quickness of +perception acquired by constant exposure to danger. The mind takes +cognizance unconsciously of trifling incidents, the sum of which leads it +to a conviction which the individual regards almost as an inspiration. +This is the explanation of _presentiments_. But this does not apply to +cases like that of Swedenborg, who described a conflagration going on at +Stockholm, when he was at Gottenberg, three hundred miles away. +Psychologists who scorn any method of studying the mind but through +physiology, are at a loss in such cases, and take refuge in refusing them +credence. Theologians call them inspirations either of devils or angels, +as they happen to agree or disagree in religious views with the person +experiencing them. True science reserves its opinion until further +observation enlightens it. + +[272-1] Schoolcraft, _Indian Tribes_, iii. p. 287; v. p. 652. + +[273-1] "The progress from deepest ignorance to highest enlightenment," +remarks Herbert Spencer in his _Social Statics_, "is a progress from +entire unconsciousness of law, to the conviction that law is universal +and inevitable." + +[273-2] The Creeks had, according to Hawkins, not less than seven sacred +plants; chief of them were the cassine yupon, called by botanists _Ilex +vomitoria_, or _Ilex cassina_, of the natural order Aquifoliace; and the +blue flag, _Iris versicolor_, natural order Iridace. The former is a +powerful diuretic and mild emetic, and grows only near the sea. The +latter is an active emeto-cathartic, and is abundant on swampy grounds +throughout the Southern States. From it was formed the celebrated "black +drink," with which they opened their councils, and which served them in +place of spirits. + +[274-1] Martius, _Von dem Rechtzustande unter den Ureinwohnern +Brasiliens_, p. 32. + +[275-1] Mr. Anderson, in the _Am. Hist. Mag._, vii. p. 79. + +[276-1] Such spectacles were nothing uncommon. They are frequently +mentioned in the Jesuit Relations, and they were the chief obstacles to +missionary labor. In the debauches and excesses that excited these +temporary manias, in the recklessness of life and property they fostered, +and in their disastrous effects on mind and body, are depicted more than +in any other one trait the thorough depravity of the race and its +tendency to ruin. In the quaint words of one of the Catholic fathers, "If +the old proverb is true that every man has a grain of madness in his +composition, it must be confessed that this is a people where each has at +least half an ounce" (De Quen, _Rel. de la Nouv. France_, 1656, p. 27). +For the instance in the text see _Rel. de la Nouv. France_, An 1639, pp. +88-94. + +[277-1] Schoolcraft, _Indian Tribes_, v. p. 423. + +[277-2] J. M. Stanley, in the _Smithsonian Miscellaneous Contributions_, +ii. p. 38. + +[278-1] D'Orbigny, _L'Homme Amricain_, ii. p. 81. + +[279-1] See Balboa, _Hist. du Prou_, pp. 28-30. + +[281-1] D'Orbigny, _L'Homme Amricain_, ii. p. 235. + +[281-2] Schoolcraft, _Ind. Tribes_, v. p. 652. + +[281-3] Dr. Mac Gowan, in the _Amer. Hist. Mag._, x. p. 139; Whipple, +_Rep. on the Ind. Tribes_, p. 35. + +[283-1] _Hist. des Incas_, lib. iii. ch. 22. + +[283-2] _Travels in the Carolinas_, p. 504. + +[284-1] _Hist. du Prou_, p. 128; _Voiages aux Indes Occidentales_, ii. +p. 97. + +[284-2] Beverly, _Hist. de la Virginie_, p. 266. The dialect he specifies +is "celle d'Occaniches," and on page 252 he says, "On dit que la langue +universelle des Indiens de ces Quartiers est celle des _Occaniches_, +quoiqu'ils ne soient qu'une petite Nation, depuis que les Anglois +connoissent ce Pais; mais je ne sais pas la difference qui'l y a entre +cette langue et celle des Algonkins." (French trans., Orleans, 1707.) +This is undoubtedly the same people that Johannes Lederer, a German +traveller, visited in 1670, and calls _Akenatzi_. They dwelt on an +island, in a branch of the Chowan River, the Sapona, or Deep River +(Lederer's _Discovery of North America_, in Harris, Voyages, p. 20). +Thirty years later the English surveyor, Lawson, found them in the same +spot, and speaks of them as the _Acanechos_ (see _Am. Hist. Mag._, i. p. +163). Their totem was that of the serpent, and their name is not +altogether unlike the Tuscarora name of this animal _usquauhne_. As the +serpent was so widely a sacred animal, this gives Beverly's remarks an +unusual significance. It by no means follows from this name that they +were of Iroquois descent. Lederer travelled with a Tuscarora (Iroquois) +interpreter, who gave them their name in his own tongue. On the contrary, +it is extremely probable that they were an Algonkin totem, which had the +exclusive right to the priesthood. + +[285-1] Riggs, _Gram. and Dict. of the Dakota_, p. ix; Kane, _Second +Grinnell Expedition_, ii. p. 127. Paul Egede gives a number of words and +expressions in the dialect of the sorcerers, _Nachrichten von Grnland_, +p. 122. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +THE INFLUENCE OF THE NATIVE RELIGIONS ON THE MORAL AND SOCIAL LIFE OF +THE RACE. + + Natural religions hitherto considered of Evil rather than of + Good.--Distinctions to be drawn.--Morality not derived from + religion.--The positive side of natural religions in incarnations + of divinity.--Examples.--Prayers as indices of religious + progress.--Religion and social advancement.--Conclusion. + + +Drawing toward the conclusion of my essay, I I am sensible that the vast +field of American mythology remains for most part untouched--that I have +but proved that it is not an absolute wilderness, pathless as the +tropical jungles which now conceal the temples of the race; but that, go +where we will, certain landmarks and guide-posts are visible, revealing +uniformity of design and purpose, and refuting, by their presence, the +oft-repeated charge of entire incoherence and aimlessness. It remains to +examine the subjective power of the native religions, their influence on +those who held them, and the place they deserve in the history of the +race. What are their merits, if merits they have? what their demerits? +Did they purify the life and enlighten the mind, or the contrary? Are +they in short of evil or of good? The problem is complex--its solution +most difficult. The author who of late years has studied most profoundly +the savage races of the globe, expresses the discouraging conviction: +"Their religions have not acted as levers to raise them to +civilization; they have rather worked, and that powerfully, to impede +every step in advance, in the first place by ascribing everything +unintelligible in nature to spiritual agency, and then by making the +fate of man dependent on mysterious and capricious forces, not on his +own skill and foresight."[288-1] + +It would ill accord with the theory of mythology which I have all along +maintained if this verdict were final. But in fact these false doctrines +brought with them their own antidotes, at least to some extent, and +while we give full weight to their evil, let us also acknowledge their +good. By substituting direct divine interference for law, belief for +knowledge, a dogma for a fact, the highest stimulus to mental endeavor +was taken away. Nature, to the heathen, is no harmonious whole swayed by +eternal principles, but a chaos of causeless effects, the meaningless +play of capricious ghosts. He investigates not, because he doubts not. +All events are to him miracles. Therefore his faith knows no bounds, and +those who teach that doubt is sinful must contemplate him with +admiration. The damsels of Nicaragua destined to be thrown into the +seething craters of volcanoes, went to their fate, says Pascual de +Andagoya, "happy as if they were going to be saved,"[288-2] and +doubtless believing so. The subjects of a Central American chieftain, +remarks Oviedo, "look upon it as the crown of favors to be permitted to +die with their cacique, and thus to acquire immortality."[288-3] The +terrible power exerted by the priests rested, as they themselves often +saw, largely on the implicit and literal acceptance of their dicta. + +In some respects the contrast here offered to enlightened nations is not +always in favor of the latter. Borrowing the pointed antithesis of the +poet, the mind is often tempted to exclaim-- + + "This is all + The gain we reap from all the wisdom sown + Through ages: Nothing doubted those first sons + Of Time, while we, the schooled of centuries, + Nothing believe." + +But the complaint is unfounded. Faith is dearly bought at the cost of +knowledge; nor in a better sense has it yet gone from among us. Far more +sublime than any known to the barbarian is the faith of the astronomer, +who spends the nights in marking the seemingly wayward motions of the +stars, or of the anatomist, who studies with unwearied zeal the minute +fibres of the organism, each upheld by the unshaken conviction that from +least to greatest throughout this universe, purpose and order everywhere +prevail. + +Natural religions rarely offer more than this negative opposition to +reason. They are tolerant to a degree. The savage, void of any clear +conception of a supreme deity, sets up no claim that his is the only +true church. If he is conquered in battle, he imagines that it is owing +to the inferiority of his own gods to those of his victor, and he rarely +therefore requires any other reasons to make him a convert. Acting on +this principle, the Incas, when they overcame a strange province, sent +its most venerated idol for a time to the temple of the Sun at Cuzco, +thus proving its inferiority to their own divinity, but took no more +violent steps to propagate their creeds.[290-1] So in the city of Mexico +there was a temple appropriated to the idols of conquered nations in +which they were shut up, both to prove their weakness and prevent them +from doing mischief. A nation, like an individual, was not inclined to +patronize a deity who had manifested his incompetence by allowing his +charge to be gradually worn away by constant disaster. As far as can now +be seen, in matters intellectual, the religions of ancient Mexico and +Peru were far more liberal than that introduced by the Spanish +conquerors, which, claiming the monopoly of truth, sought to enforce its +claim by inquisitions and censorships. + +In this view of the relative powers of deities lay a potent corrective +to the doctrine that the fate of man was dependent on the caprices of +the gods. For no belief was more universal than that which assigned to +each individual a guardian spirit. This invisible monitor was an ever +present help in trouble. He suggested expedients, gave advice and +warning in dreams, protected in danger, and stood ready to foil the +machinations of enemies, divine or human. With unlimited faith in this +protector, attributing to him the devices suggested by his own quick +wits and the fortunate chances of life, the savage escaped the +oppressive thought that he was the slave of demoniac forces, and dared +the dangers of the forest and the war path without anxiety. + +By far the darkest side of such a religion is that which it presents to +morality. The religious sense is by no means the voice of conscience. +The Takahli Indian when sick makes a full and free confession of sins, +but a murder, however unnatural and unprovoked, he does not mention, not +counting it crime.[291-1] Scenes of brutal licentiousness were approved +and sustained throughout the continent as acts of worship; maidenhood +was in many parts freely offered up or claimed by the priests as a +right; in Central America twins were slain for religious motives; human +sacrifice was common throughout the tropics, and was not unusual in +higher latitudes; cannibalism was often enjoined; and in Peru, Florida, +and Central America it was not uncommon for parents to slay their own +children at the behest of a priest.[291-2] The philosophical moralist, +contemplating such spectacles, has thought to recognize in them one +consoling trait. All history, it has been said, shows man living under +an irritated God, and seeking to appease him by sacrifice of blood; the +essence of all religion, it has been added, lies in that of which +sacrifice is the symbol, namely, in the offering up of self, in the +rendering up of our will to the will of God.[291-3] But sacrifice, when +not a token of gratitude, cannot be thus explained. It is not a +rendering up, but a _substitution_ of our will for God's will. A deity +is angered by neglect of his dues; he will revenge, certainly, terribly, +we know not how or when. But as punishment is all he desires, if we +punish ourselves he will be satisfied; and far better is such +self-inflicted torture than a fearful looking for of judgment to come. +Craven fear, not without some dim sense of the implacability of nature's +laws, is at its root. Looking only at this side of religion, the ancient +philosopher averred that the gods existed solely in the apprehensions of +their votaries, and the moderns have asserted that "fear is the father +of religion, love her late-born daughter;"[292-1] that "the first form +of religious belief is nothing else but a horror of the unknown," and +that "no natural religion appears to have been able to develop from a +germ within itself anything whatever of real advantage to +civilization."[292-2] + +Far be it from me to excuse the enormities thus committed under the garb +of religion, or to ignore their disastrous consequences on human +progress. Yet this question is a fair one--If the natural religious +belief has in it no germ of anything better, whence comes the manifest +and undeniable improvement occasionally witnessed--as, for example, +among the Toltecs, the Peruvians, and the Mayas? The reply is, by the +influence of great men, who cultivated within themselves a purer faith, +lived it in their lives, preached it successfully to their fellows, and, +at their death, still survived in the memory of their nation, +unforgotten models of noble qualities.[293-1] Where, in America, is any +record of such men? We are pointed, in answer, to Quetzalcoatl, +Viracocha, Zamna, and their congeners. But these august figures I have +shown to be wholly mythical, creations of the religious fancy, parts and +parcels of the earliest religion itself. The entire theory falls to +nothing, therefore, and we discover a positive side to natural +religions--one that conceals a germ of endless progress, which +vindicates their lofty origin, and proves that He "is not far from every +one of us." + +I have already analyzed these figures under their physical aspect. Let +it be observed in what antithesis they stand to most other mythological +creations. Let it be remembered that they primarily correspond to the +stable, the regular, the cosmical phenomena, that they are always +conceived under human form, not as giants, fairies, or strange beasts; +that they were said at one time to have been visible leaders of their +nations, that they did not suffer death, and that, though absent, they +are ever present, favoring those who remain mindful of their precepts. I +touched but incidentally on their moral aspects. This was likewise in +contrast to the majority of inferior deities. The worship of the latter +was a tribute extorted by fear. The Indian deposits tobacco on the rocks +of a rapid, that the spirit of the swift waters may not swallow his +canoe; in a storm he throws overboard a dog to appease the siren of the +angry waves. He used to tear the hearts from his captives to gain the +favor of the god of war. He provides himself with talismans to bind +hostile deities. He fees[TN-17] the conjurer to exorcise the demon of +disease. He loves none of them, he respects none of them; he only fears +their wayward tempers. They are to him mysterious, invisible, capricious +goblins. But, in his highest divinity, he recognized a Father and a +Preserver, a benign Intelligence, who provided for him the comforts of +life--man, like himself, yet a god--God of All. "Go and do good," was +the parting injunction of his father to Michabo in Algonkin +legend;[294-1] and in their ancient and uncorrupted stories such is ever +his object. "The worship of Tamu," the culture hero of the Guaranis, +says the traveller D'Orbigny, "is one of reverence, not of fear."[294-2] +They were ideals, summing up in themselves the best traits, the most +approved virtues of whole nations, and were adored in a very different +spirit from other divinities. + +None of them has more humane and elevated traits than Quetzalcoatl. He +was represented of majestic stature and dignified demeanor. In his train +came skilled artificers and men of learning. He was chaste and temperate +in life, wise in council, generous of gifts, conquering rather by arts +of peace than of war; delighting in music, flowers, and brilliant +colors, and so averse to human sacrifices that he shut his ears with +both hands when they were even mentioned.[295-1] Such was the ideal man +and supreme god of a people who even a Spanish monk of the sixteenth +century felt constrained to confess were "a good people, attached to +virtue, urbane and simple in social intercourse, shunning lies, skilful +in arts, pious toward their gods."[295-2] Is it likely, is it possible, +that with such a model as this before their minds, they received no +benefit from it? Was not this a lever, and a mighty one, lifting the +race toward civilization and a purer faith? + +Transfer the field of observation to Yucatan, and we find in Zamna, to +New Granada and in Nemqueteba, to Peru and in Viracocha, or his reflex +Manco Capac, the lineaments of Quetzalcoatl--modified, indeed, by +difference of blood and temperament, but each combining in himself all +the qualities most esteemed by their several nations. Were one or all of +these proved to be historical personages, still the fact remains that +the primitive religious sentiment, investing them with the best +attributes of humanity, dwelling on them as its models, worshipping them +as gods, contained a kernel of truth potent to encourage moral +excellence. But if they were mythical, then this truth was of +spontaneous growth, self-developed by the growing distinctness of the +idea of God, a living witness that the religious sense, like every +other faculty, has within itself a power of endless evolution. + +If we inquire the secret of the happier influence of this element in +natural worship, it is all contained in one word--its _humanity_. "The +Ideal of Morality," says the contemplative Novalis, "has no more +dangerous rival than the Ideal of the Greatest Strength, of the most +vigorous life, the Brute Ideal" (_das Thier-Ideal_).[296-1] Culture +advances in proportion as man recognizes what faculties are peculiar to +him _as man_, and devotes himself to their education. The moral value of +religions can be very precisely estimated by the human or the brutal +character of their gods. The worship of Quetzalcoatl in the city of +Mexico was subordinate to that of lower conceptions, and consequently +the more sanguinary and immoral were the rites there practised. The +Algonkins, who knew no other meaning for Michabo than the Great Hare, +had lost, by a false etymology, the best part of their religion. + +Looking around for other standards wherewith to measure the progress of +the knowledge of divinity in the New World, _prayer_ suggests itself as +one of the least deceptive. "Prayer," to quote again the words of +Novalis,[296-2] "is in religion what thought is in philosophy. The +religious sense prays, as the reason thinks." Guizot, carrying the +analysis farther, thinks that it is prompted by a painful conviction of +the inability of our will to conform to the dictates of reason.[296-3] +Originally it was connected with the belief that divine caprice, not +divine law, governs the universe, and that material benefits rather than +spiritual gifts are to be desired. The gradual recognition of its +limitations and proper objects marks religious advancement. The Lord's +Prayer contains seven petitions, only one of which is for a temporal +advantage, and it the least that can be asked for. What immeasurable +interval between it and the prayer of the Nootka Indian on preparing for +war!-- + +"Great Quahootze, let me live, not be sick, find the enemy, not fear +him, find him asleep, and kill a great many of him."[297-1] + +Or again, between it and the petition of a Huron to a local god, heard +by Father Brebeuf:-- + +"Oki, thou who livest in this spot, I offer thee tobacco. Help us, save +us from shipwreck, defend us from our enemies, give us a good trade, and +bring us back safe and sound to our villages."[297-2] + +This is a fair specimen of the supplications of the lowest religion. +Another equally authentic is given by Father Allouez.[297-3] In 1670 he +penetrated to an outlying Algonkin village, never before visited by a +white man. The inhabitants, startled by his pale face and long black +gown, took him for a divinity. They invited him to the council lodge, a +circle of old men gathered around him, and one of them, approaching him +with a double handful of tobacco, thus addressed him, the others +grunting approval:-- + +"This, indeed, is well, Blackrobe, that thou dost visit us. Have mercy +upon us. Thou art a Manito. We give thee to smoke. + +"The Naudowessies and Iroquois are devouring us. Have mercy upon us. + +"We are often sick; our children die; we are hungry. Have mercy upon us. +Hear me, O Manito, I give thee to smoke. + +"Let the earth yield us corn; the rivers give us fish; sickness not slay +us; nor hunger so torment us. Hear us, O Manito, we give thee to smoke." + +In this rude but touching petition, wrung from the heart of a miserable +people, nothing but their wretchedness is visible. Not the faintest +trace of an aspiration for spiritual enlightenment cheers the eye of the +philanthropist, not the remotest conception that through suffering we +are purified can be detected. + +By the side of these examples we may place the prayers of Peru and +Mexico, forms composed by the priests, written out, committed to memory, +and repeated at certain seasons. They are not less authentic, having +been collected and translated in the first generation after the +conquest. One to Viracocha Pachacamac, was as follows:-- + +"O Pachacamac, thou who hast existed from the beginning and shalt exist +unto the end, powerful and pitiful; who createdst man by saying, let man +be; who defendest us from evil and preservest our life and health; art +thou in the sky or in the earth, in the clouds or in the depths? Hear +the voice of him who implores thee, and grant him his petitions. Give +us life everlasting, preserve us, and accept this our sacrifice."[299-1] + +In the voluminous specimens of Aztec prayers preserved by Sahagun, moral +improvement, the "spiritual gift," is very rarely if at all the object +desired. Health, harvests, propitious rains, release from pain, +preservation from dangers, illness, and defeat, these are the almost +unvarying themes. But here and there we catch a glimpse of something +better, some dim sense of the divine beauty of suffering, some feeble +glimmering of the grand truth so nobly expressed by the poet:-- + + aus des Busens Tiefe strmt Gedeihn + Der festen Duldung und entschlossner That. + Nicht Schmerz ist Unglck, Glck nicht immer Freude; + Wer sein Geschick erfllt, dem lcheln beide. + +"Is it possible," says one of them, "that this scourge, this affliction, +is sent to us not for our correction and improvement, but for our +destruction and annihilation? O Merciful Lord, let this chastisement +with which thou hast visited us, thy people, be as those which a father +or mother inflicts on their children, not out of anger, but to the end +that they may be free from follies and vices." Another formula, used +when a chief was elected to some important position, reads: "O Lord, +open his eyes and give him light, sharpen his ears and give him +understanding, not that he may use them to his own advantage, but for +the good of the people he rules. Lead him to know and to do thy will, +let him be as a trumpet which sounds thy words. Keep him from the +commission of injustice and oppression."[300-1] + +At first, good and evil are identical with pleasure and pain, luck and +ill-luck. "The good are good warriors and hunters," said a Pawnee +chief,[300-2] which would also be the opinion of a wolf, if he could +express it. Gradually the eyes of the mind are opened, and it is +perceived that "whom He loveth, He chastiseth," and physical give[TN-18] +place to moral ideas of good and evil. Finally, as the idea of God rises +more distinctly before the soul, as "the One by whom, in whom, and +through whom all things are," evil is seen to be the negation, not the +opposite of good, and itself "a porch oft opening on the sun." + +The influence of these religions on art, science, and social life, must +also be weighed in estimating their value. + +Nearly all the remains of American plastic art, sculpture, and painting, +were obviously designed for religious purposes. Idols of stone, wood, or +baked clay, were found in every Indian tribe, without exception, so far +as I can judge; and in only a few directions do these arts seem to have +been applied to secular purposes. The most ambitious attempts of +architecture, it is plain, were inspired by religious fervor. The great +pyramid of Cholula, the enormous mounds of the Mississippi valley, the +elaborate edifices on artificial hills in Yucatan, were miniature +representations of the mountains hallowed by tradition, the "Hill of +Heaven," the peak on which their ancestors escaped in the flood, or that +in the terrestrial paradise from which flow the rains. Their +construction took men away from war and the chase, encouraged +agriculture, peace, and a settled disposition, and fostered the love of +property, of country, and of the gods. The priests were also close +observers of nature, and were the first to discover its simpler laws. +The Aztec sages were as devoted star-gazers as the Chaldeans, and their +calendar bears unmistakable marks of native growth, and of its original +purpose to fix the annual festivals. Writing by means of pictures and +symbols was cultivated chiefly for religious ends, and the word +_hieroglyph_ is a witness that the phonetic alphabet was discovered +under the stimulus of the religious sentiment. Most of the aboriginal +literature was composed and taught by the priests, and most of it refers +to matters connected with their superstitions. As the gifts of votaries +and the erection of temples enriched the sacerdotal order individually +and collectively, the terrors of religion were lent to the secular arm +to enforce the rights of property. Music, poetic, scenic, and historical +recitations, formed parts of the ceremonies of the more civilized +nations, and national unity was strengthened by a common shrine. An +active barter in amulets, lucky stones, and charms, existed all over the +continent, to a much greater extent than we might think. As experience +demonstrates that nothing so efficiently promotes civilization as the +free and peaceful intercourse of man with man, I lay particular stress +on the common custom of making pilgrimages. + +The temple on the island of Cozumel in Yucatan was visited every year by +such multitudes from all parts of the peninsula, that roads, paved with +cut stones, had been constructed from the neighboring shore to the +principal cities of the interior.[302-1] Each village of the Muyscas is +said to have had a beaten path to Lake Guatavita, so numerous were the +devotees who journeyed to the shrine there located.[302-2] In Peru the +temples of Pachacam, Rimac, and other famous gods, were repaired to by +countless numbers from all parts of the realm, and from other provinces +within a radius of three hundred leagues around. Houses of entertainment +were established on all the principal roads, and near the temples, for +their accommodation; and when they made known the object of their +journey, they were allowed a safe passage even through an enemy's +territory.[302-3] + + * * * * * + +The more carefully we study history, the more important in our eyes will +become the religious sense. It is almost the only faculty peculiar to +man. It concerns him nearer than aught else. It is the key to his origin +and destiny. As such it merits in all its developments the most earnest +attention, an attention we shall find well repaid in the clearer +conceptions we thus obtain of the forces which control the actions and +fates of individuals and nations. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[288-1] Waitz, _Anthropologie der Naturvoelker_, i. p. 459. + +[288-2] Navarrete, _Viages_, iii. p. 415. + +[288-3] _Relation de Cueba_, p. 140. Ed. Ternaux-Compans. + +[290-1] La Vega, _Hist. des Incas_, liv. v. cap. 12. + +[291-1] Morse, _Rep. on the Ind. Tribes_, App. p. 345. + +[291-2] Ximenes, _Origen de los Indios de Guatemala_, p. 192; Acosta, +_Hist. of the New World_, lib. v. chap. 18. + +[291-3] Joseph de Maistre, _Eclaircissement sur les Sacrifices_; Trench, +_Hulsean Lectures_, p. 180. The famed Abb Lammenaais and Professor Sepp, +of Munich, with these two writers, may be taken as the chief exponents of +a school of mythologists, all of whom start from the theories first laid +down by Count de Maistre in his _Soires de St. Petersbourg_. To them the +strongest proof of Christianity lies in the traditions and observances of +heathendom. For these show the wants of the religious sense, and +Christianity, they maintain, purifies and satisfies them all. The rites, +symbols, and legends of every natural religion, they say, are true and +not false; all that is required is to assign them their proper places and +their real meaning. Therefore the strange resemblances in heathen myths +to what is revealed in the Scriptures, as well as the ethical +anticipations which have been found in ancient philosophies, all, so far +from proving that Christianity is a natural product of the human mind, in +fact, are confirmations of it, unconscious prophecies, and presentiments +of the truth. + +[292-1] Alfred Maury, _La Magie et l'Astrologie dans l'Antiquit et au +Moyen Age_, p. 8: Paris, 1860. + +[292-2] Waitz, _Anthropologie_, i. pp. 325, 465. + +[293-1] So says Dr. Waitz, _ibid._, p. 465. + +[294-1] Schoolcraft, _Algic Researches_, i. p. 143. + +[294-2] _L'Homme Amricain_, ii. p. 319. + +[295-1] Brasseur, _Hist. du Mexique_, liv. iii. chaps. 1 and 2. + +[295-2] Sahagun, _Hist. de la Nueva Espaa_, lib. x. cap. 29. + +[296-1] Novalis, _Schriften_, i. p. 244: Berlin, 1837. + +[296-2] Ibid., p. 267. + +[296-3] _Hist. de la Civilisation en France_, i. pp. 122, 130. + +[297-1] _Narrative of J. R. Jewett among the Savages of Nootka Sound_, p. +121. + +[297-2] _Rel. de la Nouv. France_, An 1636, p. 109. + +[297-3] Ibid., An 1670, p. 99. + +[299-1] Geronimo de Ore, _Symbolo Catholico Indiano_, chap, ix., quoted +by Ternaux-Compans. De Ore was a native of Peru and held the position of +Professor of Theology in Cuzco in the latter half of the sixteenth +century. He was a man of great erudition, and there need be no hesitation +in accepting this extraordinary prayer as genuine. For his life and +writings see Nic. Antonio, _Bib. Hisp. Nova_, tom. ii. p. 43. + +[300-1] Sahagun, _Hist. de la Nueva Espaa_, lib. vi. caps. 1, 4. + +[300-2] Morse, _Rep. on the Ind. Tribes_, App. p. 250. + +[302-1] Cogolludo, _Hist. de Yucathan_, lib. iv. cap. 9. Compare +Stephens, _Travs. in Yucatan_, ii. p. 122, who describes the remains of +these roads as they now exist. + +[302-2] Rivero and Tschudi, _Antiqs. of Peru_, p. 162. + +[302-3] La Vega, _Hist. des Incas_, lib. vi. chap. 30; Xeres, _Rel de la +Conq. du Prou_, p. 151; _Let. sur les Superstit. du Prou_, p. 98, and +others. + + + + +INDEX. + + +Abnakis, 174 + +Acagchemem, a Californian tribe, 105 + +Age of man in America, 35-37 + +Ages of the world, 213 sq. + +Akakanet, 61 + +Akanzas, 238 + +Akenatzi, 284 + +Algonkins, location, 26 + name of God, 58 n.[TN-19] + mythical ancestors, 77 + veneration of birds, 103 + of serpents, 108, 109, 113, 116 + myths and rites, 133, 136, 144, 147, 151, 161, 174, 198, 209, 220, + 224, 236, 240, 244, 248, 277, 297 + +Aluberi, a name of God, 58 n.[TN-19] + +Anahuac, 29, 282 + +Angont, a mythical serpent, 136 + +Apalachian tribes, 27, 225 + +Apocatequil, a Peruvian deity, 153 + +Ararats, of America, 203 + +Araucanians, 33 + name of God, 48, 61 + myths, 204, 248 + +Arks, 255 + +Arowacks, 58 n.[TN-19] + +Ataensic, an Iroquois deity, 123, 131, 170 + +Ataguju, or Atachuchu, 152 + +Atatarho, mythical Iroquois chief, 118 + +Athapascan tribes, 24 + myths, 104, 150, 195, 205, 229, 248, 257 + +Atl, an Aztec deity, 131 + +Aurora borealis, 245 + +Aymaras, 31, 34, 177 + +Aztecs, their books and characters, 10 + divisions, 29 + names of God, 48, 50, 58 n.[TN-19] + government, 69 + rites, 72, 126, 127, 147 + calendar, 74 + worship of cross, 95 + names of cardinal points, 93 + worship of birds, 102, 106, 107 + of serpents, 111 + myths, 132, 133, 134, 138, 144, 156, 171, 181, 205, 214 sq., 227, + 240, 246, 248, 252, 258 + priests, 282 + prayers, 292 + +Aztlan, 181 + + +Bacab, Maya gods, 80 + +Baptism, 125 seq. + +Bimini, 87 + +Bird, symbol of, 101 sq., 195 sq., 229, 254 + +Blue, symbolic meaning of, 47 + +Bochica, 183 + +Boiuca, a mythical isle, 87 + +Bones, preservation of, 255 + soul in the, 257 + +Botocudos, 123, 201 + +Brasseur, Abb, his works, 41 + +Brazilian tribes, 102, 134, 250 + (See _Tupis_, _Botocudos_.) + +Busk, a Creek festival, 71, 96 + + +Caddoes, 93, 203 + +Camaxtli, 158 + +Cardinal points, adoration of, 67 sq. + names of, 93 sq. + +Caribs, 32 + theory of lightning, 104, 114 + myths and rites, 145, 184, 223, 237, 244, 256 + priests, 282 + +Catequil. (See _Apocatequil_.) + +Centeotl, goddess of maize, 22, 134 + +Chac, Maya gods, 80 + +Chalchihuitlycue, an Aztec god, 123 + +Chantico, an Aztec god, 138 + +Cherokees, location, 25 + name of God, 51 + serpent myth, 115 + baptism, 128 + deluge, 205 + priests, 281 + +Chia, goddess of Muyscas, 134 + +Chichimec, 139 n., 158 + +Chicomoztoc, the Seven Caves, 227 + +Chicunoapa, the Aztec Styx, 249 + +Chipeways, picture-writing, 10 + records, 17 + magicians, 71 + myths, 163, 168 + +Choctaws, location, 27 + name of God, 51 + myths, 84 n.,[TN-20] 225, 261 + priests, 281 + +Cholula, 180, 181, 204, 228 + +Cihuacoatl, the Serpent Woman, 120 + +Cihuapipilti, 246 + +Circumcision, 147 + +Citatli, 131 + +Clairvoyance, 269 + +Coatlicue, 118 + +Colors, symbolism of, 47, 80, 140, 165 + +Con or Contici, 155, 176 + +Coxcox, 202 + +Craniology, American, 35 + +Creation, myths of, 193 seq. + +Creeks, location, 27 + name of God, 50 + rites, 71, 96 + mythical ancestors, 77 + serpent myth, 115 + other myths, 137, 225, 242, 244 + priests, 273, 283 + +Cross, symbolic meaning of, 95-7, 183, 188 + of Palenque, 118 + +Cupay,[TN-21] the Quichua Pluto, 61, 251 + +Cusic, his Iroquois legends, 63, 108 n. + + +Dakotas, location, 28 + rites, 71 + language, 75 + mythical ancestors, 77 + myths, 62, 103, 133, 150, 237, 259, 279 + +Dawn, myths of, 166, 167, 175, 227 + +Delawares, 140 n., 144 + (See _Lenni Lenape_.) + +Deluge, myth, origin, etc., 198-212 + +Devil, idea of unknown to red race, 59, 251 + +Divination, 278 + +Dobayba, 123 + +Dog, as a symbol, 137, 229, 247-9 + +Dove, as a a[TN-22] symbol, 107 + +Dualism, moral, not found in America, 59 + sexual not found, 146 + + +Eagle, as a symbol, 104 + +East, myths, concerning, 91, 165, 174, 180 + (See _Dawn_.) + +Eastman, Mrs., her _Legends of the Sioux_, 103 + +Eldorado,[TN-23] 87 + +Enigorio and Enigohahetgea, 63 + +Epochs of nature, 200 seq. + +Esaugetuh Emissee, 50 + +Eskimos, location, 23 + name of chief god, 50, 76 + term for south, 94 + veneration of birds, 101 + myths, 173 n., 193, 226, 229, 241, 245, 261, 280 + + +Fear in religion, 141, 292 + +Fire-worship, 140 seq. + +Flood-myth. (See _Deluge_.) + +Florida, 87 + +Forty, a sacred number, 94 + +Fountain of youth, 129 + +Four, the sacred number of red race, 66 sq., 105, 157, 167, 178, 182, + 184, 240 + +Four brothers, the myth of, 76-83, 152, 167, 178, 182 + + +Garhonia, Iroquois deity, 48 + +Gizhigooke, the day-maker, 169 + +Guaranis, 32, 84 n.[TN-20] + +Guatavita Lake, 124 + +Gucumatz, the bird-serpent, 118 + +Gumongo, god of the Monquis, 93 + + +Haitians, myths of, 78, 85, 135, 188 + +Hand, symbol of the, 183 + +Haokah, Dakota thunder god, 151 + +Hawaneu. (See _Neo_.) + +Heaven, the, of the red race, 243 + +Hell, the hidden world, 252 + +Heno, Iroquois thunder-god, 156 + +Hiawatha, myth of, 172 + +Hobbamock, 60 + +Huemac, the Strong-hand, 181, 183 + +Huitzilopochtli, the god of war, 118, 282 + +Hunting, its effect on the mind, 21, 67, 100 + +Hurakan or hurricane, meaning of, 51 + a Maya god, 81, 82, 114, 156, 196 + +Hurons, 25, 48, 114, 136, 169, 248, 250, 275 + +Hushtoli, Choctaw name of God, 51 + + +Illatici, Quichua name of God, 55, 155 + +Incas, secret language, 31 + official title, 69 + ancestors, 82, 153 + arms, 120 + sun-worship, 142 + myths, 188, 191, 244 + +Ioskeha, supreme god of Iroquois, 63, 170-2 + +Iroquois, location, 25 + name of God, 48, 53 + myths of, 83, 85, 169-72, 196, 227, 236 + veneration of serpents, 108, 116, 118 + of fire, 148 + +Isolation of the red race, 20, 34 + +Itzcuinan, the Bitch-Mother, 138 + + +Jarvis, Dr., his Discourse on American Religions, 39 + +Juripari, 61 + + +Killistenoes, 270 + +Kittanitowit, 58, 60 + +Ku, a name of divinity, 46, 47 + +Kukulcan, god of air, 118 + + +Languages of America, 7 + esoteric of priests, 284 + +Lenni Lenape, 26, 96, 161, 231 + +Light, universal symbol of divinity, 173 + +Lightning, the, 112 seq., 151 seq., 168 + + +Madness, as inspiration, 274 seq. + +Magic, natural, 266 + +Maistre, Joseph de, his theory of mythology, 291, n.[TN-24] + +Maize, distribution of, 22, 37 + +Man, origin of, 222 sq., 258 + word for, 223 + +Mandans, 71, 85, 107, 184, 205, 228 + +Manibozho. (See _Michabo_.) + +Mannacicas, 250 + +Manoa, 87 + +Manes, 111 + +Mayas, alphabet, 13 + location, 30 + calendar, 74, 80 + mythical ancestors, 79, 80, 85 + myths and rites, 93, 146, 183, 188, 214, 221 + name of cross, 97 + +Mbocobi, 201 + +Meda worship, 162 n. + +Medicine, 45 + lodge, 267 + men, 264, 277 seq. + +Memory, cultivated by picture-writing, 18 + +Mesmerism, 272 + +Messou, 209 + (See _Michabo_.) + +Metempsychosis, 253 + +Mexicans, (See _Aztecs_.) + +Meztli, 132, 135 + +Michabo, supreme Algonkin god, 63, 116, 136, 161-9, 198, 220, 294 + +Mictlan, god of the dead, 92, 252 + +Migrations, coarse of, 34 + +Milky-way, 244 + +Millennium, 261 + +Minnetarees, 228, 230, 250 + +Mixcoatl, or Mixcohuatl, 22, 51, 158 + +Mixtecas, 90, 196 + +Monan, 211 + +Monquis, 93, 106 + +Montezuma, 187, 190 + +Moon, worship of, 130 seq. + +Moxos, 124, 230 + +Mller, J. G., his work on American religions, 40, 59, 61 + +Mummies, 257-60 + +Muscogees, 195 + (See _Creeks_.) + +Muyscas, 31 + myths, 84 n.,[TN-20] 183-4 + + +Nahuas, 29, 73 + myths, 84 n.,[TN-20] 118, 138, 158, 206 + (See _Aztecs_.) + +Nanahuatl, 135 + +Natchez, 27, 28 n.[TN-25] + myths, 126, 142, 149, 205, 225, 239 + +Natural religions, 3 + +Navajos, 79, 84 n.,[TN-20] 103, 127, 205, 241 + +Neo, Iroquois corruption of _Dieu_, 53 + +Nemqueteba, 183 + +Netelas, 50, 105 n. + +Nez Percs[TN-26] 272, 281 + +Nicaraguans, 145, 158, 201, 245, 288 + +Nine Rivers, the, 248 + +Nootka Indians, 297 + +North, myths concerning, 82 + +Nottoways, 25, 84 + +Numbers, sacred, 66, 98 + (See _Four_, _Three_, _Seven_.) + + +Occaniches, 284 + +Oki, name of God, 46-8 + +Onniont, a mythical serpent, 114 + +Onondagas, 171 + +Oonawleh unggi, 51 + +Otomis, 6, 158 + +Ottawas, 93, 145, 161 + +Ottoes, 84 n.[TN-20] + + +Pacari Tampu, 82, 179, 227 + +Pachacamac, 56, 176-7, 298 + +Panos, 13 + +Paradise, myth of, 86 seq. + +Paria, 87 + +Passions, worship of, 146, 149 + +Pawnees, 71 n., 84 n.[TN-20] + +Pend d'Oreilles, 233 + +Peru, 69 + rites and myths, 82, 102, 106, 131, 132, 137, 138, 142, 149, + 152 sq,[TN-27] 176-9, 188, 213, 219, 227, 240, 251, 260 + priests, 278, 282, 284 + (See _Aymaras_, _Incas_.) + +Phallic worship, 146, 149 + +Picture writing, 9 + +Pilgrimages, custom of, 301 + +Pimos, 185 + +Prayers, specimens of, 296-300 + +Priesthood, native, 263 sq. + +Puelches, 277 + + +Quetzalcoatl, the supreme Aztec god, 106, 118, 157, 180-3, 188, 294-6 + +Quiateot, a rain god, 131 + +Quichs, 30 + Sacred Book, 41 + names for God, 51, 58 n.[TN-19] + evil deities, 64 + myth of first four brothers, 81 + of paradise, 89 + of creation, 196 + of flood, 207 + of hell, 251, 258 + +Quichuas, 31 + religion, 55 + ancestors, 82, 153 + names of cardinal points, 93 n. + myths, 155 + (_See_ Peru, Incas.)[TN-28] + +Quipus, 14 + + +Rattlesnake, as a symbol, 108 sq. + +Raven, as a symbol, 195, 204, 213, 229 + +Red, symbolic meaning, 80, 88, 140 + + +Sacrifice, its meaning, 291 + +Sacs, 84, 277 + +Sanscrit flood-myth, 212 + +Schwarz, Dr., his views of mythology, 112 + +Seminoles, 129 + +Serpent, as a symbol, 107 sq., 136, 158 + +Seven, a sacred number, 66, 128 n., 202, 204, 273 n., 281, 283 + +Shawnees, 26, 84 n.,[TN-20] 110, 113, 114, 144, 281 + +Shoshonees, 28, 138 + +Sillam Innua, 50, 76 + +Sioux, 28, 151, 236 + +Soul, notions concerning, 235 sq., 277 + +Sua, the Muysca God, 184 + +Sun-worship, 141 sq., 149, 243-9 + +Suns, Aztec, 215 sq. + + +Takahlis, 127, 197, 201, 253, 256 + +Tamu, 184, 294 + +Taras, 158 + +Taronhiawagon, 171 + +Tawiscara, 170 + +Teczistecatl, 132 + +Teatihuacan,[TN-29] 46, 69 + +Three, a sacred number, 66, 98, 156 + +Thunder-storm, in myths, 150 sq. + +Tici, the vase, 130 + +Timberlake, Lt., his _Memoirs_, 115 + +Titicaca, Lake, 124, 178 + +Tlacatecolotl, supposed Aztec Satan, 106 + +Tlaloc, god of rain, 75, 88, 156-7 + +Tlalocan, 88, 246 + +Tlapallan, 88, 91, 181 + +Tloque nahuaque, 58 n.[TN-19] + +Tohil, 157 + +Toltecs, 29, 180 + +Tonacatepec, 88 + +Toukaways, 231 + +Trinity, in American religions, 156 + +Tulan, 88, 89, 181 + +Tupa, 32, 84, 152, 185 + +Tupis, 32 + myths, 83 n., 152, 185, 210, 258, 274 + +Twins, sacred to lightning, 153-4 + + +Unktahe, a Dakota god, 133 + + +Vase, symbol of, 130, 155 + +Viracocha, supreme god in Peru, 124, 155, 177-80 + + +Waitz, Dr., his _Anthropology_, 40, 288 + +Wampum, 15 + +Water, myths of, 122 seq., 194 + +West, myths of, 92, 93, 166 + +White, as a symbol, 165, 174-6 + +Whiteman's land, 21 n. + +Winds, myths of, 49-52, 74 sq., 96, 103, 166, 182 + +Winnebagoes, 220 + +Witchitas, 224 + +Writing, modes of, 9-13 + + +Xelhua, 228 + +Xibalba, 64, 251 + +Xochiquetzal, 137 + +Xolotl, 258 + + +Yakama language, 50 + +Yamo and Yama, twin deities, 154 n. + +Yoalli-ehecatl, 50 + +Yohualticitl, 132 + +Yupanqui, Inca, 55 + +Yurucares, 201, 224, 259 + + +Zac, empire of, 31, 124 + +Zamna, culture hero of Mayas, 93, 183, 188 + +Zapotecs, 183 + + + + +ERRATA. + + + Page 31, note, for "_Ureinbewohner_" read "_Ureinwohner_."[TN-30] + " 101, line 10 from bottom, _for_ "clouds" _read_ "clods." + " 145, note 1, _for_ "Gomara" _read_ "Gumilla." + + + + +Transcriber's Note + +The following typographical errors were noted in the original text. + + Page Error + TN-1 57 the Inds. p. should read the Inds., p. + TN-2 89 Orstnamen should read Ortsnamen + TN-3 115 o should read of + TN-4 134 knaws should read gnaws + TN-5 140 extingish should read extinguish + TN-6 144 fn. 2 Reconnoissance was spelled this way in the title of + original publication, quoted correctly + TN-7 158 fn. 3 Hist du Mexique should read Hist. du Mexique + TN-8 162 wizzard should read wizard + TN-9 218 foreboding shave should read forebodings have + TN-10 223 fn. 2 yelk should read yolk + TN-11 226 fn. 2 _above_ should read above + TN-12 234 after.world should read after world + TN-13 248 scimetar should read scimitar + TN-14 251 Xibilha should read Xibalba + TN-15 258 supersitions should read superstitions + TN-16 278 drunkeness should read drunkenness + TN-17 294 fees should read frees or feeds? + TN-18 300 give should read gives + TN-19 303 (and elsewhere) 58 n. refers to footnote 57-3, the + continued text of this footnote was printed on p. 58 in + the original book + TN-20 304 (and elsewhere) 84 n. refers to footnote 83-3, the + continued text of this footnote was printed on p. 84 in + the original book + TN-21 304 Cupay should read upay + TN-22 304 a a symbol should read a symbol + TN-23 304 Eldorado should read El Dorado + TN-24 305 291, n. should read 291 n. + TN-25 305 28 n. refers to footnote 27-2, the continued text of this + footnote was printed on p. 28 in the original book + TN-26 306 Nez Percs should read Nez Percs, + TN-27 306 152 sq, should read 152 sq., + TN-28 306 _See_ Peru, Incas should read See _Peru_, _Incas_ + TN-29 306 Teatihuacan should read Teotihuacan + TN-30 307 Ureinbewohner was not found in the text + +The following words were inconsistently spelled: + + Mannacicas / Mannicicas + Percs / Percs + Quich / Quiche + rle / role + Tami / Tamoi + +The following words were inconsistently hyphenated: + + Aka-kanet / Akakanet + Ama-livaca / Amalivaca + child-birth / childbirth + Teo-tihuacan / Teotihuacan + under-world / underworld + Ur-religionen / Urreligionen + Yoalli-ehecatl / Yoalliehecatl + +Other inconsistencies + +Titles of works referred to in the footnotes are occasionally not +italicized. Author names of the works referred to in the footnotes are +occasionally italicized. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Myths of the New World, by Daniel G. 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Brinton. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + text-indent: 2em; + } + p.noindent {text-indent: 0em;} + p.titlepage {text-indent: 0em; text-align: center; } + + h1,h2 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + .chapterhead {margin-top: 4em; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: 0.1em;} + + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + .tdpadr {padding-right: 1em;} + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + /* Ensure anchors work by positioning them all in the same way */ + a[name] { position:absolute; } + a {text-decoration: none; } + + .pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + text-indent: 0em; + } /* page numbers */ + + ins.correction {text-decoration:none; border-bottom: thin dotted gray;} + ins.errata {text-decoration:none; border-bottom: thin dotted red;} + + .blockquot{font-size: smaller;} + + .bbox {border: solid 1px;} + + .center {text-align: center;} + .right {text-align: right;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + .smrom {font-size: smaller;} + .dropcap {font-size: 200%; float: left; padding-right: 0.1em; } + .upper {text-transform: uppercase;} + .nowrap { white-space: nowrap; } + + .figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + + .toc {position: relative;} + .chapdesc {margin-left: 1.6em; text-indent: -1.6em;} + .chapintro {margin-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em; font-size: smaller; } + .chaptoc {text-align: center; font-size: larger; text-indent: 0em;} + .chapword {padding-right: 2em;} + .chappg {width: 3em; text-align: right; position: absolute; right: 0; + padding-left: 1em;} + + .footnotes {border-top: solid 1px; text-indent: 0.5em; font-size: 0.9em; text-align: justify; } + .label {font-size: 80%; vertical-align: 0.2em; } + .fnanchor {vertical-align: 0.3em; font-size: .8em; text-decoration: none; padding-left: 0.1em;} + + .poem {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;} + .poem br {display: none;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem span.first {display: block; margin-left: 0em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3.3em;} + .poem span.i0 {display: block; margin-left: 0em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 2em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i4 {display: block; margin-left: 4em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i13 {display: block; margin-left: 13em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i15 {display: block; margin-left: 15em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + + div.index {margin-left: -5%;} + ul.IX {list-style-type: none; font-size:inherit;} + li.subhead {padding-left: 1em;} + li.subhead2 {padding-left: 2em;} + .hidespace {display: none;} + + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +Project Gutenberg's The Myths of the New World, by Daniel G. Brinton + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Myths of the New World + A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America + +Author: Daniel G. Brinton + +Release Date: September 22, 2006 [EBook #19347] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MYTHS OF THE NEW WORLD *** + + + + +Produced by Robert Cicconetti, Julia Miller and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by the Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions +(www.canadiana.org)) + + + + + + +</pre> + +<div style="background-color: #EEE; padding: 0.5em 1em 0.5em 1em;"> +<p class="center"><b>Transcriber’s Note</b></p> + +<p class="noindent">The corrections mentioned in the <a href="#ERRATA">Errata</a> have +been made. The corrected text is <ins class="errata" title="original text">marked</ins> +and the original text is shown in the popup.</p> + +<p class="noindent">A number of typographical errors have been maintained +in the current version of this book. They are <ins class="correction" title="correction">marked</ins> +and the corrected text is shown in the popup. A <a href="#trans_note">list</a> of these +errors is found at the end of this book.</p> + +<p class="noindent">The following less-common characters are found in this book: ă (a with breve), +ā (a with macron), ē (e with macron), ū (u with macron). +If they do not display properly, please try changing your font.</p> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_i" id="Page_i">[i]</a></span></p> + + +<p class="titlepage" style="font-size: 300%;"><span class="smcap">The Myths</span></p> + +<p class="titlepage"><span class="smcap">OF</span></p> + +<p class="titlepage" style="font-size: 300%;"><span class="smcap">The New World</span></p> + +<p class="titlepage" style="font-size: 80%;">A TREATISE ON THE</p> + +<p class="titlepage" style="font-size: 120%;">SYMBOLISM AND MYTHOLOGY</p> + +<p class="titlepage" style="font-size: 80%;">OF THE</p> + +<p class="titlepage" style="font-size: 120%;">RED RACE OF AMERICA</p> + +<p class="titlepage" style="font-size: 80%;">BY</p> + +<p class="titlepage" style="font-size: 150%;"><span class="smcap">Daniel G. Brinton,</span> <span class="smrom">A. M., M. D.</span></p> + +<p class="titlepage"><i>Memb. Hist. Soc. of Penn.; of Numismat. and<br /> +Antiq. Soc. of Philada.; Corresp. Memb.<br /> +Amer. Ethnolog. Soc.; author of<br /> +“Notes on the Floridian<br /> +Peninsula,” Etc.</i></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 57px; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;"> +<img src="images/image01.jpg" width="57" height="74" alt="Owl" title="Owl" /> +</div> + +<p class="titlepage">NEW YORK<br /> +<span style="font-size: 120%">LEYPOLDT & HOLT</span><br /> +LONDON: TRÜBNER & CO.<br /> +1868</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ii" id="Page_ii">[ii]</a></span></p> + +<p class="titlepage">Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1868, by<br /> +DANIEL G. BRINTON,</p> + +<p class="titlepage">In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States for the<br /> +Eastern District of Pennsylvania.</p> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[iii]</a></span></p> + + +<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="PREFACE" id="PREFACE"></a>PREFACE.</h2> + +<hr class="bbox" style="width: 6em;" /> + +<p><span class="smcap">I have</span> written this work more for the thoughtful general reader than the +antiquary. It is a study of an obscure portion of the intellectual +history of our species as exemplified in one of its varieties.</p> + +<p>What are man’s earliest ideas of a soul and a God, and of his own origin +and destiny? Why do we find certain myths, such as of a creation, a +flood, an after-world; certain symbols, as the bird, the serpent, the +cross; certain numbers, as the three, the four, the seven—intimately +associated with these ideas by every race? What are the laws of growth +of natural religions? How do they acquire such an influence, and is this +influence for good or evil? Such are some of the universally interesting +questions which I attempt to solve by an analysis of the simple faiths +of a savage race.</p> + +<p>If in so doing I succeed in investing with a more general interest the +fruitful theme of American ethnology, my objects will have been +accomplished.</p> + +<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">Philadelphia</span>,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">April, 1868.</span></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[iv]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[v]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS.</h2> + +<hr class="bbox" style="width: 6em;" /> + +<div class="toc"> +<p class="chaptoc">CHAPTER I.</p> + +<p class="titlepage"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS OF THE RED RACE.</a></p> + +<p class="right"><span style="font-size: smaller;">PAGE</span></p> + +<p class="chapdesc">Natural religions the unaided attempts of man to find out God, +modified by peculiarities of race and nation.—The peculiarities of +the red race: 1. Its languages unfriendly to abstract ideas. Native +modes of writing by means of pictures, symbols, objects, and +phonetic signs. These various methods compared in their influence +on the intellectual faculties. 2. Its isolation, unique in the +history of the world. 3. Beyond all others, a hunting race.—Principal +linguistic subdivisions: 1. The Eskimos. 2. The Athapascas. +3. The Algonkins and Iroquois. 4. The Apalachian +tribes. 5. The Dakotas. 6. The Aztecs. 7. The Mayas. 8. The +Muyscas. 9. The Quichuas. 10. The Caribs and Tupis. 11. The +Araucanians.—General course of migrations.—Age of man in +America.—Unity of type in the red <span class="chapword">race</span> <span class="chappg"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">1</a></span></p> + + +<p class="chaptoc">CHAPTER II.</p> + +<p class="titlepage"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">THE IDEA OF GOD.</a></p> + +<p class="chapdesc">An intuition common to the species.—Words expressing it in American +languages derived either from ideas of above in space, or of +life manifested by breath.—Examples.—No conscious monotheism, +and but little idea of immateriality discoverable.—Still less any +moral dualism of deities, the Great Good Spirit and the Great Bad +Spirit being alike terms and notions of foreign <span class="chapword">importation</span> <span class="chappg"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">43</a></span></p> +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[vi]</a></span></p> + +<div class="toc"> +<p class="chaptoc">CHAPTER III.</p> + +<p class="titlepage"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">THE SACRED NUMBER, ITS ORIGIN AND APPLICATIONS.</a></p> + +<p class="chapdesc">The number Four sacred in all American religions, and the key to +their symbolism.—Derived from the <span class="smcap">Cardinal Points</span>.—Appears +constantly in government, arts, rites, and myths.—The Cardinal +Points identified with the Four Winds, who in myths are the four +ancestors of the human race, and the four celestial rivers watering +the terrestrial Paradise.—Associations grouped around each Cardinal +Point.—From the number four was derived the symbolic +value of the number <i>Forty</i> and the <i>Sign of the </i><span class="chapword"><i>Cross</i></span> <span class="chappg"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">66</a></span></p> + + +<p class="chaptoc">CHAPTER IV.</p> + +<p class="titlepage"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">THE SYMBOLS OF THE BIRD AND THE SERPENT.</a></p> + +<p class="chapdesc">Relations of man to the lower animals.—Two of these, the <span class="smcap">Bird</span> and +the <span class="smcap">Serpent</span>, chosen as symbols beyond all others.—The Bird +throughout America the symbol of the Clouds and Winds.—Meaning +of certain species.—The symbolic meaning of the Serpent derived +from its mode of locomotion, its poisonous bite, and its +power of charming.—Usually the symbol of the lightning and the +Waters.—The Rattlesnake the symbolic species in America.—The +war charm.—The Cross of Palenque.—The god of riches.—Both +symbols devoid of moral <span class="chapword">significance</span> <span class="chappg"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">99</a></span></p> + + +<p class="chaptoc">CHAPTER V.</p> + +<p class="titlepage"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">THE MYTHS OF WATER, FIRE, AND THE THUNDER-STORM.</a></p> + +<p class="chapdesc">Water the oldest element.—Its use in purification.—Holy water.—The +Rite of Baptism.—The Water of Life.—Its symbols.—The Vase.—The +Moon.—The latter the goddess of love and agriculture, but +also of sickness, night, and pain.—Often represented by a dog.—Fire +worship under the form of Sun worship.—The perpetual fire.—The +new fire.—Burning the dead.—A worship of the passions, but +no sexual dualism in myths, nor any phallic worship in America.—Synthesis +of the worship of Fire, Water, and the Winds in the +<span class="smcap">Thunder-storm</span>, personified as Haokah, Tupa, Catequil, Contici, +Heno, Tlaloc, Mixcoatl, and other deities, many of them <span class="chapword">triune</span> <span class="chappg"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">122</a></span></p> +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[vii]</a></span></p> + +<div class="toc"> +<p class="chaptoc">CHAPTER VI.</p> + +<p class="titlepage"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">THE SUPREME GODS OF THE RED RACE.</a></p> + +<p class="chapdesc">Analysis of American culture myths.—The Manibozho or Michabo +of the Algonkins shown to be an impersonation of <span class="smcap">Light</span>, a hero +of the Dawn, and their highest deity.—The myths of Ioskeha of +the Iroquois, Viracocha of the Peruvians, and Quetzalcoatl of the +Toltecs essentially the same as that of Michabo.—Other examples.—Ante-Columbian +prophecies of the advent of a white race +from the east as conquerors.—Rise of later culture myths under +similar <span class="chapword">forms</span> <span class="chappg"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">159</a></span></p> + + +<p class="chaptoc">CHAPTER VII.</p> + +<p class="titlepage"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">THE MYTHS OF THE CREATION, THE DELUGE, THE EPOCHS OF +NATURE, AND THE LAST DAY.</a></p> + +<p class="chapdesc">Cosmogonies usually portray the action of the <span class="smcap">Spirit</span> on the +<span class="smcap">Waters</span>.—Those of the Muscogees, Athapascas, Quichés, Mixtecs, +Iroquois, Algonkins, and others.—The Flood-Myth an unconscious +attempt to reconcile a creation in time with the eternity of +matter.—Proof of this from American mythology.—Characteristics +of American Flood-Myths.—The person saved usually the first +man.—The number seven.—Their Ararats.—The rôle of birds.—The +confusion of tongues.—The Aztec, Quiché, Algonkin, Tupi, +and earliest Sanscrit flood-myths.—The belief in Epochs of Nature +a further result of this attempt at reconciliation.—Its forms among +Peruvians, Mayas, and Aztecs.—The expectation of the End of the +World a corollary of this belief.—Views of various <span class="chapword">nations</span> <span class="chappg"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">193</a></span></p> + + +<p class="chaptoc">CHAPTER VIII.</p> + +<p class="titlepage"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">THE ORIGIN OF MAN.</a></p> + +<p class="chapdesc">Usually man is the <span class="smcap">Earth-born</span>, both in language and myths.—Illustrations +from the legends of the Caribs, Apalachians, Iroquois, +Quichuas, Aztecs, and others.—The under-world.—Man the product +of one of the primal creative powers, the Spirit, or the Water, +in the myths of the Athapascas, Eskimos, Moxos, and others—Never +literally derived from an inferior <span class="chapword">species</span> <span class="chappg"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">222</a></span></p> +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[viii]</a></span></p> + +<div class="toc"> +<p class="chaptoc">CHAPTER IX.</p> + +<p class="titlepage"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">THE SOUL AND ITS DESTINY.</a></p> + +<p class="chapdesc">Universality of the belief in a soul and a future state shown by the +aboriginal tongues, by expressed opinions, and by sepulchral rites. +The future world never a place of rewards and punishments.—The +house of the Son the heaven of the red man.—The terrestrial paradise +and the under-world.—Çupay.—Xibalba.—Mictlan.—Metempsychosis?—Belief +in a resurrection of the dead almost <span class="chapword">universal</span> <span class="chappg"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">233</a></span></p> + + +<p class="chaptoc">CHAPTER X.</p> + +<p class="titlepage"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">THE NATIVE PRIESTHOOD.</a></p> + +<p class="chapdesc">Their titles.—Practitioners of the healing art by supernatural means.—Their +power derived from natural magic and the exercise of the +clairvoyant and mesmeric faculties.—Examples.—Epidemic hysteria.—Their +social position.—Their duties as religious functionaries.—Terms +of admission to the Priesthood.—Inner organization +in various nations.—Their esoteric language and secret <span class="chapword">societies</span> <span class="chappg"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">263</a></span></p> + + +<p class="chaptoc">CHAPTER XI.</p> + +<p class="titlepage"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">THE INFLUENCE OF THE NATIVE RELIGIONS ON THE MORAL +AND SOCIAL LIFE OF THE RACE.</a></p> + +<p class="chapdesc">Natural religions hitherto considered of Evil rather than of Good.—Distinctions +to be drawn.—Morality not derived from religion.—The +positive side of natural religions in incarnations of divinity.—Examples.—Prayers +as indices of religious progress.—Religion and +social <span class="chapword">advancement.—Conclusion</span> <span class="chappg"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">287</a></span></p> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="THE_MYTHS_OF_THE_NEW_WORLD" id="THE_MYTHS_OF_THE_NEW_WORLD"></a>THE MYTHS OF THE NEW WORLD.</h2> + +<hr class="bbox" style="width: 6em;" /> + +<h2 class="chapterhead" style="margin-top: 1em;"><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I.</h2> + +<p class="chaptoc">GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE RED RACE.</p> + +<p class="chapintro">Natural religions the unaided attempts of man to find out God, +modified by peculiarities of race and nation.—The peculiarities of +the red race: 1. Its languages unfriendly to abstract ideas. Native +modes of writing by means of pictures, symbols, objects, and +phonetic signs. These various methods compared in their influence +on the intellectual faculties. 2. Its isolation, unique in the +history of the world. 3. Beyond all others, a hunting +race.—Principal linguistic subdivisions: 1. The Eskimos. 2. The +Athapascas. 3. The Algonkins and Iroquois. 4. The Apalachian +tribes. 5. The Dakotas. 6. The Aztecs. 7. The Mayas. 8. The +Muyscas. 9. The Quichuas. 10. The Caribs and Tupis. 11. The +Araucanians.—General course of migrations.—Age of man in +America.—Unity of type in the red race.</p> + +<p class="noindent"><span class="dropcap">W</span><span class="upper">hen</span> Paul, at the request of the philosophers of Athens, explained to +them his views on divine things, he asserted, among other startling +novelties, that “God has made of one blood all nations of the earth, +that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him and +find him, though he is not far from every one of us.”</p> + +<p>Here was an orator advocating the unity of the human species, affirming +that the chief end of man is to develop an innate idea of God, and that +all religions, except the one he preached, were examples of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span> more or +less unsuccessful attempts to do so. No wonder the Athenians, who +acknowledged no kinship to barbarians, who looked dubiously at the +doctrine of innate ideas, and were divided in opinion as to whether +their mythology was a shrewd device of legislators to keep the populace +in subjection, a veiled natural philosophy, or the celestial reflex of +their own history, mocked at such a babbler and went their ways. The +generations of philosophers that followed them partook of their doubts +and approved their opinions, quite down to our own times. But now, after +weighing the question maturely, we are compelled to admit that the +Apostle was not so wide of the mark after all—that, in fact, the latest +and best authorities, with no bias in his favor, support his position +and may almost be said to paraphrase his words. For according to a +writer who ranks second to none in the science of ethnology, the +severest and most recent investigations show that “not only do +acknowledged facts permit the assumption of the unity of the human +species, but this opinion is attended with fewer discrepancies, and has +greater inner consistency than the opposite one of specific +<span class="nowrap">diversity.”<a name="FNanchor_2-1_1" id="FNanchor_2-1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_2-1_1" class="fnanchor">2-1</a></span> And as to the religions of heathendom, the view of +Saint Paul is but expressed with a more poetic turn by a distinguished +living author when he calls them “not fables, but truths, though clothed +in a garb woven by fancy, wherein the web is the notion of God, the +ideal of reason in the soul of man, the thought of the <span class="nowrap">Infinite.”<a name="FNanchor_2-2_2" id="FNanchor_2-2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2-2_2" class="fnanchor">2-2</a></span></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span>Inspiration and science unite therefore to bid us dismiss the effete +prejudice that natural religions either arise as the ancient +philosophies taught, or that they are, as the Dark Ages imagined, subtle +nets of the devil spread to catch human souls. They are rather the +unaided attempts of man to find out God; they are the efforts of the +reason struggling to define the infinite; they are the expressions of +that “yearning after the gods” which the earliest of poets discerned in +the hearts of all men. Studied in this sense they are rich in teachings. +Would we estimate the intellectual and æsthetic culture of a people, +would we generalize the laws of progress, would we appreciate the +sublimity of Christianity, and read the seals of its authenticity: the +natural conceptions of divinity reveal them. No mythologies are so +crude, therefore, none so barbarous, but deserve the attention of the +philosophic mind, for they are never the empty fictions of an idle +fancy, but rather the utterances, however inarticulate, of an immortal +and ubiquitous intuition.</p> + +<p>These considerations embolden me to approach with some confidence even +the aboriginal religions of America, so often stigmatized as incoherent +fetichisms, so barren, it has been said, in grand or beautiful +creations. The task bristles with difficulties. Carelessness, +prepossessions, and ignorance have disfigured them with false colors and +foreign additions without number. The first maxim, therefore, must be to +sift and scrutinize authorities, and to reject whatever betrays the +plastic hand of the European. For the religions developed by the red +race, not those mixed creeds learned from foreign invaders, are to be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span> +the subjects of our study. Then will remain the formidable undertaking +of reducing the authentic materials thus obtained to system and order, +and this not by any preconceived theory of what they ought to conform +to, but learning from them the very laws of religious growth they +illustrate. The historian traces the birth of arts, science, and +government to man’s dependence on nature and his fellows for the means +of self-preservation. Not that man receives these endowments from +without, but that the stern step-mother, Nature, forces him by threats +and stripes to develop his own inherent faculties. So with religion: The +idea of God does not, and cannot, proceed from the external world, but, +nevertheless, it finds its <i>historical</i> origin also in the desperate +struggle for life, in the satisfaction of the animal wants and passions, +in those vulgar aims and motives which possessed the mind of the +primitive man to the exclusion of everything else.</p> + +<p>There is an ever present embarrassment in such inquiries. In dealing +with these matters beyond the cognizance of the senses, the mind is +forced to express its meaning in terms transferred from sensuous +perceptions, or under symbols borrowed from the material world. These +transfers must be understood, these symbols explained, before the real +meaning of a myth can be reached. He who fails to guess the riddle of +the sphynx, need not hope to gain admittance to the shrine. With +delicate ear the faint whispers of thought must be apprehended which +prompt the intellect when it names the immaterial from the material; +when it chooses from the infinity of visible forms those meet to shadow +forth Divinity.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span></p> + +<p>Two lights will guide us on this venturesome path. Mindful of the +watchword of inductive science, to proceed from the known to the +unknown, the inquiry will be put whether the aboriginal languages of +America employ the same tropes to express such ideas as deity, spirit, +and soul, as our own and kindred tongues. If the answer prove +affirmative, then not only have we gained a firm foothold whence to +survey the whole edifice of their mythology; but from an unexpected +quarter arises evidence of the unity of our species far weightier than +any mere anatomy can furnish, evidence from the living soul, not from +the dead body. True that the science of American linguistics is still in +its infancy, and that a proper handling of the materials it even now +offers involves a more critical acquaintance with its innumerable +dialects than I possess; but though the gleaning be sparse, it is enough +that I break the ground. Secondly, religious rites are living +commentaries on religious beliefs. At first they are rude +representations of the supposed doings of the gods. The Indian +rain-maker mounts to the roof of his hut, and rattling vigorously a dry +gourd containing pebbles, to represent the thunder, scatters water +through a reed on the ground beneath, as he imagines up above in the +clouds do the spirits of the storm. Every spring in ancient Delphi was +repeated in scenic ceremony the combat of Apollo and the Dragon, the +victory of the lord of bright summer over the demon of chilling winter. +Thus do forms and ceremonies reveal the meaning of mythology, and the +origin of its fables.</p> + +<p>Let it not be objected that this proposed method of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span> analysis assumes +that religions begin and develop under the operation of inflexible laws. +The soul is shackled by no fatalism. Formative influences there are, +deep seated, far reaching, escaped by few, but like those which of yore +astrologers imputed to the stars, they potently incline, they do not +coerce. Language, pursuits, habits, geographical position, and those +subtle mental traits which make up the characteristics of races and +nations, all tend to deflect from a given standard the religious life of +the individual and the mass. It is essential to give these due weight, +and a necessary preface therefore to an analysis of the myths of the red +race is an enumeration of its peculiarities, and of its chief families +as they were located when first known to the historian.</p> + +<p>Of all such modifying circumstances none has greater importance than the +means of expressing and transmitting intellectual action. The spoken and +the written language of a nation reveal to us its prevailing, and to a +certain degree its unavoidable mode of thought. Here the red race offers +a striking phenomenon. There is no other trait that binds together its +scattered clans, and brands them as members of one great family, so +unmistakably as this of language. From the Frozen Ocean to the Land of +Fire, without a single exception, the native dialects, though varying +infinitely in words, are marked by a peculiarity in construction which +is found nowhere else on the <span class="nowrap">globe,<a name="FNanchor_6-1_3" id="FNanchor_6-1_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_6-1_3" class="fnanchor">6-1</a></span> and which is so foreign to the +genius of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span> <i>our</i> tongue that it is no easy matter to explain it. It is +called by philologists the <i>polysynthetic</i> construction. What it is will +best appear by comparison. Every grammatical sentence conveys one +leading idea with its modifications and relations. Now a Chinese would +express these latter by unconnected syllables, the precise bearing of +which could only be guessed by their position; a Greek or a German would +use independent words, indicating their relations by terminations +meaningless in themselves; an Englishman gains the same end chiefly by +the use of particles and by position. Very different from all these is +the spirit of a polysynthetic language. It seeks to unite in the most +intimate manner all relations and modifications with the leading idea, +to merge one in the other by altering the forms of the words themselves +and welding them together, to express the whole in one word, and to +banish any conception except as it arises in relation to others. Thus in +many American tongues there is, in fact, no word for father, mother, +brother, but only for my, your, his father, etc. This has advantages and +defects. It offers marvellous facilities for defining the perceptions of +the senses with the utmost accuracy, but regarding everything in the +concrete, it is unfriendly to the nobler labors of the mind, to +abstraction and generalization. In the numberless changes of these +languages, their be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span>wildering flexibility, their variable forms, and +their rapid deterioration, they seem to betray a lack of individuality, +and to resemble the vague and tumultuous history of the tribes who +employ them. They exhibit an almost incredible laxity. It is nothing +uncommon for the two sexes to use different names for the same object, +and for nobles and vulgar, priests and people, the old and the young, +nay, even the married and single, to observe what seem to the European +ear quite different modes of expression. Families and whole villages +suddenly drop words and manufacture others in their places out of mere +caprice or superstition, and a few years’ separation suffices to produce +a marked dialectic difference. In their copious forms and facility of +reproduction they remind one of those anomalous animals, in whom, when a +limb is lopped, it rapidly grows again, or even if cut in pieces each +part will enter on a separate life quite unconcerned about his fellows. +But as the naturalist is far from regarding this superabundant vitality +as a characteristic of a higher type, so the philologist justly assigns +these tongues a low position in the linguistic scale. Fidelity to form, +here as everywhere, is the test of excellence. At the outset, we divine +there can be nothing very subtle in the mythologies of nations with such +languages. Much there must be that will be obscure, much that is vague, +an exhausting variety in repetition, and a strong tendency to lose the +idea in the symbol.</p> + +<p>What definiteness of outline might be preserved must depend on the care +with which the old stories of the gods were passed from one person and +one generation to another. The fundamental myths of a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span> race have a +surprising tenacity of life. How many centuries had elapsed between the +period the Germanic hordes left their ancient homes in Central Asia, and +when Tacitus listened to their wild songs on the banks of the Rhine? Yet +we know that through those unnumbered ages of barbarism and aimless +roving, these songs, “their only sort of history or annals,” says the +historian, had preserved intact the story of Mannus, the Sanscrit Manu, +and his three sons, and of the great god Tuisco, the Indian <span class="nowrap">Dyu.<a name="FNanchor_9-1_4" id="FNanchor_9-1_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_9-1_4" class="fnanchor">9-1</a></span> So +much the more do all means invented by the red race to record and +transmit thought merit our careful attention. Few and feeble they seem +to us, mainly shifts to aid the memory. Of some such, perhaps, not a +single tribe was destitute. The tattoo marks on the warrior’s breast, +his string of gristly scalps, the bear’s claws around his neck, were not +only trophies of his prowess, but records of his exploits, and to the +contemplative mind contain the rudiments of the beneficent art of +letters. Did he draw in rude outline on his skin tent figures of men +transfixed with arrows as many as he had slain enemies, his education +was rapidly advancing. He had mastered the elements of <i>picture +writing</i>, beyond which hardly the wisest of his race progressed. Figures +of the natural objects connected by symbols having fixed meanings make +up the whole of this art. The relative frequency of the latter marks its +advancement from a merely figurative to an ideographic notation. On what +principle of mental association a given sign was adopted to express a +certain idea, why, for instance,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span> on the Chipeway scrolls a circle means +<i>spirits</i>, and a horned snake <i>life</i>, it is often hard to guess. The +difficulty grows when we find that to the initiated the same sign calls +up quite different ideas, as the subject of the writer varies from war +to love, or from the chase to religion. The connection is generally +beyond the power of divination, and the key to ideographic writing once +lost can never be recovered.</p> + +<p>The number of such arbitrary characters in the Chipeway notation is said +to be over two hundred, but if the distinction between a figure and a +symbol were rigidly applied, it would be much reduced. This kind of +writing, if it deserves the name, was common throughout the continent, +and many specimens of it, scratched on the plane surfaces of stones, +have been preserved to the present day. Such is the once celebrated +inscription on Dighton Rock, Massachusetts, long supposed to be a record +of the Northmen of Vinland; such those that mark the faces of the cliffs +which overhang the waters of the Orinoco, and those that in Oregon, +Peru, and La Plata have been the subject of much curious speculation. +They are alike the mute and meaningless epitaphs of vanished +generations.</p> + +<p>I would it could be said that in favorable contrast to our ignorance of +these inscriptions is our comprehension of the highly wrought +pictography of the Aztecs. No nation ever reduced it more to a system. +It was in constant use in the daily transactions of life. They +manufactured for writing purposes a thick, coarse paper from the leaves +of the agave plant by a process of maceration and pressure. An Aztec +book closely resembles one of our quarto volumes. It is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span> made of a +single sheet, twelve to fifteen inches wide, and often sixty or seventy +feet long, and is not rolled, but folded either in squares or zigzags in +such a manner that on opening it there are two pages exposed to view. +Thin wooden boards are fastened to each of the outer leaves, so that the +whole presents as neat an appearance, remarks Peter Martyr, as if it had +come from the shop of a skilful bookbinder. They also covered buildings, +tapestries, and scrolls of parchment with these devices, and for +trifling transactions were familiar with the use of <i>slates</i> of soft +stone from which the figures could readily be erased with <span class="nowrap">water.<a name="FNanchor_11-1_5" id="FNanchor_11-1_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_11-1_5" class="fnanchor">11-1</a></span> +What is still more astonishing, there is reason to believe, in some +instances, their figures were not painted, but actually <i>printed</i> with +movable blocks of wood on which the symbols were carved in relief, +though this was probably confined to those intended for ornament only.</p> + +<p>In these records we discern something higher than a mere symbolic +notation. They contain the germ of a phonetic alphabet, and represent +sounds of spoken language. The symbol is often not connected with the +<i>idea</i> but with the <i>word</i>. The mode in which this is done corresponds +precisely to that of the rebus. It is a simple method, readily +suggesting itself. In the middle ages it was much in vogue in Europe for +the same purpose for which it was chiefly employed in Mexico at the same +time—the writing of proper names. For example, the English family +Bolton was known in heraldry by a <i>tun</i> transfixed by a <i>bolt</i>. +Precisely so the Mexican emperor Ixcoatl is mentioned<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span> in the Aztec +manuscripts under the figure of a serpent <i>coatl</i>, pierced by obsidian +knives <i>ixtli</i>, and Moquauhzoma by a mouse-trap <i>montli</i>, an eagle +<i>quauhtli</i>, a lancet <i>zo</i>, and a hand <i>maitl</i>. As a syllable could be +expressed by any object whose name commenced with it, as few words can +be given the form of a rebus without some change, as the figures +sometimes represent their full phonetic value, sometimes only that of +their initial sound, and as universally the attention of the artist was +directed less to the sound than to the idea, the didactic painting of +the Mexicans, whatever it might have been to them, is a sealed book to +us, and must remain so in great part. Moreover, it is entirely +undetermined whether it should be read from the first to the last page, +or <i>vice versa</i>, whether from right to left or from left to right, from +bottom to top or from top to bottom, around the edges of the page toward +the centre, or each line in the opposite direction from the preceding +one. There are good authorities for all these <span class="nowrap">methods,<a name="FNanchor_12-1_6" id="FNanchor_12-1_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_12-1_6" class="fnanchor">12-1</a></span> and they +may all be correct, for there is no evidence that any fixed rule had +been laid down in this respect.</p> + +<p>Immense masses of such documents were stored in the imperial archives of +ancient Mexico. Torquemada asserts that five cities alone yielded to the +Spanish governor on one requisition no less than sixteen thousand +volumes or scrolls! Every leaf was destroyed. Indeed, so thorough and +wholesale was the destruction of these memorials now so precious in our +eyes that hardly enough remain to whet the wits of antiquaries. In the +libraries of Paris, Dresden,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span> Pesth, and the Vatican are, however, a +sufficient number to make us despair of deciphering them had we for +comparison all which the Spaniards destroyed.</p> + +<p>Beyond all others the Mayas, resident on the peninsula of Yucatan, would +seem to have approached nearest a true phonetic system. They had a +regular and well understood alphabet of twenty seven elementary sounds, +the letters of which are totally different from those of any other +nation, and evidently original with themselves. But besides these they +used a large number of purely conventional symbols, and moreover were +accustomed constantly to employ the ancient pictographic method in +addition as a sort of commentary on the sound represented. What is more +curious, if the obscure explanation of an ancient writer can be depended +upon, they not only aimed to employ an alphabet after the manner of +ours, but to express the sound absolutely like our phonographic signs +<span class="nowrap">do.<a name="FNanchor_13-1_7" id="FNanchor_13-1_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_13-1_7" class="fnanchor">13-1</a></span> With the aid of this alphabet, which has fortunately been +preserved, we are enabled to spell out a few words on the Yucatecan +manuscripts and façades, but thus far with no positive results. The loss +of the ancient pronunciation is especially in the way of such studies.</p> + +<p>In South America, also, there is said to have been a nation who +cultivated the art of picture writing, the Panos, on the river Ucayale. +A missionary, Narcisso Gilbar by name, once penetrated, with great toil, +to one of their villages. As he approached he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span> beheld a venerable man +seated under the shade of a palm tree, with a great book open before him +from which he was reading to an attentive circle of auditors the wars +and wanderings of their forefathers. With difficulty the priest got a +sight of the precious volume, and found it covered with figures and +signs in marvellous symmetry and <span class="nowrap">order.<a name="FNanchor_14-1_8" id="FNanchor_14-1_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_14-1_8" class="fnanchor">14-1</a></span> No wonder such a romantic +scene left a deep impression on his memory.</p> + +<p>The Peruvians adopted a totally different and unique system of records, +that by means of the <i>quipu</i>. This was a base cord, the thickness of the +finger, of any required length, to which were attached numerous small +strings of different colors, lengths, and textures, variously knotted +and twisted one with another. Each of these peculiarities represented a +certain number, a quality, quantity, or other idea, but <i>what</i>, not the +most fluent <i>quipu</i> reader could tell unless he was acquainted with the +general topic treated of. Therefore, whenever news was sent in this +manner a person accompanied the bearer to serve as verbal commentator, +and to prevent confusion the <i>quipus</i> relating to the various +departments of knowledge were placed in separate storehouses, one for +war, another for taxes, a third for history, and so forth. On what +principle or mnemotechnics the ideas were connected with the knots and +colors we are totally in the dark; it has even been doubted whether they +had any application beyond the art of <span class="nowrap">numeration.<a name="FNanchor_14-2_9" id="FNanchor_14-2_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_14-2_9" class="fnanchor">14-2</a></span> Each combination +had, however, a fixed ideographic value<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span> in a certain branch of +knowledge, and thus the <i>quipu</i> differed essentially from the Catholic +rosary, the Jewish phylactery, or the knotted strings of the natives of +North America and Siberia, to all of which it has at times been +compared.</p> + +<p>The <i>wampum</i> used by the tribes of the north Atlantic coast was, in many +respects, analogous to the quipu. In early times it was composed chiefly +of bits of wood of equal size, but different colors. These were hung on +strings which were woven into belts and bands, the hues, shapes, sizes, +and combinations of the strings hinting their general significance. Thus +the lighter shades were invariable harbingers of peaceful or pleasant +tidings, while the darker portended war and danger. The substitution of +beads or shells in place of wood, and the custom of embroidering figures +in the belts were, probably, introduced by European influence.</p> + +<p>Besides these, various simpler mnemonic aids were employed, such as +parcels of reeds of different lengths, notched sticks, knots in cords, +strings of pebbles or fruit-stones, circular pieces of wood or slabs +pierced with different figures which the English liken to “cony holes,” +and at a victory, a treaty, or the founding of a village, sometimes a +pillar or heap of stones was erected equalling in number the persons +present at the occasion, or the number of the fallen.</p> + +<p>This exhausts the list. All other methods of writing, the hieroglyphs of +the Micmacs of Acadia, the syllabic alphabet of the Cherokees, the +pretended traces of Greek, Hebrew, and Celtiberic letters which have +from time to time been brought to the notice of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span> the public, have been +without exception the products of foreign civilization or simply frauds. +Not a single coin, inscription, or memorial of any kind whatever, has +been found on the American continent showing the existence, either +generally or locally, of any other means of writing than those +specified.</p> + +<p>Poor as these substitutes for a developed phonetic system seem to us, +they were of great value to the uncultivated man. In his legends their +introduction is usually ascribed to some heaven-sent benefactor, the +antique characters were jealously adhered to, and the pictured scroll of +bark, the quipu ball, the belt of wampum, were treasured with provident +care, and their import minutely expounded to the most intelligent of the +rising generation. In all communities beyond the stage of barbarism a +class of persons was set apart for this duty and no other. Thus, for +example, in ancient Peru, one college of priests styled <i>amauta</i>, +learned, had exclusive charge over the quipus containing the +mythological and historical traditions; a second, the <i>haravecs</i>, +singers, devoted themselves to those referring to the national ballads +and dramas; while a third occupied their time solely with those +pertaining to civil affairs. Such custodians preserved and prepared the +archives, learned by heart with their aid what their fathers knew, and +in some countries, as, for instance, among the Panos mentioned above, +and the Quiches of <span class="nowrap">Guatemala,<a name="FNanchor_16-1_10" id="FNanchor_16-1_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_16-1_10" class="fnanchor">16-1</a></span> repeated portions of them at times +to the assembled populace. It has even been averred by one of their +converted chiefs, long a missionary to his fellows, that the Chipeways<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span> +of Lake Superior have a college composed of ten “of the wisest and most +venerable of their nation,” who have in charge the pictured records +containing the ancient history of their tribe. These are kept in an +underground chamber, and are disinterred every fifteen years by the +assembled guardians, that they may be repaired, and their contents +explained to new members of the <span class="nowrap">society.<a name="FNanchor_17-1_11" id="FNanchor_17-1_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_17-1_11" class="fnanchor">17-1</a></span></p> + +<p>In spite of these precautions, the end seems to have been very +imperfectly attained. The most distinguished characters, the weightiest +events in national history faded into oblivion after a few generations. +The time and circumstances of the formation of the league of the Five +Nations, the dispersion of the mound builders of the Ohio valley in the +fifteenth century, the chronicles of Peru or Mexico beyond a century or +two anterior to the conquest, are preserved in such a vague and +contradictory manner that they have slight value as history. Their +mythology fared somewhat better, for not only was it kept fresh in the +memory by frequent repetition; but being itself founded in nature, it +was constantly nourished by the truths which gave it birth. +Nevertheless, we may profit by the warning to remember that their myths +are myths only, and not the reflections of history or heroes.</p> + +<p>Rising from these details to a general comparison of the symbolic and +phonetic systems in their reactions on the mind, the most obvious are +their contrasted effects on the faculty of memory. Letters<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span> represent +elementary sounds, which are few in any language, while symbols stand +for ideas, and they are numerically infinite. The transmission of +knowledge by means of the latter is consequently attended with most +disproportionate labor. It is almost as if we could quote nothing from +an author unless we could recollect his exact words. We have a right to +look for excellent memories where such a mode is in vogue, and in the +present instance we are not disappointed. “These savages,” exclaims La +Hontan, “have the happiest memories in the world!” It was etiquette at +their councils for each speaker to repeat verbatim all his predecessors +had said, and the whites were often astonished and confused at the +verbal fidelity with which the natives recalled the transactions of long +past treaties. Their songs were inexhaustible. An instance is on record +where an Indian sang two hundred on various <span class="nowrap">subjects.<a name="FNanchor_18-1_12" id="FNanchor_18-1_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_18-1_12" class="fnanchor">18-1</a></span> Such a fact +reminds us of a beautiful expression of the elder Humboldt: “Man,” he +says, “regarded as an animal, belongs to one of the singing species; but +his notes are always associated with ideas.” The youth who were educated +at the public schools of ancient Mexico—for that realm, so far from +neglecting the cause of popular education, established houses for +gratuitous instruction, and to a certain extent made the attendance upon +them obligatory—learned by rote long orations, poems, and prayers with +a facility astonishing to the conquerors, and surpassing anything they +were accustomed to see in the universities of Old Spain. A phonetic +system actually weakens the re<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span>tentive powers of the mind by offering a +more facile plan for preserving thought. “<i>Ce que je mets sur papier, je +remets de ma mémoire</i>” is an expression of old Montaigne which he could +never have used had he employed ideographic characters.</p> + +<p>Memory, however, is of far less importance than a free activity of +thought, untrammelled by forms or precedents, and ever alert to novel +combinations of ideas. Give a race this and it will guide it to +civilization as surely as the needle directs the ship to its haven. It +is here that ideographic writing reveals its fatal inferiority. It is +forever specifying, materializing, dealing in minutiæ. In the Egyptian +symbolic alphabet there is a figure for a virgin, another for a married +woman, for a widow without offspring, for a widow with one child, two +children, and I know not in how many other circumstances, but for +<i>woman</i> there is no sign. It must be so in the nature of things, for the +symbol represents the object as it appears or is fancied to appear, and +not as it is <i>thought</i>. Furthermore, the constant learning by heart +infallibly leads to slavish repetition and mental servility.</p> + +<p>A symbol when understood is independent of language, and is as +universally current as an Arabic numeral. But this divorce of spoken and +written language is of questionable advantage. It at once destroys all +permanent improvement in a tongue through elegance of style, sonorous +periods, or delicacy of expression, and the life of the language itself +is weakened when its forms are left to fluctuate uncontrolled. Written +poetry, grammar, rhetoric, all are impossible to the student who draws +his knowledge from such a source.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span></p> + +<p>Finally, it has been justly observed by the younger Humboldt that the +painful fidelity to the antique figures transmitted from barbarous to +polished generations is injurious to the æsthetic sense, and dulls the +mind to the beautiful in art and nature.</p> + +<p>The transmission of thought by figures and symbols would, on the whole, +therefore, foster those narrow and material tendencies which the genius +of polysynthetic languages would seem calculated to produce. Its one +redeeming trait of strengthening the memory will serve to explain the +strange tenacity with which certain myths have been preserved through +widely dispersed families, as we shall hereafter see.</p> + +<p>Besides this of language there are two traits in the history of the red +man without parallel in that of any other variety of our species which +has achieved any notable progress in civilization.</p> + +<p>The one is his <i>isolation</i>. Cut off time out of mind from the rest of +the world, he never underwent those crossings of blood and culture which +so modified and on the whole promoted the growth of the old world +nationalities. In his own way he worked out his own destiny, and what he +won was his with a more than ordinary right of ownership. For all those +old dreams of the advent of the Ten Lost Tribes, of Buddhist priests, of +Welsh princes, or of Phenician merchants on American soil, and there +exerting a permanent influence, have been consigned to the dustbin by +every unbiased student, and when we see such men as Mr. Schoolcraft and +the Abbé E. C. Brasseur essaying to resuscitate them, we regretfully +look upon it in the light of a literary anachronism.</p> + +<p>The second trait is the entire absence of the herds<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span>man’s life with its +softening associations. Throughout the continent there is not a single +authentic instance of a pastoral tribe, not one of an animal raised for +its <span class="nowrap">milk,<a name="FNanchor_21-1_13" id="FNanchor_21-1_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_21-1_13" class="fnanchor">21-1</a></span> nor for the transportation of persons, and very few for +their flesh. It was essentially a hunting race. The most civilized +nations looked to the chase for their chief supply of meat, and the +courts of Cuzco and Mexico enacted stringent game and forest laws, and +at certain periods the whole population turned out for a general crusade +against the denizens of the forest. In the most densely settled +districts the conquerors found vast stretches of primitive woods.</p> + +<p>If we consider the life of a hunter, pitting his skill and strength +against the marvellous instincts and quick perceptions of the brute, +training his senses to preternatural acuteness, but blunting his more +tender feelings, his sole aim to shed blood and take life, dependent on +luck for his food, exposed to depriva<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span>tions, storms, and long +wanderings, his chief diet flesh, we may more readily comprehend that +conspicuous disregard of human suffering, those sanguinary rites, that +vindictive spirit, that inappeasable restlessness, which we so often +find in the chronicles of ancient America. The law with reason objects +to accepting a butcher as a juror on a trial for life; here is a whole +race of butchers.</p> + +<p>The one mollifying element was agriculture. On the altar of Mixcoatl, +god of hunting, the Aztec priest tore the heart from the human victim +and smeared with the spouting blood the snake that coiled its lengths +around the idol; flowers and fruits, yellow ears of maize and clusters +of rich bananas decked the shrine of Centeotl, beneficent patroness of +agriculture, and bloodless offerings alone were her appropriate dues. +This shows how clear, even to the native mind, was the contrast between +these two modes of subsistence. By substituting a sedentary for a +wandering life, by supplying a fixed dependence for an uncertain +contingency, and by admonishing man that in preservation, not in +destruction, lies his most remunerative sphere of activity, we can +hardly estimate too highly the wide distribution of the zea mays. This +was their only cereal, and it was found in cultivation from the southern +extremity of Chili to the fiftieth parallel of north latitude, beyond +which limits the low temperature renders it an uncertain crop. In their +legends it is represented as the gift of the Great Spirit (Chipeways), +brought from the terrestrial Paradise by the sacred animals (Quiches), +and symbolically the mother of the race (Nahuas), and the material from +which was moulded the first of men (Quiches).<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span></p> + +<p>As the races, so the great families of man who speak dialects of the +same tongue are, in a sense, individuals, bearing each its own +physiognomy. When the whites first heard the uncouth gutturals of the +Indians, they frequently proclaimed that hundreds of radically diverse +languages, invented, it was piously suggested, by the Devil for the +annoyance of missionaries, prevailed over the continent. Earnest +students of such matters—Vater, Duponceau, Gallatin, and +Buschmann—have, however, demonstrated that nine-tenths of the area of +America, at its discovery, were occupied by tribes using dialects +traceable to ten or a dozen primitive stems. The names of these, their +geographical position in the sixteenth century, and, so far as it is +safe to do so, their individual character, I shall briefly mention.</p> + +<p>Fringing the shores of the Northern Ocean from Mount St. Elias on the +west to the Gulf of St. Lawrence on the east, rarely seen a hundred +miles from the coast, were the <span class="nowrap">Eskimos.<a name="FNanchor_23-1_14" id="FNanchor_23-1_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_23-1_14" class="fnanchor">23-1</a></span> They are the connecting +link between the races of the Old and New Worlds, in physical appearance +and mental traits<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span> more allied to the former, but in language betraying +their near kinship to the latter. An amphibious race, born fishermen, in +their buoyant skin kayaks they brave fearlessly the tempests, make long +voyages, and merit the sobriquet bestowed upon them by Von Baer, “the +Phenicians of the north.” Contrary to what one might suppose, they are, +amid their snows, a contented, light-hearted people, knowing no longing +for a sunnier clime, given to song, music, and merry tales. They are +cunning handicraftsmen to a degree, but withal wholly ingulfed in a +sensuous existence. The desperate struggle for life engrosses them, and +their mythology is barren.</p> + +<p>South of them, extending in a broad band across the continent from +Hudson’s Bay to the Pacific, and almost to the Great Lakes below, is the +Athapascan stock. Its affiliated tribes rove far north to the mouth of +the Mackenzie River, and wandering still more widely in an opposite +direction along both declivities of the Rocky Mountains, people portions +of the coast of Oregon south of the mouth of the Columbia, and spreading +over the plains of New Mexico under the names of Apaches, Navajos, and +Lipans, almost reach the tropics at the delta of the Rio Grande del +Norte, and on the shores of the Gulf of California. No wonder they +deserted their fatherland and forgot it altogether, for it is a very +<i>terra damnata</i>, whose wretched inhabitants are cut off alike from the +harvest of the sea and the harvest of the soil. The profitable culture of +maize does not extend beyond the fiftieth parallel of latitude, and less +than seven degrees farther north the mean annual temperature everywhere +east of the mountains sinks<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span> below the freezing <span class="nowrap">point.<a name="FNanchor_25-1_15" id="FNanchor_25-1_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_25-1_15" class="fnanchor">25-1</a></span> Agriculture +is impossible, and the only chance for life lies in the uncertain +fortunes of the chase and the penurious gifts of an arctic flora. The +denizens of these wilds are abject, slovenly, hopelessly savage, “at the +bottom of the scale of humanity in North America,” says Dr. Richardson, +and their relatives who have wandered to the more genial climes of the +south are as savage as they, as perversely hostile to a sedentary life, +as gross and narrow in their moral notions. This wide-spread stock, +scattered over forty-five degrees of latitude, covering thousands of +square leagues, reaching from the Arctic Ocean to the confines of the +empire of the Montezumas, presents in all its subdivisions the same +mental physiognomy and linguistic <span class="nowrap">peculiarities.<a name="FNanchor_25-2_16" id="FNanchor_25-2_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_25-2_16" class="fnanchor">25-2</a></span></p> + +<p>Best known to us of all the Indians are the Algonkins and Iroquois, who, +at the time of the discovery, were the sole possessors of the region now +embraced by Canada and the eastern United States north of the +thirty-fifth parallel. The latter, under the names of the Five Nations, +Hurons, Tuscaroras, Susquehannocks, Nottoways and others, occupied much +of the soil from the St. Lawrence and Lake Ontario to the Roanoke, and +perhaps the Cherokees, whose homes were in the secluded vales of East +Tennessee, were one of their early <span class="nowrap">offshoots.<a name="FNanchor_25-3_17" id="FNanchor_25-3_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_25-3_17" class="fnanchor">25-3</a></span> <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span>They were a race of +warriors, courageous, cruel, unimaginative, but of rare political +sagacity. They are more like ancient Romans than Indians, and are leading +figures in the colonial wars.</p> + +<p>The Algonkins surrounded them on every side, occupying the rest of the +region mentioned and running westward to the base of the Rocky +Mountains, where one of their famous bands, the Blackfeet, still hunts +over the valley of the Saskatchewan. They were more genial than the +Iroquois, of milder manners and more vivid fancy, and were regarded by +these with a curious mixture of respect and contempt. Some writer has +connected this difference with their preference for the open prairie +country in contrast to the endless and sombre forests where were the +homes of the Iroquois. Their history abounds in great men, whose +ambitious plans were foiled by the levity of their allies and their want +of persistence. They it was who under King Philip fought the Puritan +fathers; who at the instigation of Pontiac doomed to death every white +trespasser on their soil; who led by Tecumseh and Black Hawk gathered +the clans of the forest and mountain for the last pitched battle of the +races in the Mississippi valley. To them belonged the mild mannered +Lenni Lenape, who little foreboded the hand of iron that grasped their +own so softly under the elm tree of Shackamaxon, to them the restless +Shawnee, the gypsy of the wilderness,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span> the Chipeways of Lake Superior, +and also to them the Indian girl Pocahontas, who in the legend averted +from the head of the white man the blow which, rebounding, swept away +her father and all his <span class="nowrap">tribe.<a name="FNanchor_27-1_18" id="FNanchor_27-1_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_27-1_18" class="fnanchor">27-1</a></span></p> + +<p>Between their southernmost outposts and the Gulf of Mexico were a number +of clans, mostly speaking the Muscogee tongue, Creeks, Choctaws, +Chikasaws, and others, in later times summed up as Apalachian Indians, +but by early writers sometimes referred to as “The Empire of the +Natchez.” For tradition says that long ago this small tribe, whose home +was in the Big Black country, was at the head of a loose confederation +embracing most of the nations from the Atlantic coast quite into Texas; +and adds that the expedition of De Soto severed its lax bonds and shook +it irremediably into fragments. Whether this is worth our credence or +not, the comparative civilization of the Natchez, and the analogy their +language bears to that of the Mayas of Yucatan, the builders of those +ruined cities which Stephens and Catherwood have made so familiar to the +world, attach to them a peculiar <span class="nowrap">interest.<a name="FNanchor_27-2_19" id="FNanchor_27-2_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_27-2_19" class="fnanchor">27-2</a></span></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span>North of the Arkansas River on the right bank of the Mississippi, quite +to its source, stretching over to Lake Michigan at Green Bay, and up the +valley of the Missouri west to the mountains, resided the Dakotas, an +erratic folk, averse to agriculture, but daring hunters and bold +warriors, tall and strong of <span class="nowrap">body.<a name="FNanchor_28-1_20" id="FNanchor_28-1_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_28-1_20" class="fnanchor">28-1</a></span> Their religious notions have +been carefully studied, and as they are remarkably primitive and +transparent, they will often be referred to. The Sioux and the +Winnebagoes are well-known branches of this family.</p> + +<p>We have seen that Dr. Richardson assigned to a portion of the Athapascas +the lowest place among North American tribes, but there are some in New +Mexico who might contest the sad distinction, the Root Diggers, +Comanches and others, members of the Snake or Shoshonee family, +scattered extensively northwest of Mexico. It has been said of a part of +these that they are “nearer the brutes than probably any other portion +of the human race on the face of the <span class="nowrap">globe.”<a name="FNanchor_28-2_21" id="FNanchor_28-2_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_28-2_21" class="fnanchor">28-2</a></span> Their habits in some +respects are more brutish than those of any brute, for there is no +limit<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span> to man’s moral descent or ascent, and the observer might well be +excused for doubting whether such a stock ever had a history in the +past, or the possibility of one in the future. Yet these debased +creatures speak a related dialect, and are beyond a doubt largely of the +same blood as the famous Aztec race, who founded the empire of Anahuac, +and raised architectural monuments rivalling the most famous structures +of the ancient world. This great family, whose language has been traced +from Nicaragua to Vancouver’s Island, and whose bold intellects colored +all the civilization of the northern continent, was composed in that +division of it found in New Spain chiefly of two bands, the Toltecs, +whose traditions point to the mountain ranges of Guatemala as their +ancient seat, and the Nahuas, who claim to have come at a later period +from the northwest coast, and together settled in and near the valley of +<span class="nowrap">Mexico.<a name="FNanchor_29-1_22" id="FNanchor_29-1_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_29-1_22" class="fnanchor">29-1</a></span> <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span>Outlying colonies on the shore of Lake Nicaragua and in +the mountains of Vera Paz rose to a civilization that rivalled that of +the Montezumas, while others remained in utter barbarism in the far +north.</p> + +<p>The Aztecs not only conquered a Maya colony, and founded the empire of +the Quiches in Central America, a complete body of whose mythology has +been brought to light in late years, but seem to have made a marked +imprint on the Mayas themselves. These possessed, as has already been +said, the peninsula of Yucatan. There is some reason to suppose they +came thither originally from the Greater Antilles, and none to doubt but +that the Huastecas who lived on the river Panuco and the Natchez of +Louisiana were offshoots from them. Their language is radically distinct +from that of the Aztecs, but their calendar and a portion of their +mythology are common property. They seem an ancient race of mild manners +and considerable polish. No American nation offers a more promising +field for study. Their stone temples still bear testimony to their +uncommon skill in the arts. A trustworthy tradition dates the close of +the golden age of Yucatan a century anterior to its discovery by +Europeans. Previously it had been one kingdom, under one ruler, and +prolonged<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span> peace had fostered the growth of the fine arts; but when +their capital Mayapan fell, internal dissensions ruined most of their +cities.</p> + +<p>No connection whatever has been shown between the civilization of North +and South America. In the latter continent it was confined to two +totally foreign tribes, the Muyscas, whose empire, called that of the +Zacs, was in the neighborhood of Bogota, and the Peruvians, who in their +two related divisions of Quichuas and Aymaras extended their language +and race along the highlands of the Cordilleras from the equator to the +thirtieth degree of south latitude. Lake Titicaca seems to have been the +cradle of their civilization, offering another example how inland seas +and well-watered plains favor the change from a hunting to an +agricultural life. These four nations, the Aztecs, the Mayas, the +Muyscas and the Peruvians, developed spontaneously and independently +under the laws of human progress what civilization was found among the +red race. They owed nothing to Asiatic or European teachers. The Incas +it was long supposed spoke a language of their own, and this has been +thought evidence of foreign extraction; but Wilhelm von Humboldt has +shown conclusively that it was but a dialect of the common tongue of +their <span class="nowrap">country.<a name="FNanchor_31-1_23" id="FNanchor_31-1_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_31-1_23" class="fnanchor">31-1</a></span></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span>When Columbus first touched the island of Cuba, he was regaled with +horrible stories of one-eyed monsters who dwelt on the other islands, +but plundered indiscriminately on every hand. These turned out to be the +notorious Caribs, whose other name, <i>Cannibals</i>, has descended as a +common noun to our language, expressive of one of their inhuman +practices. They had at that time seized many of the Antilles, and had +gained a foothold on the coast of Honduras and Darien, but pointed for +their home to the mainland of South America. This they possessed along +the whole northern shore, inland at least as far as the south bank of +the Amazon, and west nearly to the Cordilleras. It is still an open +question whether the Tupis and Guaranis who inhabit the vast region +between the Amazon and the Pampas of Buenos Ayres are affined to them. +The traveller D’Orbigny zealously maintains the affirmative, and there +is certainly some analogy of language, but withal an inexplicable +contrast of character. The latter were, and are, in the main, a +peaceable, inoffensive, apathetic set, dull and unambitious, while the +Caribs won a terrible renown as bold warriors, daring navigators, +skilful in handicrafts; and their poisoned arrows, cruel and disgusting +habits, and enterprise, rendered them a terror and a by-word for +<span class="nowrap">generations.<a name="FNanchor_32-1_24" id="FNanchor_32-1_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_32-1_24" class="fnanchor">32-1</a></span></p> + +<p>Our information of the natives of the Pampas, Patagonia, and the Land of +Fire, is too vague to permit<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span> their positive identification with the +Araucanians of Chili; but there is much to render the view plausible. +Certain physical peculiarities, a common unconquerable love of freedom, +and a delight in war, bring them together, and at the same time place +them both in strong contrast to their northern <span class="nowrap">neighbors.<a name="FNanchor_33-1_25" id="FNanchor_33-1_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_33-1_25" class="fnanchor">33-1</a></span></p> + +<p>There are many tribes whose affinities remain to be decided, especially +on the Pacific coast. The lack of inland water communication, the +difficult nature of the soil, and perhaps the greater antiquity of the +population there, seem to have isolated and split up beyond recognition +the indigenous families on that shore of the continent; while the great +river systems and broad plains of the Atlantic slope facilitated +migration and intercommunication, and thus preserved national +distinctions over thousands of square leagues.</p> + +<p>These natural features of the continent, compared with the actual +distribution of languages, offer our only guides in forming an opinion +as to the migrations of these various families in ancient times. Their +traditions, take even the most cultivated, are confused, contradictory, +and in great part manifestly fabulous. To construct from them by means +of daring combinations and forced interpretations a connected account of +the race during the centuries preceding Columbus were with the aid of a +vivid fancy an easy matter, but would be quite unworthy the name of +history. The most that can be said with certainty is that the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span> general +course of migrations in both Americas was from the high latitudes toward +the tropics, and from the great western chain of mountains toward the +east. No reasonable doubt exists but that the Athapascas, Algonkins, +Iroquois, Apalachians, and Aztecs all migrated from the north and west +to the regions they occupied. In South America, curiously enough, the +direction is reversed. If the Caribs belong to the Tupi-Guaranay stem, +and if the Quichuas belong to the Aymaras, as there is strong +<span class="nowrap">likelihood,<a name="FNanchor_34-1_26" id="FNanchor_34-1_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_34-1_26" class="fnanchor">34-1</a></span> then nine-tenths of the population of that vast +continent wandered forth from the steppes and valleys at the head waters +of the Rio de la Plata toward the Gulf of Mexico, where they came in +collision with that other wave of migration surging down from high +northern latitudes. For the banks of the river Paraguay and the steppes +of the Bolivian Cordilleras are unquestionably the earliest traditional +homes of both Tupis and Aymaras.</p> + +<p>These movements took place not in large bodies under the stimulus of a +settled purpose, but step by step, family by family, as the older +hunting grounds became too thickly peopled. This fact hints unmistakably +at the gray antiquity of the race. It were idle even to guess how great +this must be, but it is possible to set limits to it in both directions. +On the one hand, not a tittle of evidence is on record to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span> carry the age +of man in America beyond the present geological epoch. Dr. Lund examined +in Brazil more than eight hundred caverns, out of which number only six +contained human bones, and of these six only one had with the human +bones those of animals now extinct. Even in that instance the original +stratification had been disturbed, and probably the bones had been +interred <span class="nowrap">there.<a name="FNanchor_35-1_27" id="FNanchor_35-1_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_35-1_27" class="fnanchor">35-1</a></span> This is strong negative evidence. So in every +other example where an unbiased and competent geologist has made the +examination, the alleged discoveries of human remains in the older +strata have proved erroneous.</p> + +<p>The cranial forms of the American aborigines have by some been supposed +to present anomalies distinguishing their race from all others, and even +its chief families from one another. This, too, falls to the ground +before a rigid analysis. The last word of craniology, which at one time +promised to revolutionize ethnology and even history, is that no one form +of the skull is peculiar to the natives of the New World; that in the +same linguistic family one glides into another by imperceptible degrees; +and that there is as much diversity, and the same diversity among them in +this respect as among the races of the Old <span class="nowrap">Continent.<a name="FNanchor_35-2_28" id="FNanchor_35-2_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_35-2_28" class="fnanchor">35-2</a></span> Peculiarities +of structure, though they may pass as general truths, offer no firm +foundation<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span> whereon to construct a scientific ethnology. Anatomy shows +nothing unique in the Indian, nothing demanding for its development any +special antiquity, still less an original diversity of type.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, the remains of primeval art and the impress he made +upon nature bespeak for man a residence in the New World coeval with the +most distant events of history. By remains of art I do not so much refer +to those desolate palaces which crumble forgotten in the gloom of +tropical woods, nor even the enormous earthworks of the Mississippi +valley covered with the mould of generations of forest trees, but rather +to the humbler and less deceptive relics of his kitchens and his hunts. +On the Atlantic coast one often sees the refuse of Indian villages, +where generation after generation have passed their summers in fishing, +and left the bones, shells, and charcoal as their only epitaph. How many +such summers would it require for one or two hundred people to thus +gradually accumulate a mound of offal eight or ten feet high and a +hundred yards across, as is common enough? How many generations to heap +up that at the mouth of the Altamaha River, examined and pronounced +exclusively of this origin by Sir Charles <span class="nowrap">Lyell,<a name="FNanchor_36-1_29" id="FNanchor_36-1_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_36-1_29" class="fnanchor">36-1</a></span> which is about +this height, and covers ten acres of ground? Those who, like myself, +have tramped over many a ploughed field in search of arrow-heads must +have sometimes been amazed at the numbers which are sown over the face +of our country, betokening a most prolonged possession of the soil by +their makers. For a hunting population is always<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span> sparse, and the +collector finds only those arrow-heads which lie upon the surface.</p> + +<p>Still more forcibly does nature herself bear witness to this antiquity +of possession. Botanists declare that a very lengthy course of +cultivation is required so to alter the form of a plant that it can no +longer be identified with the wild species; and still more protracted +must be the artificial propagation for it to lose its power of +independent life, and to rely wholly on man to preserve it from +extinction. Now this is precisely the condition of the maize, tobacco, +cotton, quinoa, and mandioca plants, and of that species of palm called +by botanists the <i>Gulielma speciosa</i>; all have been cultivated from +immemorial time by the aborigines of America, and, except cotton, by no +other race; all no longer are to be identified with any known wild +species; several are sure to perish unless fostered by human <span class="nowrap">care.<a name="FNanchor_37-1_30" id="FNanchor_37-1_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_37-1_30" class="fnanchor">37-1</a></span> +What numberless ages does this suggest? How many centuries elapsed ere +man thought of cultivating Indian corn? How many more ere it had spread +over nearly a hundred degrees of latitude, and lost all semblance to its +original form? Who has the temerity to answer these questions? The +judicious thinker will perceive in them satisfactory reasons for +dropping once for all the vexed inquiry, “how America was peopled,” and +will smile at its imaginary solutions, whether they suggest Jews, +Japanese, or, as the latest theory is, Egyptians.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span></p> + +<p>While these and other considerations testify forcibly to that isolation +I have already mentioned, they are almost equally positive for an +extensive intercourse in very distant ages between the great families of +the race, and for a prevalent unity of mental type, or perhaps they hint +at a still visible oneness of descent. In their stage of culture, the +maize, cotton, and tobacco could hardly have spread so widely by +commerce alone. Then there are verbal similarities running through wide +families of languages which, in the words of Professor Buschmann, are +“calculated to fill us with bewildering <span class="nowrap">amazement,”<a name="FNanchor_38-1_31" id="FNanchor_38-1_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_38-1_31" class="fnanchor">38-1</a></span> some of which +will hereafter be pointed out; and lastly, passing to the psychological +constitution of the race, we may quote the words of a sharp-sighted +naturalist, whose monograph on one of its tribes is unsurpassed for +profound reflections: “Not only do all the primitive inhabitants of +America stand on one scale of related culture, but that mental condition +of all in which humanity chiefly mirrors itself, to wit, their religious +and moral consciousness, this source of all other inner and outer +conditions, is one with all, however diverse the natural influences +under which they <span class="nowrap">live.”<a name="FNanchor_38-2_32" id="FNanchor_38-2_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_38-2_32" class="fnanchor">38-2</a></span></p> + +<p>Penetrated with the truth of these views, all artificial divisions into +tropical or temperate, civilized or barbarous, will in the present work, +so far as possible, be avoided, and the race will be studied as a unit, +its religion as the development of ideas common to all its members, and +its myths as the garb thrown<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span> around these ideas by imaginations more or +less fertile, but seeking everywhere to embody the same notions.</p> + + +<p class="titlepage">BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>As the subject of American mythology is a new one to most readers, +and as in its discussion everything depends on a careful selection +of authorities, it is well at the outset to review very briefly +what has already been written upon it, and to assign the relative +amount of weight that in the following pages will be given to the +works most frequently quoted. The conclusions I have arrived at are +so different from those who have previously touched upon the topic +that such a step seems doubly advisable.</p> + +<p>The first who undertook a philosophical survey of American +religions was Dr. Samuel Farmer Jarvis, in 1819 (A Discourse on the +Religion of the Indian Tribes of North America, Collections of the +New York Historical Society, vol. iii., New York, 1821). He +confined himself to the tribes north of Mexico, a difficult portion +of the field, and at that time not very well known. The notion of a +state of primitive civilization prevented Dr. Jarvis from forming +any correct estimate of the native religions, as it led him to look +upon them as deteriorations from purer faiths instead of +developments. Thus he speaks of them as having “departed less than +among any other nation from the form of primeval truth,” and also +mentions their “wonderful uniformity” (pp. 219, 221).</p> + +<p>The well-known American ethnologist, Mr. E. G. Squier, has also +published a work on the subject, of wider scope than its title +indicates (The Serpent Symbol in America, New York, 1851). Though +written in a much more liberal spirit than the preceding, it is +wholly in the interests of one school of mythology, and it the +rather shallow physical one, so fashionable in Europe half a +century ago. Thus, with a sweeping generalization, he says, “The +religions or superstitions of the American nations, however +different they may appear to the superficial glance, are +rudimentally the same, and are only modifications of that primitive +system which under its physical aspect has been denominated Sun or +Fire worship” (p. 111). With this he combines the favorite and (may +I add?) characteristic French doctrine, that the chief topic of +mythology is the adoration of the generative power, and to rescue +such views from their materializing tendencies, imagines <span class='pagenum' style="font-size: 100%;"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span>to +counterbalance them a clear, universal monotheism. “We claim to +have shown,” he says (p. 154), “that the grand conception of a +Supreme Unity and the doctrine of the reciprocal principles existed +in America in a well defined and clearly recognized form;” and +elsewhere that “the monotheistic idea stands out clearly in <i>all</i> +the religions of America” (p. 151).</p> + +<p>If with a hope of other views we turn to our magnificent national +work on the Indians (History, Conditions, and Prospects of the +Indian Tribes of the United States: Washington, 1851-9), a great +disappointment awaits us. That work was unfortunate in its editor. +It is a monument of American extravagance and superficiality. Mr. +Schoolcraft was a man of deficient education and narrow prejudices, +pompous in style, and inaccurate in statements. The information +from original observers it contains is often of real value, but the +general views on aboriginal history and religion are shallow and +untrustworthy in the extreme.</p> + +<p>A German professor, Dr. J. G. Müller, has written quite a +voluminous work on American Primitive Religions (<i>Geschichte der +Amerikanischen Ur-religionen</i>, pp. 707: Basel, 1855). His theory is +that “at the south a worship of nature with the adoration of the +sun as its centre, at the north a fear of spirits combined with +fetichism, made up the two fundamental divisions of the religion of +the red race” (pp. 89, 90). This imaginary antithesis he traces out +between the Algonkin and Apalachian tribes, and between the Toltecs +of Guatemala and the Aztecs of Mexico. His quotations are nearly +all at second hand, and so little does he criticize his facts as to +confuse the Vaudoux worship of the Haitian negroes with that of +Votan in Chiapa. His work can in no sense be considered an +authority.</p> + +<p>Very much better is the Anthropology of the late Dr. Theodore Waitz +(<i>Anthropologie der Naturvœlker</i>: Leipzig, 1862-66). No more +comprehensive, sound, and critical work on the indigenes of America +has ever been written. But on their religions the author is +unfortunately defective, being led astray by the hasty and +groundless generalizations of others. His great anxiety, moreover, +to subject all moral sciences to a realistic philosophy, was +peculiarly fatal to any correct appreciation of religious growth, +and his views are neither new nor tenable.</p> + +<p>For a different reason I must condemn in the most unqualified +manner the attempt recently made by the enthusiastic and +meritorious antiquary, the Abbé E. Charles Brasseur (de Bourbourg), +<span class='pagenum' style="font-size: 100%;"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span>to explain American mythology after the example of Euhemerus, of +Thessaly, as the apotheosis of history. This theory, which has been +repeatedly applied to other mythologies with invariable failure, is +now disowned by every distinguished student of European and +Oriental antiquity; and to seek to introduce it into American +religions is simply to render them still more obscure and +unattractive, and to deprive them of the only general interest they +now have, that of illustrating the gradual development of the +religious ideas of humanity.</p> + +<p>But while thus regretting the use he has made of them, all +interested in American antiquity cannot too much thank this +indefatigable explorer for the priceless materials he has unearthed +in the neglected libraries of Spain and Central America, and laid +before the public. For the present purpose the most significant of +these is the Sacred National Book of the Quiches, a tribe of +Guatemala. This contains their legends, written in the original +tongue, and transcribed by Father Francisco Ximenes about 1725. The +manuscripts of this missionary were used early in the present +century, by Don Felix Cabrera, but were supposed to be entirely +lost even by the Abbé Brasseur himself in 1850 (<i>Lettre à M. le Duc +de Valmy</i>, Mexique, Oct. 15, 1850). Made aware of their importance +by the expressions of regret used in the Abbé’s letters, Dr. C. +Sherzer, in 1854, was fortunate enough to discover them in the +library of the University of San Carlos in the city of Guatemala. +The legends were in Quiche with a Spanish translation and scholia. +The Spanish was copied by Dr. Scherzer and published in Vienna, in +1856, under the title <i>Las Historias del Origen de los Indios de +Guatemala, por el R. P. F. Francisco Ximenes</i>. In 1855 the Abbé +Brasseur took a copy of the original which he brought out at Paris +in 1861, with a translation of his own, under the title <i>Vuh Popol: +Le Livre Sacré des Quichés et les Mythes de l’Antiquité +Américaine</i>. Internal evidence proves that these legends were +written down by a converted native some time in the seventeenth +century. They carry the national history back about two centuries, +beyond which all is professedly mythical. Although both +translations are colored by the peculiar views of their makers, +this is incomparably the most complete and valuable work on +American mythology extant.</p> + +<p>Another authority of inestimable value has been placed within the +reach of scholars during the last few years. This is the <i>Relations +de la Nouvelle France</i>, containing the annual reports of the +<span class='pagenum' style="font-size: 100%;"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span>Jesuit missionaries among the Iroquois and Algonkins from and +after 1611. My references to this are always to the reprint at +Quebec, 1858. Of not less excellence for another tribe, the Creeks, +is the brief “Sketch of the Creek Country,” by Col. Benjamin +Hawkins, written about 1800, and first published in full by the +Georgia Historical Society in 1848. Most of the other works to +which I have referred are too well known to need any special +examination here, or will be more particularly mentioned in the +foot-notes when quoted.</p></div> + + +<div class="footnotes"> +<p><a name="Footnote_2-1_1" id="Footnote_2-1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2-1_1"><span class="label">2-1</span></a> Waitz, <i>Anthropologie der Naturvoelker</i>, i. p. 256.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_2-2_2" id="Footnote_2-2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2-2_2"><span class="label">2-2</span></a> Carriere, <i>Die Kunst im Zusammenhang der +Culturentwickelung</i>, i. p. 66.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_6-1_3" id="Footnote_6-1_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6-1_3"><span class="label">6-1</span></a> It is said indeed that the Yebus, a people on the west +coast of Africa, speak a polysynthetic language, and <i>per contra</i>, that +the Otomis of Mexico have a monosyllabic one like the Chinese. Max +Mueller goes further, and asserts that what is called the process of +agglutination in the Turanian languages is the same as what has been +named polysynthesis in America. This is not to be conceded. In the +former the root is unchangeable, the formative elements follow it, and +prefixes are not used; in the latter prefixes are common, and the +formative elements are blended with the root, both undergoing changes of +structure. Very important differences.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_9-1_4" id="Footnote_9-1_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9-1_4"><span class="label">9-1</span></a> Grimm, <i>Geschichte der Deutschen Sprache</i>, p. 571.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_11-1_5" id="Footnote_11-1_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11-1_5"><span class="label">11-1</span></a> Peter Martyr, <i>De Insulis nuper Repertis</i>, p. 354: +Colon. 1574.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_12-1_6" id="Footnote_12-1_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12-1_6"><span class="label">12-1</span></a> They may be found in Waitz, <i>Anthrop. der Naturvoelker</i>, +iv. p. 173.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_13-1_7" id="Footnote_13-1_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13-1_7"><span class="label">13-1</span></a> The only authority is Diego de Landa, <i>Relacion de las +Cosas de Yucatan</i>, ed. Brasseur, Paris, 1864, p. 318. The explanation is +extremely obscure in the original. I have given it in the only sense in +which the author’s words seem to have any meaning.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_14-1_8" id="Footnote_14-1_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14-1_8"><span class="label">14-1</span></a> Humboldt, <i>Vues des Cordillères</i>, p. 72.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_14-2_9" id="Footnote_14-2_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14-2_9"><span class="label">14-2</span></a> Desjardins, <i>Le Pérou avant la Conquête Espagnole</i>, p. +122: Paris, 1858.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_16-1_10" id="Footnote_16-1_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16-1_10"><span class="label">16-1</span></a> An instance is given by Ximenes, <i>Origen de los Indios +de Guatemala</i>, p. 186: Vienna, 1856.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_17-1_11" id="Footnote_17-1_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17-1_11"><span class="label">17-1</span></a> George Copway, <i>Traditional History of the Ojibway +Nation</i>, p. 130: London, 1850.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_18-1_12" id="Footnote_18-1_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18-1_12"><span class="label">18-1</span></a> Morse, <i>Report on the Indian Tribes</i>, App. p. 352.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_21-1_13" id="Footnote_21-1_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21-1_13"><span class="label">21-1</span></a> Gomara states that De Ayllon found tribes on the +Atlantic shore not far from Cape Hatteras keeping flocks of deer +(<i>ciervos</i>) and from their milk making cheese (<i>Hist. de las Indias</i>, +cap. 43). I attach no importance to this statement, and only mention it +to connect it with some other curious notices of the tribe now extinct +who occupied that locality. Both De Ayllon and Lawson mention their very +light complexions, and the latter saw many with blonde hair, blue eyes, +and a fair skin; they cultivated when first visited the potato (or the +groundnut), tobacco, and cotton (Humboldt); they reckoned time by disks +of wood divided into sixty segments (Lederer); and just in this latitude +the most careful determination fixes the mysterious White-man’s-land, or +Great Ireland of the Icelandic Sagas (see the <i>American Hist. Mag.</i>, ix. +p. 364), where the Scandinavian sea rovers in the eleventh century found +men of their own color, clothed in long woven garments, and not less +civilized than themselves.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_23-1_14" id="Footnote_23-1_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23-1_14"><span class="label">23-1</span></a> The name Eskimo is from the Algonkin word <i>Eskimantick</i>, +eaters of raw flesh. There is reason to believe that at one time they +possessed the Atlantic coast considerably to the south. The Northmen, in +the year 1000, found the natives of Vinland, probably near Rhode Island, +of the same race as they were familiar with in Labrador. They call them +<i>Skralingar</i>, chips, and describe them as numerous and short of stature +(Eric Rothens Saga, in Mueller, <i>Sagænbibliothek</i>, p. 214). It is +curious that the traditions of the Tuscaroras, who placed their arrival +on the Virginian coast about 1300, spoke of the race they found there as +eaters of raw flesh and ignorant of maize (Lederer, <i>Account of North +America</i>, in Harris, Voyages).</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_25-1_15" id="Footnote_25-1_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25-1_15"><span class="label">25-1</span></a> Richardson, <i>Arctic Expedition</i>, p. 374.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_25-2_16" id="Footnote_25-2_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25-2_16"><span class="label">25-2</span></a> The late Professor W. W. Turner of Washington, and +Professor Buschmann of Berlin, are the two scholars who have traced the +boundaries of this widely dispersed family. The name is drawn from Lake +Athapasca in British America.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_25-3_17" id="Footnote_25-3_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25-3_17"><span class="label">25-3</span></a> The Cherokee tongue has a limited number of words in +common with the Iroquois, and its structural similarity is close. The +name is of unknown origin. It should doubtless be spelled <i>Tsalakie</i>, a +plural form, almost the same as that of the river Tellico, properly +Tsaliko (Ramsey, <i>Annals of Tennessee</i>, p. 87), on the banks of which +their principal towns were situated. Adair’s derivation from <i>cheera</i>, +fire, is worthless, as no such word exists in their language.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_27-1_18" id="Footnote_27-1_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27-1_18"><span class="label">27-1</span></a> The term Algonkin may be a corruption of <i>agomeegwin</i>, +people of the other shore. Algic, often used synonymously, is an +adjective manufactured by Mr. Schoolcraft “from the words Alleghany and +Atlantic” (Algic Researches, ii. p. 12). There is no occasion to accept +it, as there is no objection to employing Algonkin both as substantive +and adjective. Iroquois is a French compound of the native words <i>hiro</i>, +I have said, and <i>kouè</i>, an interjection of assent or applause, terms +constantly heard in their councils.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_27-2_19" id="Footnote_27-2_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27-2_19"><span class="label">27-2</span></a> Apalachian, which should be spelt with one p, is formed +of two Creek words, <i>apala</i>, the great sea, the ocean, and the suffix +<i>chi</i>, people, and means those dwelling by the ocean. That the Natchez +were offshoots of the Mayas I was the first to surmise and to prove by a +careful comparison of one hundred Natchez words with their equivalents +in the Maya dialects. Of these, <i>five</i> have affinities more or less +marked to words peculiar to the Huastecas of the river Panuco (a Maya +colony), <i>thirteen</i> to words common to Huasteca and Maya, and +<i>thirty-nine</i> to words of similar meaning in the latter language. This +resemblance may be exemplified by the numerals, one, two, four, seven, +eight, twenty. In Natchez they are <i>hu</i>, <i>ah</i>, <i>gan</i>, <i>uk-woh</i>, +<i>upku-tepish</i>, <i>oka-poo</i>: in Maya, <i>hu</i>, <i>ca</i>, <i>can</i>, <i>uk</i>, <i>uapxæ</i>, +<i>hunkal</i>. (See the Am. Hist. Mag., New Series, vol. i. p. 16, Jan. +1867.)</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_28-1_20" id="Footnote_28-1_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28-1_20"><span class="label">28-1</span></a> Dakota, a native word, means friends or allies.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_28-2_21" id="Footnote_28-2_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28-2_21"><span class="label">28-2</span></a> Rep. of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1854, p. +209.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_29-1_22" id="Footnote_29-1_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29-1_22"><span class="label">29-1</span></a> According to Professor Buschmann Aztec is probably from +<i>iztac</i>, white, and Nahuatlacatl signifies those who speak the language +<i>Nahuatl</i>, clear sounding, sonorous. The Abbé Brasseur (de Bourbourg), +on the other hand, derives the latter from the Quiche <i>nawal</i>, +intelligent, and adds the amazing information that this is identical +with the English <i>know all</i>!! (<i>Hist. du Mexique</i>, etc., i. p. 102). For +in his theory several languages of Central America are derived from the +same old Indo-Germanic stock as the English, German, and cognate +tongues. Toltec, from <i>Toltecatl</i>, means inhabitant of Tollan, which +latter may be from <i>tolin</i>, rush, and signify the place of rushes. The +signification <i>artificer</i>, often assigned to Toltecatl, is of later +date, and was derived from the famed artistic skill of this early folk +(Buschmann, <i>Aztek. Ortsnamen</i>, p. 682: Berlin, 1852). The Toltecs are +usually spoken of as anterior to the Nahuas, but the Tlascaltecs and +natives of Cholollan or Cholula were in fact Toltecs, unless we assign +to this latter name a merely mythical signification. The early +migrations of the two Aztec bands and their relationship, it may be said +in passing, are as yet extremely obscure. The Shoshonees when first +known dwelt as far north as the head waters of the Missouri, and in the +country now occupied by the Black Feet. Their language, which includes +that of the Comanche, Wihinasht, Utah, and kindred bands, was first +shown to have many and marked affinities with that of the Aztecs by +Professor Buschmann in his great work, <i>Ueber die Spuren der Aztekischen +Sprache im nördlichen Mexico und höheren Amerikanischen Norden</i>, p. 648: +Berlin, 1854.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_31-1_23" id="Footnote_31-1_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31-1_23"><span class="label">31-1</span></a> His opinion was founded on an analysis of fifteen words +of the secret language of the Incas preserved in the Royal Commentaries +of Garcilasso de la Vega. On examination, they all proved to be modified +forms from the <i>lengua general</i> (Meyen, <i>Ueber die Ureinwohner von +Peru</i>, p. 6). The Quichuas of Peru must not be confounded with the +Quiches of Guatemala. Quiche is the name of a place, and means “many +trees;” the derivation of Quichua is unknown. Muyscas means “men.” This +nation also called themselves Chibchas.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_32-1_24" id="Footnote_32-1_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32-1_24"><span class="label">32-1</span></a> The significance of Carib is probably warrior. It may be +the same word as Guarani, which also has this meaning. Tupi or Tupa is +the name given the thunder, and can only be understood mythically.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_33-1_25" id="Footnote_33-1_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33-1_25"><span class="label">33-1</span></a> The Araucanians probably obtained their name from two +Quichua words, <i>ari auccan</i>, yes! they fight; an idiom very expressive +of their warlike character. They had had long and terrible wars with the +Incas before the arrival of Pizarro.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_34-1_26" id="Footnote_34-1_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34-1_26"><span class="label">34-1</span></a> Since writing the text I have received the admirable +work of Dr. von Martius, <i>Beiträge zur Ethnographie und Sprachenkunde +Amerika’s zumal Brasilians</i>, Leipzig, 1867, in which I observe that that +profound student considers that there is no doubt but that the Island +Caribs, and the Galibis of the main land are descendants from the same +stock as the Tupis and Guaranis.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_35-1_27" id="Footnote_35-1_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35-1_27"><span class="label">35-1</span></a> <i>Comptes Rendus</i>, vol. xxi. p. 1368 sqq.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_35-2_28" id="Footnote_35-2_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35-2_28"><span class="label">35-2</span></a> The two best authorities are Daniel Wilson, <i>The +American Cranial Type</i>, in <i>Ann. Rep. of the Smithson. Inst.</i>, 1862, p. +240, and J. A. Meigs, <i>Cranial Forms of the Amer. Aborigs.</i>: Phila. +1866. They accord in the views expressed in the text and in the +rejection of those advocated by Dr. S. G. Morton in the Crania +Americana.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_36-1_29" id="Footnote_36-1_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36-1_29"><span class="label">36-1</span></a> <i>Second Visit to the United States</i>, i. p. 252.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_37-1_30" id="Footnote_37-1_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37-1_30"><span class="label">37-1</span></a> Martius, <i>Von dem Rechtzustande unter den Ureinwohnern +Brasiliens</i>, p. 80: Muenchen, 1832; recently republished in his +<i>Beiträge zur Ethnographie und Sprachenkunde Amerika’s</i>: Leipzig, 1867.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_38-1_31" id="Footnote_38-1_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_38-1_31"><span class="label">38-1</span></a> <i>Athapaskische Sprachstamm</i>, p. 164: Berlin, 1856.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_38-2_32" id="Footnote_38-2_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_38-2_32"><span class="label">38-2</span></a> Martius, <i>Von dem Rechtzustande unter den Ureinwohnern +Brasiliens</i>, p. 77.</p> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II.</h2> + +<p class="chaptoc">THE IDEA OF GOD.</p> + +<p class="chapintro">An intuition common to the species.—Words expressing it in +American languages derived either from ideas of above in space, or +of life manifested by breath.—Examples.—No conscious monotheism, +and but little idea of immateriality discoverable.—Still less any +moral dualism of deities, the Great Good Spirit and the Great Bad +Spirit being alike terms and notions of foreign importation.</p> + + +<p class="noindent"><span class="dropcap">I</span><span class="upper">f</span> we accept the definition that mythology is the idea of God expressed +in symbol, figure, and narrative, and always struggling toward a clearer +utterance, it is well not only to trace this idea in its very earliest +embodiment in language, but also, for the sake of comparison, to ask +what is its latest and most approved expression. The reply to this is +given us by Immanuel Kant. He has shown that our reason, dwelling on the +facts of experience, constantly seeks the principles which connect them +together, and only rests satisfied in the conviction that there is a +highest and first principle which reconciles all their discrepancies and +binds them into one. This he calls the Ideal of Reason. It must be true, +for it is evolved from the laws of reason, our only test of truth. +Furthermore, the sense of personality and the voice of conscience, +analyzed to their sources, can only be explained by the assumption of an +infinite personality and an absolute standard of right. Or, if to some +all this ap<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span>pears but wire-drawn metaphysical subtlety, they are welcome +to the definition of the realist, that the idea of God is the sum of +those intelligent activities which the individual, reasoning from the +analogy of his own actions, imagines to be behind and to bring about +natural <span class="nowrap">phenomena.<a name="FNanchor_44-1_33" id="FNanchor_44-1_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_44-1_33" class="fnanchor">44-1</a></span> If either of these be correct, it were hard to +conceive how any tribe or even any sane man could be without some notion +of divinity.</p> + +<p>Certainly in America no instance of its absence has been discovered. +Obscure, grotesque, unworthy it often was, but everywhere man was +oppressed with a <i>sensus numinis</i>, a feeling that invisible, powerful +agencies were at work around him, who, as they willed, could help or +hurt him. In every heart was an altar to the Unknown God. Not that it +was customary to attach any idea of unity to these unseen powers. The +supposition that in ancient times and in very unenlightened conditions, +before mythology had grown, a monotheism prevailed, which afterwards at +various times was revived by reformers, is a belief that should have +passed away when the delights of savage life and the praises of a state +of nature ceased to be the themes of philosophers. We are speaking<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span> of a +people little capable of abstraction. The exhibitions of force in nature +seemed to them the manifestations of that mysterious power felt by their +self-consciousness; to combine these various manifestations and +recognize them as the operations of one personality, was a step not +easily taken. Yet He is not far from every one of us. “Whenever man +thinks clearly, or feels deeply, he conceives God as self-conscious +unity,” says Carriere, with admirable insight; and elsewhere, “we have +monotheism, not in contrast to polytheism, not clear to the thought, but +in living intuition in the religious <span class="nowrap">sentiments.”<a name="FNanchor_45-1_34" id="FNanchor_45-1_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_45-1_34" class="fnanchor">45-1</a></span></p> + +<p>Thus it was among the Indians. Therefore a word is usually found in +their languages analogous to none in any European tongue, a word +comprehending all manifestations of the unseen world, yet conveying no +sense of personal unity. It has been rendered spirit, demon, God, devil, +mystery, magic, but commonly and rather absurdly by the English and +French, “medicine.” In the Algonkin dialects this word is <i>manito</i> and +<i>oki</i>, in Iroquois <i>oki</i> and <i>otkon</i>, the Dakota has <i>wakan</i>, the Aztec +<i>teotl</i>, the Quichua <i>huaca</i>, and the Maya <i>ku</i>. They all express in its +most general form the idea of the supernatural. And as in this word, +supernatural, we see a transfer of a conception of place, and that it +literally means that which is <i>above</i> the natural world, so in such as +we can analyze of these vague and primitive terms the same trope appears +discoverable. <i>Wakan</i> as an adverb means <i>above</i>, <i>oki</i> is but another +orthography<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span> for <i>oghee</i>, and <i>otkon</i> seems allied to <i>hetken</i>, both of +which have the same <span class="nowrap">signification.<a name="FNanchor_46-1_35" id="FNanchor_46-1_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_46-1_35" class="fnanchor">46-1</a></span></p> + +<p>The transfer is no mere figure of speech, but has its origin in the very +texture of the human mind. The heavens, the upper regions, are in every +religion the supposed abode of the divine. What is higher is always the +stronger and the nobler; a <i>superior</i> is one who is better than we are, +and therefore a chieftain in Algonkin is called <i>oghee-ma</i>, the higher +one. There is, moreover, a naif and spontaneous instinct which leads man +in his ecstasies of joy, and in his paroxysms of fear or pain, to lift +his hands and eyes to the overhanging firmament. There the sun and +bright stars sojourn, emblems of glory and stability. Its azure vault +has a mysterious attraction which invites the eye to gaze longer and +longer into its infinite <span class="nowrap">depths.<a name="FNanchor_46-2_36" id="FNanchor_46-2_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_46-2_36" class="fnanchor">46-2</a></span> Its color brings thoughts of +sere<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span>nity, peace, sunshine, and warmth. Even the rudest hunting tribes +felt these sentiments, and as a metaphor in their speeches, and as a +paint expressive of friendly design, blue was in wide use among +<span class="nowrap">them.<a name="FNanchor_47-1_37" id="FNanchor_47-1_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_47-1_37" class="fnanchor">47-1</a></span></p> + +<p>So it came to pass that the idea of God was linked to the heavens long +ere man asked himself, are the heavens material and God spiritual, is He +one, or is He many? Numerous languages bear trace of this. The Latin +Deus, the Greek Zeus, the Sanscrit Dyaus, the Chinese Tien, all +originally meant the sky above, and our own word heaven is often +employed synonymously with God. There is at first no personification in +these expressions. They embrace all unseen agencies, they are void of +personality, and yet to the illogical primitive man there is nothing +contradictory in making them the object of his prayers. The Mayas had +legions of gods; “<i>ku</i>,” says their <span class="nowrap">historian,<a name="FNanchor_47-2_38" id="FNanchor_47-2_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_47-2_38" class="fnanchor">47-2</a></span> “does not signify +any particular god; yet their prayers are sometimes addressed to <i>kue</i>,” +which is the same word in the vocative case.</p> + +<p>As the Latins called their united divinities <i>Superi</i>, those above, so +Captain John Smith found that the Powhatans of Virginia employed the +word <i>oki</i>, above, in the same sense, and it even had passed into a +definite personification among them in the shape of an “idol of wood +evil-favoredly carved.” In purer dialects of the Algonkin it is always +indefinite, as in the terms <i>nipoon oki</i>, spirit of summer, <i>pipoon +oki</i>,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span> spirit of winter. Perhaps the word was introduced into Iroquois +by the Hurons, neighbors and associates of the Algonkins. The Hurons +applied it to that demoniac power “who rules the seasons of the year, +who holds the winds and the waves in leash, who can give fortune to +their undertakings, and relieve all their <span class="nowrap">wants.”<a name="FNanchor_48-1_39" id="FNanchor_48-1_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_48-1_39" class="fnanchor">48-1</a></span> In another and +far distant branch of the Iroquois, the Nottoways of southern Virginia, +it reappears under, the curious form <i>quaker</i>, doubtless a corruption of +the Powhatan <i>qui-oki</i>, lesser <span class="nowrap">gods.<a name="FNanchor_48-2_40" id="FNanchor_48-2_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_48-2_40" class="fnanchor">48-2</a></span> The proper Iroquois name of +him to whom they prayed was <i>garonhia</i>, which again turns out on +examination to be their common word for <i>sky</i>, and again in all +probability from the verbal root <i>gar</i>, to be <span class="nowrap">above.<a name="FNanchor_48-3_41" id="FNanchor_48-3_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_48-3_41" class="fnanchor">48-3</a></span> In the +legends of the Aztecs and Quiches such phrases as “Heart of the Sky,” +“Lord of the Sky,” “Prince of the Azure Planisphere,” “He above all,” +are of frequent occurrence, and by a still bolder metaphor, the +Araucanians, according to Molina, entitled their greatest god “The Soul +of the Sky.”</p> + +<p>This last expression leads to another train of thought. As the +philosopher, pondering on the workings of self-consciousness, recognizes +that vari<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span>ous pathways lead up to God, so the primitive man, in forming +his language, sometimes trod one, sometimes another. Whatever else +sceptics have questioned, no one has yet presumed to doubt that if a God +and a soul exist at all, they are of like essence. This firm belief has +left its impress on language in the names devised to express the +supernal, the spiritual world. If we seek hints from languages more +familiar to us than the tongues of the Indians, and take for example +this word <i>spiritual</i>; we find it is from the Latin <i>spirare</i>, to blow, +to breathe. If in Latin again we look for the derivation of <i>animus</i>, +the mind, <i>anima</i>, the soul, they point to the Greek <i>anemos</i>, wind, and +<i>aémi</i>, to blow. In Greek the words for soul or spirit, <i>psuche</i>, +<i>pneuma</i>, <i>thumos</i>, all are directly from verbal roots expressing the +motion of the wind or the breath. The Hebrew word <i>ruah</i> is translated +in the Old Testament sometimes by wind, sometimes by spirit, sometimes +by breath. Etymologically, in fact, ghosts and gusts, breaths and +breezes, the Great Spirit and the Great Wind, are one and the same. It +is easy to guess the reason of this. The soul is the life, the life is +the breath. Invisible, imponderable, quickening with vigorous motion, +slackening in rest and sleep, passing quite away in death, it is the +most obvious sign of life. All nations grasped the analogy and +identified the one with the other. But the breath is nothing but wind. +How easy, therefore, to look upon the wind that moves up and down and to +and fro upon the earth, that carries the clouds, itself unseen, that +calls forth the terrible tempests and the various seasons, as the +breath, the spirit of God, as God<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span> himself? So in the Mosaic record of +creation, it is said “a mighty wind” passed over the formless sea and +brought forth the world, and when the Almighty gave to the clay a living +soul, he is said to have breathed into it “the wind of lives.”</p> + +<p>Armed with these analogies, we turn to the primitive tongues of America, +and find them there as distinct as in the Old World. In Dakota <i>niya</i> is +literally breath, figuratively life; in Netela <i>piuts</i> is life, breath, +and soul; <i>silla</i>, in Eskimo, means air, it means wind, but it is also +the word that conveys the highest idea of the world as a whole, and the +reasoning faculty. The supreme existence they call <i>Sillam Innua</i>, Owner +of the Air, or of the All; or <i>Sillam Nelega</i>, Lord of the Air or Wind. +In the Yakama tongue of Oregon <i>wkrisha</i> signifies there is wind, +<i>wkrishwit</i>, life; with the Aztecs, <i>ehecatl</i> expressed both air, life, +and the soul, and personified in their myths it was said to have been +born of the breath of Tezcatlipoca, their highest divinity, who himself +is often called Yoalliehecatl, the Wind of <span class="nowrap">Night.<a name="FNanchor_50-1_42" id="FNanchor_50-1_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_50-1_42" class="fnanchor">50-1</a></span></p> + +<p>The descent is, indeed, almost imperceptible which leads to the +personification of the wind as God, which merges this manifestation of +life and power in one with its unseen, unknown cause. Thus it was a +worthy epithet which the Creeks applied to their supreme invisible +ruler, when they addressed him as <span class="smcap">Esaugetuh Emissee</span>, Master of Breath, +and doubtless it was at first but a title of equivalent purport<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span> which +the Cherokees, their neighbors, were wont to employ, <span class="smcap">Oonawleh unggi</span>, +Eldest of Winds, but rapidly leading to a complete identification of the +divine with the natural phenomena of meteorology. This seems to have +taken place in the same group of nations, for the original Choctaw word +for Deity was <span class="smcap">Hushtoli</span>, the Storm <span class="nowrap">Wind.<a name="FNanchor_51-1_43" id="FNanchor_51-1_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_51-1_43" class="fnanchor">51-1</a></span> The idea, indeed, was +constantly being lost in the symbol. In the legends of the Quiches, the +mysterious creative power is <span class="smcap">Hurakan</span>, a name of no signification in +their language, one which their remote ancestors brought with them from +the Antilles, which finds its meaning in the ancient tongue of Haiti, +and which, under the forms of <i>hurricane</i>, <i>ouragan</i>, <i>orkan</i>, was +adopted into European marine languages as the native name of the +terrible tornado of the Caribbean <span class="nowrap">Sea.<a name="FNanchor_51-2_44" id="FNanchor_51-2_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_51-2_44" class="fnanchor">51-2</a></span> Mixcohuatl, the Cloud +Serpent, chief divinity of several tribes in ancient Mexico, is to this +day the correct term in their language for the tropical whirlwind, and +the natives of Panama worshipped the same phenomenon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span> under the name +<span class="nowrap">Tuyra.<a name="FNanchor_52-1_45" id="FNanchor_52-1_45"></a><a href="#Footnote_52-1_45" class="fnanchor">52-1</a></span> To kiss the air was in Peru the commonest and simplest sign +of adoration to the collective <span class="nowrap">divinities.<a name="FNanchor_52-2_46" id="FNanchor_52-2_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_52-2_46" class="fnanchor">52-2</a></span></p> + +<p>Many writers on mythology have commented on the prominence so frequently +given to the winds. None have traced it to its true source. The facts of +meteorology have been thought all sufficient for a solution. As if man +ever did or ever could draw the idea of God from nature! In the identity +of wind with breath, of breath with life, of life with soul, of soul +with God, lies the far deeper and far truer reason, whose insensible +development I have here traced, in outline indeed, but confirmed by the +evidence of language itself.</p> + +<p>Let none of these expressions, however, be construed to prove the +distinct recognition of One Supreme Being. Of monotheism either as +displayed in the one personal definite God of the Semitic races, or in +the dim pantheistic sense of the Brahmins, there was not a single +instance on the American continent. The missionaries found no word in +any of their languages fit to interpret <i>Deus</i>, God. How could they +expect it? The associations we attach to that name are the accumulated +fruits of nigh two thousand years of Christianity. The phrases Good +Spirit, Great Spirit, and similar ones, have occasioned endless +discrepancies in the minds of travellers. In most instances they are +entirely of modern origin, coined at the suggestion of missionaries, +applied to the white man’s God. Very rarely do they bring any<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span> +conception of personality to the native mind, very rarely do they +signify any object of worship, perhaps never did in the olden times. The +Jesuit Relations state positively that there was no one immaterial god +recognized by the Algonkin tribes, and that the title, the Great Manito, +was introduced first by themselves in its personal <span class="nowrap">sense.<a name="FNanchor_53-1_47" id="FNanchor_53-1_47"></a><a href="#Footnote_53-1_47" class="fnanchor">53-1</a></span> The +supreme Iroquois Deity Neo or Hawaneu, triumphantly adduced by many +writers to show the monotheism underlying the native creeds, and upon +whose name Mr. Schoolcraft has built some philological reveries, turns +out on closer scrutiny to be the result of Christian instruction, and +the words themselves to be but corruptions of the French <i>Dieu</i> and <i>le +bon </i><span class="nowrap"><i>Dieu</i>!<a name="FNanchor_53-2_48" id="FNanchor_53-2_48"></a><a href="#Footnote_53-2_48" class="fnanchor">53-2</a></span></p> + +<p>Innumerable mysterious forces are in activity around the child of +nature; he feels within him something that tells him they are not of his +kind, and yet not altogether different from him; he sums them up in one +word drawn from sensuous experience. Does he wish to express still more +forcibly this sentiment, he doubles the word, or prefixes an adjective, +or adds an affix, as the genius of his language may dictate. But it +still remains to him but an unapplied abstraction, a mere category of +thought, a frame for the All. It is never the object of veneration or +sacrifice, no myth brings it down to his comprehension, it is not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span> +installed in his temples. Man cannot escape the belief that behind all +form is one essence; but the moment he would seize and define it, it +eludes his grasp, and by a sorcery more sadly ludicrous than that which +blinded Titania, he worships not the Infinite he thinks but a base idol +of his own making. As in the Zend Avesta behind the eternal struggle of +Ormuzd and Ahriman looms up the undisturbed and infinite Zeruana +Akerana, as in the pages of the Greek poets we here and there catch +glimpses of a Zeus who is not he throned on Olympus, nor he who takes +part in the wrangles of the gods, but stands far off and alone, one yet +all, “who was, who is, who will be,” so the belief in an Unseen Spirit, +who asks neither supplication nor sacrifice, who, as the natives of +Texas told Joutel in 1684, “does not concern himself about things here +<span class="nowrap">below,”<a name="FNanchor_54-1_49" id="FNanchor_54-1_49"></a><a href="#Footnote_54-1_49" class="fnanchor">54-1</a></span> who has no name to call him by, and is never a figure in +mythology, was doubtless occasionally present to their minds. It was +present not more but far less distinctly and often not at all in the +more savage tribes, and no assertion can be more contrary to the laws of +religious progress than that which pretends that a purer and more +monotheistic religion exists among nations devoid of mythology. There +are only two instances on the American continent where the worship of an +immaterial God was definitely instituted, and these as the highest +conquests of American natural religions deserve especial mention.</p> + +<p>They occurred, as we might expect, in the two most<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span> civilized nations, +the Quichuas of Peru, and the Nahuas of Tezcuco. It is related that +about the year 1440, at a grand religious council held at the +consecration of the newly-built temple of the Sun at Cuzco, the Inca +Yupanqui rose before the assembled multitude and spoke somewhat as +follows:—</p> + +<p>“Many say that the Sun is the Maker of all things. But he who makes +should abide by what he has made. Now many things happen when the Sun is +absent; therefore he cannot be the universal creator. And that he is +alive at all is doubtful, for his trips do not tire him. Were he a +living thing, he would grow weary like ourselves; were he free, he would +visit other parts of the heavens. He is like a tethered beast who makes +a daily round under the eye of a master; he is like an arrow, which must +go whither it is sent, not whither it wishes. I tell you that he, our +Father and Master the Sun, must have a lord and master more powerful +than himself, who constrains him to his daily circuit without pause or +<span class="nowrap">rest.”<a name="FNanchor_55-1_50" id="FNanchor_55-1_50"></a><a href="#Footnote_55-1_50" class="fnanchor">55-1</a></span></p> + +<p>To express this greatest of all existences, a name was proclaimed, based +upon that of the highest divinities known to the ancient Aymara race, +Illatici Viracocha Pachacamac, literally, the thunder vase, the foam of +the sea, animating the world, mysterious and symbolic names drawn from +the deepest reli<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span>gious instincts of the soul, whose hidden meanings will +be unravelled hereafter. A temple was constructed in a vale by the sea +near Callao, wherein his worship was to be conducted without images or +human sacrifices. The Inca was ahead of his age, however, and when the +Spaniards visited the temple of Pachacamac in 1525, they found not only +the walls adorned with hideous paintings, but an ugly idol of wood +representing a man of colossal proportions set up therein, and receiving +the prayers of the <span class="nowrap">votaries.<a name="FNanchor_56-1_51" id="FNanchor_56-1_51"></a><a href="#Footnote_56-1_51" class="fnanchor">56-1</a></span></p> + +<p>No better success attended the attempt of Nezahuatl, lord of Tezcuco, +which took place about the same time. He had long prayed to the gods of +his forefathers for a son to inherit his kingdom, and the altars had +smoked vainly with the blood of slaughtered victims. At length, in +indignation and despair, the prince exclaimed, “Verily, these gods that +I am adoring, what are they but idols of stone without speech or +feeling? They could not have made the beauty of the heaven, the sun, the +moon, and the stars which adorn it, and which light the earth, with its +countless streams, its fountains and waters, its trees and plants, and +its various inhabitants. There must be some god, invisible and unknown, +who is the universal creator. He alone can console me in my affliction +and take away my sorrow.” Strengthened in this conviction by a timely +fulfilment of his heart’s desire, he erected a temple nine stories high +to represent the nine heavens, which he dedicated<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span> “to the Unknown God, +the Cause of Causes.” This temple, he ordained, should never be polluted +by blood, nor should any graven image ever be set up within its +<span class="nowrap">precincts.<a name="FNanchor_57-1_52" id="FNanchor_57-1_52"></a><a href="#Footnote_57-1_52" class="fnanchor">57-1</a></span></p> + +<p>In neither case, be it observed, was any attempt made to substitute +another and purer religion for the popular one. The Inca continued to +receive the homage of his subjects as a brother of the sun, and the +regular services to that luminary were never interrupted. Nor did the +prince of Tezcuco afterwards neglect the honors due his national gods, +nor even refrain himself from plunging the knife into the breasts of +captives on the altar of the god of <span class="nowrap">war.<a name="FNanchor_57-2_53" id="FNanchor_57-2_53"></a><a href="#Footnote_57-2_53" class="fnanchor">57-2</a></span> They were but expressions +of that monotheism which is ever present, “not in contrast to +polytheism, but in living intuition in the religious sentiments.” If +this subtle but true distinction be rightly understood, it will excite +no surprise to find such epithets as “endless,” “omnipotent,” +“invisible,” “adorable,” such appellations as “the Maker and Moulder of +All,” “the Mother and Father of Life,” “the One God complete in +perfection and unity,” “the Creator of all that is,” “the Soul of the +World,” in use and of undoubted indigenous origin not only among the +civilized Aztecs, but even among the Haitians, the Araucanians, the +Lenni Lenape, and <span class="nowrap">others.<a name="FNanchor_57-3_54" id="FNanchor_57-3_54"></a><a href="#Footnote_57-3_54" class="fnanchor">57-3</a></span> It will not seem contradictory to hear +of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span> them in a purely polytheistic worship; we shall be far from +regarding them as familiar to the popular mind, and we shall never be +led so far astray as to adduce them in evidence of a monotheism in +either technical sense of that word. In point of fact they were not +applied to any particular god even in the most enlightened nations, but +were terms of laudation and magniloquence used by the priests and +devotees of every several god to do him honor. They prove something in +regard to a consciousness of divinity hedging us about, but nothing at +all in favor of a recognition of one God; they exemplify how profound is +the conviction of a highest and first principle, but they do not offer +the least reason to surmise that this was a living reality in doctrine +or practice.</p> + +<p>The confusion of these distinct ideas has led to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span> much misconception of +the native creeds. But another and more fatal error was that which +distorted them into a dualistic form, ranging on one hand the good +spirit with his legions of angels, on the other the evil one with his +swarms of fiends, representing the world as the scene of their unending +conflict, man as the unlucky football who gets all the blows. This +notion, which has its historical origin among the Parsees of ancient +Iran, is unknown to savage nations. “The idea of the Devil,” justly +observes Jacob Grimm, “is foreign to all primitive religions.” Yet +Professor Mueller, in his voluminous work on those of America, after +approvingly quoting this saying, complacently proceeds to classify the +deities as good or bad <span class="nowrap">spirits!<a name="FNanchor_59-1_55" id="FNanchor_59-1_55"></a><a href="#Footnote_59-1_55" class="fnanchor">59-1</a></span></p> + +<p>This view, which has obtained without question in every work on the +native religions of America, has arisen partly from habits of thought +difficult to break, partly from mistranslations of native words, partly +from the foolish axiom of the early missionaries, “The gods of the +gentiles are devils.” Yet their own writings furnish conclusive proof +that no such distinction existed out of their own fancies. The same word +(<i>otkon</i>) which Father Bruyas employs to translate into Iroquois the +term “devil,” in the passage “the Devil took upon himself the figure of +a serpent,” he is obliged to use for “spirit” in the phrase, “at the +resurrection we shall be <span class="nowrap">spirits,”<a name="FNanchor_59-2_56" id="FNanchor_59-2_56"></a><a href="#Footnote_59-2_56" class="fnanchor">59-2</a></span> which is a rather amusing +illustration how impossible it was by any native word to convey the idea +of the spirit of evil. When, in 1570, Father Rogel com<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span>menced his labors +among the tribes near the Savannah River, he told them that the deity +they adored was a demon who loved all evil things, and they must hate +him; whereupon his auditors replied, that so far from this being the +case, whom he called a wicked being was the power that sent them all +good things, and indignantly left the missionary to preach to the +<span class="nowrap">winds.<a name="FNanchor_60-1_57" id="FNanchor_60-1_57"></a><a href="#Footnote_60-1_57" class="fnanchor">60-1</a></span></p> + +<p>A passage often quoted in support of this mistaken view is one in +Winslow’s “Good News from New England,” written in 1622. The author says +that the Indians worship a good power called Kiehtan, and another “who, +as farre as wee can conceive, is the Devill,” named Hobbamock, or +Hobbamoqui. The former of these names is merely the word “great,” in +their dialect of Algonkin, with a final <i>n</i>, and is probably an +abbreviation of Kittanitowit, the great manito, a vague term mentioned +by Roger Williams and other early writers, not the appellation of any +personified <span class="nowrap">deity.<a name="FNanchor_60-2_58" id="FNanchor_60-2_58"></a><a href="#Footnote_60-2_58" class="fnanchor">60-2</a></span> The latter, so far from corresponding to the +power of evil, was, according to Winslow’s own statement, the kindly god +who cured diseases, aided them in the chase, and appeared to them in +dreams as their protector. Therefore, with great justice, Dr. Jarvis has +explained it to mean “the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span> <i>oke</i> or tutelary deity which each Indian +worships,” as the word itself <span class="nowrap">signifies.<a name="FNanchor_61-1_59" id="FNanchor_61-1_59"></a><a href="#Footnote_61-1_59" class="fnanchor">61-1</a></span></p> + +<p>So in many instances it turns out that what has been reported to be the +evil divinity of a nation, to whom they pray to the neglect of a better +one, is in reality the highest power they recognize. Thus Juripari, +worshipped by certain tribes of the Pampas of Buenos Ayres, and said to +be their wicked spirit, is in fact the only name in their language for +spiritual existence in general; and Aka-kanet, sometimes mentioned as +the father of evil in the mythology of the Araucanians, is the benign +power appealed to by their priests, who is throned in the Pleiades, who +sends fruits and flowers to the earth, and is addressed as +<span class="nowrap">“grandfather.”<a name="FNanchor_61-2_60" id="FNanchor_61-2_60"></a><a href="#Footnote_61-2_60" class="fnanchor">61-2</a></span> The Çupay of the Peruvians never was, as Prescott +would have us believe, “the shadowy embodiment of evil,” but simply and +solely their god of the dead, the Pluto of their pantheon, corresponding +to the Mictla of the Mexicans.</p> + +<p>The evidence on the point is indeed conclusive. The Jesuit missionaries +very rarely distinguish between good and evil deities when speaking of +the religion of the northern tribes; and the Moravian Brethren among the +Algonkins and Iroquois place on record their unanimous testimony that +“the idea of a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span> devil, a prince of darkness, they first received in +later times through the <span class="nowrap">Europeans.”<a name="FNanchor_62-1_61" id="FNanchor_62-1_61"></a><a href="#Footnote_62-1_61" class="fnanchor">62-1</a></span> So the Cherokees, remarks an +intelligent observer, “know nothing of the Evil One and his domains, +except what they have learned from white <span class="nowrap">men.”<a name="FNanchor_62-2_62" id="FNanchor_62-2_62"></a><a href="#Footnote_62-2_62" class="fnanchor">62-2</a></span> The term Great +Spirit conveys, for instance, to the Chipeway just as much the idea of a +bad as of a good spirit; he is unaware of any distinction until it is +explained to <span class="nowrap">him.<a name="FNanchor_62-3_63" id="FNanchor_62-3_63"></a><a href="#Footnote_62-3_63" class="fnanchor">62-3</a></span> “I have never been able to discover from the +Dakotas themselves,” remarks the Rev. G. H. Pond, who had lived among +them as a missionary for eighteen <span class="nowrap">years,<a name="FNanchor_62-4_64" id="FNanchor_62-4_64"></a><a href="#Footnote_62-4_64" class="fnanchor">62-4</a></span> “the least degree of +evidence that they divide the gods into classes of good and evil, and am +persuaded that those persons who represent them as doing so, do it +inconsiderately, and because it is so natural to subscribe to a long +cherished popular opinion.”</p> + +<p>Very soon after coming in contact with the whites, the Indians caught +the notion of a bad and good spirit, pitted one against the other in +eternal warfare, and engrafted it on their ancient traditions. Writers +anxious to discover Jewish or Christian analogies, forcibly construed +myths to suit their pet theories, and for indolent observers it was +convenient to catalogue their gods in antithetical classes. In Mexican +and Peruvian mythology this is so plainly false that historians no +longer insist upon it, but as a popular error it still holds its ground +with reference to the more barbarous and less known tribes.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span></p> + +<p>Perhaps no myth has been so often quoted in its confirmation as that of +the ancient Iroquois, which narrates the conflict between the first two +brothers of our race. It is of undoubted native origin and venerable +antiquity. The version given by the Tuscarora chief Cusic in 1825, +relates that in the beginning of things there were two brothers, +Enigorio and Enigohahetgea, names literally meaning the Good Mind and +the Bad <span class="nowrap">Mind.<a name="FNanchor_63-1_65" id="FNanchor_63-1_65"></a><a href="#Footnote_63-1_65" class="fnanchor">63-1</a></span> The former went about the world furnishing it with +gentle streams, fertile plains, and plenteous fruits, while the latter +maliciously followed him creating rapids, thorns, and deserts. At length +the Good Mind turned upon his brother in anger, and crushed him into the +earth. He sank out of sight in its depths, but not to perish, for in the +dark realms of the underworld he still lives, receiving the souls of the +dead and being the author of all evil. Now when we compare this with the +version of the same legend given by Father Brebeuf, missionary to the +Hurons in 1636, we find its whole complexion altered; the moral dualism +vanishes; the names Good Mind and Bad Mind do not appear; it is the +struggle of Ioskeha, the White one, with his brother Tawiscara, the Dark +one, and we at once perceive that Christian influence in the course of +two centuries had given the tale a meaning foreign to its original +intent.</p> + +<p>So it is with the story the Algonkins tell of their hero Manibozho, who, +in the opinion of a well-known writer, “is always placed in antagonism +to a great<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span> serpent, a spirit of <span class="nowrap">evil.”<a name="FNanchor_64-1_66" id="FNanchor_64-1_66"></a><a href="#Footnote_64-1_66" class="fnanchor">64-1</a></span> It is to the effect that +after conquering many animals, this famous magician tried his arts on +the prince of serpents. After a prolonged struggle, which brought on the +general deluge and the destruction of the world, he won the victory. The +first authority we have for this narrative is even later than Cusic; it +is Mr. Schoolcraft in our own day; the legendary cause of the deluge as +related by Father Le Jeune, in 1634, is quite dissimilar, and makes no +mention of a serpent; and as we shall hereafter see, neither among the +Algonkins nor any other Indians, was the serpent usually a type of evil, +but quite the <span class="nowrap">reverse.<a name="FNanchor_64-2_67" id="FNanchor_64-2_67"></a><a href="#Footnote_64-2_67" class="fnanchor">64-2</a></span></p> + +<p>The comparatively late introduction of such views into the native +legends finds a remarkable proof in the myths of the Quiches, which were +committed to writing in the seventeenth century. They narrate the +struggles between the rulers of the upper and the nether world, the +descent of the former into Xibalba, the Realm of Phantoms, and their +victory over its lords, One Death and Seven Deaths. The writer adds of +the latter, who clearly represent to his mind the Evil One and his +adjutants, “in the old times they did not have much power; they were but +annoyers and opposers of men, and in truth they were not regarded as +gods. But when they appeared it was terrible. They were of evil, they +were owls, fomenting trouble and discord.” In this passage, which, be it +said, seems to have impressed the translators very differently, the +writer appears to compare<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span> the great power assigned by the Christian +religion to Satan and his allies, with the very much less potency +attributed to their analogues in heathendom, the rulers of the world of +the <span class="nowrap">dead.<a name="FNanchor_65-1_68" id="FNanchor_65-1_68"></a><a href="#Footnote_65-1_68" class="fnanchor">65-1</a></span></p> + +<p>A little reflection will convince the most incredulous that any such +dualism as has been fancied to exist in the native religions, could not +have been of indigenous growth. The gods of the primitive man are beings +of thoroughly human physiognomy, painted with colors furnished by +intercourse with his fellows. These are his enemies or his friends, as +he conciliates or insults them. No mere man, least of all a savage, is +kind and benevolent in spite of neglect and injury, nor is any man +causelessly and ceaselessly malicious. Personal, family, or national +feuds render some more inimical than others, but always from a desire to +guard their own interests, never out of a delight in evil for its own +sake. Thus the cruel gods of death, disease, and danger, were never of +Satanic nature, while the kindliest divinities were disposed to punish, +and that severely, any neglect of their ceremonies. Moral dualism can +only arise in minds where the ideas of good and evil are not synonymous +with those of pleasure and pain, for the conception of a wholly good or +a wholly evil nature requires the use of these terms in their higher, +ethical sense. The various deities of the Indians, it may safely be said +in conclusion, present no stronger antithesis in this respect than those +of ancient Greece and Rome.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"> + +<p><a name="Footnote_44-1_33" id="Footnote_44-1_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_44-1_33"><span class="label">44-1</span></a> But there is no ground for the most positive of +philosophers to reject the doctrine of innate ideas when put in a +certain way. The instincts and habits of the lower animals by which they +obtain food, migrate, and perpetuate their kind, are in obedience to +particular congenital impressions, and correspond to definite anatomical +and morphological relations. No one pretends their knowledge is +experimental. Just so the human cerebrum has received, by descent or +otherwise, various sensory impressions peculiar to man as a species, +which are just as certain to guide his thoughts, actions, and destiny, +as is the cerebrum of the insectivorous aye-aye to lead it to hunt +successfully for larvæ.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_45-1_34" id="Footnote_45-1_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_45-1_34"><span class="label">45-1</span></a> <i>Die Kunst im Zusammenhang der Culturentwickelung</i>, i. +pp. 50, 252.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_46-1_35" id="Footnote_46-1_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_46-1_35"><span class="label">46-1</span></a> I offer these derivations with a certain degree of +reserve, for such an extraordinary similarity in the sound of these +words is discoverable in North and portions of South America, that one +might almost be tempted to claim for them one original form. Thus in the +Maya dialects it is <i>ku</i>, vocative <i>â kue</i>, in Natchez <i>kue-ya</i>, in the +Uchee of West Florida <i>kauhwu</i>, in Otomi <i>okha</i>, in Mandan <i>okee</i>, Sioux +<i>ogha</i>, <i>waughon</i>, <i>wakan</i>, in Quichua <i>waka</i>, <i>huaca</i>, in Iroquois +<i>quaker</i>, <i>oki</i>, Algonkin <i>oki</i>, <i>okee</i>, Eskimo <i>aghatt</i>, which last has +a singular likeness in sound to the German or Norse, <i>O Gott</i>, as some +of the others have to the corresponding Finnish word <i>ukko</i>. <i>Ku</i> in the +Carib tongue means <i>house</i>, especially a temple or house of the gods. +The early Spanish explorers adopted the word with the orthography <i>cue</i>, +and applied it to the sacred edifices of whatever nation they +discovered. For instance, they speak of the great cemetery of +Teotihuacan, near Tezcuco, as the <i>Llano de los Cues</i>.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_46-2_36" id="Footnote_46-2_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_46-2_36"><span class="label">46-2</span></a> “As the high heavens, the far-off mountains look to us +blue, so a blue superficies seems to recede from us. As we would fain +pursue an attractive object that flees from us, so we like to gaze at +the blue, not that it urges itself upon us, but that it draws us after +it.” Goethe, <i>Farbenlehre</i>, secs. 780, 781.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_47-1_37" id="Footnote_47-1_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_47-1_37"><span class="label">47-1</span></a> Loskiel, <i>Geschichte der Mission der Evang. Brueder</i>, p. +63: Barby, 1789.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_47-2_38" id="Footnote_47-2_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_47-2_38"><span class="label">47-2</span></a> Cogolludo, <i>Historia de Yucathan</i>, lib. iv. cap. vii.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_48-1_39" id="Footnote_48-1_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_48-1_39"><span class="label">48-1</span></a> <i>Rel. de la Nouv. France.</i> An 1636, p. 107.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_48-2_40" id="Footnote_48-2_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_48-2_40"><span class="label">48-2</span></a> This word is found in Gallatin’s vocabularies +(<i>Transactions of the Am. Antiq. Soc.</i>, vol. ii.), and may have +partially induced that distinguished ethnologist to ascribe, as he does +in more than one place, whatever notions the eastern tribes had of a +Supreme Being to the teachings of the Quakers.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_48-3_41" id="Footnote_48-3_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_48-3_41"><span class="label">48-3</span></a> Bruyas, <i>Radices Verborum Iroquæorum</i>, p. 84. This work +is in Shea’s Library of American Linguistics, and is a most valuable +contribution to philology. The same etymology is given by Lafitau, +<i>Mœurs des Sauvages</i>, etc., Germ. trans., p. 65.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_50-1_42" id="Footnote_50-1_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_50-1_42"><span class="label">50-1</span></a> My authorities are Riggs, <i>Dict. of the Dakota</i>, +Boscana, <i>Account of New California</i>, Richardson’s and Egede’s Eskimo +Vocabularies, Pandosy, <i>Gram. and Dict. of the Yakama</i> (Shea’s Lib. of +Am. Linguistics), and the Abbé Brasseur for the Aztec.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_51-1_43" id="Footnote_51-1_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_51-1_43"><span class="label">51-1</span></a> These terms are found in Gallatin’s vocabularies. The +last mentioned is not, as Adair thought, derived from <i>issto ulla</i> or +<i>ishto hoollo</i>, great man, for in Choctaw the adjective cannot precede +the noun it qualifies. Its true sense is visible in the analogous Creek +words <i>ishtali</i>, the storm wind, and <i>hustolah</i>, the windy season.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_51-2_44" id="Footnote_51-2_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_51-2_44"><span class="label">51-2</span></a> Webster derives hurricane from the Latin <i>furio</i>. But +Oviedo tells us in his description of Hispaniola that “Hurakan, in +lingua di questa isola vuole dire propriamente fortuna tempestuosa molto +eccessiva, perche en effetto non è altro que un grandissimo vento è +pioggia insieme.” <i>Historia dell’ Indie</i>, lib. vi. cap. iii. It is a +coincidence—perhaps something more—that in the Quichua language +<i>huracan</i>, third person singular present indicative of the verbal noun +<i>huraca</i>, means “a stream of water falls perpendicularly.” (Markham, +<i>Quichua Dictionary</i>, p. 132.)</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_52-1_45" id="Footnote_52-1_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor_52-1_45"><span class="label">52-1</span></a> Oviedo, <i>Rel. de la Prov. de Cueba</i>, p. 141, ed. +Ternaux-Compans.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_52-2_46" id="Footnote_52-2_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor_52-2_46"><span class="label">52-2</span></a> Garcia, <i>Origen de los Indios</i>, lib. iv. cap. xxii.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_53-1_47" id="Footnote_53-1_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor_53-1_47"><span class="label">53-1</span></a> See the <i>Rel. de la Nouv. France pour l’An 1637</i>, p. +49.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_53-2_48" id="Footnote_53-2_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor_53-2_48"><span class="label">53-2</span></a> Mr. Morgan, in his excellent work, <i>The League of the +Iroquois</i>, has been led astray by an ignorance of the etymology of these +terms. For Schoolcraft’s views see his <i>Oneota</i>, p. 147. The matter is +ably discussed in the <i>Etudes Philologiques sur Quelques Langues +Sauvages de l’Amérique</i>, p. 14: Montreal, 1866; but comp. Shea, <i>Dict. +Français-Onontagué</i>, preface.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_54-1_49" id="Footnote_54-1_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor_54-1_49"><span class="label">54-1</span></a> “Qui ne prend aucun soin des choses icy bas.” <i>Jour. +Hist. d’un Voyage de l’Amérique</i>, p. 225: Paris, 1713.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_55-1_50" id="Footnote_55-1_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor_55-1_50"><span class="label">55-1</span></a> In attributing this speech to the Inca Yupanqui, I have +followed Balboa, who expressly says this was the general opinion of the +Indians (<i>Hist. du Pérou</i>, p. 62, ed. Ternaux-Compans). Others assign it +to other Incas. See Garcilasso de la Vega, <i>Hist. des Incas</i>, lib. viii. +chap. 8, and Acosta, <i>Nat. and Morall Hist. of the New World</i>, chap. 5. +The fact and the approximate time are beyond question.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_56-1_51" id="Footnote_56-1_51"></a><a href="#FNanchor_56-1_51"><span class="label">56-1</span></a> Xeres, <i>Rel. de la Conq. du Pérou</i>, p. 151, ed. +Ternaux-Compans.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_57-1_52" id="Footnote_57-1_52"></a><a href="#FNanchor_57-1_52"><span class="label">57-1</span></a> Prescott, <i>Conq. of Mexico</i>, i. pp. 192, 193, on the +authority of Ixtlilxochitl.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_57-2_53" id="Footnote_57-2_53"></a><a href="#FNanchor_57-2_53"><span class="label">57-2</span></a> Brasseur, <i>Hist. du Mexique</i>, iii. p. 297, note.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_57-3_54" id="Footnote_57-3_54"></a><a href="#FNanchor_57-3_54"><span class="label">57-3</span></a> Of very many authorities that I have at hand, I shall +only mention Heckewelder, <i>Acc. of the </i><a name="corr1" id="corr1"></a><ins class="correction" title="Inds.,"><i>Inds.</i></ins> p. 422, Duponceau, +<i>Mém. sur les Langues de l’Amér. du Nord</i>, p. 310, Peter Martyr <i>De +Rebus Oceanicis</i>, Dec. i., cap. 9, Molina, <i>Hist. of Chili</i>, ii. p. 75, +Ximenes, <i>Origen de los Indios de Guatemala</i>, pp. 4, 5, Ixtlilxochitl, +<i>Rel. des Conq. du Mexique</i>, p. 2. These terms bear the severest +scrutiny. The Aztec appellation of the Supreme Being <i>Tloque nahuaque</i> +is compounded of <i>tloc</i>, together, with, and <i>nahuac</i>, at, by, with, +with possessive forms added, giving the signification, Lord of all +existence and coexistence (alles Mitseyns und alles Beiseyns, bei +welchem das Seyn aller Dinge ist. Buschmann, <i>Ueber die Aztekischen +Ortsnamen</i>, p. 642). The Algonkin term <i>Kittanittowit</i> is derived from +<i>kitta</i>, great, <i>manito</i>, spirit, <i>wit</i>, an adjective termination +indicating a mode of existence, and means the Great Living Spirit +(Duponceau, u. s.). Both these terms are undoubtedly of native origin. +In the Quiche legends the Supreme Being is called <i>Bitol</i>, the +substantive form of <i>bit</i>, to make pottery, to form, and <i>Tzakol</i>, +substantive form of <i>tzak</i>, to build, the Creator, the Constructor. The +Arowacks of Guyana applied the term <i>Aluberi</i> to their highest +conception of a first cause, from the verbal form <i>alin</i>, he who makes +(Martius, <i>Ethnographie und Sprachenkunde Amerika’s</i>, i. p. 696).</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_59-1_55" id="Footnote_59-1_55"></a><a href="#FNanchor_59-1_55"><span class="label">59-1</span></a> <i>Geschichte der Amerikanischen Urreligionen</i>, p. 403.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_59-2_56" id="Footnote_59-2_56"></a><a href="#FNanchor_59-2_56"><span class="label">59-2</span></a> Bruyas, <i>Rad. Verb. Iroquæorum</i>, p. 38.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_60-1_57" id="Footnote_60-1_57"></a><a href="#FNanchor_60-1_57"><span class="label">60-1</span></a> Alcazar, <i>Chrono-historia de la Prov. de Toledo</i>, Dec. +iii., Año viii., cap. iv: Madrid, 1710. This rare work contains the only +faithful copies of Father Rogel’s letters extant. Mr. Shea, in his +History of Catholic Missions, calls him erroneously Roger.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_60-2_58" id="Footnote_60-2_58"></a><a href="#FNanchor_60-2_58"><span class="label">60-2</span></a> It is fully analyzed by Duponceau, <i>Langues de +l’Amérique du Nord</i>, p. 309.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_61-1_59" id="Footnote_61-1_59"></a><a href="#FNanchor_61-1_59"><span class="label">61-1</span></a> <i>Discourse on the Religion of the Ind. Tribes of N. +Am.</i>, p. 252 in the Trans. N. Y. Hist. Soc.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_61-2_60" id="Footnote_61-2_60"></a><a href="#FNanchor_61-2_60"><span class="label">61-2</span></a> Mueller, <i>Amer. Urreligionen</i>, pp. 265, 272, 274. Well +may he remark: “The dualism is not very striking among these tribes;” as +a few pages previous he says of the Caribs, “The dualism of gods is +anything but rigidly observed. The good gods do more evil than good. +Fear is the ruling religious sentiment.” To such a lame conclusion do +these venerable prepossessions lead. “<i>Grau ist alle Theorie</i>.”</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_62-1_61" id="Footnote_62-1_61"></a><a href="#FNanchor_62-1_61"><span class="label">62-1</span></a> Loskiel, <i>Ges. der Miss. der evang. Brueder</i>, p. 46.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_62-2_62" id="Footnote_62-2_62"></a><a href="#FNanchor_62-2_62"><span class="label">62-2</span></a> Whipple, <i>Report on the Ind. Tribes</i>, p. 33: Washington, +1855. Pacific Railroad Docs.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_62-3_63" id="Footnote_62-3_63"></a><a href="#FNanchor_62-3_63"><span class="label">62-3</span></a> Schoolcraft, <i>Indian Tribes</i>, i. p. 359.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_62-4_64" id="Footnote_62-4_64"></a><a href="#FNanchor_62-4_64"><span class="label">62-4</span></a> In Schoolcraft, <i>Ibid.</i>, iv. p. 642.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_63-1_65" id="Footnote_63-1_65"></a><a href="#FNanchor_63-1_65"><span class="label">63-1</span></a> Or more exactly, the Beautiful Spirit, the Ugly Spirit. +In Onondaga the radicals are <i>onigonra</i>, spirit, <i>hio</i> beautiful, +<i>ahetken</i> ugly. <i>Dictionnaire Français-Onontagué, édité par Jean-Marie +Shea</i>: New York, 1859.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_64-1_66" id="Footnote_64-1_66"></a><a href="#FNanchor_64-1_66"><span class="label">64-1</span></a> Squier, <i>The Serpent Symbol in America</i>.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_64-2_67" id="Footnote_64-2_67"></a><a href="#FNanchor_64-2_67"><span class="label">64-2</span></a> Both these legends will be analyzed in a subsequent +chapter, and an attempt made not only to restore them their primitive +form, but to explain their meaning.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_65-1_68" id="Footnote_65-1_68"></a><a href="#FNanchor_65-1_68"><span class="label">65-1</span></a> Compare the translation and remarks of Ximenes, <i>Or. de +los Indios de Guat.</i>, p. 76, with those of Brasseur, <i>Le Livre Sacré des +Quichés</i>, p. 189.</p> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III.</h2> + +<p class="chaptoc">THE SACRED NUMBER, ITS ORIGIN AND APPLICATIONS.</p> + +<p class="chapintro">The number <span class="smcap">Four</span> sacred in all American religions, and the key to +their symbolism.—Derived from the <span class="smcap">Cardinal Points</span>.—Appears +constantly in government, arts, rites, and myths.—The Cardinal +Points identified with the Four Winds, who in myths are the four +ancestors of the human race, and the four celestial rivers watering +the terrestrial Paradise.—Associations grouped around each +Cardinal Point.—From the number four was derived the symbolic +value of the number <i>Forty</i>, and the <i>Sign of the Cross</i>.</p> + + +<p class="noindent"><span class="dropcap">E</span><span class="upper">very</span> one familiar with the ancient religions of the world must have +noticed the mystic power they attach to certain numbers, and how these +numbers became the measures and formative quantities, as it were, of +traditions and ceremonies, and had a symbolical meaning nowise connected +with their arithmetical value. For instance, in many eastern religions, +that of the Jews among the rest, <i>seven</i> was the most sacred number, and +after it, <i>four</i> and <i>three</i>. The most cursory reader must have observed +in how many connections the seven is used in the Hebrew Scriptures, +occurring, in all, something over three hundred and sixty times, it is +said. Why these numbers were chosen rather than others has not been +clearly explained. Their sacred character dates beyond the earliest +history, and must have been coeval with the first expressions of the +religious sentiment. Only one of them, the <span class="smcap">FOUR</span>, has any prominence in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span> +the religions of the red race, but this is so marked and so universal, +that at a very early period in my studies I felt convinced that if the +reason for its adoption could be discovered, much of the apparent +confusion which reigns among them would be dispelled.</p> + +<p>Such a reason must take its rise from some essential relation of man to +nature, everywhere prominent, everywhere the same. It is found in the +<i>adoration of the cardinal points</i>.</p> + +<p>The red man, as I have said, was a hunter; he was ever wandering through +pathless forests, coursing over boundless prairies. It seems to the +white race not a faculty, but an instinct that guides him so unerringly. +He is never at a loss. Says a writer who has deeply studied his +character: “The Indian ever has the points of the compass present to his +mind, and expresses himself accordingly in words, although it shall be +of matters in his own <span class="nowrap">house.”<a name="FNanchor_67-1_69" id="FNanchor_67-1_69"></a><a href="#Footnote_67-1_69" class="fnanchor">67-1</a></span></p> + +<p>The assumption of precisely four cardinal points is not of chance; it is +recognized in every language; it is rendered essential by the anatomical +structure of the body; it is derived from the immutable laws of the +universe. Whether we gaze at the sunset or the sunrise, or whether at +night we look for guidance to the only star of the twinkling thousands +that is constant to its place, the anterior and posterior planes of our +bodies, our right hands and our left coincide with the parallels and +meridians. Very early in his history did man take note of these four +points, and recognizing in them his guides through the night and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span> the +wilderness, call them his gods. Long afterwards, when centuries of slow +progress had taught him other secrets of nature—when he had discerned +in the motions of the sun, the elements of matter, and the radicals of +arithmetic a repetition of this number—they were to him further +warrants of its sacredness. He adopted it as a regulating quantity in +his institutions and his arts; he repeated it in its multiples and +compounds; he imagined for it novel applications; he constantly +magnified its mystic meaning; and finally, in his philosophical +reveries, he called it the key to the secrets of the universe, “the +source of ever-flowing <span class="nowrap">nature.”<a name="FNanchor_68-1_70" id="FNanchor_68-1_70"></a><a href="#Footnote_68-1_70" class="fnanchor">68-1</a></span></p> + +<p>In primitive geography the figure of the earth is a square plain; in the +legend of the Quiché’s it is “shaped as a square, divided into four +parts, marked with lines, measured with cords, and suspended from the +heavens by a cord to its four corners and its four <span class="nowrap">sides.”<a name="FNanchor_68-2_71" id="FNanchor_68-2_71"></a><a href="#Footnote_68-2_71" class="fnanchor">68-2</a></span> The +earliest divisions of territory were in conformity to this view. Thus it +was with ancient Egypt, Syria, Mesopotamia, and <span class="nowrap">China;<a name="FNanchor_68-3_72" id="FNanchor_68-3_72"></a><a href="#Footnote_68-3_72" class="fnanchor">68-3</a></span> and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span> in the +new world, the states of Peru, Araucania, the Muyscas, the Quichés, and +Tlascala were tetrarchies divided in accordance with, and in the first +two instances named after, the cardinal points. So their chief +cities—Cuzco, Quito, Tezcuco, Mexico, Cholula—were quartered by +streets running north, south, east, and west. It was a necessary result +of such a division that the chief officers of the government were four +in number, that the inhabitants of town and country, that the whole +social organization acquired a quadruplicate form. The official title of +the Incas was “Lord of the four quarters of the earth,” and the +venerable formality in taking possession of land, both in their domain +and that of the Aztecs, was to throw a stone, to shoot an arrow, or to +hurl a firebrand to each of the cardinal <span class="nowrap">points.<a name="FNanchor_69-1_73" id="FNanchor_69-1_73"></a><a href="#Footnote_69-1_73" class="fnanchor">69-1</a></span> They carried out +the idea in their architecture, building their palaces in squares with +doors opening, their tombs with their angles pointing, their great +causeways running in these directions. These architectural principles +repeat themselves all over the continent; they recur in the sacred +structures of Yucatan, in the ancient cemetery of Teo-tihuacan near +Mexico, where the tombs are arranged along avenues corresponding exactly +to the parallels and meridians of the central tumuli of the sun and +<span class="nowrap">moon;<a name="FNanchor_69-2_74" id="FNanchor_69-2_74"></a><a href="#Footnote_69-2_74" class="fnanchor">69-2</a></span> and however ignorant<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span> we are about the mound builders of the +Mississippi valley, we know that they constructed their earthworks with +a constant regard to the quarters of the compass.</p> + +<p>Nothing can be more natural than to take into consideration the regions +of the heavens in the construction of buildings; I presume that at any +time no one plans an edifice of pretensions without doing so. Yet this +is one of those apparently trifling transactions which in their origin +and applications have exerted a controlling influence on the history of +the human race.</p> + +<p>When we reflect how indissolubly the mind of the primitive man is welded +to his superstitions, it were incredible that his social life and his +architecture could thus be as it were in subjection to one idea, and his +rites and myths escape its sway. As one might expect, it reappears in +these latter more vividly than anywhere else. If there is one formula +more frequently mentioned by travellers than another as an indispensable +preliminary to all serious business, it is that of smoking, and the +prescribed and traditional rule was that the first puff should be to the +sky, and then one to each of the corners of the earth, or the cardinal +<span class="nowrap">points.<a name="FNanchor_70-1_75" id="FNanchor_70-1_75"></a><a href="#Footnote_70-1_75" class="fnanchor">70-1</a></span> These were the spirits who made and governed the earth, +and under whatever difference of guise the uncultivated fancy portrayed +them, they were the leading figures in the tales and ceremonies of +nearly every tribe of the red<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span> race. These were the divine powers +summoned by the Chipeway magicians when initiating neophytes into the +mysteries of the meda craft. They were asked to a lodge of four poles, +to four stones that lay before its fire, there to remain four days, and +attend four feasts. At every step of the proceeding this number or its +multiples were <span class="nowrap">repeated.<a name="FNanchor_71-1_76" id="FNanchor_71-1_76"></a><a href="#Footnote_71-1_76" class="fnanchor">71-1</a></span> With their neighbors the Dakotas the +number was also distinctly sacred; it was intimately inwoven in all +their tales concerning the wakan power and the spirits of the air, and +their religious rites. The artist Catlin has given a vivid description +of the great annual festival of the Mandans, a Dakota tribe, and brings +forward with emphasis the ceaseless reiteration of this number from +first to <span class="nowrap">last.<a name="FNanchor_71-2_77" id="FNanchor_71-2_77"></a><a href="#Footnote_71-2_77" class="fnanchor">71-2</a></span> He did not detect its origin in the veneration of +the cardinal points, but the information that has since been furnished +of the myths of this stock leaves no doubt that such was the <span class="nowrap">case.<a name="FNanchor_71-3_78" id="FNanchor_71-3_78"></a><a href="#Footnote_71-3_78" class="fnanchor">71-3</a></span></p> + +<p>Proximity of place had no part in this similarity of rite. In the grand +commemorative festival of the Creeks called the Busk, which wiped out +the memory of all crimes but murder, which reconciled the proscribed +criminal to his nation and atoned for his guilt, when the new fire was +kindled and the green corn served up, every dance, every invocation, +every ceremony, was shaped and ruled by the application of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span> number +four and its multiples in every imaginable relation. So it was at that +solemn probation which the youth must undergo to prove himself worthy of +the dignities of manhood and to ascertain his guardian spirit; here +again his fasts, his seclusions, his trials, were all laid down in +fourfold <span class="nowrap">arrangement.<a name="FNanchor_72-1_79" id="FNanchor_72-1_79"></a><a href="#Footnote_72-1_79" class="fnanchor">72-1</a></span></p> + +<p>Not alone among these barbarous tribes were the cardinal points thus the +foundation of the most solemn mysteries of religion. An excellent +authority relates that the Aztecs of Micla, in Guatemala, celebrated +their chief festival four times a year, and that four priests solemnized +its rites. They commenced by invoking and offering incense to the sky +and the four cardinal points; they conducted the human victim four times +around the temple, then tore out his heart, and catching the blood in +four vases scattered it in the same <span class="nowrap">directions.<a name="FNanchor_72-2_80" id="FNanchor_72-2_80"></a><a href="#Footnote_72-2_80" class="fnanchor">72-2</a></span> So also the +Peruvians had four principal festivals annually, and at every new moon +one of four days’ duration. In fact the repetition of the number in all +their religious ceremonies is so prominent that it has been a subject of +comment by historians. They have attributed it to the knowledge of the +solstices and equinoxes, but assuredly it is of more ancient date than +this. The same explanation has been offered for its recurrence among the +Nahuas of Mexico, whose whole lives<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span> were subjected to its operation. At +birth the mother was held unclean for four days, a fire was kindled and +kept burning for a like length of time, at the baptism of the child an +arrow was shot to each of the cardinal points. Their prayers were +offered four times a day, the greatest festivals were every fourth year, +and their offerings of blood were to the four points of the compass. At +death food was placed on the grave, as among the Eskimos, Creeks, and +Algonkins, for four days (for all these nations supposed that the +journey to the land of souls was accomplished in that time), and +mourning for the dead was for four months or four <span class="nowrap">years.<a name="FNanchor_73-1_81" id="FNanchor_73-1_81"></a><a href="#Footnote_73-1_81" class="fnanchor">73-1</a></span></p> + +<p>It were fatiguing and unnecessary to extend the catalogue much further. +Yet it is not nearly exhausted. From tribes of both continents and all +stages of culture, the Muyscas of Columbia and the Natchez of Louisiana, +the Quichés of Guatemala and the Caribs of the Orinoko, instance after +instance might be marshalled to illustrate how universally a sacred +character was attached to this number, and how uniformly it is traceable +to a veneration of the cardinal points. It is sufficient that it be +displayed in some of its more unusual applications.</p> + +<p>It is well known that the calendar common to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span> Aztecs and Mayas +divides the month into four weeks, each containing a like number of +secular days; that their indiction is divided into four periods; and +that they believed the world had passed through four cycles. It has not +been sufficiently emphasized that in many of the picture writings these +days of the week are placed respectively north, south, east, and west, +and that in the Maya language the quarters of the indiction still bear +the names of the cardinal points, hinting the reason of their +<span class="nowrap">adoption.<a name="FNanchor_74-1_82" id="FNanchor_74-1_82"></a><a href="#Footnote_74-1_82" class="fnanchor">74-1</a></span> This cannot be fortuitous. Again, the division of the +year into four seasons—a division as devoid of foundation in nature as +that of the ancient Aryans into three, and unknown among many tribes, +yet obtained in very early times among Algonkins, Cherokees, Choctaws, +Creeks, Aztecs, Muyscas, Peruvians, and Araucanians. They were supposed +to be produced by the unending struggles and varying fortunes of the +four aerial giants who rule the winds.</p> + +<p>We must seek in mythology the key to the monotonous repetition and the +sanctity of this number; and furthermore, we must seek it in those +natural modes of expression of the religious sentiment which are above +the power of blood or circumstance to control. One of these modes, we +have seen, was that which led to the identification of the divinity with +the wind, and this it is that solves the enigma in the present instance. +Universally the spirits of the cardinal points were imagined to be in +the winds that blew from them. The names of these directions and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span> of the +corresponding winds are often the same, and when not, there exists an +intimate connection between them. For example, take the languages of the +Mayas, Huastecas, and Moscos of Central America; in all of them the word +for <i>north</i> is synonymous with <i>north wind</i>, and so on for the other +three points of the compass. Or again, that of the Dakotas, and the word +<i>tate-ouye-toba</i>, translated “the four quarters of the heavens,” means +literally, “whence the four winds <span class="nowrap">come.”<a name="FNanchor_75-1_83" id="FNanchor_75-1_83"></a><a href="#Footnote_75-1_83" class="fnanchor">75-1</a></span> It were not difficult to +extend the list; but illustrations are all that is required. Let it be +remembered how closely the motions of the air are associated in thought +and language with the operations of the soul and the idea of God; let it +further be considered what support this association receives from the +power of the winds on the weather, bringing as they do the lightning and +the storm, the zephyr that cools the brow, and the tornado that levels +the forest; how they summon the rain to fertilize the seed and refresh +the shrivelled leaves; how they aid the hunter to stalk the game, and +usher in the varying seasons; how, indeed, in a hundred ways, they +intimately concern his comfort and his life; and it will not seem +strange that they almost occupied the place of all other gods in the +mind of the child of nature. Especially as those who gave or withheld +the rains were they objects of his anxious solicitation. “Ye who dwell +at the four corners of the earth—at the north, at the south, at the +east, and at the west,” commenced the Aztec prayer to the Tlalocs, gods +of the <span class="nowrap">showers.<a name="FNanchor_75-2_84" id="FNanchor_75-2_84"></a><a href="#Footnote_75-2_84" class="fnanchor">75-2</a></span> <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span>For they, as it were, hold the food, the life of +man in their power, garnered up on high, to grant or deny, as they see +fit. It was from them that the prophet of old was directed to call back +the spirits of the dead to the dry bones of the valley. “Prophesy unto +the wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, thus saith the Lord +God, come forth from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these +slain, that they may live.” (Ezek. xxxvii. 9.)</p> + +<p>In the same spirit the priests of the Eskimos prayed to <i>Sillam Innua</i>, +the Owner of the Winds, as the highest existence; the abode of the dead +they called <i>Sillam Aipane</i>, the House of the Winds; and in their +incantations, when they would summon a new soul to the sick, or order +back to its home some troublesome spirit, their invocations were ever +addressed to the winds from the cardinal points—to Pauna the East and +Sauna the West, to Kauna the South and Auna the <span class="nowrap">North.<a name="FNanchor_76-1_85" id="FNanchor_76-1_85"></a><a href="#Footnote_76-1_85" class="fnanchor">76-1</a></span></p> + +<p>As the rain-bringers, as the life-givers, it were no far-fetched +metaphor to call them the fathers of our race. Hardly a nation on the +continent but seems to have had some vague tradition of an origin from +four brothers, to have at some time been led by four leaders or princes, +or in some manner to have connected the appearance and action of four +important personages with its earliest traditional history. Sometimes +the myth defines clearly these fabled characters as the spirits of the +winds, sometimes it clothes them in uncouth, grotesque metaphors, +sometimes again it so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span> weaves them into actual history that we are at a +loss where to draw the line that divides fiction from truth.</p> + +<p>I shall attempt to follow step by step the growth of this myth from its +simplest expression, where the transparent drapery makes no pretence to +conceal its true meaning, through the ever more elaborate narratives, +the more strongly marked personifications of more cultivated nations, +until it assumes the outlines of, and has palmed itself upon the world +as actual history.</p> + +<p>This simplest form is that which alone appears among the Algonkins and +Dakotas. They both traced their lives back to four ancestors, personages +concerned in various ways with the first things of time, not rightly +distinguished as men or gods, but very positively identified with the +four winds. Whether from one or all of these the world was peopled, +whether by process of generation or some other more obscure way, the old +people had not said, or saying, had not <span class="nowrap">agreed.<a name="FNanchor_77-1_86" id="FNanchor_77-1_86"></a><a href="#Footnote_77-1_86" class="fnanchor">77-1</a></span></p> + +<p>It is a shade more complex when we come to the Creeks. They told of four +men who came from the four corners of the earth, who brought them the +sacred fire, and pointed out the seven sacred plants. They were called +the Hi-you-yul-gee. Having rendered them this service, the kindly +visitors disappeared in a cloud, returning whence they came. When +another and more ancient legend informs us that the Creeks were at first +divided into four clans, and alleged a descent from four female +ancestors, it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span> will hardly be venturing too far to recognize in these +four ancestors the four friendly patrons from the cardinal <span class="nowrap">points.<a name="FNanchor_78-1_87" id="FNanchor_78-1_87"></a><a href="#Footnote_78-1_87" class="fnanchor">78-1</a></span></p> + +<p>The ancient inhabitants of Haiti, when first discovered by the +Spaniards, had a similar genealogical story, which Peter Martyr relates +with various excuses for its silliness and exclamations at its +absurdity. Perhaps the fault lay less in its lack of meaning than in his +want of insight. It was to the effect that men lived in caves, and were +destroyed by the parching rays of the sun, and were destitute of means +to prolong their race, until they caught and subjected to their use four +women who were swift of foot and slippery as eels. These were the +mothers of the race of men. Or again, it was said that a certain king +had a huge gourd which contained all the waters of the earth; four +brothers, who coming into the world at one birth had cost their mother +her life, ventured to the gourd to fish, picked it up, but frightened by +the old king’s approach, dropped it on the ground, broke it into +fragments, and scattered the waters over the earth, forming the seas, +lakes, and rivers, as they now are. These brothers in time became the +fathers of a nation, and to them they traced their <span class="nowrap">lineage.<a name="FNanchor_78-2_88" id="FNanchor_78-2_88"></a><a href="#Footnote_78-2_88" class="fnanchor">78-2</a></span> With +the previous examples<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span> before our eyes, it asks no vivid fancy to see in +these quaternions once more the four winds, the bringers of rain, so +swift and so slippery.</p> + +<p>The Navajos are a rude tribe north of Mexico. Yet even they have an +allegory to the effect that when the first man came up from the ground +under the figure of the moth-worm, the four spirits of the cardinal +points were already there, and hailed him with the exclamation, “Lo, he +is of our <span class="nowrap">race.”<a name="FNanchor_79-1_89" id="FNanchor_79-1_89"></a><a href="#Footnote_79-1_89" class="fnanchor">79-1</a></span> It is a poor and feeble effort to tell the same +old story.</p> + +<p>The Haitians were probably relatives of the Mayas of Yucatan. Certainly +the latter shared their ancestral legends, for in an ancient manuscript +found by Mr. Stephens during his travels, it appears they looked back to +four parents or leaders called the Tutul Xiu. But, indeed, this was a +trait of all the civilized nations of Central America and Mexico. An +author who would be very unwilling to admit any mythical interpretation +of the coincidence, has adverted to it in tones of astonishment: “In all +the Aztec and Toltec histories there are four characters who constantly +reappear; either as priests or envoys of the gods, or of hidden and +disguised majesty; or as guides and chieftains of tribes during their +migrations; or as kings and rulers of monarchies after their foundation; +and even to the time of the conquest, there are always four princes who +compose the supreme government, whether in Guatemala, or in +<span class="nowrap">Mexico.”<a name="FNanchor_79-2_90" id="FNanchor_79-2_90"></a><a href="#Footnote_79-2_90" class="fnanchor">79-2</a></span> This fourfold division points not to a common history, +but to a common nature. The ancient heroes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span> and demigods, who, four in +number, figure in all these antique traditions, were not men of flesh +and blood, but the invisible currents of air who brought the fertilizing +showers.</p> + +<p>They corresponded to the four gods Bacab, who in the Yucatecan mythology +were supposed to stand one at each corner of the world, supporting, like +gigantic caryatides, the overhanging firmament. When at the general +deluge all other gods and men were swallowed by the waters they alone +escaped to people it anew. These four, known by the names of Kan, Muluc, +Ix, and Cauac, represented respectively the east, north, west, and +south, and as in Oriental symbolism, so here each quarter of the compass +was distinguished by a color, the east by yellow, the south by red, the +west by black, and the north by white. The names of these mysterious +personages, employed somewhat as we do the Dominical letters, adjusted +the calendar of the Mayas, and by their propitious or portentous +combinations was arranged their system of judicial astrology. They were +the gods of rain, and under the title Chac, the Red Ones, were the chief +ministers of the highest power. As such they were represented in the +religious ceremonies by four old men, constant attendants on the high +priest in his official <span class="nowrap">functions.<a name="FNanchor_80-1_91" id="FNanchor_80-1_91"></a><a href="#Footnote_80-1_91" class="fnanchor">80-1</a></span> In this most civilized branch +of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span> the red race, as everywhere else, we thus find four mythological +characters prominent beyond all others, giving a peculiar physiognomy to +the national legends, arts, and sciences, and in them once more we +recognize by signs infallible, personifications of the four cardinal +points and the four winds.</p> + +<p>They rarely lose altogether their true character. The Quiché legends +tell us that the four men who were first created by the Heart of Heaven, +Hurakan, the Air in Motion, were infinitely keen of eye and swift of +foot, that “they measured and saw all that exists at the four corners +and the four angles of the sky and the earth;” that they did not fulfil +the design of their maker “to bring forth and produce when the season of +harvest was near,” until he blew into their eyes a cloud, “until their +faces were obscured as when one breathes on a mirror.” Then he gave them +as wives the four mothers of our species, whose names were Falling +Water, Beautiful Water, Water of Serpents, and Water of <span class="nowrap">Birds.<a name="FNanchor_81-1_92" id="FNanchor_81-1_92"></a><a href="#Footnote_81-1_92" class="fnanchor">81-1</a></span> +Truly he who can see aught but a transparent myth in this recital, is a +realist that would astonish Euhemerus himself.</p> + +<p>There is in these Aztec legends a quaternion besides this of the first +men, one that bears marks of a profound contemplation on the course of +nature, one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span> that answers to the former as the heavenly phase of the +earthly conception. It is seen in the four personages, or perhaps we +should say modes of action, that make up the one Supreme Cause of All, +Hurakan, the breath, the wind, the Divine Spirit. They are He who +creates, He who gives Form, He who gives Life, and He who +<span class="nowrap">reproduces.<a name="FNanchor_82-1_93" id="FNanchor_82-1_93"></a><a href="#Footnote_82-1_93" class="fnanchor">82-1</a></span> This acute and extraordinary analysis of the origin +and laws of organic life, clothed under the ancient belief in the action +of the winds, reveals a depth of thought for which we were hardly +prepared, and is perhaps the single instance of anything like +metaphysics among the red race. It is clearly visible in the earlier +portions of the legends of the Quichés, and is the more surely of native +origin as it has been quite lost on both their translators.</p> + +<p>Go where we will, the same story meets us. The empire of the Incas was +attributed in the sacred chants of the Amautas, the priests assigned to +take charge of the records, to four brothers and their wives. These +mythical civilizers are said to have emerged from a cave called <i>Pacari +tampu</i>, which may mean “the House of Subsistence,” reminding us of the +four heroes who in Aztec legend set forth to people the world from +Tonacatepec, the mountain of our<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span> subsistence; or again it may mean—for +like many of these mythical names it seems to have been designedly +chosen to bear a double construction—the Lodgings of the Dawn, +recalling another Aztec legend which points for the birthplace of the +race to Tula in the distant orient. The cave itself suggests to the +classical reader that of Eolus, or may be paralleled with that in which +the Iroquois fabled the winds were imprisoned by their <span class="nowrap">lord.<a name="FNanchor_83-1_94" id="FNanchor_83-1_94"></a><a href="#Footnote_83-1_94" class="fnanchor">83-1</a></span> These +brothers were of no common kin. Their voices could shake the earth and +their hands heap up mountains. Like the thunder god, they stood on the +hills and hurled their sling-stones to the four corners of the earth. +When one was overpowered he fled upward to the heaven or was turned into +stone, and it was by their aid and counsel that the savages who +possessed the land renounced their barbarous habits and commenced to +till the soil. There can be no doubt but that this in turn is but +another transformation of the Protean myth we have so long +<span class="nowrap">pursued.<a name="FNanchor_83-2_95" id="FNanchor_83-2_95"></a><a href="#Footnote_83-2_95" class="fnanchor">83-2</a></span></p> + +<p>There are traces of the same legend among many other tribes of the +continent, but the trustworthy reports we have of them are too scanty to +permit analysis. Enough that they are mentioned in a note, for it is +every way likely that could we resolve their meaning they too would +carry us back to the four <span class="nowrap">winds.<a name="FNanchor_83-3_96" id="FNanchor_83-3_96"></a><a href="#Footnote_83-3_96" class="fnanchor">83-3</a></span></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span>Let no one suppose, however, that this was the only myth of the origin +of man. Far from it. It was but one of many, for, as I shall hereafter +attempt to show, the laws that governed the formations of such myths not +only allowed but enjoined great divergence of form. Equally far was it +from being the only image which the inventive fancy hit upon to express +the action of the winds as the rain bringers. They too were many, but +may all be included in a twofold division, either as the winds were +supposed to flow in from the corners of the earth or outward from its +central point. Thus they are spoken of under such<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span> figures as four +tortoises at the angles of the earthly plane who vomit forth the +<span class="nowrap">rains,<a name="FNanchor_85-1_97" id="FNanchor_85-1_97"></a><a href="#Footnote_85-1_97" class="fnanchor">85-1</a></span> or four gigantic caryatides who sustain the heavens and +blow the winds from their capacious <span class="nowrap">lungs,<a name="FNanchor_85-2_98" id="FNanchor_85-2_98"></a><a href="#Footnote_85-2_98" class="fnanchor">85-2</a></span> or more frequently as +four rivers flowing from the broken calabash on high, as the Haitians, +draining the waters of the primitive <span class="nowrap">world,<a name="FNanchor_85-3_99" id="FNanchor_85-3_99"></a><a href="#Footnote_85-3_99" class="fnanchor">85-3</a></span> as four animals who +bring from heaven the <span class="nowrap">maize,<a name="FNanchor_85-4_100" id="FNanchor_85-4_100"></a><a href="#Footnote_85-4_100" class="fnanchor">85-4</a></span> as four messengers whom the god of +air sends forth, or under a coarser trope as the spittle he ejects +toward the cardinal points which is straightway transformed into wild +rice, tobacco, and <span class="nowrap">maize.<a name="FNanchor_85-5_101" id="FNanchor_85-5_101"></a><a href="#Footnote_85-5_101" class="fnanchor">85-5</a></span></p> + +<p>Constantly from the palace of the lord of the world, seated on the high +hill of heaven, blow four winds, pour four streams, refreshing and +fecundating the earth. Therefore, in the myths of ancient Iran there is +mention of a celestial fountain, Arduisur, the virgin daughter of +Ormuzd, whence four all nourishing rivers roll their waves toward the +cardinal points; therefore the Thibetans believe that on the sacred +mountain Himavata grows the tree of life Zampu, from whose foot once +more flow the waters of life in four streams to the four quarters of the +world; and therefore it is that the same tale is told by the Chinese of +the mountain Kouantun, by the Brahmins of Mount Meru, and by the Parsees +of Mount Albors in the <span class="nowrap">Caucasus.<a name="FNanchor_85-6_102" id="FNanchor_85-6_102"></a><a href="#Footnote_85-6_102" class="fnanchor">85-6</a></span> Each nation called<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span> their sacred +mountain “the navel of the earth;” for not only was it the supposed +centre of the habitable world, but through it, as the fœtus through +the umbilical cord, the earth drew her increase. Beyond all other spots +were they accounted fertile, scenes of joyous plaisance, of repose, and +eternal youth; there rippled the waters of health, there blossomed the +tree of life; they were fit trysting spots of gods and men. Hence came +the tales of the terrestrial paradise, the rose garden of Feridun, the +Eden gardens of the world. The name shows the origin, for paradise (in +Sanscrit, <i>para desa</i>) means literally <i>high land</i>. There, in the +unanimous opinion of the Orient, dwelt once in unalloyed delight the +first of men; thence driven by untoward fate, no more anywhere could +they find the path thither. Some thought that in the north among the +fortunate Hyperboreans, others that in the mountains of the moon where +dwelt the long lived Ethiopians, and others again that in the furthest +east, underneath the dawn, was situate the seat of pristine happiness; +but many were of opinion that somewhere in the western sea, beyond the +pillars of Hercules and the waters of the Outer Ocean, lay the garden of +the Hesperides, the Islands of the Blessed, the earthly Elysion.</p> + +<p>It is not without design that I recall this early dream of the religious +fancy. When Christopher Columbus, fired by the hope of discovering this +terrestrial paradise, broke the enchantment of the cloudy sea and found +a new world, it was but to light<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span> upon the same race of men, deluding +themselves with the same hope of earthly joys, the same fiction of a +long lost garden of their youth. They told him that still to the west, +amid the mountains of Paria, was a spot whence flowed mighty streams +over all lands, and which in sooth was the spot he <span class="nowrap">sought;<a name="FNanchor_87-1_103" id="FNanchor_87-1_103"></a><a href="#Footnote_87-1_103" class="fnanchor">87-1</a></span> and +when that baseless fabric had vanished, there still remained the fabled +island of Boiuca, or Bimini, hundreds of leagues north of Hispaniola, +whose glebe was watered by a fountain of such noble virtue as to restore +youth and vigor to the worn out and the <span class="nowrap">aged.<a name="FNanchor_87-2_104" id="FNanchor_87-2_104"></a><a href="#Footnote_87-2_104" class="fnanchor">87-2</a></span> This was no fiction +of the natives to rid themselves of burdensome guests. Long before the +white man approached their shores, families had started from Cuba, +Yucatan, and Honduras in search of these renovating waters, and not +returning, were supposed by their kindred to have been detained by the +delights of that enchanted land, and to be revelling in its seductive +joys, forgetful of former <span class="nowrap">ties.<a name="FNanchor_87-3_105" id="FNanchor_87-3_105"></a><a href="#Footnote_87-3_105" class="fnanchor">87-3</a></span></p> + +<p>Perhaps it was but another rendering of the same belief that pointed to +the impenetrable forests of the Orinoko, the ancient homes of the Caribs +and Arowacks, and there located the famous realm of El Dorado with its +imperial capital Manoa, abounding<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span> in precious metals and all manner of +gems, peopled by a happy race, and governed by an equitable ruler.</p> + +<p>The Aztec priests never chanted more regretful dirges than when they +sang of Tulan, the cradle of their race, where once it dwelt in peaceful +indolent happiness, whose groves were filled with birds of sweet voices +and gay plumage, whose generous soil brought forth spontaneously maize, +cocoa, aromatic gums, and fragrant flowers. “Land of riches and plenty, +where the gourds grow an arm’s length across, where an ear of corn is a +load for a stout man, and its stalks are as high as trees; land where +the cotton ripens of its own accord of all rich tints; land abounding +with limpid emeralds, turquoises, gold, and <span class="nowrap">silver.”<a name="FNanchor_88-1_106" id="FNanchor_88-1_106"></a><a href="#Footnote_88-1_106" class="fnanchor">88-1</a></span> This land was +also called Tlalocan, from Tlaloc, the god of rain, who there had his +dwelling place, and Tlapallan, the land of colors, or the red land, for +the hues of the sky at sunrise floated over it. Its inhabitants were +surnamed children of the air, or of Quetzalcoatl, and from its centre +rose the holy mountain Tonacatepec, the mountain of our life or +subsistence. Its supposed location was in the east, whence in that +country blow the winds that bring mild rains, says Sahagun, and that +missionary was himself asked, as coming from the east, whether his home +was in Tlapallan; more definitely by some it was situated among the +lofty peaks on the frontiers of Guatemala, and all the great rivers that +water the earth were supposed to have their sources <span class="nowrap">there.<a name="FNanchor_88-2_107" id="FNanchor_88-2_107"></a><a href="#Footnote_88-2_107" class="fnanchor">88-2</a></span> But +here, as elsewhere, its site was not determined.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span> “There is a Tulan,” +says an ancient authority, “where the sun rises, and there is another in +the land of shades, and another where the sun reposes, and thence came +we; and still another where the sun reposes, and there dwells +<span class="nowrap">God.”<a name="FNanchor_89-1_108" id="FNanchor_89-1_108"></a><a href="#Footnote_89-1_108" class="fnanchor">89-1</a></span></p> + +<p>The myth of the Quichés but changes the name of this pleasant land. With +them it was <i>Pan-paxil-pa-cayala</i>, where the waters divide in falling, +or between the waters parcelled out and mucky. This was “an excellent +land, full of pleasant things, where was store of white corn and yellow +corn, where one could not count the fruits, nor estimate the quantity of +honey and food.” Over it ruled the lord of the air,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span> and from it the +four sacred animals carried the corn to make the flesh of <span class="nowrap">men.<a name="FNanchor_90-1_109" id="FNanchor_90-1_109"></a><a href="#Footnote_90-1_109" class="fnanchor">90-1</a></span></p> + +<p>Once again, in the legends of the Mixtecas, we hear the old story +repeated of the garden where the first two brothers dwelt. It lay +between a meadow and that lofty peak which supports the heavens and the +palaces of the gods. “Many trees were there, such as yield flowers and +roses, very luscious fruits, divers herbs, and aromatic spices.” The +names of the brothers were the Wind of Nine Serpents and the Wind of +Nine Caverns. The first was as an eagle, and flew aloft over the waters +that poured around their enchanted garden; the second was as a serpent +with wings, who proceeded with such velocity that he pierced rocks and +walls. They were too swift to be seen by the sharpest eye, and were one +near as they passed, he was only aware of a whisper and a rustling like +that of the wind in the <span class="nowrap">leaves.<a name="FNanchor_90-2_110" id="FNanchor_90-2_110"></a><a href="#Footnote_90-2_110" class="fnanchor">90-2</a></span></p> + +<p>Wherever, in short, the lust of gold lured the early adventurers, they +were told of some nation a little further on, some wealthy and +prosperous land, abundant and fertile, satisfying the desire of the +heart. It was sometimes deceit, and it was sometimes the credited +fiction of the earthly paradise, that in all ages has with a promise of +perfect joy consoled the aching heart of man.</p> + +<p>It is instructive to study the associations that naturally group +themselves around each of the cardinal points, and watch how these are +mirrored on the surface of language, and have directed the current of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span> +thought. Jacob Grimm has performed this task with fidelity and beauty as +regards the Aryan race, but the means are wanting to apply his searching +method to the indigenous tongues of America. Enough if in general terms +their mythological value be determined.</p> + +<p>When the day begins, man wakes from his slumbers, faces the rising sun, +and prays. The east is before him; by it he learns all other directions; +it is to him what the north is to the needle; with reference to it he +assigns in his mind the position of the three other cardinal +<span class="nowrap">points.<a name="FNanchor_91-1_111" id="FNanchor_91-1_111"></a><a href="#Footnote_91-1_111" class="fnanchor">91-1</a></span> There is the starting place of the celestial fires, the +home of the sun, the womb of the morning. It represents in space the +beginning of things in time, and as the bright and glorious creatures of +the sky come forth thence, man conceits that his ancestors also in +remote ages wandered from the orient; there in the opinion of many in +both the old and new world was the cradle of the race; there in Aztec +legend was the fabled land of Tlapallan, and the wind from the east was +called the wind of Paradise, Tlalocavitl.</p> + +<p>From this direction came, according to the almost unanimous opinion of +the Indian tribes, those hero gods who taught them arts and religion, +thither they returned, and from thence they would again appear to resume +their ancient sway. As the dawn brings light, and with light is +associated in every human mind the ideas of knowledge, safety, +protection, majesty, divinity, as it dispels the spectres of night, as +it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span> defines the cardinal points, and brings forth the sun and the day, +it occupied the primitive mind to an extent that can hardly be magnified +beyond the truth. It is in fact the central figure in most natural +religions.</p> + +<p>The west, as the grave of the heavenly luminaries, or rather as their +goal and place of repose, brings with it thoughts of sleep, of death, of +tranquillity, of rest from labor. When the evening of his days was come, +when his course was run, and man had sunk from sight, he was supposed to +follow the sun and find some spot of repose for his tired soul in the +distant west. There, with general consent, the tribes north of the Gulf +of Mexico supposed the happy hunting grounds; there, taught by the same +analogy, the ancient Aryans placed the Nerriti, the exodus, the land of +the dead. “The old notion among us,” said on one occasion a +distinguished chief of the Creek nation, “is that when we die, the +spirit goes the way the sun goes, to the west, and there joins its +family and friends who went before <span class="nowrap">it.”<a name="FNanchor_92-1_112" id="FNanchor_92-1_112"></a><a href="#Footnote_92-1_112" class="fnanchor">92-1</a></span></p> + +<p>In the northern hemisphere the shadows fall to the north, thence blow +cold and furious winds, thence come the snow and early thunder. Perhaps +all its primitive inhabitants, of whatever race, thought it the seat of +the mighty <span class="nowrap">gods.<a name="FNanchor_92-2_113" id="FNanchor_92-2_113"></a><a href="#Footnote_92-2_113" class="fnanchor">92-2</a></span> A floe of ice in the Arctic Sea was the home of +the guardian spirit of the <span class="nowrap">Algonkins;<a name="FNanchor_92-3_114" id="FNanchor_92-3_114"></a><a href="#Footnote_92-3_114" class="fnanchor">92-3</a></span> on a mountain near the north +star the Dakotas thought Heyoka dwelt who rules the seasons; and the +realm of Mictla, the Aztec god of death, lay where the shadows pointed. +From that cheerless<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span> abode his sceptre reached over all creatures, even +the gods themselves, for sooner or later all must fall before him. The +great spirit of the dead, said the Ottawas, lives in the dark +<span class="nowrap">north,<a name="FNanchor_93-1_115" id="FNanchor_93-1_115"></a><a href="#Footnote_93-1_115" class="fnanchor">93-1</a></span> and there, in the opinion of the Monquis of California, +resided their chief god, <span class="nowrap">Gumongo.<a name="FNanchor_93-2_116" id="FNanchor_93-2_116"></a><a href="#Footnote_93-2_116" class="fnanchor">93-2</a></span></p> + +<p>Unfortunately the makers of vocabularies have rarely included the words +north, south, east, and west, in their lists, and the methods of +expressing these ideas adopted by the Indians can only be partially +discovered. The east and west were usually called from the rising and +setting of the sun as in our words orient and occident, but occasionally +from traditional notions. The Mayas named the west the greater, the east +the lesser debarkation; believing that while their culture hero Zamna +came from the east with a few attendants, the mass of the population +arrived from the opposite <span class="nowrap">direction.<a name="FNanchor_93-3_117" id="FNanchor_93-3_117"></a><a href="#Footnote_93-3_117" class="fnanchor">93-3</a></span> The Aztecs spoke of the east +as “the direction of Tlalocan,” the terrestrial paradise. But for north +and south there were no such natural appellations, and consequently the +greatest diversity is exhibited in the plans adopted to express them. +The north in the Caddo tongue is “the place of cold,” in Dakota “the +situation of the pines,” in Creek “the abode of the (north) star,” in +Algonkin “the home of the soul,” in Aztec “the direction of Mictla” the +realm of death, in Quiché and Quichua, “to the right <span class="nowrap">hand;”<a name="FNanchor_93-4_118" id="FNanchor_93-4_118"></a><a href="#Footnote_93-4_118" class="fnanchor">93-4</a></span> while +for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span> the south we find such terms as in Dakota “the downward direction,” +in Algonkin “the place of warmth,” in Quiché “to the left hand,” while +among the Eskimos, who look in this direction for the sun, its name +implies “before one,” just as does the Hebrew word <i>kedem</i>, which, +however, this more southern tribe applied to the east.</p> + +<p>We can trace the sacredness of the number four in other curious and +unlooked-for developments. Multiplied into the number of the +fingers—the arithmetic of every child and ignorant man—or by adding +together the first four members of its arithmetical series (4 + 8 + 12 + +16), it gives the number forty. This was taken as a limit to the sacred +dances of some Indian tribes, and by others as the highest number of +chants to be employed in exorcising diseases. Consequently it came to be +fixed as a limit in exercises of preparation or purification. The +females of the Orinoko tribes fasted forty days before marriage, and +those of the upper Mississippi were held unclean the same length of time +after childbirth; such was the term of the Prince of Tezcuco’s fast when +he wished an heir to his throne, and such the number of days the Mandans +supposed it required to wash clean the world at the <span class="nowrap">deluge.<a name="FNanchor_94-1_119" id="FNanchor_94-1_119"></a><a href="#Footnote_94-1_119" class="fnanchor">94-1</a></span></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span>No one is ignorant how widely this belief was prevalent in the old +world, nor how the quadrigesimal is still a sacred term with some +denominations of Christianity. But a more striking parallelism awaits +us. The symbol that beyond all others has fascinated the human mind, <span class="smrom">THE +CROSS</span>, finds here its source and meaning. Scholars have pointed out its +sacredness in many natural religions, and have reverently accepted it as +a mystery, or offered scores of conflicting and often debasing +interpretations. It is but another symbol of the four cardinal points, +the four winds of heaven. This will luminously appear by a study of its +use and meaning in America.</p> + +<p>The Catholic missionaries found it was no new object of adoration to the +red race, and were in doubt whether to ascribe the fact to the pious +labors of Saint Thomas or the sacrilegious subtlety of Satan. It was the +central object in the great temple of Cozumel, and is still preserved on +the bas-reliefs of the ruined city of Palenque. From time immemorial it +had received the prayers and sacrifices of the Aztecs and Toltecs, and +was suspended as an august emblem from the walls of temples in Popoyan +and Cundinamarca. In the Mexican tongue it bore the significant and +worthy name “Tree of Our Life,” or “Tree of our Flesh” (Tonacaquahuitl). +It represented the god of rains and of health, and this was everywhere +its simple meaning. “Those of Yucatan,” say the chroniclers, “prayed to +the cross as the god of rains when they needed water.” The Aztec goddess +of rains bore one in her hand, and at the feast celebrated to her honor +in the early spring victims were nailed to a cross and shot with arrows. +Quetzalcoatl, god of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span> the winds, bore as his sign of office “a mace like +the cross of a bishop;” his robe was covered with them strown like +flowers, and its adoration was throughout connected with his +<span class="nowrap">worship.<a name="FNanchor_96-1_120" id="FNanchor_96-1_120"></a><a href="#Footnote_96-1_120" class="fnanchor">96-1</a></span> When the Muyscas would sacrifice to the goddess of waters +they extended cords across the tranquil depths of some lake, thus +forming a gigantic cross, and at their point of intersection threw in +their offerings of gold, emeralds, and precious <span class="nowrap">oils.<a name="FNanchor_96-2_121" id="FNanchor_96-2_121"></a><a href="#Footnote_96-2_121" class="fnanchor">96-2</a></span> The arms of +the cross were designed to point to the cardinal points and represent +the four winds, the rain bringers. To confirm this explanation, let us +have recourse to the simpler ceremonies of the less cultivated tribes, +and see the transparent meaning of the symbol as they employed it.</p> + +<p>When the rain maker of the Lenni Lenape would exert his power, he +retired to some secluded spot and drew upon the earth the figure of a +cross (its arms toward the cardinal points?), placed upon it a piece of +tobacco, a gourd, a bit of some red stuff, and commenced to cry aloud to +the spirits of the <span class="nowrap">rains.<a name="FNanchor_96-3_122" id="FNanchor_96-3_122"></a><a href="#Footnote_96-3_122" class="fnanchor">96-3</a></span> The Creeks at the festival of the Busk, +celebrated, as we have seen, to the four winds, and according to their +legends instituted by them, commenced with making<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span> the new fire. The +manner of this was “to place four logs in the centre of the square, end +to end, forming a cross, the outer ends pointing to the cardinal points; +in the centre of the cross the new fire is <span class="nowrap">made.”<a name="FNanchor_97-1_123" id="FNanchor_97-1_123"></a><a href="#Footnote_97-1_123" class="fnanchor">97-1</a></span></p> + +<p>As the emblem of the winds who dispense the fertilizing showers it is +emphatically the tree of our life, our subsistence, and our health. It +never had any other meaning in America, and if, as has been <span class="nowrap">said,<a name="FNanchor_97-2_124" id="FNanchor_97-2_124"></a><a href="#Footnote_97-2_124" class="fnanchor">97-2</a></span> +the tombs of the Mexicans were cruciform, it was perhaps with reference +to a resurrection and a future life as portrayed under this symbol, +indicating that the buried body would rise by the action of the four +spirits of the world, as the buried seed takes on a new existence when +watered by the vernal showers. It frequently recurs in the ancient +Egyptian writings, where it is interpreted <i>life</i>; doubtless, could we +trace the hieroglyph to its source, it would likewise prove to be +derived from the four winds.</p> + +<p>While thus recognizing the natural origin of this consecrated symbol, +while discovering that it is based on the sacredness of numbers, and +this in turn on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span> the structure and necessary relations of the human +body, thus disowning the meaningless mysticism that Joseph de Maistre +and his disciples have advocated, let us on the other hand be equally on +our guard against accepting the material facts which underlie these +beliefs as their deepest foundation and their exhaustive explanation. +That were but withered fruit for our labors, and it might well be asked, +where is here the divine idea said to be dimly prefigured in mythology? +The universal belief in the sacredness of numbers is an instinctive +faith in an immortal truth; it is a direct perception of the soul, akin +to that which recognizes a God. The laws of chemical combination, of the +various modes of motion, of all organic growth, show that simple +numerical relations govern all the properties and are inherent to the +very constitution of matter; more marvellous still, the most recent and +severe inductions of physicists show that precisely those two numbers on +whose symbolical value much of the edifice of ancient mythology was +erected, the <i>four</i> and the <i>three</i>, regulate the molecular distribution +of matter and preside over the symmetrical development of organic forms. +This asks no faith, but only knowledge; it is science, not revelation. +In view of such facts is it presumptuous to predict that experiment +itself will prove the truth of Kepler’s beautiful saying: “The universe +is a harmonious whole, the soul of which is God; numbers, figures, the +stars, all nature, indeed, are in unison with the mysteries of +religion”?</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"> + +<p><a name="Footnote_67-1_69" id="Footnote_67-1_69"></a><a href="#FNanchor_67-1_69"><span class="label">67-1</span></a> Buckingham Smith, <i>Gram. Notices of the Heve Language</i>, +p. 26 (Shea’s Lib. Am. Linguistics).</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_68-1_70" id="Footnote_68-1_70"></a><a href="#FNanchor_68-1_70"><span class="label">68-1</span></a> I refer to the four “ultimate elementary particles” of +Empedocles. The number was sacred to Hermes, and lay at the root of the +physical philosophy of Pythagoras. The quotation in the text is from the +“Golden Verses,” given in Passow’s lexicon under the word τετρακτὺς: ναι μα τον ἁμετερᾳ ψυχᾳ παραδοντα τετρακτυν, παγαν αεναου φυσεως +“The most sacred of all things,” said this famous teacher, “is +Number; and next to it, that which gives Names;” a truth that the lapse +of three thousand years is just enabling us to appreciate.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_68-2_71" id="Footnote_68-2_71"></a><a href="#FNanchor_68-2_71"><span class="label">68-2</span></a> Ximenes, <i>Or. de los Indios</i>, etc., p. 5.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_68-3_72" id="Footnote_68-3_72"></a><a href="#FNanchor_68-3_72"><span class="label">68-3</span></a> See Sepp, <i>Heidenthum und dessen Bedeutung für das +Christenthum</i>, i. p. 464 sqq., a work full of learning, but written in +the wildest vein of Joseph de Maistre’s school of Romanizing mythology.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_69-1_73" id="Footnote_69-1_73"></a><a href="#FNanchor_69-1_73"><span class="label">69-1</span></a> Brasseur, <i>Hist. du Mexique</i>, ii. p. 227, <i>Le Livre +Sacré des Quichés</i>, introd. p. ccxlii. The four provinces of Peru were +Anti, Cunti, Chincha, and Colla. The meaning of these names has been +lost, but to repeat them, says La Vega, was the same as to use our +words, east, west, north, and south (<i>Hist. des Incas</i>, lib. ii. cap. +11).</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_69-2_74" id="Footnote_69-2_74"></a><a href="#FNanchor_69-2_74"><span class="label">69-2</span></a> Humboldt, <i>Polit. Essay on New Spain</i>, ii. p. 44.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_70-1_75" id="Footnote_70-1_75"></a><a href="#FNanchor_70-1_75"><span class="label">70-1</span></a> This custom has been often mentioned among the Iroquois. +Algonkins, Dakotas, Creeks, Natchez, Araucanians, and other tribes. +Nuttall points out its recurrence among the Tartars of Siberia also. +(<i>Travels</i>, p. 175.)</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_71-1_76" id="Footnote_71-1_76"></a><a href="#FNanchor_71-1_76"><span class="label">71-1</span></a> Schoolcraft, <i>Indian Tribes</i>, v. pp. 424 et seq.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_71-2_77" id="Footnote_71-2_77"></a><a href="#FNanchor_71-2_77"><span class="label">71-2</span></a> <i>Letters on the North American Indians</i>, vol. i., Letter +22.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_71-3_78" id="Footnote_71-3_78"></a><a href="#FNanchor_71-3_78"><span class="label">71-3</span></a> Schoolcraft, <i>Indian Tribes</i>, iv. p. 643 sq. “Four is +their sacred number,” says Mr. Pond (p. 646). Their neighbors, the +Pawnees, though not the most remote affinity can be detected between +their languages, coincide with them in this sacred number, and +distinctly identified it with the cardinal points. See De Smet, <i>Oregon +Missions</i>, pp. 360, 361.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_72-1_79" id="Footnote_72-1_79"></a><a href="#FNanchor_72-1_79"><span class="label">72-1</span></a> Benj. Hawkins, <i>Sketch of the Creek Country</i>, pp. 75, +78: Savannah, 1848. The description he gives of the ceremonies of the +Creeks was transcribed word for word and published in the first volume +of the American Antiquarian Society’s Transactions as of the Shawnees of +Ohio. This literary theft has not before been noticed.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_72-2_80" id="Footnote_72-2_80"></a><a href="#FNanchor_72-2_80"><span class="label">72-2</span></a> Palacios, <i>Des. de la Prov. de Guatemala</i>, pp. 31, 32, +ed. Ternaux-Compans.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_73-1_81" id="Footnote_73-1_81"></a><a href="#FNanchor_73-1_81"><span class="label">73-1</span></a> All familiar with Mexican antiquity will recall many +such examples. I may particularly refer to Kingsborough, <i>Antiqs. of +Mexico</i>, v. p. 480, Ternaux-Compans’ <i>Recueil de pièces rel. à la Conq. +du Mexique</i>, pp. 307, 310, and Gama, <i>Des. de las dos Piedras que se +hallaron en la plaza principal de Mexico</i>, ii. sec. 126 (Mexico, 1832), +who gives numerous instances beyond those I have cited, and directs with +emphasis the attention of the reader to this constant repetition.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_74-1_82" id="Footnote_74-1_82"></a><a href="#FNanchor_74-1_82"><span class="label">74-1</span></a> Albert Gallatin, <i>Trans. Am. Ethnol. Soc.</i>, ii. p. 316, +from the Codex Vaticanus, No. 3738.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_75-1_83" id="Footnote_75-1_83"></a><a href="#FNanchor_75-1_83"><span class="label">75-1</span></a> Riggs, <i>Gram. and Dict. of the Dakota Lang.</i>, s. v.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_75-2_84" id="Footnote_75-2_84"></a><a href="#FNanchor_75-2_84"><span class="label">75-2</span></a> Sahagun, <i>Hist. de la Nueva España</i>, in Kingsborough, v. +p. 375.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_76-1_85" id="Footnote_76-1_85"></a><a href="#FNanchor_76-1_85"><span class="label">76-1</span></a> Egede, <i>Nachrichten von Grönland</i>, pp. 137, 173, 285. +(Kopenhagen, 1790.)</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_77-1_86" id="Footnote_77-1_86"></a><a href="#FNanchor_77-1_86"><span class="label">77-1</span></a> Schoolcraft, <i>Algic Researches</i>, i. p. 139, and <i>Indian +Tribes</i>, iv. p. 229.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_78-1_87" id="Footnote_78-1_87"></a><a href="#FNanchor_78-1_87"><span class="label">78-1</span></a> Hawkins, <i>Sketch of the Creek Country</i>, pp. 81, 82, and +Blomes, <i>Acc. of his Majesty’s Colonies</i>, p. 156, London, 1687, in +Castiglioni, <i>Viaggi nelle Stati Uniti</i>, i. p. 294.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_78-2_88" id="Footnote_78-2_88"></a><a href="#FNanchor_78-2_88"><span class="label">78-2</span></a> Peter Martyr, <i>De Reb. Ocean.</i>, Dec. i. lib. ix. The +story is also told more at length by the Brother Romain Pane, in the +essay on the ancient histories of the natives he drew up by the order of +Columbus. It has been reprinted with notes by the Abbé Brasseur, Paris, +1864, p. 438 sqq.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_79-1_89" id="Footnote_79-1_89"></a><a href="#FNanchor_79-1_89"><span class="label">79-1</span></a> Schoolcraft, <i>Ind. Tribes</i>, iv. p. 89.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_79-2_90" id="Footnote_79-2_90"></a><a href="#FNanchor_79-2_90"><span class="label">79-2</span></a> Brasseur, <i>Le Liv. Sac.</i>, Introd., p. cxvii.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_80-1_91" id="Footnote_80-1_91"></a><a href="#FNanchor_80-1_91"><span class="label">80-1</span></a> Diego de Landa, <i>Rel. de las Cosas de Yucatan</i>, pp. 160, +206, 208, ed. Brasseur. The learned editor, in a note to p. 208, states +erroneously the disposition of the colors, as may be seen by comparing +the document on p. 395. This dedication of colors to the cardinal points +is universal in Central Asia. The geographical names of the Red Sea, the +Black Sea, the Yellow Sea or Persian Gulf, and the White Sea or the +Mediterranean, are derived from this association. The cities of China, +many of them at least, have their gates which open toward the cardinal +points painted of certain colors, and precisely these four, the white, +the black, the red, and the yellow, are those which in Oriental myth the +mountain in the centre of Paradise shows to the different cardinal +points. (Sepp, <i>Heidenthum und Christenthum</i>, i. p. 177.) The +coincidence furnishes food for reflection.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_81-1_92" id="Footnote_81-1_92"></a><a href="#FNanchor_81-1_92"><span class="label">81-1</span></a> <i>Le Livre Sacré des Quichés</i>, pp. 203-5, note.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_82-1_93" id="Footnote_82-1_93"></a><a href="#FNanchor_82-1_93"><span class="label">82-1</span></a> The analogy is remarkable between these and the “quatre +actes de la puissance generatrice jusqu’à l’entier developpément des +corps organisés,” portrayed by four globes in the Mycenean bas-reliefs. +See Guigniaut, <i>Religions de l’Antiquité</i>, i. p. 374. It were easy to +multiply the instances of such parallelism in the growth of religious +thought in the Old and New World, but I designedly refrain from doing +so. They have already given rise to false theories enough, and moreover +my purpose in this work is not “comparative mythology.”</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_83-1_94" id="Footnote_83-1_94"></a><a href="#FNanchor_83-1_94"><span class="label">83-1</span></a> Müller, <i>Amer. Urreligionen</i>, p. 105, after Strahlheim, +who is, however, no authority.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_83-2_95" id="Footnote_83-2_95"></a><a href="#FNanchor_83-2_95"><span class="label">83-2</span></a> Müller, <i>ubi supra</i>, pp. 308 sqq., gives a good résumé +of the different versions of the myth of the four brothers in Peru.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_83-3_96" id="Footnote_83-3_96"></a><a href="#FNanchor_83-3_96"><span class="label">83-3</span></a> The Tupis of Brazil claim a descent from four brothers, +three of whose names are given by Hans Staden, a prisoner among them +about 1550, as Krimen, Hermittan, and Coem; the latter he explains to +mean the morning, the east (<i>le matin</i>, printed by mistake <i>le mutin</i>, +<i>Relation de Hans Staden de Homberg</i>, p. 274, ed. Ternaux-Compans, +compare Dias, <i>Dicc. da Lingua Tupy</i>, p. 47). Their southern relatives, +the Guaranis of Paraguay, also spoke of the four brothers and gave two +of their names as Tupi and Guarani, respectively parents of the tribes +called after them (Guevara, <i>Hist. del Paraguay</i>, lib. i. cap. ii., in +Waitz). The fourfold division of the Muyscas of Bogota was traced back +to four chieftains created by their hero god Nemqueteba (A. von +Humboldt, <i>Vues des Cordillères</i>, p. 246). The Nahuas of Mexico much +more frequently spoke of themselves as descendants of four or eight +original families than of seven (Humboldt, <i>ibid.</i>, p. 317, and others +in Waitz, <i>Anthropologie</i>, iv. pp. 36, 37). The Sacs or Sauks of the +Upper Mississippi supposed that two men and two women were first +created, and from these four sprang all men (Morse, <i>Rep. on Ind. +Affairs</i>, App. p. 138). The Ottoes, Pawnees, “and other Indians,” had a +tradition that from eight ancestors all nations and races were descended +(Id., p. 249). This duplication of the number probably arose from +assigning the first four men four women as wives. The division into +clans or totems which prevails in most northern tribes rests +theoretically on descent from different ancestors. The Shawnees and +Natchez were divided into four such clans, the Choctaws, Navajos, and +Iroquois into eight, thus proving that in those tribes also the myth I +have been discussing was recognized.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_85-1_97" id="Footnote_85-1_97"></a><a href="#FNanchor_85-1_97"><span class="label">85-1</span></a> Mandans in Catlin, <i>Letts. and Notes</i>, i. p. 181.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_85-2_98" id="Footnote_85-2_98"></a><a href="#FNanchor_85-2_98"><span class="label">85-2</span></a> The Mayas, Cogolludo, <i>Hist. de Yucathan</i>, lib. iv. cap. +8.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_85-3_99" id="Footnote_85-3_99"></a><a href="#FNanchor_85-3_99"><span class="label">85-3</span></a> The Navajos, Schoolcraft, <i>Ind. Tribes</i>, iv. p. 89.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_85-4_100" id="Footnote_85-4_100"></a><a href="#FNanchor_85-4_100"><span class="label">85-4</span></a> The Quichés, Ximenes, <i>Or. de los Indios</i>, p. 79.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_85-5_101" id="Footnote_85-5_101"></a><a href="#FNanchor_85-5_101"><span class="label">85-5</span></a> The Iroquois, Müller, <i>Amer. Urreligionen</i>, p. 109.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_85-6_102" id="Footnote_85-6_102"></a><a href="#FNanchor_85-6_102"><span class="label">85-6</span></a> For these myths see Sepp, <i>Das Heidenthum und dessen +Bedeutung für das Christenthum</i>, i. p. 111 sqq. The interpretation is of +course my own.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_87-1_103" id="Footnote_87-1_103"></a><a href="#FNanchor_87-1_103"><span class="label">87-1</span></a> Peter Martyr, <i>De Reb. Ocean.</i>, Dec. iii., lib. ix. p. +195; Colon, 1574.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_87-2_104" id="Footnote_87-2_104"></a><a href="#FNanchor_87-2_104"><span class="label">87-2</span></a> Ibid., Dec. iii., lib. x. p. 202.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_87-3_105" id="Footnote_87-3_105"></a><a href="#FNanchor_87-3_105"><span class="label">87-3</span></a> Florida was also long supposed to be the site of this +wondrous spring, and it is notorious that both Juan Ponce de Leon and De +Soto had some lurking hope of discovering it in their expeditions +thither. I have examined the myth somewhat at length in <i>Notes on the +Floridian Peninsula, its Literary History, Indian Tribes, and +Antiquities</i>, pp. 99, 100: Philadelphia, 1859.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_88-1_106" id="Footnote_88-1_106"></a><a href="#FNanchor_88-1_106"><span class="label">88-1</span></a> Sahagun, <i>Hist. de la Nueva España</i>, lib. iii. cap. +iii.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_88-2_107" id="Footnote_88-2_107"></a><a href="#FNanchor_88-2_107"><span class="label">88-2</span></a> <i>Le Livre Sacré des Quichés</i>, Introd., p. clviii.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_89-1_108" id="Footnote_89-1_108"></a><a href="#FNanchor_89-1_108"><span class="label">89-1</span></a> Memorial de Tecpan Atitlan, in Brasseur, <i>Hist. du +Mexique</i>, i. p. 167. The derivation of Tulan, or Tula, is extremely +uncertain. The Abbé Brasseur sees in it the <i>ultima Thule</i> of the +ancient geographers, which suits his idea of early American history. +Hernando De Soto found a village of this name on the Mississippi, or +near it. But on looking into Gallatin’s vocabularies, <i>tulla</i> turns out +to be the Choctaw word for <i>stone</i>, and as De Soto was then in the +Choctaw country, the coincidence is explained at once. Buschmann, who +spells it <i>Tollan</i>, takes it from <i>tolin</i>, a rush, and translates, +<i>juncetum</i>, <i>Ort der Binsen. Ueber die Aztekischen </i><a name="corr2" id="corr2"></a><ins class="correction" title="Ortsnamen"><i>Orstnamen</i></ins>, p. +682. Those who have attempted to make history from these mythological +fables have been much puzzled about the location of this mystic land. +Humboldt has placed it on the northwest coast, Cabrera at Palenque, +Clavigero north of Anahuac, etc. etc. Aztlan, literally, the White Land, +is another name of wholly mythical purport, which it would be equally +vain to seek on the terrestrial globe. In the extract in the text, the +word translated God is <i>Qabavil</i>, an old word for the highest god, +either from a root meaning to open, to disclose, or from one of similar +form signifying to wonder, to marvel; literally, therefore, the +Revealer, or the Wondrous One (<i>Vocab. de la Lengua Quiché</i>, p. 209: +Paris, 1862).</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_90-1_109" id="Footnote_90-1_109"></a><a href="#FNanchor_90-1_109"><span class="label">90-1</span></a> Ximenes, <i>Or. de los Indios</i>, p. 80, <i>Le Livre Sacré</i>, p. +195.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_90-2_110" id="Footnote_90-2_110"></a><a href="#FNanchor_90-2_110"><span class="label">90-2</span></a> Garcia, <i>Origen de los Indios</i>, lib. iv. cap. 4.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_91-1_111" id="Footnote_91-1_111"></a><a href="#FNanchor_91-1_111"><span class="label">91-1</span></a> Compare the German expression <i>sich orientiren</i>, to +right oneself by the east, to understand one’s surroundings.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_92-1_112" id="Footnote_92-1_112"></a><a href="#FNanchor_92-1_112"><span class="label">92-1</span></a> Hawkins, <i>Sketch of the Creek Country</i>, p. 80.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_92-2_113" id="Footnote_92-2_113"></a><a href="#FNanchor_92-2_113"><span class="label">92-2</span></a> See Jacob Grimm, <i>Geschichte der Deutschen Sprache</i>, p. +681</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_92-3_114" id="Footnote_92-3_114"></a><a href="#FNanchor_92-3_114"><span class="label">92-3</span></a> De Smet, Oregon Missions, p. 352.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_93-1_115" id="Footnote_93-1_115"></a><a href="#FNanchor_93-1_115"><span class="label">93-1</span></a> Bressani, <i>Relation Abrégé</i>, p. 93.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_93-2_116" id="Footnote_93-2_116"></a><a href="#FNanchor_93-2_116"><span class="label">93-2</span></a> Venegas, <i>Hist. of California</i>, i. p. 91: London, 1759.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_93-3_117" id="Footnote_93-3_117"></a><a href="#FNanchor_93-3_117"><span class="label">93-3</span></a> Cogolludo, <i>Hist. de Yucathan</i>, lib. iv. cap. iii.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_93-4_118" id="Footnote_93-4_118"></a><a href="#FNanchor_93-4_118"><span class="label">93-4</span></a> Alexander von Humboldt has asserted that the Quichuas +had other and very circumstantial terms to express the cardinal points +drawn from the positions of the son (<i>Ansichten der Natur</i>, ii. p. 368). +But the distinguished naturalist overlooked the literal meaning of the +phrases he quotes for north and south, <i>intip chaututa chayananpata</i> and +<i>intip chaupunchau chayananpata</i>, literally, the sun arriving toward the +midnight, the sun arriving toward the midday. These are evidently +translations of the Spanish <i>hacia la media noche</i>, <i>hacia el medio +dia</i>, for they could not have originated among a people under or south +of the equatorial line.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_94-1_119" id="Footnote_94-1_119"></a><a href="#FNanchor_94-1_119"><span class="label">94-1</span></a> Catlin, <i>Letters and Notes</i>, i., Letter 22; La Hontan, +<i>Mémoires</i>, ii. p. 151; Gumilla, <i>Hist. del Orinoco</i>, p. 159</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_96-1_120" id="Footnote_96-1_120"></a><a href="#FNanchor_96-1_120"><span class="label">96-1</span></a> On the worship of the cross in Mexico and Yucatan and +its invariable meaning as representing the gods of rain, consult +Ixtlilxochitl, <i>Hist. des Chichimeques</i>, p. 5; Sahagun, <i>Hist. de la +Nueva España</i>, lib. i. cap. ii.; Garcia, <i>Or. de los Indios</i>, lib. iii. +cap. vi. p. 109; Palacios, <i>Des. de la Prov. de Guatemala</i>, p. 29; +Cogolludo, <i>Hist. de Yucathan</i>, lib. iv. cap. ix.; Villagutierre +Sotomayor, <i>Hist. de el Itza y de el Lacandon</i>, lib. iii. cap. 8; and +many others might be mentioned.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_96-2_121" id="Footnote_96-2_121"></a><a href="#FNanchor_96-2_121"><span class="label">96-2</span></a> Rivero and Tschudi, <i>Peruvian Antiquities</i>, p. 162, +after J. Acosta.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_96-3_122" id="Footnote_96-3_122"></a><a href="#FNanchor_96-3_122"><span class="label">96-3</span></a> Loskiel, <i>Ges. der Miss. der evang. Brüder</i>, p. 60.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_97-1_123" id="Footnote_97-1_123"></a><a href="#FNanchor_97-1_123"><span class="label">97-1</span></a> Hawkins, <i>Sketch of the Creek Country</i>, p. 75. Lapham +and Pidgeon mention that in the State of Wisconsin many low mounds are +found in the form of a cross with the arms directed to the cardinal +points. They contain no remains. Were they not altars built to the Four +Winds? In the mythology of the Dakotas, who inhabited that region, the +winds were always conceived as birds, and for the cross they have a +native name literally signifying “the musquito hawk spread out” (Riggs, +<i>Dict. of the Dakota</i>, s. v.). Its Maya name is <i>vahom che</i>, the tree +erected or set up, the adjective being drawn from the military language +and implying as a defence or protection, as the warrior lifts his lance +or shield (Landa, <i>Rel. de las Cosas de Yucatan</i>, p. 65).</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_97-2_124" id="Footnote_97-2_124"></a><a href="#FNanchor_97-2_124"><span class="label">97-2</span></a> Squier, <i>The Serpent Symbol in America</i>, p. 98.</p> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2> + +<p class="chaptoc">THE SYMBOLS OF THE BIRD AND THE SERPENT.</p> + +<p class="chapintro">Relations of man to the lower animals.—Two of these, the <span class="smcap">Bird</span> and +the <span class="smcap">Serpent</span>, chosen as symbols beyond all others.—The Bird +throughout America the symbol of the Clouds and Winds.—Meaning of +certain species.—The symbolic meaning of the Serpent derived from +its mode of locomotion, its poisonous bite, and its power of +charming.—Usually the symbol of the Lightning and the Waters.—The +Rattlesnake the symbolic species in America.—The war charm.—The +Cross of Palenque.—The god of riches.—Both symbols devoid of +moral significance.</p> + + +<p class="noindent"><span class="dropcap">T</span><span class="upper">hose</span> stories which the Germans call <i>Thierfabeln</i>, wherein the actors +are different kinds of brutes, seem to have a particular relish for +children and uncultivated nations. Who cannot recall with what delight +he nourished his childish fancy on the pranks of Reynard the Fox, or the +tragic adventures of Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf? Every nation +has a congeries of such tales, and it is curious to mark how the same +animal reappears with the same imputed physiognomy in all of them. The +fox is always cunning, the wolf ravenous, the owl wise, and the ass +foolish. The question has been raised whether such traits were at first +actually ascribed to animals, or whether their introduction in story was +intended merely as an agreeable figure of speech for classes of men. We +cannot doubt but that the former was the case. Going back to the dawn of +civilization, we find these relations not as amusing fictions, but as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span> +myths, embodying religious tenets, and the brute heroes held up as the +ancestors of mankind, even as rightful claimants of man’s prayers and +praises.</p> + +<p>Man, the paragon of animals, praying to the beast, is a spectacle so +humiliating that, for the sake of our common humanity, we may seek the +explanation of it least degrading to the dignity of our race. We must +remember that as a hunter the primitive man was always matched against +the wild creatures of the woods, so superior to him in their dumb +certainty of instinct, their swift motion, their muscular force, their +permanent and sufficient clothing. Their ways were guided by a wit +beyond his divination, and they gained a living with little toil or +trouble. They did not mind the darkness so terrible to him, but through +the night called one to the other in a tongue whose meaning he could not +fathom, but which, he doubted not, was as full of purport as his own. He +did not recognize in himself those god-like qualities destined to endow +him with the royalty of the world, while far more clearly than we do he +saw the sly and strange faculties of his antagonists. They were to him, +therefore, not inferiors, but equals—even superiors. He doubted not +that once upon a time he had possessed their instinct, they his +language, but that some necromantic spell had been flung on them both to +keep them asunder. None but a potent sorcerer could break this charm, +but such an one could understand the chants of birds and the howls of +savage beasts, and on occasion transform himself into one or another +animal, and course the forest, the air, or the waters, as he saw fit. +Therefore, it was not the beast that he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span> worshipped, but that share of +the omnipresent deity which he thought he perceived under its +<span class="nowrap">form.<a name="FNanchor_101-1_125" id="FNanchor_101-1_125"></a><a href="#Footnote_101-1_125" class="fnanchor">101-1</a></span></p> + +<p>Beyond all others, two subdivisions of the animal kingdom have so +riveted the attention of men by their unusual powers, and enter so +frequently into the myths of every nation of the globe, that a right +understanding of their symbolic value is an essential preliminary to the +discussion of the divine legends. They are the <span class="smcap">Bird</span> and the <span class="smcap">Serpent</span>. We +shall not go amiss if we seek the reasons of their pre-eminence in the +facility with which their peculiarities offered sensuous images under +which to convey the idea of divinity, ever present in the soul of man, +ever striving at articulate expression.</p> + +<p>The bird has the incomprehensible power of flight; it floats in the +atmosphere, it rides on the winds, it soars toward heaven where dwell +the gods; its plumage is stained with the hues of the rainbow and the +sunset; its song was man’s first hint of music; it spurns the <a name="err1" id="err1"></a><ins class="errata" title="clouds">clods</ins> +that impede his footsteps, and flies proudly over the mountains and +moors where he toils wearily along. He sees no more enviable creature; +he conceives the gods and angels must also have wings; and pleases +himself with the fancy that he, too, some day will shake off this coil +of clay, and rise on pinions to the heavenly mansions. All living +beings, say the Eskimos, have the faculty of soul (<i>tarrak</i>), but +especially the <span class="nowrap">birds.<a name="FNanchor_101-2_126" id="FNanchor_101-2_126"></a><a href="#Footnote_101-2_126" class="fnanchor">101-2</a></span> As messengers from the upper world and +interpreters of its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span> decrees, the flight and the note of birds have ever +been anxiously observed as omens of grave import. “There is one bird +especially,” remarks the traveller Coreal, of the natives of Brazil, +“which they regard as of good augury. Its mournful chant is heard rather +by night than day. The savages say it is sent by their deceased friends +to bring them news from the other world, and to encourage them against +their <span class="nowrap">enemies.”<a name="FNanchor_102-1_127" id="FNanchor_102-1_127"></a><a href="#Footnote_102-1_127" class="fnanchor">102-1</a></span> In Peru and in Mexico there was a College of +Augurs, corresponding in purpose to the auspices of ancient Rome, who +practised no other means of divination than watching the course and +professing to interpret the songs of fowls. So natural and so general is +such a superstition, and so wide-spread is the respect it still obtains +in civilized and Christian lands, that it is not worth while to summon +witnesses to show that it prevailed universally among the red race also. +What imprinted it with redoubled force on their imagination was the +common belief that birds were not only divine nuncios, but the visible +spirits of their departed friends. The Powhatans held that a certain +small wood bird received the souls of their princes at death, and they +refrained religiously from doing it <span class="nowrap">harm;<a name="FNanchor_102-2_128" id="FNanchor_102-2_128"></a><a href="#Footnote_102-2_128" class="fnanchor">102-2</a></span> while the Aztecs and +various other nations thought that all good people, as a reward of +merit, were metamorphosed at the close of life into feathered songsters +of the grove, and in this form passed a certain term in the umbrageous +bowers of Paradise.</p> + +<p>But the usual meaning of the bird as a symbol<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span> looks to a different +analogy—to that which appears in such familiar expressions as “the +wings of the wind,” “the flying clouds.” Like the wind, the bird sweeps +through the aerial spaces, sings in the forests, and rustles on its +course; like the cloud, it floats in mid-air and casts its shadow on the +earth; like the lightning, it darts from heaven to earth to strike its +unsuspecting prey. These tropes were truths to savage nations, and led +on by that law of language which forced them to conceive everything as +animate or inanimate, itself the product of a deeper law of thought +which urges us to ascribe life to whatever has motion, they found no +animal so appropriate for their purpose here as the bird. Therefore the +Algonkins say that birds always make the winds, that they create the +water spouts, and that the clouds are the spreading and agitation of +their <span class="nowrap">wings;<a name="FNanchor_103-1_129" id="FNanchor_103-1_129"></a><a href="#Footnote_103-1_129" class="fnanchor">103-1</a></span> the Navajos, that at each cardinal point stands a +white swan, who is the spirit of the blasts which blow from its +dwelling; and the Dakotas, that in the west is the house of the +Wakinyan, the Flyers, the breezes that send the storms. So, also, they +frequently explain the thunder as the sound of the cloud-bird flapping +his wings, and the lightning as the fire that flashes from his tracks, +like the sparks which the buffalo scatters when he scours over a stony +<span class="nowrap">plain.<a name="FNanchor_103-2_130" id="FNanchor_103-2_130"></a><a href="#Footnote_103-2_130" class="fnanchor">103-2</a></span> The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span> thunder cloud was also a bird to the Caribs, and they +imagined it produced the lightning in true Carib fashion by blowing it +through a hollow reed, just as they to this day hurl their poisoned +<span class="nowrap">darts.<a name="FNanchor_104-1_131" id="FNanchor_104-1_131"></a><a href="#Footnote_104-1_131" class="fnanchor">104-1</a></span> Tupis, Iroquois, Athapascas, for certain, perhaps all the +families of the red race, were the subject pursued, partook of this +persuasion; among them all it would probably be found that the same +figures of speech were used in comparing clouds and winds with the +feathered species as among us, with however this most significant +difference, that whereas among us they are figures and nothing more, to +them they expressed literal facts.</p> + +<p>How important a symbol did they thus become! For the winds, the clouds, +producing the thunder and the changes that take place in the +ever-shifting panorama of the sky, the rain bringers, lords of the +seasons, and not this only, but the primary type of the soul, the life, +the breath of man and the world, these in their role in mythology are +second to nothing. Therefore as the symbol of these august powers, as +messenger of the gods, and as the embodiment of departed spirits, no one +will be surprised if they find the bird figure most prominently in the +myths of the red race.</p> + +<p>Sometimes some particular species seems to have been chosen as most +befitting these dignified attributes. No citizen of the United States +will be apt to assert that their instinct led the indigenes of our +territory astray when they chose with nigh unanimous consent the great +American eagle as that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span> fowl beyond all others proper to typify the +supreme control and the most admirable qualities. Its feathers composed +the war flag of the Creeks, and its images carved in wood or its stuffed +skin surmounted their council lodges (Bartram); none but an approved +warrior dare wear it among the Cherokees (Timberlake); and the Dakotas +allowed such an honor only to him who had first touched the corpse of +the common foe (De Smet). The Natchez and Akanzas seem to have paid it +even religious honors, and to have installed it in their most sacred +shrines (Sieur de Tonty, Du Pratz); and very clearly it was not so much +for ornament as for a mark of dignity and a recognized sign of worth +that its plumes were so highly prized. The natives of Zuñi, in New +Mexico, employed four of its feathers to represent the four winds in +their invocations for rain (Whipple), and probably it was the eagle +which a tribe in Upper California (the Acagchemem) worshipped under the +name Panes. Father Geronimo Boscana describes it as a species of +vulture, and relates that one of them was immolated yearly, with solemn +ceremony, in the temple of each village. Not a drop of blood was +spilled, and the body burned. Yet with an amount of faith that staggered +even the Romanist, the natives maintained and believed that it was the +same individual bird they sacrificed each year; more than this, that the +same bird was slain by each of the <span class="nowrap">villages!<a name="FNanchor_105-1_132" id="FNanchor_105-1_132"></a><a href="#Footnote_105-1_132" class="fnanchor">105-1</a></span></p> + +<p>The owl was regarded by Aztecs, Quichés, Mayas,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span> Peruvians, Araucanians, +and Algonkins as sacred to the lord of the dead. “The Owl” was one of +the names of the Mexican Pluto, whose realm was in the <span class="nowrap">north,<a name="FNanchor_106-1_133" id="FNanchor_106-1_133"></a><a href="#Footnote_106-1_133" class="fnanchor">106-1</a></span> and +the wind from that quarter was supposed by the Chipeways to be made by +the owl as the south by the <span class="nowrap">butterfly.<a name="FNanchor_106-2_134" id="FNanchor_106-2_134"></a><a href="#Footnote_106-2_134" class="fnanchor">106-2</a></span> As the bird of night, it +was the fit emissary of him who rules the darkness of the grave. +Something in the looks of the creature as it sapiently stares and blinks +in the light, or perhaps that it works while others sleep, got for it +the character of wisdom. So the Creek priests carried with them as the +badge of their learned profession the stuffed skin of one of these +birds, thus modestly hinting their erudite turn of <span class="nowrap">mind,<a name="FNanchor_106-3_135" id="FNanchor_106-3_135"></a><a href="#Footnote_106-3_135" class="fnanchor">106-3</a></span> and the +culture hero of the Monquis of California was represented, like Pallas +Athene, having one as his inseparable companion (Venegas).</p> + +<p>As the associate of the god of light and air, and as the antithesis +therefore of the owl, the Aztecs reverenced a bird called <i>quetzal</i>, +which I believe is a species of parroquet. Its plumage is of a bright +green hue, and was prized extravagantly as a decoration. It was one of +the symbols and part of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span> name of Quetzalcoatl, their mythical +civilizer, and the prince of all sorts of singing birds, myriads of whom +were fabled to accompany him on his journeys.</p> + +<p>The tender and hallowed associations that have so widely shielded the +dove from harm, which for instance Xenophon mentions among the ancient +Persians, were not altogether unknown to the tribes of the New World. +Neither the Hurons nor Mandans would kill them, for they believed they +were inhabited by the souls of the <span class="nowrap">departed,<a name="FNanchor_107-1_136" id="FNanchor_107-1_136"></a><a href="#Footnote_107-1_136" class="fnanchor">107-1</a></span> and it is said, but +on less satisfactory authority, that they enjoyed similar immunity among +the Mexicans. Their soft and plaintive note and sober russet hue widely +enlisted the sympathy of man, and linked them with his more tender +feelings.</p> + +<p>“As wise as the serpent, as harmless as the dove,” is an antithesis that +might pass current in any human language. They are the emblems of +complementary, often contrasted qualities. Of all animals, the serpent +is the most mysterious. No wonder it possessed the fancy of the +observant child of nature. Alone of creatures it swiftly progresses +without feet, fins, or wings. “There be three things which are too +wonderful for me, yea, four which I know not,” said wise King Solomon; +and the chief of them were, “the way of an eagle in the air, the way of +a serpent upon a rock.”</p> + +<p>Its sinuous course is like to nothing so much as that of a winding +river, which therefore we often call serpentine. So did the Indians. +Kennebec, a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span> stream in Maine, in the Algonkin means snake, and Antietam, +the creek in Maryland of tragic celebrity, in an Iroquois dialect has +the same significance. How easily would savages, construing the figure +literally, make the serpent a river or water god! Many species being +amphibious would confirm the idea. A lake watered by innumerable +tortuous rills wriggling into it, is well calculated for the fabled +abode of the king of the snakes. Thus doubtless it happened that both +Algonkins and Iroquois had a myth that in the great lakes dwelt a +monster serpent, of irascible temper, who unless appeased by meet +offerings raised a tempest or broke the ice beneath the feet of those +venturing on his domain, and swallowed them <span class="nowrap">down.<a name="FNanchor_108-1_137" id="FNanchor_108-1_137"></a><a href="#Footnote_108-1_137" class="fnanchor">108-1</a></span></p> + +<p>The rattlesnake was the species almost exclusively honored by the red +race. It is slow to attack, but venomous in the extreme, and possesses +the power of the basilisk to attract within reach of its spring small +birds and squirrels. Probably this much talked of fascination is nothing +more than by its presence near their nests to incite them to attack, and +to hazard near and nearer approaches to their enemy in hope to force him +to retreat, until once within the compass of his fell swoop they fall +victims to their temerity. I have often watched a cat act thus. Whatever +explanation may be received, the fact cannot be questioned, and is ever +attributed by the unreflecting, to some diabolic spell cast upon them by +the animal.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span> They have the same strange susceptibility to the influence +of certain sounds as the vipers, in which lies the secret of snake +charming. Most of the Indian magicians were familiar with this +singularity. They employed it with telling effect to put beyond question +their intercourse with the unseen powers, and to vindicate the potency +of their own guardian spirits who thus enabled them to handle with +impunity the most venomous of <span class="nowrap">reptiles.<a name="FNanchor_109-1_138" id="FNanchor_109-1_138"></a><a href="#Footnote_109-1_138" class="fnanchor">109-1</a></span> The well-known antipathy +of these serpents to certain plants, for instance the hazel, which bound +around the ankles is an efficient protection against their attacks, and +perhaps some antidote to their poison used by the magicians, led to +their frequent introduction in religious ceremonies. Such exhibitions +must have made a profound impression on the spectators, and redounded in +a corresponding degree to the glory of the performer. “Who is a manito?” +asks the mystic meda chant of the Algonkins. “He,” is the reply, “he who +walketh with a serpent, walking on the ground, he is a <span class="nowrap">manito.”<a name="FNanchor_109-2_139" id="FNanchor_109-2_139"></a><a href="#Footnote_109-2_139" class="fnanchor">109-2</a></span> +And the intimate alliance of this symbol with the most sacred mysteries +of re<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span>ligion, the darkest riddles of the Unknown, is reflected in their +language, and also in that of their neighbors the Dakotas, in both of +which the same words <i>manito</i>, <i>wakan</i>, which express divinity in its +broadest sense, are also used as generic terms signifying this species +of animals! This strange fact is not without a parallel, for in both +Arabic and Hebrew, the word for serpent has many derivatives, meaning to +have intercourse with demoniac powers, to practise magic, and to consult +familiar <span class="nowrap">spirits.<a name="FNanchor_110-1_140" id="FNanchor_110-1_140"></a><a href="#Footnote_110-1_140" class="fnanchor">110-1</a></span></p> + +<p>The pious founder of the Moravian brotherhood, the Count of Zinzendorf, +owed his life on one occasion to this deeply rooted superstition. He was +visiting a missionary station among the Shawnees, in the Wyoming valley. +Recent quarrels with the whites had unusually irritated this unruly +folk, and they resolved to make him their first victim. After he had +retired to his secluded hut, several of their braves crept upon him, and +cautiously lifting the corner of the lodge, peered in. The venerable man +was seated before a little fire, a volume of the Scriptures on his +knees, lost in the perusal of the sacred words. While they gazed, a huge +rattlesnake, unnoticed by him, trailed across his feet, and rolled +itself into a coil in the comfortable warmth of the fire. Immediately +the would-be murderers forsook their purpose and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span> noiselessly retired, +convinced that this was indeed a man of God.</p> + +<p>A more unique trait than any of these is its habit of casting its skin +every spring, thus as it were renewing its life. In temperate latitudes +the rattlesnake, like the leaves and flowers, retires from sight during +the cold season, and at the return of kindly warmth puts on a new and +brilliant coat. Its cast-off skin was carefully collected by the savages +and stored in the medicine bag as possessing remedial powers of high +excellence. Itself thus immortal, they thought it could impart its +vitality to them. So when the mother was travailing in sore pain, and +the danger neared that the child would be born silent, the attending +women hastened to catch some serpent and give her its blood to +<span class="nowrap">drink.<a name="FNanchor_111-1_141" id="FNanchor_111-1_141"></a><a href="#Footnote_111-1_141" class="fnanchor">111-1</a></span></p> + +<p>It is well known that in ancient art this animal was the symbol of +Æsculapius, and to this day, Professor Agassiz found that the Maues +Indians, who live between the upper Tapajos and Madeira Rivers in +Brazil, whenever they assign a form to any “remedio,” give it that of a +<span class="nowrap">serpent.<a name="FNanchor_111-2_142" id="FNanchor_111-2_142"></a><a href="#Footnote_111-2_142" class="fnanchor">111-2</a></span></p> + +<p>Probably this notion that it was annually rejuvenated led to its +adoption as a symbol of Time among the Aztecs; or, perchance, as they +reckoned by suns, and the figure of the sun, a circle, corresponds to +nothing animate but a serpent with its tail in its mouth, eating itself, +as it were, this may have been its origin. Either of them is more likely +than that the symbol arose from the recondite reflection that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span> time is +“never ending, still beginning, still creating, still destroying,” as +has been suggested.</p> + +<p>Only, however, within the last few years has the significance of the +serpent symbol in its length and breadth been satisfactorily explained, +and its frequent recurrence accounted for. By a searching analysis of +Greek and German mythology, Dr. Schwarz, of Berlin, has shown that the +meaning which is paramount to all others in this emblem is <i>the +lightning</i>; a meaning drawn from the close analogy which the serpent in +its motion, its quick spring, and mortal bite, has to the zigzag course, +the rapid flash, and sudden stroke of the electric discharge. He even +goes so far as to imagine that by this resemblance the serpent first +acquired the veneration of men. But this is an extravagance not +supported by more thorough research. He has further shown with great +aptness of illustration how, by its dread effects, the lightning, the +heavenly serpent, became the god of terror and the opponent of such +heroes as Beowulf, St. George, Thor, Perseus, and others, mythical +representations of the fearful war of the elements in the thunder storm; +how from its connection with the advancing summer and fertilizing +showers it bore the opposite character of the deity of fruitfulness, +riches, and plenty; how, as occasionally kindling the woods where it +strikes, it was associated with the myths of the descent of fire from +heaven, and as in popular imagination where it falls it scatters the +thunderbolts in all directions, the flint-stones which flash when struck +were supposed to be these fragments, and gave rise to the stone worship +so frequent in the old world; and how, finally, the prevalent myth of a +king of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span> serpents crowned with a glittering stone or wearing a horn is +but another type of the <span class="nowrap">lightning.<a name="FNanchor_113-1_143" id="FNanchor_113-1_143"></a><a href="#Footnote_113-1_143" class="fnanchor">113-1</a></span> Without accepting unreservedly +all these conclusions, I shall show how correct they are in the main +when applied to the myths of the New World, and thereby illustrate how +the red race is of one blood and one faith with our own remote ancestors +in heathen Europe and Central Asia.</p> + +<p>It asks no elaborate effort of the imagination to liken the lightning to +a serpent. It does not require any remarkable acuteness to guess the +conundrum of Schiller:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="first">“Unter allen Schlangen ist eine<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Auf Erden nicht gezeugt,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Mit der an Schnelle keine,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">An Wuth sich keine vergleicht.”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>When Father Buteux was a missionary among the Algonkins, in 1637, he +asked them their opinion of the nature of lightning. “It is an immense +serpent,” they replied, “which the Manito is vomiting forth; you can see +the twists and folds that he leaves on the trees which he strikes; and +underneath such trees we have often found huge snakes.” “Here is a novel +philosophy for you!” exclaims the <span class="nowrap">Father.<a name="FNanchor_113-2_144" id="FNanchor_113-2_144"></a><a href="#Footnote_113-2_144" class="fnanchor">113-2</a></span> So the Shawnees called +the thunder “the hissing of the great <span class="nowrap">snake;”<a name="FNanchor_113-3_145" id="FNanchor_113-3_145"></a><a href="#Footnote_113-3_145" class="fnanchor">113-3</a></span> and Tlaloc, the +Toltec thunder god, held in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span> his hand a serpent of gold to represent the +<span class="nowrap">lightning.<a name="FNanchor_114-1_146" id="FNanchor_114-1_146"></a><a href="#Footnote_114-1_146" class="fnanchor">114-1</a></span> For this reason the Caribs spoke of the god of the +thunder storm as a great serpent dwelling in the fruit <span class="nowrap">forests,<a name="FNanchor_114-2_147" id="FNanchor_114-2_147"></a><a href="#Footnote_114-2_147" class="fnanchor">114-2</a></span> +and in the Quiché legends other names for Hurakan, the hurricane or +thunder-storm, are the Strong Serpent, He who hurls below, referring to +the <span class="nowrap">lightning.<a name="FNanchor_114-3_148" id="FNanchor_114-3_148"></a><a href="#Footnote_114-3_148" class="fnanchor">114-3</a></span></p> + +<p>Among the Hurons, in 1648, the Jesuits found a legend current that there +existed somewhere a monster serpent called Onniont, who wore on his head +a horn that pierced rocks, trees, hills, in short everything he +encountered. Whoever could get a piece of this horn was a fortunate man, +for it was a sovereign charm and bringer of good luck. The Hurons +confessed that none of them had had the good hap to find the monster and +break his horn, nor indeed had they any idea of his whereabouts; but +their neighbors, the Algonkins, furnished them at times small fragments +for a large <span class="nowrap">consideration.<a name="FNanchor_114-4_149" id="FNanchor_114-4_149"></a><a href="#Footnote_114-4_149" class="fnanchor">114-4</a></span> Clearly the myth had been taught them +for venal purposes by their trafficking visitors. Now among the +Algonkins, the Shawnee tribe did more than all others combined to +introduce and carry about religious legends and ceremonies. From the +earliest times they seem to have had peculiar aptitude for the +ecstasies, deceits, and fancies that made up the spiritual life of their +associates. Their constantly roving life brought them in contact with +the myths of many nations. And it is extremely probable that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span> they first +brought the tale of the horned serpent from the Creeks and Cherokees. It +figured extensively in the legends of both these tribes.</p> + +<p>The latter related that once upon a time among the glens of their +mountains dwelt the prince of rattlesnakes. Obedient subjects guarded +his palace, and on his head glittered in place of a crown a gem of +marvellous magic virtues. Many warriors and magicians tried to get +possession of this precious talisman, but were destroyed by the poisoned +fangs of its defenders. Finally, one more inventive than the rest hit +upon the bright idea of encasing himself in leather, and by this device +marched unharmed through the hissing and snapping court, tore off the +shining jewel, and bore it in triumph to his nation. They preserved it +with religious care, brought it forth on state occasions with solemn +ceremony, and about the middle of the last century, when Captain +Timberlake penetrated to their towns, told him its <span class="nowrap">origin.<a name="FNanchor_115-1_150" id="FNanchor_115-1_150"></a><a href="#Footnote_115-1_150" class="fnanchor">115-1</a></span></p> + +<p>The charm which the Creeks presented their young men when they set out +on the war path was of very similar character. It was composed of the +bones of the panther and the horn of the fabulous horned snake. +According to a legend taken down by an unimpeachable authority toward +the close of the last century, the great snake dwelt in the waters; the +old people went to the brink and sang the sacred songs. The monster rose +to the surface. The sages recommenced the mystic chants. He rose a +little out <a name="corr3" id="corr3"></a><ins class="correction" title="of">o</ins><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span> the water. Again they repeated the songs. This time +he showed his horns and they cut one off. Still a fourth time did they +sing, and as he rose to listen cut off the remaining horn. A fragment of +these in the “war physic” protected from inimical arrows and gave +success in the <span class="nowrap">conflict.<a name="FNanchor_116-1_151" id="FNanchor_116-1_151"></a><a href="#Footnote_116-1_151" class="fnanchor">116-1</a></span></p> + +<p>In these myths, which attribute good fortune to the horn of the snake, +that horn which pierces trees and rocks, which rises from the waters, +which glitters as a gem, which descends from the ravines of the +mountains, we shall not overstep the bounds of prudent reasoning if we +see the thunderbolt, sign of the fructifying rain, symbol of the +strength of the lightning, horn of the heavenly serpent. They are +strictly meteorological in their meaning. And when in later Algonkin +tradition the hero Michabo appears in conflict with the shining prince +of serpents who lives in the lake and floods the earth with its waters, +and destroys the reptile with a dart, and further when the conqueror +clothes himself with the skin of his foe and drives the rest of the +serpents to the south where in that latitude the lightnings are last +seen in the <span class="nowrap">autumn;<a name="FNanchor_116-2_152" id="FNanchor_116-2_152"></a><a href="#Footnote_116-2_152" class="fnanchor">116-2</a></span> or when in the traditional history of the +Iroquois we hear of another great horned serpent rising out of the lake +and preying upon the people until a similar hero-god destroys it with a +<span class="nowrap">thunderbolt,<a name="FNanchor_116-3_153" id="FNanchor_116-3_153"></a><a href="#Footnote_116-3_153" class="fnanchor">116-3</a></span> we cannot be wrong in rejecting any historical or +ethical interpretation, and in construing them as allegories which at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span> +first represented the atmospheric changes which accompany the advancing +seasons and the ripening harvests. They are narratives conveying under +agreeable personifications the tidings of that unending combat which the +Dakotas said was being waged with varying fortunes by Unktahe against +Wauhkeon, the God of Waters against the Thunder <span class="nowrap">Bird.<a name="FNanchor_117-1_154" id="FNanchor_117-1_154"></a><a href="#Footnote_117-1_154" class="fnanchor">117-1</a></span> They are +the same stories which in the old world have been elaborated into the +struggles of Ormuzd and Ahriman, of Thor and Midgard, of St. George and +the Dragon, and a thousand others.</p> + +<p>Yet it were but a narrow theory of natural religion that allowed no +other meaning to these myths. Many another elemental warfare is being +waged around us, and applications as various as nature herself lie in +these primitive creations of the human fancy. Let it only be remembered +that there was never any moral, never any historical purport in them in +the infancy of religious life.</p> + +<p>In snake charming as a proof of proficiency in magic, and in the symbol +of the lightning, which brings both fire and water, which in its might +controls victory in war, and in its frequency, plenteous crops at home, +lies the secret of the serpent symbol. As the “war physic” among the +tribes of the United States was a fragment of a serpent, and as thus +signifying his incomparable skill in war, the Iroquois<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span> represent their +mythical king Atatarho clothed in nothing but black snakes; so that when +he wished to don a new suit he simply drove away one set and ordered +another to take their <span class="nowrap">places,<a name="FNanchor_118-1_155" id="FNanchor_118-1_155"></a><a href="#Footnote_118-1_155" class="fnanchor">118-1</a></span> so, by a precisely similar mental +process, the myth of the Nahuas assigns as a mother to their war god +Huitzilapochtli, Coatlicue, the robe of serpents; her dwelling place +Coatepec, the hill of serpents; and at her lying-in say that she brought +forth a serpent. Her son’s image was surrounded by serpents, his sceptre +was in the shape of one, his great drum was of serpents’ skins, and his +statue rested on four vermiform caryatides.</p> + +<p>As the symbol of the fertilizing summer showers the lightning serpent +was the god of fruitfulness. Born in the atmospheric waters, it was an +appropriate attribute of the ruler of the winds. But we have already +seen that the winds were often spoken of as great birds. Hence the union +of these two emblems in such names as Quetzalcoatl, Gucumatz, Kukulkan, +all titles of the god of the air in the languages of Central America, +all signifying the “Bird-serpent.” Here also we see the solution of that +monument which has so puzzled American antiquaries, the cross at +Palenque. It is a tablet on the wall of an altar representing a cross +surmounted by a bird and supported by the head of a serpent. The latter +is not well defined in the plate in Mr. Stephens’ Travels, but is very +distinct in the photographs taken by M. Charnay, which that gentleman +was kind enough to show me. The cross I have previously shown was the +symbol of the four winds, and the bird and serpent<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span> are simply the rebus +of the air god, their <span class="nowrap">ruler.<a name="FNanchor_119-1_156" id="FNanchor_119-1_156"></a><a href="#Footnote_119-1_156" class="fnanchor">119-1</a></span> Quetzalcoatl, called also Yolcuat, +the rattlesnake, was no less intimately associated with serpents than +with birds. The entrance to his temple at Mexico represented the jaws of +one of these reptiles, and he finally disappeared in the province of +Coatzacoalco, the hiding place of the serpent, sailing towards the east +in a bark of serpents’ skins. All this refers to his power over the +lightning serpent.</p> + +<p>He was also said to be the god of riches and the patron consequently of +merchants. For with the summer lightning come the harvest and the +ripening fruits, come riches and traffic. Moreover “the golden color of +the liquid fire,” as Lucretius expresses it, naturally led where this +metal was known, to its being deemed the product of the lightning. Thus +originated many of those tales of a dragon who watches a treasure in the +earth, and of a serpent who is the dispenser of riches, such as were +found among the Greeks and ancient <span class="nowrap">Germans.<a name="FNanchor_119-2_157" id="FNanchor_119-2_157"></a><a href="#Footnote_119-2_157" class="fnanchor">119-2</a></span> So it was in Peru +where the god of riches was worshipped under the image of a rattlesnake +horned and hairy, with a tail of gold. It was said to have descended +from the heavens in the sight of all the people, and to have been seen +by the whole army of the <span class="nowrap">Inca.<a name="FNanchor_119-3_158" id="FNanchor_119-3_158"></a><a href="#Footnote_119-3_158" class="fnanchor">119-3</a></span> Whether<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span> it was in reference to +it, or as emblems of their prowess, that the Incas themselves chose as +their arms two serpents with their tails interlaced, is uncertain; +possibly one for each of these significations.</p> + +<p>Because the rattlesnake, the lightning serpent, is thus connected with +the food of man, and itself seems never to die but annually to renew its +youth, the Algonkins called it “grandfather” and “king of snakes;” they +feared to injure it; they believed it could grant prosperous breezes, or +raise disastrous tempests; crowned with the lunar crescent it was the +constant symbol of life in their picture writing; and in the meda signs +the mythical grandmother of mankind <i>me suk kum me go kwa</i> was +indifferently represented by an old woman or a <span class="nowrap">serpent.<a name="FNanchor_120-1_159" id="FNanchor_120-1_159"></a><a href="#Footnote_120-1_159" class="fnanchor">120-1</a></span> For like +reasons Cihuacoatl, the Serpent Woman, in the myths of the Nahuas was +also called Tonantzin, our <span class="nowrap">mother.<a name="FNanchor_120-2_160" id="FNanchor_120-2_160"></a><a href="#Footnote_120-2_160" class="fnanchor">120-2</a></span></p> + +<p>The serpent symbol in America has, however, been brought into undue +prominence. It had such an ominous significance in Christian art, and +one which chimed so well with the favorite proverb of the early +missionaries—“the gods of the heathens are devils”—that wherever they +saw a carving or picture of a serpent they at once recognized the sign +manual of the Prince of Darkness, and inscribed the fact in their +note-books as proof positive of their cherished theory.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span> After going +over the whole ground, I am convinced that none of the tribes of the red +race attached to this symbol any ethical significance whatever, and that +as employed to express atmospheric phenomena, and the recognition of +divinity in natural occurrences, it far more frequently typified what +was favorable and agreeable than the reverse.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"> + +<p><a name="Footnote_101-1_125" id="Footnote_101-1_125"></a><a href="#FNanchor_101-1_125"><span class="label">101-1</span></a> That these were the real views entertained by the +Indians in regard to the brute creation, see Heckewelder, <i>Acc. of the +Ind. Nations</i>, p. 247; Schoolcraft, <i>Ind. Tribes</i>, iii. p. 520.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_101-2_126" id="Footnote_101-2_126"></a><a href="#FNanchor_101-2_126"><span class="label">101-2</span></a> Egede, <i>Nachrichten von Grönland</i>, p. 156.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_102-1_127" id="Footnote_102-1_127"></a><a href="#FNanchor_102-1_127"><span class="label">102-1</span></a> <i>Voiages aux Indes Occidentales</i>, pt. ii. p. 203: Amst. +1722.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_102-2_128" id="Footnote_102-2_128"></a><a href="#FNanchor_102-2_128"><span class="label">102-2</span></a> Beverly, <i>Hist. de la Virginie</i>, liv. iii. chap. viii.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_103-1_129" id="Footnote_103-1_129"></a><a href="#FNanchor_103-1_129"><span class="label">103-1</span></a> Schoolcraft, <i>Ind. Tribes</i>, v. p. 420.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_103-2_130" id="Footnote_103-2_130"></a><a href="#FNanchor_103-2_130"><span class="label">103-2</span></a> Mrs. Eastman, <i>Legends of the Sioux</i>, p. 191: New York, +1849. This is a trustworthy and meritorious book, which can be said of +very few collections of Indian traditions. They were collected during a +residence of seven years in our northwestern territories, and are +usually verbally faithful to the native narrations.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_104-1_131" id="Footnote_104-1_131"></a><a href="#FNanchor_104-1_131"><span class="label">104-1</span></a> Müller, <i>Amer. Urreligionen</i>, p. 222, after De la +Borde.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_105-1_132" id="Footnote_105-1_132"></a><a href="#FNanchor_105-1_132"><span class="label">105-1</span></a> <i>Acc. of the Inds. of California</i>, ch. ix. Eng. trans. +by Robinson: New York, 1847. The Acagchemem were a branch of the Netela +tribe, who dwelt near the mission San Juan Capistrano (see Buschmann, +<i>Spuren der Aztek. Sprache</i>, etc., p. 548).</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_106-1_133" id="Footnote_106-1_133"></a><a href="#FNanchor_106-1_133"><span class="label">106-1</span></a> Called in the Aztec tongue <i>Tecolotl</i>, night owl; +literally, the stone scorpion. The transfer was mythological. The +Christians prefixed to this word <i>tlaca</i>, man, and thus formed a name +for Satan, which Prescott and others have translated “rational owl.” No +such deity existed in ancient Anahuac (see Buschmann, <i>Die Voelker und +Sprachen Neu Mexico’s</i>, p. 262).</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_106-2_134" id="Footnote_106-2_134"></a><a href="#FNanchor_106-2_134"><span class="label">106-2</span></a> Schoolcraft, <i>Ind. Tribes</i>, v. p. 420.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_106-3_135" id="Footnote_106-3_135"></a><a href="#FNanchor_106-3_135"><span class="label">106-3</span></a> William Bartram, Travels, p. 504. Columbus found the +natives of the Antilles wearing tunics with figures of these birds +embroidered upon them. Prescott, <i>Conq. of Mexico</i>, i. p. 58, note.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_107-1_136" id="Footnote_107-1_136"></a><a href="#FNanchor_107-1_136"><span class="label">107-1</span></a> <i>Rel. de la Nouv. France</i>, An 1636, ch. ix. Catlin, +<i>Letters and notes</i>, Lett. 22.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_108-1_137" id="Footnote_108-1_137"></a><a href="#FNanchor_108-1_137"><span class="label">108-1</span></a> <i>Rel. de la Nouv. France</i>, An 1648, p. 75; Cusic, +<i>Trad. Hist. of the Six Nations</i>, pt. iii. The latter is the work of a +native Tuscarora chief. It is republished in Schoolcraft’s Indian +Tribes, but is of little value.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_109-1_138" id="Footnote_109-1_138"></a><a href="#FNanchor_109-1_138"><span class="label">109-1</span></a> For example, in Brazil, Müller, <i>Amer. Urrelig.</i>, p. +277; in Yucatan, Cogolludo, <i>Hist. de Yucathan</i>, lib. iv. cap. 4; among +the western Algonkins, <i>Hennepin, Decouverte dans l’Amer. Septen</i>. +chap. 33. Dr. Hammond has expressed the opinion that the North American +Indians enjoy the same immunity from the virus of the rattlesnake, that +certain African tribes do from some vegetable poisons (<i>Hygiene</i>, p. +73). But his observation must be at fault, for many travellers mention +the dread these serpents inspired, and the frequency of death from their +bites, e. g. <i>Rel. Nouv. France</i>. 1667, p. 22.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_109-2_139" id="Footnote_109-2_139"></a><a href="#FNanchor_109-2_139"><span class="label">109-2</span></a> <i>Narrative of the Captivity and Adventures of John +Tanner</i>, p. 356.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_110-1_140" id="Footnote_110-1_140"></a><a href="#FNanchor_110-1_140"><span class="label">110-1</span></a> See Gallatin’s vocabularies in the second volume of the +<i>Trans. Am. Antiq. Soc.</i> under the word <i>Snake</i>. In Arabic <i>dzann</i> is +serpent; <i>dzanan</i> a spirit, a soul, or the heart. So in Hebrew <i>nachas</i>, +serpent, has many derivatives signifying to hold intercourse with +demons, to conjure, a magician, etc. See Noldeke in the <i>Zeitschrift für +Voelkerpsychologie und Sprachwissenschaft</i>, i. p. 413.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_111-1_141" id="Footnote_111-1_141"></a><a href="#FNanchor_111-1_141"><span class="label">111-1</span></a> Alexander Henry, <i>Travels</i>, p. 117.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_111-2_142" id="Footnote_111-2_142"></a><a href="#FNanchor_111-2_142"><span class="label">111-2</span></a> <i>Bost. Med. and Surg. Journal</i>, vol. 76, p. 21.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_113-1_143" id="Footnote_113-1_143"></a><a href="#FNanchor_113-1_143"><span class="label">113-1</span></a> Schwarz, <i>Der Ursprung der Mythologie dargelegt an +Griechischer und Deutscher Sage</i>: Berlin, 1860, <i>passim</i>.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_113-2_144" id="Footnote_113-2_144"></a><a href="#FNanchor_113-2_144"><span class="label">113-2</span></a> <i>Rel. de la Nouv. France</i>: An 1637, p. 53.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_113-3_145" id="Footnote_113-3_145"></a><a href="#FNanchor_113-3_145"><span class="label">113-3</span></a> <i>Sagen der Nord-Amer. Indianer</i>, p. 21. This is a +German translation of part of Jones’s <i>Legends of the N. Am. Inds.</i>: +London, 1820. Their value as mythological material is very small.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_114-1_146" id="Footnote_114-1_146"></a><a href="#FNanchor_114-1_146"><span class="label">114-1</span></a> Torquemada, <i>Monarquia Indiana</i>, lib. vi. cap. 37.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_114-2_147" id="Footnote_114-2_147"></a><a href="#FNanchor_114-2_147"><span class="label">114-2</span></a> Müller, <i>Amer. Urrelig.</i>, 221, after De la Borde.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_114-3_148" id="Footnote_114-3_148"></a><a href="#FNanchor_114-3_148"><span class="label">114-3</span></a> <i>Le Livre Sacré des Quichés</i>, p. 3.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_114-4_149" id="Footnote_114-4_149"></a><a href="#FNanchor_114-4_149"><span class="label">114-4</span></a> <i>Rel. de la Nouv. France</i>, 1648, p. 75.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_115-1_150" id="Footnote_115-1_150"></a><a href="#FNanchor_115-1_150"><span class="label">115-1</span></a> <i>Memoirs of Lieut. Henry Timberlake</i>, p. 48: London, +1765. This little book gives an account of the Cherokees at an earlier +date than is elsewhere found.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_116-1_151" id="Footnote_116-1_151"></a><a href="#FNanchor_116-1_151"><span class="label">116-1</span></a> Hawkins, <i>Sketch of the Creek Country</i>, p. 80.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_116-2_152" id="Footnote_116-2_152"></a><a href="#FNanchor_116-2_152"><span class="label">116-2</span></a> Schoolcraft, <i>Algic Researches</i>, i. p. 179 sq.; compare +ii. p. 117.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_116-3_153" id="Footnote_116-3_153"></a><a href="#FNanchor_116-3_153"><span class="label">116-3</span></a> Morgan, <i>League of the Iroquois</i>, p. 159; Cusic, <i>Trad. +Hist. of the Six Nations</i>, pt. ii.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_117-1_154" id="Footnote_117-1_154"></a><a href="#FNanchor_117-1_154"><span class="label">117-1</span></a> Mrs. Eastman, <i>Legends of the Sioux</i>, pp. 161, 212. In +this explanation I depart from Prof. Schwarz, who has collected various +legends almost identical with these of the Indians (with which he was +not acquainted), and interpreted the precious crown or horn to be the +summer sun, brought forth by the early vernal lightning. <i>Ursprung der +Mythologie</i>, p. 27, note.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_118-1_155" id="Footnote_118-1_155"></a><a href="#FNanchor_118-1_155"><span class="label">118-1</span></a> Cusic, u. s., pt. ii.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_119-1_156" id="Footnote_119-1_156"></a><a href="#FNanchor_119-1_156"><span class="label">119-1</span></a> This remarkable relic has been the subject of a long +and able article in the <i>Revue Américaine</i> (tom. ii. p. 69), by the +venerable traveller De Waldeck. Like myself—and I had not seen his +opinion until after the above was written—he explains the cruciform +design as indicating the four cardinal points, but offers the +explanation merely as a suggestion, and without referring to these +symbols as they appear in so many other connections.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_119-2_157" id="Footnote_119-2_157"></a><a href="#FNanchor_119-2_157"><span class="label">119-2</span></a> Schwarz, <i>Ursprung der Mythologie</i>, pp. 62 sqq.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_119-3_158" id="Footnote_119-3_158"></a><a href="#FNanchor_119-3_158"><span class="label">119-3</span></a> “I have examined many Indians in reference to these +details,” says the narrator, an Augustin monk writing in 1554, “and they +have all confirmed them as eye-witnesses” (<i>Lettre sur les Superstitions +du Pérou</i>, p. 106, ed. Ternaux-Compans. This document is very +valuable).</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_120-1_159" id="Footnote_120-1_159"></a><a href="#FNanchor_120-1_159"><span class="label">120-1</span></a> <i>Narrative of John Tanner</i>, p. 355; Henry, <i>Travels</i>, +p. 176.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_120-2_160" id="Footnote_120-2_160"></a><a href="#FNanchor_120-2_160"><span class="label">120-2</span></a> Torquemada, <i>Monarquia Indiana</i>, lib. vi. cap. 31.</p> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V.</h2> + +<p class="chaptoc">THE MYTHS OF WATER, FIRE, AND THE THUNDER-STORM.</p> + +<p class="chapintro">Water the oldest element.—Its use in purification.—Holy +water.—The Rite of Baptism.—The Water of Life.—Its symbols.—The +Vase.—The Moon.—The latter the goddess of love and agriculture, +but also of sickness, night, and pain.—Often represented by a +dog.—Fire worship under the form of Sun worship.—The perpetual +fire.—The new fire—Burning the dead.—A worship of the passions, +but no sexual dualism in myths, nor any phallic worship in +America.—Synthesis of the worship of Fire, Water, and the Winds in +the <span class="smcap">Thunder-storm</span>, personified as Haokah, Tupa, Catequil, Contici, +Heno, Tlaloc, Mixcoatl, and other deities, many of them triune.</p> + + +<p class="noindent"><span class="dropcap">T</span><span class="upper">he</span> primitive man was a brute in everything but the susceptibility to +culture; the chief market of his time was to sleep, fight, and feed; his +bodily comfort alone had any importance in his eyes; and his gods were +nothing, unless they touched him here. Cold, hunger, thirst, these were +the hounds that were ever on his track; these were the fell powers he +saw constantly snatching away his fellows, constantly aiming their +invisible shafts at himself. Fire, food, and water were the gods that +fought on his side; they were the chief figures in his pantheon, his +kindliest, perhaps his earliest, divinities.</p> + +<p>With a nearly unanimous voice mythologies assign the priority to water. +It was the first of all things, the parent of all things. Even the gods +themselves were born of water, said the Greeks and the Aztecs.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span> +Cosmogonies reach no further than the primeval ocean that rolled its +shoreless waves through a timeless night.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class="center"> +“Omnia pontus erant, deerant quoque litora ponto.”<br /> +</p> +</div> + +<p>Earth, sun, stars, lay concealed in its fathomless abysses. “All of us,” +ran the Mexican baptismal formula, “are children of Chalchihuitlycue, +Goddess of Water,” and the like was said by the Peruvians of Mama Cocha, +by the Botocudos of Taru, by the natives of Darien of Dobayba, by the +Iroquois of Ataensic—all of them mothers of mankind, all +personifications of water.</p> + +<p>How account for such unanimity? Not by supposing some ancient +intercourse between remote tribes, but by the uses of water as the +originator and supporter, the essential prerequisite of life. Leaving +aside the analogy presented by the motherly waters which nourish the +unborn child, nor emphasizing how indispensable it is as a beverage, the +many offices this element performs in nature lead easily to the +supposition that it must have preceded all else. By quenching thirst, it +quickens life; as the dew and the rain it feeds the plant, and when +withheld the seed perishes in the ground and forests and flowers alike +wither away; as the fountain, the river, and the lake, it enriches the +valley, offers safe retreats, and provides store of fishes; as the +ocean, it presents the most fitting type of the infinite. It cleanses, +it purifies; it produces, it preserves. “Bodies, unless dissolved, +cannot act,” is a maxim of the earliest chemistry. Very plausibly, +therefore, was it assumed as the source of all things.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span></p> + +<p>The adoration of streams, springs, and lakes, or rather of the spirits +their rulers, prevailed everywhere; sometimes avowedly because they +provided food, as was the case with the Moxos, who called themselves +children of the lake or river on which their village was, and were +afraid to migrate lest their parent should be <span class="nowrap">vexed;<a name="FNanchor_124-1_161" id="FNanchor_124-1_161"></a><a href="#Footnote_124-1_161" class="fnanchor">124-1</a></span> sometimes +because they were the means of irrigation, as in Peru, or on more +general mythical grounds. A grove by a fountain is in all nature worship +the ready-made shrine of the sylphs who live in its limpid waves and +chatter mysteriously in its shallows. On such a spot in our Gulf States +one rarely fails to find the sacrificial mound of the ancient +inhabitants, and on such the natives of Central America were wont to +erect their altars (Ximenes). Lakes are the natural centres of +civilization. Like the lacustrine villages which the Swiss erected in +ante-historic times, like ancient Venice, the city of Mexico was first +built on piles in a lake, and for the same reason—protection from +attack. Security once obtained, growth and power followed. Thus we can +trace the earliest rays of Aztec civilization rising from lake Tezcuco, +of the Peruvian from Lake Titicaca, of the Muyscas from Lake Guatavita. +These are the centres of legendary cycles. Their waters were hallowed by +venerable reminiscences. From the depths of Titicaca rose Viracocha, +mythical civilizer of Peru. Guatavita was the bourne of many a foot-sore +pilgrim in the ancient empire of the Zac. Once a year the high priest +poured the collective offerings of the multitude into its waves, and +anointed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span> with oils and glittering with gold dust, dived deep in its +midst, professing to hold communion with the goddess who there had her +<span class="nowrap">home.<a name="FNanchor_125-1_162" id="FNanchor_125-1_162"></a><a href="#Footnote_125-1_162" class="fnanchor">125-1</a></span></p> + +<p>Not only does the life of man but his well-being depends on water. As an +ablution it invigorates him bodily and mentally. No institution was in +higher honor among the North American Indians than the sweat-bath +followed by the cold douche. It was popular not only as a remedy in +every and any disease, but as a preliminary to a council or an important +transaction. Its real value in cold climates is proven by the sustained +fondness for the Russian bath in the north of Europe. The Indians, +however, with their usual superstition attributed its good effects to +some mysterious healing power in water itself. Therefore, when the +patient was not able to undergo the usual process, or when his medical +attendant was above the vulgar and routine practice of his profession, +it was administered on the infinitesimal system. The quack muttered a +formula over a gourd filled from a neighboring spring and sprinkled it +on his patient, or washed the diseased part, or sucked out the evil +spirit and blew it into a bowl of water, and then scattered the liquid +on the fire or <span class="nowrap">earth.<a name="FNanchor_125-2_163" id="FNanchor_125-2_163"></a><a href="#Footnote_125-2_163" class="fnanchor">125-2</a></span></p> + +<p>The use of such “holy water” astonished the Romanist missionaries, and +they at once detected Satan parodying the Scriptures. But their +astonishment rose to horror when they discovered among various nations a +rite of baptism of appalling simi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span>larity to their own, connected with +the imposing of a name, done avowedly for the purpose of freeing from +inherent sin, believed to produce a regeneration of the spiritual +nature, nay, in more than one instance called by an indigenous word +signifying “to be born <span class="nowrap">again.”<a name="FNanchor_126-1_164" id="FNanchor_126-1_164"></a><a href="#Footnote_126-1_164" class="fnanchor">126-1</a></span> Such a rite was of immemorial +antiquity among the Cherokees, Aztecs, Mayas, and Peruvians. Had the +missionaries remembered that it was practised in Asia with all these +meanings long before it was chosen as the sign of the new covenant, they +need have invoked neither Satan nor Saint Thomas to explain its presence +in America.</p> + +<p>As corporeal is near akin to spiritual pollution, and cleanliness to +godliness, ablution preparatory to engaging in religious acts came early +to have an emblematic as well as a real significance. The water freed +the soul from sin as it did the skin from stain. We should come to God +with clean hands and a clean heart. As Pilate washed his hands before +the multitude to indicate that he would not accept the moral +responsibility of their acts, so from a similar motive a Natchez chief, +who had been persuaded against his sense of duty not to sacrifice +himself on the pyre of his ruler, took clean water, washed his hands, +and threw it upon live <span class="nowrap">coals.<a name="FNanchor_126-2_165" id="FNanchor_126-2_165"></a><a href="#Footnote_126-2_165" class="fnanchor">126-2</a></span> When an ancient Peruvian had laid +bare his guilt by confession, he bathed himself in a neighboring river +and repeated this formula:—</p> + +<p>“O thou River, receive the sins I have this day<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span> confessed unto the Sun, +carry them down to the sea, and let them never more <span class="nowrap">appear.”<a name="FNanchor_127-1_166" id="FNanchor_127-1_166"></a><a href="#Footnote_127-1_166" class="fnanchor">127-1</a></span></p> + +<p>The Navajo who has been deputed to carry a dead body to burial, holds +himself unclean until he has thoroughly washed himself in water prepared +for the purpose by certain <span class="nowrap">ceremonies.<a name="FNanchor_127-2_167" id="FNanchor_127-2_167"></a><a href="#Footnote_127-2_167" class="fnanchor">127-2</a></span> A bath was an +indispensable step in the mysteries of Mithras, the initiation at +Eleusis, the meda worship of the Algonkins, the Busk of the Creeks, the +ceremonials of religion everywhere. Baptism was at first always +immersion. It was a bath meant to solemnize the reception of the child +into the guild of mankind, drawn from the prior custom of ablution at +any solemn occasion. In both the object is greater purity, bodily and +spiritual. As certainly as there is a law of conscience, as certainly as +our actions fall short of our volitions, so certainly is man painfully +aware of various imperfections and shortcomings. What he feels he +attributes to the infant. Avowedly to free themselves from this sense of +guilt the Delawares used an emetic (Loskiel), the Cherokees a potion +cooked up by an order of female warriors (Timberlake), the Takahlies of +Washington Territory, the Aztecs, Mayas, and Peruvians, auricular +confession. Formulize these feelings and we have the dogmas of “original +sin,” and of “spiritual regeneration.” The order of baptism among the +Aztecs commenced, “O child, receive the water of the Lord of the world, +which is our life; it is to wash and to purify; may<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span> these drops remove +the sin which was given to thee before the creation of the world, since +all of us are under its power;” and concluded, “Now he liveth anew and +is born anew, now is he purified and cleansed, now our mother the Water +again bringeth him into the <span class="nowrap">world.”<a name="FNanchor_128-1_168" id="FNanchor_128-1_168"></a><a href="#Footnote_128-1_168" class="fnanchor">128-1</a></span></p> + +<p>A name was then assigned to the child, usually that of some ancestor, +who it was supposed would thus be induced to exercise a kindly +supervision over the little one’s future. In after life should the +person desire admittance to a superior class of the population and had +the wealth to purchase it—for here as in more enlightened lands +nobility was a matter of money—he underwent a second baptism and +received another name, but still ostensibly from the goddess of +<span class="nowrap">water.<a name="FNanchor_128-2_169" id="FNanchor_128-2_169"></a><a href="#Footnote_128-2_169" class="fnanchor">128-2</a></span></p> + +<p>In Peru the child was immersed in the fluid, the priest exorcised the +evil and bade it enter the water, which was then buried in the +<span class="nowrap">ground.<a name="FNanchor_128-3_170" id="FNanchor_128-3_170"></a><a href="#Footnote_128-3_170" class="fnanchor">128-3</a></span> In either country sprinkling could take the place of +immersion. The Cherokees believe that unless the rite is punctually +performed when the child is three days old, it will inevitably +<span class="nowrap">die.<a name="FNanchor_128-4_171" id="FNanchor_128-4_171"></a><a href="#Footnote_128-4_171" class="fnanchor">128-4</a></span></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span>As thus curative and preservative, it was imagined that there was water +of which whoever should drink would not die, but live forever. I have +already alluded to the Fountain of Youth, supposed long before Columbus +saw the surf of San Salvador to exist in the Bahama Islands or Florida. +It seems to have lingered long on that peninsula. Not many years ago, +Coacooche, a Seminole chieftain, related a vision which had nerved him +to a desperate escape from the Castle of St. Augustine. “In my dream,” +said he, “I visited the happy hunting grounds and saw my twin sister, +long since gone. She offered me a cup of pure water, which she said came +from the spring of the Great Spirit, and if I should drink of it, I +should return and live with her <span class="nowrap">forever.”<a name="FNanchor_129-1_172" id="FNanchor_129-1_172"></a><a href="#Footnote_129-1_172" class="fnanchor">129-1</a></span> Some such mystical +respect for the element, rather than as a mere outfit for his spirit +home, probably induced the earlier tribes of the same territory to place +the conch-shell which the deceased had used for a cup conspicuously on +his <span class="nowrap">grave,<a name="FNanchor_129-2_173" id="FNanchor_129-2_173"></a><a href="#Footnote_129-2_173" class="fnanchor">129-2</a></span> and the Mexicans and Peru<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span>vians to inter a vase filled +with water with the corpse, or to sprinkle it with the liquid, baptizing +it, as it were, into its new <span class="nowrap">associations.<a name="FNanchor_130-1_174" id="FNanchor_130-1_174"></a><a href="#Footnote_130-1_174" class="fnanchor">130-1</a></span> It was an emblem of +the hope that should cheer the dwellings of the dead, a symbol of the +resurrection which is in store for those who have gone down to the +grave.</p> + +<p>The vase or the gourd as a symbol of water, the source and preserver of +life, is a conspicuous figure in the myths of ancient America. As Akbal +or Huecomitl, the great or original vase, in Aztec and Maya legends it +plays important parts in the drama of creation; as Tici (Ticcu) in Peru +it is the symbol of the rains, and as a gourd it is often mentioned by +the Caribs and Tupis as the parent of the atmospheric waters.</p> + +<p>As the <span class="smcap">Moon</span> is associated with the dampness and dews of night, an +ancient and wide-spread myth identified her with the Goddess of Water. +Moreover, in spite of the expostulations of the learned, the common +people the world over persist in attributing to her a marked influence +on the rains. Whether false or true, this familiar opinion is of great +antiquity, and was decidedly approved by the Indians, who were all, in +the words of an old author, “great observers of the weather by the +<span class="nowrap">moon.”<a name="FNanchor_130-2_175" id="FNanchor_130-2_175"></a><a href="#Footnote_130-2_175" class="fnanchor">130-2</a></span> They looked upon her not only as forewarning them by her +appearance of the approach of rains and fogs, but as being their actual +cause.</p> + +<p>Isis, her Egyptian title, literally means moisture;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span> Ataensic, whom the +Hurons said was the moon, is derived from the word for water; and +Citatli and Atl, moon and water, are constantly confounded in Aztec +theology. Their attributes were strikingly alike. They were both the +mythical mothers of the race, and both protect women in child-birth, the +babe in the cradle, the husbandman in the field, and the youth and +maiden in their tender affections. As the transfer of legends was nearly +always from the water to its lunar goddess, by bringing them in at this +point their true meaning will not fail to be apparent.</p> + +<p>We must ever bear in mind that the course of mythology is from many gods +toward one, that it is a synthesis not an analysis, and that in this +process the tendency is to blend in one the traits and stories of +originally separate divinities. As has justly been observed by the +Mexican antiquarian Gama: “It was a common trait among the Indians to +worship many gods under the figure of one, principally those whose +activities lay in the same direction, or those in some way related among +<span class="nowrap">themselves.”<a name="FNanchor_131-1_176" id="FNanchor_131-1_176"></a><a href="#Footnote_131-1_176" class="fnanchor">131-1</a></span></p> + +<p>The time of full moon was chosen both in Mexico and Peru to celebrate +the festival of the deities of water, the patrons of <span class="nowrap">agriculture,<a name="FNanchor_131-2_177" id="FNanchor_131-2_177"></a><a href="#Footnote_131-2_177" class="fnanchor">131-2</a></span> +and very generally the ceremonies connected with the crops were +regulated by her phases. The Nicaraguans said that the god of rains, +Quiateot, rose in the <span class="nowrap">east,<a name="FNanchor_131-3_178" id="FNanchor_131-3_178"></a><a href="#Footnote_131-3_178" class="fnanchor">131-3</a></span> thus hinting how this connection +originated. At a lunar eclipse the Orinoko Indians seized their hoes and +labored<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span> with exemplary vigor on their growing corn, saying the moon was +veiling herself in anger at their habitual <span class="nowrap">laziness;<a name="FNanchor_132-1_179" id="FNanchor_132-1_179"></a><a href="#Footnote_132-1_179" class="fnanchor">132-1</a></span> and a +description of the New Netherlands, written about 1650, remarks that the +savages of that land “ascribe great influence to the moon over +<span class="nowrap">crops.”<a name="FNanchor_132-2_180" id="FNanchor_132-2_180"></a><a href="#Footnote_132-2_180" class="fnanchor">132-2</a></span> This venerable superstition, common to all races, still +lingers among our own farmers, many of whom continue to observe “the +signs of the moon” in sowing grain, setting out trees, cutting timber, +and other rural avocations.</p> + +<p>As representing water, the universal mother, the moon was the +protectress of women in child-birth, the goddess of love and babes, the +patroness of marriage. To her the mother called in travail, whether by +the name of “Diana, diva triformis” in pagan Rome, by that of Mama +Quilla in Peru, or of Meztli in Anahuac. Under the title of +Yohualticitl, the Lady of Night, she was also in this latter country the +guardian of babes, and as Teczistecatl, the cause of <span class="nowrap">generation.<a name="FNanchor_132-3_181" id="FNanchor_132-3_181"></a><a href="#Footnote_132-3_181" class="fnanchor">132-3</a></span></p> + +<p>Very different is another aspect of the moon goddess, and well might the +Mexicans paint her with two colors. The beneficent dispenser of harvests +and offspring, she nevertheless has a portentous and terrific phase. She +is also the goddess of the night, the dampness, and the cold; she +engenders the miasmatic poisons that rack our bones; she conceals in her +mantle the foe who takes us unawares; she rules those vague shapes which +fright us in the dim light;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span> the causeless sounds of night or its more +oppressive silence are familiar to her; she it is who sends dreams +wherein gods and devils have their sport with man, and slumber, the twin +brother of the grave. In the occult philosophy of the middle ages she +was “Chief over the Night, Darkness, Rest, Death, and the +<span class="nowrap">Waters;”<a name="FNanchor_133-1_182" id="FNanchor_133-1_182"></a><a href="#Footnote_133-1_182" class="fnanchor">133-1</a></span> in the language of the Algonkins, her name is identical +with the words for night, death, cold, sleep, and <span class="nowrap">water.<a name="FNanchor_133-2_183" id="FNanchor_133-2_183"></a><a href="#Footnote_133-2_183" class="fnanchor">133-2</a></span></p> + +<p>She is the evil minded woman who thus brings diseases upon men, who at +the outset introduced pain and death in the world—our common mother, +yet the cruel cause of our present woes. Sometimes it is the moon, +sometimes water, of whom this is said: “We are all of us under the power +of evil and sin, <i>because</i> we are children of the Water,” says the +Mexican baptismal formula. That Unktahe, spirit of water, is the master +of dreams and witchcraft, is the belief of the <span class="nowrap">Dakotas.<a name="FNanchor_133-3_184" id="FNanchor_133-3_184"></a><a href="#Footnote_133-3_184" class="fnanchor">133-3</a></span> A female +spirit, wife of the great manito whose heart is the sun, the ancient +Algonkins believed brought death and disease to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span> race; “it is she +who kills men, otherwise they would never die; she eats their flesh and +<a name="corr4" id="corr4"></a><ins class="correction" title="gnaws">knaws</ins> their vitals, till they fall away and miserably +<span class="nowrap">perish.”<a name="FNanchor_134-1_185" id="FNanchor_134-1_185"></a><a href="#Footnote_134-1_185" class="fnanchor">134-1</a></span> Who is this woman? In the legend of the Muyscas it is +Chia, the moon, who was also goddess of water and flooded the earth out +of <span class="nowrap">spite.<a name="FNanchor_134-2_186" id="FNanchor_134-2_186"></a><a href="#Footnote_134-2_186" class="fnanchor">134-2</a></span> Her reputation was notoriously bad. The Brazilian +mother carefully shielded her infant from the lunar rays, believing that +they would produce <span class="nowrap">sickness;<a name="FNanchor_134-3_187" id="FNanchor_134-3_187"></a><a href="#Footnote_134-3_187" class="fnanchor">134-3</a></span> the hunting tribes of our own +country will not sleep in its light, nor leave their game exposed to its +action. We ourselves have not outgrown such words as lunatic, +moon-struck, and the like. Where did we get these ideas? The +philosophical historian of medicine, Kurt Sprengel, traces them to the +primitive and popular medical theories of ancient Egypt, in accordance +with which all maladies were the effects of the anger of the goddess +Isis, the Moisture, the <span class="nowrap">Moon.<a name="FNanchor_134-4_188" id="FNanchor_134-4_188"></a><a href="#Footnote_134-4_188" class="fnanchor">134-4</a></span></p> + +<p>We have here the key to many myths. Take that of Centeotl, the Aztec +goddess of Maize. She was said at times to appear as a woman of +surpassing beauty, and allure some unfortunate to her embraces, destined +to pay with his life for his brief moments of pleasure. Even to see her +in this shape was a fatal omen. She was also said to belong to a class +of gods whose home was in the west, and who produced sickness and +<span class="nowrap">pains.<a name="FNanchor_134-5_189" id="FNanchor_134-5_189"></a><a href="#Footnote_134-5_189" class="fnanchor">134-5</a></span> Here we see the evil aspect of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span> the moon reflected on +another goddess, who was at first solely the patroness of agriculture.</p> + +<p>As the goddess of sickness, it was supposed that persons afflicted with +certain diseases had been set apart by the moon for her peculiar +service. These diseases were those of a humoral type, especially such as +are characterized by issues and ulcers. As in Hebrew the word <i>accursed</i> +is derived from a root meaning <i>consecrated to God</i>, so in the Aztec, +Quiché, and other tongues, the word for <i>leprous</i>, <i>eczematous</i>, or +<i>syphilitic</i>, means also <i>divine</i>. This bizarre change of meaning is +illustrated in a very ancient myth of their family. It is said that in +the absence of the sun all mankind lingered in darkness. Nothing but a +human sacrifice could hasten his arrival. Then Metzli, the moon, led +forth one Nanahuatl, the leprous, and building a pyre, the victim threw +himself in its midst. Straightway Metzli followed his example, and as +she disappeared in the bright flames the sun rose over the +<span class="nowrap">horizon.<a name="FNanchor_135-1_190" id="FNanchor_135-1_190"></a><a href="#Footnote_135-1_190" class="fnanchor">135-1</a></span> Is not this a reference to the kindling rays of the +aurora, in which the dark and baleful night is sacrificed, and in whose +light the moon presently fades away, and the sun comes forth?</p> + +<p>Another reaction in the mythological laboratory is here disclosed. As +the good qualities of water were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span> attributed to the goddess of night, +sleep, and death, so her malevolent traits were in turn reflected back +on this element. Other thoughts aided the transfer. In primitive +geography the Ocean Stream coils its infinite folds around the speck of +land we inhabit, biding its time to swallow it wholly. Unwillingly did +it yield the earth from its bosom, daily does it steal it away piece by +piece. Every evening it hides the light in its depths, and Night and the +Waters resume their ancient sway. The word for ocean (<i>mare</i>) in the +Latin tongue means by derivation a desert, and the Greeks spoke of it as +“the barren brine.” Water is a treacherous element. Man treads boldly on +the solid earth, but the rivers and lakes constantly strive to swallow +those who venture within their reach. As streams run in tortuous +channels, and as rains accompany the lightning serpent, this animal was +occasionally the symbol of the waters in their dangerous manifestations. +The Huron magicians fabled that in the lakes and rivers dwelt one of +vast size called <i>Angont</i>, who sent sickness, death, and other mishaps, +and the least mite of whose flesh was a deadly poison. They added—and +this was the point of the tale—that they always kept on hand portions +of the monster for the benefit of any who opposed their <span class="nowrap">designs.<a name="FNanchor_136-1_191" id="FNanchor_136-1_191"></a><a href="#Footnote_136-1_191" class="fnanchor">136-1</a></span> +The legends of the Algonkins mention a rivalry between Michabo, creator +of the earth, and the Spirit of the Waters, who was unfriendly to the +<span class="nowrap">project.<a name="FNanchor_136-2_192" id="FNanchor_136-2_192"></a><a href="#Footnote_136-2_192" class="fnanchor">136-2</a></span> In later tales this antago<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span>nism becomes more and more +pronounced, and borrows an ethical significance which it did not have at +first. Taking, however, American religions as a whole, water is far more +frequently represented as producing beneficent effects than the reverse.</p> + +<p>Dogs were supposed to stand in some peculiar relation to the moon, +probably because they howl at it and run at night, uncanny practices +which have cost them dear in reputation. The custom prevailed among +tribes so widely asunder as Peruvians, Tupis, Creeks, Iroquois, +Algonkins, and Greenland Eskimos to thrash the curs most soundly during +an <span class="nowrap">eclipse.<a name="FNanchor_137-1_193" id="FNanchor_137-1_193"></a><a href="#Footnote_137-1_193" class="fnanchor">137-1</a></span> The Creeks explained this by saying that the big dog +was swallowing the sun, and that by whipping the little ones they could +make him desist. What the big dog was they were not prepared to say. We +know. It was the night goddess, represented by the dog, who was thus +shrouding the world at midday. The ancient Romans sacrificed dogs to +Hecate and Diana, in Egypt they were sacred to Isis, and thus as +traditionally connected with night and its terrors, the Prince of +Darkness, in the superstition of the middle ages, preferably appeared +under the form of a cur, as that famous poodle which accompanied +Cornelius Agrippa, or that which grew to such enormous size behind the +stove of Dr. Faustus. In a better sense, they represented the more +agreeable characteristics of the lunar goddess. Xochiquetzal, most +fecund of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span> Aztec divinities, patroness of love, of sexual pleasure, and +of childbirth, was likewise called <i>Itzcuinan</i>, which, literally +translated, is <i>bitch-mother</i>. This strange and to us so repugnant title +for a goddess was not without parallel elsewhere. When in his wars the +Inca Pachacutec carried his arms into the province of Huanca, he found +its inhabitants had installed in their temples the figure of a dog as +their highest deity. They were accustomed also to select one as his +living representative, to pray to it and offer it sacrifice, and when +well fattened, to serve it up with solemn ceremonies at a great feast, +eating their god <i>substantialiter</i>. The priests in this province +summoned their attendants to the temples by blowing through an +instrument fashioned from a dog’s <span class="nowrap">skull.<a name="FNanchor_138-1_194" id="FNanchor_138-1_194"></a><a href="#Footnote_138-1_194" class="fnanchor">138-1</a></span> This canine canonization +explains why in some parts of Peru a priest was called by way of honor +<i>allco</i>, <span class="nowrap">dog!<a name="FNanchor_138-2_195" id="FNanchor_138-2_195"></a><a href="#Footnote_138-2_195" class="fnanchor">138-2</a></span> And why in many tombs both there and in Mexico +their skeletons are found carefully interred with the human remains. +Wherever the Aztec race extended they seem to have carried the adoration +of a wild species, the coyote, the <i>canis latrans</i> of naturalists. The +Shoshonees of New Mexico call it their <span class="nowrap">progenitor,<a name="FNanchor_138-3_196" id="FNanchor_138-3_196"></a><a href="#Footnote_138-3_196" class="fnanchor">138-3</a></span> and with the +Nahuas it was in such high honor that it had a temple of its own, a +congregation of priests devoted to its service, statues carved in stone, +an elaborate tomb at death, and is said to be meant by the god Chantico, +whose audacity caused the destruction of the world. The story was that +he made a sacrifice to the gods without observing a pre<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span>paratory fast, +for which he was punished by being changed into a dog. He then invoked +the god of death to deliver him, which attempt to evade a just +punishment so enraged the divinities that they immersed the world in +<span class="nowrap">water.<a name="FNanchor_139-1_197" id="FNanchor_139-1_197"></a><a href="#Footnote_139-1_197" class="fnanchor">139-1</a></span></p> + +<p>During a storm on our northern lakes the Indians think no offering so +likely to appease the angry water god who is raising the tempest as a +dog. Therefore they hasten to tie the feet of one and toss him +<span class="nowrap">overboard.<a name="FNanchor_139-2_198" id="FNanchor_139-2_198"></a><a href="#Footnote_139-2_198" class="fnanchor">139-2</a></span> One meets constantly in their tales and superstitions +the mysterious powers of the animals, and the distinguished actions he +has at times performed bear usually a close parallelism to those +attributed to water and the moon.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span></p> + +<p>Hunger and thirst were thus alleviated by water. Cold remained, and +against this <i>fire</i> was the shield. It gives man light in darkness and +warmth in winter; it shows him his friends and warns him of his foes; +the flames point toward heaven and the smoke makes the clouds. Around it +social life begins. For his home and his hearth the savage has but one +word, and what of tender emotion his breast can feel, is linked to the +circle that gathers around his fire. The council fire, the camp fire, +and the war fire, are so many epochs in his history. By its aid many +arts become possible, and it is a civilizer in more ways than one. In +the figurative language of the red race, it is constantly used as “an +emblem of peace, happiness, and <span class="nowrap">abundance.”<a name="FNanchor_140-1_199" id="FNanchor_140-1_199"></a><a href="#Footnote_140-1_199" class="fnanchor">140-1</a></span> To <a name="corr5" id="corr5"></a><ins class="correction" title="extinguish">extingish</ins> an +enemy’s fire is to slay him; to light a visitor’s fire is to bid him +welcome. Fire worship was closely related to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span> that of the sun, and so +much has been said of sun worship among the aborigines of America that +it is well at once to assign it its true position.</p> + +<p>A generation ago it was a fashion very much approved to explain all +symbols and myths by the action of this orb on nature. This short and +easy method with mythology has, in Carlylian phrase, had its bottom +pulled from under it in these later times. Nowhere has it manifested its +inefficiency more palpably than in America. One writer, while thus +explaining the religions of the tribes of colder regions and higher +latitudes, denies sun worship among the natives of hot climates; another +asserts that only among the latter did it exist at all; while a third +lays down the maxim that the religion of the red race everywhere “was +but a modification of Sun or Fire <span class="nowrap">worship.”<a name="FNanchor_141-1_200" id="FNanchor_141-1_200"></a><a href="#Footnote_141-1_200" class="fnanchor">141-1</a></span> All such sweeping +generalizations are untrue, and must be so. No one key can open all the +arcana of symbolism. Man devised means as varied as nature herself to +express the idea of God within him. The sun was but one of these, and +not the first nor the most important. Fear, said the wise Epicurean, +first made the gods. The sun with its regular course, its kindly warmth, +its beneficent action, no wise inspires that sentiment. It conjures no +phantasms to appal the superstitious fancy, and its place in primitive +mythology is conformably inferior. The myths of the Eskimos and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span> +northern Athapascas omit its action altogether. The Algonkins by no +means imagined it the highest god, and at most but one of his +<span class="nowrap">emblems.<a name="FNanchor_142-1_201" id="FNanchor_142-1_201"></a><a href="#Footnote_142-1_201" class="fnanchor">142-1</a></span> That it often appears in their prayers is true, but this +arose from the fact that in many of their dialects, as well as in the +language of the Mayas and others, the word for heaven or sky was +identical with that for sun, and the former, as I have shown, was the +supposed abode of deity, “the wigwam of the Great <span class="nowrap">Spirit.”<a name="FNanchor_142-2_202" id="FNanchor_142-2_202"></a><a href="#Footnote_142-2_202" class="fnanchor">142-2</a></span> The +alleged sun worship of the Cherokees rests on testimony modern, +doubtful, and <span class="nowrap">unsupported.<a name="FNanchor_142-3_203" id="FNanchor_142-3_203"></a><a href="#Footnote_142-3_203" class="fnanchor">142-3</a></span> In North America the Natchez alone +were avowed worshippers of this luminary. Yet they adored it under the +name Great Fire (<i>wah sil</i>), clearly pointing to a prior adoration of +that element. The heliolatry organized principally for political ends by +the Incas of Peru, stands alone in the religions of the red race. Those +shrewd legislators at an early date officially announced that Inti, the +sun, their own elder brother, was ruler of the cohorts of heaven by like +divine right that they were of the four corners of the earth. This +scheme ignominiously failed, as every attempt to fetter the liberty of +conscience must and should. The later Incas finally indulged publicly in +heterodox remarks, and compromised the matter by acknow<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span>ledging a +divinity superior even to their brother, the sun, as we have seen in a +previous chapter.</p> + +<p>The myths of creation never represent the sun as anterior to the world, +but as manufactured by the “old people” (Navajos), as kindled and set +going by the first of men (Algonkins), or as freed from some cave by a +kindly deity (Haitians). It is always spoken of as a fire; only in Peru +and Mexico had the precession of the equinoxes been observed, and +without danger of error we can merge the consideration of its worship +almost altogether in that of this <span class="nowrap">element.<a name="FNanchor_143-1_204" id="FNanchor_143-1_204"></a><a href="#Footnote_143-1_204" class="fnanchor">143-1</a></span></p> + +<p>The institutions of a perpetual fire, of obtaining new fire, and of +burning the dead, prevailed extensively in the New World. In the present +discussion the origin of such practices, rather than the ceremonies with +which they were attended, have an interest. The savage knew that fire +was necessary to his life. Were it lost, he justly foreboded dire +calamities and the ruin of his race. Therefore at stated times with due +solemnity he produced it anew by friction or the flint, or else was +careful to keep one fire constantly alive. These not unwise precautions +soon fell to mere superstitions. If the Aztec priest at the stated time +failed to obtain a spark from his pieces of wood, if the sacred fire by +chance became extinguished, the end of the world or the destruction of +mankind was apprehended. “You know it was a saying among our<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span> +ancestors,” said an Iroquois chief in 1753, “that when the fire at +Onondaga goes out, we shall no longer be a <span class="nowrap">people.”<a name="FNanchor_144-1_205" id="FNanchor_144-1_205"></a><a href="#Footnote_144-1_205" class="fnanchor">144-1</a></span> So deeply +rooted was this notion, that the Catholic missionaries in New Mexico +were fain to wink at it, and perform the sacrifice of the mass in the +same building where the flames were perpetually burning, that were not +to be allowed to die until Montezuma and the fabled glories of ancient +Anahuac with its heathenism should <span class="nowrap">return.<a name="FNanchor_144-2_206" id="FNanchor_144-2_206"></a><a href="#Footnote_144-2_206" class="fnanchor">144-2</a></span> Thus fire became the +type of life. “Know that the life in your body and the fire on your +hearth are one and the same thing, and that both proceed from one +source,” said a Shawnee <span class="nowrap">prophet.<a name="FNanchor_144-3_207" id="FNanchor_144-3_207"></a><a href="#Footnote_144-3_207" class="fnanchor">144-3</a></span> Such an expression was wholly in +the spirit of his race. The greatest feast of the Delawares was that to +their “grandfather, the <span class="nowrap">fire.”<a name="FNanchor_144-4_208" id="FNanchor_144-4_208"></a><a href="#Footnote_144-4_208" class="fnanchor">144-4</a></span> “Their fire burns forever,” was +the Algonkin figure of speech to express the immortality of their +<span class="nowrap">gods.<a name="FNanchor_144-5_209" id="FNanchor_144-5_209"></a><a href="#Footnote_144-5_209" class="fnanchor">144-5</a></span> “The ancient God, the Father and Mother of all Gods,” says +an Aztec prayer, “is the God of the Fire which is in the centre of the +court with four walls, and which is covered with gleaming feathers like +unto <span class="nowrap">wings;”<a name="FNanchor_144-6_210" id="FNanchor_144-6_210"></a><a href="#Footnote_144-6_210" class="fnanchor">144-6</a></span> dark sayings of the priests, referring to the +glittering lightning fire borne from the four sides of the earth.</p> + +<p>As the path to a higher life hereafter, the burning of the dead was +first instituted. It was a privilege usually confined to a select few. +Among the Algon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span>kin-Ottawas, only, those of the distinguished totem of +the Great Hare, among the Nicaraguans none but the caciques, among the +Caribs exclusively the priestly caste, were entitled to this peculiar +<span class="nowrap">honor.<a name="FNanchor_145-1_211" id="FNanchor_145-1_211"></a><a href="#Footnote_145-1_211" class="fnanchor">145-1</a></span> The first gave as the reason for such an exceptional +custom, that the members of such an illustrious clan as that of Michabo, +the Great Hare, should not rot in the ground as common folks, but rise +to the heavens on the flames and smoke. Those of Nicaragua seemed to +think it the sole path to immortality, holding that only such as offered +themselves on the pyre of their chieftain would escape annihilation at +<span class="nowrap">death;<a name="FNanchor_145-2_212" id="FNanchor_145-2_212"></a><a href="#Footnote_145-2_212" class="fnanchor">145-2</a></span> and the tribes of upper California were persuaded that +such as were not burned at death were liable to be transformed into the +lower orders of <span class="nowrap">brutes.<a name="FNanchor_145-3_213" id="FNanchor_145-3_213"></a><a href="#Footnote_145-3_213" class="fnanchor">145-3</a></span> Strangely, enough, we thus find a sort of +baptism by fire deemed essential to a higher life beyond the grave.</p> + +<p>Another analogy strengthened the symbolic force of fire as life. This is +that which exists between the sensation of warmth and those passions +whose physiological end is the perpetuation of the species. We see how +native it is to the mind from such coarse expressions as “hot lust,” “to +burn,” “to be in heat,” “stews,” and the like, figures not of the +poetic, but the vulgar tongue. They occur in all languages, and hint how +readily the worship of fire glided into that of the reproductive +principle, into extravagances of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span> chastity and lewdness, into the +shocking orgies of the so-called phallic worship.</p> + +<p>Some have supposed that a sexual dualism pervades all natural religions +and this too has been assumed as the solution of all their myths. It has +been said that the action of heat upon moisture, of the sun on the +waters, the mysteries of reproduction, and the satisfaction of the +sexual instincts, are the unvarying themes of primitive mythology. So +far as the red race is concerned, this is a most gratuitous assumption. +The facts that have been eagerly collated by Dulaure and others to +bolster such a detestable theory lend themselves fairly to no such +interpretation.</p> + +<p>There existed, indeed, a worship of the passions. Apparently it was +grafted upon or rose out of that of fire by the analogy I have pointed +out. Thus the Mexican god of fire was supposed to govern the generative +<span class="nowrap">proclivities,<a name="FNanchor_146-1_214" id="FNanchor_146-1_214"></a><a href="#Footnote_146-1_214" class="fnanchor">146-1</a></span> and there is good reason to believe that the sacred +fire watched by unspotted virgins among the Mayas had decidedly such a +signification. Certainly it was so, if we can depend upon the authority +of a ballad translated from the original immediately after the conquest, +cited by the venerable traveller and artist Count de Waldeck. It +purports to be from the lover of one of these vestals, and referring to +her occupation asks with a fine allusion to its mystic meaning—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="first">“O vièrge, quand pourrai-je te posséder pour ma compagne cherie?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Combien de temps faut-il encore que tes vœux soient accomplis?<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span><span class="i0">Dis-moi le jour qui doit devancer la belle nuit où tous deux,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Alimenterons le feu qui nous fit naitre et que nous devons <span class="nowrap">perpetuer.”<a name="FNanchor_147-1_215" id="FNanchor_147-1_215"></a><a href="#Footnote_147-1_215" class="fnanchor">147-1</a></span><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>There is a bright as well as a dark side even to such a worship. In +Mexico, Peru, and Yucatan, the women who watched the flames must be +undoubted virgins; they were usually of noble blood, and must vow +eternal chastity, or at least were free to none but the ruler of the +realm. As long as they were consecrated to the fire, so long any carnal +ardor was degrading to their lofty duties. The sentiment of shame, one +of the first we find developed, led to the belief that to forego fleshly +pleasures was a meritorious sacrifice in the eyes of the gods. In this +persuasion certain of the Aztec priests practised complete abscission or +entire discerption of the virile parts, and a mutilation of females was +not unknown similar to that immemorially a custom in <span class="nowrap">Egypt.<a name="FNanchor_147-2_216" id="FNanchor_147-2_216"></a><a href="#Footnote_147-2_216" class="fnanchor">147-2</a></span> Such +enforced celibacy was, however, neither common nor popular. +Circumcision, if it can be proven to have existed among the red +race—and though there are plenty of assertions to that effect, they are +not satisfactory to an anatomist—was probably a symbolic renunciation +of the lusts of the flesh. The same cannot<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span> be said of the very common +custom with the Aztec race of anointing their idols with blood drawn +from the genitals, the tongue, and the ears. This was simply a form of +those voluntary scarifications, universally employed to mark contrition +or grief by savage tribes, and nowhere more in vogue than with the red +race.</p> + +<p>There was an ancient Christian heresy which taught that the true way to +conquer the passions was to satiate them, and therefore preached +unbounded licentiousness. Whether this agreeable doctrine was known to +the Indians I cannot say, but it is certainly the most creditable +explanation that can be suggested for the miscellaneous congress which +very often terminated their dances and ceremonies. Such orgies were of +common occurrence among the Algonkins and Iroquois at a very early date, +and are often mentioned in the Jesuit Relations; Venegas describes them +as frequent among the tribes of Lower California; and Oviedo refers to +certain festivals of the Nicaraguans, during which the women of all rank +extended to whosoever wished just such privileges as the matrons of +ancient Babylon, that mother of harlots and all abominations, used to +grant even to slaves and strangers in the temple of Melitta, as one of +the duties of religion. But in fact there is no ground whatever to +invest these debauches with any recondite meaning. They are simply +indications of the thorough and utter immorality which prevailed +throughout the race. And a still more disgusting proof of it is seen in +the frequent appearance among diverse tribes of men dressed as women and +yielding themselves to inde<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span>scribable <span class="nowrap">vices.<a name="FNanchor_149-1_217" id="FNanchor_149-1_217"></a><a href="#Footnote_149-1_217" class="fnanchor">149-1</a></span> There was at first +nothing of a religious nature in such exhibitions. Lascivious priests +chose at times to invest them with some such meaning for their own +sensual gratification, just as in Brazil they still claim the <i>jus primæ</i> +<span class="nowrap"><i>noctis</i>.<a name="FNanchor_149-2_218" id="FNanchor_149-2_218"></a><a href="#Footnote_149-2_218" class="fnanchor">149-2</a></span> The pretended phallic worship of the Natchez and of +Culhuacan, cited by the Abbé Brasseur, rests on no good authority, and +if true, is like that of the Huastecas of Panuco, nothing but an +unrestrained and boundless profligacy which it were an absurdity to call +a <span class="nowrap">religion.<a name="FNanchor_149-3_219" id="FNanchor_149-3_219"></a><a href="#Footnote_149-3_219" class="fnanchor">149-3</a></span> That which Mr. Stephens attempts to show existed once +in <span class="nowrap">Yucatan,<a name="FNanchor_149-4_220" id="FNanchor_149-4_220"></a><a href="#Footnote_149-4_220" class="fnanchor">149-4</a></span> rests entirely by his own statement on a fancied +resemblance of no value whatever, and the arguments of Lafitau to the +same effect are quite insufficient. There is a decided indecency in the +remains of ancient American art, especially in Peru (Meyen), and great +lubricity in many ceremonies, but the proof is altogether wanting to +bind these with the recognition of a fecundating principle throughout +nature, or, indeed, to suppose for them any other origin than the +promptings of an impure fancy. I even doubt whether they often referred +to fire as the deity of sexual love.</p> + +<p>By a flight of fancy inspired by a study of oriental mythology, the +worship of the reciprocal principle in America has been connected with +that of the sun and moon, as the primitive pair from whose fecund union +all creatures proceeded. It is sufficient to say<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span> if such a myth exists +among the Indians—which is questionable—it justifies no such +deduction; that the moon is often mentioned in their languages merely as +the “night sun;” and that in such important stocks as the Iroquois, +Athapascas, Cherokees, and Tupis, the sun is said to be a feminine noun; +while the myths represent them more frequently as brother and sister +than as man and wife; nor did at least the northern tribes regard the +sun as the cause of fecundity in nature at all, but solely as giving +light and <span class="nowrap">warmth.<a name="FNanchor_150-1_221" id="FNanchor_150-1_221"></a><a href="#Footnote_150-1_221" class="fnanchor">150-1</a></span></p> + +<p>In contrast to this, so much the more positive was their association of +the <span class="smrom">THUNDER-STORM</span> as that which brings both warmth and rain with the +renewed vernal life of vegetation. The impressive phenomena which +characterize it, the prodigious noise, the awful flash, the portentous +gloom, the blast, the rain, have left a profound impression on the myths +of every land. Fire from water, warmth and moisture from the destructive +breath of the tempest, this was the riddle of riddles to the untutored +mind. “Out of the eater came forth meat, out of the strong came forth +sweetness.” It was the visible synthesis of all the divine +manifestations, the winds, the waters, and the flames.</p> + +<p>The Dakotas conceived it as a struggle between the god of waters and the +thunder bird for the command of their <span class="nowrap">nation,<a name="FNanchor_150-2_222" id="FNanchor_150-2_222"></a><a href="#Footnote_150-2_222" class="fnanchor">150-2</a></span> and as a bird, one +of those which make a whirring sound with their wings, the turkey, the +pheasant, or the nighthawk, it was very generally depicted by their +neighbors, the Athapascas,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span> Iroquois, and <span class="nowrap">Algonkins.<a name="FNanchor_151-1_223" id="FNanchor_151-1_223"></a><a href="#Footnote_151-1_223" class="fnanchor">151-1</a></span> As the +herald of the summer it was to them a good omen and a friendly power. It +was the voice of the Great Spirit of the four winds speaking from the +clouds and admonishing them that the time of corn planting was at +<span class="nowrap">hand.<a name="FNanchor_151-2_224" id="FNanchor_151-2_224"></a><a href="#Footnote_151-2_224" class="fnanchor">151-2</a></span> The flames kindled by the lightning were of a sacred +nature, proper to be employed in lighting the fires of the religious +rites, but on no account to be profaned by the base uses of daily life. +When the flash entered the ground it scattered in all directions those +stones, such as the flint, which betray their supernal origin by a gleam +of fire when struck. These were the thunderbolts, and from such an one, +significantly painted red, the Dakotas averred their race had +<span class="nowrap">proceeded.<a name="FNanchor_151-3_225" id="FNanchor_151-3_225"></a><a href="#Footnote_151-3_225" class="fnanchor">151-3</a></span> For are we not all in a sense indebted for our lives +to fire? “There is no end to the fancies entertained by the Sioux +concerning thunder,” observes Mrs. Eastman. They typified the +paradoxical nature of the storm under the character of the giant Haokah. +To him cold was heat, and heat cold; when sad he laughed, when merry +groaned; the sides of his face and his eyes were of different colors and +expressions; he wore horns or a forked headdress to represent the +lightning, and with his hands he hurled the meteors. His manifestations +were fourfold, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span> one of the four winds was the drum-stick he used to +produce the <span class="nowrap">thunder.<a name="FNanchor_152-1_226" id="FNanchor_152-1_226"></a><a href="#Footnote_152-1_226" class="fnanchor">152-1</a></span></p> + +<p>Omitting many others, enough that the sameness of this conception is +illustrated by the myth of Tupa, highest god and first man of the Tupis +of Brazil. During his incarnation, he taught them agriculture, gave them +fire, the cane, and the pisang, and now in the form of a huge bird +sweeps over the heavens, watching his children and watering their crops, +admonishing them of his presence by the mighty sound of his voice, the +rustling of his wings, and the flash of his eye. These are the thunder, +the lightning, and the roar of the tempest. He is depicted with horns; +he was one of four brothers, and only after a desperate struggle did he +drive his fraternal rivals from the field. In his worship, the priests +place pebbles in a dry gourd, deck it with feathers and arrows, and +rattling it vigorously, reproduce in miniature the tremendous drama of +the <span class="nowrap">storm.<a name="FNanchor_152-2_227" id="FNanchor_152-2_227"></a><a href="#Footnote_152-2_227" class="fnanchor">152-2</a></span></p> + +<p>As nations rose in civilization these fancies put on a more complex form +and a more poetic fulness. Throughout the realm of the Incas the +Peruvians venerated as creator of all things, maker of heaven and earth, +and ruler of the firmament, the god Ataguju. The legend was that from +him proceeded the first of mortals, the man Guamansuri, who descended to +the earth and there seduced the sister of certain Guachemines, rayless +ones, or Darklings, who then possessed it. For this crime they destroyed +him, but their sister proved pregnant, and died in her labor, giving +birth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span> to two eggs. From these emerged the twin brothers, Apocatequil +and Piguerao. The former was the more powerful. By touching the corpse +of his mother he brought her to life, he drove off and slew the +Guachemines, and, directed by Ataguju, released the race of Indians from +the soil by turning it up with a spade of gold. For this reason they +adored him as their maker. He it was, they thought, who produced the +thunder and the lightning by hurling stones with his sling; and the +thunderbolts that fall, said they, are his children. Few villages were +willing to be without one or more of these. They were in appearance +small, round, smooth stones, but had the admirable properties of +securing fertility to the fields, protecting from lightning, and, by a +transition easy to understand, were also adored as gods of the Fire, as +well material as of the passions, and were capable of kindling the +dangerous flames of desire in the most frigid bosom. Therefore they were +in great esteem as love charms.</p> + +<p>Apocatequil’s statue was erected on the mountains, with that of his +mother on one hand, and his brother on the other. “He was Prince of Evil +and the most respected god of the Peruvians. From Quito to Cuzco not an +Indian but would give all he possessed to conciliate him. Five priests, +two stewards, and a crowd of slaves served his image. And his chief +temple was surrounded by a very considerable village whose inhabitants +had no other occupation than to wait on him.” In memory of these +brothers, twins in Peru were deemed always sacred to the lightning, and +when a woman or even a llama brought them forth, a fast was held and +sacrifices offered to the two pris<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span>tine brothers, with a chant +commencing: <i>A chuchu cachiqui</i>, O Thou who causest twins, words +mistaken by the Spaniards for the name of a <span class="nowrap">deity.<a name="FNanchor_154-1_228" id="FNanchor_154-1_228"></a><a href="#Footnote_154-1_228" class="fnanchor">154-1</a></span></p> + +<p>Garcilasso de la Vega, a descendant of the Incas, has preserved an +ancient indigenous poem of his nation, presenting the storm myth in a +different form,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span> which as undoubtedly authentic and not devoid of poetic +beauty I translate, preserving as much as possible the trochaic +tetrasyllabic verse of the original Quichua:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="first">“Beauteous princess,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lo, thy brother<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Breaks thy vessel<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Now in fragments.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From the blow come<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thunder, lightning,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Strokes of lightning.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And thou, princess,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Tak’st the water,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With it rainest,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the hail, or<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Snow dispensest.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Viracocha,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">World constructor,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">World enliv’ner,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To this office<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thee appointed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0 nowrap">Thee created.”<a name="FNanchor_155-1_229" id="FNanchor_155-1_229"></a><a href="#Footnote_155-1_229" class="fnanchor">155-1</a><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>In this pretty waif that has floated down to us from the wreck of a +literature now forever lost, there is more than one point to attract the +notice of the antiquary. He may find in it a hint to decipher those +names of divinities so common in Peruvian legends, Contici and Illatici. +Both mean “the Thunder Vase,” and both doubtless refer to the conception +here displayed of the phenomena of the <span class="nowrap">thunder-storm.<a name="FNanchor_155-2_230" id="FNanchor_155-2_230"></a><a href="#Footnote_155-2_230" class="fnanchor">155-2</a></span></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span>Again, twice in this poem is the triple nature of the storm adverted to. +This is observable in many of the religions of America. It constitutes a +sort of Trinity, not in any point resembling that of Christianity, nor +yet the Trimurti of India, but the only one in the New World the least +degree authenticated, and which, as half seen by ignorant monks, has +caused its due amount of sterile astonishment. Thus, in the Quiché +legends we read: “The first of Hurakan is the lightning, the second the +track of the lightning, and the third the stroke of the lightning; and +these three are Hurakan, the Heart of the <span class="nowrap">Sky.”<a name="FNanchor_156-1_231" id="FNanchor_156-1_231"></a><a href="#Footnote_156-1_231" class="fnanchor">156-1</a></span> It reappears with +characteristic uniformity of outline in Iroquois mythology. Heno, the +thunder, gathers the clouds and pours out the warm rains. Therefore he +was the patron of husbandry. He was invoked at seed time and harvest; +and as purveyor of nourishment he was addressed as grandfather, and his +worshippers styled themselves his grandchildren. He rode through the +heavens on the clouds, and the thunderbolts which split the forest trees +were the stones he hurled at his enemies. <i>Three</i> assistants were +assigned him, whose names have unfortunately not been recorded, and +whose offices were apparently similar to those of the three companions +of <span class="nowrap">Hurakan.<a name="FNanchor_156-2_232" id="FNanchor_156-2_232"></a><a href="#Footnote_156-2_232" class="fnanchor">156-2</a></span></p> + +<p>So also the Aztecs supposed that Tlaloc, god of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span> rains and the waters, +ruler of the terrestrial paradise and the season of summer, manifested +himself under the three attributes of the flash, the thunderbolt, and +the <span class="nowrap">thunder.<a name="FNanchor_157-1_233" id="FNanchor_157-1_233"></a><a href="#Footnote_157-1_233" class="fnanchor">157-1</a></span></p> + +<p>But this conception of three in one was above the comprehension of the +masses, and consequently these deities were also spoken of as fourfold +in nature, three <i>and</i> one. Moreover, as has already been pointed out, +the thunder god was usually ruler of the winds, and thus another reason +for his quadruplicate nature was suggested. Hurakan, Haokah, Tlaloc, and +probably Heno, are plural as well as singular nouns, and are used as +nominatives to verbs in both numbers. Tlaloc was appealed to as +inhabiting each of the cardinal points and every mountain top. His +statue rested on a square stone pedestal, facing the east, and had in +one hand a serpent of gold. Ribbons of silver, crossing to form squares, +covered the robe, and the shield was composed of feathers of four +colors, yellow, green, red, and blue. Before it was a vase containing +all sorts of grain; and the clouds were called his companions, the winds +his <span class="nowrap">messengers.<a name="FNanchor_157-2_234" id="FNanchor_157-2_234"></a><a href="#Footnote_157-2_234" class="fnanchor">157-2</a></span> As elsewhere, the thunderbolts were believed to +be flints, and thus, as the emblem of fire and the storm, this stone +figures conspicuously in their myths. Tohil, the god who gave the +Quichés fire by shaking his sandals, was represented by a flint-stone. +He is distinctly said to be the same as Quetzalcoatl, one of whose +commonest symbols was a flint (tecpatl). Such a stone, in the beginning +of things, fell from heaven<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span> to earth, and broke into 1600 pieces, each +of which sprang up a <span class="nowrap">god;<a name="FNanchor_158-1_235" id="FNanchor_158-1_235"></a><a href="#Footnote_158-1_235" class="fnanchor">158-1</a></span> an ancient legend, which shadows forth +the subjection of all things to him who gathers the clouds from the four +corners of the earth, who thunders with his voice, who satisfies with +his rain “the desolate and waste ground, and causes the tender herb to +spring forth.” This is the germ of the adoration of stones as emblems of +the fecundating rains. This is why, for example, the Navajos use as +their charm for rain certain long round stones, which they think fall +from the cloud when it <span class="nowrap">thunders.<a name="FNanchor_158-2_236" id="FNanchor_158-2_236"></a><a href="#Footnote_158-2_236" class="fnanchor">158-2</a></span></p> + +<p>Mixcoatl, the Cloud Serpent, or Iztac-Mixcoatl, the White or Gleaming +Cloud Serpent, said to have been the only divinity of the ancient +Chichimecs, held in high honor by the Nahuas, Nicaraguans, and Otomis, +and identical with Taras, supreme god of the Tarascos and Camaxtli, god +of the Teo-Chichimecs, is another personification of the thunder-storm. +To this day this is the familiar name of the tropical tornado in the +Mexican <span class="nowrap">language.<a name="FNanchor_158-3_237" id="FNanchor_158-3_237"></a><a href="#Footnote_158-3_237" class="fnanchor">158-3</a></span> He was represented, like Jove, with a bundle of +arrows in his hand, the thunderbolts. Both the Nahuas and Tarascos +related legends in which he figured as father of the race of man. Like +other lords of the lightning he was worshipped as the dispenser of +riches and the patron of traffic; and in Nicaragua his image is +described as being “engraved <span class="nowrap">stones,”<a name="FNanchor_158-4_238" id="FNanchor_158-4_238"></a><a href="#Footnote_158-4_238" class="fnanchor">158-4</a></span> probably the supposed +products of the thunder.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"> + +<p><a name="Footnote_124-1_161" id="Footnote_124-1_161"></a><a href="#FNanchor_124-1_161"><span class="label">124-1</span></a> A. D’Orbigny, <i>L’Homme Américain</i>, i. p. 240.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_125-1_162" id="Footnote_125-1_162"></a><a href="#FNanchor_125-1_162"><span class="label">125-1</span></a> Rivero and Tschudi, <i>Peruvian Antiquities</i>, 162, after +J. Acosta.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_125-2_163" id="Footnote_125-2_163"></a><a href="#FNanchor_125-2_163"><span class="label">125-2</span></a> Narrative of <i>Oceola Nikkanoche, Prince of Econchatti</i>, +p. 141; Schoolcraft, <i>Ind. Tribes</i>, iv. p. 650.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_126-1_164" id="Footnote_126-1_164"></a><a href="#FNanchor_126-1_164"><span class="label">126-1</span></a> The term in Maya is <i>caput zihil</i>, corresponding +exactly to the Latin <i>renasci</i>, to be re-born, Landa, <i>Rel. de Yucatan</i>, +p. 144.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_126-2_165" id="Footnote_126-2_165"></a><a href="#FNanchor_126-2_165"><span class="label">126-2</span></a> Dumont, <i>Mems. Hist. sur la Louisiane</i>, i. p. 233.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_127-1_166" id="Footnote_127-1_166"></a><a href="#FNanchor_127-1_166"><span class="label">127-1</span></a> Acosta, <i>Hist. of the New World</i>, lib. v. cap. 25.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_127-2_167" id="Footnote_127-2_167"></a><a href="#FNanchor_127-2_167"><span class="label">127-2</span></a> <i>Senate Report on Condition of Indian Tribes</i>, p. 358: +Washington, 1867.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_128-1_168" id="Footnote_128-1_168"></a><a href="#FNanchor_128-1_168"><span class="label">128-1</span></a> Sahagun, <i>Hist. de la Nueva España</i>, lib. vi. cap. 37.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_128-2_169" id="Footnote_128-2_169"></a><a href="#FNanchor_128-2_169"><span class="label">128-2</span></a> Ternaux-Compans, <i>Pièces rel. à la Conq. du Mexique</i>, +p. 233.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_128-3_170" id="Footnote_128-3_170"></a><a href="#FNanchor_128-3_170"><span class="label">128-3</span></a> Velasco, <i>Hist. de la Royaume de Quito</i>, p. 106, and +others.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_128-4_171" id="Footnote_128-4_171"></a><a href="#FNanchor_128-4_171"><span class="label">128-4</span></a> Whipple, <i>Rep. on the Indian Tribes</i>, p. 35. I am not +sure that this practice was of native growth to the Cherokees. This +people have many customs and traditions strangely similar to those of +Christians and Jews. Their cosmogony is a paraphrase of that of Genesis +(Squier, <i>Serp. Symbol</i>, from Payne’s MSS.); the number seven is as +sacred with them as it was with the Chaldeans (Whipple, u. s.); and they +have improved and increased by contact with the whites. Significant in +this connection is the remark of Bartram, who visited them in 1773, that +some of their females were “nearly as fair and blooming as European +women,” and generally that their complexion was lighter than their +neighbors (<i>Travels</i>, p. 485). Two explanations of these facts may be +suggested. They may be descendants in part of the ancient white race +near Cape Hatteras, to whom I have referred in a previous note. More +probably they derived their peculiarities from the Spaniards of Florida. +Mr. Shea is of opinion that missions were established among them as +early as 1566 and 1643 (<i>Hist. of Catholic Missions in the U. S.</i>, pp. +58, 73). Certainly in the latter half of the seventeenth century the +Spaniards were prosecuting mining operations in their territory (See +<i>Am. Hist. Mag.</i>, x. p. 137).</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_129-1_172" id="Footnote_129-1_172"></a><a href="#FNanchor_129-1_172"><span class="label">129-1</span></a> Sprague, <i>Hist. of the Florida War</i>, p. 328.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_129-2_173" id="Footnote_129-2_173"></a><a href="#FNanchor_129-2_173"><span class="label">129-2</span></a> Basanier, <i>Histoire Notable de la Floride</i>, p. 10.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_130-1_174" id="Footnote_130-1_174"></a><a href="#FNanchor_130-1_174"><span class="label">130-1</span></a> Sahagun, <i>Hist. de la Nueva España</i>, lib. iii. app. +cap. i.; Meyen, <i>Ueber die Ureinwohner von Peru</i>, p. 29.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_130-2_175" id="Footnote_130-2_175"></a><a href="#FNanchor_130-2_175"><span class="label">130-2</span></a> Gabriel Thomas, <i>Hist. of West New Jersey</i>, p. 6: +London, 1698.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_131-1_176" id="Footnote_131-1_176"></a><a href="#FNanchor_131-1_176"><span class="label">131-1</span></a> Gama, <i>Des. de las dos Piedras</i>, etc., i. p. 36.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_131-2_177" id="Footnote_131-2_177"></a><a href="#FNanchor_131-2_177"><span class="label">131-2</span></a> Garcia, <i>Or. de los Indios</i>, p. 109.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_131-3_178" id="Footnote_131-3_178"></a><a href="#FNanchor_131-3_178"><span class="label">131-3</span></a> Oviedo, <i>Rel. de la Prov. de Nicaragua</i>, p. 41. The +name is a corruption of the Aztec <i>Quiauhteotl</i>, Rain-God.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_132-1_179" id="Footnote_132-1_179"></a><a href="#FNanchor_132-1_179"><span class="label">132-1</span></a> Gumilla, <i>Hist. del Orinoco</i>, ii. cap. 23.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_132-2_180" id="Footnote_132-2_180"></a><a href="#FNanchor_132-2_180"><span class="label">132-2</span></a> <i>Doc. Hist. of New York</i>, iv. p. 130.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_132-3_181" id="Footnote_132-3_181"></a><a href="#FNanchor_132-3_181"><span class="label">132-3</span></a> Gama, <i>Des. de las dos Piedras</i>, ii. p. 41; Gallatin, +<i>Trans. Am. Ethnol. Soc.</i>, i. p. 343.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_133-1_182" id="Footnote_133-1_182"></a><a href="#FNanchor_133-1_182"><span class="label">133-1</span></a> Adrian Van Helmont, <i>Workes</i>, p. 142, fol.: London, +1662.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_133-2_183" id="Footnote_133-2_183"></a><a href="#FNanchor_133-2_183"><span class="label">133-2</span></a> The moon is <i>nipa</i> or <i>nipaz</i>; <i>nipa</i>, I sleep; +<i>nipawi</i>, night; <i>nip</i>, I die; <i>nepua</i>, dead; <i>nipanoue</i>, cold. This odd +relationship was first pointed out by Volney (Duponceau, <i>Langues de +l’Amérique du Nord</i>, p. 317). But the kinship of these words to that for +water, <i>nip</i>, <i>nipi</i>, <i>nepi</i>, has not before been noticed. This proves +the association of ideas on which I lay so much stress in mythology. A +somewhat similar relationship exists in the Aztec and cognate languages, +<i>miqui</i>, to die, <i>micqui</i>, dead, <i>mictlan</i>, the realm of death, +<i>te-miqui</i>, to dream, <i>cec-miqui</i>, to freeze. Would it be going too far +to connect these with <i>metzli</i>, moon? (See Buschmann, <i>Spuren der +Aztekischen Sprache im Nördlichen Mexico</i>, p. 80.)</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_133-3_184" id="Footnote_133-3_184"></a><a href="#FNanchor_133-3_184"><span class="label">133-3</span></a> Schoolcraft, <i>Ind. Tribes</i>, vol. iii. p. 485.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_134-1_185" id="Footnote_134-1_185"></a><a href="#FNanchor_134-1_185"><span class="label">134-1</span></a> <i>Rel. de la Nouv. France</i>, 1634, p. 16.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_134-2_186" id="Footnote_134-2_186"></a><a href="#FNanchor_134-2_186"><span class="label">134-2</span></a> Humboldt, <i>Vues des Cordillères</i>, p. 21.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_134-3_187" id="Footnote_134-3_187"></a><a href="#FNanchor_134-3_187"><span class="label">134-3</span></a> Spix and Martius, <i>Travels in Brazil</i>, ii. p. 247.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_134-4_188" id="Footnote_134-4_188"></a><a href="#FNanchor_134-4_188"><span class="label">134-4</span></a> <i>Hist. de la Médecine</i>, i. p. 34.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_134-5_189" id="Footnote_134-5_189"></a><a href="#FNanchor_134-5_189"><span class="label">134-5</span></a> Gama, <i>Des. de las dos Piedras</i>, etc., ii. pp. 100-102. +Compare Sahagun, <i>Hist. de la Nueva España</i>, lib. i. cap. vi.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_135-1_190" id="Footnote_135-1_190"></a><a href="#FNanchor_135-1_190"><span class="label">135-1</span></a> Codex Chimalpopoca, in Brasseur, <i>Hist. du Mexique</i>, i. +p. 183. Gama and others translate Nanahuatl by <i>el buboso</i>, Brasseur by +<i>le syphilitique</i>, and the latter founds certain medical speculations on +the word. It is entirely unnecessary to say to a surgeon that it could +not possibly have had the latter meaning, inasmuch as the diagnosis +between secondary or tertiary syphilis and other similar diseases was +unknown. That it is so employed now is nothing to the purpose. The same +or a similar myth was found in Central America and on the Island of +Haiti.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_136-1_191" id="Footnote_136-1_191"></a><a href="#FNanchor_136-1_191"><span class="label">136-1</span></a> <i>Rel. de la Nouv. France</i>, 1648, p. 75.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_136-2_192" id="Footnote_136-2_192"></a><a href="#FNanchor_136-2_192"><span class="label">136-2</span></a> Charlevoix is in error when he identifies Michabo with +the Spirit of the Waters, and may be corrected from his own statements +elsewhere. Compare his <i>Journal Historique</i>, pp. 281 and 344: ed. Paris, +1740.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_137-1_193" id="Footnote_137-1_193"></a><a href="#FNanchor_137-1_193"><span class="label">137-1</span></a> Bradford, <i>American Antiquities</i>, p. 833; Martius, <i>Von +dem Rechtszustande unter den Ureinwohnern Brasiliens</i>, p. 32; +Schoolcraft, <i>Ind. Tribes</i>, i. p. 271.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_138-1_194" id="Footnote_138-1_194"></a><a href="#FNanchor_138-1_194"><span class="label">138-1</span></a> La Vega, <i>Hist. des Incas</i>, liv. vi. cap. 9.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_138-2_195" id="Footnote_138-2_195"></a><a href="#FNanchor_138-2_195"><span class="label">138-2</span></a> <i>Lett. sur les Superstitions du Pérou</i>, p. 111.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_138-3_196" id="Footnote_138-3_196"></a><a href="#FNanchor_138-3_196"><span class="label">138-3</span></a> Schoolcraft, <i>Ind. Tribes</i>, iv. p. 224.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_139-1_197" id="Footnote_139-1_197"></a><a href="#FNanchor_139-1_197"><span class="label">139-1</span></a> Chantico, according to Gama, means “Wolf’s Head,” +though I cannot verify this from the vocabularies within my reach. He is +sometimes called Cohuaxolotl Chantico, the snake-servant Chantico, +considered by Gama as one, by Torquemada as two deities (see Gama, <i>Des. +de las dos Piedras</i>, etc., i. p. 12; ii. p. 66). The English word +<i>cantico</i> in the phrase, for instance, “to cut a cantico,” though an +Indian word, is not from this, but from the Algonkin Delaware +<i>gentkehn</i>, to dance a sacred dance. The Dutch describe it as “a +religious custom observed among them before death” (<i>Doc. Hist. of New +York</i>, iv. p. 63). William Penn says of the Lenape, “their worship +consists of two parts, sacrifice and cantico,” the latter “performed by +round dances, sometimes words, sometimes songs, then shouts; their +postures very antic and differing.” (<i>Letter to the Free Society of +Traders</i>, 1683, sec. 21.)</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_139-2_198" id="Footnote_139-2_198"></a><a href="#FNanchor_139-2_198"><span class="label">139-2</span></a> Charlevoix, <i>Hist. Gén. de la Nouv. France</i>, i. p. 394: +Paris, 1740. On the different species of dogs indigenous to America, see +a note of Alex. von Humboldt, <i>Ansichten der Natur</i>., i. p. 134. It may +be noticed that Chichimec, properly Chichimecatl, the name of the Aztec +tribe who succeeded the ancient Toltecs in Mexico, means literally +“people of the dog,” and was probably derived from some mythological +fable connected with that animal.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_140-1_199" id="Footnote_140-1_199"></a><a href="#FNanchor_140-1_199"><span class="label">140-1</span></a> <i>Narr. of the Captiv. of John Tanner</i>, p. 362. From the +word for fire in many American tongues is formed the adjective <i>red</i>. +Thus, Algonkin, <i>skoda</i>, fire, <i>miskoda</i>, red; Kolosch, <i>kan</i>, fire, +<i>kan</i>, red; Ugalentz, <i>takak</i>, fire, <i>takak-uete</i>, red; Tahkali, +<i>cūn</i>, fire, <i>tenil-cūn</i>, red; Quiche, <i>cak</i>, fire, <i>cak</i>, red, +etc. From the adjective <i>red</i> comes often the word for <i>blood</i>, and in +symbolism the color red may refer to either of these ideas. It was the +royal color of the Incas, brothers of the sun, and a llama swathed in a +red garment was the Peruvian sacrifice to fire (Garcia, <i>Or. de los +Indios</i>, lib. iv. caps. 16, 19). On the other hand the war quipus, the +war wampum, and the war paint were all of this hue, boding their +sanguinary significance. The word for fire in the language of the +Delawares, Nanticokes, and neighboring tribes puzzles me. It is <i>taenda</i> +or <i>tinda</i>. This is the Swedish word <i>taenda</i>, from whose root comes our +<i>tinder</i>. Yet it is found in vocabularies as early as 1650, and is +universally current to-day. It has no resemblance to the word for fire +in pure Algonkin. Was it adopted from the Swedes? Was it introduced by +wandering Vikings in remote centuries? Or is it only a coincidence?</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_141-1_200" id="Footnote_141-1_200"></a><a href="#FNanchor_141-1_200"><span class="label">141-1</span></a> Compare D’Orbigny, <i>L’Homme Américain</i>, i. p. 243, +Müller, <i>Amer. Urreligionen</i>, p. 51, and Squier, <i>Serpent Symbol in +America</i>, p. 111. This is a striking instance of the confusion of ideas +introduced by false systems of study, and also of the considerable +misapprehension of American mythology which has hitherto prevailed.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_142-1_201" id="Footnote_142-1_201"></a><a href="#FNanchor_142-1_201"><span class="label">142-1</span></a> La Hontan, <i>Voy. dans l’Amér. Sept.</i>, p. ii. 127; +<i>Rel. Nouv. France</i>, 1637, p. 54.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_142-2_202" id="Footnote_142-2_202"></a><a href="#FNanchor_142-2_202"><span class="label">142-2</span></a> Copway, <i>Trad. Hist. of the Ojibway Nation</i>, p. 165. +<i>Kesuch</i> in Algonkin signifies both sky and sun (Duponceau, <i>Langues de +l’Amér. du Nord</i>, p. 312). So apparently does <i>kin</i> in the Maya.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_142-3_203" id="Footnote_142-3_203"></a><a href="#FNanchor_142-3_203"><span class="label">142-3</span></a> Payne’s manuscripts quoted by Mr. Squier in his Serpent +Symbol in America were compiled within this century, and from the +extracts given can be of no great value.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_143-1_204" id="Footnote_143-1_204"></a><a href="#FNanchor_143-1_204"><span class="label">143-1</span></a> The words for fire and sun in American languages are +usually from distinct roots, but besides the example of the Natchez I +may instance to the contrary the Kolosch of British America, in whose +tongue fire is <i>kan</i>, sun, <i>kakan</i> (<i>gake</i>, great), and the Tezuque of +New Mexico, who use <i>tah</i> for both sun and fire.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_144-1_205" id="Footnote_144-1_205"></a><a href="#FNanchor_144-1_205"><span class="label">144-1</span></a> <i>Doc. Hist. of New York</i>, ii. p. 634.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_144-2_206" id="Footnote_144-2_206"></a><a href="#FNanchor_144-2_206"><span class="label">144-2</span></a> Emory, <i>Milt’y </i><a name="corr6" id="corr6"></a><ins class="correction" title="Title of original publication is spelled Reconnoissance"><i>Reconnoissance</i></ins><i> of New Mexico</i>, p. +30.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_144-3_207" id="Footnote_144-3_207"></a><a href="#FNanchor_144-3_207"><span class="label">144-3</span></a> <i>Narrative of John Tanner</i>, p. 161.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_144-4_208" id="Footnote_144-4_208"></a><a href="#FNanchor_144-4_208"><span class="label">144-4</span></a> Loskiel, <i>Ges. der Miss. der evang. Brüder</i>, p. 55.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_144-5_209" id="Footnote_144-5_209"></a><a href="#FNanchor_144-5_209"><span class="label">144-5</span></a> <i>Nar. of John Tanner</i>, p. 351.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_144-6_210" id="Footnote_144-6_210"></a><a href="#FNanchor_144-6_210"><span class="label">144-6</span></a> Sahagun, <i>Hist. Nueva España</i>, lib. vi. cap. 4.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_145-1_211" id="Footnote_145-1_211"></a><a href="#FNanchor_145-1_211"><span class="label">145-1</span></a> <i>Letts. Edifiantes et Curieuses</i>, iv. p. 104, Oviedo; +<i>Hist. du Nicaragua</i>, p. 49; <ins class="errata" title="Gomara">Gumilla</ins>, <i>Hist. del Orinoco</i>, ii. cap. 2.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_145-2_212" id="Footnote_145-2_212"></a><a href="#FNanchor_145-2_212"><span class="label">145-2</span></a> Oviedo, <i>Hist. Gen. de las Indias</i>, p. 16, in Barcia’s +<i>Hist. Prim.</i></p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_145-3_213" id="Footnote_145-3_213"></a><a href="#FNanchor_145-3_213"><span class="label">145-3</span></a> <i>Presdt’s Message and Docs.</i> for 1851, pt. iii. p. +506.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_146-1_214" id="Footnote_146-1_214"></a><a href="#FNanchor_146-1_214"><span class="label">146-1</span></a> Sahagun, <i>Hist. de la Nueva España</i>, i. cap. 13.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_147-1_215" id="Footnote_147-1_215"></a><a href="#FNanchor_147-1_215"><span class="label">147-1</span></a> <i>Voyage Pittoresque dans le Yucatan</i>, p. 49.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_147-2_216" id="Footnote_147-2_216"></a><a href="#FNanchor_147-2_216"><span class="label">147-2</span></a> Davila Padilla, <i>Hist. de la Prov. de Santiago de +Mexico</i>, lib. ii. cap. 88 (Brusselas, 1625); Palacios, <i>Des. de +Guatemala</i>, p. 40; Garcia, <i>Or. de los Indios</i>, p. 124. To such an +extent did the priests of the Algonkin tribes who lived near Manhattan +Island carry their austerity, such uncompromising celibates were they, +that it is said on authority as old as 1624, that they never so much as +partook of food prepared by a married woman. (<i>Doc. Hist. New York</i>, iv. +p. 28.)</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_149-1_217" id="Footnote_149-1_217"></a><a href="#FNanchor_149-1_217"><span class="label">149-1</span></a> Martius, <i>Von dem Rechtzustande unter den Ureinwohnern +Brasiliens</i>, p. 28, gives many references.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_149-2_218" id="Footnote_149-2_218"></a><a href="#FNanchor_149-2_218"><span class="label">149-2</span></a> Id. <i>ibid.</i>, p. 61.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_149-3_219" id="Footnote_149-3_219"></a><a href="#FNanchor_149-3_219"><span class="label">149-3</span></a> <i>Le Livre Sacré des Quichés</i>, Introd., pp. clxi., +clxix.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_149-4_220" id="Footnote_149-4_220"></a><a href="#FNanchor_149-4_220"><span class="label">149-4</span></a> <i>Travels in Yucatan</i>, i. p. 434.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_150-1_221" id="Footnote_150-1_221"></a><a href="#FNanchor_150-1_221"><span class="label">150-1</span></a> Schoolcraft, <i>Ind. Tribes</i>, v. pp. 416, 417.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_150-2_222" id="Footnote_150-2_222"></a><a href="#FNanchor_150-2_222"><span class="label">150-2</span></a> Mrs. Eastman, <i>Legends of the Sioux</i>, p. 161.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_151-1_223" id="Footnote_151-1_223"></a><a href="#FNanchor_151-1_223"><span class="label">151-1</span></a> <i>Rel. de la Nouv. France</i>, 1634, p. 27; Schoolcraft, +<i>Algic Researches</i>, ii. p. 116; <i>Ind. Tribes</i>, v. p. 420.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_151-2_224" id="Footnote_151-2_224"></a><a href="#FNanchor_151-2_224"><span class="label">151-2</span></a> De Smet, <i>Western Missions</i>, p. 135; Schoolcraft, <i>Ind. +Tribes</i>, i. p. 319.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_151-3_225" id="Footnote_151-3_225"></a><a href="#FNanchor_151-3_225"><span class="label">151-3</span></a> Mrs. Eastman, <i>Legends of the Sioux</i>, p. 72. By another +legend they claimed that their first ancestor obtained his fire from the +sparks which a friendly panther struck from the rocks as he scampered up +a stony hill (McCoy, <i>Hist. of Baptist Indian Missions</i>, p. 364).</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_152-1_226" id="Footnote_152-1_226"></a><a href="#FNanchor_152-1_226"><span class="label">152-1</span></a> Mrs. Eastman, ubi sup., p. 158; Schoolcraft, <i>Ind. +Tribes</i>, iv. p. 645.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_152-2_227" id="Footnote_152-2_227"></a><a href="#FNanchor_152-2_227"><span class="label">152-2</span></a> Waitz, <i>Anthropologie</i>, iii. p. 417; Müller, <i>Am. +Urrelig.</i>, p. 271.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_154-1_228" id="Footnote_154-1_228"></a><a href="#FNanchor_154-1_228"><span class="label">154-1</span></a> On the myth of Catequil see particularly the <i>Lettre +sur les Superstitions du Pérou</i>, p. 95 sqq., and compare Montesinos, +<i>Ancien Pérou</i>, chaps. ii., xx. The letters g and j do not exist in +Quichua, therefore Ataguju should doubtless read <i>Ata-chuchu</i>, which +means lord, or ruler of the twins, from <i>ati</i> root of <i>atini</i>, I am +able, I control, and <i>chuchu</i>, twins. The change of the root <i>ati</i> to +<i>ata</i>, though uncommon in Quichua, occurs also in <i>ata-hualpa</i>, cock, +from <i>ati</i> and <i>hualpa</i>, fowl. Apo-Catequil, or as given by Arriaga, +another old writer on Peruvian idolatry, Apocatequilla, I take to be +properly <i>apu-ccatec-quilla</i>, which literally means <i>chief of the +followers of the moon</i>. Acosta mentions that the native name for various +constellations was <i>catachillay</i> or <i>catuchillay</i>, doubtless corruptions +of <i>ccatec quilla</i>, literally “following the moon.” Catequil, therefore, +the dark spirit of the storm rack, was also appropriately enough, and +perhaps primarily, lord of the night and stars. Piguerao, where the g +appears again, is probably a compound of <i>piscu</i>, bird, and <i>uira</i>, +white. Guachemines seems clearly the word <i>huachi</i>, a ray of light or an +arrow, with the negative suffix <i>ymana</i>, thus meaning rayless, as in the +text, or <i>ymana</i> may mean an excess as well as a want of anything beyond +what is natural, which would give the signification “very bright +shining.” (Holguin, <i>Arte de la Lengua Quichua</i>, p. 106: Cuzco, 1607.) +Is this sister of theirs the Dawn, who, as in the Rig Veda, brings forth +at the cost of her own life the white and dark twins, the Day and the +Night, the latter of whom drives from the heavens the far-shooting +arrows of light, in order that he may restore his mother again to life? +The answer may for the present be deferred. It is a coincidence perhaps +worth mentioning that the Augustin monk who is our principal authority +for this legend mentions two other twin deities, Yamo and Yama, whose +names are almost identical with the twins Yama and Yami of the Veda.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_155-1_229" id="Footnote_155-1_229"></a><a href="#FNanchor_155-1_229"><span class="label">155-1</span></a> <i>Hist. des Incas</i>, liv. ii. cap. 28, and corrected in +Markham’s <i>Quichua Grammar</i>.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_155-2_230" id="Footnote_155-2_230"></a><a href="#FNanchor_155-2_230"><span class="label">155-2</span></a> The latter is a compound of <i>tici</i> or <i>ticcu</i>, a vase, +and <i>ylla</i>, the root of <i>yllani</i>, to shine, <i>yllapantac</i>, it thunders +and lightens. The former is from <i>tici</i> and <i>cun</i> or <i>con</i>, whence by +reduplication <i>cun-un-un-an</i>, it thunders. From <i>cun</i> and <i>tura</i>, +brother, is probably derived <i>cuntur</i>, the condor, the flying +thunder-cloud being looked upon as a great bird also. Dr. Waitz has +pointed out that the Araucanians call by the title <i>con</i>, the messenger +who summons their chieftains to a general council.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_156-1_231" id="Footnote_156-1_231"></a><a href="#FNanchor_156-1_231"><span class="label">156-1</span></a> <i>Le Livre Sacré</i>, p. 9. The name of the lightning in +Quiché is <i>cak ul ha</i>, literally, “fire coming from water.”</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_156-2_232" id="Footnote_156-2_232"></a><a href="#FNanchor_156-2_232"><span class="label">156-2</span></a> Morgan, <i>League of the Iroquois</i>, p. 158.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_157-1_233" id="Footnote_157-1_233"></a><a href="#FNanchor_157-1_233"><span class="label">157-1</span></a> “El rayo, el relámpago, y el trueno.” Gama, <i>Des. de +las dos Piedras</i>, etc., ii. p. 76: Mexico, 1832.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_157-2_234" id="Footnote_157-2_234"></a><a href="#FNanchor_157-2_234"><span class="label">157-2</span></a> Torquemada, <i>Monarquia Indiana</i>, lib. vi. cap. 23. +Gama, ubi sup. ii. 76, 77.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_158-1_235" id="Footnote_158-1_235"></a><a href="#FNanchor_158-1_235"><span class="label">158-1</span></a> Torquemada, ibid., lib. vi. cap. 41.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_158-2_236" id="Footnote_158-2_236"></a><a href="#FNanchor_158-2_236"><span class="label">158-2</span></a> <i>Senate Report on the Indian Tribes</i>, p. 358: +Washington, 1867.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_158-3_237" id="Footnote_158-3_237"></a><a href="#FNanchor_158-3_237"><span class="label">158-3</span></a> Brasseur, <a name="corr7" id="corr7"></a><ins class="correction" title="Hist."><i>Hist</i></ins><i> du Mexique</i>, i. p. 201, and on +the extent of his worship Waitz, <i>Anthropol.</i>, iv. p. 144.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_158-4_238" id="Footnote_158-4_238"></a><a href="#FNanchor_158-4_238"><span class="label">158-4</span></a> Oviedo, <i>Hist. du Nicaragua</i>, p. 47.</p> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h2> + +<p class="chaptoc">THE SUPREME GODS OF THE RED RACE.</p> + +<p class="chapintro">Analysis of American culture myths.—The Manibozho or Michabo of +the Algonkins shown to be an impersonation of <span class="smcap">Light</span>, a hero of the +Dawn, and their highest deity.—The myths of Ioskeha of the +Iroquois, Viracocha of the Peruvians, and Quetzalcoatl of the +Toltecs essentially the same as that of Michabo.—Other +examples.—Ante-Columbian prophecies of the advent of a white race +from the east as conquerors.—Rise of later culture myths under +similar forms.</p> + + +<p class="noindent"><span class="dropcap">T</span><span class="upper">he</span> philosopher Machiavelli, commenting on the books of Livy, lays it +down as a general truth that every form and reform has been brought +about by a single individual. Since a remorseless criticism has shorn so +many heroes of their laurels, our faith in the maxim of the great +Florentine wavers, and the suspicion is created that the popular fancy +which personifies under one figure every social revolution is an +illusion. It springs from that tendency to hero worship, ineradicable in +the heart of the race, which leads every nation to have an ideal, the +imagined author of its prosperity, the father of his country, and the +focus of its legends. As has been hinted, history is not friendly to +their renown, and dissipates them altogether into phantoms of the brain, +or sadly dims the lustre of their fame. Arthur, bright star of chivalry, +dwindles into a Welsh subaltern; the Cid Campeador, defender of the +faith, sells his sword as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span> often to Moslem as to Christian, and <i>sells</i> +it ever; while Siegfried and Feridun vanish into nothings.</p> + +<p>As elsewhere the world over, so in America many tribes had to tell of +such a personage, some such august character, who taught them what they +knew, the tillage of the soil, the properties of plants, the art of +picture writing, the secrets of magic; who founded their institutions +and established their religions, who governed them long with glory +abroad and peace at home; and finally, did not die, but like Frederick +Barbarossa, Charlemagne, King Arthur, and all great heroes, vanished +mysteriously, and still lives somewhere, ready at the right moment to +return to his beloved people and lead them to victory and happiness. +Such to the Algonkins was Michabo or Manibozho, to the Iroquois Ioskeha, +Wasi to the Cherokees, Tamoi to the Caribs; so the Mayas had Zamna, the +Toltecs Quetzalcoatl, the Muyscas Nemqueteba; such among the Aymaras was +Viracocha, among the Mandans Numock-muckenah, and among the natives of +the Orinoko Amalivaca; and the catalogue could be extended indefinitely.</p> + +<p>It is not always easy to pronounce upon these heroes, whether they +belong to history or mythology, their nation’s poetry or its prose. In +arriving at a conclusion we must remember that a fiction built on an +idea is infinitely more tenacious of life than a story founded on fact. +Further, that if a striking similarity in the legends of two such heroes +be discovered under circumstances which forbid the thought that one was +derived from the other, then both are probably mythical. If this is the +case in not two but in half a dozen instances, then the probability +amounts<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span> to a certainty, and the only task remaining is to explain such +narratives on consistent mythological principles. If after sifting out +all foreign and later traits, it appears that when first known to +Europeans, these heroes were assigned all the attributes of highest +divinity, were the imagined creators and rulers of the world, and +mightiest of spiritual powers, then their position must be set far +higher than that of deified men. They must be accepted as the supreme +gods of the red race, the analogues in the western continent of Jupiter, +Osiris, and Odin in the eastern, and whatever opinions contrary to this +may have been advanced by writers and travellers must be set down to the +account of that prevailing ignorance of American mythology which has +fathered so many other blunders. To solve these knotty points I shall +choose for analysis the culture myths of the Algonkins, the Iroquois, +the Toltecs of Mexico, and the Aymaras or Peruvians, guided in my choice +by the fact that these four families are the best known, and, in many +points of view, the most important on the continent.</p> + +<p>From the remotest wilds of the northwest to the coast of the Atlantic, +from the southern boundaries of Carolina to the cheerless swamps of +Hudson’s Bay, the Algonkins were never tired of gathering around the +winter fire and repeating the story of Manibozho or Michabo, the Great +Hare. With entire unanimity their various branches, the Powhatans of +Virginia, the Lenni Lenape of the Delaware, the warlike hordes of New +England, the Ottawas of the far north, and the western tribes perhaps +without exception, spoke of “this chimerical beast,” as one of the old +missiona<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span>ries calls it, as their common ancestor. The totem or clan +which bore his name was looked up to with peculiar respect. In many of +the tales which the whites have preserved of Michabo he seems half a +<a name="corr8" id="corr8"></a><ins class="correction" title="wizard">wizzard</ins>, half a simpleton. He is full of pranks and wiles, but +often at a loss for a meal of victuals; ever itching to try his arts +magic on great beasts and often meeting ludicrous failures therein; +envious of the powers of others, and constantly striving to outdo them +in what they do best; in short, little more than a malicious buffoon +delighting in practical jokes, and abusing his superhuman powers for +selfish and ignoble ends. But this is a low, modern, and corrupt version +of the character of Michabo, bearing no more resemblance to his real and +ancient one than the language and acts of our Saviour and the apostles +in the coarse Mystery Plays of the Middle Ages do to those recorded by +the Evangelists.</p> + +<p>What he really was we must seek in the accounts of older travellers, in +the invocations of the jossakeeds or prophets, and in the part assigned +to him in the solemn mysteries of religion. In these we find him +portrayed as the patron and founder of the meda <span class="nowrap">worship,<a name="FNanchor_162-1_239" id="FNanchor_162-1_239"></a><a href="#Footnote_162-1_239" class="fnanchor">162-1</a></span> the +inventor of picture writing, the father and guardian of their nation, +the ruler of the winds, even the maker and preserver of the world and +creator of the sun and moon. From a grain of sand brought from the +bottom of the primeval ocean, he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span> fashioned the habitable land and set +it floating on the waters, till it grew to such a size that a strong +young wolf, running constantly, died of old age ere he reached its +limits. Under the name Michabo Ovisaketchak, the Great Hare who created +the Earth, he was originally the highest divinity recognized by them, +“powerful and beneficent beyond all others, maker of the heavens and the +world.” He was founder of the medicine hunt in which after appropriate +ceremonies and incantations the Indian sleeps, and Michabo appears to +him in a dream, and tells him where he may readily kill game. He himself +was a mighty hunter of old; one of his footsteps measured eight leagues, +the Great Lakes were the beaver dams he built, and when the cataracts +impeded his progress he tore them away with his hands. Attentively +watching the spider spread its web to trap unwary flies, he devised the +art of knitting nets to catch fish, and the signs and charms he tested +and handed down to his descendants are of marvellous efficacy in the +chase. In the autumn, in “the moon of the falling leaf,” ere he composes +himself to his winter’s sleep, he fills his great pipe and takes a +god-like smoke. The balmy clouds float over the hills and woodlands, +filling the air with the haze of the “Indian summer.”</p> + +<p>Sometimes he was said to dwell in the skies with his brother the snow, +or, like many great spirits, to have built his wigwam in the far north +on some floe of ice in the Arctic Ocean, while the Chipeways localized +his birthplace and former home to the Island Michilimakinac at the +outlet of Lake Superior. But in the oldest accounts of the missionaries +he was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span> alleged to reside toward the east, and in the holy formulæ of +the meda craft, when the winds are invoked to the medicine lodge, the +east is summoned in his name, the door opens in that direction, and +there, at the edge of the earth, where the sun rises, on the shore of +the infinite ocean that surrounds the land, he has his house and sends +the luminaries forth on their daily <span class="nowrap">journies.<a name="FNanchor_164-1_240" id="FNanchor_164-1_240"></a><a href="#Footnote_164-1_240" class="fnanchor">164-1</a></span></p> + +<p>It is passing strange that such an insignificant creature as the rabbit +should have received this apotheosis. No explanation of it in the least +satisfactory has ever been offered. Some have pointed it out as a +senseless, meaningless brute worship. It leads to the suspicion that +there may lurk here one of those confusions of words which have so often +led to confusion of ideas in mythology. Manibozho, Nanibojou, Missibizi, +Michabo, Messou, all variations of the same name in different dialects +rendered according to different orthographies, scrutinize them closely +as we may, they all seem compounded according to well ascertained laws +of Algonkin euphony from the words corresponding to <i>great</i> and <i>hare</i> +or <i>rabbit</i>, or the first two perhaps from <i>spirit</i> and <i>hare</i> (<i>michi</i>, +great, <i>wabos</i>, hare, <i>manito wabos</i>, spirit hare, Chipeway dialect), +and so they have invariably been translated even by the Indians +themselves. But looking more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span> narrowly at the second member of the word, +it is clearly capable of another and very different interpretation, of +an interpretation which discloses at once the origin and the secret +meaning of the whole story of Michabo, in the light of which it appears +no longer the incoherent fable of savages, but a true myth, instinct +with nature, pregnant with matter, nowise inferior to those which +fascinate in the chants of the Rig Veda, or the weird pages of the Edda.</p> + +<p>On a previous page I have emphasized with what might have seemed +superfluous force, how prominent in primitive mythology is the east, the +source of the morning, the day-spring on high, the cardinal point which +determines and controls all others. But I did not lay as much stress on +it as others have. “The whole theogony and philosophy of the ancient +world,” says Max Müller, “centred in the Dawn, the mother of the bright +gods, of the Sun in his various aspects, of the morn, the day, the +spring; herself the brilliant image and visage of <span class="nowrap">immortality.”<a name="FNanchor_165-1_241" id="FNanchor_165-1_241"></a><a href="#Footnote_165-1_241" class="fnanchor">165-1</a></span> +Now it appears on attentively examining the Algonkin root <i>wab</i>, that it +gives rise to words of very diverse meaning, that like many others in +all languages while presenting but one form it represents ideas of +wholly unlike origin and application, that in fact there are two +distinct roots having this sound. One is the initial syllable of the +word translated hare or rabbit, but the other means <i>white</i>, and from it +is derived the words for the east, the dawn, the light, the day and the +<span class="nowrap">morning.<a name="FNanchor_165-2_242" id="FNanchor_165-2_242"></a><a href="#Footnote_165-2_242" class="fnanchor">165-2</a></span> Beyond a doubt this is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span> the compound in the names +Michabo and Manibozho which therefore mean the Great Light, the Spirit +of Light, of the Dawn, or the East, and in the literal sense of the word +the Great White One, as indeed he has sometimes been called.</p> + +<p>In this sense all the ancient and authentic myths concerning him are +plain and full of meaning. They divide themselves into two distinct +cycles. In the one Michabo is the spirit of light who dispels the +darkness; in the other as chief of the cardinal points he is lord of the +winds, prince of the powers of the air, whose voice is the thunder, +whose weapon the lightning, the supreme figure in the encounter of the +air currents, in the unending conflict which the Dakotas described as +waged by the waters and the winds.</p> + +<p>In the first he is grandson of the moon, his father is the West Wind, +and his mother, a maiden, dies in giving him birth at the moment of +conception. For the moon is the goddess of night, the Dawn is her +daughter, who brings forth the morning and perishes herself in the act, +and the West, the spirit of darkness as the East is of light, precedes +and as it were begets the latter as the evening does the morning. +Straightway, however, continues the legend, the son sought the unnatural +father to revenge the death of his mother, and then commenced a long and +desperate<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span> struggle. “It began on the mountains. The West was forced to +give ground. Manabozho drove him across rivers and over mountains and +lakes, and at last he came to the brink of this world. ‘Hold,’ cried he, +‘my son, you know my power and that it is impossible to kill +<span class="nowrap">me.’”<a name="FNanchor_167-1_243" id="FNanchor_167-1_243"></a><a href="#Footnote_167-1_243" class="fnanchor">167-1</a></span> What is this but the diurnal combat of light and darkness, +carried on from what time “the jocund morn stands tiptoe on the misty +mountain tops,” across the wide world to the sunset, the struggle that +knows no end, for both the opponents are immortal?</p> + +<p>In the second, and evidently to the native mind more important cycle of +legends, he was represented as one of four brothers, the North, the +South, the East, and the West, all born at a birth, whose mother died in +ushering them into the <span class="nowrap">world;<a name="FNanchor_167-2_244" id="FNanchor_167-2_244"></a><a href="#Footnote_167-2_244" class="fnanchor">167-2</a></span> for hardly has the kindling orient +served to fix the cardinal points than it is lost and dies in the +advancing day. Yet it is clear that he was something more than a +personification of the east or the east wind, for it is repeatedly said +that it was he who assigned their duties to all the winds, to that of +the east as well as the others. This is a blending of his two +characters. Here too his life is a battle. No longer with his father, +indeed, but with his brother Chakekena<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span>pok, the flint-stone, whom he +broke in pieces and scattered over the land, and changed his entrails +into fruitful vines. The conflict was long and terrible. The face of +nature was desolated as by a tornado, and the gigantic boulders and +loose rocks found on the prairies are the missiles hurled by the mighty +combatants. Or else his foe was the glittering prince of serpents whose +abode was the lake; or was the shining Manito whose home was guarded by +fiery serpents and a deep sea; or was the great king of fishes; all +symbols of the atmospheric waters, all figurative descriptions of the +wars of the elements. In these affrays the thunder and lightning are at +his command, and with them he destroys his enemies. For this reason the +Chipeway pictography represents him brandishing a rattlesnake, the +symbol of the electric <span class="nowrap">flash,<a name="FNanchor_168-1_245" id="FNanchor_168-1_245"></a><a href="#Footnote_168-1_245" class="fnanchor">168-1</a></span> and sometimes they called him the +Northwest Wind, which in the region they inhabit usually brings the +thunder-storms.</p> + +<p>As ruler of the winds he was, like Quetzalcoatl, father and protector of +all species of birds, their <span class="nowrap">symbols.<a name="FNanchor_168-2_246" id="FNanchor_168-2_246"></a><a href="#Footnote_168-2_246" class="fnanchor">168-2</a></span> He was patron of hunters, +for their course is guided by the cardinal points. Therefore, when the +medicine hunt had been successful, the prescribed sign of gratitude to +him was to scatter a handful of the animal’s blood toward each of +<span class="nowrap">these.<a name="FNanchor_168-3_247" id="FNanchor_168-3_247"></a><a href="#Footnote_168-3_247" class="fnanchor">168-3</a></span> As daylight brings vision, and to see is to know, it was +no fable that gave him as the author of their arts, their wisdom, and +their institutions.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span></p> + +<p>In effect, his story is a world-wide truth, veiled under a thin garb of +fancy. It is but a variation of that narrative which every race has to +tell, out of gratitude to that beneficent Father who everywhere has +cared for His children. Michabo, giver of life and light, creator and +preserver, is no apotheosis of a prudent chieftain, still less the +fabrication of an idle fancy or a designing priestcraft, but in origin, +deeds, and name the not unworthy personification of the purest +conceptions they possessed concerning the Father of All. To Him at early +dawn the Indian stretched forth his hands in prayer; and to the sky or +the sun as his homes, he first pointed the pipe in his ceremonies, rites +often misinterpreted by travellers as indicative of sun worship. As +later observers tell us to this day the Algonkin prophet builds the +medicine lodge to face the sunrise, and in the name of Michabo, who +there has his home, summons the spirits of the four quarters of the +world and Gizhigooke, the day maker, to come to his fire and disclose +the hidden things of the distant and the future: so the earliest +explorers relate that when they asked the native priests who it was they +invoked, what demons or familiars, the invariable reply was, “the +Kichigouai, the genii of light, those who make the <span class="nowrap">day.”<a name="FNanchor_169-1_248" id="FNanchor_169-1_248"></a><a href="#Footnote_169-1_248" class="fnanchor">169-1</a></span></p> + +<p>Our authorities on Iroquois traditions, though numerous enough, are not +so satisfactory. The best, perhaps, is Father Brebeuf, a Jesuit +missionary, who resided among the Hurons in 1626. Their culture myth, +which he has recorded, is strikingly similar to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span> that of the Algonkins. +Two brothers appear in it, Ioskeha and Tawiscara, names which find their +meaning in the Oneida dialect as the White one and the Dark <span class="nowrap">one.<a name="FNanchor_170-1_249" id="FNanchor_170-1_249"></a><a href="#Footnote_170-1_249" class="fnanchor">170-1</a></span> +They are twins, born of a virgin mother, who died in giving them life. +Their grandmother was the moon, called by the Hurons Ataensic, a word +which signifies literally <i>she bathes herself</i>, and which, in the +opinion of Father Bruyas, a most competent authority, is derived from +the word for <span class="nowrap">water.<a name="FNanchor_170-2_250" id="FNanchor_170-2_250"></a><a href="#Footnote_170-2_250" class="fnanchor">170-2</a></span></p> + +<p>The brothers quarrelled, and finally came to blows; the former using the +horns of a stag, the latter the wild rose. He of the weaker weapon was +very naturally discomfited and sorely wounded. Fleeing for life, the +blood gushed from him at every step, and as it fell turned into +flint-stones. The victor returned to his grandmother, and established +his lodge<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span> in the far east, on the borders of the great ocean, whence +the sun comes. In time he became the father of mankind, and special +guardian of the Iroquois. The earth was at first arid and sterile, but +he destroyed the gigantic frog which had swallowed all the waters, and +guided the torrents into smooth streams and <span class="nowrap">lakes.<a name="FNanchor_171-1_251" id="FNanchor_171-1_251"></a><a href="#Footnote_171-1_251" class="fnanchor">171-1</a></span> The woods he +stocked with game; and having learned from the great tortoise, who +supports the world, how to make fire, taught his children, the Indians, +this indispensable art. He it was who watched and watered their crops; +and, indeed, without his aid, says the old missionary, quite out of +patience with such puerilities, “they think they could not boil a pot.” +Sometimes they spoke of him as the sun, but this only +<span class="nowrap">figuratively.<a name="FNanchor_171-2_252" id="FNanchor_171-2_252"></a><a href="#Footnote_171-2_252" class="fnanchor">171-2</a></span></p> + +<p>From other writers of early date we learn that the essential outlines of +this myth were received by the Tuscaroras and the Mohawks, and as the +proper names of the two brothers are in the Oneida dialect, we cannot +err in considering this the national legend of the Iroquois stock. There +is strong likelihood that the Taronhiawagon, he who comes from the Sky, +of the Onondagas, who was their supreme God, who spoke to them in +dreams, and in whose honor the chief festival of their calendar was +celebrated about the winter solstice, was, in fact, Ioskeha under +an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span>other <span class="nowrap">name.<a name="FNanchor_172-1_253" id="FNanchor_172-1_253"></a><a href="#Footnote_172-1_253" class="fnanchor">172-1</a></span> As to the legend of the Good and Bad Minds given +by Cusic, to which I have referred in a previous chapter, and the later +and wholly spurious myth of Hiawatha, first made public by Mr. Clark in +his History of Onondaga (1849), and which, in the graceful poem of +Longfellow, is now familiar to the world, they are but pale and +incorrect reflections of the early native traditions.</p> + +<p>So strong is the resemblance Ioskeha bears to Michabo, that what has +been said in explanation of the latter will be sufficient for both. Yet +I do not imagine that the one was copied or borrowed from the other. We +cannot be too cautious in adopting such a conclusion. The two nations +were remote in everything but geographical position. I call to mind +another similar myth. In it a mother is also said to have brought forth +twins, or a pair of twins, and to have paid for them with her life. +Again the one is described as the bright, the other as the dark twin; +again it is said that they struggled one with the other for the mastery. +Scholars, likewise, have interpreted the mother to mean the Dawn, the +twins either Light and Darkness, or the Four Winds. Yet this is not +Algonkin theology; nor is it at all related to that of the Iroquois. It +is the story of Sarama in the Rig Veda, and was written in Sanscrit, +under the shadow of the Himalayas, centuries before Homer.</p> + +<p>Such uniformity points not to a common source in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span> history, but in +psychology. Man, chiefly cognizant of his soul through his senses, +thought with an awful horror of the night which deprived him of the use +of one and foreshadowed the loss of all. Therefore <i>light</i> and <i>life</i> +were to him synonymous; therefore all religions promise to lead</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="first">“From night to light,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From night to heavenly light;”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="noindent">therefore He who rescues is ever the Light of the World; therefore it is +said “to the upright ariseth light in darkness;” therefore everywhere +the kindling East, the pale Dawn, is the embodiment of his hopes and the +centre of his reminiscences. Who shall say that his instinct led him +here astray? For is not, in fact, all life dependent on light? Do not +all those marvellous and subtle forces known to the older chemists as +the imponderable elements, without which not even the inorganic crystal +is possible, proceed from the rays of light? Let us beware of that +shallow science so ready to shout Eureka, and reverently acknowledge a +mysterious intuition here displayed which joins with the latest +conquests of the human mind to repeat and emphasize that message which +the Evangelist heard of the Spirit and declared unto men, that “God is +<span class="nowrap">Light.”<a name="FNanchor_173-1_254" id="FNanchor_173-1_254"></a><a href="#Footnote_173-1_254" class="fnanchor">173-1</a></span></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span>Both these heroes, let it be observed, live in the uttermost east; both +are the mythical fathers of the race. To the east, therefore, should +these nations have pointed as their original dwelling place. This they +did in spite of history. Cusic, who takes up the story of the Iroquois a +thousand years before the Christian era, locates them first in the most +eastern region they ever possessed. While the Algonkins with one voice +called those of their tribes living nearest the rising sun <i>Abnakis</i>, +our ancestors at the east, or at the dawn; literally our <i>white</i> +<span class="nowrap">ancestors.<a name="FNanchor_174-1_255" id="FNanchor_174-1_255"></a><a href="#Footnote_174-1_255" class="fnanchor">174-1</a></span> I designedly emphasize this literal rendering. It +reminds one of the white twin of Iroquois legend, and illustrates how +the color white came to be intimately associated with the morning light +and its beneficent effects. Moreover color has a specific effect on the +mind; there is a music to the eye as well as to the ear; and white, +which holds all hues in itself, disposes the soul to all pleasant and +elevating <span class="nowrap">emotions.<a name="FNanchor_174-2_256" id="FNanchor_174-2_256"></a><a href="#Footnote_174-2_256" class="fnanchor">174-2</a></span> Not fashion alone bids the bride wreathe her +brow with orange flowers, nor was it a mere figure of speech that led +the inspired poet to call his love “fairest among women,” and to +prophecy a Messiah “fairer than the children of men,” fulfilled<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span> in that +day when He appeared “in garments so white as no fuller on earth could +white them.” No nation is free from the power of this law. “White,” +observes Adair of the southern Indians, “is their fixed emblem of peace, +friendship, happiness, prosperity, purity, and <span class="nowrap">holiness.”<a name="FNanchor_175-1_257" id="FNanchor_175-1_257"></a><a href="#Footnote_175-1_257" class="fnanchor">175-1</a></span> Their +priests dressed in white robes, as did those of Peru and Mexico; the +kings of the various species of animals were all supposed to be +<span class="nowrap">white;<a name="FNanchor_175-2_258" id="FNanchor_175-2_258"></a><a href="#Footnote_175-2_258" class="fnanchor">175-2</a></span> the cities of refuge established as asylums for alleged +criminals by the Cherokees in the manner of the Israelites were called +“white towns,” and for sacrifices animals of this color were ever most +highly esteemed. All these sentiments were linked to the dawn. Language +itself is proof of it. Many Algonkin words for east, morning, dawn, day, +light, as we have already seen, are derived from a radical signifying +<i>white</i>. Or we can take a tongue nowise related, the Quiché, and find +its words for east, dawn, morning, light, bright, glorious, happy, +noble, all derived from <i>zak</i>, white. We read in their legends of the +earliest men that they were “white children,” “white sons,” leading “a +white life beyond the dawn,” and the creation itself is attributed to +the Dawn, the White One, the White Sacrificer of <span class="nowrap">Blood.<a name="FNanchor_175-3_259" id="FNanchor_175-3_259"></a><a href="#Footnote_175-3_259" class="fnanchor">175-3</a></span> But why +insist upon the point when in European tongues we find the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span> daybreak +called <i>l’aube</i>, <i>alva</i>, from <i>albus</i>, white? Enough for the purpose if +the error of those is manifest, who, in such expressions, would seek +support for any theory of ancient European immigration; enough if it +displays the true meaning of those traditions of the advent of +benevolent visitors of fair complexion in ante-Columbian times, which +both Algonkins and <span class="nowrap">Iroquois<a name="FNanchor_176-1_260" id="FNanchor_176-1_260"></a><a href="#Footnote_176-1_260" class="fnanchor">176-1</a></span> had in common with many other tribes +of the western continent. Their explanation will not be found in the +annals of Japan, the triads of the Cymric bards, nor the sagas of +Icelandic skalds, but in the propensity of the human mind to attribute +its own origin and culture to that white-shining orient where sun, moon, +and stars, are daily born in renovated glory, to that fair mother, who, +at the cost of her own life, gives light and joy to the world, to the +brilliant womb of Aurora, the glowing bosom of the Dawn.</p> + +<p>Even the complicated mythology of Peru yields to the judicious +application of these principles of interpretation. Its peculiar +obscurity arises from the policy of the Incas to blend the religions of +conquered provinces with their own. Thus about 1350 the Inca Pachacutec +subdued the country about Lima where the worship of Con and Pachacamà +<span class="nowrap">prevailed.<a name="FNanchor_176-2_261" id="FNanchor_176-2_261"></a><a href="#Footnote_176-2_261" class="fnanchor">176-2</a></span> The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span> local myth represented these as father and son, +or brothers, children of the sun. They were without flesh or blood, +impalpable, invisible, and incredibly swift of foot. Con first possessed +the land, but Pachacamà attacked and drove him to the north. Irritated +at his defeat he took with him the rain, and consequently to this day +the sea-coast of Peru is largely an arid desert. Now when we are +informed that the south wind, that in other words which blows to the +north, is the actual cause of the aridity of the <span class="nowrap">low-lands,<a name="FNanchor_177-1_262" id="FNanchor_177-1_262"></a><a href="#Footnote_177-1_262" class="fnanchor">177-1</a></span> and +consider the light and airy character of these antagonists, we cannot +hesitate to accept this as a myth of the winds. The name of <i>Con tici</i>, +the Thunder Vase, was indeed applied to Viracocha in later times, but +they were never identical. Viracocha was the culture hero of the ancient +Aymara-Quichua stock. He was more than that, for in their creed he was +creator and possessor of all things. Lands and herds were assigned to +other gods to support their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span> temples, and offerings were heaped on their +altars, but to him none. For, asked the Incas: “Shall the Lord and +Master of the whole world need these things from us?” To him, says +Acosta, “they did attribute the chief power and commandement over all +things;” and elsewhere “in all this realm the chief idoll they did +worship was Viracocha, and <i>after him</i> the <span class="nowrap">Sunne.”<a name="FNanchor_178-1_263" id="FNanchor_178-1_263"></a><a href="#Footnote_178-1_263" class="fnanchor">178-1</a></span></p> + +<p>Ere sun or moon was made, he rose from the bosom of Lake Titicaca, and +presided over the erection of those wondrous cities whose ruins still +dot its islands and western shores, and whose history is totally lost in +the night of time. He himself constructed these luminaries and placed +them in the sky, and then peopled the earth with its present +inhabitants. From the lake he journeyed westward, not without +adventures, for he was attacked with murderous intent by the beings whom +he had created. When, however, scorning such unequal combat, he had +manifested his power by hurling the lightning on the hill-sides and +consuming the forests, they recognized their maker, and humbled +themselves before him. He was reconciled, and taught them arts and +agriculture, institutions and religion, meriting the title they gave him +of <i>Pachayachachic</i>, teacher of all things. At last he disappeared in +the western ocean. Four personages, companions or sons, were closely +connected with him. They rose together with him from the lake, or else +were his first creations. These are the four mythical civilizers of +Peru, who another legend asserts emerged from the cave Pacarin tampu the +Lodgings<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span> of the <span class="nowrap">Dawn.<a name="FNanchor_179-1_264" id="FNanchor_179-1_264"></a><a href="#Footnote_179-1_264" class="fnanchor">179-1</a></span> To these Viracocha gave the earth, to one +the north, to another the south, to a third the east, to a fourth the +west. Their names are very variously given, but as they have already +been identified with the four winds, we can omit their consideration +<span class="nowrap">here.<a name="FNanchor_179-2_265" id="FNanchor_179-2_265"></a><a href="#Footnote_179-2_265" class="fnanchor">179-2</a></span> Tradition, as has rightly been observed by the Inca +Garcilasso de la <span class="nowrap">Vega,<a name="FNanchor_179-3_266" id="FNanchor_179-3_266"></a><a href="#Footnote_179-3_266" class="fnanchor">179-3</a></span> transferred a portion of the story of +Viracocha to Manco Capac, first of the historical Incas. King Manco, +however, was a real character, the Rudolph of Hapsburg of their reigning +family, and flourished about the eleventh century.</p> + +<p>There is a general resemblance between this story and that of Michabo. +Both precede and create the sun, both journey to the west, overcoming +opposition with the thunderbolt, both divide the world between the four +winds, both were the fathers, gods, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span> teachers of their nations. Nor +does it cease here. Michabo, I have shown, is the white spirit of the +Dawn. Viracocha, all authorities translate “the fat or foam of the sea.” +The idea conveyed is of whiteness, foam being called fat from its +<span class="nowrap">color.<a name="FNanchor_180-1_267" id="FNanchor_180-1_267"></a><a href="#Footnote_180-1_267" class="fnanchor">180-1</a></span> So true is this that to-day in Peru white men are called +<i>viracochas</i>, and the early explorers constantly received the same +<span class="nowrap">epithet.<a name="FNanchor_180-2_268" id="FNanchor_180-2_268"></a><a href="#Footnote_180-2_268" class="fnanchor">180-2</a></span> The name is a metaphor. The dawn rises above the horizon +as the snowy foam on the surface of a lake. As the Algonkins spoke of +the Abnakis, their white ancestors, as in Mexican legends the early +Toltecs were of fair complexion, so the Aymaras sometimes called the +first four brothers, <i>viracochas</i>, white <span class="nowrap">men.<a name="FNanchor_180-3_269" id="FNanchor_180-3_269"></a><a href="#Footnote_180-3_269" class="fnanchor">180-3</a></span> It is the ancient +story how</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i13">“Light<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sprang from the deep, and from her native east<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To journey through the airy gloom began.”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The central figure of Toltec mythology is Quetzalcoatl. Not an author on +ancient Mexico but has something to say about the glorious days when he +ruled over the land. No one denies him to have been a god, the god of +the air, highest deity of the Toltecs, in whose honor was erected the +pyramid of Cholula, grandest monument of their race. But many insist +that he was at first a man, some deified king. There were in truth many +Quetzalcoatls, for his high priest always bore his name, but he himself +is a pure creation of the fancy, and all his alleged history is nothing +but a myth.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span></p> + +<p>His emblematic name, the Bird-Serpent, and his rebus and cross at +Palenque, I have already explained. Others of his titles were, Ehecatl, +the air; Yolcuat, the rattlesnake; Tohil, the rumbler; Huemac, the +strong hand; Nani he hecatle, lord of the four winds. The same dualism +reappears in him that has been noted in his analogues elsewhere; He is +both lord of the eastern light and the winds.</p> + +<p>As the former, he was born of a virgin in the land of Tula or Tlapallan, +in the distant Orient, and was high priest of that happy realm. The +morning star was his symbol, and the temple of Cholula was dedicated to +him expressly as the author of <span class="nowrap">light.<a name="FNanchor_181-1_270" id="FNanchor_181-1_270"></a><a href="#Footnote_181-1_270" class="fnanchor">181-1</a></span> As by days we measure time, +he was the alleged inventor of the calendar. Like all the dawn heroes, +he too was represented as of white complexion, clothed in long white +robes, and, as most of the Aztec gods, with a full and flowing +<span class="nowrap">beard.<a name="FNanchor_181-2_271" id="FNanchor_181-2_271"></a><a href="#Footnote_181-2_271" class="fnanchor">181-2</a></span> When his earthly-work was done he too returned to the +east, assigning as a reason that the sun, the ruler of Tlapallan, +demanded<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span> his presence. But the real motive was that he had been +overcome by Tezcatlipoca, otherwise called Yoalliehecatl, the wind or +spirit of night, who had descended from heaven by a spider’s web and +presented his rival with a draught pretended to confer immortality, but, +in fact, producing uncontrollable longing for home. For the wind and the +light both depart when the gloaming draws near, or when the clouds +spread their dark and shadowy webs along the mountains, and pour the +vivifying rain upon the fields.</p> + +<p>In his other character, he was begot of the breath of Tonacateotl, god +of our flesh or <span class="nowrap">subsistence,<a name="FNanchor_182-1_272" id="FNanchor_182-1_272"></a><a href="#Footnote_182-1_272" class="fnanchor">182-1</a></span> or (according to Gomara) was the son +of Iztac Mixcoatl, the white cloud serpent, the spirit of the tornado. +Messenger of Tlaloc, god of rains, he was figuratively said to sweep the +road for him, since in that country violent winds are the precursors of +the wet seasons. Wherever he went all manner of singing birds bore him +company, emblems of the whistling breezes. When he finally disappeared +in the far east, he sent back four trusty youths who had ever shared his +fortunes, “incomparably swift and light of foot,” with directions to +divide the earth between them and rule it till he should return and +resume his power. When he would promulgate his decrees, his herald +proclaimed them from Tzatzitepec, the hill of shouting, with such a +mighty voice that it could be heard a hundred leagues around. The arrows +which he shot transfixed great trees, the stones he threw levelled +forests, and when he laid his hands on the rocks the mark was indelible. +Yet as thus emblematic of the thunder-storm, he possessed in full +measure its better<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span> attributes. By shaking his sandals he gave fire to +men, and peace, plenty, and riches blessed his subjects. Tradition says +he built many temples to Mictlanteuctli, the Aztec Pluto, and at the +creation of the sun that he slew all the other gods, for the advancing +dawn disperses the spectral shapes of night, and yet all its vivifying +power does but result in increasing the number doomed to fell before the +remorseless stroke of <span class="nowrap">death.<a name="FNanchor_183-1_273" id="FNanchor_183-1_273"></a><a href="#Footnote_183-1_273" class="fnanchor">183-1</a></span></p> + +<p>His symbols were the bird, the serpent, the cross, and the flint, +representing the clouds, the lightning, the four winds, and the +thunderbolt. Perhaps, as Huemac, the Strong Hand, he was god of the +earthquakes. The Zapotecs worshipped such a deity under the image of +this member carved from a precious <span class="nowrap">stone,<a name="FNanchor_183-2_274" id="FNanchor_183-2_274"></a><a href="#Footnote_183-2_274" class="fnanchor">183-2</a></span> calling to mind the +“Kab ul,” the Working Hand, adored by the <span class="nowrap">Mayas,<a name="FNanchor_183-3_275" id="FNanchor_183-3_275"></a><a href="#Footnote_183-3_275" class="fnanchor">183-3</a></span> and said to be +one of the images of Zamna, their hero god. The human hand, “that divine +tool,” as it has been called, might well be regarded by the reflective +mind as the teacher of the arts and the amulet whose magic power has won +for man what vantage he has gained in his long combat with nature and +his fellows.</p> + +<p>I might next discuss the culture myth of the Muyscas, whose hero Bochica +or Nemqueteba bore the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span> other name <span class="smcap">Sua</span>, the White One, the Day, the +East, an appellation they likewise gave the Europeans on their arrival. +He had taught them in remotest times how to manufacture their clothing, +build their houses, cultivate the soil, and reckon time. When he +disappeared, he divided the land between four chiefs, and laid down many +minute rules of government which ever after were religiously +<span class="nowrap">observed.<a name="FNanchor_184-1_276" id="FNanchor_184-1_276"></a><a href="#Footnote_184-1_276" class="fnanchor">184-1</a></span> Or I might choose that of the Caribs, whose patron Tamu +called Grandfather, and Old Man of the Sky, was a man of light +complexion, who in the old times came from the east, instructed them in +agriculture and arts, and disappeared in the same direction, promising +them assistance in the future, and that at death he would receive their +souls on the summit of the sacred tree, and transport them safely to his +home in the <span class="nowrap">sky.<a name="FNanchor_184-2_277" id="FNanchor_184-2_277"></a><a href="#Footnote_184-2_277" class="fnanchor">184-2</a></span> Or from the more fragmentary mythology of ruder +nations, proof might be brought of the well nigh universal reception of +these fundamental views. As, for instance, when the Mandans of the Upper +Missouri speak of their first ancestor as a son of the West, who +preserved them at the flood, and whose<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span> garb was always of four +milk-white wolf <span class="nowrap">skins;<a name="FNanchor_185-1_278" id="FNanchor_185-1_278"></a><a href="#Footnote_185-1_278" class="fnanchor">185-1</a></span> and when the Pimos, a people of the valley +of the Rio Gila, relate that their birthplace was where the sun rises, +that there for generations they led a joyous life, until their +beneficent first parent disappeared in the heavens. From that time, say +they, God lost sight of them, and they wandered west, and further west +till they reached their present <span class="nowrap">seats.<a name="FNanchor_185-2_279" id="FNanchor_185-2_279"></a><a href="#Footnote_185-2_279" class="fnanchor">185-2</a></span> Or I might instance the +Tupis of Brazil, who were named after the first of men, Tupa, he who +alone survived the flood, who was one of four brothers, who is described +as an old man of fair complexion, <i>un vieillard </i><span class="nowrap"><i>blanc</i>,<a name="FNanchor_185-3_280" id="FNanchor_185-3_280"></a><a href="#Footnote_185-3_280" class="fnanchor">185-3</a></span> and who +is now their highest divinity, ruler of the lightning and the storm, +whose voice is the thunder, and who is the guardian of their nation. But +is it not evident that these and all such legends are but variations of +those already analyzed?</p> + +<p>In thus removing one by one the wrappings of symbolism, and displaying +at the centre and summit of these various creeds, He who is throned in +the sky, who comes with the dawn, who manifests himself in the light and +the storm, and whose ministers<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span> are the four winds, I set up no new god. +The ancient Israelites prayed to him who was seated above the firmament, +who commanded the morning and caused the day-spring to know its place, +who answered out of the whirlwind, and whose envoys were the four winds, +the four cherubim described with such wealth of imagery in the +introduction to the book of Ezekiel. The Mahometan adores “the clement +and merciful Lord of the Daybreak,” whose star is in the east, who rides +on the storm, and whose breath is the wind. The primitive man in the New +World also associated these physical phenomena as products of an +invisible power, conceived under human form, called by name, worshipped +as one, and of whom all related the same myth differing but in +unimportant passages. This was the primeval religion. It was not +monotheism, for there were many other gods; it was not pantheism, for +there was no blending of the cause with the effects; still less was it +fetichism, an adoration of sensuous objects, for these were recognized +as effects. It teaches us that the idea of God neither arose from the +phenomenal world nor was sunk in it, as is the shallow theory of the +day, but is as Kant long ago defined it, a conviction of a highest and +first principle which binds all phenomena into one.</p> + +<p>One point of these legends deserves closer attention for the influence +it exerted on the historical fortunes of the race. The dawn heroes were +conceived as of fair complexion, mighty in war, and though absent for a +season, destined to return and claim their ancient power. Here was one +of those unconscious prophecies, pointing to the advent of a white race +from the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span> east, that wrote the doom of the red man in letters of fire. +Historians have marvelled at the instantaneous collapse of the empires +of Mexico, Peru, the Mayas, and the Natchez, before a handful of Spanish +filibusters. The fact was, wherever the whites appeared they were +connected with these ancient predictions of the spirit of the dawn +returning to claim his own. Obscure and ominous prophecies, “texts of +bodeful song,” rose in the memory of the natives, and paralyzed their +arms.</p> + +<p>“For a very long time,” said Montezuma, at his first interview with +Cortes, “has it been handed down that we are not the original possessors +of this land, but came hither from a distant region under the guidance +of a ruler who afterwards left us and returned. We have ever believed +that some day his descendants would come and resume dominion over us. +Inasmuch as you are from that direction, which is toward the rising of +the sun, and serve so great a king as you describe, we believe that he +is also our natural lord, and are ready to submit ourselves to +<span class="nowrap">him.”<a name="FNanchor_187-1_281" id="FNanchor_187-1_281"></a><a href="#Footnote_187-1_281" class="fnanchor">187-1</a></span></p> + +<p>The gloomy words of Nezahualcoyotl, a former prince of Tezcuco, +foretelling the arrival of white and bearded men from the east, who +would wrest the power from the hands of the rightful rulers and destroy +in a day the edifice of centuries, were ringing in his ears. But they +were not so gloomy to the minds of his down-trodden subjects, for that +day was to liberate them from the thralls of servitude. Therefore when +they first beheld the fair complexioned<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span> Spaniards, they rushed into the +water to embrace the prows of their vessels, and despatched messengers +throughout the land to proclaim the return of <span class="nowrap">Quetzalcoatl.<a name="FNanchor_188-1_282" id="FNanchor_188-1_282"></a><a href="#Footnote_188-1_282" class="fnanchor">188-1</a></span></p> + +<p>The noble Mexican was not alone in his presentiments. When Hernando de +Soto on landing in Peru first met the Inca Huascar, the latter related +an ancient prophecy which his father Huayna Capac had repeated on his +dying bed, to the effect that in the reign of the thirteenth Inca, white +men (<i>viracochas</i>) of surpassing strength and valor would come from +their father the Sun and subject to their rule the nations of the world. +“I command you,” said the dying monarch, “to yield them homage and +obedience, for they will be of a nature superior to <span class="nowrap">ours.”<a name="FNanchor_188-2_283" id="FNanchor_188-2_283"></a><a href="#Footnote_188-2_283" class="fnanchor">188-2</a></span></p> + +<p>The natives of Haiti told Columbus of similar predictions long anterior +to his <span class="nowrap">arrival.<a name="FNanchor_188-3_284" id="FNanchor_188-3_284"></a><a href="#Footnote_188-3_284" class="fnanchor">188-3</a></span> And Father Lizana has preserved in the original +Maya tongue several such foreboding chants. Doubtless he has adapted +them somewhat to proselytizing purposes, but they seem very likely to be +close copies of authentic aboriginal songs, referring to the return of +Zamna or Kukulcan, lord of the dawn and the four winds, worshipped at +Cozumel and Palenque under the sign of the cross. An extract will show +their character:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="first">“At the close of the thirteenth Age of the world,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While the cities of Itza and Tancah still flourish,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The sign of the Lord of the Sky will appear,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The light of the dawn will illumine the land,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the cross will be seen by the nations of men.<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span><span class="i0">A father to you, will He be, Itzalanos,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A brother to you, ye natives of Tancah;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Receive well the bearded guests who are coming,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bringing the sign of the Lord from the daybreak,<br /></span> +<span class="i0 nowrap">Of the Lord of the Sky, so clement yet powerful.”<a name="FNanchor_189-1_285" id="FNanchor_189-1_285"></a><a href="#Footnote_189-1_285" class="fnanchor">189-1</a><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The older writers, Gomara, Cogolludo, Villagutierre, have taken pains to +collect other instances of this presentiment of the arrival and +domination of a white race. Later historians, fashionably incredulous of +what they cannot explain, have passed them over in silence. That they +existed there can be no doubt, and that they arose in the way I have +stated, is almost proven by the fact that in Mexico, Bogota, and Peru, +the whites were at once called from the proper names of the heroes of +the Dawn, <i>Suas</i>, <i>Viracochas</i>, and <i>Quetzalcoatls</i>.</p> + +<p>When the church of Rome had crushed remorselessly the religions of +Mexico and Peru, all hope of the return of Quetzalcoatl and Viracocha +perished with the institutions of which they were the mythical founders. +But it was only to arise under new incarnations and later names. As well +forbid the heart of youth to bud forth in tender love, as that of +oppressed nationalities to cherish the faith that some ideal hero, some +royal man, will yet arise, and break<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span> in fragments their fetters, and +lead them to glory and honor.</p> + +<p>When the name of Quetzalcoatl was no longer heard from the teocalli of +Cholula, that of Montezuma took its place. From ocean to ocean, and from +the river Gila to the Nicaraguan lake, nearly every aboriginal nation +still cherishes the memory of Montezuma, not as the last unfortunate +ruler of a vanished state, but as the prince of their golden era, their +Saturnian age, lord of the winds and waters, and founder of their +institutions. When, in the depth of the tropical forests, the antiquary +disinters some statue of earnest mien, the natives whisper one to the +other, “Montezuma! <span class="nowrap">Montezuma!”<a name="FNanchor_190-1_286" id="FNanchor_190-1_286"></a><a href="#Footnote_190-1_286" class="fnanchor">190-1</a></span> In the legends of New Mexico he is +the founder of the pueblos, and intrusted to their guardianship the +sacred fire. Departing, he planted a tree, and bade them watch it well, +for when that tree should fall and the fire die out, then he would +return from the far East, and lead his loyal people to victory and +power. When the present generation saw their land glide, mile by mile, +into the rapacious hands of the Yankees—when new and strange diseases +desolated their homes—finally, when in 1846 the sacred tree was +prostrated, and the guardian of the holy fire was found dead on its cold +ashes, then they thought the hour of deliverance had come, and every +morning at earliest dawn a watcher mounted to the house-tops, and gazed +long and anxiously in the lightening east, hoping to descry the noble +form of Montezuma advancing through<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span> the morning beams at the head of a +conquering <span class="nowrap">army.<a name="FNanchor_191-1_287" id="FNanchor_191-1_287"></a><a href="#Footnote_191-1_287" class="fnanchor">191-1</a></span></p> + +<p>Groaning under the iron rule of the Spaniards, the Peruvians would not +believe that the last of the Incas had perished an outcast and a +wanderer in the forests of the Cordilleras. For centuries they clung to +the persuasion that he had but retired to another mighty kingdom beyond +the mountains, and in due time would return and sweep the haughty +Castilian back into the ocean. In 1781, a mestizo, Jose Gabriel +Condorcanqui, of the province of Tinta, took advantage of this strong +delusion, and binding around his forehead the scarlet fillet of the +Incas, proclaimed himself the long lost Inca Tupac Amaru, and a true +child of the sun. Thousands of Indians flocked to his standard, and at +their head he took the field, vowing the extermination of every soul of +the hated race. Seized at last by the Spaniards, and condemned to a +public execution, so profound was the reverence with which he had +inspired his followers, so full their faith in his claims, that, +undeterred by the threats of the soldiery, they prostrated themselves on +their faces before this last of the children of the sun, as he passed on +to a felon’s <span class="nowrap">death.<a name="FNanchor_191-2_288" id="FNanchor_191-2_288"></a><a href="#Footnote_191-2_288" class="fnanchor">191-2</a></span></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span>These fancied reminiscences, these unfounded hopes, so vague, so +child-like, let no one dismiss them as the babblings of ignorance. +Contemplated in their broadest meaning as characteristics of the race of +man, they have an interest higher than any history, beyond that of any +poetry. They point to the recognized discrepancy between what man is, +and what he feels he should be, must be; they are the indignant protests +of the race against acquiescence in the world’s evil as the world’s law; +they are the incoherent utterances of those yearnings for nobler +conditions of existence, which no savagery, no ignorance, nothing but a +false and lying enlightenment can wholly extinguish.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"> + +<p><a name="Footnote_162-1_239" id="Footnote_162-1_239"></a><a href="#FNanchor_162-1_239"><span class="label">162-1</span></a> The <i>meda</i> worship is the ordinary religious ritual of +the Algonkins. It consists chiefly in exhibitions of legerdemain, and in +conjuring and exorcising demons. A <i>jossakeed</i> is an inspired prophet +who derives his power directly from the higher spirits, and not as the +<i>medawin</i>, by instruction and practice.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_164-1_240" id="Footnote_164-1_240"></a><a href="#FNanchor_164-1_240"><span class="label">164-1</span></a> For these particulars see the <i>Rel. de la Nouv. +France</i>, 1667, p. 12, 1670, p. 93; Charlevoix, <i>Journal Historique</i>, p. +344; Schoolcraft, <i>Indian Tribes</i>, v. pp. 420 sqq., and Alex. Henry, +<i>Travs. in Canada and the Ind. Territories</i>, pp. 212 sqq. These are +decidedly the best references of the many that could be furnished. Peter +Jones’ <i>History of the Ojibway Indians</i>, p. 35, may also be consulted.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_165-1_241" id="Footnote_165-1_241"></a><a href="#FNanchor_165-1_241"><span class="label">165-1</span></a> <i>Science of Language</i>, Second Series, p. 518.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_165-2_242" id="Footnote_165-2_242"></a><a href="#FNanchor_165-2_242"><span class="label">165-2</span></a> Dialectic forms in Algonkin for white, are <i>wabi</i>, +<i>wape</i>, <i>wompi</i>, <i>waubish</i>, <i>oppai</i>; for morning, <i>wapan</i>, <i>wapaneh</i>, +<i>opah</i>; for east, <i>wapa</i>, <i>waubun</i>, <i>waubamo</i>; for dawn, <i>wapa</i>, +<i>waubun</i>; for day, <i>wompan</i>, <i>oppan</i>; for light, <i>oppung</i>; and many +others similar. In the Abnaki dialect, <i>wanbighen</i>, it is white, is the +customary idiom to express the breaking of the day (Vetromile, <i>The +Abnakis and their History</i>, p. 27: New York, 1866). The loss in +composition of the vowel sound represented by the English w, and in the +French writers by the figure 8, is supported by frequent analogy.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_167-1_243" id="Footnote_167-1_243"></a><a href="#FNanchor_167-1_243"><span class="label">167-1</span></a> Schoolcraft, <i>Algic Researches</i>, i. pp. 135-142.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_167-2_244" id="Footnote_167-2_244"></a><a href="#FNanchor_167-2_244"><span class="label">167-2</span></a> The names of the four brothers, Wabun, Kabun, +Kabibonokka, and Shawano, express in Algonkin both the cardinal points +and the winds which blow from them. In another version of the legend, +first reported by Father De Smet and quoted by Schoolcraft without +acknowledgment, they are Nanaboojoo, Chipiapoos, Wabosso, and +Chakekenapok. See for the support of the text, Schoolcraft, <i>Algic +Res.</i>, ii. p. 214; De Smet, <i>Oregon Missions</i>, p. 347.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_168-1_245" id="Footnote_168-1_245"></a><a href="#FNanchor_168-1_245"><span class="label">168-1</span></a> <i>Narrative of John Tanner</i>, p. 351.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_168-2_246" id="Footnote_168-2_246"></a><a href="#FNanchor_168-2_246"><span class="label">168-2</span></a> Schoolcraft, <i>Algic Res.</i>, i. p. 216.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_168-3_247" id="Footnote_168-3_247"></a><a href="#FNanchor_168-3_247"><span class="label">168-3</span></a> <i>Narrative of John Tanner</i>, p. 354.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_169-1_248" id="Footnote_169-1_248"></a><a href="#FNanchor_169-1_248"><span class="label">169-1</span></a> Compare the <i>Rel. de la Nouv. France</i>, 1634 p. 14, +1637, p. 46, with Schoolcraft, <i>Ind. Tribes</i>, v. p. 419. <i>Kichigouai</i> is +the same word as <i>Gizhigooke</i>, according to a different orthography.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_170-1_249" id="Footnote_170-1_249"></a><a href="#FNanchor_170-1_249"><span class="label">170-1</span></a> The names <i>I8skeha</i> and <i>Ta8iscara</i> I venture to +identify with the Oneida <i>owisske</i> or <i>owiska</i>, white, and <i>tetiucalas</i> +(<i>tyokaras</i>, <i>tewhgarlars</i>, Mohawk), dark or darkness. The prefix i to +<i>owisske</i> is the impersonal third person singular; the suffix <i>ha</i> gives +a future sense, so that <i>i-owisske-ha</i> or <i>iouskeha</i> means “it is going +to become white.” Brebeuf gives a similar example of <i>gaon</i>, old; +<i>a-gaon-ha</i>, <i>il va devenir vieux</i> (<i>Rel. Nouv. France</i>, 1636, p. 99). +But “it is going to become white,” meant to the Iroquois that the dawn +was about to appear, just as <i>wanbighen</i>, it is white, did to the +Abnakis (see note on page 166), and as the Eskimos say, <i>kau ma wok</i>, it +is white, to express that it is daylight (Richardson’s Vocab. of +Labrador Eskimo in his <i>Arctic Expedition</i>). Therefore, that Ioskeha is +an impersonation of the light of the dawn admits of no dispute.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_170-2_250" id="Footnote_170-2_250"></a><a href="#FNanchor_170-2_250"><span class="label">170-2</span></a> The orthography of Brebeuf is <i>aataentsic</i>. This may be +analyzed as follows: root <i>aouen</i>, water; prefix <i>at</i>, <i>il y a quelque +chose là dedans</i>; <i>ataouen</i>, <i>se baigner</i>; from which comes the form +<i>ataouensere</i>. (See Bruyas, <i>Rad. Verb. Iroquæor.</i>, pp. 30, 31.) Here +again the mythological role of the moon as the goddess of water comes +distinctly to light.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_171-1_251" id="Footnote_171-1_251"></a><a href="#FNanchor_171-1_251"><span class="label">171-1</span></a> This offers an instance of the uniformity which +prevailed in symbolism in the New World. The Aztecs adored the goddess +of water under the figure of a frog carved from a single emerald; or of +human form, but holding in her hand the leaf of a water lily ornamented +with frogs. (Brasseur, <i>Hist. du Mexique</i>, i. p. 324.)</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_171-2_252" id="Footnote_171-2_252"></a><a href="#FNanchor_171-2_252"><span class="label">171-2</span></a> <i>Rel. de la Nouv. France</i>, 1636, p. 101.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_172-1_253" id="Footnote_172-1_253"></a><a href="#FNanchor_172-1_253"><span class="label">172-1</span></a> <i>Rel. de la Nouv. France</i>, 1671, p. 17. Cusic spells it +<i>Tarenyawagon</i>, and translates it Holder of the Heavens. But the name is +evidently a compound of <i>garonhia</i>, sky, softened in the Onondaga +dialect to <i>taronhia</i> (see Gallatin’s Vocabs. under the word sky), and +<i>wagin</i>, I come.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_173-1_254" id="Footnote_173-1_254"></a><a href="#FNanchor_173-1_254"><span class="label">173-1</span></a> Ὁ Θεος φως εστι, The First Epistle General +of John, i. 5. In curious analogy to these myths is that of the Eskimos +of Greenland. In the beginning, they relate, were two brothers, one of +whom said: “There shall be night and there shall be day, and men shall +die, one after another.” But the second said, “There shall be no day, +but only night all the time, and men shall live forever.” They had a +long struggle, but here once more he who loved darkness rather than +light was worsted, and the day triumphed. (<i>Nachrichten von Grönland aus +einem Tagebuche vom Bischof Paul Egede</i>, p. 157: Kopenhagen, 1790. The +date of the entry is 1738.)</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_174-1_255" id="Footnote_174-1_255"></a><a href="#FNanchor_174-1_255"><span class="label">174-1</span></a> I accept without hesitation the derivation of this +word, proposed and defended by that accomplished Algonkin scholar, the +Rev. Eugene Vetromile, from <i>wanb</i>, white or east, and <i>naghi</i> ancestors +(<i>The Abnakis and their History</i>, p. 29: New York, 1866).</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_174-2_256" id="Footnote_174-2_256"></a><a href="#FNanchor_174-2_256"><span class="label">174-2</span></a> White light, remarks Goethe, has in it something +cheerful and ennobling; it possesses “eine heitere, muntere, sanft +reizende Eigenschaft.” <i>Farbenlehre</i>, sec’s 766, 770.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_175-1_257" id="Footnote_175-1_257"></a><a href="#FNanchor_175-1_257"><span class="label">175-1</span></a> <i>Hist. of the N. Am. Indians</i>, p. 159.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_175-2_258" id="Footnote_175-2_258"></a><a href="#FNanchor_175-2_258"><span class="label">175-2</span></a> La Hontan, <i>Voy. dans l’Amér. Sept.</i>, ii. p. 42.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_175-3_259" id="Footnote_175-3_259"></a><a href="#FNanchor_175-3_259"><span class="label">175-3</span></a> “Blanco pizote,” Ximenes, p. 4, <i>Vocabulario Quiché</i>, +s. v. <i>zak</i>. In the far north the Eskimo tongue presents the same +analogy. Day, morning, bright, light, lightning, all are from the same +root (<i>kau</i>), signifying white (Richardson, Vocab. of Labrador Eskimo).</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_176-1_260" id="Footnote_176-1_260"></a><a href="#FNanchor_176-1_260"><span class="label">176-1</span></a> Some fragments of them may be found in Campanius, <i>Acc. +of New Sweden</i>, 1650, book iii. chap. 11, and in Byrd, <i>The Westover +Manuscripts</i>, 1733, p. 82. They were in both instances alleged to have +been white and bearded men, the latter probably a later trait in the +legend.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_176-2_261" id="Footnote_176-2_261"></a><a href="#FNanchor_176-2_261"><span class="label">176-2</span></a> <i>Con</i> or <i>Cun</i> I have already explained to mean +thunder, <i>Con tici</i>, the mythical thunder vase. Pachacamà is doubtless, +as M. Leonce Angrand has suggested, from <i>ppacha</i>, source, and <i>camà</i>, +all, the Source of All things (Desjardins, <i>Le Pérou avant la Conq. +Espagnole</i>, p. 23, note). But he and all other writers have been in +error in considering this identical with <i>Pachacámac</i>, nor can the +latter mean <i>creator of the world</i>, as it has constantly been +translated. It is a participial adjective from <i>pacha</i>, place, +especially the world, and <i>camac</i>, present participle of <i>camani</i>, I +animate, from which also comes <i>camakenc</i>, the soul, and means +<i>animating the world</i>. It was never used as a proper name. The following +trochaic lines from the Quichua poem translated in the previous chapter, +show its true meaning and correct accent:—</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poem"> +<tr> + <td style="padding-right: 3em;">Pāchă rūrăc,</td> + <td>World creating,</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td style="padding-right: 3em;">Pāchă cāmăc,</td> + <td>World animating,</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td style="padding-right: 3em;">Viracocha,</td> + <td>Viracocha,</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td style="padding-right: 3em;">Camasunqui,</td> + <td>He animates thee.</td> +</tr> +</table> + +<p>The last word is the second transition, present tense, of <i>camani</i>, +while <i>camac</i> is its present participle.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_177-1_262" id="Footnote_177-1_262"></a><a href="#FNanchor_177-1_262"><span class="label">177-1</span></a> Ulloa, <i>Mémoires Philosophiques sur l’Amérique</i>, i. p. +105.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_178-1_263" id="Footnote_178-1_263"></a><a href="#FNanchor_178-1_263"><span class="label">178-1</span></a> Acosta, <i>Hist. of the New World</i>, bk. v. chap. 4, bk. +vi. chap. 19, Eng. trans., 1704.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_179-1_264" id="Footnote_179-1_264"></a><a href="#FNanchor_179-1_264"><span class="label">179-1</span></a> The name is derived from <i>tampu</i>, corrupted by the +Spaniards to <i>tambo</i>, an inn, and <i>paccari</i> morning, or <i>paccarin</i>, it +dawns, which also has the figurative signification, it is born. It may +therefore mean either Lodgings of the Dawn, or as the Spaniards usually +translated it, House of Birth, or Production, <i>Casa de Producimiento</i>.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_179-2_265" id="Footnote_179-2_265"></a><a href="#FNanchor_179-2_265"><span class="label">179-2</span></a> The names given by Balboa (<i>Hist. du Pérou</i>, p. 4) and +Montesinos (<i>Ancien Pérou</i>, p. 5) are Manco, Cacha, Auca, Uchu. The +meaning of Manco is unknown. The others signify, in their order, +messenger, enemy or traitor, and the little one. The myth of Viracocha +is given in its most antique form by Juan de Betanzos, in the <i>Historia +de los Ingas</i>, compiled in the first years of the conquest from the +original songs and legends. It is quoted in Garcia, <i>Origen de los +Indios</i>, lib. v. cap. 7. Balboa, Montesinos, Acosta, and others have +also furnished me some incidents. Whether Atachuchu mentioned in the +last chapter was not another name of Viracocha may well be questioned. +It is every way probable.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_179-3_266" id="Footnote_179-3_266"></a><a href="#FNanchor_179-3_266"><span class="label">179-3</span></a> <i>Hist. des Incas</i>, liv. iii. chap. 25.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_180-1_267" id="Footnote_180-1_267"></a><a href="#FNanchor_180-1_267"><span class="label">180-1</span></a> It is compounded of <i>vira</i>, fat, foam (which perhaps is +akin to <i>yurac</i>, <i>white</i>), and <i>cocha</i>, a pond or lake.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_180-2_268" id="Footnote_180-2_268"></a><a href="#FNanchor_180-2_268"><span class="label">180-2</span></a> See Desjardins, <i>Le Pérou avant la Conq. Espagnole</i>, p. +67.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_180-3_269" id="Footnote_180-3_269"></a><a href="#FNanchor_180-3_269"><span class="label">180-3</span></a> Gomara, <i>Hist. de las Indias</i>, cap. 119, in Müller.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_181-1_270" id="Footnote_181-1_270"></a><a href="#FNanchor_181-1_270"><span class="label">181-1</span></a> Brasseur, <i>Hist. du Mexique</i>, i. p. 302.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_181-2_271" id="Footnote_181-2_271"></a><a href="#FNanchor_181-2_271"><span class="label">181-2</span></a> There is no reason to lay any stress upon this feature. +Beard was nothing uncommon among the Aztecs and many other nations of +the New World. It was held to add dignity to the appearance, and +therefore Sahagun, in his description of the Mexican idols, repeatedly +alludes to their beards, and Müller quotes various authorities to show +that the priests wore them long and full (<i>Amer. Urreligionen</i>, p. 429). +Not only was Quetzalcoatl himself reported to have been of fair +complexion—white indeed—but the Creole historian Ixtlilxochitl says +the old legends asserted that all the Toltecs, natives of Tollan, or +Tula, as their name signifies, were so likewise. Still more, Aztlan, the +traditional home of the Nahuas, or Aztecs proper, means literally the +white land, according to one of our best authorities (Buschmann, <i>Ueber +die Aztekischen Ortsnamen</i>, 612: Berlin, 1852).</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_182-1_272" id="Footnote_182-1_272"></a><a href="#FNanchor_182-1_272"><span class="label">182-1</span></a> Kingsborough, <i>Antiquities of Mexico</i>, v. p. 109.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_183-1_273" id="Footnote_183-1_273"></a><a href="#FNanchor_183-1_273"><span class="label">183-1</span></a> The myth of Quetzalcoatl I have taken chiefly from +Sahagun, <i>Hist. de la Nueva España</i>, lib. i. cap. 5; lib. iii. caps. 3, +13, 14; lib. x. cap. 29; and Torquemada, <i>Monarquia Indiana</i>, lib. vi. +cap. 24. It must be remembered that the Quiché legends identify him +positively with the Tohil of Central America (<i>Le Livre Sacré</i>, p. +247).</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_183-2_274" id="Footnote_183-2_274"></a><a href="#FNanchor_183-2_274"><span class="label">183-2</span></a> Padilla Davila, <i>Hist. de la Prov. de Santiago de +Mexico</i>, lib. ii. cap. 89.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_183-3_275" id="Footnote_183-3_275"></a><a href="#FNanchor_183-3_275"><span class="label">183-3</span></a> Cogolludo, <i>Hist. de Yucathan</i>, lib. iv. cap. 8.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_184-1_276" id="Footnote_184-1_276"></a><a href="#FNanchor_184-1_276"><span class="label">184-1</span></a> He is also called Idacanzas and Nemterequetaba. Some +have maintained a distinction between Bochica and Sua, which, however, +has not been shown. The best authorities on the mythology of the Muyscas +are Piedrahita, <i>Hist. de las Conq. del Nuevo Reyno de Granada</i>, 1668 +(who is copied by Humboldt, <i>Vues des Cordillères</i>, pp. 246 sqq.), and +Simon, <i>Noticias de Tierra Firme</i>, Parte ii., in Kingsborough’s +<i>Mexico</i>.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_184-2_277" id="Footnote_184-2_277"></a><a href="#FNanchor_184-2_277"><span class="label">184-2</span></a> D’Orbigny, <i>L’Homme Américain</i>, ii. p. 319, and +Rochefort, <i>Hist. des Isles Antilles</i>, p. 482 (Waitz). The name has +various orthographies, Tamu, Tamöi, Tamou, Itamoulou, etc. Perhaps the +Ama-livaca of the Orinoko Indians is another form. This personage +corresponds even minutely in many points with the Tamu of the island +Caribs.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_185-1_278" id="Footnote_185-1_278"></a><a href="#FNanchor_185-1_278"><span class="label">185-1</span></a> Catlin, <i>Letters and Notes</i>, Letter 22.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_185-2_279" id="Footnote_185-2_279"></a><a href="#FNanchor_185-2_279"><span class="label">185-2</span></a> Journal of Capt. Johnson, in Emory, <i>Reconnoissance of +New Mexico</i>, p. 601.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_185-3_280" id="Footnote_185-3_280"></a><a href="#FNanchor_185-3_280"><span class="label">185-3</span></a> M. De Charency, in the <i>Revue Américaine</i>, ii. p. 317. +<i>Tupa</i> it may be observed means in Quichua, lord, or royal. Father +Holguin gives as an example <i>â tupa Dios</i>, O Lord God (<i>Vocabulario +Quichua</i>, p. 348: Ciudad de los Reyes, 1608). In the Quiché dialects +<i>tepeu</i> is one of the common appellations of divinity and is also +translated lord or ruler. We are not yet sufficiently advanced in the +study of American philology to draw any inference from these +resemblances, but they should not be overlooked.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_187-1_281" id="Footnote_187-1_281"></a><a href="#FNanchor_187-1_281"><span class="label">187-1</span></a> Cortes, <i>Carta Primera</i>, pp. 113, 114.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_188-1_282" id="Footnote_188-1_282"></a><a href="#FNanchor_188-1_282"><span class="label">188-1</span></a> Sahagun, <i>Hist. de la Nueva España</i>, lib. xii. caps. 2, +3.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_188-2_283" id="Footnote_188-2_283"></a><a href="#FNanchor_188-2_283"><span class="label">188-2</span></a> La Vega, <i>Hist. des Incas</i>, lib. ix. cap. 15.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_188-3_284" id="Footnote_188-3_284"></a><a href="#FNanchor_188-3_284"><span class="label">188-3</span></a> Peter Martyr, <i>De Reb. Oceanicis</i>, Dec. iii. lib. vii.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_189-1_285" id="Footnote_189-1_285"></a><a href="#FNanchor_189-1_285"><span class="label">189-1</span></a> Lizana, <i>Hist. de Nuestra Señora de Itzamal</i>, lib. ii. +cap. i. in Brasseur, <i>Hist. du Mexique</i>, ii. p. 605. The prophecies are +of the priest who bore the title—not name—<i>chilan balam</i>, and whose +offices were those of divination and astrology. The verse claims to date +from about 1450, and was very well known throughout Yucatan, so it is +said. The number thirteen which in many of these prophecies is the +supposed limit of the present order of things, is doubtless derived from +the observation that thirteen moons complete one solar year.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_190-1_286" id="Footnote_190-1_286"></a><a href="#FNanchor_190-1_286"><span class="label">190-1</span></a> Squier, <i>Travels in Nicaragua</i>, ii. p. 35.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_191-1_287" id="Footnote_191-1_287"></a><a href="#FNanchor_191-1_287"><span class="label">191-1</span></a> Whipple, <i>Report on the Ind. Tribes</i>, p. 36. Emory, +<i>Recon. of New Mexico</i>, p. 64. The latter adds that among the Pueblo +Indians, the Apaches, and Navajos, the name of Montezuma is “as familiar +as Washington to us.” This is the more curious, as neither the Pueblo +Indians nor either of the other tribes are in any way related to the +Aztec race by language, as has been shown by Dr. Buschman, <i>Die Voelker +und Sprachen Neu Mexico’s</i>, p. 262.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_191-2_288" id="Footnote_191-2_288"></a><a href="#FNanchor_191-2_288"><span class="label">191-2</span></a> Humboldt, <i>Essay on New Spain</i>, bk. ii. chap. vi, Eng. +trans.; <i>Ansichten der Natur</i>, ii. pp. 357, 386.</p> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII.</h2> + +<p class="chaptoc">THE MYTHS OF THE CREATION, THE DELUGE, THE EPOCHS OF NATURE, AND THE +LAST DAY.</p> + +<p class="chapintro">Cosmogonies usually portray the action of the <span class="smcap">Spirit</span> on the +<span class="smcap">Waters</span>.—Those of the Muscogees, Athapascas, Quichés, Mixtecs, +Iroquois, Algonkins, and others.—The Flood-Myth an unconscious +attempt to reconcile a creation in time with the eternity of +matter.—Proof of this from American mythology.—Characteristics of +American Flood-Myths.—The person saved usually the first man.—The +number seven.—Their Ararats.—The rôle of birds.—The confusion of +tongues.—The Aztec, Quiché, Algonkin, Tupi, and earliest Sanscrit +flood-myths.—The belief in Epochs of Nature a further result of +this attempt at reconciliation.—Its forms among Peruvians, Mayas, +and Aztecs.—The expectation of the End of the World a corollary of +this belief.—Views of various nations.</p> + + +<p class="noindent"><span class="dropcap">C</span><span class="upper">ould</span> the reason rest content with the belief that the universe always +was as it now is, it would save much beating of brains. Such is the +comfortable condition of the Eskimos, the Rootdiggers of California, the +most brutish specimens of humanity everywhere. Vain to inquire their +story of creation, for, like the knife-grinder of anti-Jacobin renown, +they have no story to tell. It never occurred to them that the earth had +a beginning, or underwent any greater changes than those of the +<span class="nowrap">seasons.<a name="FNanchor_193-1_289" id="FNanchor_193-1_289"></a><a href="#Footnote_193-1_289" class="fnanchor">193-1</a></span> But<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span> no sooner does the mind begin to reflect, the +intellect to employ itself on higher themes than the needs of the body, +than the law of causality exerts its power, and the man, out of such +materials as he has at hand, manufactures for himself a Theory of +Things.</p> + +<p>What these materials were has been shown in the last few chapters. A +simple primitive substance, a divinity to mould it—these are the +requirements of every cosmogony. Concerning the first no nation ever +hesitated. All agree that before time began <i>water</i> held all else in +solution, covered and concealed everything. The reasons for this assumed +priority of water have been already touched upon. Did a tribe dwell near +some great sea others can be imagined. The land is limited, peopled, +stable; the ocean fluctuating, waste, boundless. It insatiably swallows +all rains and rivers, quenches sun and moon in its dark chambers, and +raves against its bounds as a beast of prey. Awe and fear are the +sentiments it inspires; in Aryan tongues its synonyms are the <i>desert</i> +and the <span class="nowrap"><i>night</i>.<a name="FNanchor_194-1_290" id="FNanchor_194-1_290"></a><a href="#Footnote_194-1_290" class="fnanchor">194-1</a></span> It produces an impression of immensity, +infinity, formlessness, and barren changeableness, well suited to a +notion of chaos. It is sterile, receiving all things, producing nothing. +Hence the necessity of a creative power to act upon it, as it were to +impregnate its barren germs. Some cosmogonies find this in one, some in +another personification of divinity. Commonest of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span> all is that of the +wind, or its emblem the bird, types of the breath of life.</p> + +<p>Thus the venerable record in Genesis, translated in the authorized +version “and the Spirit of God moved on the face of the waters,” may +with equal correctness be rendered “and a mighty wind brooded on the +surface of the waters,” presenting the picture of a primeval ocean +fecundated by the wind as a <span class="nowrap">bird.<a name="FNanchor_195-1_291" id="FNanchor_195-1_291"></a><a href="#Footnote_195-1_291" class="fnanchor">195-1</a></span> The eagle that in the Finnish +epic of Kalewala floated over the waves and hatched the land, the egg +that in Chinese legend swam hither and thither until it grew to a +continent, the giant Ymir, the rustler (as wind in trees), from whose +flesh, says the Edda, our globe was made and set to float like a speck +in the vast sea between Muspel and Niflheim, all are the same tale +repeated by different nations in different ages. But why take +illustrations from the old world when they are so plenty in the new?</p> + +<p>Before the creation, said the Muscogees, a great body of water was alone +visible. Two pigeons flew to and fro over its waves, and at last spied a +blade of grass rising above the surface. Dry land gradually followed, +and the islands and continents took their present <span class="nowrap">shapes.<a name="FNanchor_195-2_292" id="FNanchor_195-2_292"></a><a href="#Footnote_195-2_292" class="fnanchor">195-2</a></span> Whether +this is an authentic aboriginal myth, is not beyond question. No such +doubt attaches to that of the Athapascas. With singular unanimity, most +of the northwest branches of this stock trace their descent from a +raven, “a mighty bird, whose eyes were fire, whose glances were +light<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span>ning, and the clapping of whose wings was thunder. On his descent +to the ocean, the earth instantly rose, and remained on the surface of +the water. This omnipotent bird then called forth all the variety of +<span class="nowrap">animals.”<a name="FNanchor_196-1_293" id="FNanchor_196-1_293"></a><a href="#Footnote_196-1_293" class="fnanchor">196-1</a></span></p> + +<p>Very similar, but with more of poetic finish, is the legend of the +Quichés:—</p> + +<p>“This is the first word and the first speech. There were neither men nor +brutes; neither birds, fish, nor crabs, stick nor stone, valley nor +mountain, stubble nor forest, nothing but the sky. The face of the land +was hidden. There was naught but the silent sea and the sky. There was +nothing joined, nor any sound, nor thing that stirred; neither any to do +evil, nor to rumble in the heavens, nor a walker on foot; only the +silent waters, only the pacified ocean, only it in its calm. Nothing was +but stillness, and rest, and darkness, and the night; nothing but the +Maker and Moulder, the Hurler, the Bird-Serpent. In the waters, in a +limpid twilight, covered with green feathers, slept the mothers and the +<span class="nowrap">fathers.”<a name="FNanchor_196-2_294" id="FNanchor_196-2_294"></a><a href="#Footnote_196-2_294" class="fnanchor">196-2</a></span></p> + +<p>Over this passed Hurakan, the mighty wind, and called out Earth! and +straightway the solid land was there.</p> + +<p>The picture writings of the Mixtecs preserved a similar cosmogony: “In +the year and in the day of clouds, before ever were either years or +days, the world lay in darkness; all things were orderless, and a water +covered the slime and the ooze that the earth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span> then was.” By the efforts +of two winds, called, from astrological associations, that of Nine +Serpents and that of Nine Caverns, personified one as a bird and one as +a winged serpent, the waters subsided and the land <span class="nowrap">dried.<a name="FNanchor_197-1_295" id="FNanchor_197-1_295"></a><a href="#Footnote_197-1_295" class="fnanchor">197-1</a></span></p> + +<p>In the birds that here play such conspicuous parts, we cannot fail to +recognize the winds and the clouds; but more especially the dark thunder +cloud, soaring in space at the beginning of things, most forcible emblem +of the aerial powers. They are the symbols of that divinity which acted +on the passive and sterile waters, the fitting result being the +production of a universe. Other symbols of the divine could also be +employed, and the meaning remain the same. Or were the fancy too +helpless to suggest any, they could be dispensed with, and purely +natural agencies take their place. Thus the unimaginative Iroquois +narrated that when their primitive female ancestor was kicked from the +sky by her irate spouse, there was as yet no land to receive her, but +that it “suddenly bubbled up under her feet, and waxed bigger, so that +ere long a whole country was <span class="nowrap">perceptible.”<a name="FNanchor_197-2_296" id="FNanchor_197-2_296"></a><a href="#Footnote_197-2_296" class="fnanchor">197-2</a></span> Or that certain +amphibious animals, the beaver, the otter, and the muskrat, seeing her +descent, hastened to dive and bring up sufficient mud to construct an +island for her <span class="nowrap">residence.<a name="FNanchor_197-3_297" id="FNanchor_197-3_297"></a><a href="#Footnote_197-3_297" class="fnanchor">197-3</a></span> The muskrat is also the simple +machinery in the cosmogony of the Takahlis of the northwest coast, the +Osages and some Algonkin tribes.</p> + +<p>These latter were, indeed, keen enough to perceive that there was really +no <i>creation</i> in such an account.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span> Dry land was wanting, but earth was +there, though hidden by boundless waters. Consequently, they spoke +distinctly of the action of the muskrat in bringing it to the surface as +a formation only. Michabo directed him, and from the mud formed islands +and main land. But when the subject of creation was pressed, they +replied they knew nothing of that, or roundly answered the questioner +that he was talking <span class="nowrap">nonsense.<a name="FNanchor_198-1_298" id="FNanchor_198-1_298"></a><a href="#Footnote_198-1_298" class="fnanchor">198-1</a></span> Their myth, almost identical with +that of their neighbors, was recognized by them to be not of a +construction, but a reconstruction only; a very judicious distinction, +but one which has a most important corollary. A reconstruction supposes +a previous existence. This they felt, and had something to say about an +earth anterior to this of ours, but one without light or human +inhabitants. A lake burst its bounds and submerged it wholly. This is +obviously nothing but a mere and meagre fiction, invented to explain the +origin of the primeval ocean. But mark it well, for this is the germ of +those marvellous myths of the Epochs of Nature, the catastrophes of the +universe, the deluges of water and of fire, which have laid such strong +hold on the human fancy in every land and in every age.</p> + +<p>The purpose for which this addition was made to the simpler legend is +clear enough. It was to avoid the dilemma of a creation from nothing on +the one hand, and the eternity of matter on the other. <i>Ex nihilo nihil</i> +is an apothegm indorsed alike by the profoundest metaphysicians and the +rudest savages. But the other horn was no easier. To escape accept<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span>ing +the theory that the world had ever been as it now is, was the only +object of a legend of its formation. As either lemma conflicts with +fundamental laws of thought, this escape was eagerly adopted, and in the +suggestive words of Prescott, men “sought relief from the oppressive +idea of eternity by breaking it up into distinct cycles or periods of +<span class="nowrap">time.”<a name="FNanchor_199-1_299" id="FNanchor_199-1_299"></a><a href="#Footnote_199-1_299" class="fnanchor">199-1</a></span> Vain but characteristic attempt of the ambitious mind of +man! The Hindoo philosopher reconciles to his mind the suspension of the +world in space by imagining it supported by an elephant, the elephant by +a tortoise, and the tortoise by a serpent. We laugh at the Hindoo, and +fancy we diminish the difficulty by explaining that it revolves around +the sun, and the sun around some far-off star. Just so the general mind +of humanity finds some satisfaction in supposing a world or a series of +worlds anterior to the present, thus escaping the insoluble enigma of +creation by removing it indefinitely in time.</p> + +<p>The support lent to these views by the presence of marine shells on high +lands, or by faint reminiscences of local geologic convulsions, I +estimate very low. Savages are not inductive philosophers, and by +nothing short of a miracle could they preserve the remembrance of even +the most terrible catastrophe beyond a few generations. Nor has any such +occurred within the ken of history of sufficient magnitude to make a +very permanent or wide-spread impression. Not physics, but metaphysics, +is the exciting cause of these beliefs in periodical convulsions of the +globe. The idea of matter cannot be separated from that of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span> time, and +time and eternity are contradictory terms. Common words show this +connection. World, for example, in the old language <i>waereld</i>, from the +root to wear, by derivation means an age or cycle (Grimm).</p> + +<p>In effect a myth of creation is nowhere found among primitive nations. +It seems repugnant to their reason. Dry land and animate life had a +beginning, but not matter. A series of constructions and demolitions may +conveniently be supposed for these. The analogy of nature, as seen in +the vernal flowers springing up after the desolation of winter, of the +sapling sprouting from the fallen trunk, of life everywhere rising from +death, suggests such a view. Hence arose the belief in Epochs of Nature, +elaborated by ancient philosophers into the Cycles of the Stoics, the +Great Days of Brahm, long periods of time rounded off by sweeping +destructions, the Cataclysms and Ekpyrauses of the universe. Some +thought in these all beings perished; others that a few <span class="nowrap">survived.<a name="FNanchor_200-1_300" id="FNanchor_200-1_300"></a><a href="#Footnote_200-1_300" class="fnanchor">200-1</a></span> +This latter and more common view is the origin of the myth of the +deluge. How familiar such speculations were to the aborigines of America +there is abundant evidence to show.</p> + +<p>The early Algonkin legends do not speak of an antediluvian race, nor of +any family who escaped the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span> waters. Michabo, the spirit of the dawn, +their supreme deity, alone existed, and by his power formed and peopled +it. Nor did their neighbors, the Dakotas, though firm in the belief that +the globe had once been destroyed by the waters, suppose that any had +<span class="nowrap">escaped.<a name="FNanchor_201-1_301" id="FNanchor_201-1_301"></a><a href="#Footnote_201-1_301" class="fnanchor">201-1</a></span> The same view was entertained by the <span class="nowrap">Nicaraguans<a name="FNanchor_201-2_302" id="FNanchor_201-2_302"></a><a href="#Footnote_201-2_302" class="fnanchor">201-2</a></span> +and the Botocudos of Brazil. The latter attributed its destruction to +the moon falling to the earth from time to <span class="nowrap">time.<a name="FNanchor_201-3_303" id="FNanchor_201-3_303"></a><a href="#Footnote_201-3_303" class="fnanchor">201-3</a></span></p> + +<p>Much the most general opinion, however, was that some few escaped the +desolating element by one of those means most familiar to the narrator, +by ascending some mountain, on a raft or canoe, in a cave, or even by +climbing a tree. No doubt some of these legends have been modified by +Christian teachings; but many of them are so connected with local +peculiarities and ancient religious ceremonies, that no unbiased student +can assign them wholly to that source, as Professor Vater has done, even +if the authorities for many of them were less trustworthy than they are. +There are no more common heirlooms in the traditional lore of the red +race. Nearly every old author quotes one or more of them. They present +great uniformity of outline, and rather than engage in repetitions of +little interest, they can be more profitably studied in the aggregate +than in detail.</p> + +<p>By far the greater number represent the last destruction of the world to +have been by water. A few, however, the Takahlis of the North Pacific +coast, the Yurucares of the Bolivian Cordilleras, and the Mbo<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span>cobi of +Paraguay, attribute it to a general conflagration which swept over the +earth, consuming every living thing except a few who took refuge in a +deep <span class="nowrap">cave.<a name="FNanchor_202-1_304" id="FNanchor_202-1_304"></a><a href="#Footnote_202-1_304" class="fnanchor">202-1</a></span> The more common opinion of a submersion gave rise to +those traditions of a universal flood so frequently recorded by +travellers, and supposed by many to be reminiscences of that of Noah.</p> + +<p>There are, indeed, some points of striking similarity between the deluge +myths of Asia and America. It has been called a peculiarity of the +latter that in them the person saved is always the first man. This, +though not without exception, is certainly the general rule. But these +first men were usually the highest deities known to their nations, the +only creators of the world, and the guardians of the <span class="nowrap">race.<a name="FNanchor_202-2_305" id="FNanchor_202-2_305"></a><a href="#Footnote_202-2_305" class="fnanchor">202-2</a></span></p> + +<p>Moreover, in the oldest Sanscrit legend of the flood in the Zatapatha +Brahmana, Manu is also the first man, and by his own efforts creates +<span class="nowrap">offspring.<a name="FNanchor_202-3_306" id="FNanchor_202-3_306"></a><a href="#Footnote_202-3_306" class="fnanchor">202-3</a></span></p> + +<p>A later Sanscrit work assigns to Manu the seven Richis or shining ones +as companions. Seven was also the number of persons in the ark of Noah. +Cu<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span>riously enough one Mexican and one early Peruvian myth give out +exactly seven individuals as saved in their <span class="nowrap">floods.<a name="FNanchor_203-1_307" id="FNanchor_203-1_307"></a><a href="#Footnote_203-1_307" class="fnanchor">203-1</a></span> This +coincidence arises from the mystic powers attached to the number seven, +derived from its frequent occurrence in astrology. Proof of this appears +by comparing the later and the older versions of this myth, either in +the book of Genesis, where the latter is distinguished by the use of the +word Elohim for <span class="nowrap">Jehovah,<a name="FNanchor_203-2_308" id="FNanchor_203-2_308"></a><a href="#Footnote_203-2_308" class="fnanchor">203-2</a></span> or the Sanscrit account in the Zatapatha +Brahmana with those in the later <span class="nowrap">Puranas.<a name="FNanchor_203-3_309" id="FNanchor_203-3_309"></a><a href="#Footnote_203-3_309" class="fnanchor">203-3</a></span> In both instances the +number seven hardly or at all occurs in the oldest version, while it is +constantly repeated in those of later dates.</p> + +<p>As the mountain or rather mountain chain of Ararat was regarded with +veneration wherever the Semitic accounts were known, so in America +heights were pointed out with becoming reverence as those on which the +few survivors of the dreadful scenes of the deluge were preserved. On +the Red River near the village of the Caddoes was one of these, a small +natural eminence, “to which all the Indian tribes for a great distance +around pay devout homage,” according to Dr. <span class="nowrap">Sibley.<a name="FNanchor_203-4_310" id="FNanchor_203-4_310"></a><a href="#Footnote_203-4_310" class="fnanchor">203-4</a></span> The Cerro +Naztarny on the Rio Grande, the peak of Old Zuñi in New Mexico, that of +Colhuacan on the Pacific Coast, Mount Apoala in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span> Upper Mixteca, and +Mount Neba in the province of Guaymi, are some of many elevations +asserted by the neighboring nations to have been places of refuge for +their ancestors when the fountains of the great deep broke forth.</p> + +<p>One of the Mexican traditions related by Torquemada identified this with +the mountain of Tlaloc in the terrestrial paradise, and added that one +of the seven demigods who escaped commenced the pyramid of Cholula in +its memory. He intended that its summit should reach the clouds, but the +gods, angry at his presumption, drove away the builders with lightning. +This has a suspicious resemblance to Bible stories. Equally fabulous was +the retreat of the Araucanians. It was a three-peaked mountain which had +the property of floating on water, called Theg-Theg, the Thunderer. This +they believed would preserve them in the next as it did in the last +cataclysm, and as its only inconvenience was that it approached too near +the sun, they always kept on hand wooden bowls to use as +<span class="nowrap">parasols.<a name="FNanchor_204-1_311" id="FNanchor_204-1_311"></a><a href="#Footnote_204-1_311" class="fnanchor">204-1</a></span></p> + +<p>The intimate connection that once existed between the myths of the +deluge and those of the creation is illustrated by the part assigned to +birds in so many of them. They fly to and fro over the waves ere any +land appears, though they lose in great measure the significance of +bringing it forth, attached to them in the cosmogonies as emblems of the +divine spirit. The dove in the Hebrew account appears in that of the +Algonkins as a raven, which Michabo sent out to search for land before +the muskrat brought it to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span> him from the bottom. A raven also in the +Athapascan myth saved their ancestors from the general flood, and in +this instance it is distinctly identified with the mighty thunder bird, +who at the beginning ordered the earth from the depths. Prometheus-like, +it brought fire from heaven, and saved them from a second death by +<span class="nowrap">cold.<a name="FNanchor_205-1_312" id="FNanchor_205-1_312"></a><a href="#Footnote_205-1_312" class="fnanchor">205-1</a></span> Precisely the same beneficent actions were attributed by +the Natchez to the small red cardinal <span class="nowrap">bird,<a name="FNanchor_205-2_313" id="FNanchor_205-2_313"></a><a href="#Footnote_205-2_313" class="fnanchor">205-2</a></span> and by the Mandans +and Cherokees an active participation in the event was assigned to wild +pigeons. The Navajos and Aztecs thought that instead of being drowned by +the waters the human race were transformed into birds and thus escaped. +In all these and similar legends, the bird is a relic of the cosmogonal +myth which explained the origin of the world from the action of the +winds, under the image of the bird, on the primeval ocean.</p> + +<p>The Mexican Codex Vaticanus No. 3738 represents after the picture of the +deluge a bird perched on the summit of a tree, and at its foot men in +the act of marching. This has been interpreted to mean that after the +deluge men were dumb until a dove distributed to them the gift of +speech. The New Mexican tribes related that all except the leader of +those who escaped to the mountains lost the power of utterance by +<span class="nowrap">terror,<a name="FNanchor_205-3_314" id="FNanchor_205-3_314"></a><a href="#Footnote_205-3_314" class="fnanchor">205-3</a></span> and the Quichés that the antediluvian race were “puppets, +men of wood, without intelligence or language.” These stories, so +closely resembling that of the confusion of tongues at the tower of +Babel or Borsippa, are of doubtful authenticity.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span> The first is an +entirely erroneous interpretation, as has been shown by Señor Ramirez, +director of the Museum of Antiquities at Mexico. The name of the bird in +the Aztec tongue was identical with the word <i>departure</i>, and this is +its signification in the <span class="nowrap">painting.<a name="FNanchor_206-1_315" id="FNanchor_206-1_315"></a><a href="#Footnote_206-1_315" class="fnanchor">206-1</a></span></p> + +<p>Stories of giants in the days of old, figures of mighty proportions +looming up through the mist of ages, are common property to every +nation. The Mexicans and Peruvians had them as well as others, but their +connection with the legends of the flood and the creation is incidental +and secondary. Were the case otherwise, it would offer no additional +point of similarity to the Hebrew myth, for the word rendered <i>giants</i> +in the phrase, “and there were giants in those days,” has no such +meaning in the original. It is a blunder which crept into the +Septuagint, and has been cherished ever since, along with so many others +in the received text.</p> + +<p>A few specimens will serve as examples of all these American flood +myths. The Abbé Brasseur has translated one from the Codex Chimalpopoca, +a work in the Nahuatl language of Ancient Mexico, written about half a +century after the conquest. It is as follows:—</p> + +<p>“And this year was that of Ce-calli, and on the first day all was lost. +The mountain itself was submerged in the water, and the water remained +tranquil for fifty-two springs.</p> + +<p>“Now towards the close of the year, Titlahuan had forewarned the man +named Nata and his wife named Nena, saying, ‘Make no more pulque, but +straightway hollow out a large cypress, and enter it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span> when in the month +Tozoztli the water shall approach the sky.’ They entered it, and when +Titlacahuan had closed the door he said, ‘Thou shalt eat but a single +ear of maize, and thy wife but one also.’</p> + +<p>“As soon as they had finished [eating], they went forth and the water +was tranquil; for the log did not move any more; and opening it they saw +many fish.</p> + +<p>“Then they built a fire, rubbing together pieces of wood, and they +roasted the fish. The gods Citlallinicue and Citlallatonac looking below +exclaimed, ‘Divine Lord, what means that fire below? Why do they thus +smoke the heavens?’</p> + +<p>“Straightway descended Titlacahuan Tezcatlipoca, and commenced to scold, +saying, ‘What is this fire doing here?’ And seizing the fishes he +moulded their hinder parts and changed their heads, and they were at +once transformed into <span class="nowrap">dogs.”<a name="FNanchor_207-1_316" id="FNanchor_207-1_316"></a><a href="#Footnote_207-1_316" class="fnanchor">207-1</a></span></p> + +<p>That found in the oft quoted legends of the Quichés is to this effect:—</p> + +<p>“Then by the will of the Heart of Heaven the waters were swollen and a +great flood came upon the mannikins of wood. For they did not think nor +speak of the Creator who had created them, and who had caused their +birth. They were drowned, and a thick resin fell from heaven.</p> + +<p>“The bird Xecotcovach tore out their eyes; the bird Camulatz cut off +their heads; the bird Cotzbalam devoured their flesh; the bird +Tecumbalam broke their bones and sinews, and ground them into +<span class="nowrap">powder.”<a name="FNanchor_207-2_317" id="FNanchor_207-2_317"></a><a href="#Footnote_207-2_317" class="fnanchor">207-2</a></span></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span>“Because they had not thought of their Mother and Father, the Heart of +Heaven, whose name is Hurakan, therefore the face of the earth grew dark +and a pouring rain commenced, raining by day, raining by night.</p> + +<p>“Then all sorts of beings, little and great, gathered together to abuse +the men to their faces; and all spoke, their mill-stones, their plates, +their cups, their dogs, their hens.</p> + +<p>“Said the dogs and hens, ‘Very badly have you treated us, and you have +bitten us. Now we bite you in turn.’</p> + +<p>“Said the mill-stones, ‘Very much were we tormented by you, and daily, +daily, night and day, it was <i>squeak, squeak, screech, screech</i>, for +your sake. Now yourselves shall feel our strength, and we will grind +your flesh, and make meal of your bodies,’ said the <span class="nowrap">mill-stones.<a name="FNanchor_208-1_318" id="FNanchor_208-1_318"></a><a href="#Footnote_208-1_318" class="fnanchor">208-1</a></span></p> + +<p>“And this is what the dogs said, ‘Why did you not give us our food? No +sooner did we come near than you drove us away, and the stick was always +within reach when you were eating, because, forsooth, we were not able +to talk. Now we will use our teeth and eat you,’ said the dogs, tearing +their faces.</p> + +<p>“And the cups and dishes said, ‘Pain and misery you gave us, smoking our +tops and sides, cooking us<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span> over the fire, burning and hurting us as if +we had no <span class="nowrap">feeling.<a name="FNanchor_209-1_319" id="FNanchor_209-1_319"></a><a href="#Footnote_209-1_319" class="fnanchor">209-1</a></span> Now it is your turn, and you shall burn,’ said +the cups insultingly.</p> + +<p>“Then ran the men hither and thither in despair. They climbed to the +roofs of the houses, but the houses crumbled under their feet; they +tried to mount to the tops of the trees, but the trees hurled them far +from them; they sought refuge in the caverns, but the caverns shut +before them.</p> + +<p>“Thus was accomplished the ruin of this race, destined to be destroyed +and overthrown; thus were they given over to destruction and contempt. +And it is said that their posterity are those little monkeys who live in +the <span class="nowrap">woods.”<a name="FNanchor_209-2_320" id="FNanchor_209-2_320"></a><a href="#Footnote_209-2_320" class="fnanchor">209-2</a></span></p> + +<p>The Algonkin tradition has often been referred to. Many versions of it +are extant, the oldest and most authentic of which is that translated +from the Montagnais dialect by Father le Jeune, in 1634.</p> + +<p>“One day as Messou was hunting, the wolves which he used as dogs entered +a great lake and were detained there.</p> + +<p>“Messou looking for them everywhere, a bird said to him, ‘I see them in +the middle of this lake.’</p> + +<p>“He entered the lake to rescue them, but the lake overflowing its banks +covered the land and destroyed the world.</p> + +<p>“Messou, very much astonished at this, sent out the raven to find a +piece of earth wherewith to re<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span>build the land, but the bird could find +none; then he ordered the otter to dive for some, but the animal +returned empty; at last he sent down the muskrat, who came back with +ever so small a piece, which, however, was enough for Messou to form the +land on which we are.</p> + +<p>“The trees having lost their branches, he shot arrows at their naked +trunks which became their limbs, revenged himself on those who had +detained his wolves, and having married the muskrat, by it peopled the +world.”</p> + +<p>Finally may be given the meagre legend of the Tupis of Brazil, as heard +by Hans Staden, a prisoner among them about 1550, and Coreal, a later +voyager. Their ancient songs relate that a long time ago a certain very +powerful Mair, that is to say, a stranger, who bitterly hated their +ancestors, compassed their destruction by a violent inundation. Only a +very few succeeded in escaping—some by climbing trees, others in caves. +When the waters subsided the remnant came together, and by gradual +increase populated the <span class="nowrap">world.<a name="FNanchor_210-1_321" id="FNanchor_210-1_321"></a><a href="#Footnote_210-1_321" class="fnanchor">210-1</a></span></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span>Or, it is given by an equally ancient authority as follows:—</p> + +<p>“Monan, without beginning or end, author of all that is, seeing the +ingratitude of men, and their contempt for him who had made them thus +joyous, withdrew from them, and sent upon them <i>tata</i>, the divine fire, +which burned all that was on the surface of the earth. He swept about +the fire in such a way that in places he raised mountains, and in others +dug valleys. Of all men one alone, Irin Monge, was saved, whom Monan +carried into the heaven. He, seeing all things destroyed, spoke thus to +Monan: ‘Wilt thou also destroy the heavens and their garniture? Alas! +henceforth where will be our home? Why should I live, since there is +none other of my kind?’ Then Monan was so filled with pity that he +poured a deluging rain on the earth, which quenched the fire, and, +flowing from all sides, formed the ocean, which we call <i>parana</i>, the +bitter <span class="nowrap">waters.”<a name="FNanchor_211-1_322" id="FNanchor_211-1_322"></a><a href="#Footnote_211-1_322" class="fnanchor">211-1</a></span></p> + +<p>In these narratives I have not attempted to soften the asperities nor +conceal the childishness which run through them. But there is no +occasion to be astonished at these peculiarities, nor to found upon them +any disadvantageous opinion of the mental powers of their authors and +believers. We can go back to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span> cradle of our own race in Central +Asia, and find traditions every whit as infantile. I cannot refrain from +adding the earliest Aryan myth of the same great occurrence, as it is +handed down to us in ancient Sanscrit literature. It will be seen that +it is little, if at all, superior to those just rehearsed.</p> + +<p>“Early in the morning they brought to Manu water to wash himself; when +he had well washed, a fish came into his hands.</p> + +<p>“It said to him these, words: ‘Take care of me; I will save thee.’ ‘What +wilt thou save me from?’ ‘A deluge will sweep away all creatures; I wish +thee to escape.’ ‘But how shall I take care of thee?’</p> + +<p>“The fish said: ‘While we are small there is more than one danger of +death, for one fish swallows another. Thou must, in the first place, put +me in a vase. Then, when I shall exceed it in size, thou must dig a deep +ditch, and place me in it. When I grow too large for it, throw me in the +sea, for I shall then be beyond the danger of death.’</p> + +<p>“Soon it became a great fish; it grew, in fact, astonishingly. Then it +said to Manu, ‘In such a year the Deluge will come. Thou must build a +vessel, and then pay me homage. When the waters of the Deluge mount up, +enter the vessel. I will save thee.’</p> + +<p>“When Manu had thus taken care of the fish, he put it in the sea. The +same year that the fish had said, in this very year, having built the +vessel, he paid the fish homage. Then the Deluge mounting, he entered +the vessel. The fish swam near him. To its horn Manu fastened the ship’s +rope, with which the fish passed the Mountain of the North.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span></p> + +<p>“The fish said, ‘See! I have saved thee. Fasten the vessel to a tree, so +that the water does not float thee onward when thou art on the mountain +top. As the water decreases, thou wilt descend little by little.’ Thus +Manu descended gradually. Therefore to the mountain of the north remains +the name, Descent of Manu. The Deluge had destroyed all creatures; Manu +survived <span class="nowrap">alone.”<a name="FNanchor_213-1_323" id="FNanchor_213-1_323"></a><a href="#Footnote_213-1_323" class="fnanchor">213-1</a></span></p> + +<p>Hitherto I have spoken only of the last convulsion which swept over the +face of the globe, and of but one cycle which preceded the present. Most +of the more savage tribes contented themselves with this, but it is +instructive to observe how, as they advanced in culture, and the mind +dwelt more intently on the great problems of Life and Time, they were +impelled to remove further and further the dim and mysterious Beginning. +The Peruvians imagined that <i>two</i> destructions had taken place, the +first by a famine, the second by a flood—according to some a few only +escaping—but, after the more widely accepted opinion, accompanied by +the absolute extirpation of the race. Three eggs, which dropped from +heaven, hatched out the present race; one of gold, from which came the +priests; one of silver, which produced the warriors; and the last of +copper, source of the common <span class="nowrap">people.<a name="FNanchor_213-2_324" id="FNanchor_213-2_324"></a><a href="#Footnote_213-2_324" class="fnanchor">213-2</a></span></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span>The Mayas of Yucatan increased the previous worlds by one, making the +present the <i>fourth</i>. Two cycles had terminated by devastating plagues. +They were called “the sudden deaths,” for it was said so swift and +mortal was the pest, that the buzzards and other foul birds dwelt in the +houses of the cities, and ate the bodies of their former owners. The +third closed either by a hurricane, which blew from all four of the +cardinal points at once, or else, as others said, by an inundation, +which swept across the world, swallowing all things in its mountainous +<span class="nowrap">surges.<a name="FNanchor_214-1_325" id="FNanchor_214-1_325"></a><a href="#Footnote_214-1_325" class="fnanchor">214-1</a></span></p> + +<p>As might be expected, the vigorous intellects of the Aztecs impressed +upon this myth a fixity of outline nowhere else met with on the +continent, and wove it intimately into their astrological reveries and +religious theories. Unaware of its prevalence under more rudimentary +forms throughout the continent, Alexander von Humboldt observed that, +“of all the traits of analogy which can be pointed out between the +monuments, manners, and traditions of Asia and America, the most +striking is that offered by the Mexican mythology in the cosmogonical +fiction of the periodical destructions and regenerations of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span> +<span class="nowrap">universe.”<a name="FNanchor_215-1_326" id="FNanchor_215-1_326"></a><a href="#Footnote_215-1_326" class="fnanchor">215-1</a></span> Yet it is but the same fiction that existed elsewhere, +somewhat more definitely outlined. There exists great discrepancy +between the different authorities, both as to the number of Aztec ages +or Suns, as they were called, their durations, their terminations, and +their names. The preponderance of testimony is in favor of <i>four</i> +antecedent cycles, the present being the <i>fifth</i>. The interval from the +first creation to the commencement of the present epoch, owing to the +equivocal meaning of the numeral signs expressing it in the picture +writings, may have been either 15228, 2316, or 1404 solar years. Why +these numbers should have been chosen, no one has guessed. It has been +looked for in combinations of numbers connected with the calendar, but +so far in vain.</p> + +<p>While most authorities agree as to the character of the destructions +which terminated the suns, they vary much as to their sequence. Water, +winds, fire, and hunger, are the agencies, and in one Codex (Vaticanus) +occur in this order. Gama gives the sequence, hunger, winds, fire, and +water; Humboldt hunger, fire, winds, and water; Boturini water, hunger, +winds, fire. As the cycle ending by a famine, is called the Age of +Earth, Ternaux-Compans, the distinguished French <i>Américaniste</i>, has +imagined that the four Suns correspond mystically to the domination +exercised in turn over the world by its four constituent elements. But +proof is wanting that Aztec philosophers knew the theory on which this +explanation reposes.</p> + +<p>Baron Humboldt suggested that the suns were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span> “fictions of mythological +astronomy, modified either by obscure reminiscences of some great +revolution suffered by our planet, or by physical hypotheses, suggested +by the sight of marine petrifactions and fossil <span class="nowrap">remains,”<a name="FNanchor_216-1_327" id="FNanchor_216-1_327"></a><a href="#Footnote_216-1_327" class="fnanchor">216-1</a></span> while +the Abbé Brasseur, in his late works on ancient Mexico, interprets them +as exaggerated references to historical events. As no solution can be +accepted not equally applicable to the same myth as it appears in +Yucatan, Peru, and the hunting tribes, and to the exactly parallel +teachings of the <span class="nowrap">Edda,<a name="FNanchor_216-2_328" id="FNanchor_216-2_328"></a><a href="#Footnote_216-2_328" class="fnanchor">216-2</a></span> the Stoics, the Celts, and the Brahmans, +both of these must be rejected. And although the Hindoo legend is so +close to the Aztec, that it, too, defines four ages, each terminating by +a general catastrophe, and each catastrophe exactly the same in +<span class="nowrap">both,<a name="FNanchor_216-3_329" id="FNanchor_216-3_329"></a><a href="#Footnote_216-3_329" class="fnanchor">216-3</a></span> yet this is not at all indicative of a derivation from one +original, but simply an illustration how the human mind, under the +stimulus of the same intellectual cravings, produces like results. What +these cravings are has already been shown.</p> + +<p>The reason for adopting four ages, thus making the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span> present the fifth, +probably arose from the sacredness of that number in general; but +directly, because this was the number of secular days in the Mexican +week. A parallel is offered by the Hebrew narrative. In it six epochs or +days precede the seventh or present cycle, in which the creative power +rests. This latter corresponded to the Jewish Sabbath, the day of +repose; and in the Mexican calendar each fifth day was also a day of +repose, employed in marketing and pleasure.</p> + +<p>Doubtless the theory of the Ages of the world was long in vogue among +the Aztecs before it received the definite form in which we now have it; +and as this was acquired long after the calendar was fixed, it is every +way probable that the latter was used as a guide to the former. +Echevarria, a good authority on such matters, says the number of the +Suns was agreed upon at a congress of astrologists, within the memory of +<span class="nowrap">tradition.<a name="FNanchor_217-1_330" id="FNanchor_217-1_330"></a><a href="#Footnote_217-1_330" class="fnanchor">217-1</a></span> Now in the calendar, these signs occur in the order, +earth, air, water, fire, corresponding to the days distinguished by the +symbols house, rabbit, reed, and flint. This sequence, commencing with +Tochtli (rabbit, air), is that given as that of the Suns in the Codex +Chimalpopoca, translated by Brasseur, though it seems a taint of +European teaching, when it is added that on the <i>seventh</i> day of the +creation man was <span class="nowrap">formed.<a name="FNanchor_217-2_331" id="FNanchor_217-2_331"></a><a href="#Footnote_217-2_331" class="fnanchor">217-2</a></span></p> + +<p>Neither Jews nor Aztecs, nor indeed any American nation, appear to have +supposed, with some of the old philosophers, that the present was an +exact repe<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span>tition of previous <span class="nowrap">cycles,<a name="FNanchor_218-1_332" id="FNanchor_218-1_332"></a><a href="#Footnote_218-1_332" class="fnanchor">218-1</a></span> but rather that each was an +improvement on the preceding, a step in endless progress. Nor did either +connect these beliefs with astronomical reveries of a great year, +defined by the return of the heavenly bodies to one relative position in +the heavens. The latter seems characteristic of the realism of Europe, +the former of the idealism of the Orient; both inconsistent with the +meagre astronomy and more scanty metaphysics of the red race.</p> + +<p>The expectation of the end of the world is a natural complement to the +belief in periodical destructions of our globe. As at certain times past +the equipoise of nature was lost, and the elements breaking the chain of +laws that bound them ran riot over the universe, involving all life in +one mad havoc and desolation, so in the future we have to expect that +day of doom, when the ocean tides shall obey no shore, but overwhelm the +continents with their mountainous billows, or the fire, now chafing in +volcanic craters and smoking springs, will leap forth on the forests and +grassy meadows, wrapping all things in a winding sheet of flame, and +melting the very elements with fervid heat. Then, in the language of the +Norse prophetess, “shall the sun grow dark, the land sink in the waters, +the bright stars be quenched, and high flames climb heaven +<span class="nowrap">itself.”<a name="FNanchor_218-2_333" id="FNanchor_218-2_333"></a><a href="#Footnote_218-2_333" class="fnanchor">218-2</a></span> These fearful <a name="corr9" id="corr9"></a><ins class="correction" title="forebodings have">foreboding shave</ins> cast their dark +shadow on every litera<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span>ture. The seeress of the north does but paint in +wilder colors the terrible pictures of <span class="nowrap">Seneca,<a name="FNanchor_219-1_334" id="FNanchor_219-1_334"></a><a href="#Footnote_219-1_334" class="fnanchor">219-1</a></span> and the sibyl of +the capitol only re-echoes the inspired predictions of Malachi. Well has +the Christian poet said:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Dies iræ, dies illa,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Solvet sæclum in favillâ,<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Testis David cum Sibylâ</i>.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Savage races, isolated in the impenetrable forests of another continent, +could not escape this fearful looking for of destruction to come. It +oppressed their souls like a weight of lead. On the last night of each +cycle of fifty-two years, the Aztecs extinguished every fire, and +proceeded, in solemn procession, to some sacred spot. Then the priests, +with awe and trembling, sought to kindle a new fire by friction. +Momentous was the endeavor, for did it fail, their fathers had taught +them on the morrow no sun would rise, and darkness, death, and the +waters would descend forever on this beautiful world.</p> + +<p>The same terror inspired the Peruvians at every eclipse, for some day, +taught the Amautas, the shadow will veil the sun forever, and land, +moon, and stars will be wrapt in the vortex of a devouring conflagration +to know no regeneration; or a drought will wither every herb of the +field, suck up the waters, and leave the race to perish to the last +creature; or the moon will fall from her place in the heavens and +involve all things in her own ruin, a figure of speech meaning that the +waters<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span> would submerge the <span class="nowrap">land.<a name="FNanchor_220-1_335" id="FNanchor_220-1_335"></a><a href="#Footnote_220-1_335" class="fnanchor">220-1</a></span> In that dreadful day, thought +the Algonkins, when in anger Michabo will send a mortal pestilence to +destroy the nations, or, stamping his foot on the ground, flames will +burst forth to consume the habitable land, only a pair, or only, at +most, those who have maintained inviolate the institutions he ordained, +will he protect and preserve to inhabit the new world he will then +fabricate. Therefore they do not speak of this catastrophe as the end of +the world, but use one of those nice grammatical distinctions so +frequent in American aboriginal languages and which can only be +imitated, not interpreted, in ours, signifying “when it will be near its +end,” “when it will no longer be available for <span class="nowrap">man.”<a name="FNanchor_220-2_336" id="FNanchor_220-2_336"></a><a href="#Footnote_220-2_336" class="fnanchor">220-2</a></span></p> + +<p>An ancient prophecy handed down from their ancestors warns the +Winnebagoes that their nation shall be annihilated at the close of the +thirteenth generation. Ten have already passed, and that now living has +appointed ceremonies to propitiate the powers of heaven, and mitigate +its stern <span class="nowrap">decree.<a name="FNanchor_220-3_337" id="FNanchor_220-3_337"></a><a href="#Footnote_220-3_337" class="fnanchor">220-3</a></span> Well may they be about it, for there is a +gloomy probability that the warning came from no false prophet. Few +tribes were destitute of such presentiments. The Chikasaw, the Mandans +of the Missouri, the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico, the Muyscas of +Bogota, the Botocudos of Brazil, the Araucanians of Chili, have been +asserted on testimony that leaves no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span> room for scepticism, to have +entertained such forebodings from immemorial time. Enough for the +purpose if the list is closed with the prediction of a Maya priest, +cherished by the inhabitants of Yucatan long before the Spaniard +desolated their stately cities. It is one of those preserved by Father +Lizana, curé of Itzamal, and of which he gives the original. Other +witnesses inform us that this nation “had a tradition that the world +would <span class="nowrap">end,”<a name="FNanchor_221-1_338" id="FNanchor_221-1_338"></a><a href="#Footnote_221-1_338" class="fnanchor">221-1</a></span> and probably, like the Greeks and Aztecs, they +supposed the gods would perish with it.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="first">“At the close of the ages, it hath been decreed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shall perish and vanish each weak god of men,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the world shall be purged with a ravening fire.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Happy the man in that terrible day,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who bewails with contrition the sins of his <span class="nowrap">life,<a name="FNanchor_221-2_339" id="FNanchor_221-2_339"></a><a href="#Footnote_221-2_339" class="fnanchor">221-2</a></span><br /></span> +<span class="i0">And meets without flinching the fiery ordeal.”<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<div class="footnotes"> + +<p><a name="Footnote_193-1_289" id="Footnote_193-1_289"></a><a href="#FNanchor_193-1_289"><span class="label">193-1</span></a> So far as this applies to the Eskimos, it might be +questioned on the authority of Paul Egede, whose valuable <i>Nachrichten +von Grönland</i> contains several flood-myths, &c. But these Eskimos had +had for generations intercourse with European missionaries and sailors, +and as the other tribes of their stock were singularly devoid of +corresponding traditions, it is likely that in Greenland they were of +foreign origin.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_194-1_290" id="Footnote_194-1_290"></a><a href="#FNanchor_194-1_290"><span class="label">194-1</span></a> Pictet, <i>Origines Indo-Européennes</i> in Michelet, <i>La +Mer</i>. The latter has many eloquent and striking remarks on the +impressions left by the great ocean.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_195-1_291" id="Footnote_195-1_291"></a><a href="#FNanchor_195-1_291"><span class="label">195-1</span></a> “Spiritus Dei incubuit superficei aquarum” is the +translation of one writer. The word for spirit in Hebrew, as in Latin, +originally meant wind, as I have before remarked.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_195-2_292" id="Footnote_195-2_292"></a><a href="#FNanchor_195-2_292"><span class="label">195-2</span></a> Schoolcraft, <i>Ind. Tribes</i>, i. p. 266.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_196-1_293" id="Footnote_196-1_293"></a><a href="#FNanchor_196-1_293"><span class="label">196-1</span></a> Mackenzie, <i>Hist. of the Fur Trade</i>, p. 83; Richardson, +<i>Arctic Expedition</i>, p. 239.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_196-2_294" id="Footnote_196-2_294"></a><a href="#FNanchor_196-2_294"><span class="label">196-2</span></a> Ximenes, <i>Or. de los Ind. de Guat.</i>, pp. 5-7. I +translate freely, following Ximenes rather than Brasseur.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_197-1_295" id="Footnote_197-1_295"></a><a href="#FNanchor_197-1_295"><span class="label">197-1</span></a> Garcia, <i>Or. de los Indios</i>, lib. v. cap. 4.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_197-2_296" id="Footnote_197-2_296"></a><a href="#FNanchor_197-2_296"><span class="label">197-2</span></a> <i>Doc. Hist. of New York</i>, iv. p. 130 (circ. 1650).</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_197-3_297" id="Footnote_197-3_297"></a><a href="#FNanchor_197-3_297"><span class="label">197-3</span></a> <i>Rel. de la Nouv. France</i>, An 1636, p. 101.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_198-1_298" id="Footnote_198-1_298"></a><a href="#FNanchor_198-1_298"><span class="label">198-1</span></a> <i>Rel. de la Nouv. France</i>, An 1634, p. 13.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_199-1_299" id="Footnote_199-1_299"></a><a href="#FNanchor_199-1_299"><span class="label">199-1</span></a> <i>Conquest of Mexico</i>, i. p. 61.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_200-1_300" id="Footnote_200-1_300"></a><a href="#FNanchor_200-1_300"><span class="label">200-1</span></a> For instance, Epictetus favors the opinion that at the +solstices of the great year not only all human beings, but even the +gods, are annihilated; and speculates whether at such times Jove feels +lonely (<i>Discourses</i>, bk. iii. chap. 13). Macrobius, so far from +coinciding with him, explains the great antiquity of Egyptian +civilization by the hypothesis that that country is so happily situated +between the pole and equator, as to escape both the deluge and +conflagration of the great cycle (<i>Somnium Scipionis</i>, lib. ii. cap. +10).</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_201-1_301" id="Footnote_201-1_301"></a><a href="#FNanchor_201-1_301"><span class="label">201-1</span></a> Schoolcraft, <i>Ind. Tribes</i>, iii. p. 263, iv. p. 230.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_201-2_302" id="Footnote_201-2_302"></a><a href="#FNanchor_201-2_302"><span class="label">201-2</span></a> Oviedo, <i>Hist. du Nicaragua</i>, pp. 22, 27.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_201-3_303" id="Footnote_201-3_303"></a><a href="#FNanchor_201-3_303"><span class="label">201-3</span></a> Müller, <i>Amer. Urrelig.</i>, p. 254, from Max and Denis.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_202-1_304" id="Footnote_202-1_304"></a><a href="#FNanchor_202-1_304"><span class="label">202-1</span></a> Morse, <i>Rep. on the Ind. Tribes</i>, App. p. 346; +D’Orbigny, <i>Frag. d’un Voyage dans l’Amér. Mérid.</i>, p. 512.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_202-2_305" id="Footnote_202-2_305"></a><a href="#FNanchor_202-2_305"><span class="label">202-2</span></a> When, as in the case of one of the Mexican Noahs, +Coxcox, this does not seem to hold good, it is probably owing to a loss +of the real form of the myth. Coxcox is also known by the name of +Cipactli, Fish-god, and Huehue tonaca cipactli, Old Fish-god of Our +Flesh.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_202-3_306" id="Footnote_202-3_306"></a><a href="#FNanchor_202-3_306"><span class="label">202-3</span></a> My knowledge of the Sanscrit form of the flood-myth is +drawn principally from the dissertation of Professor Felix Nève, +entitled <i>La Tradition Indienne du Deluge dans sa Forme la plus +ancienne</i>, Paris, 1851. There is in the oldest versions no distinct +reference to an antediluvian race, and in India Manu is by common +consent the Adam as well as the Noah of their legends.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_203-1_307" id="Footnote_203-1_307"></a><a href="#FNanchor_203-1_307"><span class="label">203-1</span></a> Prescott, <i>Conquest of Peru</i>, i. p. 88; <i>Codex +Vaticanus</i>, No. 3776, in Kingsborough.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_203-2_308" id="Footnote_203-2_308"></a><a href="#FNanchor_203-2_308"><span class="label">203-2</span></a> And also various peculiarities of style and language +lost in translation. The two accounts of the Deluge are given side by +side in Dr. Smith’s <i>Dictionary of the Bible</i> under the word +Pentateuch.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_203-3_309" id="Footnote_203-3_309"></a><a href="#FNanchor_203-3_309"><span class="label">203-3</span></a> See the dissertation of Prof. Nève referred to above.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_203-4_310" id="Footnote_203-4_310"></a><a href="#FNanchor_203-4_310"><span class="label">203-4</span></a> <i>American State Papers</i>, Indian Affairs, i. p. 729. +Date of legend, 1801.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_204-1_311" id="Footnote_204-1_311"></a><a href="#FNanchor_204-1_311"><span class="label">204-1</span></a> Molina, <i>Hist. of Chili</i>, ii. p. 82.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_205-1_312" id="Footnote_205-1_312"></a><a href="#FNanchor_205-1_312"><span class="label">205-1</span></a> Richardson, <i>Arctic Expedition</i>, p. 239.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_205-2_313" id="Footnote_205-2_313"></a><a href="#FNanchor_205-2_313"><span class="label">205-2</span></a> Dumont, <i>Mems. Hist. sur la Louisiane</i>, i. p. 163.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_205-3_314" id="Footnote_205-3_314"></a><a href="#FNanchor_205-3_314"><span class="label">205-3</span></a> Schoolcraft, <i>Ind. Tribes</i>, v. p. 686.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_206-1_315" id="Footnote_206-1_315"></a><a href="#FNanchor_206-1_315"><span class="label">206-1</span></a> Desjardins, <i>Le Pérou avant la Conq. Espagn.</i>, p. 27.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_207-1_316" id="Footnote_207-1_316"></a><a href="#FNanchor_207-1_316"><span class="label">207-1</span></a> Cod. Chimalpopoca, in Brasseur, <i>Hist. du Mexique</i>, +Pièces Justificatives.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_207-2_317" id="Footnote_207-2_317"></a><a href="#FNanchor_207-2_317"><span class="label">207-2</span></a> These four birds, whose names have lost their +signification, represent doubtless the four winds, or the four rivers, +which, as in so many legends, are the active agents in overwhelming the +world in its great crises.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_208-1_318" id="Footnote_208-1_318"></a><a href="#FNanchor_208-1_318"><span class="label">208-1</span></a> The word rendered mill-stone, in the original means +those large hollowed stones on which the women were accustomed to bruise +the maize. The imitative sounds for which I have substituted others in +English, are in Quiché, <i>holi, holi, huqui, huqui</i>.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_209-1_319" id="Footnote_209-1_319"></a><a href="#FNanchor_209-1_319"><span class="label">209-1</span></a> Brasseur translates “quoique nous ne sentissions rien,” +but Ximenes, “nos quemasteis, y sentimos el dolor.” As far as I can make +out the original, it is the negative conditional as I have given it in +the text.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_209-2_320" id="Footnote_209-2_320"></a><a href="#FNanchor_209-2_320"><span class="label">209-2</span></a> <i>Le Livre Sacré</i>, p. 27; Ximenes, <i>Or. de los Indios</i>, +p. 13.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_210-1_321" id="Footnote_210-1_321"></a><a href="#FNanchor_210-1_321"><span class="label">210-1</span></a> The American nations among whom a distinct and +well-authenticated myth of the deluge was found are as follows: +Athapascas, Algonkins, Iroquois, Cherokees, Chikasaws, Caddos, Natchez, +Dakotas, Apaches, Navajos, Mandans, Pueblo Indians, Aztecs, Mixtecs, +Zapotecs, Tlascalans, Mechoacans, Toltecs, Nahuas, Mayas, Quiches, +Haitians, natives of Darien and Popoyan, Muyscas, Quichuas, Tuppinambas, +Achaguas, Araucanians, and doubtless others. The article by M. de +Charency in the <i>Revue Américaine, Le Deluge, d’après les Traditions +Indiennes de l’Amérique du Nord</i>, contains some valuable extracts, but +is marred by a lack of criticism of sources, and makes no attempt at +analysis, nor offers for their existence a rational explanation.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_211-1_322" id="Footnote_211-1_322"></a><a href="#FNanchor_211-1_322"><span class="label">211-1</span></a> <i>Une Fête Brésilienne célébré à Rouen en 1550, par M. +Ferdinand Denis</i>, p. 82 (quoted in the <i>Revue Américaine</i>, ii. p. 317). +The native words in this account guarantee its authenticity. In the Tupi +language, <i>tata</i> means fire; <i>parana</i>, ocean; Monan, perhaps from +<i>monáne</i>, to mingle, to temper, as the potter the clay (<i>Dias, +Diccionario da Lingua Tupy</i>: Lipsia, 1858). Irin monge may be an old +form from <i>mongat-iron</i>, to set in order, to restore, to improve +(<i>Martius, Beiträge zur Ethnographie und Sprachenkunde Amerika’s</i>, ii. +p. 70).</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_213-1_323" id="Footnote_213-1_323"></a><a href="#FNanchor_213-1_323"><span class="label">213-1</span></a> Professor Nève, <i>ubi supra</i>, from the Zatapatha +Brahmana.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_213-2_324" id="Footnote_213-2_324"></a><a href="#FNanchor_213-2_324"><span class="label">213-2</span></a> Avendano, <i>Sermones</i>, Lima, 1648, in Rivero and +Tschudi, <i>Peruv. Antiqs.</i>, p. 114. In the year 1600, Oñate found on the +coast of California a tribe whose idol held in one hand a shell +containing three eggs, in the other an ear of maize, while before it was +placed a cup of water. Vizcaino, who visited the same people a few years +afterwards, mentions that they kept in their temples tame ravens, and +looked upon them as sacred birds (Torquemada, <i>Mon. Ind.</i>, lib. v. cap. +40 in Waitz). Thus, in all parts of the continent do we find the bird, +as a symbol of the clouds, associated with the rains and the harvests.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_214-1_325" id="Footnote_214-1_325"></a><a href="#FNanchor_214-1_325"><span class="label">214-1</span></a> The deluge was called <i>hun yecil</i>, which, according to +Cogolludo, means <i>the inundation of the trees</i>, for all the forests were +swept away (<i>Hist. de Yucathan</i>, lib. iv. cap. 5). Bishop Landa adds, to +substantiate the legend, that all the woods of the peninsula appear as +if they had been planted at one time, and that to look at them one would +say they had been trimmed with scissors (<i>Rel. de las Cosas de Yucatan</i>, +58, 60).</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_215-1_326" id="Footnote_215-1_326"></a><a href="#FNanchor_215-1_326"><span class="label">215-1</span></a> <i>Vues des Cordillères</i>, p. 202.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_216-1_327" id="Footnote_216-1_327"></a><a href="#FNanchor_216-1_327"><span class="label">216-1</span></a> Ubi sup., p. 207.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_216-2_328" id="Footnote_216-2_328"></a><a href="#FNanchor_216-2_328"><span class="label">216-2</span></a> The Scandinavians believed the universe had been +destroyed nine times:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Ni Verdener yeg husker,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Og ni Himle,<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="noindent">says the Voluspa (i. 2, in Klee, <i>Le Deluge</i>, p. 220). I observe some +English writers have supposed from these lines that the Northmen +believed in the existence of nine abodes for the blessed. Such is not +the sense of the original.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_216-3_329" id="Footnote_216-3_329"></a><a href="#FNanchor_216-3_329"><span class="label">216-3</span></a> At least this is the doctrine of one of the Shastas. +The race, it teaches, has been destroyed four times; first by water, +secondly by winds, thirdly the earth swallowed them, and lastly fire +consumed them (Sepp., <i>Heidenthum und Christenthum</i>, i. p. 191).</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_217-1_330" id="Footnote_217-1_330"></a><a href="#FNanchor_217-1_330"><span class="label">217-1</span></a> Echevarria y Veitia, <i>Hist. de la Nueva España</i>, lib. +i. cap. 4, in Waitz.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_217-2_331" id="Footnote_217-2_331"></a><a href="#FNanchor_217-2_331"><span class="label">217-2</span></a> Brasseur, <i>Hist. du Mexique</i>, iii. p. 495.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_218-1_332" id="Footnote_218-1_332"></a><a href="#FNanchor_218-1_332"><span class="label">218-1</span></a> The contrary has indeed been inferred from such +expressions of the writer of the book of Ecclesiastes as, “that which +hath been, is now, and that which is to be, hath already been” (chap. +iii. 15), and the like, but they are susceptible of an application +entirely subjective.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_218-2_333" id="Footnote_218-2_333"></a><a href="#FNanchor_218-2_333"><span class="label">218-2</span></a> Voluspa, xiv. 51, in Klee, <i>Le Deluge</i>.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_219-1_334" id="Footnote_219-1_334"></a><a href="#FNanchor_219-1_334"><span class="label">219-1</span></a> <i>Natur. Quæstiones</i>, iii. cap. 27.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_220-1_335" id="Footnote_220-1_335"></a><a href="#FNanchor_220-1_335"><span class="label">220-1</span></a> Velasco, <i>Hist. du Royaume du Quito</i>, p. 105; +Navarrete, <i>Viages</i>, iii. p. 444.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_220-2_336" id="Footnote_220-2_336"></a><a href="#FNanchor_220-2_336"><span class="label">220-2</span></a> <i>Rel. de la Nouv. France</i>, An 1637, p. 54; Schoolcraft, +<i>Ind. Tribes</i>, i. p. 319, iv. p. 420.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_220-3_337" id="Footnote_220-3_337"></a><a href="#FNanchor_220-3_337"><span class="label">220-3</span></a> Schoolcraft, ibid., iv. p. 240.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_221-1_338" id="Footnote_221-1_338"></a><a href="#FNanchor_221-1_338"><span class="label">221-1</span></a> Cogolludo, <i>Hist. de Yucathan</i>, lib. iv. cap. 7.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_221-2_339" id="Footnote_221-2_339"></a><a href="#FNanchor_221-2_339"><span class="label">221-2</span></a> The Spanish of Lizana is—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="first">“En la ultima edad, segun esta determinado,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Avra fin el culto de dioses vanos;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Y el mundo sera purificado con fuego.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">El que esto viere sera llamado dichoso<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Si con dolor lloraré sus pecados.”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="noindent">(<i>Hist. de Nuestra Señora de Itzamal</i>, in Brasseur, <i>Hist. du Mexique</i>, +ii. p. 603). I have attempted to obtain a more literal rendering from +the original Maya, but have not been successful.</p> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h2> + +<p class="chaptoc">THE ORIGIN OF MAN.</p> + +<p class="chapintro">Usually man is the <span class="smcap">Earth-born</span>, both in language and +myths.—Illustrations from the legends of the Caribs, Apalachians, +Iroquois, Quichuas, Aztecs, and others.—The underworld.—Man the +product of one of the primal creative powers, the Spirit, or the +Water, in the myths of the Athapascas, Eskimos, Moxos, and +others.—Never literally derived from an inferior species.</p> + + +<p class="noindent"><span class="dropcap">N</span><span class="upper">o</span> man can escape the importunate question, whence am I? The first +replies framed to meet it possess an interest to the thoughtful mind, +beyond that of mere fables. They illustrate the position in creation +claimed by our race, and the early workings of self-consciousness. Often +the oldest terms for man are synopses of these replies, and merit a more +than passing contemplation.</p> + +<p>The seed is hidden in the earth. Warmed by the sun, watered by the rain, +presently it bursts its dark prison-house, unfolds its delicate leaves, +blossoms, and matures its fruit. Its work done, the earth draws it to +itself again, resolves the various structures into their original mould, +and the unending round recommences.</p> + +<p>This is the marvellous process that struck the primitive mind. Out of +the Earth rises life, to it it returns. She it is who guards all germs, +nourishes all beings. The Aztecs painted her as a woman with countless +breasts, the Peruvians called her Mama<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span> Allpa, <i>mother</i> Earth. <i>Homo</i>, +<i>Adam</i>, <i>chamaigenēs</i>, what do all these words mean but the +earth-born, the son of the soil, repeated in the poetic language of +Attica in <i>anthropos</i>, he who springs up as a flower?</p> + +<p>The word that corresponds to the Latin <i>homo</i> in American languages has +such singular uniformity in so many of them, that we might be tempted to +regard it as a fragment of some ancient and common tongue, their parent +stem. In the Eskimo it is <i>inuk</i>, <i>innuk</i>, plural <i>innuit</i>; in Athapasca +it is <i>dinni</i>, <i>tenné</i>; in Algonkin, <i>inini</i>, <i>lenni</i>, <i>inwi</i>; in +Iroquois, <i>onwi</i>, <i>eniha</i>; in the Otomi of Mexico <i>n-aniehe</i>; in the +Maya, <i>inic</i>, <i>winic</i>, <i>winak</i>; all in North America, and the number +might be extended. Of these only the last mentioned can plausibly be +traced to a radical (unless the Iroquois <i>onwi</i> is from <i>onnha</i> life, +<i>onnhe</i> to live). This Father Ximenes derives from <i>win</i>, meaning to +grow, to gain, to <span class="nowrap">increase,<a name="FNanchor_223-1_340" id="FNanchor_223-1_340"></a><a href="#Footnote_223-1_340" class="fnanchor">223-1</a></span> in which the analogy to vegetable +life is not far off, an analogy strengthened by the myth of that stock, +which relates that the first of men were formed of the flour of +<span class="nowrap">maize.<a name="FNanchor_223-2_341" id="FNanchor_223-2_341"></a><a href="#Footnote_223-2_341" class="fnanchor">223-2</a></span></p> + +<p>In many other instances religious legend carries out this idea. The +mythical ancestor of the Caribs created his offspring by sowing the soil +with stones or with the fruit of the Mauritius palm, which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span> sprouted +forth into men and <span class="nowrap">women,<a name="FNanchor_224-1_342" id="FNanchor_224-1_342"></a><a href="#Footnote_224-1_342" class="fnanchor">224-1</a></span> while the Yurucares, much of whose +mythology was perhaps borrowed from the Peruvians, clothed this crude +tenet in a somewhat more poetic form, fabling that at the beginning the +first of men were pegged, Ariel-like, in the knotty entrails of an +enormous hole, until the god Tiri—a second Prospero—released them by +cleaving it in <span class="nowrap">twain.<a name="FNanchor_224-2_343" id="FNanchor_224-2_343"></a><a href="#Footnote_224-2_343" class="fnanchor">224-2</a></span></p> + +<p>As in oriental legends the origin of man from the earth was veiled under +the story that he was the progeny of some mountain fecundated by the +embrace of Mithras or Jupiter, so the Indians often pointed to some +height or some cavern, as the spot whence the first of men issued, adult +and armed, from the womb of the All-mother Earth. The oldest name of the +Alleghany Mountains is Paemotinck or Pemolnick, an Algonkin word, the +meaning of which is said to be “the origin of the <span class="nowrap">Indians.”<a name="FNanchor_224-3_344" id="FNanchor_224-3_344"></a><a href="#Footnote_224-3_344" class="fnanchor">224-3</a></span></p> + +<p>The Witchitas, who dwelt on the Red River among the mountains named +after them, have a tradition that their progenitors issued from the +rocks about<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span> their <span class="nowrap">homes,<a name="FNanchor_225-1_345" id="FNanchor_225-1_345"></a><a href="#Footnote_225-1_345" class="fnanchor">225-1</a></span> and many other tribes the Tahkalis, +Navajos, Coyoteras, and the Haitians, for instance, set up this claim to +be autochthones. Most writers have interpreted this simply to mean that +they knew nothing at all about their origin, or that they coined these +fables merely to strengthen the title to the territory they inhabited +when they saw the whites eagerly snatching it away on every pretext. No +doubt there is some truth in this, but if they be carefully sifted, +there is sometimes a deep historical significance in these myths, which +has hitherto escaped the observation of students. An instance presents +itself in our own country.</p> + +<p>All those tribes, the Creeks, Seminoles, Choctaws, Chicasaws, and +Natchez, who, according to tradition, were in remote times banded into +one common confederacy under the headship of the last mentioned, +unanimously located their earliest ancestry near an artificial eminence +in the valley of the Big Black River, in the Natchez country, whence +they pretended to have emerged. Fortunately we have a description, +though a brief one, of this interesting monument from the pen of an +intelligent traveller. It is described as “an elevation of earth about +half a mile square and fifteen or twenty feet high. From its northeast +corner a wall of equal height extends for near half a mile to the high +land.” This was the Nunne Chaha or Nunne Hamgeh, the High Hill, or the +Bending Hill, famous in Choctaw stories, and which Captain Gregg found +they have not yet forgotten in their western home. The legend was that +in its centre was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span> a cave, the house of the Master of Breath. Here he +made the first men from the clay around him, and as at that time the +waters covered the earth, he raised the wall to dry them on. When the +soft mud had hardened into elastic flesh and firm bone, he banished the +waters to their channels and beds, and gave the dry land to his +<span class="nowrap">creatures.<a name="FNanchor_226-1_346" id="FNanchor_226-1_346"></a><a href="#Footnote_226-1_346" class="fnanchor">226-1</a></span> When in 1826 Albert Gallatin obtained from some +Natchez chiefs a vocabulary of their language, they gave to him as their +word for <i>hill</i> precisely the same word that a century and a quarter +before the French had found among them as their highest term for +<span class="nowrap">God;<a name="FNanchor_226-2_347" id="FNanchor_226-2_347"></a><a href="#Footnote_226-2_347" class="fnanchor">226-2</a></span> reversing the example of the ancient Greeks who came in time +to speak of Olympus, at first the proper name of a peak in Thessaly, as +synonymous with heaven and Jove.</p> + +<p>A parallel to this southern legend occurs among<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span> the Six Nations of the +north. They with one consent, if we may credit the account of Cusic, +looked to a mountain near the falls of the Oswego River in the State of +New York, as the locality where their forefathers first saw the light of +day, and that they had some such legend the name Oneida, people of the +Stone, would seem to testify.</p> + +<p>The cave of Pacari Tampu, the Lodgings of the Dawn, was five leagues +distant from Cuzco, surrounded by a sacred grove and inclosed with +temples of great antiquity. From its hallowed recesses the mythical +civilizers of Peru, the first of men, emerged, and in it during the time +of the flood, the remnants of the race escaped the fury of the +<span class="nowrap">waves.<a name="FNanchor_227-1_348" id="FNanchor_227-1_348"></a><a href="#Footnote_227-1_348" class="fnanchor">227-1</a></span> Viracocha himself is said to have dwelt there, though it +hardly needed this evidence to render it certain that this consecrated +cavern is but a localization of the general myth of the dawn rising from +the deep. It refers us for its prototype to the Aymara allegory of the +morning light flinging its beams like snow-white foam athwart the waves +of Lake Titicaca.</p> + +<p>An ancient legend of the Aztecs derived their nation from a place called +Chicomoztoc, the Seven Caverns, located north of Mexico. Antiquaries +have indulged in all sorts of speculations as to what this means. +Sahagun explains it as a valley so named; Clavigero supposes it to have +been a city; Hamilton Smith, and after him Schoolcraft, construed +caverns to be a figure of speech for the <i>boats</i> in which the early +Americans paddled across from Asia(!); the Abbé Brasseur confounds it +with Aztlan, and very<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span> many have discovered in it a distinct reference +to the fabulous “seven cities of Cibola” and the Casas Grandes, ruins of +large buildings of unburnt brick in the valley of the River Gila. From +this story arose the supposed sevenfold division of the Nahuas, a +division which never existed except in the imagination of Europeans. +When Torquemada adds that <i>seven</i> hero gods ruled in Chicomoztoc and +were the progenitors of all its inhabitants, when one of them turns out +to be Xelhua, the giant who with six others escaped the flood by +ascending the mountain of Tlaloc in the terrestrial paradise and +afterwards built the pyramid of Cholula, and when we remember that in +one of the flood-myths <i>seven</i> persons were said to have escaped the +waters, the whole narrative acquires a fabulous aspect that shuts it out +from history, and brands it as one of those fictions of the origin of +man from the earth so common to the race. Fictions yet truths; for +caverns and hollow trees were in fact the houses and temples of our +first parents, and from them they went forth to conquer and adorn the +world; and from the inorganic constituents of the soil acted on by +Light, touched by Divine Force, vivified by the Spirit, did in reality +the first of men proceed.</p> + +<p>This cavern, which thus dimly lingered in the memories of nations, +occasionally expanded to a nether world, imagined to underlie this of +ours, and still inhabited by beings of our kind, who have never been +lucky enough to discover its exit. The Mandans and Minnetarees on the +Missouri River supposed this exit was near a certain hill in their +territory, and as it had been, as it were, the womb of the earth, the +same power was attributed to it that in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span> ancient times endowed certain +shrines with such charms; and thither the barren wives of their nation +made frequent pilgrimages when they would become <span class="nowrap">mothers.<a name="FNanchor_229-1_349" id="FNanchor_229-1_349"></a><a href="#Footnote_229-1_349" class="fnanchor">229-1</a></span> The +Mandans added the somewhat puerile fable that the means of ascent had +been a grapevine, by which many ascended and descended, until one day an +immoderately fat old lady, anxious to get a look at the upper earth, +broke it with her weight, and prevented any further communication.</p> + +<p>Such tales of an under-world are very frequent among the Indians, and +are a very natural outgrowth of the literal belief that the race is +earth-born.</p> + +<p>Man is indeed like the grass that springs up and soon withers away; but +he is also more than this. The quintessence of dust, he is a son of the +gods as well as a son of the soil. He is the direct product of the great +creative power; therefore all the Athapascan tribes west of the Rocky +Mountains—the Kenai, the Kolushes, and the Atnai—claim descent from a +raven—from that same mighty cloud-bird, who in the beginning of things +seized the elements and brought the world from the abyss of the +primitive ocean. Those of the same stock situate more eastwardly, the +Dogribs, the Chepewyans, the Hare Indians, and also the west coast +Eskimos, and the natives of the Aleutian Isles, all believe that they +have sprung from a <span class="nowrap">dog.<a name="FNanchor_229-2_350" id="FNanchor_229-2_350"></a><a href="#Footnote_229-2_350" class="fnanchor">229-2</a></span> The latter animal, we have already seen, +both in the old and new world was the fixed symbol of the water goddess. +Therefore in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span> these myths, which are found over so many thousand square +leagues, we cannot be in error in perceiving a reflex of their +cosmogonical traditions already discussed, in which from the winds and +the waters, represented here under their emblems of the bird and the +dog, all animate life proceeded.</p> + +<p>Without this symbolic coloring, a tribe to the south of them, a band of +the Minnetarees, had the crude tradition that their first progenitor +emerged from the waters, bearing in his hand an ear of <span class="nowrap">maize,<a name="FNanchor_230-1_351" id="FNanchor_230-1_351"></a><a href="#Footnote_230-1_351" class="fnanchor">230-1</a></span> +very much as Viracocha and his companions rose from the sacred waves of +Lake Titicaca, or as the Moxos imagined that they were descended from +the lakes and rivers on whose banks their villages were situated.</p> + +<p>These myths, and many others, hint of general conceptions of life and +the world, wide-spread theories of ancient date, such as we are not +accustomed to expect among savage nations, such as may very excusably +excite a doubt as to their native origin, but a doubt infallibly +dispelled by a careful comparison of the best authorities. Is it that +hitherto, in the pride of intellectual culture, we have never done +justice to the thinking faculty of those whom we call barbarians? Or +shall we accept the only other alternative, that these are the +unappreciated heirlooms bequeathed a rude race by a period of higher +civilization, long since extinguished by constant wars and ceaseless +fear? We are not yet ready to answer these questions. With almost +unanimous consent the latter has been accepted as the true solution, but +rather from the preconceived theory of a state of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span> primitive +civilization from which man fell, than from ascertained facts.</p> + +<p>It would, perhaps, be pushing symbolism too far to explain as an emblem +of the primitive waters the coyote, which, according to the Root-Diggers +of California, brought their ancestors into the world; or the wolf, +which the Lenni Lenape pretended released mankind from the dark bowels +of the earth by scratching away the soil. They should rather be +interpreted by the curious custom of the Toukaways, a wild people in +Texas, of predatory and unruly disposition. They celebrate their origin +by a grand annual dance. One of them, naked as he was born, is buried in +the earth. The others, clothed in wolf-skins, walk over him, snuff +around him, howl in lupine style, and finally dig him up with their +nails. The leading wolf then solemnly places a bow and arrow in his +hands, and to his inquiry as to what he must do for a living, paternally +advises him “to do as the wolves do—rob, kill, and murder, rove from +place to place, and never cultivate the <span class="nowrap">soil.”<a name="FNanchor_231-1_352" id="FNanchor_231-1_352"></a><a href="#Footnote_231-1_352" class="fnanchor">231-1</a></span> Most wise and +fatherly counsel! But what is there new under the sun? Three thousand +years ago the Hirpini, or Wolves, an ancient Sabine tribe, were wont to +collect on Mount Soracte, and there go through certain rites in memory +of an oracle which predicted their extinction when they ceased to gain +their living as wolves by violence and plunder. Therefore they dressed +in wolf-skins, ran with barks and howls over burning coals, and gnawed +wolfishly whatever they could <span class="nowrap">seize.<a name="FNanchor_231-2_353" id="FNanchor_231-2_353"></a><a href="#Footnote_231-2_353" class="fnanchor">231-2</a></span></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span>Though hasty writers have often said that the Indian tribes claim +literal descent from different wild beasts, probably in all other +instances, as in these, this will prove, on examination, to be an error +resting on a misapprehension arising from the habit of the natives of +adopting as their totem or clan-mark the figure and name of some animal, +or else, in an ignorance of the animate symbols employed with such +marked preference by the red race to express abstract ideas. In some +cases, doubtless, the natives themselves came, in time, to confound the +symbol with the idea, by that familiar process of personification and +consequent debasement exemplified in the history of every religion; but +I do not believe that a single example could be found where an Indian +tribe had a tradition whose real purport was that man came by natural +process of descent from an ancestor, a brute.</p> + +<p>The reflecting mind will not be offended at the contradictions in these +different myths, for a myth is, in one sense, a theory of natural +phenomena expressed in the form of a narrative. Often several +explanations seem equally satisfactory for the same fact, and the mind +hesitates to choose, and rather accepts them all than rejects any. Then, +again, an expression current as a metaphor by-and-by crystallizes into a +dogma, and becomes the nucleus of a new mythological growth. These are +familiar processes to one versed in such studies, and involve no logical +contradiction, because they are never required to be reconciled.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"> + +<p><a name="Footnote_223-1_340" id="Footnote_223-1_340"></a><a href="#FNanchor_223-1_340"><span class="label">223-1</span></a> <i>Vocabulario Quiche</i>, s. v., ed. Brasseur, Paris, +1862.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_223-2_341" id="Footnote_223-2_341"></a><a href="#FNanchor_223-2_341"><span class="label">223-2</span></a> The Eskimo <i>innuk</i>, man, means also a possessor or +owner; the <a name="corr10" id="corr10"></a><ins class="correction" title="yolk">yelk</ins> of an egg; and the pus of an abscess (Egede, +<i>Nachrichten von Grönland</i>, p. 106). From it is derived <i>innuwok</i>, to +live, life. Probably <i>innuk</i> also means the <i>semen masculinum</i>, and in +its identification with pus, may not there be the solution of that +strange riddle which in so many myths of the West Indies and Central +America makes the first of men to be “the purulent one?” (See ante, p. +135.)</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_224-1_342" id="Footnote_224-1_342"></a><a href="#FNanchor_224-1_342"><span class="label">224-1</span></a> Müller, <i>Amer. Urrelig.</i>, pp. 109, 229.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_224-2_343" id="Footnote_224-2_343"></a><a href="#FNanchor_224-2_343"><span class="label">224-2</span></a> D’Orbigny, <i>Frag. d’une Voy. dans l’Amér. Mérid.</i>, p. +512. It is still a mooted point whence Shakspeare drew the plot of The +Tempest. The coincidence mentioned in the text between some parts of it +and South American mythology does not stand alone. Caliban, the savage +and brutish native of the island, is undoubtedly the word Carib, often +spelt Caribani, and Calibani in older writers; and his “dam’s god +Setebos” was the supreme divinity of the Patagonians when first visited +by Magellan. (Pigafetta, <i>Viaggio intorno al Globo</i>, Germ. Trans.: +Gotha, 1801, p. 247.)</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_224-3_344" id="Footnote_224-3_344"></a><a href="#FNanchor_224-3_344"><span class="label">224-3</span></a> Both Lederer and John Bartram assign it this meaning. +Gallatin gives in the Powhatan dialect the word for mountain as +<i>pomottinke</i>, doubtless another form of the same.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_225-1_345" id="Footnote_225-1_345"></a><a href="#FNanchor_225-1_345"><span class="label">225-1</span></a> Marcy, <i>Exploration of the Red River</i>, p. 69.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_226-1_346" id="Footnote_226-1_346"></a><a href="#FNanchor_226-1_346"><span class="label">226-1</span></a> Compare Romans, <i>Hist. of Florida</i>, pp. 58, 71; Adair, +<i>Hist. of the North Am. Indians</i>, p. 195; and Gregg, <i>Commerce of the +Prairies</i>, ii. p. 235. The description of the mound is by Major Heart, +in the <i>Trans. of the Am. Philos. Soc.</i>, iii. p. 216. (1st series.)</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_226-2_347" id="Footnote_226-2_347"></a><a href="#FNanchor_226-2_347"><span class="label">226-2</span></a> The French writers give for Great Spirit +<i>coyocopchill</i>; Gallatin for hill, <i>kweya koopsel</i>. The blending of +these two ideas, at first sight so remote, is easily enough explained +when we remember that on “the hill of heaven” in all religions is placed +the throne of the mightiest of existences. The Natchez word can be +analyzed as follows: <i>sel</i>, <i>sil</i>, or <i>chill</i>, great; <i>cop</i>, a +termination very frequent in their language, apparently signifying +existence; <i>kweya</i>, <i>coyo</i>, for <i>kue ya</i>, from the Maya <i>kue</i>, god; the +great living God. The Tarahumara language of Sonora offers an almost +parallel instance. In it <i>regui</i>, is <a name="corr11" id="corr11"></a><ins class="correction" title="above should not be italicized"><i>above</i></ins>, up, over, <i>reguiki</i>, +heaven, <i>reguiguiki</i>, a hill or mountain (Buschmann, <i>Spuren der Aztek. +Sprache im nörd. Mexico</i>, p. 244). In the Quiché dialects <i>tepeu</i> is +lord, ruler, and is often applied to the Supreme Being. With some +probability Brasseur derives it from the Aztec <i>tepetl</i>, mountain +(<i>Hist. du Mexique</i>, i. p. 106).</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_227-1_348" id="Footnote_227-1_348"></a><a href="#FNanchor_227-1_348"><span class="label">227-1</span></a> Balboa, <i>Hist. du Pérou</i>, p. 4.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_229-1_349" id="Footnote_229-1_349"></a><a href="#FNanchor_229-1_349"><span class="label">229-1</span></a> Long’s <i>Expedition to the Rocky Mountains</i>, i. p. 274; +Catlin’s <i>Letters</i>, i. p. 178.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_229-2_350" id="Footnote_229-2_350"></a><a href="#FNanchor_229-2_350"><span class="label">229-2</span></a> Richardson, <i>Arctic Expedition</i>, pp. 239, 247; Klemm, +<i>Culturgeschichte der Menschheit</i>, ii. p. 316.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_230-1_351" id="Footnote_230-1_351"></a><a href="#FNanchor_230-1_351"><span class="label">230-1</span></a> Long, <i>Exped. to the Rocky Mountains</i>, i. p. 326.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_231-1_352" id="Footnote_231-1_352"></a><a href="#FNanchor_231-1_352"><span class="label">231-1</span></a> Schoolcraft, <i>Ind. Tribes</i>, v. p. 683.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_231-2_353" id="Footnote_231-2_353"></a><a href="#FNanchor_231-2_353"><span class="label">231-2</span></a> Schwarz, <i>Ursprung der Mythologie</i>, p. 121.</p> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX.</h2> + +<p class="chaptoc">THE SOUL AND ITS DESTINY.</p> + +<p class="chapintro">Universality of the belief in a soul and a future state shown by +the aboriginal tongues, by expressed opinions, and by sepulchral +rites.—The future world never a place of rewards and +punishments.—The house of the Sun the heaven of the red man.—The +terrestrial paradise and the +under-world.—Çupay.—Xibalba.—Mictlan.—Metempsychosis?—Belief +in a resurrection of the dead almost universal.</p> + + +<p class="noindent"><span class="dropcap">T</span><span class="upper">he</span> missionary Charlevoix wrote several excellent works on America +toward the beginning of the last century, and he is often quoted by +later authors; but probably no one of his sayings has been thus honored +more frequently than this: “The belief the best established among our +Americans is that of the immortality of the <span class="nowrap">soul.”<a name="FNanchor_233-1_354" id="FNanchor_233-1_354"></a><a href="#Footnote_233-1_354" class="fnanchor">233-1</a></span> The tremendous +stake that every one of us has on the truth of this dogma makes it quite +a satisfaction to be persuaded that no man is willing to live wholly +without it. Certainly exceptions are very rare, and most of those which +materialistic philosophers have taken such pains to collect, rest on +misunderstandings or superficial observation.</p> + +<p>In the new world I know of only one well authenticated instance where +all notion of a future state appears to have been entirely wanting, and +this in quite a small clan, the Lower Pend d’Oreilles, of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span> Oregon. This +people had no burial ceremonies, no notion of a life hereafter, no word +for soul, spiritual existence, or vital principle. They thought that +when they died, that was the last of them. The Catholic missionaries who +undertook the unpromising task of converting them to Christianity, were +at first obliged to depend upon the imperfect translations of half-breed +interpreters. These “made the idea of soul intelligible to their hearers +by telling them they had a gut which never rotted, and that this was +their living principle!” Yet even they were not destitute of religious +notions. No tribe was more addicted to the observance of charms, omens, +dreams, and guardian spirits, and they believed that illness and bad +luck generally were the effects of the anger of a fabulous old +<span class="nowrap">woman.<a name="FNanchor_234-1_355" id="FNanchor_234-1_355"></a><a href="#Footnote_234-1_355" class="fnanchor">234-1</a></span> The aborigines of the Californian peninsula were as near +beasts as men ever become. The missionaries likened them to “herds of +swine, who neither worshipped the true and only God, nor adored false +deities.” Yet they must have had some vague notion of an +<a name="corr12" id="corr12"></a><ins class="correction" title="after world">after.world</ins>, for the writer who paints the darkest picture of +their condition remarks, “I saw them frequently putting shoes on the +feet of the dead, which seems to indicate that they entertain the idea +of a journey after <span class="nowrap">death.”<a name="FNanchor_234-2_356" id="FNanchor_234-2_356"></a><a href="#Footnote_234-2_356" class="fnanchor">234-2</a></span></p> + +<p>Proof of Charlevoix’s opinion may be derived from three independent +sources. The aboriginal lan<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span>guages may be examined for terms +corresponding to the word soul, the opinions of the Indians themselves +may be quoted, and the significance of sepulchral rites as indicative of +a belief in life after death may be determined.</p> + +<p>The most satisfactory is the first of these. <i>We</i> call the soul a ghost +or spirit, and often a shade. In these words, the <i>breath</i> and the +<i>shadow</i> are the sensuous perceptions transferred to represent the +immaterial object of our thought. Why the former was chosen, I have +already explained; and for the latter, that it is man’s intangible +image, his constant companion, and is of a nature akin to darkness, +earth, and night, are sufficiently obvious reasons.</p> + +<p>These same tropes recur in American languages in the same connection. +The New England tribes called the soul <i>chemung</i>, the shadow, and in +Quiché <i>natub</i>, in Eskimo <i>tarnak</i>, express both these ideas. In Mohawk +<i>atonritz</i>, the soul, is from <i>atonrion</i>, to breathe, and other examples +to the same purpose have already been <span class="nowrap">given.<a name="FNanchor_235-1_357" id="FNanchor_235-1_357"></a><a href="#Footnote_235-1_357" class="fnanchor">235-1</a></span></p> + +<p>Of course no one need demand that a strict immateriality be attached to +these words. Such a colorless negative abstraction never existed for +them, neither does it for us, though we delude ourselves<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span> into believing +that it does. The soul was to them the invisible man, material as ever, +but lost to the appreciation of the senses.</p> + +<p>Nor let any one be astonished if its unity was doubted, and several +supposed to reside in one body. This is nothing more than a somewhat +gross form of a doctrine upheld by most creeds and most philosophies. It +seems the readiest solution of certain psychological enigmas, and may, +for aught we know, be an instinct of fact. The Rabbis taught a threefold +division—<i>nephesh</i>, the animal, <i>ruah</i>, the human, and <i>neshamah</i>, the +divine soul, which corresponds to that of Plato into <i>thumos</i>, +<i>epithumia</i>, and <i>nous</i>. And even Saint Paul seems to have recognized +such inherent plurality when he distinguishes between the bodily soul, +the intellectual soul, and the spiritual gift, in his Epistle to the +Romans. No such refinements of course as these are to be expected among +the red men; but it may be looked upon either as the rudiments of these +teachings, or as a gradual debasement of them to gross and material +expression, that an old and wide-spread notion was found among both +Iroquois and Algonkins, that man has two souls, one of a vegetative +character, which gives bodily life, and remains with the corpse after +death, until it is called to enter another body; another of more +ethereal texture, which in life can depart from the body in sleep or +trance, and wander over the world, and at death goes directly to the +land of <span class="nowrap">Spirits.<a name="FNanchor_236-1_358" id="FNanchor_236-1_358"></a><a href="#Footnote_236-1_358" class="fnanchor">236-1</a></span></p> + +<p>The Sioux extended it to Plato’s number, and are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span> said to have looked +forward to one going to a cold place, another to a warm and comfortable +country, while the third was to watch the body. Certainly a most +impartial distribution of rewards and <span class="nowrap">punishments.<a name="FNanchor_237-1_359" id="FNanchor_237-1_359"></a><a href="#Footnote_237-1_359" class="fnanchor">237-1</a></span> Some other +Dakota tribes shared their views on this point, but more commonly, +doubtless owing to the sacredness of the number, imagined <i>four</i> souls, +with separate destinies, one to wander about the world, one to watch the +body, the third to hover around the village, and the highest to go to +the spirit <span class="nowrap">land.<a name="FNanchor_237-2_360" id="FNanchor_237-2_360"></a><a href="#Footnote_237-2_360" class="fnanchor">237-2</a></span> Even this number is multiplied by certain Oregon +tribes, who imagine one in every member; and by the Caribs of +Martinique, who, wherever they could detect a pulsation, located a +spirit, all subordinate, however, to a supreme one throned in the heart, +which alone would be transported to the skies at <span class="nowrap">death.<a name="FNanchor_237-3_361" id="FNanchor_237-3_361"></a><a href="#Footnote_237-3_361" class="fnanchor">237-3</a></span> For the +heart that so constantly sympathizes with our emotions and actions, is, +in most languages and most nations, regarded as the seat of life; and +when the priests of bloody religions tore out the heart of the victim +and offered it to the idol, it was an emblem of the life that was thus +torn from the field of this world and consecrated to the rulers of the +next.</p> + +<p>Various motives impel the living to treat with respect the body from +which life has departed. Lowest of them is a superstitious dread of +death and the dead. The stoicism of the Indian, especially the northern +tribes, in the face of death, has often been the topic of poets, and has +often been interpreted to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span> be a fearlessness of that event. This is by +no means true. Savages have an awful horror of death; it is to them the +worst of ills; and for this very reason was it that they thought to meet +it without flinching was the highest proof of courage. Everything +connected with the deceased was, in many tribes, shunned with +superstitious terror. His name was not mentioned, his property left +untouched, all reference to him was sedulously avoided. A Tupi tribe +used to hurry the body at once to the nearest water, and toss it in; the +Akanzas left it in the lodge and burned over it the dwelling and +contents; and the Algonkins carried it forth by a hole cut opposite the +door, and beat the walls with sticks to fright away the lingering ghost. +Burying places were always avoided, and every means taken to prevent the +departed spirits exercising a malicious influence on those remaining +behind.</p> + +<p>These craven fears do but reveal the natural repugnance of the animal to +a cessation of existence, and arise from the instinct of +self-preservation essential to organic life. Other rites, undertaken +avowedly for the behoof of the soul, prove and illustrate a simple but +unshaken faith in its continued existence after the decay of the body.</p> + +<p>None of these is more common or more natural than that which attributes +to the emancipated spirit the same wants that it felt while on earth, +and with loving foresight provides for their satisfaction. Clothing and +utensils of war and the chase were, in ancient times, uniformly placed +by the body, under the impression that they would be of service to the +departed in his new home. Some few tribes in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span> far west still retain +the custom, but most were soon ridiculed into its neglect, or were +forced to omit it by the violation of tombs practised by depraved whites +in hope of gain. To these harmless offerings the northern tribes often +added a dog slain on the grave; and doubtless the skeletons of these +animals in so many tombs in Mexico and Peru point to similar customs +there. It had no deeper meaning than to give a companion to the spirit +in its long and lonesome journey to the far off land of shades. The +peculiar appropriateness of the dog arose not only from the guardianship +it exerts during life, but further from the symbolic signification it so +often had as representative of the goddess of night and the grave.</p> + +<p>Where a despotic form of government reduced the subject almost to the +level of a slave and elevated the ruler almost to that of a superior +being, not animals only, but men, women, and children were frequently +immolated at the tomb of the cacique. The territory embraced in our own +country was not without examples of this horrid custom. On the lower +Mississippi, the Natchez Indians brought it with them from Central +America in all its ghastliness. When a sun or chief died, one or several +of his wives and his highest officers were knocked on the head and +buried with him, and at such times the barbarous privilege was allowed +to any of the lowest caste to at once gain admittance to the highest by +the deliberate murder of their own children on the funeral pyre—a +privilege which respectable writers tell us human beings were found base +enough to take advantage <span class="nowrap">of.<a name="FNanchor_239-1_362" id="FNanchor_239-1_362"></a><a href="#Footnote_239-1_362" class="fnanchor">239-1</a></span></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span>Oviedo relates that in the province of Guataro, in Guatemala, an actual +rivalry prevailed among the people to be slain at the death of their +cacique, for they had been taught that only such as went with him would +ever find their way to the paradise of the <span class="nowrap">departed.<a name="FNanchor_240-1_363" id="FNanchor_240-1_363"></a><a href="#Footnote_240-1_363" class="fnanchor">240-1</a></span> Theirs was +therefore somewhat of a selfish motive, and only in certain parts of +Peru, where polygamy prevailed, and the rule was that only one wife was +to be sacrificed, does the deportment of husbands seem to have been so +creditable that their widows actually disputed one with another for the +pleasure of being buried alive with the dead body, and bearing their +spouse company to the other <span class="nowrap">world.<a name="FNanchor_240-2_364" id="FNanchor_240-2_364"></a><a href="#Footnote_240-2_364" class="fnanchor">240-2</a></span> Wives who have found few +parallels since the famous matron of Ephesus!</p> + +<p>The fire built nightly on the grave was to light the spirit on his +journey. By a coincidence to be explained by the universal sacredness of +the number, both Algonkins and Mexicans maintained it for <i>four</i> nights +consecutively. The former related the tradition that one of their +ancestors returned from the spirit land and informed their nation that +the journey thither consumed just <i>four</i> days, and that collecting fuel +every night added much to the toil and fatigue the soul encountered, all +of which could be spared it by the relatives kindling nightly a fire on +the grave. Or as Longfellow has told it:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="first">“Four days is the spirit’s journey<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To the land of ghosts and shadows,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Four its lonely night encampments.<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span><span class="i0">Therefore when the dead are buried,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Let a fire as night approaches<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Four times on the grave be kindled,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That the soul upon its journey<br /></span> +<span class="i0">May not grope about in darkness.”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The same length of time, say the Navajos, does the departed soul wander +over a gloomy marsh ere it can discover the ladder leading to the world +below, where are the homes of the setting and the rising sun, a land of +luxuriant plenty, stocked with game and covered with corn. To that land, +say they, sink all lost seeds and germs which fall on the earth and do +not sprout. There below they take root, bud, and ripen their +<span class="nowrap">fruit.<a name="FNanchor_241-1_365" id="FNanchor_241-1_365"></a><a href="#Footnote_241-1_365" class="fnanchor">241-1</a></span></p> + +<p>After four days, once more, in the superstitions of the Greenland +Eskimos, does the soul, for that term after death confined in the body, +at last break from its prison-house and either rise in the sky to dance +in the aurora borealis or descend into the pleasant land beneath the +earth, according to the manner of <span class="nowrap">death.<a name="FNanchor_241-2_366" id="FNanchor_241-2_366"></a><a href="#Footnote_241-2_366" class="fnanchor">241-2</a></span></p> + +<p>That there are logical contradictions in this belief and these +ceremonies, that the fire is always in the same spot, that the weapons +and utensils are not carried away by the departed, and that the food +placed for his sustenance remains untouched, is very true. But those who +would therefore argue that they were not intended for the benefit of the +soul, and seek some more recondite meaning in them as “unconscious +emblems of struggling faith or expressions of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span> inward <span class="nowrap">emotions,”<a name="FNanchor_242-1_367" id="FNanchor_242-1_367"></a><a href="#Footnote_242-1_367" class="fnanchor">242-1</a></span> +are led astray by the very simplicity of their real intention. Where is +the faith, where the science, that does not involve logical +contradictions just as gross as these? They are tolerable to us merely +because we are used to them. What value has the evidence of the senses +anywhere against a religious faith? None whatever. A stumbling block +though this be to the materialist, it is the universal truth, and as +such it is well to accept it as an experimental fact.</p> + +<p>The preconceived opinions that saw in the meteorological myths of the +Indian, a conflict between the Spirit of Good and the Spirit of Evil, +have with like unconscious error falsified his doctrine of a future +life, and almost without an exception drawn it more or less in the +likeness of the Christian heaven, hell, and purgatory. Very faint traces +of any such belief except where derived from the missionaries are +visible in the New World. Nowhere was any well-defined doctrine that +moral turpitude was judged and punished in the next-world. No contrast +is discoverable between a place of torments and a realm of joy; at the +worst but a negative castigation awaited the liar, the coward, or the +niggard. The typical belief of the tribes of the United States was well +expressed in the reply of Esau Hajo, great medal chief and speaker for +the Creek nation in the National Council, to the question, Do the red +people believe in a future state of rewards and punishments? “We have an +opinion that those who have behaved well are taken under the care of +Esaugetuh Emissee, and assisted; and that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span> those who have behaved ill +are left to shift for themselves; and that there is no other +<span class="nowrap">punishment.”<a name="FNanchor_243-1_368" id="FNanchor_243-1_368"></a><a href="#Footnote_243-1_368" class="fnanchor">243-1</a></span></p> + +<p>Neither the delights of a heaven on the one hand, nor the terrors of a +hell on the other, were ever held out by priests or sages as an +incentive to well-doing, or a warning to the evil-disposed. Different +fates, indeed, awaited the departed souls, but these rarely, if ever, +were decided by their conduct while in the flesh, but by the manner of +death, the punctuality with which certain sepulchral rites were +fulfilled by relatives, or other similar arbitrary circumstance beyond +the power of the individual to control. This view, which I am well aware +is directly at variance with that of all previous writers, may be shown +to be that natural to the uncultivated intellect everywhere, and the +real interpretation of the creeds of America. Whether these arbitrary +circumstances were not construed to signify the decision of the Divine +Mind on the life of the man, is a deeper question, which there is no +means at hand to solve.</p> + +<p>Those who have complained of the hopeless confusion of American +religions have but proven the insufficiency of their own means of +analyzing them. The uniformity which they display in so many points is +nowhere more fully illustrated than in the unanimity with which they all +point to the <i>sun</i> as the land of the happy souls, the realm of the +blessed, the scene of the joyous hunting-grounds of the hereafter. Its +perennial glory, its comfortable warmth, its daily analogy to the life +of man, marked its abode as the pleasantest spot in the universe. It +matters not whe<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span>ther the eastern Algonkins pointed to the south, others +of their nation, with the Iroquois and Creeks, to the west, or many +tribes to the east, as the direction taken by the spirit; all these +myths but mean that its bourn is the home of the sun, which is perhaps +in the Orient whence he comes forth, in the Occident where he makes his +bed, or in the South whither he retires in the chilling winter. Where +the sun lives, they informed the earliest foreign visitors, were the +villages of the deceased, and the milky way which nightly spans the arch +of heaven, was, in their opinion, the road that led thither, and was +called the path of the souls (<i>le chemin des </i><span class="nowrap"><i>ames</i>).<a name="FNanchor_244-1_369" id="FNanchor_244-1_369"></a><a href="#Footnote_244-1_369" class="fnanchor">244-1</a></span> To <i>hueyu +ku</i>, the mansion of the sun, said the Caribs, the soul passes when death +overtakes the <span class="nowrap">body.<a name="FNanchor_244-2_370" id="FNanchor_244-2_370"></a><a href="#Footnote_244-2_370" class="fnanchor">244-2</a></span> Our knowledge is scanty of the doctrines +taught by the Incas concerning the soul, but this much we do know, that +they looked to the sun, their recognized lord and protector, as he who +would care for them at death, and admit them to his palaces. There—not, +indeed, exquisite joys—but a life of unruffled placidity, void of +labor, vacant of strong emotions, a sort of material Nirvana, awaited +<span class="nowrap">them.<a name="FNanchor_244-3_371" id="FNanchor_244-3_371"></a><a href="#Footnote_244-3_371" class="fnanchor">244-3</a></span> For these reasons, they, with most other American nations, +interred the corpse lying east and west, and not as the traveller Meyen +has <span class="nowrap">suggested,<a name="FNanchor_244-4_372" id="FNanchor_244-4_372"></a><a href="#Footnote_244-4_372" class="fnanchor">244-4</a></span> from the reminiscences of some ancient migration. +Beyond the Cordilleras, quite to the coast of Brazil, the innumerable +hordes who wandered through the sombre tropical<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span> forests of that immense +territory, also pointed to the west, to the region beyond the mountains, +as the land where the souls of their ancestors lived in undisturbed +serenity; or, in the more brilliant imaginations of the later +generations, in a state of perennial inebriety, surrounded by infinite +casks of rum, and with no white man to dole it out to <span class="nowrap">them.<a name="FNanchor_245-1_373" id="FNanchor_245-1_373"></a><a href="#Footnote_245-1_373" class="fnanchor">245-1</a></span> The +natives of the extreme south, of the Pampas and Patagonia, suppose the +stars are the souls of the departed. At night they wander about the sky, +but the moment the sun rises they hasten to the cheerful light, and are +seen no more until it disappears in the west. So the Eskimo of the +distant north, in the long winter nights when the aurora bridges the sky +with its changing hues and arrowy shafts of light, believes he sees the +spirits of his ancestors clothed in celestial raiment, disporting +themselves in the absence of the sun, and calls the phenomenon <i>the +dance of the dead</i>.</p> + +<p>The home of the sun was the heaven of the red man; but to this joyous +abode not every one without distinction, no miscellaneous crowd, could +gain admittance. The conditions were as various as the national +temperaments. As the fierce gods of the Northmen would admit no soul to +the banquets of Walhalla but such as had met the “spear-death” in the +bloody play of war, and shut out pitilessly all those who feebly +breathed their last in the “straw death” on the couch of sickness, so +the warlike Aztec race in Nicaragua held that the shades of those who +died<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span> in their beds went downward and to naught; but of those who fell +in battle for their country to the east, “to the place whence comes the +<span class="nowrap">sun.”<a name="FNanchor_246-1_374" id="FNanchor_246-1_374"></a><a href="#Footnote_246-1_374" class="fnanchor">246-1</a></span> In ancient Mexico not only the warriors who were thus +sacrificed on the altar of their country, but with a delicate and +poetical sense of justice that speaks well for the refinement of the +race, also those women who perished in child-birth, were admitted to the +home of the sun. For are not they also heroines in the battle of life? +Are they not also its victims? And do they not lay down their lives for +country and kindred? Every morning, it was imagined, the heroes came +forth in battle array, and with shout and song and the ring of weapons, +accompanied the sun to the zenith, where at every noon the souls of the +mothers, the Cihuapipilti, received him with dances, music, and flowers, +and bore him company to his western <span class="nowrap">couch.<a name="FNanchor_246-2_375" id="FNanchor_246-2_375"></a><a href="#Footnote_246-2_375" class="fnanchor">246-2</a></span> Except these, +none—without, it may be, the victims sacrificed to the gods, and this +is doubtful—were deemed worthy of the highest heaven.</p> + +<p>A mild and unwarlike tribe of Guatemala, on the other hand, were +persuaded that to die by any other than a natural death was to forfeit +all hope of life hereafter, and therefore left the bodies of the slain +to the beasts and vultures.</p> + +<p>The Mexicans had another place of happiness for departed souls, not +promising perpetual life as the home of the sun, but unalloyed pleasure +for a certain term of years. This was Tlalocan, the realm of the god of +rains and waters, the terrestrial paradise,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span> whence flowed all the +rivers of the earth, and all the nourishment of the race. The diseases +of which persons died marked this destination. Such as were drowned, or +struck by lightning, or succumbed to humoral complaints, as dropsies and +leprosy, were by these tokens known to be chosen as the subjects of +Tlaloc. To such, said the natives, “death is the commencement of another +life, it is as waking from a dream, and the soul is no more human but +divine (<i>teot</i>).” Therefore they addressed their dying in terms like +these: “Sir, or lady, awake, awake; already does the dawn appear; even +now is the light approaching; already do the birds of yellow plumage +begin their songs to greet thee; already are the gayly-tinted +butterflies flitting around <span class="nowrap">thee.”<a name="FNanchor_247-1_376" id="FNanchor_247-1_376"></a><a href="#Footnote_247-1_376" class="fnanchor">247-1</a></span></p> + +<p>Before proceeding to the more gloomy portion of the subject, to the +destiny of those souls who were not chosen for the better part, I must +advert to a curious coincidence in the religious reveries of many +nations which finds its explanation in the belief that the house of the +sun is the home of the blessed, and proves that this was the first +conception of most natural religions. It is seen in the events and +obstacles of the journey to the happy land. We everywhere hear of a +water which the soul must cross, and an opponent, either a dog or an +evil spirit, which it has to contend with. We are all familiar with the +dog Cerberus (called by Homer simply “the dog”), which disputed the +passage of the river Styx over which the souls must cross; and with the +custom of the vikings, to be buried in a boat so that they might<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span> cross +the waters of Ginunga-gap to the inviting strands of Godheim. Relics of +this belief are found in the Koran which describes the bridge <i>el +Sirat</i>, thin as a hair and sharp as a <a name="corr13" id="corr13"></a><ins class="correction" title="scimitar">scimetar</ins>, stretched in a +single span from heaven to earth; in the Persian legend, where the +rainbow arch Chinevad is flung across the gloomy depths between this +world and the home of the happy; and even in the current Christian +allegory which represents the waters of the mythical Jordan rolling +between us and the Celestial City.</p> + +<p>How strange at first sight does it seem that the Hurons and Iroquois +should have told the earliest missionaries that after death the soul +must cross a deep and swift river on a bridge formed by a single slender +tree most lightly supported, where it had to defend itself against the +attacks of a <span class="nowrap">dog?<a name="FNanchor_248-1_377" id="FNanchor_248-1_377"></a><a href="#Footnote_248-1_377" class="fnanchor">248-1</a></span> If only they had expressed this belief, it +might have passed for a coincidence merely. But the Athapascas +(Chepewyans) also told of a great water, which the soul must cross in a +stone canoe; the Algonkins and Dakotas, of a stream bridged by an +enormous snake, or a narrow and precipitous rock, and the Araucanians of +Chili of a sea in the west, in crossing which the soul was required to +pay toll to a malicious old woman. Were it unluckily impecunious, she +deprived it of an <span class="nowrap">eye.<a name="FNanchor_248-2_378" id="FNanchor_248-2_378"></a><a href="#Footnote_248-2_378" class="fnanchor">248-2</a></span> With the Aztecs this water was called +Chicunoapa, the Nine Rivers. It was guarded by a dog and a green dragon, +to conciliate which the dead were furnished with slips of paper by way +of toll.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span> The Greenland Eskimos thought that the waters roared through +an unfathomable abyss over which there was no other bridge than a wheel +slippery with ice, forever revolving with fearful rapidity, or a path +narrow as a cord with nothing to hold on by. On the other side sits a +horrid old woman gnashing her teeth and tearing her hair with rage. As +each soul approaches she burns a feather under its nose; if it faints +she seizes it for her prisoner, but if the soul’s guardian spirit can +overcome her, it passes through in <span class="nowrap">safety.<a name="FNanchor_249-1_379" id="FNanchor_249-1_379"></a><a href="#Footnote_249-1_379" class="fnanchor">249-1</a></span></p> + +<p>The similarity to the passage of the soul across the Styx, and the toll +of the obolus to Charon is in the Aztec legend still more striking, when +we remember that the Styx was the ninth head of Oceanus (omitting the +Cocytus, often a branch of the Styx). The Nine Rivers probably refer to +the nine Lords of the Night, ancient Aztec deities guarding the +nocturnal hours, and introduced into their calendar. The Tupis and +Caribs, the Mayas and Creeks, entertained very similar expectations.</p> + +<p>We are to seek the explanation of these wide-spread theories of the +soul’s journey in the equally prevalent tenet that the sun is its +destination, and that that luminary has his abode beyond the ocean +stream, which in all primitive geographies rolls its waves around the +habitable land. This ocean stream is the water which all have to attempt +to pass, and woe to him whom the spirit of the waters, represented +either as the old woman, the dragon, or the dog of Hecate, seizes and +overcomes. In the lush fancy of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span> the Orient, the spirit of the waters +becomes the spirit of evil, the ocean stream the abyss of hell, and +those who fail in the passage the damned, who are foredoomed to evil +deeds and endless torture.</p> + +<p>No such ethical bearing as this was ever assigned the myth by the red +race before they were taught by Europeans. Father Brebeuf could only +find that the souls of suicides and those killed in war were supposed to +live apart from the others; “but as to the souls of scoundrels,” he +adds, “so far from being shut out, they are the welcome guests, though +for that matter if it were not so, their paradise would be a total +desert, as Huron and scoundrel (<i>Huron et larron</i>) are one and the +<span class="nowrap">same.”<a name="FNanchor_250-1_380" id="FNanchor_250-1_380"></a><a href="#Footnote_250-1_380" class="fnanchor">250-1</a></span> When the Minnetarees told Major Long and the Mannicicas of +the La Plata the <span class="nowrap">Jesuits,<a name="FNanchor_250-2_381" id="FNanchor_250-2_381"></a><a href="#Footnote_250-2_381" class="fnanchor">250-2</a></span> that the souls of the bad fell into the +waters and were swept away, these are, beyond doubt, attributable either +to a false interpretation, or to Christian instruction. No such +distinction is probable among savages. The Brazilian natives divided the +dead into classes, supposing that the drowned, those killed by violence, +and those yielding to disease, lived in separate regions; but no ethical +reason whatever seems to have been connected with <span class="nowrap">this.<a name="FNanchor_250-3_382" id="FNanchor_250-3_382"></a><a href="#Footnote_250-3_382" class="fnanchor">250-3</a></span> If the +conception of a place of moral retribution was known at all to the race, +it should be found easily recognizable in Mexico, Yucatan, or Peru. But +the so-called “hells” of their religions have no such significance, and +the spirits of evil, who were identified by early writers with Satan, no +more deserve the name than does the Greek Pluto.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span></p> + +<p>Çupay or Supay, the Shadow, in Peru was supposed to rule the land of +shades in the centre of the earth. To him went all souls not destined to +be the companions of the Sun. This is all we know of his attributes; and +the assertion of Garcilasso de la Vega, that he was the analogue of the +Christian Devil, and that his name was never pronounced without spitting +and muttering a curse on his head, may be invalidated by the testimony +of an earlier and better authority on the religion of Peru, who calls +him the god of rains, and adds that the famous Inca, Huayna Capac, was +his high <span class="nowrap">priest.<a name="FNanchor_251-1_383" id="FNanchor_251-1_383"></a><a href="#Footnote_251-1_383" class="fnanchor">251-1</a></span></p> + +<p>“The devil,” says Cogolludo of the Mayas, “is called by them +<a name="corr14" id="corr14"></a><ins class="correction" title="Xibalba">Xibilha</ins>, which means he who disappears or <span class="nowrap">vanishes.”<a name="FNanchor_251-2_384" id="FNanchor_251-2_384"></a><a href="#Footnote_251-2_384" class="fnanchor">251-2</a></span> In the +legends of the Quichés, the name Xibalba is given as that of the +under-world ruled by the grim lords One Death and Seven Deaths. The +derivation of the name is from a root meaning to fear, from which comes +the term in Maya dialects for a ghost or <span class="nowrap">phantom.<a name="FNanchor_251-3_385" id="FNanchor_251-3_385"></a><a href="#Footnote_251-3_385" class="fnanchor">251-3</a></span> Under the +influence of a century of Christian catechizing, the Quiché legends +portray this really as a place of torment, and its rulers as malignant +and powerful; but as I have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span> before pointed out, they do so, protesting +that such was not the ancient belief, and they let fall no word that +shows that it was regarded as the destination of the morally bad. The +original meaning of the name given by Cogolludo points unmistakably to +the simple fact of disappearance from among men, and corresponds in +harmlessness to the true sense of those words of fear, Scheol, Hades, +Hell, all signifying hidden from sight, and only endowed with more grim +associations by the imaginations of later <span class="nowrap">generations.<a name="FNanchor_252-1_386" id="FNanchor_252-1_386"></a><a href="#Footnote_252-1_386" class="fnanchor">252-1</a></span></p> + +<p>Mictlanteuctli, Lord of Mictlan, from a word meaning to die, was the +Mexican Pluto. Like Çupay, he dwelt in the subterranean regions, and his +palace was named Tlalxicco, the navel of the earth. Yet he was also +located in the far north, and that point of the compass and the north +wind were named after him. Those who descended to him were oppressed by +the darkness of his abode, but were subjected to no other trials; nor +were they sent thither as a punishment, but merely from having died of +diseases unfitting them for Tlalocan. Mictlanteuctli was said to be the +most powerful of the gods. For who is stronger than Death? And who dare +defy the Grave? As the skald lets Odin say to Bragi: “Our lot is +uncertain; even on the hosts of the gods gazes the gray Fenris +<span class="nowrap">wolf.”<a name="FNanchor_252-2_387" id="FNanchor_252-2_387"></a><a href="#Footnote_252-2_387" class="fnanchor">252-2</a></span></p> + +<p>These various abodes to which the incorporeal man took flight were not +always his everlasting home. It will be remembered that where a +plurality of souls<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</a></span> was believed, one of these, soon after death, +entered another body to recommence life on earth. Acting under this +persuasion, the Algonkin women who desired to become mothers, flocked to +the couch of those about to die, in hope that the vital principle, as it +passed from the body, would enter theirs, and fertilize their sterile +wombs; and when, among the Seminoles of Florida, a mother died in +childbirth, the infant was held over her face to receive her parting +spirit, and thus acquire strength and knowledge for its future +<span class="nowrap">use.<a name="FNanchor_253-1_388" id="FNanchor_253-1_388"></a><a href="#Footnote_253-1_388" class="fnanchor">253-1</a></span> So among the Tahkalis, the priest is accustomed to lay his +hand on the head of the nearest relative of the deceased, and to blow +into him the soul of the departed, which is supposed to come to life in +his next <span class="nowrap">child.<a name="FNanchor_253-2_389" id="FNanchor_253-2_389"></a><a href="#Footnote_253-2_389" class="fnanchor">253-2</a></span> Probably, with a reference to the current +tradition that ascribes the origin of man to the earth, and likens his +life to that of the plant, the Mexicans were accustomed to say that at +one time all men have been stones, and that at last they would all +return to <span class="nowrap">stones;<a name="FNanchor_253-3_390" id="FNanchor_253-3_390"></a><a href="#Footnote_253-3_390" class="fnanchor">253-3</a></span> and, acting literally on this conviction, they +interred with the bones of the dead a small green stone, which was +called the principle of life.</p> + +<p>Whether any nations accepted the doctrine of metempsychosis, and thought +that “the souls of their grandams might haply inhabit a partridge,” we +are without the means of knowing. La Hontan denies it positively of the +Algonkins; but the natives of Popo<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</a></span>yan refused to kill doves, says +<span class="nowrap">Coreal,<a name="FNanchor_254-1_391" id="FNanchor_254-1_391"></a><a href="#Footnote_254-1_391" class="fnanchor">254-1</a></span> because they believe them inspired by the souls of the +departed. And Father Ignatius Chomé relates that he heard a woman of the +Chiriquanes in Buenos Ayres say of a fox: “May that not be the spirit of +my dead <span class="nowrap">daughter?”<a name="FNanchor_254-2_392" id="FNanchor_254-2_392"></a><a href="#Footnote_254-2_392" class="fnanchor">254-2</a></span> But before accepting such testimony as +decisive, we must first inquire whether these tribes believed in a +multiplicity of souls, whether these animals had a symbolical value, and +if not, whether the soul was not simply presumed to put on this shape in +its journey to the land of the hereafter: inquiries which are +unanswered. Leaving, therefore, the question open, whether the sage of +Samos had any disciples in the new world, another and more fruitful +topic is presented by their well-ascertained notions of the resurrection +of the dead.</p> + +<p>This seemingly extraordinary doctrine, which some have asserted was +entirely unknown and impossible to the American <span class="nowrap">Indians,<a name="FNanchor_254-3_393" id="FNanchor_254-3_393"></a><a href="#Footnote_254-3_393" class="fnanchor">254-3</a></span> was in +fact one of their most deeply-rooted and wide-spread convictions, +especially among the tribes of the eastern United States. It is +indissolubly connected with their highest theories of a future life, +their burial ceremonies, and their modes of expression. The Moravian +Brethren give the grounds of this belief with great clearness: “That +they hold the soul to be immortal, and perhaps think the body will rise +again, they give not unclearly to understand when they say, ‘We Indians +shall not for ever die; even the grains of corn we put under the earth, +grow up and become living things.’<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</a></span> They conceive that when the soul has +been a while with God, it can, if it chooses, return to earth and be +born <span class="nowrap">again.”<a name="FNanchor_255-1_394" id="FNanchor_255-1_394"></a><a href="#Footnote_255-1_394" class="fnanchor">255-1</a></span> This is the highest and typical creed of the +aborigines. But instead of simply being born again in the ordinary sense +of the word, they thought the soul would return to the bones, that these +would clothe themselves with flesh, and that the man would rejoin his +tribe. That this was the real, though often doubtless the dimly +understood reason of the custom of preserving the bones of the deceased, +can be shown by various arguments.</p> + +<p>This practice was almost universal. East of the Mississippi nearly every +nation was accustomed, at stated periods—usually once in eight or ten +years—to collect and clean the osseous remains of those of its number +who had died in the intervening time, and inter them in one common +sepulchre, lined with choice furs, and marked with a mound of wood, +stone, and earth. Such is the origin of those immense tumuli filled with +the mortal remains of nations and generations which the antiquary, with +irreverent curiosity, so frequently chances upon in all portions of our +territory. Throughout Central America the same usage obtained in various +localities, as early writers and existing monuments abundantly testify. +Instead of interring the bones, were they those of some distinguished +chieftain, they were deposited in the temples or the council-houses, +usually in small chests of canes or splints. Such were the +charnel-houses which the historians of De Soto’s expedition so often +mention, and these are the “arks” which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</a></span> Adair and other authors, who +have sought to trace the descent of the Indians from the Jews, have +likened to that which the ancient Israelites bore with them on their +migrations. A widow among the Tahkalis was obliged to carry the bones of +her deceased husband wherever she went for four years, preserving them +in such a casket handsomely decorated with <span class="nowrap">feathers.<a name="FNanchor_256-1_395" id="FNanchor_256-1_395"></a><a href="#Footnote_256-1_395" class="fnanchor">256-1</a></span> The Caribs +of the mainland adopted the custom for all without exception. About a +year after death the bones were cleaned, bleached, painted, wrapped in +odorous balsams, placed in a wicker basket, and kept suspended from the +door of their <span class="nowrap">dwellings.<a name="FNanchor_256-2_396" id="FNanchor_256-2_396"></a><a href="#Footnote_256-2_396" class="fnanchor">256-2</a></span> When the quantity of these heirlooms +became burdensome, they were removed to some inaccessible cavern, and +stowed away with reverential care. Such was the cave Ataruipe, a visit +to which has been so eloquently described by Alexander von Humboldt in +his “Views of Nature.”</p> + +<p>So great was the filial respect for these remains by the Indians, that +on the Mississippi, in Peru, and elsewhere, no tyranny, no cruelty, so +embittered the indigenes against the white explorers as the sacrilegious +search for treasures perpetrated among the sepulchres of past +generations. Unable to understand the meaning of such deep feeling, so +foreign to the European who, without a second thought, turns a cemetery +into a public square, or seeds it down in wheat, the Jesuit missionaries +in Paraguay accuse the natives of worshipping the skeletons of their +fore<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span><span class="nowrap">fathers,<a name="FNanchor_257-1_397" id="FNanchor_257-1_397"></a><a href="#Footnote_257-1_397" class="fnanchor">257-1</a></span> and the English in Virginia repeated it of the +Powhatans.</p> + +<p>The question has been debated and variously answered, whether the art of +mummification was known and practised in America. Without entering into +the discussion, it is certain that preservation of the corpse by a long +and thorough process of exsiccation over a slow fire was nothing +unusual, not only in Peru, Popoyan, the Carib countries, and Nicaragua, +but among many of the tribes north of the Gulf of Mexico, as I have +elsewhere <span class="nowrap">shown.<a name="FNanchor_257-2_398" id="FNanchor_257-2_398"></a><a href="#Footnote_257-2_398" class="fnanchor">257-2</a></span> The object was essentially the same as when the +bones alone were preserved; and in the case of rulers, the same homage +was often paid to their corpses as had been the just due of their living +bodies.</p> + +<p>The opinion underlying all these customs was, that a part of the soul, +or one of the souls, dwelt in the bones; that these were the seeds +which, planted in the earth, or preserved unbroken in safe places, +would, in time, put on once again a garb of flesh, and germinate into +living human beings. Language illustrates this not unusual theory. The +Iroquois word for bone is <i>esken</i>—for soul, <i>atisken</i>, literally that +which is within the <span class="nowrap">bone.<a name="FNanchor_257-3_399" id="FNanchor_257-3_399"></a><a href="#Footnote_257-3_399" class="fnanchor">257-3</a></span> In an Athapascan dialect bone is +<i>yani</i>, soul <span class="nowrap"><i>i-yune</i>.<a name="FNanchor_257-4_400" id="FNanchor_257-4_400"></a><a href="#Footnote_257-4_400" class="fnanchor">257-4</a></span> The Hebrew Rabbis taught that in the bone +<i>lutz</i>, the coccyx, remained at death the germ of a second life, which, +at the proper time, would develop into the purified body, as the plant +from the seed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span></p> + +<p>But mythology and <a name="corr15" id="corr15"></a><ins class="correction" title="superstitions">supersitions</ins> add more decisive testimony. One of +the Aztec legends of the origin of man was, that after one of the +destructions of the world the gods took counsel together how to renew +the species. It was decided that one of their number, Xolotl, should +descend to Mictlan, the realm of the dead, and bring thence a bone of +the perished race. The fragments of this they sprinkled with blood, and +on the fourth day it grew into a youth, the father of the present +<span class="nowrap">race.<a name="FNanchor_258-1_401" id="FNanchor_258-1_401"></a><a href="#Footnote_258-1_401" class="fnanchor">258-1</a></span> The profound mystical significance of this legend is +reflected in one told by the Quichés, in which the hero gods Hunahpu and +Xblanque succumb to the rulers of Xibalba, the darksome powers of death. +Their bodies are burned, but their bones are ground in a mill and thrown +in the waters, lest they should come to life. Even this precaution is +insufficient—“for these ashes did not go far; they sank to the bottom +of the stream, where, in the twinkling of an eye, they were changed into +handsome youths, and their very same features appeared anew. On the +fifth day they displayed themselves anew, and were seen in the water by +the <span class="nowrap">people,”<a name="FNanchor_258-2_402" id="FNanchor_258-2_402"></a><a href="#Footnote_258-2_402" class="fnanchor">258-2</a></span> whence they emerged to overcome and destroy the +powers of death and hell (Xibalba).</p> + +<p>The strongest analogies to these myths are offered by the superstitious +rites of distant tribes. Some of the Tupis of Brazil were wont on the +death of a relative to dry and pulverize his bones and then mix them +with their food, a nauseous practice they defended by asserting that the +soul of the dead remained<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</a></span> in the bones and lived again in the +<span class="nowrap">living.<a name="FNanchor_259-1_403" id="FNanchor_259-1_403"></a><a href="#Footnote_259-1_403" class="fnanchor">259-1</a></span> Even the lower animals were supposed to follow the same +law. Hardly any of the hunting tribes, before their original manners +were vitiated by foreign influence, permitted the bones of game slain in +the chase to be broken, or left carelessly about the encampment. They +were collected in heaps, or thrown into the water. Mrs. Eastman observes +that even yet the Dakotas deem it an omen of ill luck in the hunt, if +the dogs gnaw the bones or a woman inadvertently steps over them; and +the Chipeway interpreter, John Tanner, speaks of the same fear among +that tribe. The Yurucares of Bolivia carried it to such an inconvenient +extent, that they carefully put by even small fish bones, saying that +unless this was done the fish and game would disappear from the +<span class="nowrap">country.<a name="FNanchor_259-2_404" id="FNanchor_259-2_404"></a><a href="#Footnote_259-2_404" class="fnanchor">259-2</a></span> The traveller on our western prairies often notices the +buffalo skulls, countless numbers of which bleach on those vast plains, +arranged in circles and symmetrical piles by the careful hands of the +native hunters. The explanation they offer for this custom gives the key +to the whole theory and practice of preserving the osseous relics of the +dead, as well human as brute. They say that, “the bones contain the +spirits of the slain animals, and that some time in the future they will +rise from the earth, re-clothe themselves with flesh, and stock the +prairies <span class="nowrap">anew.”<a name="FNanchor_259-3_405" id="FNanchor_259-3_405"></a><a href="#Footnote_259-3_405" class="fnanchor">259-3</a></span> This explanation, which comes to us from +indisputable authority, sets forth in its true light the belief of the +red race in a resurrection. It is not possible to trace it out in the +subtleties with which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</a></span> theologians have surrounded it as a dogma. The +very attempt would be absurd. They never occurred to the Indian. He +thought that the soul now enjoying the delights of the happy hunting +grounds would some time return to the bones, take on flesh, and live +again. Such is precisely the much discussed statement that Garcilasso de +la Vega says he often heard from the native Peruvians. He adds that so +careful were they lest any of the body should be lost that they +preserved even the parings of their nails and clippings of the +<span class="nowrap">hair.<a name="FNanchor_260-1_406" id="FNanchor_260-1_406"></a><a href="#Footnote_260-1_406" class="fnanchor">260-1</a></span> In contradiction to this the writer Acosta has been quoted, +who says that the Peruvians embalmed their dead because they “had no +knowledge that the bodies should rise with the <span class="nowrap">soul.”<a name="FNanchor_260-2_407" id="FNanchor_260-2_407"></a><a href="#Footnote_260-2_407" class="fnanchor">260-2</a></span> But, +rightly understood, this is a confirmation of La Vega’s account. Acosta +means that the Christian doctrine of the body rising from the dust being +unknown to the Peruvians (which is perfectly true), they preserved the +body just as it was, so that the soul when it returned to earth, as all +expected, might not be at a loss for a house of flesh.</p> + +<p>The notions thus entertained by the red race on the resurrection are +peculiar to it, and stand apart from those of any other. They did not +look for the second life to be either better or worse than the present +one; they regarded it neither as a reward nor a punishment to be sent +back to the world of the living; nor is there satisfactory evidence that +it was ever distinctly connected with a moral or physical theory of the +destiny of the universe, or even with their prevalent ex<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[261]</a></span>pectation of +recurrent epochs in the course of nature. It is true that a writer whose +personal veracity is above all doubt, Mr. Adam Hodgson, relates an +ancient tradition of the Choctaws, to the effect that the present world +will be consumed by a general conflagration, after which it will be +reformed pleasanter than it now is, and that then the spirits of the +dead will return to the bones in the bone mounds, flesh will knit +together their loose joints, and they shall again inhabit their ancient +<span class="nowrap">territory.<a name="FNanchor_261-1_408" id="FNanchor_261-1_408"></a><a href="#Footnote_261-1_408" class="fnanchor">261-1</a></span></p> + +<p>There was also a similar belief among the Eskimos. They said that in the +course of time the waters would overwhelm the land, purify it of the +blood of the dead, melt the icebergs, and wash away the steep rocks. A +wind would then drive off the waters, and the new land would be peopled +by reindeers and young seals. Then would He above blow once on the bones +of the men and twice on those of the women, whereupon they would at once +start into life, and lead thereafter a joyous <span class="nowrap">existence.<a name="FNanchor_261-2_409" id="FNanchor_261-2_409"></a><a href="#Footnote_261-2_409" class="fnanchor">261-2</a></span></p> + +<p>But though there is nothing in these narratives alien to the course of +thought in the native mind, yet as the date of the first is recent +(1820), as they are not supported (so far as I know) by similar +traditions elsewhere, and as they may have arisen from Christian +doctrines of a millennium, I leave them for future investigation.</p> + +<p>What strikes us the most in this analysis of the opinions entertained by +the red race on a future life is the clear and positive hope of a +hereafter, in such<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[262]</a></span> strong contrast to the feeble and vague notions of +the ancient Israelites, Greeks, and Romans, and yet the entire inertness +of this hope in leading them to a purer moral life. It offers another +proof that the fulfilment of duty is in its nature nowise connected with +or derived from a consideration of ultimate personal consequences. It is +another evidence that the religious is wholly distinct from the moral +sentiment, and that the origin of ethics is not to be sought in +connection with the ideas of divinity and responsibility.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"> + +<p><a name="Footnote_233-1_354" id="Footnote_233-1_354"></a><a href="#FNanchor_233-1_354"><span class="label">233-1</span></a> <i>Journal Historique</i>, p. 351: Paris, 1740.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_234-1_355" id="Footnote_234-1_355"></a><a href="#FNanchor_234-1_355"><span class="label">234-1</span></a> <i>Rep. of the Commissioner of Ind. Affairs</i>, 1854, pp. +211, 212. The old woman is once more a personification of the water and +the moon.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_234-2_356" id="Footnote_234-2_356"></a><a href="#FNanchor_234-2_356"><span class="label">234-2</span></a> Bægert, <i>Acc. of the Aborig. Tribes of the Californian +Peninsula</i>, translated by Chas. Rau, in Ann. Rep. Smithson. Inst., 1866, +p. 387.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_235-1_357" id="Footnote_235-1_357"></a><a href="#FNanchor_235-1_357"><span class="label">235-1</span></a> Of the Nicaraguans Oviedo says: “Ce n’est pas leur +cœur qui va en haut, mais ce qui les faisait vivre; c’est-à-dire, le +souffle qui leur sort par la bouche, et que l’on nomme <i>Julio</i>” (<i>Hist. +du Nicaragua</i>, p. 36). The word should be <i>yulia</i>, kindred with <i>yoli</i>, +to live. (Buschmann, <i>Uber die Aztekischen Ortsnamen</i>, p. 765.) In the +Aztec and cognate languages we have already seen that <i>ehecatl</i> means +both <i>wind</i>, <i>soul</i>, and <i>shadow</i> (Buschmann, <i>Spuren der Aztek. Spr. in +Nördlichen Mexico</i>, p. 74).</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_236-1_358" id="Footnote_236-1_358"></a><a href="#FNanchor_236-1_358"><span class="label">236-1</span></a> <i>Rel. de la Nouv. France</i>, An 1636, p. 104; “Keating’s +<i>Narrative</i>,” i. pp. 232, 410.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_237-1_359" id="Footnote_237-1_359"></a><a href="#FNanchor_237-1_359"><span class="label">237-1</span></a> French, <i>Hist. Colls. of Louisiana</i>, iii. p. 26.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_237-2_360" id="Footnote_237-2_360"></a><a href="#FNanchor_237-2_360"><span class="label">237-2</span></a> Mrs. Eastman, <i>Legends of the Sioux</i>, p. 129.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_237-3_361" id="Footnote_237-3_361"></a><a href="#FNanchor_237-3_361"><span class="label">237-3</span></a> <i>Voy. à la Louisiane fait en 1720</i>, p. 155: Paris, +1768.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_239-1_362" id="Footnote_239-1_362"></a><a href="#FNanchor_239-1_362"><span class="label">239-1</span></a> Dupratz, <i>Hist. of Louisiana</i>, ii. p. 219; Dumont, +<i>Mems. Hist. sur la Louisiane</i>, i. chap. 26.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_240-1_363" id="Footnote_240-1_363"></a><a href="#FNanchor_240-1_363"><span class="label">240-1</span></a> <i>Rel. de la Prov. de Cueba</i>, p. 140.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_240-2_364" id="Footnote_240-2_364"></a><a href="#FNanchor_240-2_364"><span class="label">240-2</span></a> Coreal, <i>Voiages aux Indes Occidentales</i>, ii. p. 94: +Amsterdam, 1722.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_241-1_365" id="Footnote_241-1_365"></a><a href="#FNanchor_241-1_365"><span class="label">241-1</span></a> <i>Senate Rep. on the Ind. Tribes</i>, p. 358: Wash. 1867.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_241-2_366" id="Footnote_241-2_366"></a><a href="#FNanchor_241-2_366"><span class="label">241-2</span></a> Egede, <i>Nachrichten von Grönland</i>, p. 145.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_242-1_367" id="Footnote_242-1_367"></a><a href="#FNanchor_242-1_367"><span class="label">242-1</span></a> Alger, <i>Hist. of the Doctrine of a Future Life</i>, p. +76.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_243-1_368" id="Footnote_243-1_368"></a><a href="#FNanchor_243-1_368"><span class="label">243-1</span></a> Hawkins, <i>Sketch of the Creek Country</i>, p. 80.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_244-1_369" id="Footnote_244-1_369"></a><a href="#FNanchor_244-1_369"><span class="label">244-1</span></a> <i>Rel. de la Nouv. France</i>, 1634, pp. 17, 18.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_244-2_370" id="Footnote_244-2_370"></a><a href="#FNanchor_244-2_370"><span class="label">244-2</span></a> Müller, <i>Amer. Urreligionen</i>, p. 229.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_244-3_371" id="Footnote_244-3_371"></a><a href="#FNanchor_244-3_371"><span class="label">244-3</span></a> La Vega, <i>Hist. des Incas.</i>, lib. ii. cap. 7.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_244-4_372" id="Footnote_244-4_372"></a><a href="#FNanchor_244-4_372"><span class="label">244-4</span></a> <i>Ueber die Ureinwohner von Peru</i>, p. 41.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_245-1_373" id="Footnote_245-1_373"></a><a href="#FNanchor_245-1_373"><span class="label">245-1</span></a> Coreal, <i>Voy. aux Indes Occident.</i>, i. p. 224; Müller, +<i>Amer. Urrelig.</i>, p. 289.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_246-1_374" id="Footnote_246-1_374"></a><a href="#FNanchor_246-1_374"><span class="label">246-1</span></a> Oviedo, <i>Hist. du Nicaragua</i>, p. 22.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_246-2_375" id="Footnote_246-2_375"></a><a href="#FNanchor_246-2_375"><span class="label">246-2</span></a> Torquemada, <i>Monarquia Indiana</i>, lib. vi. cap. 27.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_247-1_376" id="Footnote_247-1_376"></a><a href="#FNanchor_247-1_376"><span class="label">247-1</span></a> Sahagun, <i>Hist. de la Nueva España</i>, lib. x. cap. 29.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_248-1_377" id="Footnote_248-1_377"></a><a href="#FNanchor_248-1_377"><span class="label">248-1</span></a> <i>Rel. de la Nouv. France</i>, 1636, p. 105.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_248-2_378" id="Footnote_248-2_378"></a><a href="#FNanchor_248-2_378"><span class="label">248-2</span></a> Molina, <i>Hist. of Chili</i>, ii. p. 81, and others in +Waitz, <i>Anthropologie</i>, iii. p. 197.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_249-1_379" id="Footnote_249-1_379"></a><a href="#FNanchor_249-1_379"><span class="label">249-1</span></a> <i>Nachrichten von Grönland aus dem Tagebuche vom Bischof +Paul Egede</i>, p. 104: Kopenhagen, 1790.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_250-1_380" id="Footnote_250-1_380"></a><a href="#FNanchor_250-1_380"><span class="label">250-1</span></a> <i>Rel. de la Nouv. France</i>, 1636, p. 105.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_250-2_381" id="Footnote_250-2_381"></a><a href="#FNanchor_250-2_381"><span class="label">250-2</span></a> Long’s <i>Expedition</i>, i. p. 280; Waitz, <i>Anthropologie</i>, +iii. p. 531.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_250-3_382" id="Footnote_250-3_382"></a><a href="#FNanchor_250-3_382"><span class="label">250-3</span></a> Müller, <i>Amer. Urreligionen</i>, p. 287.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_251-1_383" id="Footnote_251-1_383"></a><a href="#FNanchor_251-1_383"><span class="label">251-1</span></a> Compare Garcilasso de la Vega, <i>Hist. des Incas.</i>, liv. +ii. chap. ii., with <i>Lett. sur les Superstitions du Pérou</i>, p. 104. +Çupay is undoubtedly a personal form from <i>Çupan</i>, a shadow. (See +Holguin, <i>Vocab. de la Lengua Quichua</i>, p. 80: Cuzco, 1608.)</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_251-2_384" id="Footnote_251-2_384"></a><a href="#FNanchor_251-2_384"><span class="label">251-2</span></a> “El que desparece ô desvanece,” <i>Hist. de Yucathan</i>, +lib. iv. cap. 7.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_251-3_385" id="Footnote_251-3_385"></a><a href="#FNanchor_251-3_385"><span class="label">251-3</span></a> Ximenes, <i>Vocab. Quiché</i>, p. 224. The attempt of the +Abbé Brasseur to make of Xibalba an ancient kingdom of renown with +Palenque as its capital, is so utterly unsupported and wildly +hypothetical, as to justify the humorous flings which have so often been +cast at antiquaries.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_252-1_386" id="Footnote_252-1_386"></a><a href="#FNanchor_252-1_386"><span class="label">252-1</span></a> Scheol is from a Hebrew word, signifying to dig, to +hide in the earth. Hades signifies the <i>unseen</i> world. Hell Jacob Grimm +derives from <i>hilan</i>, to conceal in the earth, and it is cognate with +<i>hole</i> and <i>hollow</i>.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_252-2_387" id="Footnote_252-2_387"></a><a href="#FNanchor_252-2_387"><span class="label">252-2</span></a> Pennock, <i>Religion of the Northmen</i>, p. 148.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_253-1_388" id="Footnote_253-1_388"></a><a href="#FNanchor_253-1_388"><span class="label">253-1</span></a> La Hontan, <i>Voy. dans l’Am. Sept.</i>, i. p. 232; +<i>Narrative of Oceola Nikkanoche</i>, p. 75.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_253-2_389" id="Footnote_253-2_389"></a><a href="#FNanchor_253-2_389"><span class="label">253-2</span></a> Morse, <i>Rep. on the Ind. Tribes</i>, App. p. 345.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_253-3_390" id="Footnote_253-3_390"></a><a href="#FNanchor_253-3_390"><span class="label">253-3</span></a> Garcia, <i>Or. de los Indios</i>, lib. iv. cap. 26, p. 310.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_254-1_391" id="Footnote_254-1_391"></a><a href="#FNanchor_254-1_391"><span class="label">254-1</span></a> <i>Voiages aux Indes Oc.</i>, ii. p. 132.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_254-2_392" id="Footnote_254-2_392"></a><a href="#FNanchor_254-2_392"><span class="label">254-2</span></a> <i>Lettres Edif. et Cur.</i>, v. p. 203.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_254-3_393" id="Footnote_254-3_393"></a><a href="#FNanchor_254-3_393"><span class="label">254-3</span></a> Alger, <i>Hist. of the Doctrine of a Future Life</i>, p. +72.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_255-1_394" id="Footnote_255-1_394"></a><a href="#FNanchor_255-1_394"><span class="label">255-1</span></a> Loskiel, <i>Ges. der Miss. der evang. Brüder</i>, p. 49.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_256-1_395" id="Footnote_256-1_395"></a><a href="#FNanchor_256-1_395"><span class="label">256-1</span></a> Richardson, <i>Arctic Expedition</i>, p. 260.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_256-2_396" id="Footnote_256-2_396"></a><a href="#FNanchor_256-2_396"><span class="label">256-2</span></a> Gumilla, <i>Hist. del Orinoco</i>, i. pp. 199, 202, 204.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_257-1_397" id="Footnote_257-1_397"></a><a href="#FNanchor_257-1_397"><span class="label">257-1</span></a> Ruis, <i>Conquista Espiritual del Paraguay</i>, p. 48, in +Lafitau.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_257-2_398" id="Footnote_257-2_398"></a><a href="#FNanchor_257-2_398"><span class="label">257-2</span></a> <i>Notes on the Floridian Peninsula</i>, pp. 191 sqq.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_257-3_399" id="Footnote_257-3_399"></a><a href="#FNanchor_257-3_399"><span class="label">257-3</span></a> Bruyas, <i>Rad. Verborum Iroquæorum</i>.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_257-4_400" id="Footnote_257-4_400"></a><a href="#FNanchor_257-4_400"><span class="label">257-4</span></a> Buschmann, <i>Athapask. Sprachstamm</i>, pp. 182, 188.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_258-1_401" id="Footnote_258-1_401"></a><a href="#FNanchor_258-1_401"><span class="label">258-1</span></a> Torquemada, <i>Monarquia Indiana</i>, lib. vi. cap. 41.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_258-2_402" id="Footnote_258-2_402"></a><a href="#FNanchor_258-2_402"><span class="label">258-2</span></a> <i>Le Livre Sacré des Quichés</i>, pp. 175-177.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_259-1_403" id="Footnote_259-1_403"></a><a href="#FNanchor_259-1_403"><span class="label">259-1</span></a> Müller, <i>Amer. Urrelig.</i>, p. 290, after Spix.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_259-2_404" id="Footnote_259-2_404"></a><a href="#FNanchor_259-2_404"><span class="label">259-2</span></a> D’Orbigny, <i>Annuaire des Voyages</i>, 1845, p. 77.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_259-3_405" id="Footnote_259-3_405"></a><a href="#FNanchor_259-3_405"><span class="label">259-3</span></a> Long’s <i>Expedition</i>, i. p. 278.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_260-1_406" id="Footnote_260-1_406"></a><a href="#FNanchor_260-1_406"><span class="label">260-1</span></a> <i>Hist. des Incas</i>, lib. iii. chap. 7.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_260-2_407" id="Footnote_260-2_407"></a><a href="#FNanchor_260-2_407"><span class="label">260-2</span></a> <i>Hist. of the New World</i>, bk. v. chap. 7.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_261-1_408" id="Footnote_261-1_408"></a><a href="#FNanchor_261-1_408"><span class="label">261-1</span></a> <i>Travels in North America</i>, p. 280.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_261-2_409" id="Footnote_261-2_409"></a><a href="#FNanchor_261-2_409"><span class="label">261-2</span></a> Egede, <i>Nachrichten von Grönland</i>, p. 156.</p> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[263]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X.</h2> + +<p class="chaptoc">THE NATIVE PRIESTHOOD.</p> + +<p class="chapintro">Their titles.—Practitioners of the healing art by supernatural +means.—Their power derived from natural magic and the exercise of +the clairvoyant and mesmeric faculties.—Examples.—Epidemic +hysteria.—Their social position.—Their duties as religious +functionaries.—Terms of admission to the Priesthood.—Inner +organization in various nations.—Their esoteric languages and +secret societies.</p> + +<p class="noindent"><span class="dropcap">T</span><span class="upper">hus</span> picking painfully amid the ruins of a race gone to wreck centuries +ago, thus rejecting much foreign rubbish and scrutinizing each stone +that lies around, if we still are unable to rebuild the edifice in its +pristine symmetry and beauty, yet we can at least discern and trace the +ground plan and outlines of the fane it raised to God. Before leaving +the field to the richer returns of more fortunate workmen, it will not +be inappropriate to add a sketch of the ministers of these religions, +the servants in this temple.</p> + +<p>Shamans, conjurers, sorcerers, medicine men, wizards, and many another +hard name have been given them, but I shall call them <i>priests</i>, for in +their poor way, as well as any other priesthood, they set up to be the +agents of the gods, and the interpreters of divinity. No tribe was so +devoid of religious sentiment as to be without them. Their power was +terrible, and their use of it unscrupulous. Neither men nor gods, death +nor life, the winds nor the waves,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[264]</a></span> were beyond their control. Like Old +Men of the Sea, they have clung to the neck of their nations, throttling +all attempts at progress, binding them to the thraldom of superstition +and profligacy, dragging them down to wretchedness and death. +Christianity and civilization meet in them their most determined, most +implacable foes. But what is this but the story of priestcraft and +intolerance everywhere, which Old Spain can repeat as well as New Spain, +the white race as well as the red? Blind leaders of the blind, dupers +and duped fall into the ditch.</p> + +<p>In their own languages they are variously called; by the Algonkins and +Dakotas, “those knowing divine things” and “dreamers of the gods” +(<i>manitousiou</i>, <i>wakanwacipi</i>); in Mexico, “masters or guardians of the +divine things” (<i>teopixqui</i>, <i>teotecuhtli</i>); in Cherokee, their title +means, “possessed of the divine fire” (<i>atsilung kelawhi</i>); in Iroquois, +“keepers of the faith” (<i>honundeunt</i>); in Quichua, “the learned” +(<i>amauta</i>); in Maya, “the listeners” (<i>cocome</i>). The popular term in +French and English of “medicine men” is not such a misnomer as might be +supposed. The noble science of medicine is connected with divinity not +only by the rudest savage but the profoundest philosopher, as has been +already adverted to. When sickness is looked upon as the effect of the +anger of a god, or as the malicious infliction of a sorcerer, it is +natural to seek help from those who assume to control the unseen world, +and influence the fiats of the Almighty. The recovery from disease is +the kindliest exhibition of divine power. Therefore the earliest canons +of medicine in India and Egypt are attributed to no less distinguished +authors than the gods Brahma and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[265]</a></span> <span class="nowrap">Thoth;<a name="FNanchor_265-1_410" id="FNanchor_265-1_410"></a><a href="#Footnote_265-1_410" class="fnanchor">265-1</a></span> therefore the earliest +practitioners of the healing art are universally the ministers of +religion.</p> + +<p>But, however creditable this origin is to medicine, its partnership with +theology was no particular advantage to it. These mystical doctors +shared the contempt still so prevalent among ourselves for a treatment +based on experiment and reason, and regarded the administration of +emetics and purgatives, baths and diuretics, with a contempt quite equal +to that of the disciples of Hahnemann. The practitioners of the rational +school formed a separate class among the Indians, and had nothing to do +with amulets, powwows, or <span class="nowrap">spirits.<a name="FNanchor_265-2_411" id="FNanchor_265-2_411"></a><a href="#Footnote_265-2_411" class="fnanchor">265-2</a></span> They were of different name +and standing, and though held in less estimation, such valuable +additions to the pharmacopœia as guaiacum, cinchona, and ipecacuanha, +were learned from them. The priesthood scorned such ignoble means. Were +they summoned to a patient, they drowned his groans in a barbarous +clangor of instruments in order to fright away the demon that possessed +him; they sucked and blew upon the diseased organ, they sprinkled him +with water, and catching it again threw it on the ground, thus drowning +out the disease; they rubbed the part with their hands, and exhibiting a +bone or splinter asserted that they drew it from the body, and that it +had been the cause of the malady, they manufactured a little image to +represent the spirit of sickness, and spitefully knocked it to pieces, +thus vicariously destroying its prototype; they sang doleful and +monotonous chants at the top of their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[266]</a></span> voices, screwed their +countenances into hideous grimaces, twisted their bodies into unheard of +contortions, and by all accounts did their utmost to merit the +honorarium they demanded for their services. A double motive spurred +them to spare no pains. For if they failed, not only was their +reputation gone, but the next expert called in was likely enough to +hint, with that urbanity so traditional in the profession, that the +illness was in fact caused or much increased by the antagonistic nature +of the remedies previously employed, whereupon the chances were that the +doctor’s life fell into greater jeopardy than that of his quondam +patient.</p> + +<p>Considering the probable result of this treatment, we may be allowed to +doubt whether it redounded on the whole very much to the honor of the +fraternity. Their strong points are rather to be looked for in the real +knowledge gained by a solitary and reflective life, by an earnest study +of the appearances of nature, and of those hints and forest signs which +are wholly lost on the white man and beyond the ordinary insight of a +native. Travellers often tell of changes of the weather predicted by +them with astonishing foresight, and of information of singular accuracy +and extent gleaned from most meagre materials. There is nothing in this +to shock our sense of probability—much to elevate our opinion of the +native sagacity. They were also adepts in tricks of sleight of hand, and +had no mean acquaintance with what is called natural magic. They would +allow themselves to be tied hand and foot with knots innumerable, and at +a sign would shake them loose as so many wisps of straw; they would spit +fire and swallow hot coals,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[267]</a></span> pick glowing stones from the flames, walk +naked through a fire, and plunge their arms to the shoulder in kettles +of boiling water with apparent <span class="nowrap">impunity.<a name="FNanchor_267-1_412" id="FNanchor_267-1_412"></a><a href="#Footnote_267-1_412" class="fnanchor">267-1</a></span> Nor was this all. With a +skill not inferior to that of the jugglers of India, they could plunge +knives into vital parts, vomit blood, or kill one another out and out to +all appearances, and yet in a few minutes be as well as ever; they could +set fire to articles of clothing and even houses, and by a touch of +their magic restore them instantly as perfect as <span class="nowrap">before.<a name="FNanchor_267-2_413" id="FNanchor_267-2_413"></a><a href="#Footnote_267-2_413" class="fnanchor">267-2</a></span> If it +were not within our power to see most of these miracles performed any +night in one of our great cities by a well dressed professional, we +would at once deny their possibility. As it is, they astonish us only +too little.</p> + +<p>One of the most peculiar and characteristic exhibitions of their power, +was to summon a spirit to answer inquiries concerning the future and the +absent. A great similarity marked this proceeding in all northern tribes +from the Eskimos to the Mexicans. A circular or conical lodge of stout +poles four or eight in number planted firmly in the ground, was covered +with skins or mats, a small aperture only being left for the seer to +enter. Once in, he carefully closed the hole and commenced his +incantations. Soon the lodge trembles, the strong poles shake and bend +as with the united strength of a dozen men, and strange, unearthly +sounds, now far aloft in the air, now deep<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[268]</a></span> in the ground, anon +approaching near and nearer, reach the ears of the spectators. At length +the priest announces that the spirit is present, and is prepared to +answer questions. An indispensable preliminary to any inquiry is to +insert a handful of tobacco, or a string of beads, or some such douceur +under the skins, ostensibly for the behoof of the celestial visitor, who +would seem not to be above earthly wants and vanities. 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. 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.</p> + +<p>But there is something more than these vulgar arts now and then to be +perceived. There are statements supported by unquestionable testimony, +which ought not to be passed over in silence, and yet I cannot but +approach them with hesitation. They are so revolting to the laws of +exact science, so alien, I had almost said, to the experience of our +lives. Yet is this true, or are such experiences only ignored and put +aside without serious consideration? Are there not in the history of +each of us passages which strike our retrospective thought with awe, +almost with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[269]</a></span> terror? Are there not in nearly every community individuals +who possess a mysterious power, concerning whose origin, mode of action, +and limits, we and they are alike in the dark? I refer to such organic +forces as are popularly summed up under the words clairvoyance, +mesmerism, rhabdomancy, animal magnetism, physical spiritualism. +Civilized thousands stake their faith and hope here and hereafter, on +the truths of these manifestations; rational medicine recognizes their +existence, and while it attributes them to morbid and exceptional +influences, confesses its want of more exact knowledge, and refrains +from barren theorizing. Let us follow her example, and hold it enough to +show that such powers, whatever they are, were known to the native +priesthood as well as the modern spiritualists, and the miracle mongers +of the Middle Ages.</p> + +<p>Their highest development is what our ancestors called “second sight.” +That under certain conditions knowledge can pass from one mind to +another otherwise than through the ordinary channels of the senses, is +familiarly shown by the examples of persons <i>en rapport</i>. The limit to +this we do not know, but it is not unlikely that clairvoyance or second +sight is based upon it. In his autobiography, the celebrated Sac chief +Black Hawk, relates that his great grandfather “was inspired by a belief +that at the end of four years, he should see a white man, who would be +to him a father.” Under the direction of this vision he travelled +eastward to a certain spot, and there, as he was forewarned, met a +Frenchman, through whom the nation was brought into alliance with +<span class="nowrap">France.<a name="FNanchor_269-1_414" id="FNanchor_269-1_414"></a><a href="#Footnote_269-1_414" class="fnanchor">269-1</a></span> <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[270]</a></span>No one at all versed in the Indian character will doubt +the implicit faith with which this legend was told and heard. But we may +be pardoned our scepticism, seeing there are so many chances of error. +It is not so with an anecdote related by Captain Jonathan Carver, a +cool-headed English trader, whose little book of travels is an +unquestioned authority. In 1767, he was among the Killistenoes at a time +when they were in great straits for food, and depending upon the arrival +of the traders to rescue them from starvation. They persuaded the chief +priest to consult the divinities as to when the relief would arrive. +After the usual preliminaries, this magnate announced that next day, +precisely when the sun reached the zenith, a canoe would arrive with +further tidings. At the appointed hour the whole village, together with +the incredulous Englishman, was on the beach, and sure enough, at the +minute specified, a canoe swung round a distant point of land, and +rapidly approaching the shore brought the expected <span class="nowrap">news.<a name="FNanchor_270-1_415" id="FNanchor_270-1_415"></a><a href="#Footnote_270-1_415" class="fnanchor">270-1</a></span></p> + +<p>Charlevoix is nearly as trustworthy a writer as Carver. Yet he +deliberately relates an equally singular <span class="nowrap">instance.<a name="FNanchor_270-2_416" id="FNanchor_270-2_416"></a><a href="#Footnote_270-2_416" class="fnanchor">270-2</a></span></p> + +<p>But these examples are surpassed by one described in the <i>Atlantic +Monthly</i> of July, 1866, the author of which, John Mason Brown, Esq., has +assured me of its accuracy in every particular. Some years since, at the +head of a party of voyageurs, he set forth in search of a band of +Indians somewhere on the vast plains along the tributaries of the +Copper-mine and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[271]</a></span> Mackenzie rivers. Danger, disappointment, and the +fatigues of the road, induced one after another to turn back, until of +the original ten only three remained. They also were on the point of +giving up the apparently hopeless quest, when they were met by some +warriors of the very band they were seeking. These had been sent out by +one of their medicine men to find three whites, whose horses, arms, +attire, and personal appearance he minutely described, which description +was repeated to Mr. Brown by the warriors before they saw his two +companions. When afterwards, the priest, a frank and simple-minded man, +was asked to explain this extraordinary occurrence, he could offer no +other explanation than that “he saw them coming, and heard them talk on +their <span class="nowrap">journey.”<a name="FNanchor_271-1_417" id="FNanchor_271-1_417"></a><a href="#Footnote_271-1_417" class="fnanchor">271-1</a></span></p> + +<p>Many tales such as these have been recorded by travellers, and however +much they may shock our sense of probability, as well-authenticated +exhibitions of a power which sways the Indian mind, and which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[272]</a></span> has ever +prejudiced it so unchangeably against Christianity and civilization, +they cannot be disregarded. Whether they too are but specimens of +refined knavery, whether they are instigations of the Devil, or whether +they must be classed with other facts as illustrating certain obscure +and curious mental faculties, each may decide as the bent of his mind +inclines him, for science makes no decision.</p> + +<p>Those nervous conditions associated with the name of Mesmer were nothing +new to the Indian magicians. Rubbing and stroking the sick, and the +laying on of hands, were very common parts of their clinical procedures, +and at the initiations to their societies they were frequently +exhibited. Observers have related that among the Nez Percés of Oregon, +the novice was put to sleep by songs, incantations, and “certain passes +of the hand,” and that with the Dakotas he would be struck lightly on +the breast at a preconcerted moment, and instantly “would drop prostrate +on his face, his muscles rigid and quivering in every <span class="nowrap">fibre.”<a name="FNanchor_272-1_418" id="FNanchor_272-1_418"></a><a href="#Footnote_272-1_418" class="fnanchor">272-1</a></span></p> + +<p>There is no occasion to suppose deceit in this. It finds its parallel in +every race and every age, and rests on a characteristic trait of certain +epochs and certain men, which leads them to seek the divine, not in +thoughtful contemplation on the laws of the universe and the facts of +self-consciousness, but in an entire immolation of the latter, a sinking +of their own individuality in that of the spirits whose alliance they +seek. This is an outgrowth of that ignoring of the universality of Law, +which belongs to the lower<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[273]</a></span> stages of <span class="nowrap">enlightenment.<a name="FNanchor_273-1_419" id="FNanchor_273-1_419"></a><a href="#Footnote_273-1_419" class="fnanchor">273-1</a></span> And as this +is never done with impunity, but with iron certainty brings its +punishment with it, the study of the mental conditions thus evoked, and +the results which follow them, offers a salutary subject of reflection +to the theologian as well as the physician. For these examples of +nervous pathology are identical in kind, and alike in consequences, +whether witnessed in the primitive forests of the New World, among the +convulsionists of St. Medard, or in the excited scenes of a religious +revival in one of our own churches.</p> + +<p>Sleeplessness and abstemiousness, carried to the utmost verge of human +endurance—seclusion, and the pertinacious fixing of the mind on one +subject—obstinate gloating on some morbid fancy, rarely failed to bring +about hallucinations with all the garb of reality. Physicians are well +aware that the more frequently these diseased conditions of the mind are +sought, the more readily they are found. Then, again, they were often +induced by intoxicating and narcotic herbs. Tobacco, the maguey, coca; +in California the chucuaco; among the Mexicans the snake plant, +ollinhiqui or coaxihuitl; and among the southern tribes of our own +country the cassine yupon and iris <span class="nowrap">versicolor,<a name="FNanchor_273-2_420" id="FNanchor_273-2_420"></a><a href="#Footnote_273-2_420" class="fnanchor">273-2</a></span> were used; and, it +is even said, were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[274]</a></span> cultivated for this purpose. The seer must work +himself up to a prophetic fury, or speechless lie in apparent death +before the mind of the gods would be opened to him. Trance and ecstasy +were the two avenues he knew to divinity; fasting and seclusion the +means employed to discover them. His ideal was of a prophet who dwelt +far from men, without need of food, in constant communion with divinity. +Such an one, in the legends of the Tupis, resided on a mountain +glittering with gold and silver, near the river Uaupe, his only +companion a dog, his only occupation dreaming of the gods. When, +however, an eclipse was near, his dog would bark; and then, taking the +form of a bird, he would fly over the villages, and learn the changes +that had taken <span class="nowrap">place.<a name="FNanchor_274-1_421" id="FNanchor_274-1_421"></a><a href="#Footnote_274-1_421" class="fnanchor">274-1</a></span></p> + +<p>But man cannot trample with impunity on the laws of his physical life, +and the consequences of these deprivations and morbid excitements of the +brain show themselves in terrible pictures. Not unfrequently they were +carried to the pitch of raving mania, reminding one of the worst forms +of the Berserker fury of the Scandinavians, or the Bacchic rage of +Greece. The enthusiast, maddened with the fancies of a disordered +intellect, would start forth from his seclusion in an access of demoniac +frenzy. Then woe to the dog, the child, the slave, or the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[275]</a></span> woman who +crossed his path; for nothing but blood could satisfy his inappeasable +craving, and they fell instant victims to his madness. But were it a +strong man, he bared his arm, and let the frenzied hermit bury his teeth +in the quivering flesh. Such is a scene at this day not uncommon on the +northwest coast, and few of the natives around Milbank Sound are without +the scars the result of this horrid <span class="nowrap">custom.<a name="FNanchor_275-1_422" id="FNanchor_275-1_422"></a><a href="#Footnote_275-1_422" class="fnanchor">275-1</a></span></p> + +<p>This frenzy, terrible enough in individuals, had its most disastrous +effects when with that peculiar facility of contagion which marks +hysterical maladies, it swept through whole villages, transforming them +into bedlams filled with unrestrained madmen. Those who have studied the +strange and terrible mental epidemics that visited Europe in the middle +ages, such as the tarantula dance of Apulia, the chorea Germanorum, and +the great St. Vitus’ dance, will be prepared to appreciate the nature of +a scene at a Huron village, described by Father le Jeune in 1639. A +festival of three days and three nights had been in progress to relieve +a woman who, from the description, seems to have been suffering from +some obscure nervous complaint. Toward the close of this vigil, which +throughout was marked by all sorts of debaucheries and excesses, all the +participants seemed suddenly seized by ten thousand devils. They ran +howling and shrieking through the town, breaking everything destructible +in the cabins, killing dogs, beating the women and children, tearing +their garments, and scattering the fires in every direction with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[276]</a></span> bare +hands and feet. Some of them dropped senseless, to remain long or +permanently insane, but the others continued until worn out with +exhaustion. The Father learned that during these orgies not unfrequently +whole villages were consumed, and the total extirpation of some families +had resulted. No wonder that he saw in them the diabolical workings of +the prince of evil, but the physician is rather inclined to class them +with those cases of epidemic hysteria, the common products of violent +and ill-directed mental <span class="nowrap">stimuli.<a name="FNanchor_276-1_423" id="FNanchor_276-1_423"></a><a href="#Footnote_276-1_423" class="fnanchor">276-1</a></span></p> + +<p>These various considerations prove beyond a doubt that the power of the +priesthood did by no means rest exclusively on deception. They indorse +and explain the assertions of converted natives, that their power as +prophets was something real, and entirely inexplicable to themselves. +And they make it easily understood how those missionaries failed who +attempted to persuade them that all this boasted power was false. More +correct views than these ought to have been suggested by the facts +themselves, for it is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[277]</a></span> indisputable that these magicians did not +hesitate at times to test their strength on each other. In these strange +duels <i>à l’outrance</i>, one would be seated opposite his antagonist, +surrounded with the mysterious emblems of his craft, and call upon his +gods one after another to strike his enemy dead. Sometimes one, +“gathering his medicine,” as it was termed, feeling within himself that +hidden force of will which makes itself acknowledged even without words, +would rise in his might, and in a loud and severe voice command his +opponent to die! Straightway the latter would drop dead, or yielding in +craven fear to a superior volition, forsake the implements of his art, +and with an awful terror at his heart, creep to his lodge, refuse all +nourishment, and presently perish. Still more terrible was the tyranny +they exerted on the superstitious minds of the masses. Let an Indian +once be possessed of the idea that he is bewitched, and he will probably +reject all food, and sink under the phantoms of his own fancy.</p> + +<p>How deep the superstitious veneration of these men has struck its roots +in the soul of the Indian, it is difficult for civilized minds to +conceive. Their power is currently supposed to be without any bounds, +“extending to the raising of the dead and the control of all laws of +<span class="nowrap">nature.”<a name="FNanchor_277-1_424" id="FNanchor_277-1_424"></a><a href="#Footnote_277-1_424" class="fnanchor">277-1</a></span> The grave offers no escape from their omnipotent arms. +The Sacs and Foxes, Algonkin tribes, think that the soul cannot leave +the corpse until set free by the medicine men at their great annual +<span class="nowrap">feast;<a name="FNanchor_277-2_425" id="FNanchor_277-2_425"></a><a href="#Footnote_277-2_425" class="fnanchor">277-2</a></span> and the Puelches of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[278]</a></span> Buenos Ayres guard a profound silence +as they pass by the tomb of some redoubted necromancer, lest they should +disturb his repose, and suffer from his malignant <span class="nowrap">skill.<a name="FNanchor_278-1_426" id="FNanchor_278-1_426"></a><a href="#Footnote_278-1_426" class="fnanchor">278-1</a></span></p> + +<p>While thus investigating their real and supposed power over the physical +and mental world, their strictly priestly functions, as performers of +the rites of religion, have not been touched upon. Among the ruder +tribes these, indeed, were of the most rudimentary character. +Sacrifices, chiefly in the form of feasts, where every one crammed to +his utmost, dances, often winding up with the wildest scenes of +licentiousness, the repetition of long and monotonous chants, the making +of the new fire, these are the ceremonies that satisfy the religious +wants of savages. The priest finds a further sphere for his activity in +manufacturing and consecrating amulets to keep off ill luck, in +interpreting dreams, and especially in lifting the veil of the future. +In Peru, for example, they were divided into classes, who made the +various means of divination specialties. Some caused the idols to speak, +others derived their foreknowledge from words spoken by the dead, others +predicted by leaves of tobacco or the grains and juice of cocoa, while +to still other classes, the shapes of grains of maize taken at random, +the appearance of animal excrement, the forms assumed by the smoke +rising from burning victims, the entrails and viscera of animals, the +course taken by a certain species of spider, the visions seen in +<a name="corr16" id="corr16"></a><ins class="correction" title="drunkenness">drunkeness</ins>, the flights of birds, and the directions in which +fruits would fall, all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[279]</a></span> offered so many separate fields of +prognostication, the professors of which were distinguished by different +ranks and <span class="nowrap">titles.<a name="FNanchor_279-1_427" id="FNanchor_279-1_427"></a><a href="#Footnote_279-1_427" class="fnanchor">279-1</a></span></p> + +<p>As the intellectual force of the nation was chiefly centred in this +class, they became the acknowledged depositaries of its sacred legends, +the instructors in the art of preserving thought; and from their duty to +regulate festivals, sprang the observation of the motions of the +heavenly bodies, the adjustment of the calendars, and the pseudo-science +of judicial astrology. The latter was carried to as subtle a pitch of +refinement in Mexico as in the old world; and large portions of the +ancient writers are taken up with explaining the method adopted by the +native astrologers to cast the horoscope, and reckon the nativity of the +newly-born infant.</p> + +<p>How was this superior power obtained? What were the terms of admission +to this privileged class? In the ruder communities the power was +strictly personal. It was revealed to its possessor by the character of +the visions he perceived at the ordeal he passed through on arriving at +puberty; and by the northern nations was said to be the manifestation of +a more potent personal spirit than ordinary. It was not a faculty, but +an inspiration; not an inborn strength, but a spiritual gift. The +curious theory of the Dakotas, as recorded by the Rev. Mr. Pond, was +that the necromant first wakes to consciousness as a winged seed, wafted +hither and thither by the intelligent action of the Four Winds. In this +form he visits the homes of the different classes of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[280]</a></span> divinities, and +learns the chants, feasts, and dances, which it is proper for the human +race to observe, the art of omnipresence or clairvoyance, the means of +inflicting and healing diseases, and the occult secrets of nature, man, +and divinity. This is called “dreaming of the gods.” When this +instruction is completed, the seed enters one about to become a mother, +assumes human form, and in due time manifests his powers. <i>Four</i> such +incarnations await it, each of increasing might, and then the spirit +returns to its original nothingness. The same necessity of death and +resurrection was entertained by the Eskimos. To become of the highest +order of priests, it was supposed requisite, says Bishop Egede, that one +of the lower order should be drowned and eaten by sea monsters. Then, +when his bones, one after another, were all washed ashore, his spirit, +which meanwhile had been learning the secrets of the invisible world, +would return to them, and, clothed in flesh, he would go back to his +tribe. At other times a vague and indescribable longing seizes a young +person, a morbid appetite possesses them, or they fall a prey to an +inappeasable and aimless restlessness, or a causeless melancholy. These +signs the old priests recognize as the expression of a personal spirit +of the higher order. They take charge of the youth, and educate him to +the mysteries of their craft. For months or years he is condemned to +entire seclusion, receiving no visits but from the brethren of his +order. At length he is initiated with ceremonies of more or less pomp +into the brotherhood, and from that time assumes that gravity of +demeanor, sententious style of expression, and general air of mystery +and importance, everywhere<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[281]</a></span> deemed so eminently becoming in a doctor and +a priest. A peculiarity of the Moxos was, that they thought none +designated for the office but such as had escaped from the claws of the +South American tiger, which, indeed, it is said they worshipped as a +<span class="nowrap">god.<a name="FNanchor_281-1_428" id="FNanchor_281-1_428"></a><a href="#Footnote_281-1_428" class="fnanchor">281-1</a></span></p> + +<p>Occasionally, in very uncultivated tribes, some family or totem claimed +a monopoly of the priesthood. Thus, among the Nez Percès of Oregon, it +was transmitted in one family from father to son and daughter, but +always with the proviso that the children at the proper age reported +dreams of a satisfactory <span class="nowrap">character.<a name="FNanchor_281-2_429" id="FNanchor_281-2_429"></a><a href="#Footnote_281-2_429" class="fnanchor">281-2</a></span> Perhaps alone of the Algonkin +tribes the Shawnees confined it to one totem, but it is remarkable that +the greatest of their prophets, Elskataway, brother of Tecumseh, was not +a member of this clan. From the most remote times, the Cherokees have +had one family set apart for the priestly office. This was when first +known to the whites that of the Nicotani, but its members, puffed up +with pride and insolence, abused their birthright so shamefully, and +prostituted it so flagrantly to their own advantage, that with savage +justice they were massacred to the last man. Another was appointed in +their place who to this day officiates in all religious rites. They +have, however, the superstition, possibly borrowed from Europeans, that +the <i>seventh</i> son is a natural born prophet, with the gift of healing by +<span class="nowrap">touch.<a name="FNanchor_281-3_430" id="FNanchor_281-3_430"></a><a href="#Footnote_281-3_430" class="fnanchor">281-3</a></span> Adair states that their former neighbors, the Choc<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[282]</a></span>taws, +permitted the office of high priest, or Great Beloved Man, to remain in +one family, passing from father to eldest son, and the very influential +<i>piaches</i> of the Carib tribes very generally transmitted their rank and +position to their children.</p> + +<p>In ancient Anahuac the prelacy was as systematic and its rules as well +defined, as in the Church of Rome. Except those in the service of +Huitzilopochtli, and perhaps a few other gods, none obtained the +priestly office by right of descent, but were dedicated to it from early +childhood. Their education was completed at the <i>Calmecac</i>, a sort of +ecclesiastical college, where instruction was given in all the wisdom of +the ancients, and the esoteric lore of their craft. The art of mixing +colors and tracing designs, the ideographic writing and phonetic +hieroglyphs, the songs and prayers used in public worship, the national +traditions and the principles of astrology, the hidden meaning of +symbols and the use of musical instruments, all formed parts of the +really extensive course of instruction they there received. When they +manifested a satisfactory acquaintance with this curriculum, they were +appointed by their superiors to such positions as their natural talents +and the use they had made of them qualified them for, some to instruct +children, others to the service of the temples, and others again to take +charge of what we may call country parishes. Implicit subordination of +all to the high priest of Huitzilopochtli, hereditary <i>pontifex +maximus</i>, chastity, or at least temperate indulgence in pleasure, +gravity of carriage, and strict attention to duty, were laws laid upon +all.</p> + +<p>The state religion of Peru was conducted under the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[283]</a></span> supervision of a +high priest of the Inca family, and its ministers, as in Mexico, could +be of either sex, and hold office either by inheritance, education, or +election. For political reasons, the most important posts were usually +enjoyed by relatives of the ruler, but this was usage, not law. It is +stated by Garcilasso de la <span class="nowrap">Vega<a name="FNanchor_283-1_431" id="FNanchor_283-1_431"></a><a href="#Footnote_283-1_431" class="fnanchor">283-1</a></span> that they served in the temples +by turns, each being on duty the fourth of a lunar month at a time. Were +this substantiated it would offer the only example of the regulation of +public life by a week of seven days to be found in the New World.</p> + +<p>In every country there is perceptible a desire in this class of men to +surround themselves with mystery, and to concentrate and increase their +power by forming an intimate alliance among themselves. They affected +singularity in dress and a professional costume. Bartram describes the +junior priests of the Creeks as dressed in white robes and carrying on +their head or arm “a great owlskin, stuffed very ingeniously, as an +insignia of wisdom and divination. These bachelors are also +distinguishable from the other people by their taciturnity, grave and +solemn countenance, dignified step, and singing to themselves songs or +hymns, in a low sweet voice, as they stroll about the <span class="nowrap">towns.”<a name="FNanchor_283-2_432" id="FNanchor_283-2_432"></a><a href="#Footnote_283-2_432" class="fnanchor">283-2</a></span> The +priests of the civilized nations adopted various modes of dress to +typify the divinity which they served, and their appearance was often in +the highest degree unprepossessing.</p> + +<p>To add to their self-importance they pretended to converse in a tongue +different from that used in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[284]</a></span> ordinary life, and the chants containing +the prayers and legends were often in this esoteric dialect. Fragments +of one or two of these have floated down to us from the Aztec +priesthood. The travellers Balboa and Coreal, mention that the temple +services of Peru were conducted in a language not understood by the +<span class="nowrap">masses,<a name="FNanchor_284-1_433" id="FNanchor_284-1_433"></a><a href="#Footnote_284-1_433" class="fnanchor">284-1</a></span> and the incantations of the priests of Powhatan were not +in ordinary Algonkin, but some obscure <span class="nowrap">jargon.<a name="FNanchor_284-2_434" id="FNanchor_284-2_434"></a><a href="#Footnote_284-2_434" class="fnanchor">284-2</a></span> The same +peculiarity has been observed among the Dakotas and Eskimos, and in +these nations, fortunately, it fell under the notice of competent +linguistic scholars, who have submitted it to a searching examination. +The results of their labors<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[285]</a></span> prove that certainly in these two instances +the supposed foreign tongues were nothing more than the ordinary +dialects of the country modified by an affected accentuation, by the +introduction of a few cabalistic terms, and by the use of descriptive +circumlocutions and figurative words in place of ordinary expressions, a +slang, in short, such as rascals and pedants invariably coin whenever +they <span class="nowrap">associate.<a name="FNanchor_285-1_435" id="FNanchor_285-1_435"></a><a href="#Footnote_285-1_435" class="fnanchor">285-1</a></span></p> + +<p>All these stratagems were intended to shroud with impenetrable secrecy +the mysteries of the brotherhood. With the same motive, the priests +formed societies of different grades of illumination, only to be entered +by those willing to undergo trying ordeals, whose secrets were not to be +revealed under the severest penalties. The Algonkins had three such +grades, the <i>waubeno</i>, the <i>meda</i>, and the <i>jossakeed</i>, the last being +the highest. To this no white man was ever admitted. All tribes appear +to have been controlled by these secret societies. Alexander von +Humboldt mentions one, called that of the Botuto or Holy Trumpet, among +the Indians of the Orinoko, whose members must vow celibacy and submit +to severe scourgings and fasts. The Collahuayas of Peru were a guild of +itinerant quacks and magicians, who never remained permanently in one +spot.</p> + +<p>Withal, there was no class of persons who so widely and deeply +influenced the culture and shaped the destiny of the Indian tribes, as +their priests. In attempting to gain a true conception of the race’s<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[286]</a></span> +capacities and history, there is no one element of their social life +which demands closer attention than the power of these teachers. +Hitherto, they have been spoken of with a contempt which I hope this +chapter shows is unjustifiable. However much we may deplore the use they +made of their skill, we must estimate it fairly, and grant it its due +weight in measuring the influence of the religious sentiment on the +history of man.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"> + +<p><a name="Footnote_265-1_410" id="Footnote_265-1_410"></a><a href="#FNanchor_265-1_410"><span class="label">265-1</span></a> Haeser, <i>Geschichte der Medicin</i>, pp. 4, 7: Jena, +1845.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_265-2_411" id="Footnote_265-2_411"></a><a href="#FNanchor_265-2_411"><span class="label">265-2</span></a> Schoolcraft, <i>Ind. Tribes</i>, v. p. 440.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_267-1_412" id="Footnote_267-1_412"></a><a href="#FNanchor_267-1_412"><span class="label">267-1</span></a> Carver, <i>Travels in North America</i>, p. 73: Boston, +1802; <i>Narrative of John Tanner</i>, p. 135.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_267-2_413" id="Footnote_267-2_413"></a><a href="#FNanchor_267-2_413"><span class="label">267-2</span></a> Sahagun, <i>Hist. de la Nueva España</i>, lib. x. cap. 20; +<i>Le Livre Sacré des Quichés</i>, p. 177; <i>Lett. sur les Superstit. du +Pérou</i>, pp. 89, 91.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_269-1_414" id="Footnote_269-1_414"></a><a href="#FNanchor_269-1_414"><span class="label">269-1</span></a> <i>Life of Black Hawk</i>, p. 13.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_270-1_415" id="Footnote_270-1_415"></a><a href="#FNanchor_270-1_415"><span class="label">270-1</span></a> <i>Travs. in North America</i>, p. 74.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_270-2_416" id="Footnote_270-2_416"></a><a href="#FNanchor_270-2_416"><span class="label">270-2</span></a> <i>Journal Historique</i>, p. 362.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_271-1_417" id="Footnote_271-1_417"></a><a href="#FNanchor_271-1_417"><span class="label">271-1</span></a> Sometimes facts like this can be explained by the +quickness of perception acquired by constant exposure to danger. The +mind takes cognizance unconsciously of trifling incidents, the sum of +which leads it to a conviction which the individual regards almost as an +inspiration. This is the explanation of <i>presentiments</i>. But this does +not apply to cases like that of Swedenborg, who described a +conflagration going on at Stockholm, when he was at Gottenberg, three +hundred miles away. Psychologists who scorn any method of studying the +mind but through physiology, are at a loss in such cases, and take +refuge in refusing them credence. Theologians call them inspirations +either of devils or angels, as they happen to agree or disagree in +religious views with the person experiencing them. True science reserves +its opinion until further observation enlightens it.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_272-1_418" id="Footnote_272-1_418"></a><a href="#FNanchor_272-1_418"><span class="label">272-1</span></a> Schoolcraft, <i>Indian Tribes</i>, iii. p. 287; v. p. 652.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_273-1_419" id="Footnote_273-1_419"></a><a href="#FNanchor_273-1_419"><span class="label">273-1</span></a> “The progress from deepest ignorance to highest +enlightenment,” remarks Herbert Spencer in his <i>Social Statics</i>, “is a +progress from entire unconsciousness of law, to the conviction that law +is universal and inevitable.”</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_273-2_420" id="Footnote_273-2_420"></a><a href="#FNanchor_273-2_420"><span class="label">273-2</span></a> The Creeks had, according to Hawkins, not less than +seven sacred plants; chief of them were the cassine yupon, called by +botanists <i>Ilex vomitoria</i>, or <i>Ilex cassina</i>, of the natural order +Aquifoliaceæ; and the blue flag, <i>Iris versicolor</i>, natural order +Iridaceæ. The former is a powerful diuretic and mild emetic, and grows +only near the sea. The latter is an active emeto-cathartic, and is +abundant on swampy grounds throughout the Southern States. From it was +formed the celebrated “black drink,” with which they opened their +councils, and which served them in place of spirits.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_274-1_421" id="Footnote_274-1_421"></a><a href="#FNanchor_274-1_421"><span class="label">274-1</span></a> Martius, <i>Von dem Rechtzustande unter den Ureinwohnern +Brasiliens</i>, p. 32.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_275-1_422" id="Footnote_275-1_422"></a><a href="#FNanchor_275-1_422"><span class="label">275-1</span></a> Mr. Anderson, in the <i>Am. Hist. Mag.</i>, vii. p. 79.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_276-1_423" id="Footnote_276-1_423"></a><a href="#FNanchor_276-1_423"><span class="label">276-1</span></a> Such spectacles were nothing uncommon. They are +frequently mentioned in the Jesuit Relations, and they were the chief +obstacles to missionary labor. In the debauches and excesses that +excited these temporary manias, in the recklessness of life and property +they fostered, and in their disastrous effects on mind and body, are +depicted more than in any other one trait the thorough depravity of the +race and its tendency to ruin. In the quaint words of one of the +Catholic fathers, “If the old proverb is true that every man has a grain +of madness in his composition, it must be confessed that this is a +people where each has at least half an ounce” (De Quen, <i>Rel. de la +Nouv. France</i>, 1656, p. 27). For the instance in the text see <i>Rel. de +la Nouv. France</i>, An 1639, pp. 88-94.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_277-1_424" id="Footnote_277-1_424"></a><a href="#FNanchor_277-1_424"><span class="label">277-1</span></a> Schoolcraft, <i>Indian Tribes</i>, v. p. 423.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_277-2_425" id="Footnote_277-2_425"></a><a href="#FNanchor_277-2_425"><span class="label">277-2</span></a> J. M. Stanley, in the <i>Smithsonian Miscellaneous +Contributions</i>, ii. p. 38.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_278-1_426" id="Footnote_278-1_426"></a><a href="#FNanchor_278-1_426"><span class="label">278-1</span></a> D’Orbigny, <i>L’Homme Américain</i>, ii. p. 81.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_279-1_427" id="Footnote_279-1_427"></a><a href="#FNanchor_279-1_427"><span class="label">279-1</span></a> See Balboa, <i>Hist. du Pérou</i>, pp. 28-30.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_281-1_428" id="Footnote_281-1_428"></a><a href="#FNanchor_281-1_428"><span class="label">281-1</span></a> D’Orbigny, <i>L’Homme Américain</i>, ii. p. 235.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_281-2_429" id="Footnote_281-2_429"></a><a href="#FNanchor_281-2_429"><span class="label">281-2</span></a> Schoolcraft, <i>Ind. Tribes</i>, v. p. 652.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_281-3_430" id="Footnote_281-3_430"></a><a href="#FNanchor_281-3_430"><span class="label">281-3</span></a> Dr. Mac Gowan, in the <i>Amer. Hist. Mag.</i>, x. p. 139; +Whipple, <i>Rep. on the Ind. Tribes</i>, p. 35.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_283-1_431" id="Footnote_283-1_431"></a><a href="#FNanchor_283-1_431"><span class="label">283-1</span></a> <i>Hist. des Incas</i>, lib. iii. ch. 22.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_283-2_432" id="Footnote_283-2_432"></a><a href="#FNanchor_283-2_432"><span class="label">283-2</span></a> <i>Travels in the Carolinas</i>, p. 504.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_284-1_433" id="Footnote_284-1_433"></a><a href="#FNanchor_284-1_433"><span class="label">284-1</span></a> <i>Hist. du Pérou</i>, p. 128; <i>Voiages aux Indes +Occidentales</i>, ii. p. 97.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_284-2_434" id="Footnote_284-2_434"></a><a href="#FNanchor_284-2_434"><span class="label">284-2</span></a> Beverly, <i>Hist. de la Virginie</i>, p. 266. The dialect he +specifies is “celle d’Occaniches,” and on page 252 he says, “On dit que +la langue universelle des Indiens de ces Quartiers est celle des +<i>Occaniches</i>, quoiqu’ils ne soient qu’une petite Nation, depuis que les +Anglois connoissent ce Pais; mais je ne sais pas la difference qui’l y a +entre cette langue et celle des Algonkins.” (French trans., Orleans, +1707.) This is undoubtedly the same people that Johannes Lederer, a +German traveller, visited in 1670, and calls <i>Akenatzi</i>. They dwelt on +an island, in a branch of the Chowan River, the Sapona, or Deep River +(Lederer’s <i>Discovery of North America</i>, in Harris, Voyages, p. 20). +Thirty years later the English surveyor, Lawson, found them in the same +spot, and speaks of them as the <i>Acanechos</i> (see <i>Am. Hist. Mag.</i>, i. p. +163). Their totem was that of the serpent, and their name is not +altogether unlike the Tuscarora name of this animal <i>usquauhne</i>. As the +serpent was so widely a sacred animal, this gives Beverly’s remarks an +unusual significance. It by no means follows from this name that they +were of Iroquois descent. Lederer travelled with a Tuscarora (Iroquois) +interpreter, who gave them their name in his own tongue. On the +contrary, it is extremely probable that they were an Algonkin totem, +which had the exclusive right to the priesthood.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_285-1_435" id="Footnote_285-1_435"></a><a href="#FNanchor_285-1_435"><span class="label">285-1</span></a> Riggs, <i>Gram. and Dict. of the Dakota</i>, p. ix; Kane, +<i>Second Grinnell Expedition</i>, ii. p. 127. Paul Egede gives a number of +words and expressions in the dialect of the sorcerers, <i>Nachrichten von +Grönland</i>, p. 122.</p> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[287]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI.</h2> + +<p class="chaptoc">THE INFLUENCE OF THE NATIVE RELIGIONS ON THE MORAL AND SOCIAL LIFE OF +THE RACE.</p> + +<p class="chapintro">Natural religions hitherto considered of Evil rather than of +Good.—Distinctions to be drawn.—Morality not derived from +religion.—The positive side of natural religions in incarnations +of divinity.—Examples.—Prayers as indices of religious +progress.—Religion and social advancement.—Conclusion.</p> + + +<p class="noindent"><span class="dropcap">D</span><span class="upper">rawing</span> toward the conclusion of my essay, I I am sensible that the vast +field of American mythology remains for most part untouched—that I have +but proved that it is not an absolute wilderness, pathless as the +tropical jungles which now conceal the temples of the race; but that, go +where we will, certain landmarks and guide-posts are visible, revealing +uniformity of design and purpose, and refuting, by their presence, the +oft-repeated charge of entire incoherence and aimlessness. It remains to +examine the subjective power of the native religions, their influence on +those who held them, and the place they deserve in the history of the +race. What are their merits, if merits they have? what their demerits? +Did they purify the life and enlighten the mind, or the contrary? Are +they in short of evil or of good? The problem is complex—its solution +most difficult. The author who of late years has studied most profoundly +the savage races of the globe, expresses the discouraging conviction: +“Their religions have not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[288]</a></span> acted as levers to raise them to +civilization; they have rather worked, and that powerfully, to impede +every step in advance, in the first place by ascribing everything +unintelligible in nature to spiritual agency, and then by making the +fate of man dependent on mysterious and capricious forces, not on his +own skill and <span class="nowrap">foresight.”<a name="FNanchor_288-1_436" id="FNanchor_288-1_436"></a><a href="#Footnote_288-1_436" class="fnanchor">288-1</a></span></p> + +<p>It would ill accord with the theory of mythology which I have all along +maintained if this verdict were final. But in fact these false doctrines +brought with them their own antidotes, at least to some extent, and +while we give full weight to their evil, let us also acknowledge their +good. By substituting direct divine interference for law, belief for +knowledge, a dogma for a fact, the highest stimulus to mental endeavor +was taken away. Nature, to the heathen, is no harmonious whole swayed by +eternal principles, but a chaos of causeless effects, the meaningless +play of capricious ghosts. He investigates not, because he doubts not. +All events are to him miracles. Therefore his faith knows no bounds, and +those who teach that doubt is sinful must contemplate him with +admiration. The damsels of Nicaragua destined to be thrown into the +seething craters of volcanoes, went to their fate, says Pascual de +Andagoya, “happy as if they were going to be <span class="nowrap">saved,”<a name="FNanchor_288-2_437" id="FNanchor_288-2_437"></a><a href="#Footnote_288-2_437" class="fnanchor">288-2</a></span> and +doubtless believing so. The subjects of a Central American chieftain, +remarks Oviedo, “look upon it as the crown of favors to be permitted to +die with their cacique, and thus to acquire <span class="nowrap">immortality.”<a name="FNanchor_288-3_438" id="FNanchor_288-3_438"></a><a href="#Footnote_288-3_438" class="fnanchor">288-3</a></span> <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[289]</a></span>The +terrible power exerted by the priests rested, as they themselves often +saw, largely on the implicit and literal acceptance of their dicta.</p> + +<p>In some respects the contrast here offered to enlightened nations is not +always in favor of the latter. Borrowing the pointed antithesis of the +poet, the mind is often tempted to exclaim—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i13">“This is all<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The gain we reap from all the wisdom sown<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Through ages: Nothing doubted those first sons<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of Time, while we, the schooled of centuries,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nothing believe.”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>But the complaint is unfounded. Faith is dearly bought at the cost of +knowledge; nor in a better sense has it yet gone from among us. Far more +sublime than any known to the barbarian is the faith of the astronomer, +who spends the nights in marking the seemingly wayward motions of the +stars, or of the anatomist, who studies with unwearied zeal the minute +fibres of the organism, each upheld by the unshaken conviction that from +least to greatest throughout this universe, purpose and order everywhere +prevail.</p> + +<p>Natural religions rarely offer more than this negative opposition to +reason. They are tolerant to a degree. The savage, void of any clear +conception of a supreme deity, sets up no claim that his is the only +true church. If he is conquered in battle, he imagines that it is owing +to the inferiority of his own gods to those of his victor, and he rarely +therefore requires any other reasons to make him a convert. Acting on +this principle, the Incas, when they overcame a strange province, sent +its most venerated idol for a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[290]</a></span> time to the temple of the Sun at Cuzco, +thus proving its inferiority to their own divinity, but took no more +violent steps to propagate their <span class="nowrap">creeds.<a name="FNanchor_290-1_439" id="FNanchor_290-1_439"></a><a href="#Footnote_290-1_439" class="fnanchor">290-1</a></span> So in the city of Mexico +there was a temple appropriated to the idols of conquered nations in +which they were shut up, both to prove their weakness and prevent them +from doing mischief. A nation, like an individual, was not inclined to +patronize a deity who had manifested his incompetence by allowing his +charge to be gradually worn away by constant disaster. As far as can now +be seen, in matters intellectual, the religions of ancient Mexico and +Peru were far more liberal than that introduced by the Spanish +conquerors, which, claiming the monopoly of truth, sought to enforce its +claim by inquisitions and censorships.</p> + +<p>In this view of the relative powers of deities lay a potent corrective +to the doctrine that the fate of man was dependent on the caprices of +the gods. For no belief was more universal than that which assigned to +each individual a guardian spirit. This invisible monitor was an ever +present help in trouble. He suggested expedients, gave advice and +warning in dreams, protected in danger, and stood ready to foil the +machinations of enemies, divine or human. With unlimited faith in this +protector, attributing to him the devices suggested by his own quick +wits and the fortunate chances of life, the savage escaped the +oppressive thought that he was the slave of demoniac forces, and dared +the dangers of the forest and the war path without anxiety.</p> + +<p>By far the darkest side of such a religion is that which it presents to +morality. The religious sense<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[291]</a></span> is by no means the voice of conscience. +The Takahli Indian when sick makes a full and free confession of sins, +but a murder, however unnatural and unprovoked, he does not mention, not +counting it <span class="nowrap">crime.<a name="FNanchor_291-1_440" id="FNanchor_291-1_440"></a><a href="#Footnote_291-1_440" class="fnanchor">291-1</a></span> Scenes of brutal licentiousness were approved +and sustained throughout the continent as acts of worship; maidenhood +was in many parts freely offered up or claimed by the priests as a +right; in Central America twins were slain for religious motives; human +sacrifice was common throughout the tropics, and was not unusual in +higher latitudes; cannibalism was often enjoined; and in Peru, Florida, +and Central America it was not uncommon for parents to slay their own +children at the behest of a <span class="nowrap">priest.<a name="FNanchor_291-2_441" id="FNanchor_291-2_441"></a><a href="#Footnote_291-2_441" class="fnanchor">291-2</a></span> The philosophical moralist, +contemplating such spectacles, has thought to recognize in them one +consoling trait. All history, it has been said, shows man living under +an irritated God, and seeking to appease him by sacrifice of blood; the +essence of all religion, it has been added, lies in that of which +sacrifice is the symbol, namely, in the offering up of self, in the +rendering up of our will to the will of <span class="nowrap">God.<a name="FNanchor_291-3_442" id="FNanchor_291-3_442"></a><a href="#Footnote_291-3_442" class="fnanchor">291-3</a></span> But sacrifice,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[292]</a></span> when +not a token of gratitude, cannot be thus explained. It is not a +rendering up, but a <i>substitution</i> of our will for God’s will. A deity +is angered by neglect of his dues; he will revenge, certainly, terribly, +we know not how or when. But as punishment is all he desires, if we +punish ourselves he will be satisfied; and far better is such +self-inflicted torture than a fearful looking for of judgment to come. +Craven fear, not without some dim sense of the implacability of nature’s +laws, is at its root. Looking only at this side of religion, the ancient +philosopher averred that the gods existed solely in the apprehensions of +their votaries, and the moderns have asserted that “fear is the father +of religion, love her late-born <span class="nowrap">daughter;”<a name="FNanchor_292-1_443" id="FNanchor_292-1_443"></a><a href="#Footnote_292-1_443" class="fnanchor">292-1</a></span> that “the first form +of religious belief is nothing else but a horror of the unknown,” and +that “no natural religion appears to have been able to develop from a +germ within itself anything whatever of real advantage to +<span class="nowrap">civilization.”<a name="FNanchor_292-2_444" id="FNanchor_292-2_444"></a><a href="#Footnote_292-2_444" class="fnanchor">292-2</a></span></p> + +<p>Far be it from me to excuse the enormities thus committed under the garb +of religion, or to ignore their disastrous consequences on human +progress. Yet this question is a fair one—If the natural religious +belief has in it no germ of anything better,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[293]</a></span> whence comes the manifest +and undeniable improvement occasionally witnessed—as, for example, +among the Toltecs, the Peruvians, and the Mayas? The reply is, by the +influence of great men, who cultivated within themselves a purer faith, +lived it in their lives, preached it successfully to their fellows, and, +at their death, still survived in the memory of their nation, +unforgotten models of noble <span class="nowrap">qualities.<a name="FNanchor_293-1_445" id="FNanchor_293-1_445"></a><a href="#Footnote_293-1_445" class="fnanchor">293-1</a></span> Where, in America, is any +record of such men? We are pointed, in answer, to Quetzalcoatl, +Viracocha, Zamna, and their congeners. But these august figures I have +shown to be wholly mythical, creations of the religious fancy, parts and +parcels of the earliest religion itself. The entire theory falls to +nothing, therefore, and we discover a positive side to natural +religions—one that conceals a germ of endless progress, which +vindicates their lofty origin, and proves that He “is not far from every +one of us.”</p> + +<p>I have already analyzed these figures under their physical aspect. Let +it be observed in what antithesis they stand to most other mythological +creations. Let it be remembered that they primarily correspond to the +stable, the regular, the cosmical phenomena, that they are always +conceived under human form, not as giants, fairies, or strange beasts; +that they were said at one time to have been visible leaders of their +nations, that they did not suffer death, and that, though absent, they +are ever present, favoring those who remain mindful of their precepts. I +touched but incidentally on their moral aspects. This was likewise in +contrast to the majority of inferior deities.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[294]</a></span> The worship of the latter +was a tribute extorted by fear. The Indian deposits tobacco on the rocks +of a rapid, that the spirit of the swift waters may not swallow his +canoe; in a storm he throws overboard a dog to appease the siren of the +angry waves. He used to tear the hearts from his captives to gain the +favor of the god of war. He provides himself with talismans to bind +hostile deities. He <a name="corr17" id="corr17"></a><ins class="correction" title="frees or feeds?">fees</ins> the conjurer to exorcise the demon of +disease. He loves none of them, he respects none of them; he only fears +their wayward tempers. They are to him mysterious, invisible, capricious +goblins. But, in his highest divinity, he recognized a Father and a +Preserver, a benign Intelligence, who provided for him the comforts of +life—man, like himself, yet a god—God of All. “Go and do good,” was +the parting injunction of his father to Michabo in Algonkin +<span class="nowrap">legend;<a name="FNanchor_294-1_446" id="FNanchor_294-1_446"></a><a href="#Footnote_294-1_446" class="fnanchor">294-1</a></span> and in their ancient and uncorrupted stories such is ever +his object. “The worship of Tamu,” the culture hero of the Guaranis, +says the traveller D’Orbigny, “is one of reverence, not of <span class="nowrap">fear.”<a name="FNanchor_294-2_447" id="FNanchor_294-2_447"></a><a href="#Footnote_294-2_447" class="fnanchor">294-2</a></span> +They were ideals, summing up in themselves the best traits, the most +approved virtues of whole nations, and were adored in a very different +spirit from other divinities.</p> + +<p>None of them has more humane and elevated traits than Quetzalcoatl. He +was represented of majestic stature and dignified demeanor. In his train +came skilled artificers and men of learning. He was chaste and temperate +in life, wise in council, generous of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[295]</a></span> gifts, conquering rather by arts +of peace than of war; delighting in music, flowers, and brilliant +colors, and so averse to human sacrifices that he shut his ears with +both hands when they were even <span class="nowrap">mentioned.<a name="FNanchor_295-1_448" id="FNanchor_295-1_448"></a><a href="#Footnote_295-1_448" class="fnanchor">295-1</a></span> Such was the ideal man +and supreme god of a people who even a Spanish monk of the sixteenth +century felt constrained to confess were “a good people, attached to +virtue, urbane and simple in social intercourse, shunning lies, skilful +in arts, pious toward their <span class="nowrap">gods.”<a name="FNanchor_295-2_449" id="FNanchor_295-2_449"></a><a href="#Footnote_295-2_449" class="fnanchor">295-2</a></span> Is it likely, is it possible, +that with such a model as this before their minds, they received no +benefit from it? Was not this a lever, and a mighty one, lifting the +race toward civilization and a purer faith?</p> + +<p>Transfer the field of observation to Yucatan, and we find in Zamna, to +New Granada and in Nemqueteba, to Peru and in Viracocha, or his reflex +Manco Capac, the lineaments of Quetzalcoatl—modified, indeed, by +difference of blood and temperament, but each combining in himself all +the qualities most esteemed by their several nations. Were one or all of +these proved to be historical personages, still the fact remains that +the primitive religious sentiment, investing them with the best +attributes of humanity, dwelling on them as its models, worshipping them +as gods, contained a kernel of truth potent to encourage moral +excellence. But if they were mythical, then this truth was of +spontaneous growth, self-developed by the growing distinctness of the +idea of God, a living witness that the religious sense, like every<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[296]</a></span> +other faculty, has within itself a power of endless evolution.</p> + +<p>If we inquire the secret of the happier influence of this element in +natural worship, it is all contained in one word—its <i>humanity</i>. “The +Ideal of Morality,” says the contemplative Novalis, "has no more +dangerous rival than the Ideal of the Greatest Strength, of the most +vigorous life, the Brute Ideal” (<i>das </i><span class="nowrap"><i>Thier-Ideal</i>).<a name="FNanchor_296-1_450" id="FNanchor_296-1_450"></a><a href="#Footnote_296-1_450" class="fnanchor">296-1</a></span> Culture +advances in proportion as man recognizes what faculties are peculiar to +him <i>as man</i>, and devotes himself to their education. The moral value of +religions can be very precisely estimated by the human or the brutal +character of their gods. The worship of Quetzalcoatl in the city of +Mexico was subordinate to that of lower conceptions, and consequently +the more sanguinary and immoral were the rites there practised. The +Algonkins, who knew no other meaning for Michabo than the Great Hare, +had lost, by a false etymology, the best part of their religion.</p> + +<p>Looking around for other standards wherewith to measure the progress of +the knowledge of divinity in the New World, <i>prayer</i> suggests itself as +one of the least deceptive. “Prayer,” to quote again the words of +<span class="nowrap">Novalis,<a name="FNanchor_296-2_451" id="FNanchor_296-2_451"></a><a href="#Footnote_296-2_451" class="fnanchor">296-2</a></span> “is in religion what thought is in philosophy. The +religious sense prays, as the reason thinks.” Guizot, carrying the +analysis farther, thinks that it is prompted by a painful conviction of +the inability of our will to conform to the dictates of <span class="nowrap">reason.<a name="FNanchor_296-3_452" id="FNanchor_296-3_452"></a><a href="#Footnote_296-3_452" class="fnanchor">296-3</a></span> +Originally it was connected with the belief that divine<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[297]</a></span> caprice, not +divine law, governs the universe, and that material benefits rather than +spiritual gifts are to be desired. The gradual recognition of its +limitations and proper objects marks religious advancement. The Lord’s +Prayer contains seven petitions, only one of which is for a temporal +advantage, and it the least that can be asked for. What immeasurable +interval between it and the prayer of the Nootka Indian on preparing for +war!—</p> + +<p>“Great Quahootze, let me live, not be sick, find the enemy, not fear +him, find him asleep, and kill a great many of <span class="nowrap">him.”<a name="FNanchor_297-1_453" id="FNanchor_297-1_453"></a><a href="#Footnote_297-1_453" class="fnanchor">297-1</a></span></p> + +<p>Or again, between it and the petition of a Huron to a local god, heard +by Father Brebeuf:—</p> + +<p>“Oki, thou who livest in this spot, I offer thee tobacco. Help us, save +us from shipwreck, defend us from our enemies, give us a good trade, and +bring us back safe and sound to our <span class="nowrap">villages.”<a name="FNanchor_297-2_454" id="FNanchor_297-2_454"></a><a href="#Footnote_297-2_454" class="fnanchor">297-2</a></span></p> + +<p>This is a fair specimen of the supplications of the lowest religion. +Another equally authentic is given by Father <span class="nowrap">Allouez.<a name="FNanchor_297-3_455" id="FNanchor_297-3_455"></a><a href="#Footnote_297-3_455" class="fnanchor">297-3</a></span> In 1670 he +penetrated to an outlying Algonkin village, never before visited by a +white man. The inhabitants, startled by his pale face and long black +gown, took him for a divinity. They invited him to the council lodge, a +circle of old men gathered around him, and one of them, approaching him +with a double handful of tobacco, thus addressed him, the others +grunting approval:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[298]</a></span>—</p> + +<p>“This, indeed, is well, Blackrobe, that thou dost visit us. Have mercy +upon us. Thou art a Manito. We give thee to smoke.</p> + +<p>“The Naudowessies and Iroquois are devouring us. Have mercy upon us.</p> + +<p>“We are often sick; our children die; we are hungry. Have mercy upon us. +Hear me, O Manito, I give thee to smoke.</p> + +<p>“Let the earth yield us corn; the rivers give us fish; sickness not slay +us; nor hunger so torment us. Hear us, O Manito, we give thee to smoke.”</p> + +<p>In this rude but touching petition, wrung from the heart of a miserable +people, nothing but their wretchedness is visible. Not the faintest +trace of an aspiration for spiritual enlightenment cheers the eye of the +philanthropist, not the remotest conception that through suffering we +are purified can be detected.</p> + +<p>By the side of these examples we may place the prayers of Peru and +Mexico, forms composed by the priests, written out, committed to memory, +and repeated at certain seasons. They are not less authentic, having +been collected and translated in the first generation after the +conquest. One to Viracocha Pachacamac, was as follows:—</p> + +<p>“O Pachacamac, thou who hast existed from the beginning and shalt exist +unto the end, powerful and pitiful; who createdst man by saying, let man +be; who defendest us from evil and preservest our life and health; art +thou in the sky or in the earth, in the clouds or in the depths? Hear +the voice of him who implores thee, and grant him his petitions. Give<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[299]</a></span> +us life everlasting, preserve us, and accept this our <span class="nowrap">sacrifice.”<a name="FNanchor_299-1_456" id="FNanchor_299-1_456"></a><a href="#Footnote_299-1_456" class="fnanchor">299-1</a></span></p> + +<p>In the voluminous specimens of Aztec prayers preserved by Sahagun, moral +improvement, the “spiritual gift,” is very rarely if at all the object +desired. Health, harvests, propitious rains, release from pain, +preservation from dangers, illness, and defeat, these are the almost +unvarying themes. But here and there we catch a glimpse of something +better, some dim sense of the divine beauty of suffering, some feeble +glimmering of the grand truth so nobly expressed by the poet:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">aus des Busens Tiefe strömt Gedeihn<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Der festen Duldung und entschlossner That.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nicht Schmerz ist Unglück, Glück nicht immer Freude;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wer sein Geschick erfüllt, dem lächeln beide.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>“Is it possible,” says one of them, “that this scourge, this affliction, +is sent to us not for our correction and improvement, but for our +destruction and annihilation? O Merciful Lord, let this chastisement +with which thou hast visited us, thy people, be as those which a father +or mother inflicts on their children, not out of anger, but to the end +that they may be free from follies and vices.” Another formula, used +when a chief was elected to some important position, reads: “O Lord, +open his eyes and give him light, sharpen his ears and give him +understanding, not that he may<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[300]</a></span> use them to his own advantage, but for +the good of the people he rules. Lead him to know and to do thy will, +let him be as a trumpet which sounds thy words. Keep him from the +commission of injustice and <span class="nowrap">oppression.”<a name="FNanchor_300-1_457" id="FNanchor_300-1_457"></a><a href="#Footnote_300-1_457" class="fnanchor">300-1</a></span></p> + +<p>At first, good and evil are identical with pleasure and pain, luck and +ill-luck. “The good are good warriors and hunters,” said a Pawnee +<span class="nowrap">chief,<a name="FNanchor_300-2_458" id="FNanchor_300-2_458"></a><a href="#Footnote_300-2_458" class="fnanchor">300-2</a></span> which would also be the opinion of a wolf, if he could +express it. Gradually the eyes of the mind are opened, and it is +perceived that “whom He loveth, He chastiseth,” and physical <a name="corr18" id="corr18"></a><ins class="correction" title="gives">give</ins> +place to moral ideas of good and evil. Finally, as the idea of God rises +more distinctly before the soul, as “the One by whom, in whom, and +through whom all things are,” evil is seen to be the negation, not the +opposite of good, and itself “a porch oft opening on the sun.”</p> + +<p>The influence of these religions on art, science, and social life, must +also be weighed in estimating their value.</p> + +<p>Nearly all the remains of American plastic art, sculpture, and painting, +were obviously designed for religious purposes. Idols of stone, wood, or +baked clay, were found in every Indian tribe, without exception, so far +as I can judge; and in only a few directions do these arts seem to have +been applied to secular purposes. The most ambitious attempts of +architecture, it is plain, were inspired by religious fervor. The great +pyramid of Cholula, the enormous mounds of the Mississippi valley, the +elaborate edifices on artificial hills in Yucatan, were miniature<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[301]</a></span> +representations of the mountains hallowed by tradition, the “Hill of +Heaven,” the peak on which their ancestors escaped in the flood, or that +in the terrestrial paradise from which flow the rains. Their +construction took men away from war and the chase, encouraged +agriculture, peace, and a settled disposition, and fostered the love of +property, of country, and of the gods. The priests were also close +observers of nature, and were the first to discover its simpler laws. +The Aztec sages were as devoted star-gazers as the Chaldeans, and their +calendar bears unmistakable marks of native growth, and of its original +purpose to fix the annual festivals. Writing by means of pictures and +symbols was cultivated chiefly for religious ends, and the word +<i>hieroglyph</i> is a witness that the phonetic alphabet was discovered +under the stimulus of the religious sentiment. Most of the aboriginal +literature was composed and taught by the priests, and most of it refers +to matters connected with their superstitions. As the gifts of votaries +and the erection of temples enriched the sacerdotal order individually +and collectively, the terrors of religion were lent to the secular arm +to enforce the rights of property. Music, poetic, scenic, and historical +recitations, formed parts of the ceremonies of the more civilized +nations, and national unity was strengthened by a common shrine. An +active barter in amulets, lucky stones, and charms, existed all over the +continent, to a much greater extent than we might think. As experience +demonstrates that nothing so efficiently promotes civilization as the +free and peaceful intercourse of man with man, I lay particular stress +on the common custom of making pilgrimages.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[302]</a></span></p> + +<p>The temple on the island of Cozumel in Yucatan was visited every year by +such multitudes from all parts of the peninsula, that roads, paved with +cut stones, had been constructed from the neighboring shore to the +principal cities of the <span class="nowrap">interior.<a name="FNanchor_302-1_459" id="FNanchor_302-1_459"></a><a href="#Footnote_302-1_459" class="fnanchor">302-1</a></span> Each village of the Muyscas is +said to have had a beaten path to Lake Guatavita, so numerous were the +devotees who journeyed to the shrine there <span class="nowrap">located.<a name="FNanchor_302-2_460" id="FNanchor_302-2_460"></a><a href="#Footnote_302-2_460" class="fnanchor">302-2</a></span> In Peru the +temples of Pachacamà, Rimac, and other famous gods, were repaired to by +countless numbers from all parts of the realm, and from other provinces +within a radius of three hundred leagues around. Houses of entertainment +were established on all the principal roads, and near the temples, for +their accommodation; and when they made known the object of their +journey, they were allowed a safe passage even through an enemy’s +<span class="nowrap">territory.<a name="FNanchor_302-3_461" id="FNanchor_302-3_461"></a><a href="#Footnote_302-3_461" class="fnanchor">302-3</a></span></p> + +<p style="margin-top: 2em;">The more carefully we study history, the more important in our eyes will +become the religious sense. It is almost the only faculty peculiar to +man. It concerns him nearer than aught else. It is the key to his origin +and destiny. As such it merits in all its developments the most earnest +attention, an attention we shall find well repaid in the clearer +conceptions we thus obtain of the forces which control the actions and +fates of individuals and nations.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"> + +<p><a name="Footnote_288-1_436" id="Footnote_288-1_436"></a><a href="#FNanchor_288-1_436"><span class="label">288-1</span></a> Waitz, <i>Anthropologie der Naturvoelker</i>, i. p. 459.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_288-2_437" id="Footnote_288-2_437"></a><a href="#FNanchor_288-2_437"><span class="label">288-2</span></a> Navarrete, <i>Viages</i>, iii. p. 415.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_288-3_438" id="Footnote_288-3_438"></a><a href="#FNanchor_288-3_438"><span class="label">288-3</span></a> <i>Relation de Cueba</i>, p. 140. Ed. Ternaux-Compans.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_290-1_439" id="Footnote_290-1_439"></a><a href="#FNanchor_290-1_439"><span class="label">290-1</span></a> La Vega, <i>Hist. des Incas</i>, liv. v. cap. 12.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_291-1_440" id="Footnote_291-1_440"></a><a href="#FNanchor_291-1_440"><span class="label">291-1</span></a> Morse, <i>Rep. on the Ind. Tribes</i>, App. p. 345.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_291-2_441" id="Footnote_291-2_441"></a><a href="#FNanchor_291-2_441"><span class="label">291-2</span></a> Ximenes, <i>Origen de los Indios de Guatemala</i>, p. 192; +Acosta, <i>Hist. of the New World</i>, lib. v. chap. 18.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_291-3_442" id="Footnote_291-3_442"></a><a href="#FNanchor_291-3_442"><span class="label">291-3</span></a> Joseph de Maistre, <i>Eclaircissement sur les +Sacrifices</i>; Trench, <i>Hulsean Lectures</i>, p. 180. The famed Abbé +Lammenaais and Professor Sepp, of Munich, with these two writers, may be +taken as the chief exponents of a school of mythologists, all of whom +start from the theories first laid down by Count de Maistre in his +<i>Soirées de St. Petersbourg</i>. To them the strongest proof of +Christianity lies in the traditions and observances of heathendom. For +these show the wants of the religious sense, and Christianity, they +maintain, purifies and satisfies them all. The rites, symbols, and +legends of every natural religion, they say, are true and not false; all +that is required is to assign them their proper places and their real +meaning. Therefore the strange resemblances in heathen myths to what is +revealed in the Scriptures, as well as the ethical anticipations which +have been found in ancient philosophies, all, so far from proving that +Christianity is a natural product of the human mind, in fact, are +confirmations of it, unconscious prophecies, and presentiments of the +truth.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_292-1_443" id="Footnote_292-1_443"></a><a href="#FNanchor_292-1_443"><span class="label">292-1</span></a> Alfred Maury, <i>La Magie et l’Astrologie dans +l’Antiquité et au Moyen Age</i>, p. 8: Paris, 1860.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_292-2_444" id="Footnote_292-2_444"></a><a href="#FNanchor_292-2_444"><span class="label">292-2</span></a> Waitz, <i>Anthropologie</i>, i. pp. 325, 465.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_293-1_445" id="Footnote_293-1_445"></a><a href="#FNanchor_293-1_445"><span class="label">293-1</span></a> So says Dr. Waitz, <i>ibid.</i>, p. 465.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_294-1_446" id="Footnote_294-1_446"></a><a href="#FNanchor_294-1_446"><span class="label">294-1</span></a> Schoolcraft, <i>Algic Researches</i>, i. p. 143.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_294-2_447" id="Footnote_294-2_447"></a><a href="#FNanchor_294-2_447"><span class="label">294-2</span></a> <i>L’Homme Américain</i>, ii. p. 319.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_295-1_448" id="Footnote_295-1_448"></a><a href="#FNanchor_295-1_448"><span class="label">295-1</span></a> Brasseur, <i>Hist. du Mexique</i>, liv. iii. chaps. 1 and +2.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_295-2_449" id="Footnote_295-2_449"></a><a href="#FNanchor_295-2_449"><span class="label">295-2</span></a> Sahagun, <i>Hist. de la Nueva España</i>, lib. x. cap. 29.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_296-1_450" id="Footnote_296-1_450"></a><a href="#FNanchor_296-1_450"><span class="label">296-1</span></a> Novalis, <i>Schriften</i>, i. p. 244: Berlin, 1837.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_296-2_451" id="Footnote_296-2_451"></a><a href="#FNanchor_296-2_451"><span class="label">296-2</span></a> Ibid., p. 267.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_296-3_452" id="Footnote_296-3_452"></a><a href="#FNanchor_296-3_452"><span class="label">296-3</span></a> <i>Hist. de la Civilisation en France</i>, i. pp. 122, 130.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_297-1_453" id="Footnote_297-1_453"></a><a href="#FNanchor_297-1_453"><span class="label">297-1</span></a> <i>Narrative of J. R. Jewett among the Savages of Nootka +Sound</i>, p. 121.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_297-2_454" id="Footnote_297-2_454"></a><a href="#FNanchor_297-2_454"><span class="label">297-2</span></a> <i>Rel. de la Nouv. France</i>, An 1636, p. 109.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_297-3_455" id="Footnote_297-3_455"></a><a href="#FNanchor_297-3_455"><span class="label">297-3</span></a> Ibid., An 1670, p. 99.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_299-1_456" id="Footnote_299-1_456"></a><a href="#FNanchor_299-1_456"><span class="label">299-1</span></a> Geronimo de Ore, <i>Symbolo Catholico Indiano</i>, chap, +ix., quoted by Ternaux-Compans. De Ore was a native of Peru and held the +position of Professor of Theology in Cuzco in the latter half of the +sixteenth century. He was a man of great erudition, and there need be no +hesitation in accepting this extraordinary prayer as genuine. For his +life and writings see Nic. Antonio, <i>Bib. Hisp. Nova</i>, tom. ii. p. 43.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_300-1_457" id="Footnote_300-1_457"></a><a href="#FNanchor_300-1_457"><span class="label">300-1</span></a> Sahagun, <i>Hist. de la Nueva España</i>, lib. vi. caps. 1, +4.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_300-2_458" id="Footnote_300-2_458"></a><a href="#FNanchor_300-2_458"><span class="label">300-2</span></a> Morse, <i>Rep. on the Ind. Tribes</i>, App. p. 250.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_302-1_459" id="Footnote_302-1_459"></a><a href="#FNanchor_302-1_459"><span class="label">302-1</span></a> Cogolludo, <i>Hist. de Yucathan</i>, lib. iv. cap. 9. +Compare Stephens, <i>Travs. in Yucatan</i>, ii. p. 122, who describes the +remains of these roads as they now exist.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_302-2_460" id="Footnote_302-2_460"></a><a href="#FNanchor_302-2_460"><span class="label">302-2</span></a> Rivero and Tschudi, <i>Antiqs. of Peru</i>, p. 162.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_302-3_461" id="Footnote_302-3_461"></a><a href="#FNanchor_302-3_461"><span class="label">302-3</span></a> La Vega, <i>Hist. des Incas</i>, lib. vi. chap. 30; Xeres, +<i>Rel de la Conq. du Pérou</i>, p. 151; <i>Let. sur les Superstit. du Pérou</i>, +p. 98, and others.</p> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[303]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="INDEX" id="INDEX"></a>INDEX.</h2> + +<hr class="bbox" style="width: 6em;" /> + +<div class="index"> +<ul class="IX"> + <li>Abnakis, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a></li> + <li>Acagchemem, a Californian tribe, <a href='#Page_105'>105</a></li> + <li>Age of man in America, <a href='#Page_35'>35-37</a></li> + <li>Ages of the world, <a href='#Page_213'>213 sq.</a></li> + <li>Akakanet, <a href='#Page_61'>61</a></li> + <li>Akanzas, <a href='#Page_238'>238</a></li> + <li>Akenatzi, <a href='#Page_284'>284</a></li> + <li>Algonkins, location, <a href='#Page_26'>26</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>name of God, <a name="corr19" id="corr19"></a><ins class="correction" title="57-3, continued section printed on page 58"><a href='#Footnote_57-3_54'>58 n.</a></ins></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>mythical ancestors, <a href='#Page_77'>77</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>veneration of birds, <a href='#Page_103'>103</a></li> + <li class="subhead2"><span class="hidespace"> </span>of serpents, <a href='#Page_108'>108</a>, <a href='#Page_109'>109</a>, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a>, <a href='#Page_116'>116</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>myths and rites, <a href='#Page_133'>133</a>, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a>, <a href='#Page_144'>144</a>, <a href='#Page_147'>147</a>, <a href='#Page_151'>151</a>, <a href='#Page_161'>161</a>, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a>, <a href='#Page_198'>198</a>, <a href='#Page_209'>209</a>, <a href='#Page_220'>220</a>, <a href='#Page_224'>224</a>, <a href='#Page_236'>236</a>, <a href='#Page_240'>240</a>, <a href='#Page_244'>244</a>, <a href='#Page_248'>248</a>, <a href='#Page_277'>277</a>, <a href='#Page_297'>297</a></li> + <li>Aluberi, a name of God, <ins class="correction" title="57-3, continued section printed on page 58"><a href='#Footnote_57-3_54'>58 n.</a></ins></li> + <li>Anahuac, <a href='#Page_29'>29</a>, <a href='#Page_282'>282</a></li> + <li>Angont, a mythical serpent, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a></li> + <li>Apalachian tribes, <a href='#Page_27'>27</a>, <a href='#Page_225'>225</a></li> + <li><a name="Apocatequil" id="Apocatequil"></a>Apocatequil, a Peruvian deity, <a href='#Page_153'>153</a></li> + <li>Ararats, of America, <a href='#Page_203'>203</a></li> + <li>Araucanians, <a href='#Page_33'>33</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>name of God, <a href='#Page_48'>48</a>, <a href='#Page_61'>61</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>myths, <a href='#Page_204'>204</a>, <a href='#Page_248'>248</a></li> + <li>Arks, <a href='#Page_255'>255</a></li> + <li>Arowacks, <ins class="correction" title="57-3, continued section printed on page 58"><a href='#Footnote_57-3_54'>58 n.</a></ins></li> + <li>Ataensic, an Iroquois deity, <a href='#Page_123'>123</a>, <a href='#Page_131'>131</a>, <a href='#Page_170'>170</a></li> + <li>Ataguju, or Atachuchu, <a href='#Page_152'>152</a></li> + <li>Atatarho, mythical Iroquois chief, <a href='#Page_118'>118</a></li> + <li>Athapascan tribes, <a href='#Page_24'>24</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>myths, <a href='#Page_104'>104</a>, <a href='#Page_150'>150</a>, <a href='#Page_195'>195</a>, <a href='#Page_205'>205</a>, <a href='#Page_229'>229</a>, <a href='#Page_248'>248</a>, <a href='#Page_257'>257</a></li> + <li>Atl, an Aztec deity, <a href='#Page_131'>131</a></li> + <li>Aurora borealis, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a></li> + <li><a name="Aymaras" id="Aymaras"></a>Aymaras, <a href='#Page_31'>31</a>, <a href='#Page_34'>34</a>, <a href='#Page_177'>177</a></li> + <li><a name="Aztecs" id="Aztecs"></a>Aztecs, their books and characters, <a href='#Page_10'>10</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>divisions, <a href='#Page_29'>29</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>names of God, <a href='#Page_48'>48</a>, <a href='#Page_50'>50</a>, <ins class="correction" title="57-3, continued section printed on page 58"><a href='#Footnote_57-3_54'>58 n.</a></ins></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>government, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>rites, <a href='#Page_72'>72</a>, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a>, <a href='#Page_127'>127</a>, <a href='#Page_147'>147</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>calendar, <a href='#Page_74'>74</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>worship of cross, <a href='#Page_95'>95</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>names of cardinal points, <a href='#Page_93'>93</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>worship of birds, <a href='#Page_102'>102</a>, <a href='#Page_106'>106</a>, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>of serpents, <a href='#Page_111'>111</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>myths, <a href='#Page_132'>132</a>, <a href='#Page_133'>133</a>, <a href='#Page_134'>134</a>, <a href='#Page_138'>138</a>, <a href='#Page_144'>144</a>, <a href='#Page_156'>156</a>, <a href='#Page_171'>171</a>, <a href='#Page_181'>181</a>, <a href='#Page_205'>205</a>, <a href='#Page_214'>214 sq.</a>, <a href='#Page_227'>227</a>, <a href='#Page_240'>240</a>, <a href='#Page_246'>246</a>, <a href='#Page_248'>248</a>, <a href='#Page_252'>252</a>, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>priests, <a href='#Page_282'>282</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>prayers, <a href='#Page_292'>292</a></li> + <li>Aztlan, <a href='#Page_181'>181</a></li> +</ul> + +<ul class="IX"> + <li>Bacab, Maya gods, <a href='#Page_80'>80</a></li> + <li>Baptism, <a href='#Page_125'>125</a> seq.</li> + <li>Bimini, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a></li> + <li>Bird, symbol of, <a href='#Page_101'>101 sq.</a>, <a href='#Page_195'>195 sq.</a>, <a href='#Page_229'>229</a>, <a href='#Page_254'>254</a></li> + <li>Blue, symbolic meaning of, <a href='#Page_47'>47</a></li> + <li>Bochica, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a></li> + <li>Boiuca, a mythical isle, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a></li> + <li>Bones, preservation of, <a href='#Page_255'>255</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>soul in the, <a href='#Page_257'>257</a></li> + <li><a name="Botocudos" id="Botocudos"></a>Botocudos, <a href='#Page_123'>123</a>, <a href='#Page_201'>201</a></li> + <li>Brasseur, Abbé, his works, <a href='#Page_41'>41</a></li> + <li>Brazilian tribes, <a href='#Page_102'>102</a>, <a href='#Page_134'>134</a>, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>(See <i><a href="#Tupis">Tupis</a></i>, <i><a href="#Botocudos">Botocudos</a></i>.)</li> + <li>Busk, a Creek festival, <a href='#Page_71'>71</a>, <a href='#Page_96'>96</a></li> + <li><br /> +Caddoes, <a href='#Page_93'>93</a>, <a href='#Page_203'>203</a></li> + <li>Camaxtli, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a></li> + <li>Cardinal points, adoration of, <a href='#Page_67'>67 sq.</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>names of, <a href='#Page_93'>93 sq.</a></li> + <li>Caribs, <a href='#Page_32'>32</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>theory of lightning, <a href='#Page_104'>104</a>, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>myths and rites, <a href='#Page_145'>145</a>, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a>, <a href='#Page_223'>223</a>, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a>, <a href='#Page_244'>244</a>, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>priests, <a href='#Page_282'>282</a></li> + <li>Catequil. (See <i><a href="#Apocatequil">Apocatequil</a></i>.)</li> + <li>Centeotl, goddess of maize, <a href='#Page_22'>22</a>, <a href='#Page_134'>134</a></li> +</ul> + +<ul class="IX"> + <li><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[304]</a></span> + Chac, Maya gods, <a href='#Page_80'>80</a></li> + <li>Chalchihuitlycue, an Aztec god, <a href='#Page_123'>123</a></li> + <li>Chantico, an Aztec god, <a href='#Page_138'>138</a></li> + <li>Cherokees, location, <a href='#Page_25'>25</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>name of God, <a href='#Page_51'>51</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>serpent myth, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>baptism, <a href='#Page_128'>128</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>deluge, <a href='#Page_205'>205</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>priests, <a href='#Page_281'>281</a></li> + <li>Chia, goddess of Muyscas, <a href='#Page_134'>134</a></li> + <li>Chichimec, <a href='#Footnote_139-1_197'>139 n.</a>, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a></li> + <li>Chicomoztoc, the Seven Caves, <a href='#Page_227'>227</a></li> + <li>Chicunoapa, the Aztec Styx, <a href='#Page_249'>249</a></li> + <li>Chipeways, picture-writing, <a href='#Page_10'>10</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>records, <a href='#Page_17'>17</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>magicians, <a href='#Page_71'>71</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>myths, <a href='#Page_163'>163</a>, <a href='#Page_168'>168</a></li> + <li>Choctaws, location, <a href='#Page_27'>27</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>name of God, <a href='#Page_51'>51</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>myths, <a name="corr20" id="corr20"></a><ins class="correction" title="83-3, continued section printed on page 84"><a href='#Footnote_83-3_96'>84 n.</a></ins>, <a href='#Page_225'>225</a>, <a href='#Page_261'>261</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>priests, <a href='#Page_281'>281</a></li> + <li>Cholula, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a>, <a href='#Page_181'>181</a>, <a href='#Page_204'>204</a>, <a href='#Page_228'>228</a></li> + <li>Cihuacoatl, the Serpent Woman, <a href='#Page_120'>120</a></li> + <li>Cihuapipilti, <a href='#Page_246'>246</a></li> + <li>Circumcision, <a href='#Page_147'>147</a></li> + <li>Citatli, <a href='#Page_131'>131</a></li> + <li>Clairvoyance, <a href='#Page_269'>269</a></li> + <li>Coatlicue, <a href='#Page_118'>118</a></li> + <li>Colors, symbolism of, <a href='#Page_47'>47</a>, <a href='#Page_80'>80</a>, <a href='#Page_140'>140</a>, <a href='#Page_165'>165</a></li> + <li>Con or Contici, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a>, <a href='#Page_176'>176</a></li> + <li>Coxcox, <a href='#Page_202'>202</a></li> + <li>Craniology, American, <a href='#Page_35'>35</a></li> + <li>Creation, myths of, <a href='#Page_193'>193</a> seq.</li> + <li><a name="Creeks" id="Creeks"></a>Creeks, location, <a href='#Page_27'>27</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>name of God, <a href='#Page_50'>50</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>rites, <a href='#Page_71'>71</a>, <a href='#Page_96'>96</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>mythical ancestors, <a href='#Page_77'>77</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>serpent myth, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>other myths, <a href='#Page_137'>137</a>, <a href='#Page_225'>225</a>, <a href='#Page_242'>242</a>, <a href='#Page_244'>244</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>priests, <a href='#Page_273'>273</a>, <a href='#Page_283'>283</a></li> + <li>Cross, symbolic meaning of, <a href='#Page_95'>95-7</a>, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>, <a href='#Page_188'>188</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>of Palenque, <a href='#Page_118'>118</a></li> + <li><a name="corr21" id="corr21"></a><ins class="correction" title="upay">Cupay</ins>, the Quichua Pluto, <a href='#Page_61'>61</a>, <a href='#Page_251'>251</a></li> + <li>Cusic, his Iroquois legends, <a href='#Page_63'>63</a>, <a href='#Footnote_108-1_137'>108 n.</a></li> +</ul> + +<ul class="IX"> + <li>Dakotas, location, <a href='#Page_28'>28</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>rites, <a href='#Page_71'>71</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>language, <a href='#Page_75'>75</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>mythical ancestors, <a href='#Page_77'>77</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>myths, <a href='#Page_62'>62</a>, <a href='#Page_103'>103</a>, <a href='#Page_133'>133</a>, <a href='#Page_150'>150</a>, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a>, <a href='#Page_259'>259</a>, <a href='#Page_279'>279</a></li> + <li><a name="Dawn" id="Dawn"></a>Dawn, myths of, <a href='#Page_166'>166</a>, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a>, <a href='#Page_175'>175</a>, <a href='#Page_227'>227</a></li> + <li>Delawares, <a href='#Footnote_140-1_199'>140 n.</a>, <a href='#Page_144'>144</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>(See <i><a href="#Lenni_Lenape">Lenni Lenape</a></i>.)</li> + <li><a name="Deluge" id="Deluge"></a>Deluge, myth, origin, etc., <a href='#Page_198'>198-212</a></li> + <li>Devil, idea of unknown to red race, <a href='#Page_59'>59</a>, <a href='#Page_251'>251</a></li> + <li>Divination, <a href='#Page_278'>278</a></li> + <li>Dobayba, <a href='#Page_123'>123</a></li> + <li>Dog, as a symbol, <a href='#Page_137'>137</a>, <a href='#Page_229'>229</a>, <a href='#Page_247'>247-9</a></li> + <li>Dove, as <a name="corr22" id="corr22"></a><ins class="correction" title="a">a a</ins> symbol, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a></li> + <li>Dualism, moral, not found in America, <a href='#Page_59'>59</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>sexual not found, <a href='#Page_146'>146</a></li> +</ul> + +<ul class="IX"> + <li>Eagle, as a symbol, <a href='#Page_104'>104</a></li> + <li>East, myths, concerning, <a href='#Page_91'>91</a>, <a href='#Page_165'>165</a>, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a>, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>(See <i><a href="#Dawn">Dawn</a></i>.)</li> + <li>Eastman, Mrs., her <i>Legends of the Sioux</i>, <a href='#Page_103'>103</a></li> + <li><a name="corr23" id="corr23"></a><ins class="correction" title="El Dorado">Eldorado</ins>, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a></li> + <li>Enigorio and Enigohahetgea, <a href='#Page_63'>63</a></li> + <li>Epochs of nature, <a href='#Page_200'>200</a> seq.</li> + <li>Esaugetuh Emissee, <a href='#Page_50'>50</a></li> + <li>Eskimos, location, <a href='#Page_23'>23</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>name of chief god, <a href='#Page_50'>50</a>, <a href='#Page_76'>76</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>term for south, <a href='#Page_94'>94</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>veneration of birds, <a href='#Page_101'>101</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>myths, <a href='#Footnote_173-1_254'>173 n.</a>, <a href='#Page_193'>193</a>, <a href='#Page_226'>226</a>, <a href='#Page_229'>229</a>, <a href='#Page_241'>241</a>, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a>, <a href='#Page_261'>261</a>, <a href='#Page_280'>280</a></li> +</ul> + +<ul class="IX"> + <li>Fear in religion, <a href='#Page_141'>141</a>, <a href='#Page_292'>292</a></li> + <li>Fire-worship, <a href='#Page_140'>140</a> seq.</li> + <li>Flood-myth. (See <i><a href="#Deluge">Deluge</a></i>.)</li> + <li>Florida, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a></li> + <li>Forty, a sacred number, <a href='#Page_94'>94</a></li> + <li>Fountain of youth, <a href='#Page_129'>129</a></li> + <li><a name="Four" id="Four"></a>Four, the sacred number of red race, <a href='#Page_66'>66 sq.</a>, <a href='#Page_105'>105</a>, <a href='#Page_157'>157</a>, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a>, <a href='#Page_178'>178</a>, <a href='#Page_182'>182</a>, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a>, <a href='#Page_240'>240</a></li> + <li>Four brothers, the myth of, <a href='#Page_76'>76-83</a>, <a href='#Page_152'>152</a>, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a>, <a href='#Page_178'>178</a>, <a href='#Page_182'>182</a></li> +</ul> + +<ul class="IX"> + <li>Garhonia, Iroquois deity, <a href='#Page_48'>48</a></li> + <li>Gizhigooke, the day-maker, <a href='#Page_169'>169</a></li> + <li>Guaranis, <a href='#Page_32'>32</a>, <ins class="correction" title="83-3, continued section printed on page 84"><a href='#Footnote_83-3_96'>84 n.</a></ins></li> + <li>Guatavita Lake, <a href='#Page_124'>124</a></li> + <li>Gucumatz, the bird-serpent, <a href='#Page_118'>118</a></li> + <li>Gumongo, god of the Monquis, <a href='#Page_93'>93</a></li> +</ul> + +<ul class="IX"> + <li>Haitians, myths of, <a href='#Page_78'>78</a>, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a>, <a href='#Page_135'>135</a>, <a href='#Page_188'>188</a></li> + <li>Hand, symbol of the, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a></li> + <li>Haokah, Dakota thunder god, <a href='#Page_151'>151</a></li> + <li>Hawaneu. (See <i><a href="#Neo">Neo</a></i>.)</li> + <li>Heaven, the, of the red race, <a href='#Page_243'>243</a></li> + <li>Hell, the hidden world, <a href='#Page_252'>252</a></li> + <li>Heno, Iroquois thunder-god, <a href='#Page_156'>156</a></li> + <li>Hiawatha, myth of, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a></li> + <li><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[305]</a></span> + Hobbamock, <a href='#Page_60'>60</a></li> + <li>Huemac, the Strong-hand, <a href='#Page_181'>181</a>, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a></li> + <li>Huitzilopochtli, the god of war, <a href='#Page_118'>118</a>, <a href='#Page_282'>282</a></li> + <li>Hunting, its effect on the mind, <a href='#Page_21'>21</a>, <a href='#Page_67'>67</a>, <a href='#Page_100'>100</a></li> + <li>Hurakan or hurricane, meaning of, <a href='#Page_51'>51</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>a Maya god, <a href='#Page_81'>81</a>, <a href='#Page_82'>82</a>, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a>, <a href='#Page_156'>156</a>, <a href='#Page_196'>196</a></li> + <li>Hurons, <a href='#Page_25'>25</a>, <a href='#Page_48'>48</a>, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a>, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a>, <a href='#Page_169'>169</a>, <a href='#Page_248'>248</a>, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a>, <a href='#Page_275'>275</a></li> + <li>Hushtoli, Choctaw name of God, <a href='#Page_51'>51</a></li> +</ul> + +<ul class="IX"> + <li>Illatici, Quichua name of God, <a href='#Page_55'>55</a>, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a></li> + <li><a name="Incas" id="Incas"></a>Incas, secret language, <a href='#Page_31'>31</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>official title, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>ancestors, <a href='#Page_82'>82</a>, <a href='#Page_153'>153</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>arms, <a href='#Page_120'>120</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>sun-worship, <a href='#Page_142'>142</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>myths, <a href='#Page_188'>188</a>, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a>, <a href='#Page_244'>244</a></li> + <li>Ioskeha, supreme god of Iroquois, <a href='#Page_63'>63</a>, <a href='#Page_170'>170-2</a></li> + <li>Iroquois, location, <a href='#Page_25'>25</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>name of God, <a href='#Page_48'>48</a>, <a href='#Page_53'>53</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>myths of, <a href='#Page_83'>83</a>, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a>, <a href='#Page_169'>169-72</a>, <a href='#Page_196'>196</a>, <a href='#Page_227'>227</a>, <a href='#Page_236'>236</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>veneration of serpents, <a href='#Page_108'>108</a>, <a href='#Page_116'>116</a>, <a href='#Page_118'>118</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>of fire, <a href='#Page_148'>148</a></li> + <li>Isolation of the red race, <a href='#Page_20'>20</a>, <a href='#Page_34'>34</a></li> + <li>Itzcuinan, the Bitch-Mother, <a href='#Page_138'>138</a></li> +</ul> + +<ul class="IX"> + <li>Jarvis, Dr., his Discourse on American Religions, <a href='#Page_39'>39</a></li> + <li>Juripari, <a href='#Page_61'>61</a></li> +</ul> + +<ul class="IX"> + <li>Killistenoes, <a href='#Page_270'>270</a></li> + <li>Kittanitowit, <a href='#Page_58'>58</a>, <a href='#Page_60'>60</a></li> + <li>Ku, a name of divinity, <a href='#Page_46'>46</a>, <a href='#Page_47'>47</a></li> + <li>Kukulcan, god of air, <a href='#Page_118'>118</a></li> +</ul> + +<ul class="IX"> + <li>Languages of America, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>esoteric of priests, <a href='#Page_284'>284</a></li> + <li><a name="Lenni_Lenape" id="Lenni_Lenape"></a>Lenni Lenape, <a href='#Page_26'>26</a>, <a href='#Page_96'>96</a>, <a href='#Page_161'>161</a>, <a href='#Page_231'>231</a></li> + <li>Light, universal symbol of divinity, <a href='#Page_173'>173</a></li> + <li>Lightning, the, <a href='#Page_112'>112</a> seq., <a href='#Page_151'>151</a> seq., <a href='#Page_168'>168</a></li> +</ul> + +<ul class="IX"> + <li>Madness, as inspiration, <a href='#Page_274'>274</a> seq.</li> + <li>Magic, natural, <a href='#Page_266'>266</a></li> + <li>Maistre, Joseph de, his theory of mythology, <a name="corr24" id="corr24"></a><ins class="correction" title="291 n."><a href='#Footnote_291-3_442'>291, n.</a></ins></li> + <li>Maize, distribution of, <a href='#Page_22'>22</a>, <a href='#Page_37'>37</a></li> + <li>Man, origin of, <a href='#Page_222'>222 sq.</a>, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>word for, <a href='#Page_223'>223</a></li> + <li>Mandans, <a href='#Page_71'>71</a>, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a>, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a>, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a>, <a href='#Page_205'>205</a>, <a href='#Page_228'>228</a></li> + <li>Manibozho. (See <i><a href="#Michabo">Michabo</a></i>.)</li> + <li>Mannacicas, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a></li> + <li>Manoa, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a></li> + <li>Manes, <a href='#Page_111'>111</a></li> + <li>Mayas, alphabet, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>location, <a href='#Page_30'>30</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>calendar, <a href='#Page_74'>74</a>, <a href='#Page_80'>80</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>mythical ancestors, <a href='#Page_79'>79</a>, <a href='#Page_80'>80</a>, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>myths and rites, <a href='#Page_93'>93</a>, <a href='#Page_146'>146</a>, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>, <a href='#Page_188'>188</a>, <a href='#Page_214'>214</a>, <a href='#Page_221'>221</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>name of cross, <a href='#Page_97'>97</a></li> + <li>Mbocobi, <a href='#Page_201'>201</a></li> + <li>Meda worship, <a href='#Footnote_162-1_239'>162 n.</a></li> + <li>Medicine, <a href='#Page_45'>45</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>lodge, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>men, <a href='#Page_264'>264</a>, <a href='#Page_277'>277</a> seq.</li> + <li>Memory, cultivated by picture-writing, <a href='#Page_18'>18</a></li> + <li>Mesmerism, <a href='#Page_272'>272</a></li> + <li>Messou, <a href='#Page_209'>209</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>(See <i><a href="#Michabo">Michabo</a></i>.)</li> + <li>Metempsychosis, <a href='#Page_253'>253</a></li> + <li>Mexicans, (See <i><a href="#Aztecs">Aztecs</a></i>.)</li> + <li>Meztli, <a href='#Page_132'>132</a>, <a href='#Page_135'>135</a></li> + <li><a name="Michabo" id="Michabo"></a>Michabo, supreme Algonkin god, <a href='#Page_63'>63</a>, <a href='#Page_116'>116</a>, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a>, <a href='#Page_161'>161-9</a>, <a href='#Page_198'>198</a>, <a href='#Page_220'>220</a>, <a href='#Page_294'>294</a></li> + <li>Mictlan, god of the dead, <a href='#Page_92'>92</a>, <a href='#Page_252'>252</a></li> + <li>Migrations, coarse of, <a href='#Page_34'>34</a></li> + <li>Milky-way, <a href='#Page_244'>244</a></li> + <li>Millennium, <a href='#Page_261'>261</a></li> + <li>Minnetarees, <a href='#Page_228'>228</a>, <a href='#Page_230'>230</a>, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a></li> + <li>Mixcoatl, or Mixcohuatl, <a href='#Page_22'>22</a>, <a href='#Page_51'>51</a>, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a></li> + <li>Mixtecas, <a href='#Page_90'>90</a>, <a href='#Page_196'>196</a></li> + <li>Monan, <a href='#Page_211'>211</a></li> + <li>Monquis, <a href='#Page_93'>93</a>, <a href='#Page_106'>106</a></li> + <li>Montezuma, <a href='#Page_187'>187</a>, <a href='#Page_190'>190</a></li> + <li>Moon, worship of, <a href='#Page_130'>130</a> seq.</li> + <li>Moxos, <a href='#Page_124'>124</a>, <a href='#Page_230'>230</a></li> + <li>Müller, J. G., his work on American religions, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a>, <a href='#Page_59'>59</a>, <a href='#Page_61'>61</a></li> + <li>Mummies, <a href='#Page_257'>257-60</a></li> + <li>Muscogees, <a href='#Page_195'>195</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>(See <i><a href="#Creeks">Creeks</a></i>.)</li> + <li>Muyscas, <a href='#Page_31'>31</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>myths, <ins class="correction" title="83-3, continued section printed on page 84"><a href='#FNanchor_83-3_96'>84 n.</a></ins>, <a href='#Page_183'>183-4</a></li> +</ul> + +<ul class="IX"> + <li>Nahuas, <a href='#Page_29'>29</a>, <a href='#Page_73'>73</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>myths, <ins class="correction" title="83-3, continued section printed on page 84"><a href='#FNanchor_83-3_96'>84 n.</a></ins>, <a href='#Page_118'>118</a>, <a href='#Page_138'>138</a>, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a>, <a href='#Page_206'>206</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>(See <i><a href="#Aztecs">Aztecs</a></i>.)</li> + <li>Nanahuatl, <a href='#Page_135'>135</a></li> + <li>Natchez, <a href='#Page_27'>27</a>, <a name="corr25" id="corr25"></a><ins class="correction" title="27-2, continued section printed on page 28"><a href='#FNanchor_27-2_19'>28 n.</a></ins></li> + <li><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[306]</a></span></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>myths, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a>, <a href='#Page_142'>142</a>, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a>, <a href='#Page_205'>205</a>, <a href='#Page_225'>225</a>, <a href='#Page_239'>239</a></li> + <li>Natural religions, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a></li> + <li>Navajos, <a href='#Page_79'>79</a>, <ins class="correction" title="83-3, continued section printed on page 84"><a href='#Footnote_83-3_96'>84 n.</a></ins>, <a href='#Page_103'>103</a>, <a href='#Page_127'>127</a>, <a href='#Page_205'>205</a>, <a href='#Page_241'>241</a></li> + <li><a name="Neo" id="Neo"></a>Neo, Iroquois corruption of <i>Dieu</i>, <a href='#Page_53'>53</a></li> + <li>Nemqueteba, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a></li> + <li>Netelas, <a href='#Page_50'>50</a>, <a href='#Footnote_105-1_132'>105 n.</a></li> + <li>Nez <a name="corr26" id="corr26"></a><ins class="correction" title="Percés,">Percés</ins> <a href='#Page_272'>272</a>, <a href='#Page_281'>281</a></li> + <li>Nicaraguans, <a href='#Page_145'>145</a>, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a>, <a href='#Page_201'>201</a>, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a>, <a href='#Page_288'>288</a></li> + <li>Nine Rivers, the, <a href='#Page_248'>248</a></li> + <li>Nootka Indians, <a href='#Page_297'>297</a></li> + <li>North, myths concerning, <a href='#Page_82'>82</a></li> + <li>Nottoways, <a href='#Page_25'>25</a>, <a href='#Page_84'>84</a></li> + <li>Numbers, sacred, <a href='#Page_66'>66</a>, <a href='#Page_98'>98</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>(See <i><a href="#Four">Four</a></i>, <i><a href="#Three">Three</a></i>, <i><a href="#Seven">Seven</a></i>.)</li> +</ul> + +<ul class="IX"> + <li>Occaniches, <a href='#Page_284'>284</a></li> + <li>Oki, name of God, <a href='#Page_46'>46-8</a></li> + <li>Onniont, a mythical serpent, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a></li> + <li>Onondagas, <a href='#Page_171'>171</a></li> + <li>Oonawleh unggi, <a href='#Page_51'>51</a></li> + <li>Otomis, <a href='#Page_6'>6</a>, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a></li> + <li>Ottawas, <a href='#Page_93'>93</a>, <a href='#Page_145'>145</a>, <a href='#Page_161'>161</a></li> + <li>Ottoes, <ins class="correction" title="83-3, continued section printed on page 84"><a href='#Footnote_83-3_96'>84 n.</a></ins></li> +</ul> + +<ul class="IX"> + <li>Pacari Tampu, <a href='#Page_82'>82</a>, <a href='#Page_179'>179</a>, <a href='#Page_227'>227</a></li> + <li>Pachacamac, <a href='#Page_56'>56</a>, <a href='#Page_176'>176-7</a>, <a href='#Page_298'>298</a></li> + <li>Panos, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a></li> + <li>Paradise, myth of, <a href='#Page_86'>86</a> seq.</li> + <li>Paria, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a></li> + <li>Passions, worship of, <a href='#Page_146'>146</a>, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a></li> + <li>Pawnees, <a href='#Footnote_71-3_78'>71 n.</a>, <ins class="correction" title="83-3, continued section printed on page 84"><a href='#Footnote_83-3_96'>84 n.</a></ins></li> + <li>Pend d’Oreilles, <a href='#Page_233'>233</a></li> + <li><a name="Peru" id="Peru"></a>Peru, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>rites and myths, <a href='#Page_82'>82</a>, <a href='#Page_102'>102</a>, <a href='#Page_106'>106</a>, <a href='#Page_131'>131</a>, <a href='#Page_132'>132</a>, <a href='#Page_137'>137</a>, <a href='#Page_138'>138</a>, <a href='#Page_142'>142</a>, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a>, <a name="corr27" id="corr27"></a><ins class="correction" title="152 sq."><a href='#Page_152'>152 sq</a></ins>, <a href='#Page_176'>176-9</a>, <a href='#Page_188'>188</a>, <a href='#Page_213'>213</a>, <a href='#Page_219'>219</a>, <a href='#Page_227'>227</a>, <a href='#Page_240'>240</a>, <a href='#Page_251'>251</a>, <a href='#Page_260'>260</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>priests, <a href='#Page_278'>278</a>, <a href='#Page_282'>282</a>, <a href='#Page_284'>284</a></li> + <li class="subhead2"><span class="hidespace"> </span>(See <i><a href="#Aymaras">Aymaras</a></i>, <i><a href="#Incas">Incas</a></i>.)</li> + <li>Phallic worship, <a href='#Page_146'>146</a>, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a></li> + <li>Picture writing, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a></li> + <li>Pilgrimages, custom of, <a href='#Page_301'>301</a></li> + <li>Pimos, <a href='#Page_185'>185</a></li> + <li>Prayers, specimens of, <a href='#Page_296'>296-300</a></li> + <li>Priesthood, native, <a href='#Page_263'>263 sq.</a></li> + <li>Puelches, <a href='#Page_277'>277</a></li> +</ul> + +<ul class="IX"> + <li>Quetzalcoatl, the supreme Aztec god, <a href='#Page_106'>106</a>, <a href='#Page_118'>118</a>, <a href='#Page_157'>157</a>, <a href='#Page_180'>180-3</a>, <a href='#Page_188'>188</a>, <a href='#Page_294'>294-6</a></li> + <li>Quiateot, a rain god, <a href='#Page_131'>131</a></li> + <li>Quichés, <a href='#Page_30'>30</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>Sacred Book, <a href='#Page_41'>41</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>names for God, <a href='#Page_51'>51</a>, <ins class="correction" title="57-3, continued section printed on page 58"><a href='#Footnote_57-3_54'>58 n.</a></ins></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>evil deities, <a href='#Page_64'>64</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>myth of first four brothers, <a href='#Page_81'>81</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>of paradise, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>of creation, <a href='#Page_196'>196</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>of flood, <a href='#Page_207'>207</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>of hell, <a href='#Page_251'>251</a>, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a></li> + <li>Quichuas, <a href='#Page_31'>31</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>religion, <a href='#Page_55'>55</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>ancestors, <a href='#Page_82'>82</a>, <a href='#Page_153'>153</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>names of cardinal points, <a href='#Footnote_93-4_118'>93 n.</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>myths, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a></li> + <li class="subhead2"><span class="hidespace"> </span><a name="corr28" id="corr28"></a><ins class="correction" title="Italics reversed">(<i>See</i> <a href="#Peru">Peru</a>, <a href="#Incas">Incas</a>.)</ins></li> + <li>Quipus, <a href='#Page_14'>14</a></li> +</ul> + +<ul class="IX"> + <li>Rattlesnake, as a symbol, <a href='#Page_108'>108 sq.</a></li> + <li>Raven, as a symbol, <a href='#Page_195'>195</a>, <a href='#Page_204'>204</a>, <a href='#Page_213'>213</a>, <a href='#Page_229'>229</a></li> + <li>Red, symbolic meaning, <a href='#Page_80'>80</a>, <a href='#Page_88'>88</a>, <a href='#Page_140'>140</a></li> +</ul> + +<ul class="IX"> + <li>Sacrifice, its meaning, <a href='#Page_291'>291</a></li> + <li>Sacs, <a href='#Page_84'>84</a>, <a href='#Page_277'>277</a></li> + <li>Sanscrit flood-myth, <a href='#Page_212'>212</a></li> + <li>Schwarz, Dr., his views of mythology, <a href='#Page_112'>112</a></li> + <li>Seminoles, <a href='#Page_129'>129</a></li> + <li>Serpent, as a symbol, <a href='#Page_107'>107 sq.</a>, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a>, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a></li> + <li><a name="Seven" id="Seven"></a>Seven, a sacred number, <a href='#Page_66'>66</a>, <a href='#Footnote_128-4_171'>128 n.</a>, <a href='#Page_202'>202</a>, <a href='#Page_204'>204</a>, <a href='#Footnote_273-2_420'>273 n.</a>, <a href='#Page_281'>281</a>, <a href='#Page_283'>283</a></li> + <li>Shawnees, <a href='#Page_26'>26</a>, <ins class="correction" title="83-3, continued section printed on page 84"><a href='#Footnote_83-3_96'>84 n.</a></ins>, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a>, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a>, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a>, <a href='#Page_144'>144</a>, <a href='#Page_281'>281</a></li> + <li>Shoshonees, <a href='#Page_28'>28</a>, <a href='#Page_138'>138</a></li> + <li>Sillam Innua, <a href='#Page_50'>50</a>, <a href='#Page_76'>76</a></li> + <li>Sioux, <a href='#Page_28'>28</a>, <a href='#Page_151'>151</a>, <a href='#Page_236'>236</a></li> + <li>Soul, notions concerning, <a href='#Page_235'>235 sq.</a>, <a href='#Page_277'>277</a></li> + <li>Sua, the Muysca God, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a></li> + <li>Sun-worship, <a href='#Page_141'>141 sq.</a>, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a>, <a href='#Page_243'>243-9</a></li> + <li>Suns, Aztec, <a href='#Page_215'>215 sq.</a></li> +</ul> + +<ul class="IX"> + <li>Takahlis, <a href='#Page_127'>127</a>, <a href='#Page_197'>197</a>, <a href='#Page_201'>201</a>, <a href='#Page_253'>253</a>, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a></li> + <li>Tamu, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a>, <a href='#Page_294'>294</a></li> + <li>Taras, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a></li> + <li>Taronhiawagon, <a href='#Page_171'>171</a></li> + <li>Tawiscara, <a href='#Page_170'>170</a></li> + <li>Teczistecatl, <a href='#Page_132'>132</a></li> + <li><a name="corr29" id="corr29"></a><ins class="correction" title="Teotihuacan">Teatihuacan</ins>, <a href='#Page_46'>46</a>, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a></li> + <li><a name="Three" id="Three"></a>Three, a sacred number, <a href='#Page_66'>66</a>, <a href='#Page_98'>98</a>, <a href='#Page_156'>156</a></li> + <li>Thunder-storm, in myths, <a href='#Page_150'>150 sq.</a></li> + <li>Tici, the vase, <a href='#Page_130'>130</a></li> + <li>Timberlake, Lt., his <i>Memoirs</i>, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a></li> + <li>Titicaca, Lake, <a href='#Page_124'>124</a>, <a href='#Page_178'>178</a></li> + <li>Tlacatecolotl, supposed Aztec Satan, <a href='#Page_106'>106</a></li> + <li><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[307]</a></span> + Tlaloc, god of rain, <a href='#Page_75'>75</a>, <a href='#Page_88'>88</a>, <a href='#Page_156'>156-7</a></li> + <li>Tlalocan, <a href='#Page_88'>88</a>, <a href='#Page_246'>246</a></li> + <li>Tlapallan, <a href='#Page_88'>88</a>, <a href='#Page_91'>91</a>, <a href='#Page_181'>181</a></li> + <li>Tloque nahuaque, <ins class="correction" title="57-3, continued section printed on page 58"><a href='#Footnote_57-3_54'>58 n.</a></ins></li> + <li>Tohil, <a href='#Page_157'>157</a></li> + <li>Toltecs, <a href='#Page_29'>29</a>, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a></li> + <li>Tonacatepec, <a href='#Page_88'>88</a></li> + <li>Toukaways, <a href='#Page_231'>231</a></li> + <li>Trinity, in American religions, <a href='#Page_156'>156</a></li> + <li>Tulan, <a href='#Page_88'>88</a>, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a>, <a href='#Page_181'>181</a></li> + <li>Tupa, <a href='#Page_32'>32</a>, <a href='#Page_84'>84</a>, <a href='#Page_152'>152</a>, <a href='#Page_185'>185</a></li> + <li><a name="Tupis" id="Tupis"></a>Tupis, <a href='#Page_32'>32</a></li> + <li class="subhead"><span class="hidespace"> </span>myths, <a href='#Footnote_83-3_96'>83 n.</a>, <a href='#Page_152'>152</a>, <a href='#Page_185'>185</a>, <a href='#Page_210'>210</a>, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a>, <a href='#Page_274'>274</a></li> + <li>Twins, sacred to lightning, <a href='#Page_153'>153-4</a></li> +</ul> + +<ul class="IX"> + <li>Unktahe, a Dakota god, <a href='#Page_133'>133</a></li> +</ul> + +<ul class="IX"> + <li>Vase, symbol of, <a href='#Page_130'>130</a>, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a></li> + <li>Viracocha, supreme god in Peru, <a href='#Page_124'>124</a>, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a>, <a href='#Page_177'>177-80</a></li> +</ul> + +<ul class="IX"> + <li>Waitz, Dr., his <i>Anthropology</i>, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a>, <a href='#Page_288'>288</a></li> + <li>Wampum, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a></li> + <li>Water, myths of, <a href='#Page_122'>122</a> seq., <a href='#Page_194'>194</a></li> + <li>West, myths of, <a href='#Page_92'>92</a>, <a href='#Page_93'>93</a>, <a href='#Page_166'>166</a></li> + <li>White, as a symbol, <a href='#Page_165'>165</a>, <a href='#Page_174'>174-6</a></li> + <li>Whiteman’s land, <a href='#Footnote_21-1_13'>21 n.</a></li> + <li>Winds, myths of, <a href='#Page_49'>49-52</a>, <a href='#Page_74'>74 sq.</a>, <a href='#Page_96'>96</a>, <a href='#Page_103'>103</a>, <a href='#Page_166'>166</a>, <a href='#Page_182'>182</a></li> + <li>Winnebagoes, <a href='#Page_220'>220</a></li> + <li>Witchitas, <a href='#Page_224'>224</a></li> + <li>Writing, modes of, <a href='#Page_9'>9-13</a></li> +</ul> + +<ul class="IX"> + <li>Xelhua, <a href='#Page_228'>228</a></li> + <li>Xibalba, <a href='#Page_64'>64</a>, <a href='#Page_251'>251</a></li> + <li>Xochiquetzal, <a href='#Page_137'>137</a></li> + <li>Xolotl, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a></li> +</ul> + +<ul class="IX"> + <li>Yakama language, <a href='#Page_50'>50</a></li> + <li>Yamo and Yama, twin deities, <a href='#Footnote_154-1_228'>154 n.</a></li> + <li>Yoalli-ehecatl, <a href='#Page_50'>50</a></li> + <li>Yohualticitl, <a href='#Page_132'>132</a></li> + <li>Yupanqui, Inca, <a href='#Page_55'>55</a></li> + <li>Yurucares, <a href='#Page_201'>201</a>, <a href='#Page_224'>224</a>, <a href='#Page_259'>259</a></li> +</ul> + +<ul class="IX"> + <li>Zac, empire of, <a href='#Page_31'>31</a>, <a href='#Page_124'>124</a></li> + <li>Zamna, culture hero of Mayas, <a href='#Page_93'>93</a>, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>, <a href='#Page_188'>188</a></li> + <li>Zapotecs, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a></li> +</ul> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="ERRATA" id="ERRATA"></a>ERRATA.</h2> + + +<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="errata"> +<tr> + <td style="text-align: center;"><a name="corr30" id="corr30"></a>Page</td> + <td style="text-align: right;"><a href="#corr30_text">31</a>,</td> + <td>note, for “<i>Ureinbewohner</i>” read “<i>Ureinwohner</i>.”</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td style="text-align: center;">“</td> + <td style="text-align: right;"><a href="#err1">101</a>, </td> + <td>line 10 from bottom, <i>for</i> “clouds” <i>read</i> “clods.”</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td style="text-align: center;">“</td> + <td style="text-align: right;"><a href="#FNanchor_145-1_211">145</a>,</td> + <td>note 1, <i>for</i> “Gomara” <i>read</i> “Gumilla.”</td> +</tr> +</table> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + +<div style="background-color: #EEE; padding: 0.5em 1em 0.5em 1em;"> +<p class="center noindent"><a name="trans_note" id="trans_note"></a><b>Transcriber’s Note</b></p> + +<p class="noindent">The following errors and inconsistencies have been maintained.</p> + +<p class="noindent">Misspelled words and typographical errors:</p> + +<table style="margin-left: 0%;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="typos"> +<tr> + <td class="tdpadr">Page </td> + <td>Error</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdpadr"><a href="#corr1">57</a></td> + <td>the Inds. p. should read the Inds., p.</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdpadr"><a href="#corr2">89</a></td> + <td>Orstnamen should read Ortsnamen</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdpadr"><a href="#corr3">115</a></td> + <td>o should read of</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdpadr"><a href="#corr4">134</a></td> + <td>knaws should read gnaws</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdpadr"><a href="#corr5">140</a></td> + <td>extingish should read extinguish</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdpadr"><a href="#corr6">144 fn. 2</a></td> + <td>Reconnoissance was spelled this way in the title of original publication, quoted correctly</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdpadr"><a href="#corr7">158 fn. 3</a></td> + <td>Hist du Mexique should read Hist. du Mexique</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdpadr"><a href="#corr8">162</a></td> + <td>wizzard should read wizard</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdpadr"><a href="#corr9">218</a></td> + <td>foreboding shave should read forebodings have</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdpadr"><a href="#corr10">223 fn. 2</a></td> + <td>yelk should read yolk</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdpadr"><a href="#corr11">226 fn. 2</a></td> + <td><i>above</i> should read above</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdpadr"><a href="#corr12">234</a></td> + <td>after.world should read after world</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdpadr"><a href="#corr13">248</a></td> + <td>scimetar should read scimitar</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdpadr"><a href="#corr14">251</a></td> + <td>Xibilha should read Xibalba</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdpadr"><a href="#corr15">258</a></td> + <td>supersitions should read superstitions</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdpadr"><a href="#corr16">278</a></td> + <td>drunkeness should read drunkenness</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdpadr"><a href="#corr17">294</a></td> + <td>fees should read frees or feeds?</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdpadr"><a href="#corr18">300</a></td> + <td>give should read gives</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdpadr"><a href="#corr19">303</a> (and elsewhere)</td> + <td>58 n. refers to footnote 57-3, the continued text of this footnote was printed on p. 58 in the original book</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdpadr"><a href="#corr20">304</a> (and elsewhere)</td> + <td>84 n. refers to footnote 83-3, the continued text of this footnote was printed on p. 84 in the original book</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdpadr"><a href="#corr21">304</a></td> + <td>Cupay should read Çupay</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdpadr"><a href="#corr22">304</a></td> + <td>a a symbol should read a symbol</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdpadr"><a href="#corr23">304</a></td> + <td>Eldorado should read El Dorado</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdpadr"><a href="#corr24">305</a></td> + <td>28 n. refers to footnote 27-2, the continued text of this footnote was printed on p. 28 in the original book</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdpadr"><a href="#corr25">305</a></td> + <td>291, n. should read 291 n.</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdpadr"><a href="#corr26">306</a></td> + <td>Nez Percés should read Nez Percés,</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdpadr"><a href="#corr27">306</a></td> + <td>152 sq, should read 152 sq.,</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdpadr"><a href="#corr28">306</a></td> + <td>Teatihuacan should read Teotihuacan</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdpadr"><a href="#corr29">306</a></td> + <td><i>See</i> Peru, Incas should read See <i>Peru, Incas</i></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdpadr"><a name="corr30_text" id="corr30_text"></a><a href="#corr30">307</a></td> + <td>Ureinbewohner was not found in the text.</td> +</tr> +</table> + +<p class="noindent">The following words had inconsistent spelling:</p> + +<p class="noindent">Mannacicas / Mannicicas<br /> +rôle / role<br /> +Quiché / Quiche<br /> +Tamöi / Tamoi</p> + +<p class="noindent">The following words had inconsistent hyphenation:</p> + +<p class="noindent">Aka-kanet / Akakanet<br /> +Ama-livaca / Amalivaca<br /> +child-birth / childbirth<br /> +Teo-tihuacan / Teotihuacan<br /> +under-world / underworld<br /> +Ur-religionen / Urreligionen<br /> +Yoalli-ehecatl / Yoalliehecatl</p> + +<p class="noindent">Other inconsistencies:</p> + +<p class="noindent">Titles of works referred to in the footnotes are occasionally +not italicized. Author names of the works referred to in the footnotes are +occasionally italicized.</p> +</div> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Myths of the New World, by Daniel G. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Myths of the New World + A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America + +Author: Daniel G. Brinton + +Release Date: September 22, 2006 [EBook #19347] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MYTHS OF THE NEW WORLD *** + + + + +Produced by Robert Cicconetti, Julia Miller and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by the Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions +(www.canadiana.org)) + + + + + +Transcriber's Note + +A number of typographical errors and inconsistencies have been +maintained in this version of this book. They have been marked with a +[TN-#], which refers to a description in the complete list found at the +end of the text. + +Text printed in Greek letters in the original has been surrounded by ~s. + +Oe ligatures used in the original text have been expanded. The following +codes are used for characters that are not able to be represented in the +text format used for this version of the book. + + [)a] a with breve + [=a] a with macron + [=e] e with macron + [=u] u with macron + + + + + THE MYTHS + OF + THE NEW WORLD + + + A TREATISE ON THE + SYMBOLISM AND MYTHOLOGY + OF THE + RED RACE OF AMERICA + + + BY + + DANIEL G. BRINTON, A. M., M. D. + _Memb. Hist. Soc. of Penn.; of Numismat. and + Antiq. Soc. of Philada.; Corresp. Memb. + Amer. Ethnolog. Soc.; author of + "Notes on the Floridian + Peninsula," Etc._ + + + NEW YORK + LEYPOLDT & HOLT + LONDON: TRUeBNER & CO. + 1868 + + + + + Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1868, by + DANIEL G. BRINTON, + + In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the + Eastern District of Pennsylvania. + + + + +PREFACE. + + +I have written this work more for the thoughtful general reader than the +antiquary. It is a study of an obscure portion of the intellectual +history of our species as exemplified in one of its varieties. + +What are man's earliest ideas of a soul and a God, and of his own origin +and destiny? Why do we find certain myths, such as of a creation, a +flood, an after-world; certain symbols, as the bird, the serpent, the +cross; certain numbers, as the three, the four, the seven--intimately +associated with these ideas by every race? What are the laws of growth +of natural religions? How do they acquire such an influence, and is this +influence for good or evil? Such are some of the universally interesting +questions which I attempt to solve by an analysis of the simple faiths +of a savage race. + +If in so doing I succeed in investing with a more general interest the +fruitful theme of American ethnology, my objects will have been +accomplished. + + PHILADELPHIA, + April, 1868. + + + + +CONTENTS. + + +CHAPTER I. + +GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS OF THE RED RACE. + PAGE +Natural religions the unaided attempts of man to find out God, +modified by peculiarities of race and nation.--The peculiarities of +the red race: 1. Its languages unfriendly to abstract ideas. Native +modes of writing by means of pictures, symbols, objects, and phonetic +signs. These various methods compared in their influence on the +intellectual faculties. 2. Its isolation, unique in the history of the +world. 3. Beyond all others, a hunting race.--Principal linguistic +subdivisions: 1. The Eskimos. 2. The Athapascas. 3. The Algonkins and +Iroquois. 4. The Apalachian tribes. 5. The Dakotas. 6. The Aztecs. 7. +The Mayas. 8. The Muyscas. 9. The Quichuas. 10. The Caribs and Tupis. +11. The Araucanians.--General course of migrations.--Age of man in +America.--Unity of type in the red race 1 + + +CHAPTER II. + +THE IDEA OF GOD. + +An intuition common to the species.--Words expressing it in American +languages derived either from ideas of above in space, or of life +manifested by breath.--Examples.--No conscious monotheism, and but +little idea of immateriality discoverable.--Still less any moral +dualism of deities, the Great Good Spirit and the Great Bad Spirit +being alike terms and notions of foreign importation 43 + + +CHAPTER III. + +THE SACRED NUMBER, ITS ORIGIN AND APPLICATIONS. + +The number Four sacred in all American religions, and the key to their +symbolism.--Derived from the CARDINAL POINTS.--Appears constantly in +government, arts, rites, and myths.--The Cardinal Points identified +with the Four Winds, who in myths are the four ancestors of the human +race, and the four celestial rivers watering the terrestrial +Paradise.--Associations grouped around each Cardinal Point.--From the +number four was derived the symbolic value of the number _Forty_ and +the _Sign of the Cross_ 66 + + +CHAPTER IV. + +THE SYMBOLS OF THE BIRD AND THE SERPENT. + +Relations of man to the lower animals.--Two of these, the BIRD and the +SERPENT, chosen as symbols beyond all others.--The Bird throughout +America the symbol of the Clouds and Winds.--Meaning of certain +species.--The symbolic meaning of the Serpent derived from its mode of +locomotion, its poisonous bite, and its power of charming.--Usually +the symbol of the lightning and the Waters.--The Rattlesnake the +symbolic species in America.--The war charm.--The Cross of +Palenque.--The god of riches.--Both symbols devoid of moral +significance 99 + + +CHAPTER V. + +THE MYTHS OF WATER, FIRE, AND THE THUNDER-STORM. + +Water the oldest element.--Its use in purification.--Holy water.--The +Rite of Baptism.--The Water of Life.--Its symbols.--The Vase.--The +Moon.--The latter the goddess of love and agriculture, but also of +sickness, night, and pain.--Often represented by a dog.--Fire worship +under the form of Sun worship.--The perpetual fire.--The new +fire.--Burning the dead.--A worship of the passions, but no sexual +dualism in myths, nor any phallic worship in America.--Synthesis of +the worship of Fire, Water, and the Winds in the THUNDER-STORM, +personified as Haokah, Tupa, Catequil, Contici, Heno, Tlaloc, +Mixcoatl, and other deities, many of them triune 122 + + +CHAPTER VI. + +THE SUPREME GODS OF THE RED RACE. + +Analysis of American culture myths.--The Manibozho or Michabo of +the Algonkins shown to be an impersonation of LIGHT, a hero of the +Dawn, and their highest deity.--The myths of Ioskeha of the +Iroquois, Viracocha of the Peruvians, and Quetzalcoatl of the +Toltecs essentially the same as that of Michabo.--Other +examples.--Ante-Columbian prophecies of the advent of a white race +from the east as conquerors.--Rise of later culture myths under +similar forms 159 + + +CHAPTER VII. + +THE MYTHS OF THE CREATION, THE DELUGE, THE EPOCHS OF NATURE, AND THE +LAST DAY. + +Cosmogonies usually portray the action of the SPIRIT on the +WATERS.--Those of the Muscogees, Athapascas, Quiches, Mixtecs, +Iroquois, Algonkins, and others.--The Flood-Myth an unconscious +attempt to reconcile a creation in time with the eternity of +matter.--Proof of this from American mythology.--Characteristics of +American Flood-Myths.--The person saved usually the first man.--The +number seven.--Their Ararats.--The role of birds.--The confusion of +tongues.--The Aztec, Quiche, Algonkin, Tupi, and earliest Sanscrit +flood-myths.--The belief in Epochs of Nature a further result of this +attempt at reconciliation.--Its forms among Peruvians, Mayas, and +Aztecs.--The expectation of the End of the World a corollary of this +belief.--Views of various nations 193 + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +THE ORIGIN OF MAN. + +Usually man is the EARTH-BORN, both in language and +myths.--Illustrations from the legends of the Caribs, Apalachians, +Iroquois, Quichuas, Aztecs, and others.--The under-world.--Man the +product of one of the primal creative powers, the Spirit, or the +Water, in the myths of the Athapascas, Eskimos, Moxos, and +others--Never literally derived from an inferior species 222 + + +CHAPTER IX. + +THE SOUL AND ITS DESTINY. + +Universality of the belief in a soul and a future state shown by the +aboriginal tongues, by expressed opinions, and by sepulchral rites. +The future world never a place of rewards and punishments.--The house +of the Son the heaven of the red man.--The terrestrial paradise and +the under-world.--Cupay.--Xibalba.--Mictlan.--Metempsychosis?--Belief +in a resurrection of the dead almost universal 233 + + +CHAPTER X. + +THE NATIVE PRIESTHOOD. + +Their titles.--Practitioners of the healing art by supernatural +means.--Their power derived from natural magic and the exercise of the +clairvoyant and mesmeric faculties.--Examples.--Epidemic +hysteria.--Their social position.--Their duties as religious +functionaries.--Terms of admission to the Priesthood.--Inner +organization in various nations.--Their esoteric language and secret +societies 263 + + +CHAPTER XI. + +THE INFLUENCE OF THE NATIVE RELIGIONS ON THE MORAL +AND SOCIAL LIFE OF THE RACE. + +Natural religions hitherto considered of Evil rather than of +Good.--Distinctions to be drawn.--Morality not derived from +religion.--The positive side of natural religions in incarnations of +divinity.--Examples.--Prayers as indices of religious +progress.--Religion and social advancement.--Conclusion 287 + + + + +THE MYTHS OF THE NEW WORLD. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE RED RACE. + + Natural religions the unaided attempts of man to find out God, + modified by peculiarities of race and nation.--The peculiarities of + the red race: 1. Its languages unfriendly to abstract ideas. Native + modes of writing by means of pictures, symbols, objects, and + phonetic signs. These various methods compared in their influence + on the intellectual faculties. 2. Its isolation, unique in the + history of the world. 3. Beyond all others, a hunting + race.--Principal linguistic subdivisions: 1. The Eskimos. 2. The + Athapascas. 3. The Algonkins and Iroquois. 4. The Apalachian + tribes. 5. The Dakotas. 6. The Aztecs. 7. The Mayas. 8. The + Muyscas. 9. The Quichuas. 10. The Caribs and Tupis. 11. The + Araucanians.--General course of migrations.--Age of man in + America.--Unity of type in the red race. + + +When Paul, at the request of the philosophers of Athens, explained to +them his views on divine things, he asserted, among other startling +novelties, that "God has made of one blood all nations of the earth, +that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him and +find him, though he is not far from every one of us." + +Here was an orator advocating the unity of the human species, affirming +that the chief end of man is to develop an innate idea of God, and that +all religions, except the one he preached, were examples of more or +less unsuccessful attempts to do so. No wonder the Athenians, who +acknowledged no kinship to barbarians, who looked dubiously at the +doctrine of innate ideas, and were divided in opinion as to whether +their mythology was a shrewd device of legislators to keep the populace +in subjection, a veiled natural philosophy, or the celestial reflex of +their own history, mocked at such a babbler and went their ways. The +generations of philosophers that followed them partook of their doubts +and approved their opinions, quite down to our own times. But now, after +weighing the question maturely, we are compelled to admit that the +Apostle was not so wide of the mark after all--that, in fact, the latest +and best authorities, with no bias in his favor, support his position +and may almost be said to paraphrase his words. For according to a +writer who ranks second to none in the science of ethnology, the +severest and most recent investigations show that "not only do +acknowledged facts permit the assumption of the unity of the human +species, but this opinion is attended with fewer discrepancies, and has +greater inner consistency than the opposite one of specific +diversity."[2-1] And as to the religions of heathendom, the view of +Saint Paul is but expressed with a more poetic turn by a distinguished +living author when he calls them "not fables, but truths, though clothed +in a garb woven by fancy, wherein the web is the notion of God, the +ideal of reason in the soul of man, the thought of the Infinite."[2-2] + +Inspiration and science unite therefore to bid us dismiss the effete +prejudice that natural religions either arise as the ancient +philosophies taught, or that they are, as the Dark Ages imagined, subtle +nets of the devil spread to catch human souls. They are rather the +unaided attempts of man to find out God; they are the efforts of the +reason struggling to define the infinite; they are the expressions of +that "yearning after the gods" which the earliest of poets discerned in +the hearts of all men. Studied in this sense they are rich in teachings. +Would we estimate the intellectual and aesthetic culture of a people, +would we generalize the laws of progress, would we appreciate the +sublimity of Christianity, and read the seals of its authenticity: the +natural conceptions of divinity reveal them. No mythologies are so +crude, therefore, none so barbarous, but deserve the attention of the +philosophic mind, for they are never the empty fictions of an idle +fancy, but rather the utterances, however inarticulate, of an immortal +and ubiquitous intuition. + +These considerations embolden me to approach with some confidence even +the aboriginal religions of America, so often stigmatized as incoherent +fetichisms, so barren, it has been said, in grand or beautiful +creations. The task bristles with difficulties. Carelessness, +prepossessions, and ignorance have disfigured them with false colors and +foreign additions without number. The first maxim, therefore, must be to +sift and scrutinize authorities, and to reject whatever betrays the +plastic hand of the European. For the religions developed by the red +race, not those mixed creeds learned from foreign invaders, are to be +the subjects of our study. Then will remain the formidable undertaking +of reducing the authentic materials thus obtained to system and order, +and this not by any preconceived theory of what they ought to conform +to, but learning from them the very laws of religious growth they +illustrate. The historian traces the birth of arts, science, and +government to man's dependence on nature and his fellows for the means +of self-preservation. Not that man receives these endowments from +without, but that the stern step-mother, Nature, forces him by threats +and stripes to develop his own inherent faculties. So with religion: The +idea of God does not, and cannot, proceed from the external world, but, +nevertheless, it finds its _historical_ origin also in the desperate +struggle for life, in the satisfaction of the animal wants and passions, +in those vulgar aims and motives which possessed the mind of the +primitive man to the exclusion of everything else. + +There is an ever present embarrassment in such inquiries. In dealing +with these matters beyond the cognizance of the senses, the mind is +forced to express its meaning in terms transferred from sensuous +perceptions, or under symbols borrowed from the material world. These +transfers must be understood, these symbols explained, before the real +meaning of a myth can be reached. He who fails to guess the riddle of +the sphynx, need not hope to gain admittance to the shrine. With +delicate ear the faint whispers of thought must be apprehended which +prompt the intellect when it names the immaterial from the material; +when it chooses from the infinity of visible forms those meet to shadow +forth Divinity. + +Two lights will guide us on this venturesome path. Mindful of the +watchword of inductive science, to proceed from the known to the +unknown, the inquiry will be put whether the aboriginal languages of +America employ the same tropes to express such ideas as deity, spirit, +and soul, as our own and kindred tongues. If the answer prove +affirmative, then not only have we gained a firm foothold whence to +survey the whole edifice of their mythology; but from an unexpected +quarter arises evidence of the unity of our species far weightier than +any mere anatomy can furnish, evidence from the living soul, not from +the dead body. True that the science of American linguistics is still in +its infancy, and that a proper handling of the materials it even now +offers involves a more critical acquaintance with its innumerable +dialects than I possess; but though the gleaning be sparse, it is enough +that I break the ground. Secondly, religious rites are living +commentaries on religious beliefs. At first they are rude +representations of the supposed doings of the gods. The Indian +rain-maker mounts to the roof of his hut, and rattling vigorously a dry +gourd containing pebbles, to represent the thunder, scatters water +through a reed on the ground beneath, as he imagines up above in the +clouds do the spirits of the storm. Every spring in ancient Delphi was +repeated in scenic ceremony the combat of Apollo and the Dragon, the +victory of the lord of bright summer over the demon of chilling winter. +Thus do forms and ceremonies reveal the meaning of mythology, and the +origin of its fables. + +Let it not be objected that this proposed method of analysis assumes +that religions begin and develop under the operation of inflexible laws. +The soul is shackled by no fatalism. Formative influences there are, +deep seated, far reaching, escaped by few, but like those which of yore +astrologers imputed to the stars, they potently incline, they do not +coerce. Language, pursuits, habits, geographical position, and those +subtle mental traits which make up the characteristics of races and +nations, all tend to deflect from a given standard the religious life of +the individual and the mass. It is essential to give these due weight, +and a necessary preface therefore to an analysis of the myths of the red +race is an enumeration of its peculiarities, and of its chief families +as they were located when first known to the historian. + +Of all such modifying circumstances none has greater importance than the +means of expressing and transmitting intellectual action. The spoken and +the written language of a nation reveal to us its prevailing, and to a +certain degree its unavoidable mode of thought. Here the red race offers +a striking phenomenon. There is no other trait that binds together its +scattered clans, and brands them as members of one great family, so +unmistakably as this of language. From the Frozen Ocean to the Land of +Fire, without a single exception, the native dialects, though varying +infinitely in words, are marked by a peculiarity in construction which +is found nowhere else on the globe,[6-1] and which is so foreign to the +genius of _our_ tongue that it is no easy matter to explain it. It is +called by philologists the _polysynthetic_ construction. What it is will +best appear by comparison. Every grammatical sentence conveys one +leading idea with its modifications and relations. Now a Chinese would +express these latter by unconnected syllables, the precise bearing of +which could only be guessed by their position; a Greek or a German would +use independent words, indicating their relations by terminations +meaningless in themselves; an Englishman gains the same end chiefly by +the use of particles and by position. Very different from all these is +the spirit of a polysynthetic language. It seeks to unite in the most +intimate manner all relations and modifications with the leading idea, +to merge one in the other by altering the forms of the words themselves +and welding them together, to express the whole in one word, and to +banish any conception except as it arises in relation to others. Thus in +many American tongues there is, in fact, no word for father, mother, +brother, but only for my, your, his father, etc. This has advantages and +defects. It offers marvellous facilities for defining the perceptions of +the senses with the utmost accuracy, but regarding everything in the +concrete, it is unfriendly to the nobler labors of the mind, to +abstraction and generalization. In the numberless changes of these +languages, their bewildering flexibility, their variable forms, and +their rapid deterioration, they seem to betray a lack of individuality, +and to resemble the vague and tumultuous history of the tribes who +employ them. They exhibit an almost incredible laxity. It is nothing +uncommon for the two sexes to use different names for the same object, +and for nobles and vulgar, priests and people, the old and the young, +nay, even the married and single, to observe what seem to the European +ear quite different modes of expression. Families and whole villages +suddenly drop words and manufacture others in their places out of mere +caprice or superstition, and a few years' separation suffices to produce +a marked dialectic difference. In their copious forms and facility of +reproduction they remind one of those anomalous animals, in whom, when a +limb is lopped, it rapidly grows again, or even if cut in pieces each +part will enter on a separate life quite unconcerned about his fellows. +But as the naturalist is far from regarding this superabundant vitality +as a characteristic of a higher type, so the philologist justly assigns +these tongues a low position in the linguistic scale. Fidelity to form, +here as everywhere, is the test of excellence. At the outset, we divine +there can be nothing very subtle in the mythologies of nations with such +languages. Much there must be that will be obscure, much that is vague, +an exhausting variety in repetition, and a strong tendency to lose the +idea in the symbol. + +What definiteness of outline might be preserved must depend on the care +with which the old stories of the gods were passed from one person and +one generation to another. The fundamental myths of a race have a +surprising tenacity of life. How many centuries had elapsed between the +period the Germanic hordes left their ancient homes in Central Asia, and +when Tacitus listened to their wild songs on the banks of the Rhine? Yet +we know that through those unnumbered ages of barbarism and aimless +roving, these songs, "their only sort of history or annals," says the +historian, had preserved intact the story of Mannus, the Sanscrit Manu, +and his three sons, and of the great god Tuisco, the Indian Dyu.[9-1] So +much the more do all means invented by the red race to record and +transmit thought merit our careful attention. Few and feeble they seem +to us, mainly shifts to aid the memory. Of some such, perhaps, not a +single tribe was destitute. The tattoo marks on the warrior's breast, +his string of gristly scalps, the bear's claws around his neck, were not +only trophies of his prowess, but records of his exploits, and to the +contemplative mind contain the rudiments of the beneficent art of +letters. Did he draw in rude outline on his skin tent figures of men +transfixed with arrows as many as he had slain enemies, his education +was rapidly advancing. He had mastered the elements of _picture +writing_, beyond which hardly the wisest of his race progressed. Figures +of the natural objects connected by symbols having fixed meanings make +up the whole of this art. The relative frequency of the latter marks its +advancement from a merely figurative to an ideographic notation. On what +principle of mental association a given sign was adopted to express a +certain idea, why, for instance, on the Chipeway scrolls a circle means +_spirits_, and a horned snake _life_, it is often hard to guess. The +difficulty grows when we find that to the initiated the same sign calls +up quite different ideas, as the subject of the writer varies from war +to love, or from the chase to religion. The connection is generally +beyond the power of divination, and the key to ideographic writing once +lost can never be recovered. + +The number of such arbitrary characters in the Chipeway notation is said +to be over two hundred, but if the distinction between a figure and a +symbol were rigidly applied, it would be much reduced. This kind of +writing, if it deserves the name, was common throughout the continent, +and many specimens of it, scratched on the plane surfaces of stones, +have been preserved to the present day. Such is the once celebrated +inscription on Dighton Rock, Massachusetts, long supposed to be a record +of the Northmen of Vinland; such those that mark the faces of the cliffs +which overhang the waters of the Orinoco, and those that in Oregon, +Peru, and La Plata have been the subject of much curious speculation. +They are alike the mute and meaningless epitaphs of vanished +generations. + +I would it could be said that in favorable contrast to our ignorance of +these inscriptions is our comprehension of the highly wrought +pictography of the Aztecs. No nation ever reduced it more to a system. +It was in constant use in the daily transactions of life. They +manufactured for writing purposes a thick, coarse paper from the leaves +of the agave plant by a process of maceration and pressure. An Aztec +book closely resembles one of our quarto volumes. It is made of a +single sheet, twelve to fifteen inches wide, and often sixty or seventy +feet long, and is not rolled, but folded either in squares or zigzags in +such a manner that on opening it there are two pages exposed to view. +Thin wooden boards are fastened to each of the outer leaves, so that the +whole presents as neat an appearance, remarks Peter Martyr, as if it had +come from the shop of a skilful bookbinder. They also covered buildings, +tapestries, and scrolls of parchment with these devices, and for +trifling transactions were familiar with the use of _slates_ of soft +stone from which the figures could readily be erased with water.[11-1] +What is still more astonishing, there is reason to believe, in some +instances, their figures were not painted, but actually _printed_ with +movable blocks of wood on which the symbols were carved in relief, +though this was probably confined to those intended for ornament only. + +In these records we discern something higher than a mere symbolic +notation. They contain the germ of a phonetic alphabet, and represent +sounds of spoken language. The symbol is often not connected with the +_idea_ but with the _word_. The mode in which this is done corresponds +precisely to that of the rebus. It is a simple method, readily +suggesting itself. In the middle ages it was much in vogue in Europe for +the same purpose for which it was chiefly employed in Mexico at the same +time--the writing of proper names. For example, the English family +Bolton was known in heraldry by a _tun_ transfixed by a _bolt_. +Precisely so the Mexican emperor Ixcoatl is mentioned in the Aztec +manuscripts under the figure of a serpent _coatl_, pierced by obsidian +knives _ixtli_, and Moquauhzoma by a mouse-trap _montli_, an eagle +_quauhtli_, a lancet _zo_, and a hand _maitl_. As a syllable could be +expressed by any object whose name commenced with it, as few words can +be given the form of a rebus without some change, as the figures +sometimes represent their full phonetic value, sometimes only that of +their initial sound, and as universally the attention of the artist was +directed less to the sound than to the idea, the didactic painting of +the Mexicans, whatever it might have been to them, is a sealed book to +us, and must remain so in great part. Moreover, it is entirely +undetermined whether it should be read from the first to the last page, +or _vice versa_, whether from right to left or from left to right, from +bottom to top or from top to bottom, around the edges of the page toward +the centre, or each line in the opposite direction from the preceding +one. There are good authorities for all these methods,[12-1] and they +may all be correct, for there is no evidence that any fixed rule had +been laid down in this respect. + +Immense masses of such documents were stored in the imperial archives of +ancient Mexico. Torquemada asserts that five cities alone yielded to the +Spanish governor on one requisition no less than sixteen thousand +volumes or scrolls! Every leaf was destroyed. Indeed, so thorough and +wholesale was the destruction of these memorials now so precious in our +eyes that hardly enough remain to whet the wits of antiquaries. In the +libraries of Paris, Dresden, Pesth, and the Vatican are, however, a +sufficient number to make us despair of deciphering them had we for +comparison all which the Spaniards destroyed. + +Beyond all others the Mayas, resident on the peninsula of Yucatan, would +seem to have approached nearest a true phonetic system. They had a +regular and well understood alphabet of twenty seven elementary sounds, +the letters of which are totally different from those of any other +nation, and evidently original with themselves. But besides these they +used a large number of purely conventional symbols, and moreover were +accustomed constantly to employ the ancient pictographic method in +addition as a sort of commentary on the sound represented. What is more +curious, if the obscure explanation of an ancient writer can be depended +upon, they not only aimed to employ an alphabet after the manner of +ours, but to express the sound absolutely like our phonographic signs +do.[13-1] With the aid of this alphabet, which has fortunately been +preserved, we are enabled to spell out a few words on the Yucatecan +manuscripts and facades, but thus far with no positive results. The loss +of the ancient pronunciation is especially in the way of such studies. + +In South America, also, there is said to have been a nation who +cultivated the art of picture writing, the Panos, on the river Ucayale. +A missionary, Narcisso Gilbar by name, once penetrated, with great toil, +to one of their villages. As he approached he beheld a venerable man +seated under the shade of a palm tree, with a great book open before him +from which he was reading to an attentive circle of auditors the wars +and wanderings of their forefathers. With difficulty the priest got a +sight of the precious volume, and found it covered with figures and +signs in marvellous symmetry and order.[14-1] No wonder such a romantic +scene left a deep impression on his memory. + +The Peruvians adopted a totally different and unique system of records, +that by means of the _quipu_. This was a base cord, the thickness of the +finger, of any required length, to which were attached numerous small +strings of different colors, lengths, and textures, variously knotted +and twisted one with another. Each of these peculiarities represented a +certain number, a quality, quantity, or other idea, but _what_, not the +most fluent _quipu_ reader could tell unless he was acquainted with the +general topic treated of. Therefore, whenever news was sent in this +manner a person accompanied the bearer to serve as verbal commentator, +and to prevent confusion the _quipus_ relating to the various +departments of knowledge were placed in separate storehouses, one for +war, another for taxes, a third for history, and so forth. On what +principle or mnemotechnics the ideas were connected with the knots and +colors we are totally in the dark; it has even been doubted whether they +had any application beyond the art of numeration.[14-2] Each combination +had, however, a fixed ideographic value in a certain branch of +knowledge, and thus the _quipu_ differed essentially from the Catholic +rosary, the Jewish phylactery, or the knotted strings of the natives of +North America and Siberia, to all of which it has at times been +compared. + +The _wampum_ used by the tribes of the north Atlantic coast was, in many +respects, analogous to the quipu. In early times it was composed chiefly +of bits of wood of equal size, but different colors. These were hung on +strings which were woven into belts and bands, the hues, shapes, sizes, +and combinations of the strings hinting their general significance. Thus +the lighter shades were invariable harbingers of peaceful or pleasant +tidings, while the darker portended war and danger. The substitution of +beads or shells in place of wood, and the custom of embroidering figures +in the belts were, probably, introduced by European influence. + +Besides these, various simpler mnemonic aids were employed, such as +parcels of reeds of different lengths, notched sticks, knots in cords, +strings of pebbles or fruit-stones, circular pieces of wood or slabs +pierced with different figures which the English liken to "cony holes," +and at a victory, a treaty, or the founding of a village, sometimes a +pillar or heap of stones was erected equalling in number the persons +present at the occasion, or the number of the fallen. + +This exhausts the list. All other methods of writing, the hieroglyphs of +the Micmacs of Acadia, the syllabic alphabet of the Cherokees, the +pretended traces of Greek, Hebrew, and Celtiberic letters which have +from time to time been brought to the notice of the public, have been +without exception the products of foreign civilization or simply frauds. +Not a single coin, inscription, or memorial of any kind whatever, has +been found on the American continent showing the existence, either +generally or locally, of any other means of writing than those +specified. + +Poor as these substitutes for a developed phonetic system seem to us, +they were of great value to the uncultivated man. In his legends their +introduction is usually ascribed to some heaven-sent benefactor, the +antique characters were jealously adhered to, and the pictured scroll of +bark, the quipu ball, the belt of wampum, were treasured with provident +care, and their import minutely expounded to the most intelligent of the +rising generation. In all communities beyond the stage of barbarism a +class of persons was set apart for this duty and no other. Thus, for +example, in ancient Peru, one college of priests styled _amauta_, +learned, had exclusive charge over the quipus containing the +mythological and historical traditions; a second, the _haravecs_, +singers, devoted themselves to those referring to the national ballads +and dramas; while a third occupied their time solely with those +pertaining to civil affairs. Such custodians preserved and prepared the +archives, learned by heart with their aid what their fathers knew, and +in some countries, as, for instance, among the Panos mentioned above, +and the Quiches of Guatemala,[16-1] repeated portions of them at times +to the assembled populace. It has even been averred by one of their +converted chiefs, long a missionary to his fellows, that the Chipeways +of Lake Superior have a college composed of ten "of the wisest and most +venerable of their nation," who have in charge the pictured records +containing the ancient history of their tribe. These are kept in an +underground chamber, and are disinterred every fifteen years by the +assembled guardians, that they may be repaired, and their contents +explained to new members of the society.[17-1] + +In spite of these precautions, the end seems to have been very +imperfectly attained. The most distinguished characters, the weightiest +events in national history faded into oblivion after a few generations. +The time and circumstances of the formation of the league of the Five +Nations, the dispersion of the mound builders of the Ohio valley in the +fifteenth century, the chronicles of Peru or Mexico beyond a century or +two anterior to the conquest, are preserved in such a vague and +contradictory manner that they have slight value as history. Their +mythology fared somewhat better, for not only was it kept fresh in the +memory by frequent repetition; but being itself founded in nature, it +was constantly nourished by the truths which gave it birth. +Nevertheless, we may profit by the warning to remember that their myths +are myths only, and not the reflections of history or heroes. + +Rising from these details to a general comparison of the symbolic and +phonetic systems in their reactions on the mind, the most obvious are +their contrasted effects on the faculty of memory. Letters represent +elementary sounds, which are few in any language, while symbols stand +for ideas, and they are numerically infinite. The transmission of +knowledge by means of the latter is consequently attended with most +disproportionate labor. It is almost as if we could quote nothing from +an author unless we could recollect his exact words. We have a right to +look for excellent memories where such a mode is in vogue, and in the +present instance we are not disappointed. "These savages," exclaims La +Hontan, "have the happiest memories in the world!" It was etiquette at +their councils for each speaker to repeat verbatim all his predecessors +had said, and the whites were often astonished and confused at the +verbal fidelity with which the natives recalled the transactions of long +past treaties. Their songs were inexhaustible. An instance is on record +where an Indian sang two hundred on various subjects.[18-1] Such a fact +reminds us of a beautiful expression of the elder Humboldt: "Man," he +says, "regarded as an animal, belongs to one of the singing species; but +his notes are always associated with ideas." The youth who were educated +at the public schools of ancient Mexico--for that realm, so far from +neglecting the cause of popular education, established houses for +gratuitous instruction, and to a certain extent made the attendance upon +them obligatory--learned by rote long orations, poems, and prayers with +a facility astonishing to the conquerors, and surpassing anything they +were accustomed to see in the universities of Old Spain. A phonetic +system actually weakens the retentive powers of the mind by offering a +more facile plan for preserving thought. "_Ce que je mets sur papier, je +remets de ma memoire_" is an expression of old Montaigne which he could +never have used had he employed ideographic characters. + +Memory, however, is of far less importance than a free activity of +thought, untrammelled by forms or precedents, and ever alert to novel +combinations of ideas. Give a race this and it will guide it to +civilization as surely as the needle directs the ship to its haven. It +is here that ideographic writing reveals its fatal inferiority. It is +forever specifying, materializing, dealing in minutiae. In the Egyptian +symbolic alphabet there is a figure for a virgin, another for a married +woman, for a widow without offspring, for a widow with one child, two +children, and I know not in how many other circumstances, but for +_woman_ there is no sign. It must be so in the nature of things, for the +symbol represents the object as it appears or is fancied to appear, and +not as it is _thought_. Furthermore, the constant learning by heart +infallibly leads to slavish repetition and mental servility. + +A symbol when understood is independent of language, and is as +universally current as an Arabic numeral. But this divorce of spoken and +written language is of questionable advantage. It at once destroys all +permanent improvement in a tongue through elegance of style, sonorous +periods, or delicacy of expression, and the life of the language itself +is weakened when its forms are left to fluctuate uncontrolled. Written +poetry, grammar, rhetoric, all are impossible to the student who draws +his knowledge from such a source. + +Finally, it has been justly observed by the younger Humboldt that the +painful fidelity to the antique figures transmitted from barbarous to +polished generations is injurious to the aesthetic sense, and dulls the +mind to the beautiful in art and nature. + +The transmission of thought by figures and symbols would, on the whole, +therefore, foster those narrow and material tendencies which the genius +of polysynthetic languages would seem calculated to produce. Its one +redeeming trait of strengthening the memory will serve to explain the +strange tenacity with which certain myths have been preserved through +widely dispersed families, as we shall hereafter see. + +Besides this of language there are two traits in the history of the red +man without parallel in that of any other variety of our species which +has achieved any notable progress in civilization. + +The one is his _isolation_. Cut off time out of mind from the rest of +the world, he never underwent those crossings of blood and culture which +so modified and on the whole promoted the growth of the old world +nationalities. In his own way he worked out his own destiny, and what he +won was his with a more than ordinary right of ownership. For all those +old dreams of the advent of the Ten Lost Tribes, of Buddhist priests, of +Welsh princes, or of Phenician merchants on American soil, and there +exerting a permanent influence, have been consigned to the dustbin by +every unbiased student, and when we see such men as Mr. Schoolcraft and +the Abbe E. C. Brasseur essaying to resuscitate them, we regretfully +look upon it in the light of a literary anachronism. + +The second trait is the entire absence of the herdsman's life with its +softening associations. Throughout the continent there is not a single +authentic instance of a pastoral tribe, not one of an animal raised for +its milk,[21-1] nor for the transportation of persons, and very few for +their flesh. It was essentially a hunting race. The most civilized +nations looked to the chase for their chief supply of meat, and the +courts of Cuzco and Mexico enacted stringent game and forest laws, and +at certain periods the whole population turned out for a general crusade +against the denizens of the forest. In the most densely settled +districts the conquerors found vast stretches of primitive woods. + +If we consider the life of a hunter, pitting his skill and strength +against the marvellous instincts and quick perceptions of the brute, +training his senses to preternatural acuteness, but blunting his more +tender feelings, his sole aim to shed blood and take life, dependent on +luck for his food, exposed to deprivations, storms, and long +wanderings, his chief diet flesh, we may more readily comprehend that +conspicuous disregard of human suffering, those sanguinary rites, that +vindictive spirit, that inappeasable restlessness, which we so often +find in the chronicles of ancient America. The law with reason objects +to accepting a butcher as a juror on a trial for life; here is a whole +race of butchers. + +The one mollifying element was agriculture. On the altar of Mixcoatl, +god of hunting, the Aztec priest tore the heart from the human victim +and smeared with the spouting blood the snake that coiled its lengths +around the idol; flowers and fruits, yellow ears of maize and clusters +of rich bananas decked the shrine of Centeotl, beneficent patroness of +agriculture, and bloodless offerings alone were her appropriate dues. +This shows how clear, even to the native mind, was the contrast between +these two modes of subsistence. By substituting a sedentary for a +wandering life, by supplying a fixed dependence for an uncertain +contingency, and by admonishing man that in preservation, not in +destruction, lies his most remunerative sphere of activity, we can +hardly estimate too highly the wide distribution of the zea mays. This +was their only cereal, and it was found in cultivation from the southern +extremity of Chili to the fiftieth parallel of north latitude, beyond +which limits the low temperature renders it an uncertain crop. In their +legends it is represented as the gift of the Great Spirit (Chipeways), +brought from the terrestrial Paradise by the sacred animals (Quiches), +and symbolically the mother of the race (Nahuas), and the material from +which was moulded the first of men (Quiches). + +As the races, so the great families of man who speak dialects of the +same tongue are, in a sense, individuals, bearing each its own +physiognomy. When the whites first heard the uncouth gutturals of the +Indians, they frequently proclaimed that hundreds of radically diverse +languages, invented, it was piously suggested, by the Devil for the +annoyance of missionaries, prevailed over the continent. Earnest +students of such matters--Vater, Duponceau, Gallatin, and +Buschmann--have, however, demonstrated that nine-tenths of the area of +America, at its discovery, were occupied by tribes using dialects +traceable to ten or a dozen primitive stems. The names of these, their +geographical position in the sixteenth century, and, so far as it is +safe to do so, their individual character, I shall briefly mention. + +Fringing the shores of the Northern Ocean from Mount St. Elias on the +west to the Gulf of St. Lawrence on the east, rarely seen a hundred +miles from the coast, were the Eskimos.[23-1] They are the connecting +link between the races of the Old and New Worlds, in physical appearance +and mental traits more allied to the former, but in language betraying +their near kinship to the latter. An amphibious race, born fishermen, in +their buoyant skin kayaks they brave fearlessly the tempests, make long +voyages, and merit the sobriquet bestowed upon them by Von Baer, "the +Phenicians of the north." Contrary to what one might suppose, they are, +amid their snows, a contented, light-hearted people, knowing no longing +for a sunnier clime, given to song, music, and merry tales. They are +cunning handicraftsmen to a degree, but withal wholly ingulfed in a +sensuous existence. The desperate struggle for life engrosses them, and +their mythology is barren. + +South of them, extending in a broad band across the continent from +Hudson's Bay to the Pacific, and almost to the Great Lakes below, is the +Athapascan stock. Its affiliated tribes rove far north to the mouth of +the Mackenzie River, and wandering still more widely in an opposite +direction along both declivities of the Rocky Mountains, people portions +of the coast of Oregon south of the mouth of the Columbia, and spreading +over the plains of New Mexico under the names of Apaches, Navajos, and +Lipans, almost reach the tropics at the delta of the Rio Grande del +Norte, and on the shores of the Gulf of California. No wonder they +deserted their fatherland and forgot it altogether, for it is a very +_terra damnata_, whose wretched inhabitants are cut off alike from the +harvest of the sea and the harvest of the soil. The profitable culture of +maize does not extend beyond the fiftieth parallel of latitude, and less +than seven degrees farther north the mean annual temperature everywhere +east of the mountains sinks below the freezing point.[25-1] Agriculture +is impossible, and the only chance for life lies in the uncertain +fortunes of the chase and the penurious gifts of an arctic flora. The +denizens of these wilds are abject, slovenly, hopelessly savage, "at the +bottom of the scale of humanity in North America," says Dr. Richardson, +and their relatives who have wandered to the more genial climes of the +south are as savage as they, as perversely hostile to a sedentary life, +as gross and narrow in their moral notions. This wide-spread stock, +scattered over forty-five degrees of latitude, covering thousands of +square leagues, reaching from the Arctic Ocean to the confines of the +empire of the Montezumas, presents in all its subdivisions the same +mental physiognomy and linguistic peculiarities.[25-2] + +Best known to us of all the Indians are the Algonkins and Iroquois, who, +at the time of the discovery, were the sole possessors of the region now +embraced by Canada and the eastern United States north of the +thirty-fifth parallel. The latter, under the names of the Five Nations, +Hurons, Tuscaroras, Susquehannocks, Nottoways and others, occupied much +of the soil from the St. Lawrence and Lake Ontario to the Roanoke, and +perhaps the Cherokees, whose homes were in the secluded vales of East +Tennessee, were one of their early offshoots.[25-3] They were a race of +warriors, courageous, cruel, unimaginative, but of rare political +sagacity. They are more like ancient Romans than Indians, and are leading +figures in the colonial wars. + +The Algonkins surrounded them on every side, occupying the rest of the +region mentioned and running westward to the base of the Rocky +Mountains, where one of their famous bands, the Blackfeet, still hunts +over the valley of the Saskatchewan. They were more genial than the +Iroquois, of milder manners and more vivid fancy, and were regarded by +these with a curious mixture of respect and contempt. Some writer has +connected this difference with their preference for the open prairie +country in contrast to the endless and sombre forests where were the +homes of the Iroquois. Their history abounds in great men, whose +ambitious plans were foiled by the levity of their allies and their want +of persistence. They it was who under King Philip fought the Puritan +fathers; who at the instigation of Pontiac doomed to death every white +trespasser on their soil; who led by Tecumseh and Black Hawk gathered +the clans of the forest and mountain for the last pitched battle of the +races in the Mississippi valley. To them belonged the mild mannered +Lenni Lenape, who little foreboded the hand of iron that grasped their +own so softly under the elm tree of Shackamaxon, to them the restless +Shawnee, the gypsy of the wilderness, the Chipeways of Lake Superior, +and also to them the Indian girl Pocahontas, who in the legend averted +from the head of the white man the blow which, rebounding, swept away +her father and all his tribe.[27-1] + +Between their southernmost outposts and the Gulf of Mexico were a number +of clans, mostly speaking the Muscogee tongue, Creeks, Choctaws, +Chikasaws, and others, in later times summed up as Apalachian Indians, +but by early writers sometimes referred to as "The Empire of the +Natchez." For tradition says that long ago this small tribe, whose home +was in the Big Black country, was at the head of a loose confederation +embracing most of the nations from the Atlantic coast quite into Texas; +and adds that the expedition of De Soto severed its lax bonds and shook +it irremediably into fragments. Whether this is worth our credence or +not, the comparative civilization of the Natchez, and the analogy their +language bears to that of the Mayas of Yucatan, the builders of those +ruined cities which Stephens and Catherwood have made so familiar to the +world, attach to them a peculiar interest.[27-2] + +North of the Arkansas River on the right bank of the Mississippi, quite +to its source, stretching over to Lake Michigan at Green Bay, and up the +valley of the Missouri west to the mountains, resided the Dakotas, an +erratic folk, averse to agriculture, but daring hunters and bold +warriors, tall and strong of body.[28-1] Their religious notions have +been carefully studied, and as they are remarkably primitive and +transparent, they will often be referred to. The Sioux and the +Winnebagoes are well-known branches of this family. + +We have seen that Dr. Richardson assigned to a portion of the Athapascas +the lowest place among North American tribes, but there are some in New +Mexico who might contest the sad distinction, the Root Diggers, +Comanches and others, members of the Snake or Shoshonee family, +scattered extensively northwest of Mexico. It has been said of a part of +these that they are "nearer the brutes than probably any other portion +of the human race on the face of the globe."[28-2] Their habits in some +respects are more brutish than those of any brute, for there is no +limit to man's moral descent or ascent, and the observer might well be +excused for doubting whether such a stock ever had a history in the +past, or the possibility of one in the future. Yet these debased +creatures speak a related dialect, and are beyond a doubt largely of the +same blood as the famous Aztec race, who founded the empire of Anahuac, +and raised architectural monuments rivalling the most famous structures +of the ancient world. This great family, whose language has been traced +from Nicaragua to Vancouver's Island, and whose bold intellects colored +all the civilization of the northern continent, was composed in that +division of it found in New Spain chiefly of two bands, the Toltecs, +whose traditions point to the mountain ranges of Guatemala as their +ancient seat, and the Nahuas, who claim to have come at a later period +from the northwest coast, and together settled in and near the valley of +Mexico.[29-1] Outlying colonies on the shore of Lake Nicaragua and in +the mountains of Vera Paz rose to a civilization that rivalled that of +the Montezumas, while others remained in utter barbarism in the far +north. + +The Aztecs not only conquered a Maya colony, and founded the empire of +the Quiches in Central America, a complete body of whose mythology has +been brought to light in late years, but seem to have made a marked +imprint on the Mayas themselves. These possessed, as has already been +said, the peninsula of Yucatan. There is some reason to suppose they +came thither originally from the Greater Antilles, and none to doubt but +that the Huastecas who lived on the river Panuco and the Natchez of +Louisiana were offshoots from them. Their language is radically distinct +from that of the Aztecs, but their calendar and a portion of their +mythology are common property. They seem an ancient race of mild manners +and considerable polish. No American nation offers a more promising +field for study. Their stone temples still bear testimony to their +uncommon skill in the arts. A trustworthy tradition dates the close of +the golden age of Yucatan a century anterior to its discovery by +Europeans. Previously it had been one kingdom, under one ruler, and +prolonged peace had fostered the growth of the fine arts; but when +their capital Mayapan fell, internal dissensions ruined most of their +cities. + +No connection whatever has been shown between the civilization of North +and South America. In the latter continent it was confined to two +totally foreign tribes, the Muyscas, whose empire, called that of the +Zacs, was in the neighborhood of Bogota, and the Peruvians, who in their +two related divisions of Quichuas and Aymaras extended their language +and race along the highlands of the Cordilleras from the equator to the +thirtieth degree of south latitude. Lake Titicaca seems to have been the +cradle of their civilization, offering another example how inland seas +and well-watered plains favor the change from a hunting to an +agricultural life. These four nations, the Aztecs, the Mayas, the +Muyscas and the Peruvians, developed spontaneously and independently +under the laws of human progress what civilization was found among the +red race. They owed nothing to Asiatic or European teachers. The Incas +it was long supposed spoke a language of their own, and this has been +thought evidence of foreign extraction; but Wilhelm von Humboldt has +shown conclusively that it was but a dialect of the common tongue of +their country.[31-1] + +When Columbus first touched the island of Cuba, he was regaled with +horrible stories of one-eyed monsters who dwelt on the other islands, +but plundered indiscriminately on every hand. These turned out to be the +notorious Caribs, whose other name, _Cannibals_, has descended as a +common noun to our language, expressive of one of their inhuman +practices. They had at that time seized many of the Antilles, and had +gained a foothold on the coast of Honduras and Darien, but pointed for +their home to the mainland of South America. This they possessed along +the whole northern shore, inland at least as far as the south bank of +the Amazon, and west nearly to the Cordilleras. It is still an open +question whether the Tupis and Guaranis who inhabit the vast region +between the Amazon and the Pampas of Buenos Ayres are affined to them. +The traveller D'Orbigny zealously maintains the affirmative, and there +is certainly some analogy of language, but withal an inexplicable +contrast of character. The latter were, and are, in the main, a +peaceable, inoffensive, apathetic set, dull and unambitious, while the +Caribs won a terrible renown as bold warriors, daring navigators, +skilful in handicrafts; and their poisoned arrows, cruel and disgusting +habits, and enterprise, rendered them a terror and a by-word for +generations.[32-1] + +Our information of the natives of the Pampas, Patagonia, and the Land of +Fire, is too vague to permit their positive identification with the +Araucanians of Chili; but there is much to render the view plausible. +Certain physical peculiarities, a common unconquerable love of freedom, +and a delight in war, bring them together, and at the same time place +them both in strong contrast to their northern neighbors.[33-1] + +There are many tribes whose affinities remain to be decided, especially +on the Pacific coast. The lack of inland water communication, the +difficult nature of the soil, and perhaps the greater antiquity of the +population there, seem to have isolated and split up beyond recognition +the indigenous families on that shore of the continent; while the great +river systems and broad plains of the Atlantic slope facilitated +migration and intercommunication, and thus preserved national +distinctions over thousands of square leagues. + +These natural features of the continent, compared with the actual +distribution of languages, offer our only guides in forming an opinion +as to the migrations of these various families in ancient times. Their +traditions, take even the most cultivated, are confused, contradictory, +and in great part manifestly fabulous. To construct from them by means +of daring combinations and forced interpretations a connected account of +the race during the centuries preceding Columbus were with the aid of a +vivid fancy an easy matter, but would be quite unworthy the name of +history. The most that can be said with certainty is that the general +course of migrations in both Americas was from the high latitudes toward +the tropics, and from the great western chain of mountains toward the +east. No reasonable doubt exists but that the Athapascas, Algonkins, +Iroquois, Apalachians, and Aztecs all migrated from the north and west +to the regions they occupied. In South America, curiously enough, the +direction is reversed. If the Caribs belong to the Tupi-Guaranay stem, +and if the Quichuas belong to the Aymaras, as there is strong +likelihood,[34-1] then nine-tenths of the population of that vast +continent wandered forth from the steppes and valleys at the head waters +of the Rio de la Plata toward the Gulf of Mexico, where they came in +collision with that other wave of migration surging down from high +northern latitudes. For the banks of the river Paraguay and the steppes +of the Bolivian Cordilleras are unquestionably the earliest traditional +homes of both Tupis and Aymaras. + +These movements took place not in large bodies under the stimulus of a +settled purpose, but step by step, family by family, as the older +hunting grounds became too thickly peopled. This fact hints unmistakably +at the gray antiquity of the race. It were idle even to guess how great +this must be, but it is possible to set limits to it in both directions. +On the one hand, not a tittle of evidence is on record to carry the age +of man in America beyond the present geological epoch. Dr. Lund examined +in Brazil more than eight hundred caverns, out of which number only six +contained human bones, and of these six only one had with the human +bones those of animals now extinct. Even in that instance the original +stratification had been disturbed, and probably the bones had been +interred there.[35-1] This is strong negative evidence. So in every +other example where an unbiased and competent geologist has made the +examination, the alleged discoveries of human remains in the older +strata have proved erroneous. + +The cranial forms of the American aborigines have by some been supposed +to present anomalies distinguishing their race from all others, and even +its chief families from one another. This, too, falls to the ground +before a rigid analysis. The last word of craniology, which at one time +promised to revolutionize ethnology and even history, is that no one form +of the skull is peculiar to the natives of the New World; that in the +same linguistic family one glides into another by imperceptible degrees; +and that there is as much diversity, and the same diversity among them in +this respect as among the races of the Old Continent.[35-2] Peculiarities +of structure, though they may pass as general truths, offer no firm +foundation whereon to construct a scientific ethnology. Anatomy shows +nothing unique in the Indian, nothing demanding for its development any +special antiquity, still less an original diversity of type. + +On the other hand, the remains of primeval art and the impress he made +upon nature bespeak for man a residence in the New World coeval with the +most distant events of history. By remains of art I do not so much refer +to those desolate palaces which crumble forgotten in the gloom of +tropical woods, nor even the enormous earthworks of the Mississippi +valley covered with the mould of generations of forest trees, but rather +to the humbler and less deceptive relics of his kitchens and his hunts. +On the Atlantic coast one often sees the refuse of Indian villages, +where generation after generation have passed their summers in fishing, +and left the bones, shells, and charcoal as their only epitaph. How many +such summers would it require for one or two hundred people to thus +gradually accumulate a mound of offal eight or ten feet high and a +hundred yards across, as is common enough? How many generations to heap +up that at the mouth of the Altamaha River, examined and pronounced +exclusively of this origin by Sir Charles Lyell,[36-1] which is about +this height, and covers ten acres of ground? Those who, like myself, +have tramped over many a ploughed field in search of arrow-heads must +have sometimes been amazed at the numbers which are sown over the face +of our country, betokening a most prolonged possession of the soil by +their makers. For a hunting population is always sparse, and the +collector finds only those arrow-heads which lie upon the surface. + +Still more forcibly does nature herself bear witness to this antiquity +of possession. Botanists declare that a very lengthy course of +cultivation is required so to alter the form of a plant that it can no +longer be identified with the wild species; and still more protracted +must be the artificial propagation for it to lose its power of +independent life, and to rely wholly on man to preserve it from +extinction. Now this is precisely the condition of the maize, tobacco, +cotton, quinoa, and mandioca plants, and of that species of palm called +by botanists the _Gulielma speciosa_; all have been cultivated from +immemorial time by the aborigines of America, and, except cotton, by no +other race; all no longer are to be identified with any known wild +species; several are sure to perish unless fostered by human care.[37-1] +What numberless ages does this suggest? How many centuries elapsed ere +man thought of cultivating Indian corn? How many more ere it had spread +over nearly a hundred degrees of latitude, and lost all semblance to its +original form? Who has the temerity to answer these questions? The +judicious thinker will perceive in them satisfactory reasons for +dropping once for all the vexed inquiry, "how America was peopled," and +will smile at its imaginary solutions, whether they suggest Jews, +Japanese, or, as the latest theory is, Egyptians. + +While these and other considerations testify forcibly to that isolation +I have already mentioned, they are almost equally positive for an +extensive intercourse in very distant ages between the great families of +the race, and for a prevalent unity of mental type, or perhaps they hint +at a still visible oneness of descent. In their stage of culture, the +maize, cotton, and tobacco could hardly have spread so widely by +commerce alone. Then there are verbal similarities running through wide +families of languages which, in the words of Professor Buschmann, are +"calculated to fill us with bewildering amazement,"[38-1] some of which +will hereafter be pointed out; and lastly, passing to the psychological +constitution of the race, we may quote the words of a sharp-sighted +naturalist, whose monograph on one of its tribes is unsurpassed for +profound reflections: "Not only do all the primitive inhabitants of +America stand on one scale of related culture, but that mental condition +of all in which humanity chiefly mirrors itself, to wit, their religious +and moral consciousness, this source of all other inner and outer +conditions, is one with all, however diverse the natural influences +under which they live."[38-2] + +Penetrated with the truth of these views, all artificial divisions into +tropical or temperate, civilized or barbarous, will in the present work, +so far as possible, be avoided, and the race will be studied as a unit, +its religion as the development of ideas common to all its members, and +its myths as the garb thrown around these ideas by imaginations more or +less fertile, but seeking everywhere to embody the same notions. + + +BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE. + + As the subject of American mythology is a new one to most readers, + and as in its discussion everything depends on a careful selection + of authorities, it is well at the outset to review very briefly + what has already been written upon it, and to assign the relative + amount of weight that in the following pages will be given to the + works most frequently quoted. The conclusions I have arrived at are + so different from those who have previously touched upon the topic + that such a step seems doubly advisable. + + The first who undertook a philosophical survey of American + religions was Dr. Samuel Farmer Jarvis, in 1819 (A Discourse on the + Religion of the Indian Tribes of North America, Collections of the + New York Historical Society, vol. iii., New York, 1821). He + confined himself to the tribes north of Mexico, a difficult portion + of the field, and at that time not very well known. The notion of a + state of primitive civilization prevented Dr. Jarvis from forming + any correct estimate of the native religions, as it led him to look + upon them as deteriorations from purer faiths instead of + developments. Thus he speaks of them as having "departed less than + among any other nation from the form of primeval truth," and also + mentions their "wonderful uniformity" (pp. 219, 221). + + The well-known American ethnologist, Mr. E. G. Squier, has also + published a work on the subject, of wider scope than its title + indicates (The Serpent Symbol in America, New York, 1851). Though + written in a much more liberal spirit than the preceding, it is + wholly in the interests of one school of mythology, and it the + rather shallow physical one, so fashionable in Europe half a + century ago. Thus, with a sweeping generalization, he says, "The + religions or superstitions of the American nations, however + different they may appear to the superficial glance, are + rudimentally the same, and are only modifications of that primitive + system which under its physical aspect has been denominated Sun or + Fire worship" (p. 111). With this he combines the favorite and (may + I add?) characteristic French doctrine, that the chief topic of + mythology is the adoration of the generative power, and to rescue + such views from their materializing tendencies, imagines to + counterbalance them a clear, universal monotheism. "We claim to + have shown," he says (p. 154), "that the grand conception of a + Supreme Unity and the doctrine of the reciprocal principles existed + in America in a well defined and clearly recognized form;" and + elsewhere that "the monotheistic idea stands out clearly in _all_ + the religions of America" (p. 151). + + If with a hope of other views we turn to our magnificent national + work on the Indians (History, Conditions, and Prospects of the + Indian Tribes of the United States: Washington, 1851-9), a great + disappointment awaits us. That work was unfortunate in its editor. + It is a monument of American extravagance and superficiality. Mr. + Schoolcraft was a man of deficient education and narrow prejudices, + pompous in style, and inaccurate in statements. The information + from original observers it contains is often of real value, but the + general views on aboriginal history and religion are shallow and + untrustworthy in the extreme. + + A German professor, Dr. J. G. Mueller, has written quite a + voluminous work on American Primitive Religions (_Geschichte der + Amerikanischen Ur-religionen_, pp. 707: Basel, 1855). His theory is + that "at the south a worship of nature with the adoration of the + sun as its centre, at the north a fear of spirits combined with + fetichism, made up the two fundamental divisions of the religion of + the red race" (pp. 89, 90). This imaginary antithesis he traces out + between the Algonkin and Apalachian tribes, and between the Toltecs + of Guatemala and the Aztecs of Mexico. His quotations are nearly + all at second hand, and so little does he criticize his facts as to + confuse the Vaudoux worship of the Haitian negroes with that of + Votan in Chiapa. His work can in no sense be considered an + authority. + + Very much better is the Anthropology of the late Dr. Theodore Waitz + (_Anthropologie der Naturvoelker_: Leipzig, 1862-66). No more + comprehensive, sound, and critical work on the indigenes of America + has ever been written. But on their religions the author is + unfortunately defective, being led astray by the hasty and + groundless generalizations of others. His great anxiety, moreover, + to subject all moral sciences to a realistic philosophy, was + peculiarly fatal to any correct appreciation of religious growth, + and his views are neither new nor tenable. + + For a different reason I must condemn in the most unqualified + manner the attempt recently made by the enthusiastic and + meritorious antiquary, the Abbe E. Charles Brasseur (de Bourbourg), + to explain American mythology after the example of Euhemerus, of + Thessaly, as the apotheosis of history. This theory, which has been + repeatedly applied to other mythologies with invariable failure, is + now disowned by every distinguished student of European and + Oriental antiquity; and to seek to introduce it into American + religions is simply to render them still more obscure and + unattractive, and to deprive them of the only general interest they + now have, that of illustrating the gradual development of the + religious ideas of humanity. + + But while thus regretting the use he has made of them, all + interested in American antiquity cannot too much thank this + indefatigable explorer for the priceless materials he has unearthed + in the neglected libraries of Spain and Central America, and laid + before the public. For the present purpose the most significant of + these is the Sacred National Book of the Quiches, a tribe of + Guatemala. This contains their legends, written in the original + tongue, and transcribed by Father Francisco Ximenes about 1725. The + manuscripts of this missionary were used early in the present + century, by Don Felix Cabrera, but were supposed to be entirely + lost even by the Abbe Brasseur himself in 1850 (_Lettre a M. le Duc + de Valmy_, Mexique, Oct. 15, 1850). Made aware of their importance + by the expressions of regret used in the Abbe's letters, Dr. C. + Sherzer, in 1854, was fortunate enough to discover them in the + library of the University of San Carlos in the city of Guatemala. + The legends were in Quiche with a Spanish translation and scholia. + The Spanish was copied by Dr. Scherzer and published in Vienna, in + 1856, under the title _Las Historias del Origen de los Indios de + Guatemala, por el R. P. F. Francisco Ximenes_. In 1855 the Abbe + Brasseur took a copy of the original which he brought out at Paris + in 1861, with a translation of his own, under the title _Vuh Popol: + Le Livre Sacre des Quiches et les Mythes de l'Antiquite Americaine_. + Internal evidence proves that these legends were written down by a + converted native some time in the seventeenth century. They carry + the national history back about two centuries, beyond which all is + professedly mythical. Although both translations are colored by the + peculiar views of their makers, this is incomparably the most + complete and valuable work on American mythology extant. + + Another authority of inestimable value has been placed within the + reach of scholars during the last few years. This is the _Relations + de la Nouvelle France_, containing the annual reports of the + Jesuit missionaries among the Iroquois and Algonkins from and + after 1611. My references to this are always to the reprint at + Quebec, 1858. Of not less excellence for another tribe, the Creeks, + is the brief "Sketch of the Creek Country," by Col. Benjamin + Hawkins, written about 1800, and first published in full by the + Georgia Historical Society in 1848. Most of the other works to + which I have referred are too well known to need any special + examination here, or will be more particularly mentioned in the + foot-notes when quoted. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[2-1] Waitz, _Anthropologie der Naturvoelker_, i. p. 256. + +[2-2] Carriere, _Die Kunst im Zusammenhang der Culturentwickelung_, i. p. +66. + +[6-1] It is said indeed that the Yebus, a people on the west coast of +Africa, speak a polysynthetic language, and _per contra_, that the Otomis +of Mexico have a monosyllabic one like the Chinese. Max Mueller goes +further, and asserts that what is called the process of agglutination in +the Turanian languages is the same as what has been named polysynthesis +in America. This is not to be conceded. In the former the root is +unchangeable, the formative elements follow it, and prefixes are not +used; in the latter prefixes are common, and the formative elements are +blended with the root, both undergoing changes of structure. Very +important differences. + +[9-1] Grimm, _Geschichte der Deutschen Sprache_, p. 571. + +[11-1] Peter Martyr, _De Insulis nuper Repertis_, p. 354: Colon. 1574. + +[12-1] They may be found in Waitz, _Anthrop. der Naturvoelker_, iv. p. +173. + +[13-1] The only authority is Diego de Landa, _Relacion de las Cosas de +Yucatan_, ed. Brasseur, Paris, 1864, p. 318. The explanation is extremely +obscure in the original. I have given it in the only sense in which the +author's words seem to have any meaning. + +[14-1] Humboldt, _Vues des Cordilleres_, p. 72. + +[14-2] Desjardins, _Le Perou avant la Conquete Espagnole_, p. 122: Paris, +1858. + +[16-1] An instance is given by Ximenes, _Origen de los Indios de +Guatemala_, p. 186: Vienna, 1856. + +[17-1] George Copway, _Traditional History of the Ojibway Nation_, p. +130: London, 1850. + +[18-1] Morse, _Report on the Indian Tribes_, App. p. 352. + +[21-1] Gomara states that De Ayllon found tribes on the Atlantic shore +not far from Cape Hatteras keeping flocks of deer (_ciervos_) and from +their milk making cheese (_Hist. de las Indias_, cap. 43). I attach no +importance to this statement, and only mention it to connect it with some +other curious notices of the tribe now extinct who occupied that +locality. Both De Ayllon and Lawson mention their very light complexions, +and the latter saw many with blonde hair, blue eyes, and a fair skin; +they cultivated when first visited the potato (or the groundnut), +tobacco, and cotton (Humboldt); they reckoned time by disks of wood +divided into sixty segments (Lederer); and just in this latitude the most +careful determination fixes the mysterious White-man's-land, or Great +Ireland of the Icelandic Sagas (see the _American Hist. Mag._, ix. p. +364), where the Scandinavian sea rovers in the eleventh century found men +of their own color, clothed in long woven garments, and not less +civilized than themselves. + +[23-1] The name Eskimo is from the Algonkin word _Eskimantick_, eaters of +raw flesh. There is reason to believe that at one time they possessed the +Atlantic coast considerably to the south. The Northmen, in the year 1000, +found the natives of Vinland, probably near Rhode Island, of the same +race as they were familiar with in Labrador. They call them _Skralingar_, +chips, and describe them as numerous and short of stature (Eric Rothens +Saga, in Mueller, _Sagaenbibliothek_, p. 214). It is curious that the +traditions of the Tuscaroras, who placed their arrival on the Virginian +coast about 1300, spoke of the race they found there as eaters of raw +flesh and ignorant of maize (Lederer, _Account of North America_, in +Harris, Voyages). + +[25-1] Richardson, _Arctic Expedition_, p. 374. + +[25-2] The late Professor W. W. Turner of Washington, and Professor +Buschmann of Berlin, are the two scholars who have traced the boundaries +of this widely dispersed family. The name is drawn from Lake Athapasca in +British America. + +[25-3] The Cherokee tongue has a limited number of words in common with +the Iroquois, and its structural similarity is close. The name is of +unknown origin. It should doubtless be spelled _Tsalakie_, a plural form, +almost the same as that of the river Tellico, properly Tsaliko (Ramsey, +_Annals of Tennessee_, p. 87), on the banks of which their principal +towns were situated. Adair's derivation from _cheera_, fire, is +worthless, as no such word exists in their language. + +[27-1] The term Algonkin may be a corruption of _agomeegwin_, people of +the other shore. Algic, often used synonymously, is an adjective +manufactured by Mr. Schoolcraft "from the words Alleghany and Atlantic" +(Algic Researches, ii. p. 12). There is no occasion to accept it, as +there is no objection to employing Algonkin both as substantive and +adjective. Iroquois is a French compound of the native words _hiro_, I +have said, and _koue_, an interjection of assent or applause, terms +constantly heard in their councils. + +[27-2] Apalachian, which should be spelt with one p, is formed of two +Creek words, _apala_, the great sea, the ocean, and the suffix _chi_, +people, and means those dwelling by the ocean. That the Natchez were +offshoots of the Mayas I was the first to surmise and to prove by a +careful comparison of one hundred Natchez words with their equivalents in +the Maya dialects. Of these, _five_ have affinities more or less marked +to words peculiar to the Huastecas of the river Panuco (a Maya colony), +_thirteen_ to words common to Huasteca and Maya, and _thirty-nine_ to +words of similar meaning in the latter language. This resemblance may be +exemplified by the numerals, one, two, four, seven, eight, twenty. In +Natchez they are _hu_, _ah_, _gan_, _uk-woh_, _upku-tepish_, _oka-poo_: +in Maya, _hu_, _ca_, _can_, _uk_, _uapxae_, _hunkal_. (See the Am. Hist. +Mag., New Series, vol. i. p. 16, Jan. 1867.) + +[28-1] Dakota, a native word, means friends or allies. + +[28-2] Rep. of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1854, p. 209. + +[29-1] According to Professor Buschmann Aztec is probably from _iztac_, +white, and Nahuatlacatl signifies those who speak the language _Nahuatl_, +clear sounding, sonorous. The Abbe Brasseur (de Bourbourg), on the other +hand, derives the latter from the Quiche _nawal_, intelligent, and adds +the amazing information that this is identical with the English _know +all_!! (_Hist. du Mexique_, etc., i. p. 102). For in his theory several +languages of Central America are derived from the same old Indo-Germanic +stock as the English, German, and cognate tongues. Toltec, from +_Toltecatl_, means inhabitant of Tollan, which latter may be from +_tolin_, rush, and signify the place of rushes. The signification +_artificer_, often assigned to Toltecatl, is of later date, and was +derived from the famed artistic skill of this early folk (Buschmann, +_Aztek. Ortsnamen_, p. 682: Berlin, 1852). The Toltecs are usually spoken +of as anterior to the Nahuas, but the Tlascaltecs and natives of +Cholollan or Cholula were in fact Toltecs, unless we assign to this +latter name a merely mythical signification. The early migrations of the +two Aztec bands and their relationship, it may be said in passing, are as +yet extremely obscure. The Shoshonees when first known dwelt as far north +as the head waters of the Missouri, and in the country now occupied by +the Black Feet. Their language, which includes that of the Comanche, +Wihinasht, Utah, and kindred bands, was first shown to have many and +marked affinities with that of the Aztecs by Professor Buschmann in his +great work, _Ueber die Spuren der Aztekischen Sprache im noerdlichen +Mexico und hoeheren Amerikanischen Norden_, p. 648: Berlin, 1854. + +[31-1] His opinion was founded on an analysis of fifteen words of the +secret language of the Incas preserved in the Royal Commentaries of +Garcilasso de la Vega. On examination, they all proved to be modified +forms from the _lengua general_ (Meyen, _Ueber die Ureinwohner von Peru_, +p. 6). The Quichuas of Peru must not be confounded with the Quiches of +Guatemala. Quiche is the name of a place, and means "many trees;" the +derivation of Quichua is unknown. Muyscas means "men." This nation also +called themselves Chibchas. + +[32-1] The significance of Carib is probably warrior. It may be the same +word as Guarani, which also has this meaning. Tupi or Tupa is the name +given the thunder, and can only be understood mythically. + +[33-1] The Araucanians probably obtained their name from two Quichua +words, _ari auccan_, yes! they fight; an idiom very expressive of their +warlike character. They had had long and terrible wars with the Incas +before the arrival of Pizarro. + +[34-1] Since writing the text I have received the admirable work of Dr. +von Martius, _Beitraege zur Ethnographie und Sprachenkunde Amerika's zumal +Brasilians_, Leipzig, 1867, in which I observe that that profound student +considers that there is no doubt but that the Island Caribs, and the +Galibis of the main land are descendants from the same stock as the Tupis +and Guaranis. + +[35-1] _Comptes Rendus_, vol. xxi. p. 1368 sqq. + +[35-2] The two best authorities are Daniel Wilson, _The American Cranial +Type_, in _Ann. Rep. of the Smithson. Inst._, 1862, p. 240, and J. A. +Meigs, _Cranial Forms of the Amer. Aborigs._: Phila. 1866. They accord in +the views expressed in the text and in the rejection of those advocated +by Dr. S. G. Morton in the Crania Americana. + +[36-1] _Second Visit to the United States_, i. p. 252. + +[37-1] Martius, _Von dem Rechtzustande unter den Ureinwohnern +Brasiliens_, p. 80: Muenchen, 1832; recently republished in his _Beitraege +zur Ethnographie und Sprachenkunde Amerika's_: Leipzig, 1867. + +[38-1] _Athapaskische Sprachstamm_, p. 164: Berlin, 1856. + +[38-2] Martius, _Von dem Rechtzustande unter den Ureinwohnern +Brasiliens_, p. 77. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +THE IDEA OF GOD. + + An intuition common to the species.--Words expressing it in + American languages derived either from ideas of above in space, or + of life manifested by breath.--Examples.--No conscious monotheism, + and but little idea of immateriality discoverable.--Still less any + moral dualism of deities, the Great Good Spirit and the Great Bad + Spirit being alike terms and notions of foreign importation. + + +If we accept the definition that mythology is the idea of God expressed +in symbol, figure, and narrative, and always struggling toward a clearer +utterance, it is well not only to trace this idea in its very earliest +embodiment in language, but also, for the sake of comparison, to ask +what is its latest and most approved expression. The reply to this is +given us by Immanuel Kant. He has shown that our reason, dwelling on the +facts of experience, constantly seeks the principles which connect them +together, and only rests satisfied in the conviction that there is a +highest and first principle which reconciles all their discrepancies and +binds them into one. This he calls the Ideal of Reason. It must be true, +for it is evolved from the laws of reason, our only test of truth. +Furthermore, the sense of personality and the voice of conscience, +analyzed to their sources, can only be explained by the assumption of an +infinite personality and an absolute standard of right. Or, if to some +all this appears but wire-drawn metaphysical subtlety, they are welcome +to the definition of the realist, that the idea of God is the sum of +those intelligent activities which the individual, reasoning from the +analogy of his own actions, imagines to be behind and to bring about +natural phenomena.[44-1] If either of these be correct, it were hard to +conceive how any tribe or even any sane man could be without some notion +of divinity. + +Certainly in America no instance of its absence has been discovered. +Obscure, grotesque, unworthy it often was, but everywhere man was +oppressed with a _sensus numinis_, a feeling that invisible, powerful +agencies were at work around him, who, as they willed, could help or +hurt him. In every heart was an altar to the Unknown God. Not that it +was customary to attach any idea of unity to these unseen powers. The +supposition that in ancient times and in very unenlightened conditions, +before mythology had grown, a monotheism prevailed, which afterwards at +various times was revived by reformers, is a belief that should have +passed away when the delights of savage life and the praises of a state +of nature ceased to be the themes of philosophers. We are speaking of a +people little capable of abstraction. The exhibitions of force in nature +seemed to them the manifestations of that mysterious power felt by their +self-consciousness; to combine these various manifestations and +recognize them as the operations of one personality, was a step not +easily taken. Yet He is not far from every one of us. "Whenever man +thinks clearly, or feels deeply, he conceives God as self-conscious +unity," says Carriere, with admirable insight; and elsewhere, "we have +monotheism, not in contrast to polytheism, not clear to the thought, but +in living intuition in the religious sentiments."[45-1] + +Thus it was among the Indians. Therefore a word is usually found in +their languages analogous to none in any European tongue, a word +comprehending all manifestations of the unseen world, yet conveying no +sense of personal unity. It has been rendered spirit, demon, God, devil, +mystery, magic, but commonly and rather absurdly by the English and +French, "medicine." In the Algonkin dialects this word is _manito_ and +_oki_, in Iroquois _oki_ and _otkon_, the Dakota has _wakan_, the Aztec +_teotl_, the Quichua _huaca_, and the Maya _ku_. They all express in its +most general form the idea of the supernatural. And as in this word, +supernatural, we see a transfer of a conception of place, and that it +literally means that which is _above_ the natural world, so in such as +we can analyze of these vague and primitive terms the same trope appears +discoverable. _Wakan_ as an adverb means _above_, _oki_ is but another +orthography for _oghee_, and _otkon_ seems allied to _hetken_, both of +which have the same signification.[46-1] + +The transfer is no mere figure of speech, but has its origin in the very +texture of the human mind. The heavens, the upper regions, are in every +religion the supposed abode of the divine. What is higher is always the +stronger and the nobler; a _superior_ is one who is better than we are, +and therefore a chieftain in Algonkin is called _oghee-ma_, the higher +one. There is, moreover, a naif and spontaneous instinct which leads man +in his ecstasies of joy, and in his paroxysms of fear or pain, to lift +his hands and eyes to the overhanging firmament. There the sun and +bright stars sojourn, emblems of glory and stability. Its azure vault +has a mysterious attraction which invites the eye to gaze longer and +longer into its infinite depths.[46-2] Its color brings thoughts of +serenity, peace, sunshine, and warmth. Even the rudest hunting tribes +felt these sentiments, and as a metaphor in their speeches, and as a +paint expressive of friendly design, blue was in wide use among +them.[47-1] + +So it came to pass that the idea of God was linked to the heavens long +ere man asked himself, are the heavens material and God spiritual, is He +one, or is He many? Numerous languages bear trace of this. The Latin +Deus, the Greek Zeus, the Sanscrit Dyaus, the Chinese Tien, all +originally meant the sky above, and our own word heaven is often +employed synonymously with God. There is at first no personification in +these expressions. They embrace all unseen agencies, they are void of +personality, and yet to the illogical primitive man there is nothing +contradictory in making them the object of his prayers. The Mayas had +legions of gods; "_ku_," says their historian,[47-2] "does not signify +any particular god; yet their prayers are sometimes addressed to _kue_," +which is the same word in the vocative case. + +As the Latins called their united divinities _Superi_, those above, so +Captain John Smith found that the Powhatans of Virginia employed the +word _oki_, above, in the same sense, and it even had passed into a +definite personification among them in the shape of an "idol of wood +evil-favoredly carved." In purer dialects of the Algonkin it is always +indefinite, as in the terms _nipoon oki_, spirit of summer, _pipoon +oki_, spirit of winter. Perhaps the word was introduced into Iroquois +by the Hurons, neighbors and associates of the Algonkins. The Hurons +applied it to that demoniac power "who rules the seasons of the year, +who holds the winds and the waves in leash, who can give fortune to +their undertakings, and relieve all their wants."[48-1] In another and +far distant branch of the Iroquois, the Nottoways of southern Virginia, +it reappears under, the curious form _quaker_, doubtless a corruption of +the Powhatan _qui-oki_, lesser gods.[48-2] The proper Iroquois name of +him to whom they prayed was _garonhia_, which again turns out on +examination to be their common word for _sky_, and again in all +probability from the verbal root _gar_, to be above.[48-3] In the +legends of the Aztecs and Quiches such phrases as "Heart of the Sky," +"Lord of the Sky," "Prince of the Azure Planisphere," "He above all," +are of frequent occurrence, and by a still bolder metaphor, the +Araucanians, according to Molina, entitled their greatest god "The Soul +of the Sky." + +This last expression leads to another train of thought. As the +philosopher, pondering on the workings of self-consciousness, recognizes +that various pathways lead up to God, so the primitive man, in forming +his language, sometimes trod one, sometimes another. Whatever else +sceptics have questioned, no one has yet presumed to doubt that if a God +and a soul exist at all, they are of like essence. This firm belief has +left its impress on language in the names devised to express the +supernal, the spiritual world. If we seek hints from languages more +familiar to us than the tongues of the Indians, and take for example +this word _spiritual_; we find it is from the Latin _spirare_, to blow, +to breathe. If in Latin again we look for the derivation of _animus_, +the mind, _anima_, the soul, they point to the Greek _anemos_, wind, and +_aemi_, to blow. In Greek the words for soul or spirit, _psuche_, +_pneuma_, _thumos_, all are directly from verbal roots expressing the +motion of the wind or the breath. The Hebrew word _ruah_ is translated +in the Old Testament sometimes by wind, sometimes by spirit, sometimes +by breath. Etymologically, in fact, ghosts and gusts, breaths and +breezes, the Great Spirit and the Great Wind, are one and the same. It +is easy to guess the reason of this. The soul is the life, the life is +the breath. Invisible, imponderable, quickening with vigorous motion, +slackening in rest and sleep, passing quite away in death, it is the +most obvious sign of life. All nations grasped the analogy and +identified the one with the other. But the breath is nothing but wind. +How easy, therefore, to look upon the wind that moves up and down and to +and fro upon the earth, that carries the clouds, itself unseen, that +calls forth the terrible tempests and the various seasons, as the +breath, the spirit of God, as God himself? So in the Mosaic record of +creation, it is said "a mighty wind" passed over the formless sea and +brought forth the world, and when the Almighty gave to the clay a living +soul, he is said to have breathed into it "the wind of lives." + +Armed with these analogies, we turn to the primitive tongues of America, +and find them there as distinct as in the Old World. In Dakota _niya_ is +literally breath, figuratively life; in Netela _piuts_ is life, breath, +and soul; _silla_, in Eskimo, means air, it means wind, but it is also +the word that conveys the highest idea of the world as a whole, and the +reasoning faculty. The supreme existence they call _Sillam Innua_, Owner +of the Air, or of the All; or _Sillam Nelega_, Lord of the Air or Wind. +In the Yakama tongue of Oregon _wkrisha_ signifies there is wind, +_wkrishwit_, life; with the Aztecs, _ehecatl_ expressed both air, life, +and the soul, and personified in their myths it was said to have been +born of the breath of Tezcatlipoca, their highest divinity, who himself +is often called Yoalliehecatl, the Wind of Night.[50-1] + +The descent is, indeed, almost imperceptible which leads to the +personification of the wind as God, which merges this manifestation of +life and power in one with its unseen, unknown cause. Thus it was a +worthy epithet which the Creeks applied to their supreme invisible +ruler, when they addressed him as ESAUGETUH EMISSEE, Master of Breath, +and doubtless it was at first but a title of equivalent purport which +the Cherokees, their neighbors, were wont to employ, OONAWLEH UNGGI, +Eldest of Winds, but rapidly leading to a complete identification of the +divine with the natural phenomena of meteorology. This seems to have +taken place in the same group of nations, for the original Choctaw word +for Deity was HUSHTOLI, the Storm Wind.[51-1] The idea, indeed, was +constantly being lost in the symbol. In the legends of the Quiches, the +mysterious creative power is HURAKAN, a name of no signification in +their language, one which their remote ancestors brought with them from +the Antilles, which finds its meaning in the ancient tongue of Haiti, +and which, under the forms of _hurricane_, _ouragan_, _orkan_, was +adopted into European marine languages as the native name of the +terrible tornado of the Caribbean Sea.[51-2] Mixcohuatl, the Cloud +Serpent, chief divinity of several tribes in ancient Mexico, is to this +day the correct term in their language for the tropical whirlwind, and +the natives of Panama worshipped the same phenomenon under the name +Tuyra.[52-1] To kiss the air was in Peru the commonest and simplest sign +of adoration to the collective divinities.[52-2] + +Many writers on mythology have commented on the prominence so frequently +given to the winds. None have traced it to its true source. The facts of +meteorology have been thought all sufficient for a solution. As if man +ever did or ever could draw the idea of God from nature! In the identity +of wind with breath, of breath with life, of life with soul, of soul +with God, lies the far deeper and far truer reason, whose insensible +development I have here traced, in outline indeed, but confirmed by the +evidence of language itself. + +Let none of these expressions, however, be construed to prove the +distinct recognition of One Supreme Being. Of monotheism either as +displayed in the one personal definite God of the Semitic races, or in +the dim pantheistic sense of the Brahmins, there was not a single +instance on the American continent. The missionaries found no word in +any of their languages fit to interpret _Deus_, God. How could they +expect it? The associations we attach to that name are the accumulated +fruits of nigh two thousand years of Christianity. The phrases Good +Spirit, Great Spirit, and similar ones, have occasioned endless +discrepancies in the minds of travellers. In most instances they are +entirely of modern origin, coined at the suggestion of missionaries, +applied to the white man's God. Very rarely do they bring any +conception of personality to the native mind, very rarely do they +signify any object of worship, perhaps never did in the olden times. The +Jesuit Relations state positively that there was no one immaterial god +recognized by the Algonkin tribes, and that the title, the Great Manito, +was introduced first by themselves in its personal sense.[53-1] The +supreme Iroquois Deity Neo or Hawaneu, triumphantly adduced by many +writers to show the monotheism underlying the native creeds, and upon +whose name Mr. Schoolcraft has built some philological reveries, turns +out on closer scrutiny to be the result of Christian instruction, and +the words themselves to be but corruptions of the French _Dieu_ and _le +bon Dieu_![53-2] + +Innumerable mysterious forces are in activity around the child of +nature; he feels within him something that tells him they are not of his +kind, and yet not altogether different from him; he sums them up in one +word drawn from sensuous experience. Does he wish to express still more +forcibly this sentiment, he doubles the word, or prefixes an adjective, +or adds an affix, as the genius of his language may dictate. But it +still remains to him but an unapplied abstraction, a mere category of +thought, a frame for the All. It is never the object of veneration or +sacrifice, no myth brings it down to his comprehension, it is not +installed in his temples. Man cannot escape the belief that behind all +form is one essence; but the moment he would seize and define it, it +eludes his grasp, and by a sorcery more sadly ludicrous than that which +blinded Titania, he worships not the Infinite he thinks but a base idol +of his own making. As in the Zend Avesta behind the eternal struggle of +Ormuzd and Ahriman looms up the undisturbed and infinite Zeruana +Akerana, as in the pages of the Greek poets we here and there catch +glimpses of a Zeus who is not he throned on Olympus, nor he who takes +part in the wrangles of the gods, but stands far off and alone, one yet +all, "who was, who is, who will be," so the belief in an Unseen Spirit, +who asks neither supplication nor sacrifice, who, as the natives of +Texas told Joutel in 1684, "does not concern himself about things here +below,"[54-1] who has no name to call him by, and is never a figure in +mythology, was doubtless occasionally present to their minds. It was +present not more but far less distinctly and often not at all in the +more savage tribes, and no assertion can be more contrary to the laws of +religious progress than that which pretends that a purer and more +monotheistic religion exists among nations devoid of mythology. There +are only two instances on the American continent where the worship of an +immaterial God was definitely instituted, and these as the highest +conquests of American natural religions deserve especial mention. + +They occurred, as we might expect, in the two most civilized nations, +the Quichuas of Peru, and the Nahuas of Tezcuco. It is related that +about the year 1440, at a grand religious council held at the +consecration of the newly-built temple of the Sun at Cuzco, the Inca +Yupanqui rose before the assembled multitude and spoke somewhat as +follows:-- + +"Many say that the Sun is the Maker of all things. But he who makes +should abide by what he has made. Now many things happen when the Sun is +absent; therefore he cannot be the universal creator. And that he is +alive at all is doubtful, for his trips do not tire him. Were he a +living thing, he would grow weary like ourselves; were he free, he would +visit other parts of the heavens. He is like a tethered beast who makes +a daily round under the eye of a master; he is like an arrow, which must +go whither it is sent, not whither it wishes. I tell you that he, our +Father and Master the Sun, must have a lord and master more powerful +than himself, who constrains him to his daily circuit without pause or +rest."[55-1] + +To express this greatest of all existences, a name was proclaimed, based +upon that of the highest divinities known to the ancient Aymara race, +Illatici Viracocha Pachacamac, literally, the thunder vase, the foam of +the sea, animating the world, mysterious and symbolic names drawn from +the deepest religious instincts of the soul, whose hidden meanings will +be unravelled hereafter. A temple was constructed in a vale by the sea +near Callao, wherein his worship was to be conducted without images or +human sacrifices. The Inca was ahead of his age, however, and when the +Spaniards visited the temple of Pachacamac in 1525, they found not only +the walls adorned with hideous paintings, but an ugly idol of wood +representing a man of colossal proportions set up therein, and receiving +the prayers of the votaries.[56-1] + +No better success attended the attempt of Nezahuatl, lord of Tezcuco, +which took place about the same time. He had long prayed to the gods of +his forefathers for a son to inherit his kingdom, and the altars had +smoked vainly with the blood of slaughtered victims. At length, in +indignation and despair, the prince exclaimed, "Verily, these gods that +I am adoring, what are they but idols of stone without speech or +feeling? They could not have made the beauty of the heaven, the sun, the +moon, and the stars which adorn it, and which light the earth, with its +countless streams, its fountains and waters, its trees and plants, and +its various inhabitants. There must be some god, invisible and unknown, +who is the universal creator. He alone can console me in my affliction +and take away my sorrow." Strengthened in this conviction by a timely +fulfilment of his heart's desire, he erected a temple nine stories high +to represent the nine heavens, which he dedicated "to the Unknown God, +the Cause of Causes." This temple, he ordained, should never be polluted +by blood, nor should any graven image ever be set up within its +precincts.[57-1] + +In neither case, be it observed, was any attempt made to substitute +another and purer religion for the popular one. The Inca continued to +receive the homage of his subjects as a brother of the sun, and the +regular services to that luminary were never interrupted. Nor did the +prince of Tezcuco afterwards neglect the honors due his national gods, +nor even refrain himself from plunging the knife into the breasts of +captives on the altar of the god of war.[57-2] They were but expressions +of that monotheism which is ever present, "not in contrast to +polytheism, but in living intuition in the religious sentiments." If +this subtle but true distinction be rightly understood, it will excite +no surprise to find such epithets as "endless," "omnipotent," +"invisible," "adorable," such appellations as "the Maker and Moulder of +All," "the Mother and Father of Life," "the One God complete in +perfection and unity," "the Creator of all that is," "the Soul of the +World," in use and of undoubted indigenous origin not only among the +civilized Aztecs, but even among the Haitians, the Araucanians, the +Lenni Lenape, and others.[57-3] It will not seem contradictory to hear +of them in a purely polytheistic worship; we shall be far from +regarding them as familiar to the popular mind, and we shall never be +led so far astray as to adduce them in evidence of a monotheism in +either technical sense of that word. In point of fact they were not +applied to any particular god even in the most enlightened nations, but +were terms of laudation and magniloquence used by the priests and +devotees of every several god to do him honor. They prove something in +regard to a consciousness of divinity hedging us about, but nothing at +all in favor of a recognition of one God; they exemplify how profound is +the conviction of a highest and first principle, but they do not offer +the least reason to surmise that this was a living reality in doctrine +or practice. + +The confusion of these distinct ideas has led to much misconception of +the native creeds. But another and more fatal error was that which +distorted them into a dualistic form, ranging on one hand the good +spirit with his legions of angels, on the other the evil one with his +swarms of fiends, representing the world as the scene of their unending +conflict, man as the unlucky football who gets all the blows. This +notion, which has its historical origin among the Parsees of ancient +Iran, is unknown to savage nations. "The idea of the Devil," justly +observes Jacob Grimm, "is foreign to all primitive religions." Yet +Professor Mueller, in his voluminous work on those of America, after +approvingly quoting this saying, complacently proceeds to classify the +deities as good or bad spirits![59-1] + +This view, which has obtained without question in every work on the +native religions of America, has arisen partly from habits of thought +difficult to break, partly from mistranslations of native words, partly +from the foolish axiom of the early missionaries, "The gods of the +gentiles are devils." Yet their own writings furnish conclusive proof +that no such distinction existed out of their own fancies. The same word +(_otkon_) which Father Bruyas employs to translate into Iroquois the +term "devil," in the passage "the Devil took upon himself the figure of +a serpent," he is obliged to use for "spirit" in the phrase, "at the +resurrection we shall be spirits,"[59-2] which is a rather amusing +illustration how impossible it was by any native word to convey the idea +of the spirit of evil. When, in 1570, Father Rogel commenced his labors +among the tribes near the Savannah River, he told them that the deity +they adored was a demon who loved all evil things, and they must hate +him; whereupon his auditors replied, that so far from this being the +case, whom he called a wicked being was the power that sent them all +good things, and indignantly left the missionary to preach to the +winds.[60-1] + +A passage often quoted in support of this mistaken view is one in +Winslow's "Good News from New England," written in 1622. The author says +that the Indians worship a good power called Kiehtan, and another "who, +as farre as wee can conceive, is the Devill," named Hobbamock, or +Hobbamoqui. The former of these names is merely the word "great," in +their dialect of Algonkin, with a final _n_, and is probably an +abbreviation of Kittanitowit, the great manito, a vague term mentioned +by Roger Williams and other early writers, not the appellation of any +personified deity.[60-2] The latter, so far from corresponding to the +power of evil, was, according to Winslow's own statement, the kindly god +who cured diseases, aided them in the chase, and appeared to them in +dreams as their protector. Therefore, with great justice, Dr. Jarvis has +explained it to mean "the _oke_ or tutelary deity which each Indian +worships," as the word itself signifies.[61-1] + +So in many instances it turns out that what has been reported to be the +evil divinity of a nation, to whom they pray to the neglect of a better +one, is in reality the highest power they recognize. Thus Juripari, +worshipped by certain tribes of the Pampas of Buenos Ayres, and said to +be their wicked spirit, is in fact the only name in their language for +spiritual existence in general; and Aka-kanet, sometimes mentioned as +the father of evil in the mythology of the Araucanians, is the benign +power appealed to by their priests, who is throned in the Pleiades, who +sends fruits and flowers to the earth, and is addressed as +"grandfather."[61-2] The Cupay of the Peruvians never was, as Prescott +would have us believe, "the shadowy embodiment of evil," but simply and +solely their god of the dead, the Pluto of their pantheon, corresponding +to the Mictla of the Mexicans. + +The evidence on the point is indeed conclusive. The Jesuit missionaries +very rarely distinguish between good and evil deities when speaking of +the religion of the northern tribes; and the Moravian Brethren among the +Algonkins and Iroquois place on record their unanimous testimony that +"the idea of a devil, a prince of darkness, they first received in +later times through the Europeans."[62-1] So the Cherokees, remarks an +intelligent observer, "know nothing of the Evil One and his domains, +except what they have learned from white men."[62-2] The term Great +Spirit conveys, for instance, to the Chipeway just as much the idea of a +bad as of a good spirit; he is unaware of any distinction until it is +explained to him.[62-3] "I have never been able to discover from the +Dakotas themselves," remarks the Rev. G. H. Pond, who had lived among +them as a missionary for eighteen years,[62-4] "the least degree of +evidence that they divide the gods into classes of good and evil, and am +persuaded that those persons who represent them as doing so, do it +inconsiderately, and because it is so natural to subscribe to a long +cherished popular opinion." + +Very soon after coming in contact with the whites, the Indians caught +the notion of a bad and good spirit, pitted one against the other in +eternal warfare, and engrafted it on their ancient traditions. Writers +anxious to discover Jewish or Christian analogies, forcibly construed +myths to suit their pet theories, and for indolent observers it was +convenient to catalogue their gods in antithetical classes. In Mexican +and Peruvian mythology this is so plainly false that historians no +longer insist upon it, but as a popular error it still holds its ground +with reference to the more barbarous and less known tribes. + +Perhaps no myth has been so often quoted in its confirmation as that of +the ancient Iroquois, which narrates the conflict between the first two +brothers of our race. It is of undoubted native origin and venerable +antiquity. The version given by the Tuscarora chief Cusic in 1825, +relates that in the beginning of things there were two brothers, +Enigorio and Enigohahetgea, names literally meaning the Good Mind and +the Bad Mind.[63-1] The former went about the world furnishing it with +gentle streams, fertile plains, and plenteous fruits, while the latter +maliciously followed him creating rapids, thorns, and deserts. At length +the Good Mind turned upon his brother in anger, and crushed him into the +earth. He sank out of sight in its depths, but not to perish, for in the +dark realms of the underworld he still lives, receiving the souls of the +dead and being the author of all evil. Now when we compare this with the +version of the same legend given by Father Brebeuf, missionary to the +Hurons in 1636, we find its whole complexion altered; the moral dualism +vanishes; the names Good Mind and Bad Mind do not appear; it is the +struggle of Ioskeha, the White one, with his brother Tawiscara, the Dark +one, and we at once perceive that Christian influence in the course of +two centuries had given the tale a meaning foreign to its original +intent. + +So it is with the story the Algonkins tell of their hero Manibozho, who, +in the opinion of a well-known writer, "is always placed in antagonism +to a great serpent, a spirit of evil."[64-1] It is to the effect that +after conquering many animals, this famous magician tried his arts on +the prince of serpents. After a prolonged struggle, which brought on the +general deluge and the destruction of the world, he won the victory. The +first authority we have for this narrative is even later than Cusic; it +is Mr. Schoolcraft in our own day; the legendary cause of the deluge as +related by Father Le Jeune, in 1634, is quite dissimilar, and makes no +mention of a serpent; and as we shall hereafter see, neither among the +Algonkins nor any other Indians, was the serpent usually a type of evil, +but quite the reverse.[64-2] + +The comparatively late introduction of such views into the native +legends finds a remarkable proof in the myths of the Quiches, which were +committed to writing in the seventeenth century. They narrate the +struggles between the rulers of the upper and the nether world, the +descent of the former into Xibalba, the Realm of Phantoms, and their +victory over its lords, One Death and Seven Deaths. The writer adds of +the latter, who clearly represent to his mind the Evil One and his +adjutants, "in the old times they did not have much power; they were but +annoyers and opposers of men, and in truth they were not regarded as +gods. But when they appeared it was terrible. They were of evil, they +were owls, fomenting trouble and discord." In this passage, which, be it +said, seems to have impressed the translators very differently, the +writer appears to compare the great power assigned by the Christian +religion to Satan and his allies, with the very much less potency +attributed to their analogues in heathendom, the rulers of the world of +the dead.[65-1] + +A little reflection will convince the most incredulous that any such +dualism as has been fancied to exist in the native religions, could not +have been of indigenous growth. The gods of the primitive man are beings +of thoroughly human physiognomy, painted with colors furnished by +intercourse with his fellows. These are his enemies or his friends, as +he conciliates or insults them. No mere man, least of all a savage, is +kind and benevolent in spite of neglect and injury, nor is any man +causelessly and ceaselessly malicious. Personal, family, or national +feuds render some more inimical than others, but always from a desire to +guard their own interests, never out of a delight in evil for its own +sake. Thus the cruel gods of death, disease, and danger, were never of +Satanic nature, while the kindliest divinities were disposed to punish, +and that severely, any neglect of their ceremonies. Moral dualism can +only arise in minds where the ideas of good and evil are not synonymous +with those of pleasure and pain, for the conception of a wholly good or +a wholly evil nature requires the use of these terms in their higher, +ethical sense. The various deities of the Indians, it may safely be said +in conclusion, present no stronger antithesis in this respect than those +of ancient Greece and Rome. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[44-1] But there is no ground for the most positive of philosophers to +reject the doctrine of innate ideas when put in a certain way. The +instincts and habits of the lower animals by which they obtain food, +migrate, and perpetuate their kind, are in obedience to particular +congenital impressions, and correspond to definite anatomical and +morphological relations. No one pretends their knowledge is experimental. +Just so the human cerebrum has received, by descent or otherwise, various +sensory impressions peculiar to man as a species, which are just as +certain to guide his thoughts, actions, and destiny, as is the cerebrum +of the insectivorous aye-aye to lead it to hunt successfully for larvae. + +[45-1] _Die Kunst im Zusammenhang der Culturentwickelung_, i. pp. 50, +252. + +[46-1] I offer these derivations with a certain degree of reserve, for +such an extraordinary similarity in the sound of these words is +discoverable in North and portions of South America, that one might +almost be tempted to claim for them one original form. Thus in the Maya +dialects it is _ku_, vocative _a kue_, in Natchez _kue-ya_, in the Uchee +of West Florida _kauhwu_, in Otomi _okha_, in Mandan _okee_, Sioux +_ogha_, _waughon_, _wakan_, in Quichua _waka_, _huaca_, in Iroquois +_quaker_, _oki_, Algonkin _oki_, _okee_, Eskimo _aghatt_, which last has +a singular likeness in sound to the German or Norse, _O Gott_, as some of +the others have to the corresponding Finnish word _ukko_. _Ku_ in the +Carib tongue means _house_, especially a temple or house of the gods. The +early Spanish explorers adopted the word with the orthography _cue_, and +applied it to the sacred edifices of whatever nation they discovered. For +instance, they speak of the great cemetery of Teotihuacan, near Tezcuco, +as the _Llano de los Cues_. + +[46-2] "As the high heavens, the far-off mountains look to us blue, so a +blue superficies seems to recede from us. As we would fain pursue an +attractive object that flees from us, so we like to gaze at the blue, not +that it urges itself upon us, but that it draws us after it." Goethe, +_Farbenlehre_, secs. 780, 781. + +[47-1] Loskiel, _Geschichte der Mission der Evang. Brueder_, p. 63: +Barby, 1789. + +[47-2] Cogolludo, _Historia de Yucathan_, lib. iv. cap. vii. + +[48-1] _Rel. de la Nouv. France._ An 1636, p. 107. + +[48-2] This word is found in Gallatin's vocabularies (_Transactions of +the Am. Antiq. Soc._, vol. ii.), and may have partially induced that +distinguished ethnologist to ascribe, as he does in more than one place, +whatever notions the eastern tribes had of a Supreme Being to the +teachings of the Quakers. + +[48-3] Bruyas, _Radices Verborum Iroquaeorum_, p. 84. This work is in +Shea's Library of American Linguistics, and is a most valuable +contribution to philology. The same etymology is given by Lafitau, +_Moeurs des Sauvages_, etc., Germ. trans., p. 65. + +[50-1] My authorities are Riggs, _Dict. of the Dakota_, Boscana, _Account +of New California_, Richardson's and Egede's Eskimo Vocabularies, +Pandosy, _Gram. and Dict. of the Yakama_ (Shea's Lib. of Am. +Linguistics), and the Abbe Brasseur for the Aztec. + +[51-1] These terms are found in Gallatin's vocabularies. The last +mentioned is not, as Adair thought, derived from _issto ulla_ or _ishto +hoollo_, great man, for in Choctaw the adjective cannot precede the noun +it qualifies. Its true sense is visible in the analogous Creek words +_ishtali_, the storm wind, and _hustolah_, the windy season. + +[51-2] Webster derives hurricane from the Latin _furio_. But Oviedo tells +us in his description of Hispaniola that "Hurakan, in lingua di questa +isola vuole dire propriamente fortuna tempestuosa molto eccessiva, perche +en effetto non e altro que un grandissimo vento e pioggia insieme." +_Historia dell' Indie_, lib. vi. cap. iii. It is a coincidence--perhaps +something more--that in the Quichua language _huracan_, third person +singular present indicative of the verbal noun _huraca_, means "a stream +of water falls perpendicularly." (Markham, _Quichua Dictionary_, p. 132.) + +[52-1] Oviedo, _Rel. de la Prov. de Cueba_, p. 141, ed. Ternaux-Compans. + +[52-2] Garcia, _Origen de los Indios_, lib. iv. cap. xxii. + +[53-1] See the _Rel. de la Nouv. France pour l'An 1637_, p. 49. + +[53-2] Mr. Morgan, in his excellent work, _The League of the Iroquois_, +has been led astray by an ignorance of the etymology of these terms. For +Schoolcraft's views see his _Oneota_, p. 147. The matter is ably +discussed in the _Etudes Philologiques sur Quelques Langues Sauvages de +l'Amerique_, p. 14: Montreal, 1866; but comp. Shea, _Dict. +Francais-Onontague_, preface. + +[54-1] "Qui ne prend aucun soin des choses icy bas." _Jour. Hist. d'un +Voyage de l'Amerique_, p. 225: Paris, 1713. + +[55-1] In attributing this speech to the Inca Yupanqui, I have followed +Balboa, who expressly says this was the general opinion of the Indians +(_Hist. du Perou_, p. 62, ed. Ternaux-Compans). Others assign it to other +Incas. See Garcilasso de la Vega, _Hist. des Incas_, lib. viii. chap. 8, +and Acosta, _Nat. and Morall Hist. of the New World_, chap. 5. The fact +and the approximate time are beyond question. + +[56-1] Xeres, _Rel. de la Conq. du Perou_, p. 151, ed. Ternaux-Compans. + +[57-1] Prescott, _Conq. of Mexico_, i. pp. 192, 193, on the authority of +Ixtlilxochitl. + +[57-2] Brasseur, _Hist. du Mexique_, iii. p. 297, note. + +[57-3] Of very many authorities that I have at hand, I shall only mention +Heckewelder, _Acc. of the Inds._[TN-1] p. 422, Duponceau, _Mem. sur les +Langues de l'Amer. du Nord_, p. 310, Peter Martyr _De Rebus Oceanicis_, +Dec. i., cap. 9, Molina, _Hist. of Chili_, ii. p. 75, Ximenes, _Origen de +los Indios de Guatemala_, pp. 4, 5, Ixtlilxochitl, _Rel. des Conq. du +Mexique_, p. 2. These terms bear the severest scrutiny. The Aztec +appellation of the Supreme Being _Tloque nahuaque_ is compounded of +_tloc_, together, with, and _nahuac_, at, by, with, with possessive forms +added, giving the signification, Lord of all existence and coexistence +(alles Mitseyns und alles Beiseyns, bei welchem das Seyn aller Dinge ist. +Buschmann, _Ueber die Aztekischen Ortsnamen_, p. 642). The Algonkin term +_Kittanittowit_ is derived from _kitta_, great, _manito_, spirit, _wit_, +an adjective termination indicating a mode of existence, and means the +Great Living Spirit (Duponceau, u. s.). Both these terms are undoubtedly +of native origin. In the Quiche legends the Supreme Being is called +_Bitol_, the substantive form of _bit_, to make pottery, to form, and +_Tzakol_, substantive form of _tzak_, to build, the Creator, the +Constructor. The Arowacks of Guyana applied the term _Aluberi_ to their +highest conception of a first cause, from the verbal form _alin_, he who +makes (Martius, _Ethnographie und Sprachenkunde Amerika's_, i. p. 696). + +[59-1] _Geschichte der Amerikanischen Urreligionen_, p. 403. + +[59-2] Bruyas, _Rad. Verb. Iroquaeorum_, p. 38. + +[60-1] Alcazar, _Chrono-historia de la Prov. de Toledo_, Dec. iii., Ano +viii., cap. iv: Madrid, 1710. This rare work contains the only faithful +copies of Father Rogel's letters extant. Mr. Shea, in his History of +Catholic Missions, calls him erroneously Roger. + +[60-2] It is fully analyzed by Duponceau, _Langues de l'Amerique du +Nord_, p. 309. + +[61-1] _Discourse on the Religion of the Ind. Tribes of N. Am._, p. 252 +in the Trans. N. Y. Hist. Soc. + +[61-2] Mueller, _Amer. Urreligionen_, pp. 265, 272, 274. Well may he +remark: "The dualism is not very striking among these tribes;" as a few +pages previous he says of the Caribs, "The dualism of gods is anything +but rigidly observed. The good gods do more evil than good. Fear is the +ruling religious sentiment." To such a lame conclusion do these venerable +prepossessions lead. "_Grau ist alle Theorie_." + +[62-1] Loskiel, _Ges. der Miss. der evang. Brueder_, p. 46. + +[62-2] Whipple, _Report on the Ind. Tribes_, p. 33: Washington, 1855. +Pacific Railroad Docs. + +[62-3] Schoolcraft, _Indian Tribes_, i. p. 359. + +[62-4] In Schoolcraft, _Ibid._, iv. p. 642. + +[63-1] Or more exactly, the Beautiful Spirit, the Ugly Spirit. In +Onondaga the radicals are _onigonra_, spirit, _hio_ beautiful, _ahetken_ +ugly. _Dictionnaire Francais-Onontague, edite par Jean-Marie Shea_: New +York, 1859. + +[64-1] Squier, _The Serpent Symbol in America_. + +[64-2] Both these legends will be analyzed in a subsequent chapter, and +an attempt made not only to restore them their primitive form, but to +explain their meaning. + +[65-1] Compare the translation and remarks of Ximenes, _Or. de los Indios +de Guat._, p. 76, with those of Brasseur, _Le Livre Sacre des Quiches_, +p. 189. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +THE SACRED NUMBER, ITS ORIGIN AND APPLICATIONS. + + The number FOUR sacred in all American religions, and the key to + their symbolism.--Derived from the CARDINAL POINTS.--Appears + constantly in government, arts, rites, and myths.--The Cardinal + Points identified with the Four Winds, who in myths are the four + ancestors of the human race, and the four celestial rivers watering + the terrestrial Paradise.--Associations grouped around each + Cardinal Point.--From the number four was derived the symbolic + value of the number _Forty_, and the _Sign of the Cross_. + + +Every one familiar with the ancient religions of the world must have +noticed the mystic power they attach to certain numbers, and how these +numbers became the measures and formative quantities, as it were, of +traditions and ceremonies, and had a symbolical meaning nowise connected +with their arithmetical value. For instance, in many eastern religions, +that of the Jews among the rest, _seven_ was the most sacred number, and +after it, _four_ and _three_. The most cursory reader must have observed +in how many connections the seven is used in the Hebrew Scriptures, +occurring, in all, something over three hundred and sixty times, it is +said. Why these numbers were chosen rather than others has not been +clearly explained. Their sacred character dates beyond the earliest +history, and must have been coeval with the first expressions of the +religious sentiment. Only one of them, the FOUR, has any prominence in +the religions of the red race, but this is so marked and so universal, +that at a very early period in my studies I felt convinced that if the +reason for its adoption could be discovered, much of the apparent +confusion which reigns among them would be dispelled. + +Such a reason must take its rise from some essential relation of man to +nature, everywhere prominent, everywhere the same. It is found in the +_adoration of the cardinal points_. + +The red man, as I have said, was a hunter; he was ever wandering through +pathless forests, coursing over boundless prairies. It seems to the +white race not a faculty, but an instinct that guides him so unerringly. +He is never at a loss. Says a writer who has deeply studied his +character: "The Indian ever has the points of the compass present to his +mind, and expresses himself accordingly in words, although it shall be +of matters in his own house."[67-1] + +The assumption of precisely four cardinal points is not of chance; it is +recognized in every language; it is rendered essential by the anatomical +structure of the body; it is derived from the immutable laws of the +universe. Whether we gaze at the sunset or the sunrise, or whether at +night we look for guidance to the only star of the twinkling thousands +that is constant to its place, the anterior and posterior planes of our +bodies, our right hands and our left coincide with the parallels and +meridians. Very early in his history did man take note of these four +points, and recognizing in them his guides through the night and the +wilderness, call them his gods. Long afterwards, when centuries of slow +progress had taught him other secrets of nature--when he had discerned +in the motions of the sun, the elements of matter, and the radicals of +arithmetic a repetition of this number--they were to him further +warrants of its sacredness. He adopted it as a regulating quantity in +his institutions and his arts; he repeated it in its multiples and +compounds; he imagined for it novel applications; he constantly +magnified its mystic meaning; and finally, in his philosophical +reveries, he called it the key to the secrets of the universe, "the +source of ever-flowing nature."[68-1] + +In primitive geography the figure of the earth is a square plain; in the +legend of the Quiche's it is "shaped as a square, divided into four +parts, marked with lines, measured with cords, and suspended from the +heavens by a cord to its four corners and its four sides."[68-2] The +earliest divisions of territory were in conformity to this view. Thus it +was with ancient Egypt, Syria, Mesopotamia, and China;[68-3] and in the +new world, the states of Peru, Araucania, the Muyscas, the Quiches, and +Tlascala were tetrarchies divided in accordance with, and in the first +two instances named after, the cardinal points. So their chief +cities--Cuzco, Quito, Tezcuco, Mexico, Cholula--were quartered by +streets running north, south, east, and west. It was a necessary result +of such a division that the chief officers of the government were four +in number, that the inhabitants of town and country, that the whole +social organization acquired a quadruplicate form. The official title of +the Incas was "Lord of the four quarters of the earth," and the +venerable formality in taking possession of land, both in their domain +and that of the Aztecs, was to throw a stone, to shoot an arrow, or to +hurl a firebrand to each of the cardinal points.[69-1] They carried out +the idea in their architecture, building their palaces in squares with +doors opening, their tombs with their angles pointing, their great +causeways running in these directions. These architectural principles +repeat themselves all over the continent; they recur in the sacred +structures of Yucatan, in the ancient cemetery of Teo-tihuacan near +Mexico, where the tombs are arranged along avenues corresponding exactly +to the parallels and meridians of the central tumuli of the sun and +moon;[69-2] and however ignorant we are about the mound builders of the +Mississippi valley, we know that they constructed their earthworks with +a constant regard to the quarters of the compass. + +Nothing can be more natural than to take into consideration the regions +of the heavens in the construction of buildings; I presume that at any +time no one plans an edifice of pretensions without doing so. Yet this +is one of those apparently trifling transactions which in their origin +and applications have exerted a controlling influence on the history of +the human race. + +When we reflect how indissolubly the mind of the primitive man is welded +to his superstitions, it were incredible that his social life and his +architecture could thus be as it were in subjection to one idea, and his +rites and myths escape its sway. As one might expect, it reappears in +these latter more vividly than anywhere else. If there is one formula +more frequently mentioned by travellers than another as an indispensable +preliminary to all serious business, it is that of smoking, and the +prescribed and traditional rule was that the first puff should be to the +sky, and then one to each of the corners of the earth, or the cardinal +points.[70-1] These were the spirits who made and governed the earth, +and under whatever difference of guise the uncultivated fancy portrayed +them, they were the leading figures in the tales and ceremonies of +nearly every tribe of the red race. These were the divine powers +summoned by the Chipeway magicians when initiating neophytes into the +mysteries of the meda craft. They were asked to a lodge of four poles, +to four stones that lay before its fire, there to remain four days, and +attend four feasts. At every step of the proceeding this number or its +multiples were repeated.[71-1] With their neighbors the Dakotas the +number was also distinctly sacred; it was intimately inwoven in all +their tales concerning the wakan power and the spirits of the air, and +their religious rites. The artist Catlin has given a vivid description +of the great annual festival of the Mandans, a Dakota tribe, and brings +forward with emphasis the ceaseless reiteration of this number from +first to last.[71-2] He did not detect its origin in the veneration of +the cardinal points, but the information that has since been furnished +of the myths of this stock leaves no doubt that such was the case.[71-3] + +Proximity of place had no part in this similarity of rite. In the grand +commemorative festival of the Creeks called the Busk, which wiped out +the memory of all crimes but murder, which reconciled the proscribed +criminal to his nation and atoned for his guilt, when the new fire was +kindled and the green corn served up, every dance, every invocation, +every ceremony, was shaped and ruled by the application of the number +four and its multiples in every imaginable relation. So it was at that +solemn probation which the youth must undergo to prove himself worthy of +the dignities of manhood and to ascertain his guardian spirit; here +again his fasts, his seclusions, his trials, were all laid down in +fourfold arrangement.[72-1] + +Not alone among these barbarous tribes were the cardinal points thus the +foundation of the most solemn mysteries of religion. An excellent +authority relates that the Aztecs of Micla, in Guatemala, celebrated +their chief festival four times a year, and that four priests solemnized +its rites. They commenced by invoking and offering incense to the sky +and the four cardinal points; they conducted the human victim four times +around the temple, then tore out his heart, and catching the blood in +four vases scattered it in the same directions.[72-2] So also the +Peruvians had four principal festivals annually, and at every new moon +one of four days' duration. In fact the repetition of the number in all +their religious ceremonies is so prominent that it has been a subject of +comment by historians. They have attributed it to the knowledge of the +solstices and equinoxes, but assuredly it is of more ancient date than +this. The same explanation has been offered for its recurrence among the +Nahuas of Mexico, whose whole lives were subjected to its operation. At +birth the mother was held unclean for four days, a fire was kindled and +kept burning for a like length of time, at the baptism of the child an +arrow was shot to each of the cardinal points. Their prayers were +offered four times a day, the greatest festivals were every fourth year, +and their offerings of blood were to the four points of the compass. At +death food was placed on the grave, as among the Eskimos, Creeks, and +Algonkins, for four days (for all these nations supposed that the +journey to the land of souls was accomplished in that time), and +mourning for the dead was for four months or four years.[73-1] + +It were fatiguing and unnecessary to extend the catalogue much further. +Yet it is not nearly exhausted. From tribes of both continents and all +stages of culture, the Muyscas of Columbia and the Natchez of Louisiana, +the Quiches of Guatemala and the Caribs of the Orinoko, instance after +instance might be marshalled to illustrate how universally a sacred +character was attached to this number, and how uniformly it is traceable +to a veneration of the cardinal points. It is sufficient that it be +displayed in some of its more unusual applications. + +It is well known that the calendar common to the Aztecs and Mayas +divides the month into four weeks, each containing a like number of +secular days; that their indiction is divided into four periods; and +that they believed the world had passed through four cycles. It has not +been sufficiently emphasized that in many of the picture writings these +days of the week are placed respectively north, south, east, and west, +and that in the Maya language the quarters of the indiction still bear +the names of the cardinal points, hinting the reason of their +adoption.[74-1] This cannot be fortuitous. Again, the division of the +year into four seasons--a division as devoid of foundation in nature as +that of the ancient Aryans into three, and unknown among many tribes, +yet obtained in very early times among Algonkins, Cherokees, Choctaws, +Creeks, Aztecs, Muyscas, Peruvians, and Araucanians. They were supposed +to be produced by the unending struggles and varying fortunes of the +four aerial giants who rule the winds. + +We must seek in mythology the key to the monotonous repetition and the +sanctity of this number; and furthermore, we must seek it in those +natural modes of expression of the religious sentiment which are above +the power of blood or circumstance to control. One of these modes, we +have seen, was that which led to the identification of the divinity with +the wind, and this it is that solves the enigma in the present instance. +Universally the spirits of the cardinal points were imagined to be in +the winds that blew from them. The names of these directions and of the +corresponding winds are often the same, and when not, there exists an +intimate connection between them. For example, take the languages of the +Mayas, Huastecas, and Moscos of Central America; in all of them the word +for _north_ is synonymous with _north wind_, and so on for the other +three points of the compass. Or again, that of the Dakotas, and the word +_tate-ouye-toba_, translated "the four quarters of the heavens," means +literally, "whence the four winds come."[75-1] It were not difficult to +extend the list; but illustrations are all that is required. Let it be +remembered how closely the motions of the air are associated in thought +and language with the operations of the soul and the idea of God; let it +further be considered what support this association receives from the +power of the winds on the weather, bringing as they do the lightning and +the storm, the zephyr that cools the brow, and the tornado that levels +the forest; how they summon the rain to fertilize the seed and refresh +the shrivelled leaves; how they aid the hunter to stalk the game, and +usher in the varying seasons; how, indeed, in a hundred ways, they +intimately concern his comfort and his life; and it will not seem +strange that they almost occupied the place of all other gods in the +mind of the child of nature. Especially as those who gave or withheld +the rains were they objects of his anxious solicitation. "Ye who dwell +at the four corners of the earth--at the north, at the south, at the +east, and at the west," commenced the Aztec prayer to the Tlalocs, gods +of the showers.[75-2] For they, as it were, hold the food, the life of +man in their power, garnered up on high, to grant or deny, as they see +fit. It was from them that the prophet of old was directed to call back +the spirits of the dead to the dry bones of the valley. "Prophesy unto +the wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, thus saith the Lord +God, come forth from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these +slain, that they may live." (Ezek. xxxvii. 9.) + +In the same spirit the priests of the Eskimos prayed to _Sillam Innua_, +the Owner of the Winds, as the highest existence; the abode of the dead +they called _Sillam Aipane_, the House of the Winds; and in their +incantations, when they would summon a new soul to the sick, or order +back to its home some troublesome spirit, their invocations were ever +addressed to the winds from the cardinal points--to Pauna the East and +Sauna the West, to Kauna the South and Auna the North.[76-1] + +As the rain-bringers, as the life-givers, it were no far-fetched +metaphor to call them the fathers of our race. Hardly a nation on the +continent but seems to have had some vague tradition of an origin from +four brothers, to have at some time been led by four leaders or princes, +or in some manner to have connected the appearance and action of four +important personages with its earliest traditional history. Sometimes +the myth defines clearly these fabled characters as the spirits of the +winds, sometimes it clothes them in uncouth, grotesque metaphors, +sometimes again it so weaves them into actual history that we are at a +loss where to draw the line that divides fiction from truth. + +I shall attempt to follow step by step the growth of this myth from its +simplest expression, where the transparent drapery makes no pretence to +conceal its true meaning, through the ever more elaborate narratives, +the more strongly marked personifications of more cultivated nations, +until it assumes the outlines of, and has palmed itself upon the world +as actual history. + +This simplest form is that which alone appears among the Algonkins and +Dakotas. They both traced their lives back to four ancestors, personages +concerned in various ways with the first things of time, not rightly +distinguished as men or gods, but very positively identified with the +four winds. Whether from one or all of these the world was peopled, +whether by process of generation or some other more obscure way, the old +people had not said, or saying, had not agreed.[77-1] + +It is a shade more complex when we come to the Creeks. They told of four +men who came from the four corners of the earth, who brought them the +sacred fire, and pointed out the seven sacred plants. They were called +the Hi-you-yul-gee. Having rendered them this service, the kindly +visitors disappeared in a cloud, returning whence they came. When +another and more ancient legend informs us that the Creeks were at first +divided into four clans, and alleged a descent from four female +ancestors, it will hardly be venturing too far to recognize in these +four ancestors the four friendly patrons from the cardinal points.[78-1] + +The ancient inhabitants of Haiti, when first discovered by the +Spaniards, had a similar genealogical story, which Peter Martyr relates +with various excuses for its silliness and exclamations at its +absurdity. Perhaps the fault lay less in its lack of meaning than in his +want of insight. It was to the effect that men lived in caves, and were +destroyed by the parching rays of the sun, and were destitute of means +to prolong their race, until they caught and subjected to their use four +women who were swift of foot and slippery as eels. These were the +mothers of the race of men. Or again, it was said that a certain king +had a huge gourd which contained all the waters of the earth; four +brothers, who coming into the world at one birth had cost their mother +her life, ventured to the gourd to fish, picked it up, but frightened by +the old king's approach, dropped it on the ground, broke it into +fragments, and scattered the waters over the earth, forming the seas, +lakes, and rivers, as they now are. These brothers in time became the +fathers of a nation, and to them they traced their lineage.[78-2] With +the previous examples before our eyes, it asks no vivid fancy to see in +these quaternions once more the four winds, the bringers of rain, so +swift and so slippery. + +The Navajos are a rude tribe north of Mexico. Yet even they have an +allegory to the effect that when the first man came up from the ground +under the figure of the moth-worm, the four spirits of the cardinal +points were already there, and hailed him with the exclamation, "Lo, he +is of our race."[79-1] It is a poor and feeble effort to tell the same +old story. + +The Haitians were probably relatives of the Mayas of Yucatan. Certainly +the latter shared their ancestral legends, for in an ancient manuscript +found by Mr. Stephens during his travels, it appears they looked back to +four parents or leaders called the Tutul Xiu. But, indeed, this was a +trait of all the civilized nations of Central America and Mexico. An +author who would be very unwilling to admit any mythical interpretation +of the coincidence, has adverted to it in tones of astonishment: "In all +the Aztec and Toltec histories there are four characters who constantly +reappear; either as priests or envoys of the gods, or of hidden and +disguised majesty; or as guides and chieftains of tribes during their +migrations; or as kings and rulers of monarchies after their foundation; +and even to the time of the conquest, there are always four princes who +compose the supreme government, whether in Guatemala, or in +Mexico."[79-2] This fourfold division points not to a common history, +but to a common nature. The ancient heroes and demigods, who, four in +number, figure in all these antique traditions, were not men of flesh +and blood, but the invisible currents of air who brought the fertilizing +showers. + +They corresponded to the four gods Bacab, who in the Yucatecan mythology +were supposed to stand one at each corner of the world, supporting, like +gigantic caryatides, the overhanging firmament. When at the general +deluge all other gods and men were swallowed by the waters they alone +escaped to people it anew. These four, known by the names of Kan, Muluc, +Ix, and Cauac, represented respectively the east, north, west, and +south, and as in Oriental symbolism, so here each quarter of the compass +was distinguished by a color, the east by yellow, the south by red, the +west by black, and the north by white. The names of these mysterious +personages, employed somewhat as we do the Dominical letters, adjusted +the calendar of the Mayas, and by their propitious or portentous +combinations was arranged their system of judicial astrology. They were +the gods of rain, and under the title Chac, the Red Ones, were the chief +ministers of the highest power. As such they were represented in the +religious ceremonies by four old men, constant attendants on the high +priest in his official functions.[80-1] In this most civilized branch +of the red race, as everywhere else, we thus find four mythological +characters prominent beyond all others, giving a peculiar physiognomy to +the national legends, arts, and sciences, and in them once more we +recognize by signs infallible, personifications of the four cardinal +points and the four winds. + +They rarely lose altogether their true character. The Quiche legends +tell us that the four men who were first created by the Heart of Heaven, +Hurakan, the Air in Motion, were infinitely keen of eye and swift of +foot, that "they measured and saw all that exists at the four corners +and the four angles of the sky and the earth;" that they did not fulfil +the design of their maker "to bring forth and produce when the season of +harvest was near," until he blew into their eyes a cloud, "until their +faces were obscured as when one breathes on a mirror." Then he gave them +as wives the four mothers of our species, whose names were Falling +Water, Beautiful Water, Water of Serpents, and Water of Birds.[81-1] +Truly he who can see aught but a transparent myth in this recital, is a +realist that would astonish Euhemerus himself. + +There is in these Aztec legends a quaternion besides this of the first +men, one that bears marks of a profound contemplation on the course of +nature, one that answers to the former as the heavenly phase of the +earthly conception. It is seen in the four personages, or perhaps we +should say modes of action, that make up the one Supreme Cause of All, +Hurakan, the breath, the wind, the Divine Spirit. They are He who +creates, He who gives Form, He who gives Life, and He who +reproduces.[82-1] This acute and extraordinary analysis of the origin +and laws of organic life, clothed under the ancient belief in the action +of the winds, reveals a depth of thought for which we were hardly +prepared, and is perhaps the single instance of anything like +metaphysics among the red race. It is clearly visible in the earlier +portions of the legends of the Quiches, and is the more surely of native +origin as it has been quite lost on both their translators. + +Go where we will, the same story meets us. The empire of the Incas was +attributed in the sacred chants of the Amautas, the priests assigned to +take charge of the records, to four brothers and their wives. These +mythical civilizers are said to have emerged from a cave called _Pacari +tampu_, which may mean "the House of Subsistence," reminding us of the +four heroes who in Aztec legend set forth to people the world from +Tonacatepec, the mountain of our subsistence; or again it may mean--for +like many of these mythical names it seems to have been designedly +chosen to bear a double construction--the Lodgings of the Dawn, +recalling another Aztec legend which points for the birthplace of the +race to Tula in the distant orient. The cave itself suggests to the +classical reader that of Eolus, or may be paralleled with that in which +the Iroquois fabled the winds were imprisoned by their lord.[83-1] These +brothers were of no common kin. Their voices could shake the earth and +their hands heap up mountains. Like the thunder god, they stood on the +hills and hurled their sling-stones to the four corners of the earth. +When one was overpowered he fled upward to the heaven or was turned into +stone, and it was by their aid and counsel that the savages who +possessed the land renounced their barbarous habits and commenced to +till the soil. There can be no doubt but that this in turn is but +another transformation of the Protean myth we have so long +pursued.[83-2] + +There are traces of the same legend among many other tribes of the +continent, but the trustworthy reports we have of them are too scanty to +permit analysis. Enough that they are mentioned in a note, for it is +every way likely that could we resolve their meaning they too would +carry us back to the four winds.[83-3] + +Let no one suppose, however, that this was the only myth of the origin +of man. Far from it. It was but one of many, for, as I shall hereafter +attempt to show, the laws that governed the formations of such myths not +only allowed but enjoined great divergence of form. Equally far was it +from being the only image which the inventive fancy hit upon to express +the action of the winds as the rain bringers. They too were many, but +may all be included in a twofold division, either as the winds were +supposed to flow in from the corners of the earth or outward from its +central point. Thus they are spoken of under such figures as four +tortoises at the angles of the earthly plane who vomit forth the +rains,[85-1] or four gigantic caryatides who sustain the heavens and +blow the winds from their capacious lungs,[85-2] or more frequently as +four rivers flowing from the broken calabash on high, as the Haitians, +draining the waters of the primitive world,[85-3] as four animals who +bring from heaven the maize,[85-4] as four messengers whom the god of +air sends forth, or under a coarser trope as the spittle he ejects +toward the cardinal points which is straightway transformed into wild +rice, tobacco, and maize.[85-5] + +Constantly from the palace of the lord of the world, seated on the high +hill of heaven, blow four winds, pour four streams, refreshing and +fecundating the earth. Therefore, in the myths of ancient Iran there is +mention of a celestial fountain, Arduisur, the virgin daughter of +Ormuzd, whence four all nourishing rivers roll their waves toward the +cardinal points; therefore the Thibetans believe that on the sacred +mountain Himavata grows the tree of life Zampu, from whose foot once +more flow the waters of life in four streams to the four quarters of the +world; and therefore it is that the same tale is told by the Chinese of +the mountain Kouantun, by the Brahmins of Mount Meru, and by the Parsees +of Mount Albors in the Caucasus.[85-6] Each nation called their sacred +mountain "the navel of the earth;" for not only was it the supposed +centre of the habitable world, but through it, as the foetus through +the umbilical cord, the earth drew her increase. Beyond all other spots +were they accounted fertile, scenes of joyous plaisance, of repose, and +eternal youth; there rippled the waters of health, there blossomed the +tree of life; they were fit trysting spots of gods and men. Hence came +the tales of the terrestrial paradise, the rose garden of Feridun, the +Eden gardens of the world. The name shows the origin, for paradise (in +Sanscrit, _para desa_) means literally _high land_. There, in the +unanimous opinion of the Orient, dwelt once in unalloyed delight the +first of men; thence driven by untoward fate, no more anywhere could +they find the path thither. Some thought that in the north among the +fortunate Hyperboreans, others that in the mountains of the moon where +dwelt the long lived Ethiopians, and others again that in the furthest +east, underneath the dawn, was situate the seat of pristine happiness; +but many were of opinion that somewhere in the western sea, beyond the +pillars of Hercules and the waters of the Outer Ocean, lay the garden of +the Hesperides, the Islands of the Blessed, the earthly Elysion. + +It is not without design that I recall this early dream of the religious +fancy. When Christopher Columbus, fired by the hope of discovering this +terrestrial paradise, broke the enchantment of the cloudy sea and found +a new world, it was but to light upon the same race of men, deluding +themselves with the same hope of earthly joys, the same fiction of a +long lost garden of their youth. They told him that still to the west, +amid the mountains of Paria, was a spot whence flowed mighty streams +over all lands, and which in sooth was the spot he sought;[87-1] and +when that baseless fabric had vanished, there still remained the fabled +island of Boiuca, or Bimini, hundreds of leagues north of Hispaniola, +whose glebe was watered by a fountain of such noble virtue as to restore +youth and vigor to the worn out and the aged.[87-2] This was no fiction +of the natives to rid themselves of burdensome guests. Long before the +white man approached their shores, families had started from Cuba, +Yucatan, and Honduras in search of these renovating waters, and not +returning, were supposed by their kindred to have been detained by the +delights of that enchanted land, and to be revelling in its seductive +joys, forgetful of former ties.[87-3] + +Perhaps it was but another rendering of the same belief that pointed to +the impenetrable forests of the Orinoko, the ancient homes of the Caribs +and Arowacks, and there located the famous realm of El Dorado with its +imperial capital Manoa, abounding in precious metals and all manner of +gems, peopled by a happy race, and governed by an equitable ruler. + +The Aztec priests never chanted more regretful dirges than when they +sang of Tulan, the cradle of their race, where once it dwelt in peaceful +indolent happiness, whose groves were filled with birds of sweet voices +and gay plumage, whose generous soil brought forth spontaneously maize, +cocoa, aromatic gums, and fragrant flowers. "Land of riches and plenty, +where the gourds grow an arm's length across, where an ear of corn is a +load for a stout man, and its stalks are as high as trees; land where +the cotton ripens of its own accord of all rich tints; land abounding +with limpid emeralds, turquoises, gold, and silver."[88-1] This land was +also called Tlalocan, from Tlaloc, the god of rain, who there had his +dwelling place, and Tlapallan, the land of colors, or the red land, for +the hues of the sky at sunrise floated over it. Its inhabitants were +surnamed children of the air, or of Quetzalcoatl, and from its centre +rose the holy mountain Tonacatepec, the mountain of our life or +subsistence. Its supposed location was in the east, whence in that +country blow the winds that bring mild rains, says Sahagun, and that +missionary was himself asked, as coming from the east, whether his home +was in Tlapallan; more definitely by some it was situated among the +lofty peaks on the frontiers of Guatemala, and all the great rivers that +water the earth were supposed to have their sources there.[88-2] But +here, as elsewhere, its site was not determined. "There is a Tulan," +says an ancient authority, "where the sun rises, and there is another in +the land of shades, and another where the sun reposes, and thence came +we; and still another where the sun reposes, and there dwells +God."[89-1] + +The myth of the Quiches but changes the name of this pleasant land. With +them it was _Pan-paxil-pa-cayala_, where the waters divide in falling, +or between the waters parcelled out and mucky. This was "an excellent +land, full of pleasant things, where was store of white corn and yellow +corn, where one could not count the fruits, nor estimate the quantity of +honey and food." Over it ruled the lord of the air, and from it the +four sacred animals carried the corn to make the flesh of men.[90-1] + +Once again, in the legends of the Mixtecas, we hear the old story +repeated of the garden where the first two brothers dwelt. It lay +between a meadow and that lofty peak which supports the heavens and the +palaces of the gods. "Many trees were there, such as yield flowers and +roses, very luscious fruits, divers herbs, and aromatic spices." The +names of the brothers were the Wind of Nine Serpents and the Wind of +Nine Caverns. The first was as an eagle, and flew aloft over the waters +that poured around their enchanted garden; the second was as a serpent +with wings, who proceeded with such velocity that he pierced rocks and +walls. They were too swift to be seen by the sharpest eye, and were one +near as they passed, he was only aware of a whisper and a rustling like +that of the wind in the leaves.[90-2] + +Wherever, in short, the lust of gold lured the early adventurers, they +were told of some nation a little further on, some wealthy and +prosperous land, abundant and fertile, satisfying the desire of the +heart. It was sometimes deceit, and it was sometimes the credited +fiction of the earthly paradise, that in all ages has with a promise of +perfect joy consoled the aching heart of man. + +It is instructive to study the associations that naturally group +themselves around each of the cardinal points, and watch how these are +mirrored on the surface of language, and have directed the current of +thought. Jacob Grimm has performed this task with fidelity and beauty as +regards the Aryan race, but the means are wanting to apply his searching +method to the indigenous tongues of America. Enough if in general terms +their mythological value be determined. + +When the day begins, man wakes from his slumbers, faces the rising sun, +and prays. The east is before him; by it he learns all other directions; +it is to him what the north is to the needle; with reference to it he +assigns in his mind the position of the three other cardinal +points.[91-1] There is the starting place of the celestial fires, the +home of the sun, the womb of the morning. It represents in space the +beginning of things in time, and as the bright and glorious creatures of +the sky come forth thence, man conceits that his ancestors also in +remote ages wandered from the orient; there in the opinion of many in +both the old and new world was the cradle of the race; there in Aztec +legend was the fabled land of Tlapallan, and the wind from the east was +called the wind of Paradise, Tlalocavitl. + +From this direction came, according to the almost unanimous opinion of +the Indian tribes, those hero gods who taught them arts and religion, +thither they returned, and from thence they would again appear to resume +their ancient sway. As the dawn brings light, and with light is +associated in every human mind the ideas of knowledge, safety, +protection, majesty, divinity, as it dispels the spectres of night, as +it defines the cardinal points, and brings forth the sun and the day, +it occupied the primitive mind to an extent that can hardly be magnified +beyond the truth. It is in fact the central figure in most natural +religions. + +The west, as the grave of the heavenly luminaries, or rather as their +goal and place of repose, brings with it thoughts of sleep, of death, of +tranquillity, of rest from labor. When the evening of his days was come, +when his course was run, and man had sunk from sight, he was supposed to +follow the sun and find some spot of repose for his tired soul in the +distant west. There, with general consent, the tribes north of the Gulf +of Mexico supposed the happy hunting grounds; there, taught by the same +analogy, the ancient Aryans placed the Nerriti, the exodus, the land of +the dead. "The old notion among us," said on one occasion a +distinguished chief of the Creek nation, "is that when we die, the +spirit goes the way the sun goes, to the west, and there joins its +family and friends who went before it."[92-1] + +In the northern hemisphere the shadows fall to the north, thence blow +cold and furious winds, thence come the snow and early thunder. Perhaps +all its primitive inhabitants, of whatever race, thought it the seat of +the mighty gods.[92-2] A floe of ice in the Arctic Sea was the home of +the guardian spirit of the Algonkins;[92-3] on a mountain near the north +star the Dakotas thought Heyoka dwelt who rules the seasons; and the +realm of Mictla, the Aztec god of death, lay where the shadows pointed. +From that cheerless abode his sceptre reached over all creatures, even +the gods themselves, for sooner or later all must fall before him. The +great spirit of the dead, said the Ottawas, lives in the dark +north,[93-1] and there, in the opinion of the Monquis of California, +resided their chief god, Gumongo.[93-2] + +Unfortunately the makers of vocabularies have rarely included the words +north, south, east, and west, in their lists, and the methods of +expressing these ideas adopted by the Indians can only be partially +discovered. The east and west were usually called from the rising and +setting of the sun as in our words orient and occident, but occasionally +from traditional notions. The Mayas named the west the greater, the east +the lesser debarkation; believing that while their culture hero Zamna +came from the east with a few attendants, the mass of the population +arrived from the opposite direction.[93-3] The Aztecs spoke of the east +as "the direction of Tlalocan," the terrestrial paradise. But for north +and south there were no such natural appellations, and consequently the +greatest diversity is exhibited in the plans adopted to express them. +The north in the Caddo tongue is "the place of cold," in Dakota "the +situation of the pines," in Creek "the abode of the (north) star," in +Algonkin "the home of the soul," in Aztec "the direction of Mictla" the +realm of death, in Quiche and Quichua, "to the right hand;"[93-4] while +for the south we find such terms as in Dakota "the downward direction," +in Algonkin "the place of warmth," in Quiche "to the left hand," while +among the Eskimos, who look in this direction for the sun, its name +implies "before one," just as does the Hebrew word _kedem_, which, +however, this more southern tribe applied to the east. + +We can trace the sacredness of the number four in other curious and +unlooked-for developments. Multiplied into the number of the +fingers--the arithmetic of every child and ignorant man--or by adding +together the first four members of its arithmetical series (4 + 8 + 12 + +16), it gives the number forty. This was taken as a limit to the sacred +dances of some Indian tribes, and by others as the highest number of +chants to be employed in exorcising diseases. Consequently it came to be +fixed as a limit in exercises of preparation or purification. The +females of the Orinoko tribes fasted forty days before marriage, and +those of the upper Mississippi were held unclean the same length of time +after childbirth; such was the term of the Prince of Tezcuco's fast when +he wished an heir to his throne, and such the number of days the Mandans +supposed it required to wash clean the world at the deluge.[94-1] + +No one is ignorant how widely this belief was prevalent in the old +world, nor how the quadrigesimal is still a sacred term with some +denominations of Christianity. But a more striking parallelism awaits +us. The symbol that beyond all others has fascinated the human mind, THE +CROSS, finds here its source and meaning. Scholars have pointed out its +sacredness in many natural religions, and have reverently accepted it as +a mystery, or offered scores of conflicting and often debasing +interpretations. It is but another symbol of the four cardinal points, +the four winds of heaven. This will luminously appear by a study of its +use and meaning in America. + +The Catholic missionaries found it was no new object of adoration to the +red race, and were in doubt whether to ascribe the fact to the pious +labors of Saint Thomas or the sacrilegious subtlety of Satan. It was the +central object in the great temple of Cozumel, and is still preserved on +the bas-reliefs of the ruined city of Palenque. From time immemorial it +had received the prayers and sacrifices of the Aztecs and Toltecs, and +was suspended as an august emblem from the walls of temples in Popoyan +and Cundinamarca. In the Mexican tongue it bore the significant and +worthy name "Tree of Our Life," or "Tree of our Flesh" (Tonacaquahuitl). +It represented the god of rains and of health, and this was everywhere +its simple meaning. "Those of Yucatan," say the chroniclers, "prayed to +the cross as the god of rains when they needed water." The Aztec goddess +of rains bore one in her hand, and at the feast celebrated to her honor +in the early spring victims were nailed to a cross and shot with arrows. +Quetzalcoatl, god of the winds, bore as his sign of office "a mace like +the cross of a bishop;" his robe was covered with them strown like +flowers, and its adoration was throughout connected with his +worship.[96-1] When the Muyscas would sacrifice to the goddess of waters +they extended cords across the tranquil depths of some lake, thus +forming a gigantic cross, and at their point of intersection threw in +their offerings of gold, emeralds, and precious oils.[96-2] The arms of +the cross were designed to point to the cardinal points and represent +the four winds, the rain bringers. To confirm this explanation, let us +have recourse to the simpler ceremonies of the less cultivated tribes, +and see the transparent meaning of the symbol as they employed it. + +When the rain maker of the Lenni Lenape would exert his power, he +retired to some secluded spot and drew upon the earth the figure of a +cross (its arms toward the cardinal points?), placed upon it a piece of +tobacco, a gourd, a bit of some red stuff, and commenced to cry aloud to +the spirits of the rains.[96-3] The Creeks at the festival of the Busk, +celebrated, as we have seen, to the four winds, and according to their +legends instituted by them, commenced with making the new fire. The +manner of this was "to place four logs in the centre of the square, end +to end, forming a cross, the outer ends pointing to the cardinal points; +in the centre of the cross the new fire is made."[97-1] + +As the emblem of the winds who dispense the fertilizing showers it is +emphatically the tree of our life, our subsistence, and our health. It +never had any other meaning in America, and if, as has been said,[97-2] +the tombs of the Mexicans were cruciform, it was perhaps with reference +to a resurrection and a future life as portrayed under this symbol, +indicating that the buried body would rise by the action of the four +spirits of the world, as the buried seed takes on a new existence when +watered by the vernal showers. It frequently recurs in the ancient +Egyptian writings, where it is interpreted _life_; doubtless, could we +trace the hieroglyph to its source, it would likewise prove to be +derived from the four winds. + +While thus recognizing the natural origin of this consecrated symbol, +while discovering that it is based on the sacredness of numbers, and +this in turn on the structure and necessary relations of the human +body, thus disowning the meaningless mysticism that Joseph de Maistre +and his disciples have advocated, let us on the other hand be equally on +our guard against accepting the material facts which underlie these +beliefs as their deepest foundation and their exhaustive explanation. +That were but withered fruit for our labors, and it might well be asked, +where is here the divine idea said to be dimly prefigured in mythology? +The universal belief in the sacredness of numbers is an instinctive +faith in an immortal truth; it is a direct perception of the soul, akin +to that which recognizes a God. The laws of chemical combination, of the +various modes of motion, of all organic growth, show that simple +numerical relations govern all the properties and are inherent to the +very constitution of matter; more marvellous still, the most recent and +severe inductions of physicists show that precisely those two numbers on +whose symbolical value much of the edifice of ancient mythology was +erected, the _four_ and the _three_, regulate the molecular distribution +of matter and preside over the symmetrical development of organic forms. +This asks no faith, but only knowledge; it is science, not revelation. +In view of such facts is it presumptuous to predict that experiment +itself will prove the truth of Kepler's beautiful saying: "The universe +is a harmonious whole, the soul of which is God; numbers, figures, the +stars, all nature, indeed, are in unison with the mysteries of +religion"? + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[67-1] Buckingham Smith, _Gram. Notices of the Heve Language_, p. 26 +(Shea's Lib. Am. Linguistics). + +[68-1] I refer to the four "ultimate elementary particles" of +Empedocles. The number was sacred to Hermes, and lay at the root of the +physical philosophy of Pythagoras. The quotation in the text is from the +"Golden Verses," given in Passow's lexicon under the word ~tetraktys: +nai ma ton hametera psycha paradonta tetraktyn, pagan aenaou physeos~. +"The most sacred of all things," said this famous teacher, "is Number; +and next to it, that which gives Names;" a truth that the lapse of three +thousand years is just enabling us to appreciate. + +[68-2] Ximenes, _Or. de los Indios_, etc., p. 5. + +[68-3] See Sepp, _Heidenthum und dessen Bedeutung fuer das Christenthum_, +i. p. 464 sqq., a work full of learning, but written in the wildest vein +of Joseph de Maistre's school of Romanizing mythology. + +[69-1] Brasseur, _Hist. du Mexique_, ii. p. 227, _Le Livre Sacre des +Quiches_, introd. p. ccxlii. The four provinces of Peru were Anti, Cunti, +Chincha, and Colla. The meaning of these names has been lost, but to +repeat them, says La Vega, was the same as to use our words, east, west, +north, and south (_Hist. des Incas_, lib. ii. cap. 11). + +[69-2] Humboldt, _Polit. Essay on New Spain_, ii. p. 44. + +[70-1] This custom has been often mentioned among the Iroquois. +Algonkins, Dakotas, Creeks, Natchez, Araucanians, and other tribes. +Nuttall points out its recurrence among the Tartars of Siberia also. +(_Travels_, p. 175.) + +[71-1] Schoolcraft, _Indian Tribes_, v. pp. 424 et seq. + +[71-2] _Letters on the North American Indians_, vol. i., Letter 22. + +[71-3] Schoolcraft, _Indian Tribes_, iv. p. 643 sq. "Four is their sacred +number," says Mr. Pond (p. 646). Their neighbors, the Pawnees, though not +the most remote affinity can be detected between their languages, +coincide with them in this sacred number, and distinctly identified it +with the cardinal points. See De Smet, _Oregon Missions_, pp. 360, 361. + +[72-1] Benj. Hawkins, _Sketch of the Creek Country_, pp. 75, 78: +Savannah, 1848. The description he gives of the ceremonies of the Creeks +was transcribed word for word and published in the first volume of the +American Antiquarian Society's Transactions as of the Shawnees of Ohio. +This literary theft has not before been noticed. + +[72-2] Palacios, _Des. de la Prov. de Guatemala_, pp. 31, 32, ed. +Ternaux-Compans. + +[73-1] All familiar with Mexican antiquity will recall many such +examples. I may particularly refer to Kingsborough, _Antiqs. of Mexico_, +v. p. 480, Ternaux-Compans' _Recueil de pieces rel. a la Conq. du +Mexique_, pp. 307, 310, and Gama, _Des. de las dos Piedras que se +hallaron en la plaza principal de Mexico_, ii. sec. 126 (Mexico, 1832), +who gives numerous instances beyond those I have cited, and directs with +emphasis the attention of the reader to this constant repetition. + +[74-1] Albert Gallatin, _Trans. Am. Ethnol. Soc._, ii. p. 316, from the +Codex Vaticanus, No. 3738. + +[75-1] Riggs, _Gram. and Dict. of the Dakota Lang._, s. v. + +[75-2] Sahagun, _Hist. de la Nueva Espana_, in Kingsborough, v. p. 375. + +[76-1] Egede, _Nachrichten von Groenland_, pp. 137, 173, 285. (Kopenhagen, +1790.) + +[77-1] Schoolcraft, _Algic Researches_, i. p. 139, and _Indian Tribes_, +iv. p. 229. + +[78-1] Hawkins, _Sketch of the Creek Country_, pp. 81, 82, and Blomes, +_Acc. of his Majesty's Colonies_, p. 156, London, 1687, in Castiglioni, +_Viaggi nelle Stati Uniti_, i. p. 294. + +[78-2] Peter Martyr, _De Reb. Ocean._, Dec. i. lib. ix. The story is also +told more at length by the Brother Romain Pane, in the essay on the +ancient histories of the natives he drew up by the order of Columbus. It +has been reprinted with notes by the Abbe Brasseur, Paris, 1864, p. 438 +sqq. + +[79-1] Schoolcraft, _Ind. Tribes_, iv. p. 89. + +[79-2] Brasseur, _Le Liv. Sac._, Introd., p. cxvii. + +[80-1] Diego de Landa, _Rel. de las Cosas de Yucatan_, pp. 160, 206, 208, +ed. Brasseur. The learned editor, in a note to p. 208, states erroneously +the disposition of the colors, as may be seen by comparing the document +on p. 395. This dedication of colors to the cardinal points is universal +in Central Asia. The geographical names of the Red Sea, the Black Sea, +the Yellow Sea or Persian Gulf, and the White Sea or the Mediterranean, +are derived from this association. The cities of China, many of them at +least, have their gates which open toward the cardinal points painted of +certain colors, and precisely these four, the white, the black, the red, +and the yellow, are those which in Oriental myth the mountain in the +centre of Paradise shows to the different cardinal points. (Sepp, +_Heidenthum und Christenthum_, i. p. 177.) The coincidence furnishes food +for reflection. + +[81-1] _Le Livre Sacre des Quiches_, pp. 203-5, note. + +[82-1] The analogy is remarkable between these and the "quatre actes de +la puissance generatrice jusqu'a l'entier developpement des corps +organises," portrayed by four globes in the Mycenean bas-reliefs. See +Guigniaut, _Religions de l'Antiquite_, i. p. 374. It were easy to +multiply the instances of such parallelism in the growth of religious +thought in the Old and New World, but I designedly refrain from doing so. +They have already given rise to false theories enough, and moreover my +purpose in this work is not "comparative mythology." + +[83-1] Mueller, _Amer. Urreligionen_, p. 105, after Strahlheim, who is, +however, no authority. + +[83-2] Mueller, _ubi supra_, pp. 308 sqq., gives a good resume of the +different versions of the myth of the four brothers in Peru. + +[83-3] The Tupis of Brazil claim a descent from four brothers, three of +whose names are given by Hans Staden, a prisoner among them about 1550, +as Krimen, Hermittan, and Coem; the latter he explains to mean the +morning, the east (_le matin_, printed by mistake _le mutin_, _Relation +de Hans Staden de Homberg_, p. 274, ed. Ternaux-Compans, compare Dias, +_Dicc. da Lingua Tupy_, p. 47). Their southern relatives, the Guaranis of +Paraguay, also spoke of the four brothers and gave two of their names as +Tupi and Guarani, respectively parents of the tribes called after them +(Guevara, _Hist. del Paraguay_, lib. i. cap. ii., in Waitz). The fourfold +division of the Muyscas of Bogota was traced back to four chieftains +created by their hero god Nemqueteba (A. von Humboldt, _Vues des +Cordilleres_, p. 246). The Nahuas of Mexico much more frequently spoke of +themselves as descendants of four or eight original families than of +seven (Humboldt, _ibid._, p. 317, and others in Waitz, _Anthropologie_, +iv. pp. 36, 37). The Sacs or Sauks of the Upper Mississippi supposed that +two men and two women were first created, and from these four sprang all +men (Morse, _Rep. on Ind. Affairs_, App. p. 138). The Ottoes, Pawnees, +"and other Indians," had a tradition that from eight ancestors all +nations and races were descended (Id., p. 249). This duplication of the +number probably arose from assigning the first four men four women as +wives. The division into clans or totems which prevails in most northern +tribes rests theoretically on descent from different ancestors. The +Shawnees and Natchez were divided into four such clans, the Choctaws, +Navajos, and Iroquois into eight, thus proving that in those tribes also +the myth I have been discussing was recognized. + +[85-1] Mandans in Catlin, _Letts. and Notes_, i. p. 181. + +[85-2] The Mayas, Cogolludo, _Hist. de Yucathan_, lib. iv. cap. 8. + +[85-3] The Navajos, Schoolcraft, _Ind. Tribes_, iv. p. 89. + +[85-4] The Quiches, Ximenes, _Or. de los Indios_, p. 79. + +[85-5] The Iroquois, Mueller, _Amer. Urreligionen_, p. 109. + +[85-6] For these myths see Sepp, _Das Heidenthum und dessen Bedeutung fuer +das Christenthum_, i. p. 111 sqq. The interpretation is of course my own. + +[87-1] Peter Martyr, _De Reb. Ocean._, Dec. iii., lib. ix. p. 195; Colon, +1574. + +[87-2] Ibid., Dec. iii., lib. x. p. 202. + +[87-3] Florida was also long supposed to be the site of this wondrous +spring, and it is notorious that both Juan Ponce de Leon and De Soto had +some lurking hope of discovering it in their expeditions thither. I have +examined the myth somewhat at length in _Notes on the Floridian +Peninsula, its Literary History, Indian Tribes, and Antiquities_, pp. 99, +100: Philadelphia, 1859. + +[88-1] Sahagun, _Hist. de la Nueva Espana_, lib. iii. cap. iii. + +[88-2] _Le Livre Sacre des Quiches_, Introd., p. clviii. + +[89-1] Memorial de Tecpan Atitlan, in Brasseur, _Hist. du Mexique_, i. p. +167. The derivation of Tulan, or Tula, is extremely uncertain. The Abbe +Brasseur sees in it the _ultima Thule_ of the ancient geographers, which +suits his idea of early American history. Hernando De Soto found a +village of this name on the Mississippi, or near it. But on looking into +Gallatin's vocabularies, _tulla_ turns out to be the Choctaw word for +_stone_, and as De Soto was then in the Choctaw country, the coincidence +is explained at once. Buschmann, who spells it _Tollan_, takes it from +_tolin_, a rush, and translates, _juncetum_, _Ort der Binsen. Ueber die +Aztekischen Orstnamen_,[TN-2] p. 682. Those who have attempted to make +history from these mythological fables have been much puzzled about the +location of this mystic land. Humboldt has placed it on the northwest +coast, Cabrera at Palenque, Clavigero north of Anahuac, etc. etc. Aztlan, +literally, the White Land, is another name of wholly mythical purport, +which it would be equally vain to seek on the terrestrial globe. In the +extract in the text, the word translated God is _Qabavil_, an old word +for the highest god, either from a root meaning to open, to disclose, or +from one of similar form signifying to wonder, to marvel; literally, +therefore, the Revealer, or the Wondrous One (_Vocab. de la Lengua +Quiche_, p. 209: Paris, 1862). + +[90-1] Ximenes, _Or. de los Indios_, p. 80, _Le Livre Sacre_, p. 195. + +[90-2] Garcia, _Origen de los Indios_, lib. iv. cap. 4. + +[91-1] Compare the German expression _sich orientiren_, to right oneself +by the east, to understand one's surroundings. + +[92-1] Hawkins, _Sketch of the Creek Country_, p. 80. + +[92-2] See Jacob Grimm, _Geschichte der Deutschen Sprache_, p. 681 + +[92-3] De Smet, Oregon Missions, p. 352. + +[93-1] Bressani, _Relation Abrege_, p. 93. + +[93-2] Venegas, _Hist. of California_, i. p. 91: London, 1759. + +[93-3] Cogolludo, _Hist. de Yucathan_, lib. iv. cap. iii. + +[93-4] Alexander von Humboldt has asserted that the Quichuas had other +and very circumstantial terms to express the cardinal points drawn from +the positions of the son (_Ansichten der Natur_, ii. p. 368). But the +distinguished naturalist overlooked the literal meaning of the phrases he +quotes for north and south, _intip chaututa chayananpata_ and _intip +chaupunchau chayananpata_, literally, the sun arriving toward the +midnight, the sun arriving toward the midday. These are evidently +translations of the Spanish _hacia la media noche_, _hacia el medio dia_, +for they could not have originated among a people under or south of the +equatorial line. + +[94-1] Catlin, _Letters and Notes_, i., Letter 22; La Hontan, _Memoires_, +ii. p. 151; Gumilla, _Hist. del Orinoco_, p. 159 + +[96-1] On the worship of the cross in Mexico and Yucatan and its +invariable meaning as representing the gods of rain, consult +Ixtlilxochitl, _Hist. des Chichimeques_, p. 5; Sahagun, _Hist. de la +Nueva Espana_, lib. i. cap. ii.; Garcia, _Or. de los Indios_, lib. iii. +cap. vi. p. 109; Palacios, _Des. de la Prov. de Guatemala_, p. 29; +Cogolludo, _Hist. de Yucathan_, lib. iv. cap. ix.; Villagutierre +Sotomayor, _Hist. de el Itza y de el Lacandon_, lib. iii. cap. 8; and +many others might be mentioned. + +[96-2] Rivero and Tschudi, _Peruvian Antiquities_, p. 162, after J. +Acosta. + +[96-3] Loskiel, _Ges. der Miss. der evang. Brueder_, p. 60. + +[97-1] Hawkins, _Sketch of the Creek Country_, p. 75. Lapham and Pidgeon +mention that in the State of Wisconsin many low mounds are found in the +form of a cross with the arms directed to the cardinal points. They +contain no remains. Were they not altars built to the Four Winds? In the +mythology of the Dakotas, who inhabited that region, the winds were +always conceived as birds, and for the cross they have a native name +literally signifying "the musquito hawk spread out" (Riggs, _Dict. of the +Dakota_, s. v.). Its Maya name is _vahom che_, the tree erected or set +up, the adjective being drawn from the military language and implying as +a defence or protection, as the warrior lifts his lance or shield (Landa, +_Rel. de las Cosas de Yucatan_, p. 65). + +[97-2] Squier, _The Serpent Symbol in America_, p. 98. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +THE SYMBOLS OF THE BIRD AND THE SERPENT. + + Relations of man to the lower animals.--Two of these, the BIRD and + the SERPENT, chosen as symbols beyond all others.--The Bird + throughout America the symbol of the Clouds and Winds.--Meaning of + certain species.--The symbolic meaning of the Serpent derived from + its mode of locomotion, its poisonous bite, and its power of + charming.--Usually the symbol of the Lightning and the Waters.--The + Rattlesnake the symbolic species in America.--The war charm.--The + Cross of Palenque.--The god of riches.--Both symbols devoid of + moral significance. + + +Those stories which the Germans call _Thierfabeln_, wherein the actors +are different kinds of brutes, seem to have a particular relish for +children and uncultivated nations. Who cannot recall with what delight +he nourished his childish fancy on the pranks of Reynard the Fox, or the +tragic adventures of Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf? Every nation +has a congeries of such tales, and it is curious to mark how the same +animal reappears with the same imputed physiognomy in all of them. The +fox is always cunning, the wolf ravenous, the owl wise, and the ass +foolish. The question has been raised whether such traits were at first +actually ascribed to animals, or whether their introduction in story was +intended merely as an agreeable figure of speech for classes of men. We +cannot doubt but that the former was the case. Going back to the dawn of +civilization, we find these relations not as amusing fictions, but as +myths, embodying religious tenets, and the brute heroes held up as the +ancestors of mankind, even as rightful claimants of man's prayers and +praises. + +Man, the paragon of animals, praying to the beast, is a spectacle so +humiliating that, for the sake of our common humanity, we may seek the +explanation of it least degrading to the dignity of our race. We must +remember that as a hunter the primitive man was always matched against +the wild creatures of the woods, so superior to him in their dumb +certainty of instinct, their swift motion, their muscular force, their +permanent and sufficient clothing. Their ways were guided by a wit +beyond his divination, and they gained a living with little toil or +trouble. They did not mind the darkness so terrible to him, but through +the night called one to the other in a tongue whose meaning he could not +fathom, but which, he doubted not, was as full of purport as his own. He +did not recognize in himself those god-like qualities destined to endow +him with the royalty of the world, while far more clearly than we do he +saw the sly and strange faculties of his antagonists. They were to him, +therefore, not inferiors, but equals--even superiors. He doubted not +that once upon a time he had possessed their instinct, they his +language, but that some necromantic spell had been flung on them both to +keep them asunder. None but a potent sorcerer could break this charm, +but such an one could understand the chants of birds and the howls of +savage beasts, and on occasion transform himself into one or another +animal, and course the forest, the air, or the waters, as he saw fit. +Therefore, it was not the beast that he worshipped, but that share of +the omnipresent deity which he thought he perceived under its +form.[101-1] + +Beyond all others, two subdivisions of the animal kingdom have so +riveted the attention of men by their unusual powers, and enter so +frequently into the myths of every nation of the globe, that a right +understanding of their symbolic value is an essential preliminary to the +discussion of the divine legends. They are the BIRD and the SERPENT. We +shall not go amiss if we seek the reasons of their pre-eminence in the +facility with which their peculiarities offered sensuous images under +which to convey the idea of divinity, ever present in the soul of man, +ever striving at articulate expression. + +The bird has the incomprehensible power of flight; it floats in the +atmosphere, it rides on the winds, it soars toward heaven where dwell +the gods; its plumage is stained with the hues of the rainbow and the +sunset; its song was man's first hint of music; it spurns the clouds +that impede his footsteps, and flies proudly over the mountains and +moors where he toils wearily along. He sees no more enviable creature; +he conceives the gods and angels must also have wings; and pleases +himself with the fancy that he, too, some day will shake off this coil +of clay, and rise on pinions to the heavenly mansions. All living +beings, say the Eskimos, have the faculty of soul (_tarrak_), but +especially the birds.[101-2] As messengers from the upper world and +interpreters of its decrees, the flight and the note of birds have ever +been anxiously observed as omens of grave import. "There is one bird +especially," remarks the traveller Coreal, of the natives of Brazil, +"which they regard as of good augury. Its mournful chant is heard rather +by night than day. The savages say it is sent by their deceased friends +to bring them news from the other world, and to encourage them against +their enemies."[102-1] In Peru and in Mexico there was a College of +Augurs, corresponding in purpose to the auspices of ancient Rome, who +practised no other means of divination than watching the course and +professing to interpret the songs of fowls. So natural and so general is +such a superstition, and so wide-spread is the respect it still obtains +in civilized and Christian lands, that it is not worth while to summon +witnesses to show that it prevailed universally among the red race also. +What imprinted it with redoubled force on their imagination was the +common belief that birds were not only divine nuncios, but the visible +spirits of their departed friends. The Powhatans held that a certain +small wood bird received the souls of their princes at death, and they +refrained religiously from doing it harm;[102-2] while the Aztecs and +various other nations thought that all good people, as a reward of +merit, were metamorphosed at the close of life into feathered songsters +of the grove, and in this form passed a certain term in the umbrageous +bowers of Paradise. + +But the usual meaning of the bird as a symbol looks to a different +analogy--to that which appears in such familiar expressions as "the +wings of the wind," "the flying clouds." Like the wind, the bird sweeps +through the aerial spaces, sings in the forests, and rustles on its +course; like the cloud, it floats in mid-air and casts its shadow on the +earth; like the lightning, it darts from heaven to earth to strike its +unsuspecting prey. These tropes were truths to savage nations, and led +on by that law of language which forced them to conceive everything as +animate or inanimate, itself the product of a deeper law of thought +which urges us to ascribe life to whatever has motion, they found no +animal so appropriate for their purpose here as the bird. Therefore the +Algonkins say that birds always make the winds, that they create the +water spouts, and that the clouds are the spreading and agitation of +their wings;[103-1] the Navajos, that at each cardinal point stands a +white swan, who is the spirit of the blasts which blow from its +dwelling; and the Dakotas, that in the west is the house of the +Wakinyan, the Flyers, the breezes that send the storms. So, also, they +frequently explain the thunder as the sound of the cloud-bird flapping +his wings, and the lightning as the fire that flashes from his tracks, +like the sparks which the buffalo scatters when he scours over a stony +plain.[103-2] The thunder cloud was also a bird to the Caribs, and they +imagined it produced the lightning in true Carib fashion by blowing it +through a hollow reed, just as they to this day hurl their poisoned +darts.[104-1] Tupis, Iroquois, Athapascas, for certain, perhaps all the +families of the red race, were the subject pursued, partook of this +persuasion; among them all it would probably be found that the same +figures of speech were used in comparing clouds and winds with the +feathered species as among us, with however this most significant +difference, that whereas among us they are figures and nothing more, to +them they expressed literal facts. + +How important a symbol did they thus become! For the winds, the clouds, +producing the thunder and the changes that take place in the +ever-shifting panorama of the sky, the rain bringers, lords of the +seasons, and not this only, but the primary type of the soul, the life, +the breath of man and the world, these in their role in mythology are +second to nothing. Therefore as the symbol of these august powers, as +messenger of the gods, and as the embodiment of departed spirits, no one +will be surprised if they find the bird figure most prominently in the +myths of the red race. + +Sometimes some particular species seems to have been chosen as most +befitting these dignified attributes. No citizen of the United States +will be apt to assert that their instinct led the indigenes of our +territory astray when they chose with nigh unanimous consent the great +American eagle as that fowl beyond all others proper to typify the +supreme control and the most admirable qualities. Its feathers composed +the war flag of the Creeks, and its images carved in wood or its stuffed +skin surmounted their council lodges (Bartram); none but an approved +warrior dare wear it among the Cherokees (Timberlake); and the Dakotas +allowed such an honor only to him who had first touched the corpse of +the common foe (De Smet). The Natchez and Akanzas seem to have paid it +even religious honors, and to have installed it in their most sacred +shrines (Sieur de Tonty, Du Pratz); and very clearly it was not so much +for ornament as for a mark of dignity and a recognized sign of worth +that its plumes were so highly prized. The natives of Zuni, in New +Mexico, employed four of its feathers to represent the four winds in +their invocations for rain (Whipple), and probably it was the eagle +which a tribe in Upper California (the Acagchemem) worshipped under the +name Panes. Father Geronimo Boscana describes it as a species of +vulture, and relates that one of them was immolated yearly, with solemn +ceremony, in the temple of each village. Not a drop of blood was +spilled, and the body burned. Yet with an amount of faith that staggered +even the Romanist, the natives maintained and believed that it was the +same individual bird they sacrificed each year; more than this, that the +same bird was slain by each of the villages![105-1] + +The owl was regarded by Aztecs, Quiches, Mayas, Peruvians, Araucanians, +and Algonkins as sacred to the lord of the dead. "The Owl" was one of +the names of the Mexican Pluto, whose realm was in the north,[106-1] and +the wind from that quarter was supposed by the Chipeways to be made by +the owl as the south by the butterfly.[106-2] As the bird of night, it +was the fit emissary of him who rules the darkness of the grave. +Something in the looks of the creature as it sapiently stares and blinks +in the light, or perhaps that it works while others sleep, got for it +the character of wisdom. So the Creek priests carried with them as the +badge of their learned profession the stuffed skin of one of these +birds, thus modestly hinting their erudite turn of mind,[106-3] and the +culture hero of the Monquis of California was represented, like Pallas +Athene, having one as his inseparable companion (Venegas). + +As the associate of the god of light and air, and as the antithesis +therefore of the owl, the Aztecs reverenced a bird called _quetzal_, +which I believe is a species of parroquet. Its plumage is of a bright +green hue, and was prized extravagantly as a decoration. It was one of +the symbols and part of the name of Quetzalcoatl, their mythical +civilizer, and the prince of all sorts of singing birds, myriads of whom +were fabled to accompany him on his journeys. + +The tender and hallowed associations that have so widely shielded the +dove from harm, which for instance Xenophon mentions among the ancient +Persians, were not altogether unknown to the tribes of the New World. +Neither the Hurons nor Mandans would kill them, for they believed they +were inhabited by the souls of the departed,[107-1] and it is said, but +on less satisfactory authority, that they enjoyed similar immunity among +the Mexicans. Their soft and plaintive note and sober russet hue widely +enlisted the sympathy of man, and linked them with his more tender +feelings. + +"As wise as the serpent, as harmless as the dove," is an antithesis that +might pass current in any human language. They are the emblems of +complementary, often contrasted qualities. Of all animals, the serpent +is the most mysterious. No wonder it possessed the fancy of the +observant child of nature. Alone of creatures it swiftly progresses +without feet, fins, or wings. "There be three things which are too +wonderful for me, yea, four which I know not," said wise King Solomon; +and the chief of them were, "the way of an eagle in the air, the way of +a serpent upon a rock." + +Its sinuous course is like to nothing so much as that of a winding +river, which therefore we often call serpentine. So did the Indians. +Kennebec, a stream in Maine, in the Algonkin means snake, and Antietam, +the creek in Maryland of tragic celebrity, in an Iroquois dialect has +the same significance. How easily would savages, construing the figure +literally, make the serpent a river or water god! Many species being +amphibious would confirm the idea. A lake watered by innumerable +tortuous rills wriggling into it, is well calculated for the fabled +abode of the king of the snakes. Thus doubtless it happened that both +Algonkins and Iroquois had a myth that in the great lakes dwelt a +monster serpent, of irascible temper, who unless appeased by meet +offerings raised a tempest or broke the ice beneath the feet of those +venturing on his domain, and swallowed them down.[108-1] + +The rattlesnake was the species almost exclusively honored by the red +race. It is slow to attack, but venomous in the extreme, and possesses +the power of the basilisk to attract within reach of its spring small +birds and squirrels. Probably this much talked of fascination is nothing +more than by its presence near their nests to incite them to attack, and +to hazard near and nearer approaches to their enemy in hope to force him +to retreat, until once within the compass of his fell swoop they fall +victims to their temerity. I have often watched a cat act thus. Whatever +explanation may be received, the fact cannot be questioned, and is ever +attributed by the unreflecting, to some diabolic spell cast upon them by +the animal. They have the same strange susceptibility to the influence +of certain sounds as the vipers, in which lies the secret of snake +charming. Most of the Indian magicians were familiar with this +singularity. They employed it with telling effect to put beyond question +their intercourse with the unseen powers, and to vindicate the potency +of their own guardian spirits who thus enabled them to handle with +impunity the most venomous of reptiles.[109-1] The well-known antipathy +of these serpents to certain plants, for instance the hazel, which bound +around the ankles is an efficient protection against their attacks, and +perhaps some antidote to their poison used by the magicians, led to +their frequent introduction in religious ceremonies. Such exhibitions +must have made a profound impression on the spectators, and redounded in +a corresponding degree to the glory of the performer. "Who is a manito?" +asks the mystic meda chant of the Algonkins. "He," is the reply, "he who +walketh with a serpent, walking on the ground, he is a manito."[109-2] +And the intimate alliance of this symbol with the most sacred mysteries +of religion, the darkest riddles of the Unknown, is reflected in their +language, and also in that of their neighbors the Dakotas, in both of +which the same words _manito_, _wakan_, which express divinity in its +broadest sense, are also used as generic terms signifying this species +of animals! This strange fact is not without a parallel, for in both +Arabic and Hebrew, the word for serpent has many derivatives, meaning to +have intercourse with demoniac powers, to practise magic, and to consult +familiar spirits.[110-1] + +The pious founder of the Moravian brotherhood, the Count of Zinzendorf, +owed his life on one occasion to this deeply rooted superstition. He was +visiting a missionary station among the Shawnees, in the Wyoming valley. +Recent quarrels with the whites had unusually irritated this unruly +folk, and they resolved to make him their first victim. After he had +retired to his secluded hut, several of their braves crept upon him, and +cautiously lifting the corner of the lodge, peered in. The venerable man +was seated before a little fire, a volume of the Scriptures on his +knees, lost in the perusal of the sacred words. While they gazed, a huge +rattlesnake, unnoticed by him, trailed across his feet, and rolled +itself into a coil in the comfortable warmth of the fire. Immediately +the would-be murderers forsook their purpose and noiselessly retired, +convinced that this was indeed a man of God. + +A more unique trait than any of these is its habit of casting its skin +every spring, thus as it were renewing its life. In temperate latitudes +the rattlesnake, like the leaves and flowers, retires from sight during +the cold season, and at the return of kindly warmth puts on a new and +brilliant coat. Its cast-off skin was carefully collected by the savages +and stored in the medicine bag as possessing remedial powers of high +excellence. Itself thus immortal, they thought it could impart its +vitality to them. So when the mother was travailing in sore pain, and +the danger neared that the child would be born silent, the attending +women hastened to catch some serpent and give her its blood to +drink.[111-1] + +It is well known that in ancient art this animal was the symbol of +AEsculapius, and to this day, Professor Agassiz found that the Maues +Indians, who live between the upper Tapajos and Madeira Rivers in +Brazil, whenever they assign a form to any "remedio," give it that of a +serpent.[111-2] + +Probably this notion that it was annually rejuvenated led to its +adoption as a symbol of Time among the Aztecs; or, perchance, as they +reckoned by suns, and the figure of the sun, a circle, corresponds to +nothing animate but a serpent with its tail in its mouth, eating itself, +as it were, this may have been its origin. Either of them is more likely +than that the symbol arose from the recondite reflection that time is +"never ending, still beginning, still creating, still destroying," as +has been suggested. + +Only, however, within the last few years has the significance of the +serpent symbol in its length and breadth been satisfactorily explained, +and its frequent recurrence accounted for. By a searching analysis of +Greek and German mythology, Dr. Schwarz, of Berlin, has shown that the +meaning which is paramount to all others in this emblem is _the +lightning_; a meaning drawn from the close analogy which the serpent in +its motion, its quick spring, and mortal bite, has to the zigzag course, +the rapid flash, and sudden stroke of the electric discharge. He even +goes so far as to imagine that by this resemblance the serpent first +acquired the veneration of men. But this is an extravagance not +supported by more thorough research. He has further shown with great +aptness of illustration how, by its dread effects, the lightning, the +heavenly serpent, became the god of terror and the opponent of such +heroes as Beowulf, St. George, Thor, Perseus, and others, mythical +representations of the fearful war of the elements in the thunder storm; +how from its connection with the advancing summer and fertilizing +showers it bore the opposite character of the deity of fruitfulness, +riches, and plenty; how, as occasionally kindling the woods where it +strikes, it was associated with the myths of the descent of fire from +heaven, and as in popular imagination where it falls it scatters the +thunderbolts in all directions, the flint-stones which flash when struck +were supposed to be these fragments, and gave rise to the stone worship +so frequent in the old world; and how, finally, the prevalent myth of a +king of serpents crowned with a glittering stone or wearing a horn is +but another type of the lightning.[113-1] Without accepting unreservedly +all these conclusions, I shall show how correct they are in the main +when applied to the myths of the New World, and thereby illustrate how +the red race is of one blood and one faith with our own remote ancestors +in heathen Europe and Central Asia. + +It asks no elaborate effort of the imagination to liken the lightning to +a serpent. It does not require any remarkable acuteness to guess the +conundrum of Schiller:-- + + "Unter allen Schlangen ist eine + Auf Erden nicht gezeugt, + Mit der an Schnelle keine, + An Wuth sich keine vergleicht." + +When Father Buteux was a missionary among the Algonkins, in 1637, he +asked them their opinion of the nature of lightning. "It is an immense +serpent," they replied, "which the Manito is vomiting forth; you can see +the twists and folds that he leaves on the trees which he strikes; and +underneath such trees we have often found huge snakes." "Here is a novel +philosophy for you!" exclaims the Father.[113-2] So the Shawnees called +the thunder "the hissing of the great snake;"[113-3] and Tlaloc, the +Toltec thunder god, held in his hand a serpent of gold to represent the +lightning.[114-1] For this reason the Caribs spoke of the god of the +thunder storm as a great serpent dwelling in the fruit forests,[114-2] +and in the Quiche legends other names for Hurakan, the hurricane or +thunder-storm, are the Strong Serpent, He who hurls below, referring to +the lightning.[114-3] + +Among the Hurons, in 1648, the Jesuits found a legend current that there +existed somewhere a monster serpent called Onniont, who wore on his head +a horn that pierced rocks, trees, hills, in short everything he +encountered. Whoever could get a piece of this horn was a fortunate man, +for it was a sovereign charm and bringer of good luck. The Hurons +confessed that none of them had had the good hap to find the monster and +break his horn, nor indeed had they any idea of his whereabouts; but +their neighbors, the Algonkins, furnished them at times small fragments +for a large consideration.[114-4] Clearly the myth had been taught them +for venal purposes by their trafficking visitors. Now among the +Algonkins, the Shawnee tribe did more than all others combined to +introduce and carry about religious legends and ceremonies. From the +earliest times they seem to have had peculiar aptitude for the +ecstasies, deceits, and fancies that made up the spiritual life of their +associates. Their constantly roving life brought them in contact with +the myths of many nations. And it is extremely probable that they first +brought the tale of the horned serpent from the Creeks and Cherokees. It +figured extensively in the legends of both these tribes. + +The latter related that once upon a time among the glens of their +mountains dwelt the prince of rattlesnakes. Obedient subjects guarded +his palace, and on his head glittered in place of a crown a gem of +marvellous magic virtues. Many warriors and magicians tried to get +possession of this precious talisman, but were destroyed by the poisoned +fangs of its defenders. Finally, one more inventive than the rest hit +upon the bright idea of encasing himself in leather, and by this device +marched unharmed through the hissing and snapping court, tore off the +shining jewel, and bore it in triumph to his nation. They preserved it +with religious care, brought it forth on state occasions with solemn +ceremony, and about the middle of the last century, when Captain +Timberlake penetrated to their towns, told him its origin.[115-1] + +The charm which the Creeks presented their young men when they set out +on the war path was of very similar character. It was composed of the +bones of the panther and the horn of the fabulous horned snake. +According to a legend taken down by an unimpeachable authority toward +the close of the last century, the great snake dwelt in the waters; the +old people went to the brink and sang the sacred songs. The monster rose +to the surface. The sages recommenced the mystic chants. He rose a +little out o[TN-3] the water. Again they repeated the songs. This time +he showed his horns and they cut one off. Still a fourth time did they +sing, and as he rose to listen cut off the remaining horn. A fragment of +these in the "war physic" protected from inimical arrows and gave +success in the conflict.[116-1] + +In these myths, which attribute good fortune to the horn of the snake, +that horn which pierces trees and rocks, which rises from the waters, +which glitters as a gem, which descends from the ravines of the +mountains, we shall not overstep the bounds of prudent reasoning if we +see the thunderbolt, sign of the fructifying rain, symbol of the +strength of the lightning, horn of the heavenly serpent. They are +strictly meteorological in their meaning. And when in later Algonkin +tradition the hero Michabo appears in conflict with the shining prince +of serpents who lives in the lake and floods the earth with its waters, +and destroys the reptile with a dart, and further when the conqueror +clothes himself with the skin of his foe and drives the rest of the +serpents to the south where in that latitude the lightnings are last +seen in the autumn;[116-2] or when in the traditional history of the +Iroquois we hear of another great horned serpent rising out of the lake +and preying upon the people until a similar hero-god destroys it with a +thunderbolt,[116-3] we cannot be wrong in rejecting any historical or +ethical interpretation, and in construing them as allegories which at +first represented the atmospheric changes which accompany the advancing +seasons and the ripening harvests. They are narratives conveying under +agreeable personifications the tidings of that unending combat which the +Dakotas said was being waged with varying fortunes by Unktahe against +Wauhkeon, the God of Waters against the Thunder Bird.[117-1] They are +the same stories which in the old world have been elaborated into the +struggles of Ormuzd and Ahriman, of Thor and Midgard, of St. George and +the Dragon, and a thousand others. + +Yet it were but a narrow theory of natural religion that allowed no +other meaning to these myths. Many another elemental warfare is being +waged around us, and applications as various as nature herself lie in +these primitive creations of the human fancy. Let it only be remembered +that there was never any moral, never any historical purport in them in +the infancy of religious life. + +In snake charming as a proof of proficiency in magic, and in the symbol +of the lightning, which brings both fire and water, which in its might +controls victory in war, and in its frequency, plenteous crops at home, +lies the secret of the serpent symbol. As the "war physic" among the +tribes of the United States was a fragment of a serpent, and as thus +signifying his incomparable skill in war, the Iroquois represent their +mythical king Atatarho clothed in nothing but black snakes; so that when +he wished to don a new suit he simply drove away one set and ordered +another to take their places,[118-1] so, by a precisely similar mental +process, the myth of the Nahuas assigns as a mother to their war god +Huitzilapochtli, Coatlicue, the robe of serpents; her dwelling place +Coatepec, the hill of serpents; and at her lying-in say that she brought +forth a serpent. Her son's image was surrounded by serpents, his sceptre +was in the shape of one, his great drum was of serpents' skins, and his +statue rested on four vermiform caryatides. + +As the symbol of the fertilizing summer showers the lightning serpent +was the god of fruitfulness. Born in the atmospheric waters, it was an +appropriate attribute of the ruler of the winds. But we have already +seen that the winds were often spoken of as great birds. Hence the union +of these two emblems in such names as Quetzalcoatl, Gucumatz, Kukulkan, +all titles of the god of the air in the languages of Central America, +all signifying the "Bird-serpent." Here also we see the solution of that +monument which has so puzzled American antiquaries, the cross at +Palenque. It is a tablet on the wall of an altar representing a cross +surmounted by a bird and supported by the head of a serpent. The latter +is not well defined in the plate in Mr. Stephens' Travels, but is very +distinct in the photographs taken by M. Charnay, which that gentleman +was kind enough to show me. The cross I have previously shown was the +symbol of the four winds, and the bird and serpent are simply the rebus +of the air god, their ruler.[119-1] Quetzalcoatl, called also Yolcuat, +the rattlesnake, was no less intimately associated with serpents than +with birds. The entrance to his temple at Mexico represented the jaws of +one of these reptiles, and he finally disappeared in the province of +Coatzacoalco, the hiding place of the serpent, sailing towards the east +in a bark of serpents' skins. All this refers to his power over the +lightning serpent. + +He was also said to be the god of riches and the patron consequently of +merchants. For with the summer lightning come the harvest and the +ripening fruits, come riches and traffic. Moreover "the golden color of +the liquid fire," as Lucretius expresses it, naturally led where this +metal was known, to its being deemed the product of the lightning. Thus +originated many of those tales of a dragon who watches a treasure in the +earth, and of a serpent who is the dispenser of riches, such as were +found among the Greeks and ancient Germans.[119-2] So it was in Peru +where the god of riches was worshipped under the image of a rattlesnake +horned and hairy, with a tail of gold. It was said to have descended +from the heavens in the sight of all the people, and to have been seen +by the whole army of the Inca.[119-3] Whether it was in reference to +it, or as emblems of their prowess, that the Incas themselves chose as +their arms two serpents with their tails interlaced, is uncertain; +possibly one for each of these significations. + +Because the rattlesnake, the lightning serpent, is thus connected with +the food of man, and itself seems never to die but annually to renew its +youth, the Algonkins called it "grandfather" and "king of snakes;" they +feared to injure it; they believed it could grant prosperous breezes, or +raise disastrous tempests; crowned with the lunar crescent it was the +constant symbol of life in their picture writing; and in the meda signs +the mythical grandmother of mankind _me suk kum me go kwa_ was +indifferently represented by an old woman or a serpent.[120-1] For like +reasons Cihuacoatl, the Serpent Woman, in the myths of the Nahuas was +also called Tonantzin, our mother.[120-2] + +The serpent symbol in America has, however, been brought into undue +prominence. It had such an ominous significance in Christian art, and +one which chimed so well with the favorite proverb of the early +missionaries--"the gods of the heathens are devils"--that wherever they +saw a carving or picture of a serpent they at once recognized the sign +manual of the Prince of Darkness, and inscribed the fact in their +note-books as proof positive of their cherished theory. After going +over the whole ground, I am convinced that none of the tribes of the red +race attached to this symbol any ethical significance whatever, and that +as employed to express atmospheric phenomena, and the recognition of +divinity in natural occurrences, it far more frequently typified what +was favorable and agreeable than the reverse. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[101-1] That these were the real views entertained by the Indians in +regard to the brute creation, see Heckewelder, _Acc. of the Ind. +Nations_, p. 247; Schoolcraft, _Ind. Tribes_, iii. p. 520. + +[101-2] Egede, _Nachrichten von Groenland_, p. 156. + +[102-1] _Voiages aux Indes Occidentales_, pt. ii. p. 203: Amst. 1722. + +[102-2] Beverly, _Hist. de la Virginie_, liv. iii. chap. viii. + +[103-1] Schoolcraft, _Ind. Tribes_, v. p. 420. + +[103-2] Mrs. Eastman, _Legends of the Sioux_, p. 191: New York, 1849. +This is a trustworthy and meritorious book, which can be said of very few +collections of Indian traditions. They were collected during a residence +of seven years in our northwestern territories, and are usually verbally +faithful to the native narrations. + +[104-1] Mueller, _Amer. Urreligionen_, p. 222, after De la Borde. + +[105-1] _Acc. of the Inds. of California_, ch. ix. Eng. trans. by +Robinson: New York, 1847. The Acagchemem were a branch of the Netela +tribe, who dwelt near the mission San Juan Capistrano (see Buschmann, +_Spuren der Aztek. Sprache_, etc., p. 548). + +[106-1] Called in the Aztec tongue _Tecolotl_, night owl; literally, the +stone scorpion. The transfer was mythological. The Christians prefixed to +this word _tlaca_, man, and thus formed a name for Satan, which Prescott +and others have translated "rational owl." No such deity existed in +ancient Anahuac (see Buschmann, _Die Voelker und Sprachen Neu Mexico's_, +p. 262). + +[106-2] Schoolcraft, _Ind. Tribes_, v. p. 420. + +[106-3] William Bartram, Travels, p. 504. Columbus found the natives of +the Antilles wearing tunics with figures of these birds embroidered upon +them. Prescott, _Conq. of Mexico_, i. p. 58, note. + +[107-1] _Rel. de la Nouv. France_, An 1636, ch. ix. Catlin, _Letters and +notes_, Lett. 22. + +[108-1] _Rel. de la Nouv. France_, An 1648, p. 75; Cusic, _Trad. Hist. of +the Six Nations_, pt. iii. The latter is the work of a native Tuscarora +chief. It is republished in Schoolcraft's Indian Tribes, but is of little +value. + +[109-1] For example, in Brazil, Mueller, _Amer. Urrelig._, p. 277; in +Yucatan, Cogolludo, _Hist. de Yucathan_, lib. iv. cap. 4; among the +western Algonkins, _Hennepin, Decouverte dans l'Amer. Septen_. chap. 33. +Dr. Hammond has expressed the opinion that the North American Indians +enjoy the same immunity from the virus of the rattlesnake, that certain +African tribes do from some vegetable poisons (_Hygiene_, p. 73). But his +observation must be at fault, for many travellers mention the dread these +serpents inspired, and the frequency of death from their bites, e. g. +_Rel. Nouv. France_. 1667, p. 22. + +[109-2] _Narrative of the Captivity and Adventures of John Tanner_, p. +356. + +[110-1] See Gallatin's vocabularies in the second volume of the _Trans. +Am. Antiq. Soc._ under the word _Snake_. In Arabic _dzann_ is serpent; +_dzanan_ a spirit, a soul, or the heart. So in Hebrew _nachas_, serpent, +has many derivatives signifying to hold intercourse with demons, to +conjure, a magician, etc. See Noldeke in the _Zeitschrift fuer +Voelkerpsychologie und Sprachwissenschaft_, i. p. 413. + +[111-1] Alexander Henry, _Travels_, p. 117. + +[111-2] _Bost. Med. and Surg. Journal_, vol. 76, p. 21. + +[113-1] Schwarz, _Der Ursprung der Mythologie dargelegt an Griechischer +und Deutscher Sage_: Berlin, 1860, _passim_. + +[113-2] _Rel. de la Nouv. France_: An 1637, p. 53. + +[113-3] _Sagen der Nord-Amer. Indianer_, p. 21. This is a German +translation of part of Jones's _Legends of the N. Am. Inds._: London, +1820. Their value as mythological material is very small. + +[114-1] Torquemada, _Monarquia Indiana_, lib. vi. cap. 37. + +[114-2] Mueller, _Amer. Urrelig._, 221, after De la Borde. + +[114-3] _Le Livre Sacre des Quiches_, p. 3. + +[114-4] _Rel. de la Nouv. France_, 1648, p. 75. + +[115-1] _Memoirs of Lieut. Henry Timberlake_, p. 48: London, 1765. This +little book gives an account of the Cherokees at an earlier date than is +elsewhere found. + +[116-1] Hawkins, _Sketch of the Creek Country_, p. 80. + +[116-2] Schoolcraft, _Algic Researches_, i. p. 179 sq.; compare ii. p. +117. + +[116-3] Morgan, _League of the Iroquois_, p. 159; Cusic, _Trad. Hist. of +the Six Nations_, pt. ii. + +[117-1] Mrs. Eastman, _Legends of the Sioux_, pp. 161, 212. In this +explanation I depart from Prof. Schwarz, who has collected various +legends almost identical with these of the Indians (with which he was not +acquainted), and interpreted the precious crown or horn to be the summer +sun, brought forth by the early vernal lightning. _Ursprung der +Mythologie_, p. 27, note. + +[118-1] Cusic, u. s., pt. ii. + +[119-1] This remarkable relic has been the subject of a long and able +article in the _Revue Americaine_ (tom. ii. p. 69), by the venerable +traveller De Waldeck. Like myself--and I had not seen his opinion until +after the above was written--he explains the cruciform design as +indicating the four cardinal points, but offers the explanation merely as +a suggestion, and without referring to these symbols as they appear in so +many other connections. + +[119-2] Schwarz, _Ursprung der Mythologie_, pp. 62 sqq. + +[119-3] "I have examined many Indians in reference to these details," +says the narrator, an Augustin monk writing in 1554, "and they have all +confirmed them as eye-witnesses" (_Lettre sur les Superstitions du +Perou_, p. 106, ed. Ternaux-Compans. This document is very valuable). + +[120-1] _Narrative of John Tanner_, p. 355; Henry, _Travels_, p. 176. + +[120-2] Torquemada, _Monarquia Indiana_, lib. vi. cap. 31. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +THE MYTHS OF WATER, FIRE, AND THE THUNDER-STORM. + + Water the oldest element.--Its use in purification.--Holy + water.--The Rite of Baptism.--The Water of Life.--Its symbols.--The + Vase.--The Moon.--The latter the goddess of love and agriculture, + but also of sickness, night, and pain.--Often represented by a + dog.--Fire worship under the form of Sun worship.--The perpetual + fire.--The new fire--Burning the dead.--A worship of the passions, + but no sexual dualism in myths, nor any phallic worship in + America.--Synthesis of the worship of Fire, Water, and the Winds in + the THUNDER-STORM, personified as Haokah, Tupa, Catequil, Contici, + Heno, Tlaloc, Mixcoatl, and other deities, many of them triune. + + +The primitive man was a brute in everything but the susceptibility to +culture; the chief market of his time was to sleep, fight, and feed; his +bodily comfort alone had any importance in his eyes; and his gods were +nothing, unless they touched him here. Cold, hunger, thirst, these were +the hounds that were ever on his track; these were the fell powers he +saw constantly snatching away his fellows, constantly aiming their +invisible shafts at himself. Fire, food, and water were the gods that +fought on his side; they were the chief figures in his pantheon, his +kindliest, perhaps his earliest, divinities. + +With a nearly unanimous voice mythologies assign the priority to water. +It was the first of all things, the parent of all things. Even the gods +themselves were born of water, said the Greeks and the Aztecs. +Cosmogonies reach no further than the primeval ocean that rolled its +shoreless waves through a timeless night. + +"Omnia pontus erant, deerant quoque litora ponto." + +Earth, sun, stars, lay concealed in its fathomless abysses. "All of us," +ran the Mexican baptismal formula, "are children of Chalchihuitlycue, +Goddess of Water," and the like was said by the Peruvians of Mama Cocha, +by the Botocudos of Taru, by the natives of Darien of Dobayba, by the +Iroquois of Ataensic--all of them mothers of mankind, all +personifications of water. + +How account for such unanimity? Not by supposing some ancient +intercourse between remote tribes, but by the uses of water as the +originator and supporter, the essential prerequisite of life. Leaving +aside the analogy presented by the motherly waters which nourish the +unborn child, nor emphasizing how indispensable it is as a beverage, the +many offices this element performs in nature lead easily to the +supposition that it must have preceded all else. By quenching thirst, it +quickens life; as the dew and the rain it feeds the plant, and when +withheld the seed perishes in the ground and forests and flowers alike +wither away; as the fountain, the river, and the lake, it enriches the +valley, offers safe retreats, and provides store of fishes; as the +ocean, it presents the most fitting type of the infinite. It cleanses, +it purifies; it produces, it preserves. "Bodies, unless dissolved, +cannot act," is a maxim of the earliest chemistry. Very plausibly, +therefore, was it assumed as the source of all things. + +The adoration of streams, springs, and lakes, or rather of the spirits +their rulers, prevailed everywhere; sometimes avowedly because they +provided food, as was the case with the Moxos, who called themselves +children of the lake or river on which their village was, and were +afraid to migrate lest their parent should be vexed;[124-1] sometimes +because they were the means of irrigation, as in Peru, or on more +general mythical grounds. A grove by a fountain is in all nature worship +the ready-made shrine of the sylphs who live in its limpid waves and +chatter mysteriously in its shallows. On such a spot in our Gulf States +one rarely fails to find the sacrificial mound of the ancient +inhabitants, and on such the natives of Central America were wont to +erect their altars (Ximenes). Lakes are the natural centres of +civilization. Like the lacustrine villages which the Swiss erected in +ante-historic times, like ancient Venice, the city of Mexico was first +built on piles in a lake, and for the same reason--protection from +attack. Security once obtained, growth and power followed. Thus we can +trace the earliest rays of Aztec civilization rising from lake Tezcuco, +of the Peruvian from Lake Titicaca, of the Muyscas from Lake Guatavita. +These are the centres of legendary cycles. Their waters were hallowed by +venerable reminiscences. From the depths of Titicaca rose Viracocha, +mythical civilizer of Peru. Guatavita was the bourne of many a foot-sore +pilgrim in the ancient empire of the Zac. Once a year the high priest +poured the collective offerings of the multitude into its waves, and +anointed with oils and glittering with gold dust, dived deep in its +midst, professing to hold communion with the goddess who there had her +home.[125-1] + +Not only does the life of man but his well-being depends on water. As an +ablution it invigorates him bodily and mentally. No institution was in +higher honor among the North American Indians than the sweat-bath +followed by the cold douche. It was popular not only as a remedy in +every and any disease, but as a preliminary to a council or an important +transaction. Its real value in cold climates is proven by the sustained +fondness for the Russian bath in the north of Europe. The Indians, +however, with their usual superstition attributed its good effects to +some mysterious healing power in water itself. Therefore, when the +patient was not able to undergo the usual process, or when his medical +attendant was above the vulgar and routine practice of his profession, +it was administered on the infinitesimal system. The quack muttered a +formula over a gourd filled from a neighboring spring and sprinkled it +on his patient, or washed the diseased part, or sucked out the evil +spirit and blew it into a bowl of water, and then scattered the liquid +on the fire or earth.[125-2] + +The use of such "holy water" astonished the Romanist missionaries, and +they at once detected Satan parodying the Scriptures. But their +astonishment rose to horror when they discovered among various nations a +rite of baptism of appalling similarity to their own, connected with +the imposing of a name, done avowedly for the purpose of freeing from +inherent sin, believed to produce a regeneration of the spiritual +nature, nay, in more than one instance called by an indigenous word +signifying "to be born again."[126-1] Such a rite was of immemorial +antiquity among the Cherokees, Aztecs, Mayas, and Peruvians. Had the +missionaries remembered that it was practised in Asia with all these +meanings long before it was chosen as the sign of the new covenant, they +need have invoked neither Satan nor Saint Thomas to explain its presence +in America. + +As corporeal is near akin to spiritual pollution, and cleanliness to +godliness, ablution preparatory to engaging in religious acts came early +to have an emblematic as well as a real significance. The water freed +the soul from sin as it did the skin from stain. We should come to God +with clean hands and a clean heart. As Pilate washed his hands before +the multitude to indicate that he would not accept the moral +responsibility of their acts, so from a similar motive a Natchez chief, +who had been persuaded against his sense of duty not to sacrifice +himself on the pyre of his ruler, took clean water, washed his hands, +and threw it upon live coals.[126-2] When an ancient Peruvian had laid +bare his guilt by confession, he bathed himself in a neighboring river +and repeated this formula:-- + +"O thou River, receive the sins I have this day confessed unto the Sun, +carry them down to the sea, and let them never more appear."[127-1] + +The Navajo who has been deputed to carry a dead body to burial, holds +himself unclean until he has thoroughly washed himself in water prepared +for the purpose by certain ceremonies.[127-2] A bath was an +indispensable step in the mysteries of Mithras, the initiation at +Eleusis, the meda worship of the Algonkins, the Busk of the Creeks, the +ceremonials of religion everywhere. Baptism was at first always +immersion. It was a bath meant to solemnize the reception of the child +into the guild of mankind, drawn from the prior custom of ablution at +any solemn occasion. In both the object is greater purity, bodily and +spiritual. As certainly as there is a law of conscience, as certainly as +our actions fall short of our volitions, so certainly is man painfully +aware of various imperfections and shortcomings. What he feels he +attributes to the infant. Avowedly to free themselves from this sense of +guilt the Delawares used an emetic (Loskiel), the Cherokees a potion +cooked up by an order of female warriors (Timberlake), the Takahlies of +Washington Territory, the Aztecs, Mayas, and Peruvians, auricular +confession. Formulize these feelings and we have the dogmas of "original +sin," and of "spiritual regeneration." The order of baptism among the +Aztecs commenced, "O child, receive the water of the Lord of the world, +which is our life; it is to wash and to purify; may these drops remove +the sin which was given to thee before the creation of the world, since +all of us are under its power;" and concluded, "Now he liveth anew and +is born anew, now is he purified and cleansed, now our mother the Water +again bringeth him into the world."[128-1] + +A name was then assigned to the child, usually that of some ancestor, +who it was supposed would thus be induced to exercise a kindly +supervision over the little one's future. In after life should the +person desire admittance to a superior class of the population and had +the wealth to purchase it--for here as in more enlightened lands +nobility was a matter of money--he underwent a second baptism and +received another name, but still ostensibly from the goddess of +water.[128-2] + +In Peru the child was immersed in the fluid, the priest exorcised the +evil and bade it enter the water, which was then buried in the +ground.[128-3] In either country sprinkling could take the place of +immersion. The Cherokees believe that unless the rite is punctually +performed when the child is three days old, it will inevitably +die.[128-4] + +As thus curative and preservative, it was imagined that there was water +of which whoever should drink would not die, but live forever. I have +already alluded to the Fountain of Youth, supposed long before Columbus +saw the surf of San Salvador to exist in the Bahama Islands or Florida. +It seems to have lingered long on that peninsula. Not many years ago, +Coacooche, a Seminole chieftain, related a vision which had nerved him +to a desperate escape from the Castle of St. Augustine. "In my dream," +said he, "I visited the happy hunting grounds and saw my twin sister, +long since gone. She offered me a cup of pure water, which she said came +from the spring of the Great Spirit, and if I should drink of it, I +should return and live with her forever."[129-1] Some such mystical +respect for the element, rather than as a mere outfit for his spirit +home, probably induced the earlier tribes of the same territory to place +the conch-shell which the deceased had used for a cup conspicuously on +his grave,[129-2] and the Mexicans and Peruvians to inter a vase filled +with water with the corpse, or to sprinkle it with the liquid, baptizing +it, as it were, into its new associations.[130-1] It was an emblem of +the hope that should cheer the dwellings of the dead, a symbol of the +resurrection which is in store for those who have gone down to the +grave. + +The vase or the gourd as a symbol of water, the source and preserver of +life, is a conspicuous figure in the myths of ancient America. As Akbal +or Huecomitl, the great or original vase, in Aztec and Maya legends it +plays important parts in the drama of creation; as Tici (Ticcu) in Peru +it is the symbol of the rains, and as a gourd it is often mentioned by +the Caribs and Tupis as the parent of the atmospheric waters. + +As the MOON is associated with the dampness and dews of night, an +ancient and wide-spread myth identified her with the Goddess of Water. +Moreover, in spite of the expostulations of the learned, the common +people the world over persist in attributing to her a marked influence +on the rains. Whether false or true, this familiar opinion is of great +antiquity, and was decidedly approved by the Indians, who were all, in +the words of an old author, "great observers of the weather by the +moon."[130-2] They looked upon her not only as forewarning them by her +appearance of the approach of rains and fogs, but as being their actual +cause. + +Isis, her Egyptian title, literally means moisture; Ataensic, whom the +Hurons said was the moon, is derived from the word for water; and +Citatli and Atl, moon and water, are constantly confounded in Aztec +theology. Their attributes were strikingly alike. They were both the +mythical mothers of the race, and both protect women in child-birth, the +babe in the cradle, the husbandman in the field, and the youth and +maiden in their tender affections. As the transfer of legends was nearly +always from the water to its lunar goddess, by bringing them in at this +point their true meaning will not fail to be apparent. + +We must ever bear in mind that the course of mythology is from many gods +toward one, that it is a synthesis not an analysis, and that in this +process the tendency is to blend in one the traits and stories of +originally separate divinities. As has justly been observed by the +Mexican antiquarian Gama: "It was a common trait among the Indians to +worship many gods under the figure of one, principally those whose +activities lay in the same direction, or those in some way related among +themselves."[131-1] + +The time of full moon was chosen both in Mexico and Peru to celebrate +the festival of the deities of water, the patrons of agriculture,[131-2] +and very generally the ceremonies connected with the crops were +regulated by her phases. The Nicaraguans said that the god of rains, +Quiateot, rose in the east,[131-3] thus hinting how this connection +originated. At a lunar eclipse the Orinoko Indians seized their hoes and +labored with exemplary vigor on their growing corn, saying the moon was +veiling herself in anger at their habitual laziness;[132-1] and a +description of the New Netherlands, written about 1650, remarks that the +savages of that land "ascribe great influence to the moon over +crops."[132-2] This venerable superstition, common to all races, still +lingers among our own farmers, many of whom continue to observe "the +signs of the moon" in sowing grain, setting out trees, cutting timber, +and other rural avocations. + +As representing water, the universal mother, the moon was the +protectress of women in child-birth, the goddess of love and babes, the +patroness of marriage. To her the mother called in travail, whether by +the name of "Diana, diva triformis" in pagan Rome, by that of Mama +Quilla in Peru, or of Meztli in Anahuac. Under the title of +Yohualticitl, the Lady of Night, she was also in this latter country the +guardian of babes, and as Teczistecatl, the cause of generation.[132-3] + +Very different is another aspect of the moon goddess, and well might the +Mexicans paint her with two colors. The beneficent dispenser of harvests +and offspring, she nevertheless has a portentous and terrific phase. She +is also the goddess of the night, the dampness, and the cold; she +engenders the miasmatic poisons that rack our bones; she conceals in her +mantle the foe who takes us unawares; she rules those vague shapes which +fright us in the dim light; the causeless sounds of night or its more +oppressive silence are familiar to her; she it is who sends dreams +wherein gods and devils have their sport with man, and slumber, the twin +brother of the grave. In the occult philosophy of the middle ages she +was "Chief over the Night, Darkness, Rest, Death, and the +Waters;"[133-1] in the language of the Algonkins, her name is identical +with the words for night, death, cold, sleep, and water.[133-2] + +She is the evil minded woman who thus brings diseases upon men, who at +the outset introduced pain and death in the world--our common mother, +yet the cruel cause of our present woes. Sometimes it is the moon, +sometimes water, of whom this is said: "We are all of us under the power +of evil and sin, _because_ we are children of the Water," says the +Mexican baptismal formula. That Unktahe, spirit of water, is the master +of dreams and witchcraft, is the belief of the Dakotas.[133-3] A female +spirit, wife of the great manito whose heart is the sun, the ancient +Algonkins believed brought death and disease to the race; "it is she +who kills men, otherwise they would never die; she eats their flesh and +knaws[TN-4] their vitals, till they fall away and miserably +perish."[134-1] Who is this woman? In the legend of the Muyscas it is +Chia, the moon, who was also goddess of water and flooded the earth out +of spite.[134-2] Her reputation was notoriously bad. The Brazilian +mother carefully shielded her infant from the lunar rays, believing that +they would produce sickness;[134-3] the hunting tribes of our own +country will not sleep in its light, nor leave their game exposed to its +action. We ourselves have not outgrown such words as lunatic, +moon-struck, and the like. Where did we get these ideas? The +philosophical historian of medicine, Kurt Sprengel, traces them to the +primitive and popular medical theories of ancient Egypt, in accordance +with which all maladies were the effects of the anger of the goddess +Isis, the Moisture, the Moon.[134-4] + +We have here the key to many myths. Take that of Centeotl, the Aztec +goddess of Maize. She was said at times to appear as a woman of +surpassing beauty, and allure some unfortunate to her embraces, destined +to pay with his life for his brief moments of pleasure. Even to see her +in this shape was a fatal omen. She was also said to belong to a class +of gods whose home was in the west, and who produced sickness and +pains.[134-5] Here we see the evil aspect of the moon reflected on +another goddess, who was at first solely the patroness of agriculture. + +As the goddess of sickness, it was supposed that persons afflicted with +certain diseases had been set apart by the moon for her peculiar +service. These diseases were those of a humoral type, especially such as +are characterized by issues and ulcers. As in Hebrew the word _accursed_ +is derived from a root meaning _consecrated to God_, so in the Aztec, +Quiche, and other tongues, the word for _leprous_, _eczematous_, or +_syphilitic_, means also _divine_. This bizarre change of meaning is +illustrated in a very ancient myth of their family. It is said that in +the absence of the sun all mankind lingered in darkness. Nothing but a +human sacrifice could hasten his arrival. Then Metzli, the moon, led +forth one Nanahuatl, the leprous, and building a pyre, the victim threw +himself in its midst. Straightway Metzli followed his example, and as +she disappeared in the bright flames the sun rose over the +horizon.[135-1] Is not this a reference to the kindling rays of the +aurora, in which the dark and baleful night is sacrificed, and in whose +light the moon presently fades away, and the sun comes forth? + +Another reaction in the mythological laboratory is here disclosed. As +the good qualities of water were attributed to the goddess of night, +sleep, and death, so her malevolent traits were in turn reflected back +on this element. Other thoughts aided the transfer. In primitive +geography the Ocean Stream coils its infinite folds around the speck of +land we inhabit, biding its time to swallow it wholly. Unwillingly did +it yield the earth from its bosom, daily does it steal it away piece by +piece. Every evening it hides the light in its depths, and Night and the +Waters resume their ancient sway. The word for ocean (_mare_) in the +Latin tongue means by derivation a desert, and the Greeks spoke of it as +"the barren brine." Water is a treacherous element. Man treads boldly on +the solid earth, but the rivers and lakes constantly strive to swallow +those who venture within their reach. As streams run in tortuous +channels, and as rains accompany the lightning serpent, this animal was +occasionally the symbol of the waters in their dangerous manifestations. +The Huron magicians fabled that in the lakes and rivers dwelt one of +vast size called _Angont_, who sent sickness, death, and other mishaps, +and the least mite of whose flesh was a deadly poison. They added--and +this was the point of the tale--that they always kept on hand portions +of the monster for the benefit of any who opposed their designs.[136-1] +The legends of the Algonkins mention a rivalry between Michabo, creator +of the earth, and the Spirit of the Waters, who was unfriendly to the +project.[136-2] In later tales this antagonism becomes more and more +pronounced, and borrows an ethical significance which it did not have at +first. Taking, however, American religions as a whole, water is far more +frequently represented as producing beneficent effects than the reverse. + +Dogs were supposed to stand in some peculiar relation to the moon, +probably because they howl at it and run at night, uncanny practices +which have cost them dear in reputation. The custom prevailed among +tribes so widely asunder as Peruvians, Tupis, Creeks, Iroquois, +Algonkins, and Greenland Eskimos to thrash the curs most soundly during +an eclipse.[137-1] The Creeks explained this by saying that the big dog +was swallowing the sun, and that by whipping the little ones they could +make him desist. What the big dog was they were not prepared to say. We +know. It was the night goddess, represented by the dog, who was thus +shrouding the world at midday. The ancient Romans sacrificed dogs to +Hecate and Diana, in Egypt they were sacred to Isis, and thus as +traditionally connected with night and its terrors, the Prince of +Darkness, in the superstition of the middle ages, preferably appeared +under the form of a cur, as that famous poodle which accompanied +Cornelius Agrippa, or that which grew to such enormous size behind the +stove of Dr. Faustus. In a better sense, they represented the more +agreeable characteristics of the lunar goddess. Xochiquetzal, most +fecund of Aztec divinities, patroness of love, of sexual pleasure, and +of childbirth, was likewise called _Itzcuinan_, which, literally +translated, is _bitch-mother_. This strange and to us so repugnant title +for a goddess was not without parallel elsewhere. When in his wars the +Inca Pachacutec carried his arms into the province of Huanca, he found +its inhabitants had installed in their temples the figure of a dog as +their highest deity. They were accustomed also to select one as his +living representative, to pray to it and offer it sacrifice, and when +well fattened, to serve it up with solemn ceremonies at a great feast, +eating their god _substantialiter_. The priests in this province +summoned their attendants to the temples by blowing through an +instrument fashioned from a dog's skull.[138-1] This canine canonization +explains why in some parts of Peru a priest was called by way of honor +_allco_, dog![138-2] And why in many tombs both there and in Mexico +their skeletons are found carefully interred with the human remains. +Wherever the Aztec race extended they seem to have carried the adoration +of a wild species, the coyote, the _canis latrans_ of naturalists. The +Shoshonees of New Mexico call it their progenitor,[138-3] and with the +Nahuas it was in such high honor that it had a temple of its own, a +congregation of priests devoted to its service, statues carved in stone, +an elaborate tomb at death, and is said to be meant by the god Chantico, +whose audacity caused the destruction of the world. The story was that +he made a sacrifice to the gods without observing a preparatory fast, +for which he was punished by being changed into a dog. He then invoked +the god of death to deliver him, which attempt to evade a just +punishment so enraged the divinities that they immersed the world in +water.[139-1] + +During a storm on our northern lakes the Indians think no offering so +likely to appease the angry water god who is raising the tempest as a +dog. Therefore they hasten to tie the feet of one and toss him +overboard.[139-2] One meets constantly in their tales and superstitions +the mysterious powers of the animals, and the distinguished actions he +has at times performed bear usually a close parallelism to those +attributed to water and the moon. + +Hunger and thirst were thus alleviated by water. Cold remained, and +against this _fire_ was the shield. It gives man light in darkness and +warmth in winter; it shows him his friends and warns him of his foes; +the flames point toward heaven and the smoke makes the clouds. Around it +social life begins. For his home and his hearth the savage has but one +word, and what of tender emotion his breast can feel, is linked to the +circle that gathers around his fire. The council fire, the camp fire, +and the war fire, are so many epochs in his history. By its aid many +arts become possible, and it is a civilizer in more ways than one. In +the figurative language of the red race, it is constantly used as "an +emblem of peace, happiness, and abundance."[140-1] To extingish[TN-5] an +enemy's fire is to slay him; to light a visitor's fire is to bid him +welcome. Fire worship was closely related to that of the sun, and so +much has been said of sun worship among the aborigines of America that +it is well at once to assign it its true position. + +A generation ago it was a fashion very much approved to explain all +symbols and myths by the action of this orb on nature. This short and +easy method with mythology has, in Carlylian phrase, had its bottom +pulled from under it in these later times. Nowhere has it manifested its +inefficiency more palpably than in America. One writer, while thus +explaining the religions of the tribes of colder regions and higher +latitudes, denies sun worship among the natives of hot climates; another +asserts that only among the latter did it exist at all; while a third +lays down the maxim that the religion of the red race everywhere "was +but a modification of Sun or Fire worship."[141-1] All such sweeping +generalizations are untrue, and must be so. No one key can open all the +arcana of symbolism. Man devised means as varied as nature herself to +express the idea of God within him. The sun was but one of these, and +not the first nor the most important. Fear, said the wise Epicurean, +first made the gods. The sun with its regular course, its kindly warmth, +its beneficent action, no wise inspires that sentiment. It conjures no +phantasms to appal the superstitious fancy, and its place in primitive +mythology is conformably inferior. The myths of the Eskimos and +northern Athapascas omit its action altogether. The Algonkins by no +means imagined it the highest god, and at most but one of his +emblems.[142-1] That it often appears in their prayers is true, but this +arose from the fact that in many of their dialects, as well as in the +language of the Mayas and others, the word for heaven or sky was +identical with that for sun, and the former, as I have shown, was the +supposed abode of deity, "the wigwam of the Great Spirit."[142-2] The +alleged sun worship of the Cherokees rests on testimony modern, +doubtful, and unsupported.[142-3] In North America the Natchez alone +were avowed worshippers of this luminary. Yet they adored it under the +name Great Fire (_wah sil_), clearly pointing to a prior adoration of +that element. The heliolatry organized principally for political ends by +the Incas of Peru, stands alone in the religions of the red race. Those +shrewd legislators at an early date officially announced that Inti, the +sun, their own elder brother, was ruler of the cohorts of heaven by like +divine right that they were of the four corners of the earth. This +scheme ignominiously failed, as every attempt to fetter the liberty of +conscience must and should. The later Incas finally indulged publicly in +heterodox remarks, and compromised the matter by acknowledging a +divinity superior even to their brother, the sun, as we have seen in a +previous chapter. + +The myths of creation never represent the sun as anterior to the world, +but as manufactured by the "old people" (Navajos), as kindled and set +going by the first of men (Algonkins), or as freed from some cave by a +kindly deity (Haitians). It is always spoken of as a fire; only in Peru +and Mexico had the precession of the equinoxes been observed, and +without danger of error we can merge the consideration of its worship +almost altogether in that of this element.[143-1] + +The institutions of a perpetual fire, of obtaining new fire, and of +burning the dead, prevailed extensively in the New World. In the present +discussion the origin of such practices, rather than the ceremonies with +which they were attended, have an interest. The savage knew that fire +was necessary to his life. Were it lost, he justly foreboded dire +calamities and the ruin of his race. Therefore at stated times with due +solemnity he produced it anew by friction or the flint, or else was +careful to keep one fire constantly alive. These not unwise precautions +soon fell to mere superstitions. If the Aztec priest at the stated time +failed to obtain a spark from his pieces of wood, if the sacred fire by +chance became extinguished, the end of the world or the destruction of +mankind was apprehended. "You know it was a saying among our +ancestors," said an Iroquois chief in 1753, "that when the fire at +Onondaga goes out, we shall no longer be a people."[144-1] So deeply +rooted was this notion, that the Catholic missionaries in New Mexico +were fain to wink at it, and perform the sacrifice of the mass in the +same building where the flames were perpetually burning, that were not +to be allowed to die until Montezuma and the fabled glories of ancient +Anahuac with its heathenism should return.[144-2] Thus fire became the +type of life. "Know that the life in your body and the fire on your +hearth are one and the same thing, and that both proceed from one +source," said a Shawnee prophet.[144-3] Such an expression was wholly in +the spirit of his race. The greatest feast of the Delawares was that to +their "grandfather, the fire."[144-4] "Their fire burns forever," was +the Algonkin figure of speech to express the immortality of their +gods.[144-5] "The ancient God, the Father and Mother of all Gods," says +an Aztec prayer, "is the God of the Fire which is in the centre of the +court with four walls, and which is covered with gleaming feathers like +unto wings;"[144-6] dark sayings of the priests, referring to the +glittering lightning fire borne from the four sides of the earth. + +As the path to a higher life hereafter, the burning of the dead was +first instituted. It was a privilege usually confined to a select few. +Among the Algonkin-Ottawas, only, those of the distinguished totem of +the Great Hare, among the Nicaraguans none but the caciques, among the +Caribs exclusively the priestly caste, were entitled to this peculiar +honor.[145-1] The first gave as the reason for such an exceptional +custom, that the members of such an illustrious clan as that of Michabo, +the Great Hare, should not rot in the ground as common folks, but rise +to the heavens on the flames and smoke. Those of Nicaragua seemed to +think it the sole path to immortality, holding that only such as offered +themselves on the pyre of their chieftain would escape annihilation at +death;[145-2] and the tribes of upper California were persuaded that +such as were not burned at death were liable to be transformed into the +lower orders of brutes.[145-3] Strangely, enough, we thus find a sort of +baptism by fire deemed essential to a higher life beyond the grave. + +Another analogy strengthened the symbolic force of fire as life. This is +that which exists between the sensation of warmth and those passions +whose physiological end is the perpetuation of the species. We see how +native it is to the mind from such coarse expressions as "hot lust," "to +burn," "to be in heat," "stews," and the like, figures not of the +poetic, but the vulgar tongue. They occur in all languages, and hint how +readily the worship of fire glided into that of the reproductive +principle, into extravagances of chastity and lewdness, into the +shocking orgies of the so-called phallic worship. + +Some have supposed that a sexual dualism pervades all natural religions +and this too has been assumed as the solution of all their myths. It has +been said that the action of heat upon moisture, of the sun on the +waters, the mysteries of reproduction, and the satisfaction of the +sexual instincts, are the unvarying themes of primitive mythology. So +far as the red race is concerned, this is a most gratuitous assumption. +The facts that have been eagerly collated by Dulaure and others to +bolster such a detestable theory lend themselves fairly to no such +interpretation. + +There existed, indeed, a worship of the passions. Apparently it was +grafted upon or rose out of that of fire by the analogy I have pointed +out. Thus the Mexican god of fire was supposed to govern the generative +proclivities,[146-1] and there is good reason to believe that the sacred +fire watched by unspotted virgins among the Mayas had decidedly such a +signification. Certainly it was so, if we can depend upon the authority +of a ballad translated from the original immediately after the conquest, +cited by the venerable traveller and artist Count de Waldeck. It +purports to be from the lover of one of these vestals, and referring to +her occupation asks with a fine allusion to its mystic meaning-- + + "O vierge, quand pourrai-je te posseder pour ma compagne cherie? + Combien de temps faut-il encore que tes voeux soient accomplis? + Dis-moi le jour qui doit devancer la belle nuit ou tous deux, + Alimenterons le feu qui nous fit naitre et que nous devons + perpetuer."[147-1] + +There is a bright as well as a dark side even to such a worship. In +Mexico, Peru, and Yucatan, the women who watched the flames must be +undoubted virgins; they were usually of noble blood, and must vow +eternal chastity, or at least were free to none but the ruler of the +realm. As long as they were consecrated to the fire, so long any carnal +ardor was degrading to their lofty duties. The sentiment of shame, one +of the first we find developed, led to the belief that to forego fleshly +pleasures was a meritorious sacrifice in the eyes of the gods. In this +persuasion certain of the Aztec priests practised complete abscission or +entire discerption of the virile parts, and a mutilation of females was +not unknown similar to that immemorially a custom in Egypt.[147-2] Such +enforced celibacy was, however, neither common nor popular. +Circumcision, if it can be proven to have existed among the red +race--and though there are plenty of assertions to that effect, they are +not satisfactory to an anatomist--was probably a symbolic renunciation +of the lusts of the flesh. The same cannot be said of the very common +custom with the Aztec race of anointing their idols with blood drawn +from the genitals, the tongue, and the ears. This was simply a form of +those voluntary scarifications, universally employed to mark contrition +or grief by savage tribes, and nowhere more in vogue than with the red +race. + +There was an ancient Christian heresy which taught that the true way to +conquer the passions was to satiate them, and therefore preached +unbounded licentiousness. Whether this agreeable doctrine was known to +the Indians I cannot say, but it is certainly the most creditable +explanation that can be suggested for the miscellaneous congress which +very often terminated their dances and ceremonies. Such orgies were of +common occurrence among the Algonkins and Iroquois at a very early date, +and are often mentioned in the Jesuit Relations; Venegas describes them +as frequent among the tribes of Lower California; and Oviedo refers to +certain festivals of the Nicaraguans, during which the women of all rank +extended to whosoever wished just such privileges as the matrons of +ancient Babylon, that mother of harlots and all abominations, used to +grant even to slaves and strangers in the temple of Melitta, as one of +the duties of religion. But in fact there is no ground whatever to +invest these debauches with any recondite meaning. They are simply +indications of the thorough and utter immorality which prevailed +throughout the race. And a still more disgusting proof of it is seen in +the frequent appearance among diverse tribes of men dressed as women and +yielding themselves to indescribable vices.[149-1] There was at first +nothing of a religious nature in such exhibitions. Lascivious priests +chose at times to invest them with some such meaning for their own +sensual gratification, just as in Brazil they still claim the _jus primae +noctis_.[149-2] The pretended phallic worship of the Natchez and of +Culhuacan, cited by the Abbe Brasseur, rests on no good authority, and +if true, is like that of the Huastecas of Panuco, nothing but an +unrestrained and boundless profligacy which it were an absurdity to call +a religion.[149-3] That which Mr. Stephens attempts to show existed once +in Yucatan,[149-4] rests entirely by his own statement on a fancied +resemblance of no value whatever, and the arguments of Lafitau to the +same effect are quite insufficient. There is a decided indecency in the +remains of ancient American art, especially in Peru (Meyen), and great +lubricity in many ceremonies, but the proof is altogether wanting to +bind these with the recognition of a fecundating principle throughout +nature, or, indeed, to suppose for them any other origin than the +promptings of an impure fancy. I even doubt whether they often referred +to fire as the deity of sexual love. + +By a flight of fancy inspired by a study of oriental mythology, the +worship of the reciprocal principle in America has been connected with +that of the sun and moon, as the primitive pair from whose fecund union +all creatures proceeded. It is sufficient to say if such a myth exists +among the Indians--which is questionable--it justifies no such +deduction; that the moon is often mentioned in their languages merely as +the "night sun;" and that in such important stocks as the Iroquois, +Athapascas, Cherokees, and Tupis, the sun is said to be a feminine noun; +while the myths represent them more frequently as brother and sister +than as man and wife; nor did at least the northern tribes regard the +sun as the cause of fecundity in nature at all, but solely as giving +light and warmth.[150-1] + +In contrast to this, so much the more positive was their association of +the THUNDER-STORM as that which brings both warmth and rain with the +renewed vernal life of vegetation. The impressive phenomena which +characterize it, the prodigious noise, the awful flash, the portentous +gloom, the blast, the rain, have left a profound impression on the myths +of every land. Fire from water, warmth and moisture from the destructive +breath of the tempest, this was the riddle of riddles to the untutored +mind. "Out of the eater came forth meat, out of the strong came forth +sweetness." It was the visible synthesis of all the divine +manifestations, the winds, the waters, and the flames. + +The Dakotas conceived it as a struggle between the god of waters and the +thunder bird for the command of their nation,[150-2] and as a bird, one +of those which make a whirring sound with their wings, the turkey, the +pheasant, or the nighthawk, it was very generally depicted by their +neighbors, the Athapascas, Iroquois, and Algonkins.[151-1] As the +herald of the summer it was to them a good omen and a friendly power. It +was the voice of the Great Spirit of the four winds speaking from the +clouds and admonishing them that the time of corn planting was at +hand.[151-2] The flames kindled by the lightning were of a sacred +nature, proper to be employed in lighting the fires of the religious +rites, but on no account to be profaned by the base uses of daily life. +When the flash entered the ground it scattered in all directions those +stones, such as the flint, which betray their supernal origin by a gleam +of fire when struck. These were the thunderbolts, and from such an one, +significantly painted red, the Dakotas averred their race had +proceeded.[151-3] For are we not all in a sense indebted for our lives +to fire? "There is no end to the fancies entertained by the Sioux +concerning thunder," observes Mrs. Eastman. They typified the +paradoxical nature of the storm under the character of the giant Haokah. +To him cold was heat, and heat cold; when sad he laughed, when merry +groaned; the sides of his face and his eyes were of different colors and +expressions; he wore horns or a forked headdress to represent the +lightning, and with his hands he hurled the meteors. His manifestations +were fourfold, and one of the four winds was the drum-stick he used to +produce the thunder.[152-1] + +Omitting many others, enough that the sameness of this conception is +illustrated by the myth of Tupa, highest god and first man of the Tupis +of Brazil. During his incarnation, he taught them agriculture, gave them +fire, the cane, and the pisang, and now in the form of a huge bird +sweeps over the heavens, watching his children and watering their crops, +admonishing them of his presence by the mighty sound of his voice, the +rustling of his wings, and the flash of his eye. These are the thunder, +the lightning, and the roar of the tempest. He is depicted with horns; +he was one of four brothers, and only after a desperate struggle did he +drive his fraternal rivals from the field. In his worship, the priests +place pebbles in a dry gourd, deck it with feathers and arrows, and +rattling it vigorously, reproduce in miniature the tremendous drama of +the storm.[152-2] + +As nations rose in civilization these fancies put on a more complex form +and a more poetic fulness. Throughout the realm of the Incas the +Peruvians venerated as creator of all things, maker of heaven and earth, +and ruler of the firmament, the god Ataguju. The legend was that from +him proceeded the first of mortals, the man Guamansuri, who descended to +the earth and there seduced the sister of certain Guachemines, rayless +ones, or Darklings, who then possessed it. For this crime they destroyed +him, but their sister proved pregnant, and died in her labor, giving +birth to two eggs. From these emerged the twin brothers, Apocatequil +and Piguerao. The former was the more powerful. By touching the corpse +of his mother he brought her to life, he drove off and slew the +Guachemines, and, directed by Ataguju, released the race of Indians from +the soil by turning it up with a spade of gold. For this reason they +adored him as their maker. He it was, they thought, who produced the +thunder and the lightning by hurling stones with his sling; and the +thunderbolts that fall, said they, are his children. Few villages were +willing to be without one or more of these. They were in appearance +small, round, smooth stones, but had the admirable properties of +securing fertility to the fields, protecting from lightning, and, by a +transition easy to understand, were also adored as gods of the Fire, as +well material as of the passions, and were capable of kindling the +dangerous flames of desire in the most frigid bosom. Therefore they were +in great esteem as love charms. + +Apocatequil's statue was erected on the mountains, with that of his +mother on one hand, and his brother on the other. "He was Prince of Evil +and the most respected god of the Peruvians. From Quito to Cuzco not an +Indian but would give all he possessed to conciliate him. Five priests, +two stewards, and a crowd of slaves served his image. And his chief +temple was surrounded by a very considerable village whose inhabitants +had no other occupation than to wait on him." In memory of these +brothers, twins in Peru were deemed always sacred to the lightning, and +when a woman or even a llama brought them forth, a fast was held and +sacrifices offered to the two pristine brothers, with a chant +commencing: _A chuchu cachiqui_, O Thou who causest twins, words +mistaken by the Spaniards for the name of a deity.[154-1] + +Garcilasso de la Vega, a descendant of the Incas, has preserved an +ancient indigenous poem of his nation, presenting the storm myth in a +different form, which as undoubtedly authentic and not devoid of poetic +beauty I translate, preserving as much as possible the trochaic +tetrasyllabic verse of the original Quichua:-- + + "Beauteous princess, + Lo, thy brother + Breaks thy vessel + Now in fragments. + From the blow come + Thunder, lightning, + Strokes of lightning. + And thou, princess, + Tak'st the water, + With it rainest, + And the hail, or + Snow dispensest. + Viracocha, + World constructor, + World enliv'ner, + To this office + Thee appointed, + Thee created."[155-1] + +In this pretty waif that has floated down to us from the wreck of a +literature now forever lost, there is more than one point to attract the +notice of the antiquary. He may find in it a hint to decipher those +names of divinities so common in Peruvian legends, Contici and Illatici. +Both mean "the Thunder Vase," and both doubtless refer to the conception +here displayed of the phenomena of the thunder-storm.[155-2] + +Again, twice in this poem is the triple nature of the storm adverted to. +This is observable in many of the religions of America. It constitutes a +sort of Trinity, not in any point resembling that of Christianity, nor +yet the Trimurti of India, but the only one in the New World the least +degree authenticated, and which, as half seen by ignorant monks, has +caused its due amount of sterile astonishment. Thus, in the Quiche +legends we read: "The first of Hurakan is the lightning, the second the +track of the lightning, and the third the stroke of the lightning; and +these three are Hurakan, the Heart of the Sky."[156-1] It reappears with +characteristic uniformity of outline in Iroquois mythology. Heno, the +thunder, gathers the clouds and pours out the warm rains. Therefore he +was the patron of husbandry. He was invoked at seed time and harvest; +and as purveyor of nourishment he was addressed as grandfather, and his +worshippers styled themselves his grandchildren. He rode through the +heavens on the clouds, and the thunderbolts which split the forest trees +were the stones he hurled at his enemies. _Three_ assistants were +assigned him, whose names have unfortunately not been recorded, and +whose offices were apparently similar to those of the three companions +of Hurakan.[156-2] + +So also the Aztecs supposed that Tlaloc, god of rains and the waters, +ruler of the terrestrial paradise and the season of summer, manifested +himself under the three attributes of the flash, the thunderbolt, and +the thunder.[157-1] + +But this conception of three in one was above the comprehension of the +masses, and consequently these deities were also spoken of as fourfold +in nature, three _and_ one. Moreover, as has already been pointed out, +the thunder god was usually ruler of the winds, and thus another reason +for his quadruplicate nature was suggested. Hurakan, Haokah, Tlaloc, and +probably Heno, are plural as well as singular nouns, and are used as +nominatives to verbs in both numbers. Tlaloc was appealed to as +inhabiting each of the cardinal points and every mountain top. His +statue rested on a square stone pedestal, facing the east, and had in +one hand a serpent of gold. Ribbons of silver, crossing to form squares, +covered the robe, and the shield was composed of feathers of four +colors, yellow, green, red, and blue. Before it was a vase containing +all sorts of grain; and the clouds were called his companions, the winds +his messengers.[157-2] As elsewhere, the thunderbolts were believed to +be flints, and thus, as the emblem of fire and the storm, this stone +figures conspicuously in their myths. Tohil, the god who gave the +Quiches fire by shaking his sandals, was represented by a flint-stone. +He is distinctly said to be the same as Quetzalcoatl, one of whose +commonest symbols was a flint (tecpatl). Such a stone, in the beginning +of things, fell from heaven to earth, and broke into 1600 pieces, each +of which sprang up a god;[158-1] an ancient legend, which shadows forth +the subjection of all things to him who gathers the clouds from the four +corners of the earth, who thunders with his voice, who satisfies with +his rain "the desolate and waste ground, and causes the tender herb to +spring forth." This is the germ of the adoration of stones as emblems of +the fecundating rains. This is why, for example, the Navajos use as +their charm for rain certain long round stones, which they think fall +from the cloud when it thunders.[158-2] + +Mixcoatl, the Cloud Serpent, or Iztac-Mixcoatl, the White or Gleaming +Cloud Serpent, said to have been the only divinity of the ancient +Chichimecs, held in high honor by the Nahuas, Nicaraguans, and Otomis, +and identical with Taras, supreme god of the Tarascos and Camaxtli, god +of the Teo-Chichimecs, is another personification of the thunder-storm. +To this day this is the familiar name of the tropical tornado in the +Mexican language.[158-3] He was represented, like Jove, with a bundle of +arrows in his hand, the thunderbolts. Both the Nahuas and Tarascos +related legends in which he figured as father of the race of man. Like +other lords of the lightning he was worshipped as the dispenser of +riches and the patron of traffic; and in Nicaragua his image is +described as being "engraved stones,"[158-4] probably the supposed +products of the thunder. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[124-1] A. D'Orbigny, _L'Homme Americain_, i. p. 240. + +[125-1] Rivero and Tschudi, _Peruvian Antiquities_, 162, after J. Acosta. + +[125-2] Narrative of _Oceola Nikkanoche, Prince of Econchatti_, p. 141; +Schoolcraft, _Ind. Tribes_, iv. p. 650. + +[126-1] The term in Maya is _caput zihil_, corresponding exactly to the +Latin _renasci_, to be re-born, Landa, _Rel. de Yucatan_, p. 144. + +[126-2] Dumont, _Mems. Hist. sur la Louisiane_, i. p. 233. + +[127-1] Acosta, _Hist. of the New World_, lib. v. cap. 25. + +[127-2] _Senate Report on Condition of Indian Tribes_, p. 358: +Washington, 1867. + +[128-1] Sahagun, _Hist. de la Nueva Espana_, lib. vi. cap. 37. + +[128-2] Ternaux-Compans, _Pieces rel. a la Conq. du Mexique_, p. 233. + +[128-3] Velasco, _Hist. de la Royaume de Quito_, p. 106, and others. + +[128-4] Whipple, _Rep. on the Indian Tribes_, p. 35. I am not sure that +this practice was of native growth to the Cherokees. This people have +many customs and traditions strangely similar to those of Christians and +Jews. Their cosmogony is a paraphrase of that of Genesis (Squier, _Serp. +Symbol_, from Payne's MSS.); the number seven is as sacred with them as +it was with the Chaldeans (Whipple, u. s.); and they have improved and +increased by contact with the whites. Significant in this connection is +the remark of Bartram, who visited them in 1773, that some of their +females were "nearly as fair and blooming as European women," and +generally that their complexion was lighter than their neighbors +(_Travels_, p. 485). Two explanations of these facts may be suggested. +They may be descendants in part of the ancient white race near Cape +Hatteras, to whom I have referred in a previous note. More probably they +derived their peculiarities from the Spaniards of Florida. Mr. Shea is of +opinion that missions were established among them as early as 1566 and +1643 (_Hist. of Catholic Missions in the U. S._, pp. 58, 73). Certainly +in the latter half of the seventeenth century the Spaniards were +prosecuting mining operations in their territory (See _Am. Hist. Mag._, +x. p. 137). + +[129-1] Sprague, _Hist. of the Florida War_, p. 328. + +[129-2] Basanier, _Histoire Notable de la Floride_, p. 10. + +[130-1] Sahagun, _Hist. de la Nueva Espana_, lib. iii. app. cap. i.; +Meyen, _Ueber die Ureinwohner von Peru_, p. 29. + +[130-2] Gabriel Thomas, _Hist. of West New Jersey_, p. 6: London, 1698. + +[131-1] Gama, _Des. de las dos Piedras_, etc., i. p. 36. + +[131-2] Garcia, _Or. de los Indios_, p. 109. + +[131-3] Oviedo, _Rel. de la Prov. de Nicaragua_, p. 41. The name is a +corruption of the Aztec _Quiauhteotl_, Rain-God. + +[132-1] Gumilla, _Hist. del Orinoco_, ii. cap. 23. + +[132-2] _Doc. Hist. of New York_, iv. p. 130. + +[132-3] Gama, _Des. de las dos Piedras_, ii. p. 41; Gallatin, _Trans. Am. +Ethnol. Soc._, i. p. 343. + +[133-1] Adrian Van Helmont, _Workes_, p. 142, fol.: London, 1662. + +[133-2] The moon is _nipa_ or _nipaz_; _nipa_, I sleep; _nipawi_, night; +_nip_, I die; _nepua_, dead; _nipanoue_, cold. This odd relationship was +first pointed out by Volney (Duponceau, _Langues de l'Amerique du Nord_, +p. 317). But the kinship of these words to that for water, _nip_, _nipi_, +_nepi_, has not before been noticed. This proves the association of ideas +on which I lay so much stress in mythology. A somewhat similar +relationship exists in the Aztec and cognate languages, _miqui_, to die, +_micqui_, dead, _mictlan_, the realm of death, _te-miqui_, to dream, +_cec-miqui_, to freeze. Would it be going too far to connect these with +_metzli_, moon? (See Buschmann, _Spuren der Aztekischen Sprache im +Noerdlichen Mexico_, p. 80.) + +[133-3] Schoolcraft, _Ind. Tribes_, vol. iii. p. 485. + +[134-1] _Rel. de la Nouv. France_, 1634, p. 16. + +[134-2] Humboldt, _Vues des Cordilleres_, p. 21. + +[134-3] Spix and Martius, _Travels in Brazil_, ii. p. 247. + +[134-4] _Hist. de la Medecine_, i. p. 34. + +[134-5] Gama, _Des. de las dos Piedras_, etc., ii. pp. 100-102. Compare +Sahagun, _Hist. de la Nueva Espana_, lib. i. cap. vi. + +[135-1] Codex Chimalpopoca, in Brasseur, _Hist. du Mexique_, i. p. 183. +Gama and others translate Nanahuatl by _el buboso_, Brasseur by _le +syphilitique_, and the latter founds certain medical speculations on the +word. It is entirely unnecessary to say to a surgeon that it could not +possibly have had the latter meaning, inasmuch as the diagnosis between +secondary or tertiary syphilis and other similar diseases was unknown. +That it is so employed now is nothing to the purpose. The same or a +similar myth was found in Central America and on the Island of Haiti. + +[136-1] _Rel. de la Nouv. France_, 1648, p. 75. + +[136-2] Charlevoix is in error when he identifies Michabo with the Spirit +of the Waters, and may be corrected from his own statements elsewhere. +Compare his _Journal Historique_, pp. 281 and 344: ed. Paris, 1740. + +[137-1] Bradford, _American Antiquities_, p. 833; Martius, _Von dem +Rechtszustande unter den Ureinwohnern Brasiliens_, p. 32; Schoolcraft, +_Ind. Tribes_, i. p. 271. + +[138-1] La Vega, _Hist. des Incas_, liv. vi. cap. 9. + +[138-2] _Lett. sur les Superstitions du Perou_, p. 111. + +[138-3] Schoolcraft, _Ind. Tribes_, iv. p. 224. + +[139-1] Chantico, according to Gama, means "Wolf's Head," though I cannot +verify this from the vocabularies within my reach. He is sometimes called +Cohuaxolotl Chantico, the snake-servant Chantico, considered by Gama as +one, by Torquemada as two deities (see Gama, _Des. de las dos Piedras_, +etc., i. p. 12; ii. p. 66). The English word _cantico_ in the phrase, for +instance, "to cut a cantico," though an Indian word, is not from this, +but from the Algonkin Delaware _gentkehn_, to dance a sacred dance. The +Dutch describe it as "a religious custom observed among them before +death" (_Doc. Hist. of New York_, iv. p. 63). William Penn says of the +Lenape, "their worship consists of two parts, sacrifice and cantico," the +latter "performed by round dances, sometimes words, sometimes songs, then +shouts; their postures very antic and differing." (_Letter to the Free +Society of Traders_, 1683, sec. 21.) + +[139-2] Charlevoix, _Hist. Gen. de la Nouv. France_, i. p. 394: Paris, +1740. On the different species of dogs indigenous to America, see a note +of Alex. von Humboldt, _Ansichten der Natur._, i. p. 134. It may be +noticed that Chichimec, properly Chichimecatl, the name of the Aztec +tribe who succeeded the ancient Toltecs in Mexico, means literally +"people of the dog," and was probably derived from some mythological +fable connected with that animal. + +[140-1] _Narr. of the Captiv. of John Tanner_, p. 362. From the word for +fire in many American tongues is formed the adjective _red_. Thus, +Algonkin, _skoda_, fire, _miskoda_, red; Kolosch, _kan_, fire, _kan_, +red; Ugalentz, _takak_, fire, _takak-uete_, red; Tahkali, _c[=u]n_, fire, +_tenil-c[=u]n_, red; Quiche, _cak_, fire, _cak_, red, etc. From the +adjective _red_ comes often the word for _blood_, and in symbolism the +color red may refer to either of these ideas. It was the royal color of +the Incas, brothers of the sun, and a llama swathed in a red garment was +the Peruvian sacrifice to fire (Garcia, _Or. de los Indios_, lib. iv. +caps. 16, 19). On the other hand the war quipus, the war wampum, and the +war paint were all of this hue, boding their sanguinary significance. The +word for fire in the language of the Delawares, Nanticokes, and +neighboring tribes puzzles me. It is _taenda_ or _tinda_. This is the +Swedish word _taenda_, from whose root comes our _tinder_. Yet it is +found in vocabularies as early as 1650, and is universally current +to-day. It has no resemblance to the word for fire in pure Algonkin. Was +it adopted from the Swedes? Was it introduced by wandering Vikings in +remote centuries? Or is it only a coincidence? + +[141-1] Compare D'Orbigny, _L'Homme Americain_, i. p. 243, Mueller, +_Amer. Urreligionen_, p. 51, and Squier, _Serpent Symbol in America_, p. +111. This is a striking instance of the confusion of ideas introduced by +false systems of study, and also of the considerable misapprehension of +American mythology which has hitherto prevailed. + +[142-1] La Hontan, _Voy. dans l'Amer. Sept._, p. ii. 127; _Rel. Nouv. +France_, 1637, p. 54. + +[142-2] Copway, _Trad. Hist. of the Ojibway Nation_, p. 165. _Kesuch_ in +Algonkin signifies both sky and sun (Duponceau, _Langues de l'Amer. du +Nord_, p. 312). So apparently does _kin_ in the Maya. + +[142-3] Payne's manuscripts quoted by Mr. Squier in his Serpent Symbol in +America were compiled within this century, and from the extracts given +can be of no great value. + +[143-1] The words for fire and sun in American languages are usually from +distinct roots, but besides the example of the Natchez I may instance to +the contrary the Kolosch of British America, in whose tongue fire is +_kan_, sun, _kakan_ (_gake_, great), and the Tezuque of New Mexico, who +use _tah_ for both sun and fire. + +[144-1] _Doc. Hist. of New York_, ii. p. 634. + +[144-2] Emory, _Milt'y Reconnoissance[TN-6] of New Mexico_, p. 30. + +[144-3] _Narrative of John Tanner_, p. 161. + +[144-4] Loskiel, _Ges. der Miss. der evang. Brueder_, p. 55. + +[144-5] _Nar. of John Tanner_, p. 351. + +[144-6] Sahagun, _Hist. Nueva Espana_, lib. vi. cap. 4. + +[145-1] _Letts. Edifiantes et Curieuses_, iv. p. 104, Oviedo; _Hist. du +Nicaragua_, p. 49; Gomara, _Hist. del Orinoco_, ii. cap. 2. + +[145-2] Oviedo, _Hist. Gen. de las Indias_, p. 16, in Barcia's _Hist. +Prim._ + +[145-3] _Presdt's Message and Docs._ for 1851, pt. iii. p. 506. + +[146-1] Sahagun, _Hist. de la Nueva Espana_, i. cap. 13. + +[147-1] _Voyage Pittoresque dans le Yucatan_, p. 49. + +[147-2] Davila Padilla, _Hist. de la Prov. de Santiago de Mexico_, lib. +ii. cap. 88 (Brusselas, 1625); Palacios, _Des. de Guatemala_, p. 40; +Garcia, _Or. de los Indios_, p. 124. To such an extent did the priests of +the Algonkin tribes who lived near Manhattan Island carry their +austerity, such uncompromising celibates were they, that it is said on +authority as old as 1624, that they never so much as partook of food +prepared by a married woman. (_Doc. Hist. New York_, iv. p. 28.) + +[149-1] Martius, _Von dem Rechtzustande unter den Ureinwohnern +Brasiliens_, p. 28, gives many references. + +[149-2] Id. _ibid._, p. 61. + +[149-3] _Le Livre Sacre des Quiches_, Introd., pp. clxi., clxix. + +[149-4] _Travels in Yucatan_, i. p. 434. + +[150-1] Schoolcraft, _Ind. Tribes_, v. pp. 416, 417. + +[150-2] Mrs. Eastman, _Legends of the Sioux_, p. 161. + +[151-1] _Rel. de la Nouv. France_, 1634, p. 27; Schoolcraft, _Algic +Researches_, ii. p. 116; _Ind. Tribes_, v. p. 420. + +[151-2] De Smet, _Western Missions_, p. 135; Schoolcraft, _Ind. Tribes_, +i. p. 319. + +[151-3] Mrs. Eastman, _Legends of the Sioux_, p. 72. By another legend +they claimed that their first ancestor obtained his fire from the sparks +which a friendly panther struck from the rocks as he scampered up a stony +hill (McCoy, _Hist. of Baptist Indian Missions_, p. 364). + +[152-1] Mrs. Eastman, ubi sup., p. 158; Schoolcraft, _Ind. Tribes_, iv. +p. 645. + +[152-2] Waitz, _Anthropologie_, iii. p. 417; Mueller, _Am. Urrelig._, p. +271. + +[154-1] On the myth of Catequil see particularly the _Lettre sur les +Superstitions du Perou_, p. 95 sqq., and compare Montesinos, _Ancien +Perou_, chaps. ii., xx. The letters g and j do not exist in Quichua, +therefore Ataguju should doubtless read _Ata-chuchu_, which means lord, +or ruler of the twins, from _ati_ root of _atini_, I am able, I control, +and _chuchu_, twins. The change of the root _ati_ to _ata_, though +uncommon in Quichua, occurs also in _ata-hualpa_, cock, from _ati_ and +_hualpa_, fowl. Apo-Catequil, or as given by Arriaga, another old writer +on Peruvian idolatry, Apocatequilla, I take to be properly +_apu-ccatec-quilla_, which literally means _chief of the followers of the +moon_. Acosta mentions that the native name for various constellations +was _catachillay_ or _catuchillay_, doubtless corruptions of _ccatec +quilla_, literally "following the moon." Catequil, therefore, the dark +spirit of the storm rack, was also appropriately enough, and perhaps +primarily, lord of the night and stars. Piguerao, where the g appears +again, is probably a compound of _piscu_, bird, and _uira_, white. +Guachemines seems clearly the word _huachi_, a ray of light or an arrow, +with the negative suffix _ymana_, thus meaning rayless, as in the text, +or _ymana_ may mean an excess as well as a want of anything beyond what +is natural, which would give the signification "very bright shining." +(Holguin, _Arte de la Lengua Quichua_, p. 106: Cuzco, 1607.) Is this +sister of theirs the Dawn, who, as in the Rig Veda, brings forth at the +cost of her own life the white and dark twins, the Day and the Night, the +latter of whom drives from the heavens the far-shooting arrows of light, +in order that he may restore his mother again to life? The answer may for +the present be deferred. It is a coincidence perhaps worth mentioning +that the Augustin monk who is our principal authority for this legend +mentions two other twin deities, Yamo and Yama, whose names are almost +identical with the twins Yama and Yami of the Veda. + +[155-1] _Hist. des Incas_, liv. ii. cap. 28, and corrected in Markham's +_Quichua Grammar_. + +[155-2] The latter is a compound of _tici_ or _ticcu_, a vase, and +_ylla_, the root of _yllani_, to shine, _yllapantac_, it thunders and +lightens. The former is from _tici_ and _cun_ or _con_, whence by +reduplication _cun-un-un-an_, it thunders. From _cun_ and _tura_, +brother, is probably derived _cuntur_, the condor, the flying +thunder-cloud being looked upon as a great bird also. Dr. Waitz has +pointed out that the Araucanians call by the title _con_, the messenger +who summons their chieftains to a general council. + +[156-1] _Le Livre Sacre_, p. 9. The name of the lightning in Quiche is +_cak ul ha_, literally, "fire coming from water." + +[156-2] Morgan, _League of the Iroquois_, p. 158. + +[157-1] "El rayo, el relampago, y el trueno." Gama, _Des. de las dos +Piedras_, etc., ii. p. 76: Mexico, 1832. + +[157-2] Torquemada, _Monarquia Indiana_, lib. vi. cap. 23. Gama, ubi sup. +ii. 76, 77. + +[158-1] Torquemada, ibid., lib. vi. cap. 41. + +[158-2] _Senate Report on the Indian Tribes_, p. 358: Washington, 1867. + +[158-3] Brasseur, _Hist[TN-7] du Mexique_, i. p. 201, and on the extent +of his worship Waitz, _Anthropol._, iv. p. 144. + +[158-4] Oviedo, _Hist. du Nicaragua_, p. 47. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +THE SUPREME GODS OF THE RED RACE. + + Analysis of American culture myths.--The Manibozho or Michabo of + the Algonkins shown to be an impersonation of LIGHT, a hero of the + Dawn, and their highest deity.--The myths of Ioskeha of the + Iroquois, Viracocha of the Peruvians, and Quetzalcoatl of the + Toltecs essentially the same as that of Michabo.--Other + examples.--Ante-Columbian prophecies of the advent of a white race + from the east as conquerors.--Rise of later culture myths under + similar forms. + + +The philosopher Machiavelli, commenting on the books of Livy, lays it +down as a general truth that every form and reform has been brought +about by a single individual. Since a remorseless criticism has shorn so +many heroes of their laurels, our faith in the maxim of the great +Florentine wavers, and the suspicion is created that the popular fancy +which personifies under one figure every social revolution is an +illusion. It springs from that tendency to hero worship, ineradicable in +the heart of the race, which leads every nation to have an ideal, the +imagined author of its prosperity, the father of his country, and the +focus of its legends. As has been hinted, history is not friendly to +their renown, and dissipates them altogether into phantoms of the brain, +or sadly dims the lustre of their fame. Arthur, bright star of chivalry, +dwindles into a Welsh subaltern; the Cid Campeador, defender of the +faith, sells his sword as often to Moslem as to Christian, and _sells_ +it ever; while Siegfried and Feridun vanish into nothings. + +As elsewhere the world over, so in America many tribes had to tell of +such a personage, some such august character, who taught them what they +knew, the tillage of the soil, the properties of plants, the art of +picture writing, the secrets of magic; who founded their institutions +and established their religions, who governed them long with glory +abroad and peace at home; and finally, did not die, but like Frederick +Barbarossa, Charlemagne, King Arthur, and all great heroes, vanished +mysteriously, and still lives somewhere, ready at the right moment to +return to his beloved people and lead them to victory and happiness. +Such to the Algonkins was Michabo or Manibozho, to the Iroquois Ioskeha, +Wasi to the Cherokees, Tamoi to the Caribs; so the Mayas had Zamna, the +Toltecs Quetzalcoatl, the Muyscas Nemqueteba; such among the Aymaras was +Viracocha, among the Mandans Numock-muckenah, and among the natives of +the Orinoko Amalivaca; and the catalogue could be extended indefinitely. + +It is not always easy to pronounce upon these heroes, whether they +belong to history or mythology, their nation's poetry or its prose. In +arriving at a conclusion we must remember that a fiction built on an +idea is infinitely more tenacious of life than a story founded on fact. +Further, that if a striking similarity in the legends of two such heroes +be discovered under circumstances which forbid the thought that one was +derived from the other, then both are probably mythical. If this is the +case in not two but in half a dozen instances, then the probability +amounts to a certainty, and the only task remaining is to explain such +narratives on consistent mythological principles. If after sifting out +all foreign and later traits, it appears that when first known to +Europeans, these heroes were assigned all the attributes of highest +divinity, were the imagined creators and rulers of the world, and +mightiest of spiritual powers, then their position must be set far +higher than that of deified men. They must be accepted as the supreme +gods of the red race, the analogues in the western continent of Jupiter, +Osiris, and Odin in the eastern, and whatever opinions contrary to this +may have been advanced by writers and travellers must be set down to the +account of that prevailing ignorance of American mythology which has +fathered so many other blunders. To solve these knotty points I shall +choose for analysis the culture myths of the Algonkins, the Iroquois, +the Toltecs of Mexico, and the Aymaras or Peruvians, guided in my choice +by the fact that these four families are the best known, and, in many +points of view, the most important on the continent. + +From the remotest wilds of the northwest to the coast of the Atlantic, +from the southern boundaries of Carolina to the cheerless swamps of +Hudson's Bay, the Algonkins were never tired of gathering around the +winter fire and repeating the story of Manibozho or Michabo, the Great +Hare. With entire unanimity their various branches, the Powhatans of +Virginia, the Lenni Lenape of the Delaware, the warlike hordes of New +England, the Ottawas of the far north, and the western tribes perhaps +without exception, spoke of "this chimerical beast," as one of the old +missionaries calls it, as their common ancestor. The totem or clan +which bore his name was looked up to with peculiar respect. In many of +the tales which the whites have preserved of Michabo he seems half a +wizzard[TN-8], half a simpleton. He is full of pranks and wiles, but +often at a loss for a meal of victuals; ever itching to try his arts +magic on great beasts and often meeting ludicrous failures therein; +envious of the powers of others, and constantly striving to outdo them +in what they do best; in short, little more than a malicious buffoon +delighting in practical jokes, and abusing his superhuman powers for +selfish and ignoble ends. But this is a low, modern, and corrupt version +of the character of Michabo, bearing no more resemblance to his real and +ancient one than the language and acts of our Saviour and the apostles +in the coarse Mystery Plays of the Middle Ages do to those recorded by +the Evangelists. + +What he really was we must seek in the accounts of older travellers, in +the invocations of the jossakeeds or prophets, and in the part assigned +to him in the solemn mysteries of religion. In these we find him +portrayed as the patron and founder of the meda worship,[162-1] the +inventor of picture writing, the father and guardian of their nation, +the ruler of the winds, even the maker and preserver of the world and +creator of the sun and moon. From a grain of sand brought from the +bottom of the primeval ocean, he fashioned the habitable land and set +it floating on the waters, till it grew to such a size that a strong +young wolf, running constantly, died of old age ere he reached its +limits. Under the name Michabo Ovisaketchak, the Great Hare who created +the Earth, he was originally the highest divinity recognized by them, +"powerful and beneficent beyond all others, maker of the heavens and the +world." He was founder of the medicine hunt in which after appropriate +ceremonies and incantations the Indian sleeps, and Michabo appears to +him in a dream, and tells him where he may readily kill game. He himself +was a mighty hunter of old; one of his footsteps measured eight leagues, +the Great Lakes were the beaver dams he built, and when the cataracts +impeded his progress he tore them away with his hands. Attentively +watching the spider spread its web to trap unwary flies, he devised the +art of knitting nets to catch fish, and the signs and charms he tested +and handed down to his descendants are of marvellous efficacy in the +chase. In the autumn, in "the moon of the falling leaf," ere he composes +himself to his winter's sleep, he fills his great pipe and takes a +god-like smoke. The balmy clouds float over the hills and woodlands, +filling the air with the haze of the "Indian summer." + +Sometimes he was said to dwell in the skies with his brother the snow, +or, like many great spirits, to have built his wigwam in the far north +on some floe of ice in the Arctic Ocean, while the Chipeways localized +his birthplace and former home to the Island Michilimakinac at the +outlet of Lake Superior. But in the oldest accounts of the missionaries +he was alleged to reside toward the east, and in the holy formulae of +the meda craft, when the winds are invoked to the medicine lodge, the +east is summoned in his name, the door opens in that direction, and +there, at the edge of the earth, where the sun rises, on the shore of +the infinite ocean that surrounds the land, he has his house and sends +the luminaries forth on their daily journies.[164-1] + +It is passing strange that such an insignificant creature as the rabbit +should have received this apotheosis. No explanation of it in the least +satisfactory has ever been offered. Some have pointed it out as a +senseless, meaningless brute worship. It leads to the suspicion that +there may lurk here one of those confusions of words which have so often +led to confusion of ideas in mythology. Manibozho, Nanibojou, Missibizi, +Michabo, Messou, all variations of the same name in different dialects +rendered according to different orthographies, scrutinize them closely +as we may, they all seem compounded according to well ascertained laws +of Algonkin euphony from the words corresponding to _great_ and _hare_ +or _rabbit_, or the first two perhaps from _spirit_ and _hare_ (_michi_, +great, _wabos_, hare, _manito wabos_, spirit hare, Chipeway dialect), +and so they have invariably been translated even by the Indians +themselves. But looking more narrowly at the second member of the word, +it is clearly capable of another and very different interpretation, of +an interpretation which discloses at once the origin and the secret +meaning of the whole story of Michabo, in the light of which it appears +no longer the incoherent fable of savages, but a true myth, instinct +with nature, pregnant with matter, nowise inferior to those which +fascinate in the chants of the Rig Veda, or the weird pages of the Edda. + +On a previous page I have emphasized with what might have seemed +superfluous force, how prominent in primitive mythology is the east, the +source of the morning, the day-spring on high, the cardinal point which +determines and controls all others. But I did not lay as much stress on +it as others have. "The whole theogony and philosophy of the ancient +world," says Max Mueller, "centred in the Dawn, the mother of the bright +gods, of the Sun in his various aspects, of the morn, the day, the +spring; herself the brilliant image and visage of immortality."[165-1] +Now it appears on attentively examining the Algonkin root _wab_, that it +gives rise to words of very diverse meaning, that like many others in +all languages while presenting but one form it represents ideas of +wholly unlike origin and application, that in fact there are two +distinct roots having this sound. One is the initial syllable of the +word translated hare or rabbit, but the other means _white_, and from it +is derived the words for the east, the dawn, the light, the day and the +morning.[165-2] Beyond a doubt this is the compound in the names +Michabo and Manibozho which therefore mean the Great Light, the Spirit +of Light, of the Dawn, or the East, and in the literal sense of the word +the Great White One, as indeed he has sometimes been called. + +In this sense all the ancient and authentic myths concerning him are +plain and full of meaning. They divide themselves into two distinct +cycles. In the one Michabo is the spirit of light who dispels the +darkness; in the other as chief of the cardinal points he is lord of the +winds, prince of the powers of the air, whose voice is the thunder, +whose weapon the lightning, the supreme figure in the encounter of the +air currents, in the unending conflict which the Dakotas described as +waged by the waters and the winds. + +In the first he is grandson of the moon, his father is the West Wind, +and his mother, a maiden, dies in giving him birth at the moment of +conception. For the moon is the goddess of night, the Dawn is her +daughter, who brings forth the morning and perishes herself in the act, +and the West, the spirit of darkness as the East is of light, precedes +and as it were begets the latter as the evening does the morning. +Straightway, however, continues the legend, the son sought the unnatural +father to revenge the death of his mother, and then commenced a long and +desperate struggle. "It began on the mountains. The West was forced to +give ground. Manabozho drove him across rivers and over mountains and +lakes, and at last he came to the brink of this world. 'Hold,' cried he, +'my son, you know my power and that it is impossible to kill +me.'"[167-1] What is this but the diurnal combat of light and darkness, +carried on from what time "the jocund morn stands tiptoe on the misty +mountain tops," across the wide world to the sunset, the struggle that +knows no end, for both the opponents are immortal? + +In the second, and evidently to the native mind more important cycle of +legends, he was represented as one of four brothers, the North, the +South, the East, and the West, all born at a birth, whose mother died in +ushering them into the world;[167-2] for hardly has the kindling orient +served to fix the cardinal points than it is lost and dies in the +advancing day. Yet it is clear that he was something more than a +personification of the east or the east wind, for it is repeatedly said +that it was he who assigned their duties to all the winds, to that of +the east as well as the others. This is a blending of his two +characters. Here too his life is a battle. No longer with his father, +indeed, but with his brother Chakekenapok, the flint-stone, whom he +broke in pieces and scattered over the land, and changed his entrails +into fruitful vines. The conflict was long and terrible. The face of +nature was desolated as by a tornado, and the gigantic boulders and +loose rocks found on the prairies are the missiles hurled by the mighty +combatants. Or else his foe was the glittering prince of serpents whose +abode was the lake; or was the shining Manito whose home was guarded by +fiery serpents and a deep sea; or was the great king of fishes; all +symbols of the atmospheric waters, all figurative descriptions of the +wars of the elements. In these affrays the thunder and lightning are at +his command, and with them he destroys his enemies. For this reason the +Chipeway pictography represents him brandishing a rattlesnake, the +symbol of the electric flash,[168-1] and sometimes they called him the +Northwest Wind, which in the region they inhabit usually brings the +thunder-storms. + +As ruler of the winds he was, like Quetzalcoatl, father and protector of +all species of birds, their symbols.[168-2] He was patron of hunters, +for their course is guided by the cardinal points. Therefore, when the +medicine hunt had been successful, the prescribed sign of gratitude to +him was to scatter a handful of the animal's blood toward each of +these.[168-3] As daylight brings vision, and to see is to know, it was +no fable that gave him as the author of their arts, their wisdom, and +their institutions. + +In effect, his story is a world-wide truth, veiled under a thin garb of +fancy. It is but a variation of that narrative which every race has to +tell, out of gratitude to that beneficent Father who everywhere has +cared for His children. Michabo, giver of life and light, creator and +preserver, is no apotheosis of a prudent chieftain, still less the +fabrication of an idle fancy or a designing priestcraft, but in origin, +deeds, and name the not unworthy personification of the purest +conceptions they possessed concerning the Father of All. To Him at early +dawn the Indian stretched forth his hands in prayer; and to the sky or +the sun as his homes, he first pointed the pipe in his ceremonies, rites +often misinterpreted by travellers as indicative of sun worship. As +later observers tell us to this day the Algonkin prophet builds the +medicine lodge to face the sunrise, and in the name of Michabo, who +there has his home, summons the spirits of the four quarters of the +world and Gizhigooke, the day maker, to come to his fire and disclose +the hidden things of the distant and the future: so the earliest +explorers relate that when they asked the native priests who it was they +invoked, what demons or familiars, the invariable reply was, "the +Kichigouai, the genii of light, those who make the day."[169-1] + +Our authorities on Iroquois traditions, though numerous enough, are not +so satisfactory. The best, perhaps, is Father Brebeuf, a Jesuit +missionary, who resided among the Hurons in 1626. Their culture myth, +which he has recorded, is strikingly similar to that of the Algonkins. +Two brothers appear in it, Ioskeha and Tawiscara, names which find their +meaning in the Oneida dialect as the White one and the Dark one.[170-1] +They are twins, born of a virgin mother, who died in giving them life. +Their grandmother was the moon, called by the Hurons Ataensic, a word +which signifies literally _she bathes herself_, and which, in the +opinion of Father Bruyas, a most competent authority, is derived from +the word for water.[170-2] + +The brothers quarrelled, and finally came to blows; the former using the +horns of a stag, the latter the wild rose. He of the weaker weapon was +very naturally discomfited and sorely wounded. Fleeing for life, the +blood gushed from him at every step, and as it fell turned into +flint-stones. The victor returned to his grandmother, and established +his lodge in the far east, on the borders of the great ocean, whence +the sun comes. In time he became the father of mankind, and special +guardian of the Iroquois. The earth was at first arid and sterile, but +he destroyed the gigantic frog which had swallowed all the waters, and +guided the torrents into smooth streams and lakes.[171-1] The woods he +stocked with game; and having learned from the great tortoise, who +supports the world, how to make fire, taught his children, the Indians, +this indispensable art. He it was who watched and watered their crops; +and, indeed, without his aid, says the old missionary, quite out of +patience with such puerilities, "they think they could not boil a pot." +Sometimes they spoke of him as the sun, but this only figuratively.[171-2] + +From other writers of early date we learn that the essential outlines of +this myth were received by the Tuscaroras and the Mohawks, and as the +proper names of the two brothers are in the Oneida dialect, we cannot +err in considering this the national legend of the Iroquois stock. There +is strong likelihood that the Taronhiawagon, he who comes from the Sky, +of the Onondagas, who was their supreme God, who spoke to them in +dreams, and in whose honor the chief festival of their calendar was +celebrated about the winter solstice, was, in fact, Ioskeha under +another name.[172-1] As to the legend of the Good and Bad Minds given +by Cusic, to which I have referred in a previous chapter, and the later +and wholly spurious myth of Hiawatha, first made public by Mr. Clark in +his History of Onondaga (1849), and which, in the graceful poem of +Longfellow, is now familiar to the world, they are but pale and +incorrect reflections of the early native traditions. + +So strong is the resemblance Ioskeha bears to Michabo, that what has +been said in explanation of the latter will be sufficient for both. Yet +I do not imagine that the one was copied or borrowed from the other. We +cannot be too cautious in adopting such a conclusion. The two nations +were remote in everything but geographical position. I call to mind +another similar myth. In it a mother is also said to have brought forth +twins, or a pair of twins, and to have paid for them with her life. +Again the one is described as the bright, the other as the dark twin; +again it is said that they struggled one with the other for the mastery. +Scholars, likewise, have interpreted the mother to mean the Dawn, the +twins either Light and Darkness, or the Four Winds. Yet this is not +Algonkin theology; nor is it at all related to that of the Iroquois. It +is the story of Sarama in the Rig Veda, and was written in Sanscrit, +under the shadow of the Himalayas, centuries before Homer. + +Such uniformity points not to a common source in history, but in +psychology. Man, chiefly cognizant of his soul through his senses, +thought with an awful horror of the night which deprived him of the use +of one and foreshadowed the loss of all. Therefore _light_ and _life_ +were to him synonymous; therefore all religions promise to lead + + "From night to light, + From night to heavenly light;" + +therefore He who rescues is ever the Light of the World; therefore it is +said "to the upright ariseth light in darkness;" therefore everywhere +the kindling East, the pale Dawn, is the embodiment of his hopes and the +centre of his reminiscences. Who shall say that his instinct led him +here astray? For is not, in fact, all life dependent on light? Do not +all those marvellous and subtle forces known to the older chemists as +the imponderable elements, without which not even the inorganic crystal +is possible, proceed from the rays of light? Let us beware of that +shallow science so ready to shout Eureka, and reverently acknowledge a +mysterious intuition here displayed which joins with the latest +conquests of the human mind to repeat and emphasize that message which +the Evangelist heard of the Spirit and declared unto men, that "God is +Light."[173-1] + +Both these heroes, let it be observed, live in the uttermost east; both +are the mythical fathers of the race. To the east, therefore, should +these nations have pointed as their original dwelling place. This they +did in spite of history. Cusic, who takes up the story of the Iroquois a +thousand years before the Christian era, locates them first in the most +eastern region they ever possessed. While the Algonkins with one voice +called those of their tribes living nearest the rising sun _Abnakis_, +our ancestors at the east, or at the dawn; literally our _white_ +ancestors.[174-1] I designedly emphasize this literal rendering. It +reminds one of the white twin of Iroquois legend, and illustrates how +the color white came to be intimately associated with the morning light +and its beneficent effects. Moreover color has a specific effect on the +mind; there is a music to the eye as well as to the ear; and white, +which holds all hues in itself, disposes the soul to all pleasant and +elevating emotions.[174-2] Not fashion alone bids the bride wreathe her +brow with orange flowers, nor was it a mere figure of speech that led +the inspired poet to call his love "fairest among women," and to +prophecy a Messiah "fairer than the children of men," fulfilled in that +day when He appeared "in garments so white as no fuller on earth could +white them." No nation is free from the power of this law. "White," +observes Adair of the southern Indians, "is their fixed emblem of peace, +friendship, happiness, prosperity, purity, and holiness."[175-1] Their +priests dressed in white robes, as did those of Peru and Mexico; the +kings of the various species of animals were all supposed to be +white;[175-2] the cities of refuge established as asylums for alleged +criminals by the Cherokees in the manner of the Israelites were called +"white towns," and for sacrifices animals of this color were ever most +highly esteemed. All these sentiments were linked to the dawn. Language +itself is proof of it. Many Algonkin words for east, morning, dawn, day, +light, as we have already seen, are derived from a radical signifying +_white_. Or we can take a tongue nowise related, the Quiche, and find +its words for east, dawn, morning, light, bright, glorious, happy, +noble, all derived from _zak_, white. We read in their legends of the +earliest men that they were "white children," "white sons," leading "a +white life beyond the dawn," and the creation itself is attributed to +the Dawn, the White One, the White Sacrificer of Blood.[175-3] But why +insist upon the point when in European tongues we find the daybreak +called _l'aube_, _alva_, from _albus_, white? Enough for the purpose if +the error of those is manifest, who, in such expressions, would seek +support for any theory of ancient European immigration; enough if it +displays the true meaning of those traditions of the advent of +benevolent visitors of fair complexion in ante-Columbian times, which +both Algonkins and Iroquois[176-1] had in common with many other tribes +of the western continent. Their explanation will not be found in the +annals of Japan, the triads of the Cymric bards, nor the sagas of +Icelandic skalds, but in the propensity of the human mind to attribute +its own origin and culture to that white-shining orient where sun, moon, +and stars, are daily born in renovated glory, to that fair mother, who, +at the cost of her own life, gives light and joy to the world, to the +brilliant womb of Aurora, the glowing bosom of the Dawn. + +Even the complicated mythology of Peru yields to the judicious +application of these principles of interpretation. Its peculiar +obscurity arises from the policy of the Incas to blend the religions of +conquered provinces with their own. Thus about 1350 the Inca Pachacutec +subdued the country about Lima where the worship of Con and Pachacama +prevailed.[176-2] The local myth represented these as father and son, +or brothers, children of the sun. They were without flesh or blood, +impalpable, invisible, and incredibly swift of foot. Con first possessed +the land, but Pachacama attacked and drove him to the north. Irritated +at his defeat he took with him the rain, and consequently to this day +the sea-coast of Peru is largely an arid desert. Now when we are +informed that the south wind, that in other words which blows to the +north, is the actual cause of the aridity of the low-lands,[177-1] and +consider the light and airy character of these antagonists, we cannot +hesitate to accept this as a myth of the winds. The name of _Con tici_, +the Thunder Vase, was indeed applied to Viracocha in later times, but +they were never identical. Viracocha was the culture hero of the ancient +Aymara-Quichua stock. He was more than that, for in their creed he was +creator and possessor of all things. Lands and herds were assigned to +other gods to support their temples, and offerings were heaped on their +altars, but to him none. For, asked the Incas: "Shall the Lord and +Master of the whole world need these things from us?" To him, says +Acosta, "they did attribute the chief power and commandement over all +things;" and elsewhere "in all this realm the chief idoll they did +worship was Viracocha, and _after him_ the Sunne."[178-1] + +Ere sun or moon was made, he rose from the bosom of Lake Titicaca, and +presided over the erection of those wondrous cities whose ruins still +dot its islands and western shores, and whose history is totally lost in +the night of time. He himself constructed these luminaries and placed +them in the sky, and then peopled the earth with its present +inhabitants. From the lake he journeyed westward, not without +adventures, for he was attacked with murderous intent by the beings whom +he had created. When, however, scorning such unequal combat, he had +manifested his power by hurling the lightning on the hill-sides and +consuming the forests, they recognized their maker, and humbled +themselves before him. He was reconciled, and taught them arts and +agriculture, institutions and religion, meriting the title they gave him +of _Pachayachachic_, teacher of all things. At last he disappeared in +the western ocean. Four personages, companions or sons, were closely +connected with him. They rose together with him from the lake, or else +were his first creations. These are the four mythical civilizers of +Peru, who another legend asserts emerged from the cave Pacarin tampu the +Lodgings of the Dawn.[179-1] To these Viracocha gave the earth, to one +the north, to another the south, to a third the east, to a fourth the +west. Their names are very variously given, but as they have already +been identified with the four winds, we can omit their consideration +here.[179-2] Tradition, as has rightly been observed by the Inca +Garcilasso de la Vega,[179-3] transferred a portion of the story of +Viracocha to Manco Capac, first of the historical Incas. King Manco, +however, was a real character, the Rudolph of Hapsburg of their reigning +family, and flourished about the eleventh century. + +There is a general resemblance between this story and that of Michabo. +Both precede and create the sun, both journey to the west, overcoming +opposition with the thunderbolt, both divide the world between the four +winds, both were the fathers, gods, and teachers of their nations. Nor +does it cease here. Michabo, I have shown, is the white spirit of the +Dawn. Viracocha, all authorities translate "the fat or foam of the sea." +The idea conveyed is of whiteness, foam being called fat from its +color.[180-1] So true is this that to-day in Peru white men are called +_viracochas_, and the early explorers constantly received the same +epithet.[180-2] The name is a metaphor. The dawn rises above the horizon +as the snowy foam on the surface of a lake. As the Algonkins spoke of +the Abnakis, their white ancestors, as in Mexican legends the early +Toltecs were of fair complexion, so the Aymaras sometimes called the +first four brothers, _viracochas_, white men.[180-3] It is the ancient +story how + + "Light + Sprang from the deep, and from her native east + To journey through the airy gloom began." + +The central figure of Toltec mythology is Quetzalcoatl. Not an author on +ancient Mexico but has something to say about the glorious days when he +ruled over the land. No one denies him to have been a god, the god of +the air, highest deity of the Toltecs, in whose honor was erected the +pyramid of Cholula, grandest monument of their race. But many insist +that he was at first a man, some deified king. There were in truth many +Quetzalcoatls, for his high priest always bore his name, but he himself +is a pure creation of the fancy, and all his alleged history is nothing +but a myth. + +His emblematic name, the Bird-Serpent, and his rebus and cross at +Palenque, I have already explained. Others of his titles were, Ehecatl, +the air; Yolcuat, the rattlesnake; Tohil, the rumbler; Huemac, the +strong hand; Nani he hecatle, lord of the four winds. The same dualism +reappears in him that has been noted in his analogues elsewhere; He is +both lord of the eastern light and the winds. + +As the former, he was born of a virgin in the land of Tula or Tlapallan, +in the distant Orient, and was high priest of that happy realm. The +morning star was his symbol, and the temple of Cholula was dedicated to +him expressly as the author of light.[181-1] As by days we measure time, +he was the alleged inventor of the calendar. Like all the dawn heroes, +he too was represented as of white complexion, clothed in long white +robes, and, as most of the Aztec gods, with a full and flowing +beard.[181-2] When his earthly-work was done he too returned to the +east, assigning as a reason that the sun, the ruler of Tlapallan, +demanded his presence. But the real motive was that he had been +overcome by Tezcatlipoca, otherwise called Yoalliehecatl, the wind or +spirit of night, who had descended from heaven by a spider's web and +presented his rival with a draught pretended to confer immortality, but, +in fact, producing uncontrollable longing for home. For the wind and the +light both depart when the gloaming draws near, or when the clouds +spread their dark and shadowy webs along the mountains, and pour the +vivifying rain upon the fields. + +In his other character, he was begot of the breath of Tonacateotl, god +of our flesh or subsistence,[182-1] or (according to Gomara) was the son +of Iztac Mixcoatl, the white cloud serpent, the spirit of the tornado. +Messenger of Tlaloc, god of rains, he was figuratively said to sweep the +road for him, since in that country violent winds are the precursors of +the wet seasons. Wherever he went all manner of singing birds bore him +company, emblems of the whistling breezes. When he finally disappeared +in the far east, he sent back four trusty youths who had ever shared his +fortunes, "incomparably swift and light of foot," with directions to +divide the earth between them and rule it till he should return and +resume his power. When he would promulgate his decrees, his herald +proclaimed them from Tzatzitepec, the hill of shouting, with such a +mighty voice that it could be heard a hundred leagues around. The arrows +which he shot transfixed great trees, the stones he threw levelled +forests, and when he laid his hands on the rocks the mark was indelible. +Yet as thus emblematic of the thunder-storm, he possessed in full +measure its better attributes. By shaking his sandals he gave fire to +men, and peace, plenty, and riches blessed his subjects. Tradition says +he built many temples to Mictlanteuctli, the Aztec Pluto, and at the +creation of the sun that he slew all the other gods, for the advancing +dawn disperses the spectral shapes of night, and yet all its vivifying +power does but result in increasing the number doomed to fell before the +remorseless stroke of death.[183-1] + +His symbols were the bird, the serpent, the cross, and the flint, +representing the clouds, the lightning, the four winds, and the +thunderbolt. Perhaps, as Huemac, the Strong Hand, he was god of the +earthquakes. The Zapotecs worshipped such a deity under the image of +this member carved from a precious stone,[183-2] calling to mind the +"Kab ul," the Working Hand, adored by the Mayas,[183-3] and said to be +one of the images of Zamna, their hero god. The human hand, "that divine +tool," as it has been called, might well be regarded by the reflective +mind as the teacher of the arts and the amulet whose magic power has won +for man what vantage he has gained in his long combat with nature and +his fellows. + +I might next discuss the culture myth of the Muyscas, whose hero Bochica +or Nemqueteba bore the other name SUA, the White One, the Day, the +East, an appellation they likewise gave the Europeans on their arrival. +He had taught them in remotest times how to manufacture their clothing, +build their houses, cultivate the soil, and reckon time. When he +disappeared, he divided the land between four chiefs, and laid down many +minute rules of government which ever after were religiously +observed.[184-1] Or I might choose that of the Caribs, whose patron Tamu +called Grandfather, and Old Man of the Sky, was a man of light +complexion, who in the old times came from the east, instructed them in +agriculture and arts, and disappeared in the same direction, promising +them assistance in the future, and that at death he would receive their +souls on the summit of the sacred tree, and transport them safely to his +home in the sky.[184-2] Or from the more fragmentary mythology of ruder +nations, proof might be brought of the well nigh universal reception of +these fundamental views. As, for instance, when the Mandans of the Upper +Missouri speak of their first ancestor as a son of the West, who +preserved them at the flood, and whose garb was always of four +milk-white wolf skins;[185-1] and when the Pimos, a people of the valley +of the Rio Gila, relate that their birthplace was where the sun rises, +that there for generations they led a joyous life, until their +beneficent first parent disappeared in the heavens. From that time, say +they, God lost sight of them, and they wandered west, and further west +till they reached their present seats.[185-2] Or I might instance the +Tupis of Brazil, who were named after the first of men, Tupa, he who +alone survived the flood, who was one of four brothers, who is described +as an old man of fair complexion, _un vieillard blanc_,[185-3] and who +is now their highest divinity, ruler of the lightning and the storm, +whose voice is the thunder, and who is the guardian of their nation. But +is it not evident that these and all such legends are but variations of +those already analyzed? + +In thus removing one by one the wrappings of symbolism, and displaying +at the centre and summit of these various creeds, He who is throned in +the sky, who comes with the dawn, who manifests himself in the light and +the storm, and whose ministers are the four winds, I set up no new god. +The ancient Israelites prayed to him who was seated above the firmament, +who commanded the morning and caused the day-spring to know its place, +who answered out of the whirlwind, and whose envoys were the four winds, +the four cherubim described with such wealth of imagery in the +introduction to the book of Ezekiel. The Mahometan adores "the clement +and merciful Lord of the Daybreak," whose star is in the east, who rides +on the storm, and whose breath is the wind. The primitive man in the New +World also associated these physical phenomena as products of an +invisible power, conceived under human form, called by name, worshipped +as one, and of whom all related the same myth differing but in +unimportant passages. This was the primeval religion. It was not +monotheism, for there were many other gods; it was not pantheism, for +there was no blending of the cause with the effects; still less was it +fetichism, an adoration of sensuous objects, for these were recognized +as effects. It teaches us that the idea of God neither arose from the +phenomenal world nor was sunk in it, as is the shallow theory of the +day, but is as Kant long ago defined it, a conviction of a highest and +first principle which binds all phenomena into one. + +One point of these legends deserves closer attention for the influence +it exerted on the historical fortunes of the race. The dawn heroes were +conceived as of fair complexion, mighty in war, and though absent for a +season, destined to return and claim their ancient power. Here was one +of those unconscious prophecies, pointing to the advent of a white race +from the east, that wrote the doom of the red man in letters of fire. +Historians have marvelled at the instantaneous collapse of the empires +of Mexico, Peru, the Mayas, and the Natchez, before a handful of Spanish +filibusters. The fact was, wherever the whites appeared they were +connected with these ancient predictions of the spirit of the dawn +returning to claim his own. Obscure and ominous prophecies, "texts of +bodeful song," rose in the memory of the natives, and paralyzed their +arms. + +"For a very long time," said Montezuma, at his first interview with +Cortes, "has it been handed down that we are not the original possessors +of this land, but came hither from a distant region under the guidance +of a ruler who afterwards left us and returned. We have ever believed +that some day his descendants would come and resume dominion over us. +Inasmuch as you are from that direction, which is toward the rising of +the sun, and serve so great a king as you describe, we believe that he +is also our natural lord, and are ready to submit ourselves to +him."[187-1] + +The gloomy words of Nezahualcoyotl, a former prince of Tezcuco, +foretelling the arrival of white and bearded men from the east, who +would wrest the power from the hands of the rightful rulers and destroy +in a day the edifice of centuries, were ringing in his ears. But they +were not so gloomy to the minds of his down-trodden subjects, for that +day was to liberate them from the thralls of servitude. Therefore when +they first beheld the fair complexioned Spaniards, they rushed into the +water to embrace the prows of their vessels, and despatched messengers +throughout the land to proclaim the return of Quetzalcoatl.[188-1] + +The noble Mexican was not alone in his presentiments. When Hernando de +Soto on landing in Peru first met the Inca Huascar, the latter related +an ancient prophecy which his father Huayna Capac had repeated on his +dying bed, to the effect that in the reign of the thirteenth Inca, white +men (_viracochas_) of surpassing strength and valor would come from +their father the Sun and subject to their rule the nations of the world. +"I command you," said the dying monarch, "to yield them homage and +obedience, for they will be of a nature superior to ours."[188-2] + +The natives of Haiti told Columbus of similar predictions long anterior +to his arrival.[188-3] And Father Lizana has preserved in the original +Maya tongue several such foreboding chants. Doubtless he has adapted +them somewhat to proselytizing purposes, but they seem very likely to be +close copies of authentic aboriginal songs, referring to the return of +Zamna or Kukulcan, lord of the dawn and the four winds, worshipped at +Cozumel and Palenque under the sign of the cross. An extract will show +their character:-- + + "At the close of the thirteenth Age of the world, + While the cities of Itza and Tancah still flourish, + The sign of the Lord of the Sky will appear, + The light of the dawn will illumine the land, + And the cross will be seen by the nations of men. + A father to you, will He be, Itzalanos, + A brother to you, ye natives of Tancah; + Receive well the bearded guests who are coming, + Bringing the sign of the Lord from the daybreak, + Of the Lord of the Sky, so clement yet powerful."[189-1] + +The older writers, Gomara, Cogolludo, Villagutierre, have taken pains to +collect other instances of this presentiment of the arrival and +domination of a white race. Later historians, fashionably incredulous of +what they cannot explain, have passed them over in silence. That they +existed there can be no doubt, and that they arose in the way I have +stated, is almost proven by the fact that in Mexico, Bogota, and Peru, +the whites were at once called from the proper names of the heroes of +the Dawn, _Suas_, _Viracochas_, and _Quetzalcoatls_. + +When the church of Rome had crushed remorselessly the religions of +Mexico and Peru, all hope of the return of Quetzalcoatl and Viracocha +perished with the institutions of which they were the mythical founders. +But it was only to arise under new incarnations and later names. As well +forbid the heart of youth to bud forth in tender love, as that of +oppressed nationalities to cherish the faith that some ideal hero, some +royal man, will yet arise, and break in fragments their fetters, and +lead them to glory and honor. + +When the name of Quetzalcoatl was no longer heard from the teocalli of +Cholula, that of Montezuma took its place. From ocean to ocean, and from +the river Gila to the Nicaraguan lake, nearly every aboriginal nation +still cherishes the memory of Montezuma, not as the last unfortunate +ruler of a vanished state, but as the prince of their golden era, their +Saturnian age, lord of the winds and waters, and founder of their +institutions. When, in the depth of the tropical forests, the antiquary +disinters some statue of earnest mien, the natives whisper one to the +other, "Montezuma! Montezuma!"[190-1] In the legends of New Mexico he is +the founder of the pueblos, and intrusted to their guardianship the +sacred fire. Departing, he planted a tree, and bade them watch it well, +for when that tree should fall and the fire die out, then he would +return from the far East, and lead his loyal people to victory and +power. When the present generation saw their land glide, mile by mile, +into the rapacious hands of the Yankees--when new and strange diseases +desolated their homes--finally, when in 1846 the sacred tree was +prostrated, and the guardian of the holy fire was found dead on its cold +ashes, then they thought the hour of deliverance had come, and every +morning at earliest dawn a watcher mounted to the house-tops, and gazed +long and anxiously in the lightening east, hoping to descry the noble +form of Montezuma advancing through the morning beams at the head of a +conquering army.[191-1] + +Groaning under the iron rule of the Spaniards, the Peruvians would not +believe that the last of the Incas had perished an outcast and a +wanderer in the forests of the Cordilleras. For centuries they clung to +the persuasion that he had but retired to another mighty kingdom beyond +the mountains, and in due time would return and sweep the haughty +Castilian back into the ocean. In 1781, a mestizo, Jose Gabriel +Condorcanqui, of the province of Tinta, took advantage of this strong +delusion, and binding around his forehead the scarlet fillet of the +Incas, proclaimed himself the long lost Inca Tupac Amaru, and a true +child of the sun. Thousands of Indians flocked to his standard, and at +their head he took the field, vowing the extermination of every soul of +the hated race. Seized at last by the Spaniards, and condemned to a +public execution, so profound was the reverence with which he had +inspired his followers, so full their faith in his claims, that, +undeterred by the threats of the soldiery, they prostrated themselves on +their faces before this last of the children of the sun, as he passed on +to a felon's death.[191-2] + +These fancied reminiscences, these unfounded hopes, so vague, so +child-like, let no one dismiss them as the babblings of ignorance. +Contemplated in their broadest meaning as characteristics of the race of +man, they have an interest higher than any history, beyond that of any +poetry. They point to the recognized discrepancy between what man is, +and what he feels he should be, must be; they are the indignant protests +of the race against acquiescence in the world's evil as the world's law; +they are the incoherent utterances of those yearnings for nobler +conditions of existence, which no savagery, no ignorance, nothing but a +false and lying enlightenment can wholly extinguish. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[162-1] The _meda_ worship is the ordinary religious ritual of the +Algonkins. It consists chiefly in exhibitions of legerdemain, and in +conjuring and exorcising demons. A _jossakeed_ is an inspired prophet who +derives his power directly from the higher spirits, and not as the +_medawin_, by instruction and practice. + +[164-1] For these particulars see the _Rel. de la Nouv. France_, 1667, p. +12, 1670, p. 93; Charlevoix, _Journal Historique_, p. 344; Schoolcraft, +_Indian Tribes_, v. pp. 420 sqq., and Alex. Henry, _Travs. in Canada and +the Ind. Territories_, pp. 212 sqq. These are decidedly the best +references of the many that could be furnished. Peter Jones' _History of +the Ojibway Indians_, p. 35, may also be consulted. + +[165-1] _Science of Language_, Second Series, p. 518. + +[165-2] Dialectic forms in Algonkin for white, are _wabi_, _wape_, +_wompi_, _waubish_, _oppai_; for morning, _wapan_, _wapaneh_, _opah_; for +east, _wapa_, _waubun_, _waubamo_; for dawn, _wapa_, _waubun_; for day, +_wompan_, _oppan_; for light, _oppung_; and many others similar. In the +Abnaki dialect, _wanbighen_, it is white, is the customary idiom to +express the breaking of the day (Vetromile, _The Abnakis and their +History_, p. 27: New York, 1866). The loss in composition of the vowel +sound represented by the English w, and in the French writers by the +figure 8, is supported by frequent analogy. + +[167-1] Schoolcraft, _Algic Researches_, i. pp. 135-142. + +[167-2] The names of the four brothers, Wabun, Kabun, Kabibonokka, and +Shawano, express in Algonkin both the cardinal points and the winds which +blow from them. In another version of the legend, first reported by +Father De Smet and quoted by Schoolcraft without acknowledgment, they are +Nanaboojoo, Chipiapoos, Wabosso, and Chakekenapok. See for the support of +the text, Schoolcraft, _Algic Res._, ii. p. 214; De Smet, _Oregon +Missions_, p. 347. + +[168-1] _Narrative of John Tanner_, p. 351. + +[168-2] Schoolcraft, _Algic Res._, i. p. 216. + +[168-3] _Narrative of John Tanner_, p. 354. + +[169-1] Compare the _Rel. de la Nouv. France_, 1634 p. 14, 1637, p. 46, +with Schoolcraft, _Ind. Tribes_, v. p. 419. _Kichigouai_ is the same word +as _Gizhigooke_, according to a different orthography. + +[170-1] The names _I8skeha_ and _Ta8iscara_ I venture to identify with +the Oneida _owisske_ or _owiska_, white, and _tetiucalas_ (_tyokaras_, +_tewhgarlars_, Mohawk), dark or darkness. The prefix i to _owisske_ is +the impersonal third person singular; the suffix _ha_ gives a future +sense, so that _i-owisske-ha_ or _iouskeha_ means "it is going to become +white." Brebeuf gives a similar example of _gaon_, old; _a-gaon-ha_, _il +va devenir vieux_ (_Rel. Nouv. France_, 1636, p. 99). But "it is going to +become white," meant to the Iroquois that the dawn was about to appear, +just as _wanbighen_, it is white, did to the Abnakis (see note on page +166), and as the Eskimos say, _kau ma wok_, it is white, to express that +it is daylight (Richardson's Vocab. of Labrador Eskimo in his _Arctic +Expedition_). Therefore, that Ioskeha is an impersonation of the light of +the dawn admits of no dispute. + +[170-2] The orthography of Brebeuf is _aataentsic_. This may be analyzed +as follows: root _aouen_, water; prefix _at_, _il y a quelque chose la +dedans_; _ataouen_, _se baigner_; from which comes the form +_ataouensere_. (See Bruyas, _Rad. Verb. Iroquaeor._, pp. 30, 31.) Here +again the mythological role of the moon as the goddess of water comes +distinctly to light. + +[171-1] This offers an instance of the uniformity which prevailed in +symbolism in the New World. The Aztecs adored the goddess of water under +the figure of a frog carved from a single emerald; or of human form, but +holding in her hand the leaf of a water lily ornamented with frogs. +(Brasseur, _Hist. du Mexique_, i. p. 324.) + +[171-2] _Rel. de la Nouv. France_, 1636, p. 101. + +[172-1] _Rel. de la Nouv. France_, 1671, p. 17. Cusic spells it +_Tarenyawagon_, and translates it Holder of the Heavens. But the name is +evidently a compound of _garonhia_, sky, softened in the Onondaga dialect +to _taronhia_ (see Gallatin's Vocabs. under the word sky), and _wagin_, I +come. + +[173-1] ~Ho Theos phos esti~, The First Epistle General of John, i. 5. +In curious analogy to these myths is that of the Eskimos of Greenland. +In the beginning, they relate, were two brothers, one of whom said: +"There shall be night and there shall be day, and men shall die, one +after another." But the second said, "There shall be no day, but only +night all the time, and men shall live forever." They had a long +struggle, but here once more he who loved darkness rather than light was +worsted, and the day triumphed. (_Nachrichten von Groenland aus einem +Tagebuche vom Bischof Paul Egede_, p. 157: Kopenhagen, 1790. The date of +the entry is 1738.) + +[174-1] I accept without hesitation the derivation of this word, proposed +and defended by that accomplished Algonkin scholar, the Rev. Eugene +Vetromile, from _wanb_, white or east, and _naghi_ ancestors (_The +Abnakis and their History_, p. 29: New York, 1866). + +[174-2] White light, remarks Goethe, has in it something cheerful and +ennobling; it possesses "eine heitere, muntere, sanft reizende +Eigenschaft." _Farbenlehre_, sec's 766, 770. + +[175-1] _Hist. of the N. Am. Indians_, p. 159. + +[175-2] La Hontan, _Voy. dans l'Amer. Sept._, ii. p. 42. + +[175-3] "Blanco pizote," Ximenes, p. 4, _Vocabulario Quiche_, s. v. +_zak_. In the far north the Eskimo tongue presents the same analogy. Day, +morning, bright, light, lightning, all are from the same root (_kau_), +signifying white (Richardson, Vocab. of Labrador Eskimo). + +[176-1] Some fragments of them may be found in Campanius, _Acc. of New +Sweden_, 1650, book iii. chap. 11, and in Byrd, _The Westover +Manuscripts_, 1733, p. 82. They were in both instances alleged to have +been white and bearded men, the latter probably a later trait in the +legend. + +[176-2] _Con_ or _Cun_ I have already explained to mean thunder, _Con +tici_, the mythical thunder vase. Pachacama is doubtless, as M. Leonce +Angrand has suggested, from _ppacha_, source, and _cama_, all, the Source +of All things (Desjardins, _Le Perou avant la Conq. Espagnole_, p. 23, +note). But he and all other writers have been in error in considering +this identical with _Pachacamac_, nor can the latter mean _creator of the +world_, as it has constantly been translated. It is a participial +adjective from _pacha_, place, especially the world, and _camac_, present +participle of _camani_, I animate, from which also comes _camakenc_, the +soul, and means _animating the world_. It was never used as a proper +name. The following trochaic lines from the Quichua poem translated in +the previous chapter, show its true meaning and correct accent:-- + + P[=a]ch[)a] r[=u]r[)a]c, World creating, + P[=a]ch[)a] c[=a]m[)a]c, World animating, + Viracocha, Viracocha, + Camasunqui, He animates thee. + +The last word is the second transition, present tense, of _camani_, while +_camac_ is its present participle. + +[177-1] Ulloa, _Memoires Philosophiques sur l'Amerique_, i. p. 105. + +[178-1] Acosta, _Hist. of the New World_, bk. v. chap. 4, bk. vi. chap. +19, Eng. trans., 1704. + +[179-1] The name is derived from _tampu_, corrupted by the Spaniards to +_tambo_, an inn, and _paccari_ morning, or _paccarin_, it dawns, which +also has the figurative signification, it is born. It may therefore mean +either Lodgings of the Dawn, or as the Spaniards usually translated it, +House of Birth, or Production, _Casa de Producimiento_. + +[179-2] The names given by Balboa (_Hist. du Perou_, p. 4) and Montesinos +(_Ancien Perou_, p. 5) are Manco, Cacha, Auca, Uchu. The meaning of Manco +is unknown. The others signify, in their order, messenger, enemy or +traitor, and the little one. The myth of Viracocha is given in its most +antique form by Juan de Betanzos, in the _Historia de los Ingas_, +compiled in the first years of the conquest from the original songs and +legends. It is quoted in Garcia, _Origen de los Indios_, lib. v. cap. 7. +Balboa, Montesinos, Acosta, and others have also furnished me some +incidents. Whether Atachuchu mentioned in the last chapter was not +another name of Viracocha may well be questioned. It is every way +probable. + +[179-3] _Hist. des Incas_, liv. iii. chap. 25. + +[180-1] It is compounded of _vira_, fat, foam (which perhaps is akin to +_yurac_, _white_), and _cocha_, a pond or lake. + +[180-2] See Desjardins, _Le Perou avant la Conq. Espagnole_, p. 67. + +[180-3] Gomara, _Hist. de las Indias_, cap. 119, in Mueller. + +[181-1] Brasseur, _Hist. du Mexique_, i. p. 302. + +[181-2] There is no reason to lay any stress upon this feature. Beard was +nothing uncommon among the Aztecs and many other nations of the New +World. It was held to add dignity to the appearance, and therefore +Sahagun, in his description of the Mexican idols, repeatedly alludes to +their beards, and Mueller quotes various authorities to show that the +priests wore them long and full (_Amer. Urreligionen_, p. 429). Not only +was Quetzalcoatl himself reported to have been of fair complexion--white +indeed--but the Creole historian Ixtlilxochitl says the old legends +asserted that all the Toltecs, natives of Tollan, or Tula, as their name +signifies, were so likewise. Still more, Aztlan, the traditional home of +the Nahuas, or Aztecs proper, means literally the white land, according +to one of our best authorities (Buschmann, _Ueber die Aztekischen +Ortsnamen_, 612: Berlin, 1852). + +[182-1] Kingsborough, _Antiquities of Mexico_, v. p. 109. + +[183-1] The myth of Quetzalcoatl I have taken chiefly from Sahagun, +_Hist. de la Nueva Espana_, lib. i. cap. 5; lib. iii. caps. 3, 13, 14; +lib. x. cap. 29; and Torquemada, _Monarquia Indiana_, lib. vi. cap. 24. +It must be remembered that the Quiche legends identify him positively +with the Tohil of Central America (_Le Livre Sacre_, p. 247). + +[183-2] Padilla Davila, _Hist. de la Prov. de Santiago de Mexico_, lib. +ii. cap. 89. + +[183-3] Cogolludo, _Hist. de Yucathan_, lib. iv. cap. 8. + +[184-1] He is also called Idacanzas and Nemterequetaba. Some have +maintained a distinction between Bochica and Sua, which, however, has not +been shown. The best authorities on the mythology of the Muyscas are +Piedrahita, _Hist. de las Conq. del Nuevo Reyno de Granada_, 1668 (who is +copied by Humboldt, _Vues des Cordilleres_, pp. 246 sqq.), and Simon, +_Noticias de Tierra Firme_, Parte ii., in Kingsborough's _Mexico_. + +[184-2] D'Orbigny, _L'Homme Americain_, ii. p. 319, and Rochefort, +_Hist. des Isles Antilles_, p. 482 (Waitz). The name has various +orthographies, Tamu, Tamoei, Tamou, Itamoulou, etc. Perhaps the Ama-livaca +of the Orinoko Indians is another form. This personage corresponds even +minutely in many points with the Tamu of the island Caribs. + +[185-1] Catlin, _Letters and Notes_, Letter 22. + +[185-2] Journal of Capt. Johnson, in Emory, _Reconnoissance of New +Mexico_, p. 601. + +[185-3] M. De Charency, in the _Revue Americaine_, ii. p. 317. _Tupa_ it +may be observed means in Quichua, lord, or royal. Father Holguin gives as +an example _a tupa Dios_, O Lord God (_Vocabulario Quichua_, p. 348: +Ciudad de los Reyes, 1608). In the Quiche dialects _tepeu_ is one of the +common appellations of divinity and is also translated lord or ruler. We +are not yet sufficiently advanced in the study of American philology to +draw any inference from these resemblances, but they should not be +overlooked. + +[187-1] Cortes, _Carta Primera_, pp. 113, 114. + +[188-1] Sahagun, _Hist. de la Nueva Espana_, lib. xii. caps. 2, 3. + +[188-2] La Vega, _Hist. des Incas_, lib. ix. cap. 15. + +[188-3] Peter Martyr, _De Reb. Oceanicis_, Dec. iii. lib. vii. + +[189-1] Lizana, _Hist. de Nuestra Senora de Itzamal_, lib. ii. cap. i. in +Brasseur, _Hist. du Mexique_, ii. p. 605. The prophecies are of the +priest who bore the title--not name--_chilan balam_, and whose offices +were those of divination and astrology. The verse claims to date from +about 1450, and was very well known throughout Yucatan, so it is said. +The number thirteen which in many of these prophecies is the supposed +limit of the present order of things, is doubtless derived from the +observation that thirteen moons complete one solar year. + +[190-1] Squier, _Travels in Nicaragua_, ii. p. 35. + +[191-1] Whipple, _Report on the Ind. Tribes_, p. 36. Emory, _Recon. of +New Mexico_, p. 64. The latter adds that among the Pueblo Indians, the +Apaches, and Navajos, the name of Montezuma is "as familiar as Washington +to us." This is the more curious, as neither the Pueblo Indians nor +either of the other tribes are in any way related to the Aztec race by +language, as has been shown by Dr. Buschman, _Die Voelker und Sprachen +Neu Mexico's_, p. 262. + +[191-2] Humboldt, _Essay on New Spain_, bk. ii. chap. vi, Eng. trans.; +_Ansichten der Natur_, ii. pp. 357, 386. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +THE MYTHS OF THE CREATION, THE DELUGE, THE EPOCHS OF NATURE, AND THE +LAST DAY. + + Cosmogonies usually portray the action of the SPIRIT on the + WATERS.--Those of the Muscogees, Athapascas, Quiches, Mixtecs, + Iroquois, Algonkins, and others.--The Flood-Myth an unconscious + attempt to reconcile a creation in time with the eternity of + matter.--Proof of this from American mythology.--Characteristics of + American Flood-Myths.--The person saved usually the first man.--The + number seven.--Their Ararats.--The role of birds.--The confusion of + tongues.--The Aztec, Quiche, Algonkin, Tupi, and earliest Sanscrit + flood-myths.--The belief in Epochs of Nature a further result of + this attempt at reconciliation.--Its forms among Peruvians, Mayas, + and Aztecs.--The expectation of the End of the World a corollary of + this belief.--Views of various nations. + + +Could the reason rest content with the belief that the universe always +was as it now is, it would save much beating of brains. Such is the +comfortable condition of the Eskimos, the Rootdiggers of California, the +most brutish specimens of humanity everywhere. Vain to inquire their +story of creation, for, like the knife-grinder of anti-Jacobin renown, +they have no story to tell. It never occurred to them that the earth had +a beginning, or underwent any greater changes than those of the +seasons.[193-1] But no sooner does the mind begin to reflect, the +intellect to employ itself on higher themes than the needs of the body, +than the law of causality exerts its power, and the man, out of such +materials as he has at hand, manufactures for himself a Theory of +Things. + +What these materials were has been shown in the last few chapters. A +simple primitive substance, a divinity to mould it--these are the +requirements of every cosmogony. Concerning the first no nation ever +hesitated. All agree that before time began _water_ held all else in +solution, covered and concealed everything. The reasons for this assumed +priority of water have been already touched upon. Did a tribe dwell near +some great sea others can be imagined. The land is limited, peopled, +stable; the ocean fluctuating, waste, boundless. It insatiably swallows +all rains and rivers, quenches sun and moon in its dark chambers, and +raves against its bounds as a beast of prey. Awe and fear are the +sentiments it inspires; in Aryan tongues its synonyms are the _desert_ +and the _night_.[194-1] It produces an impression of immensity, +infinity, formlessness, and barren changeableness, well suited to a +notion of chaos. It is sterile, receiving all things, producing nothing. +Hence the necessity of a creative power to act upon it, as it were to +impregnate its barren germs. Some cosmogonies find this in one, some in +another personification of divinity. Commonest of all is that of the +wind, or its emblem the bird, types of the breath of life. + +Thus the venerable record in Genesis, translated in the authorized +version "and the Spirit of God moved on the face of the waters," may +with equal correctness be rendered "and a mighty wind brooded on the +surface of the waters," presenting the picture of a primeval ocean +fecundated by the wind as a bird.[195-1] The eagle that in the Finnish +epic of Kalewala floated over the waves and hatched the land, the egg +that in Chinese legend swam hither and thither until it grew to a +continent, the giant Ymir, the rustler (as wind in trees), from whose +flesh, says the Edda, our globe was made and set to float like a speck +in the vast sea between Muspel and Niflheim, all are the same tale +repeated by different nations in different ages. But why take +illustrations from the old world when they are so plenty in the new? + +Before the creation, said the Muscogees, a great body of water was alone +visible. Two pigeons flew to and fro over its waves, and at last spied a +blade of grass rising above the surface. Dry land gradually followed, +and the islands and continents took their present shapes.[195-2] Whether +this is an authentic aboriginal myth, is not beyond question. No such +doubt attaches to that of the Athapascas. With singular unanimity, most +of the northwest branches of this stock trace their descent from a +raven, "a mighty bird, whose eyes were fire, whose glances were +lightning, and the clapping of whose wings was thunder. On his descent +to the ocean, the earth instantly rose, and remained on the surface of +the water. This omnipotent bird then called forth all the variety of +animals."[196-1] + +Very similar, but with more of poetic finish, is the legend of the +Quiches:-- + +"This is the first word and the first speech. There were neither men nor +brutes; neither birds, fish, nor crabs, stick nor stone, valley nor +mountain, stubble nor forest, nothing but the sky. The face of the land +was hidden. There was naught but the silent sea and the sky. There was +nothing joined, nor any sound, nor thing that stirred; neither any to do +evil, nor to rumble in the heavens, nor a walker on foot; only the +silent waters, only the pacified ocean, only it in its calm. Nothing was +but stillness, and rest, and darkness, and the night; nothing but the +Maker and Moulder, the Hurler, the Bird-Serpent. In the waters, in a +limpid twilight, covered with green feathers, slept the mothers and the +fathers."[196-2] + +Over this passed Hurakan, the mighty wind, and called out Earth! and +straightway the solid land was there. + +The picture writings of the Mixtecs preserved a similar cosmogony: "In +the year and in the day of clouds, before ever were either years or +days, the world lay in darkness; all things were orderless, and a water +covered the slime and the ooze that the earth then was." By the efforts +of two winds, called, from astrological associations, that of Nine +Serpents and that of Nine Caverns, personified one as a bird and one as +a winged serpent, the waters subsided and the land dried.[197-1] + +In the birds that here play such conspicuous parts, we cannot fail to +recognize the winds and the clouds; but more especially the dark thunder +cloud, soaring in space at the beginning of things, most forcible emblem +of the aerial powers. They are the symbols of that divinity which acted +on the passive and sterile waters, the fitting result being the +production of a universe. Other symbols of the divine could also be +employed, and the meaning remain the same. Or were the fancy too +helpless to suggest any, they could be dispensed with, and purely +natural agencies take their place. Thus the unimaginative Iroquois +narrated that when their primitive female ancestor was kicked from the +sky by her irate spouse, there was as yet no land to receive her, but +that it "suddenly bubbled up under her feet, and waxed bigger, so that +ere long a whole country was perceptible."[197-2] Or that certain +amphibious animals, the beaver, the otter, and the muskrat, seeing her +descent, hastened to dive and bring up sufficient mud to construct an +island for her residence.[197-3] The muskrat is also the simple +machinery in the cosmogony of the Takahlis of the northwest coast, the +Osages and some Algonkin tribes. + +These latter were, indeed, keen enough to perceive that there was really +no _creation_ in such an account. Dry land was wanting, but earth was +there, though hidden by boundless waters. Consequently, they spoke +distinctly of the action of the muskrat in bringing it to the surface as +a formation only. Michabo directed him, and from the mud formed islands +and main land. But when the subject of creation was pressed, they +replied they knew nothing of that, or roundly answered the questioner +that he was talking nonsense.[198-1] Their myth, almost identical with +that of their neighbors, was recognized by them to be not of a +construction, but a reconstruction only; a very judicious distinction, +but one which has a most important corollary. A reconstruction supposes +a previous existence. This they felt, and had something to say about an +earth anterior to this of ours, but one without light or human +inhabitants. A lake burst its bounds and submerged it wholly. This is +obviously nothing but a mere and meagre fiction, invented to explain the +origin of the primeval ocean. But mark it well, for this is the germ of +those marvellous myths of the Epochs of Nature, the catastrophes of the +universe, the deluges of water and of fire, which have laid such strong +hold on the human fancy in every land and in every age. + +The purpose for which this addition was made to the simpler legend is +clear enough. It was to avoid the dilemma of a creation from nothing on +the one hand, and the eternity of matter on the other. _Ex nihilo nihil_ +is an apothegm indorsed alike by the profoundest metaphysicians and the +rudest savages. But the other horn was no easier. To escape accepting +the theory that the world had ever been as it now is, was the only +object of a legend of its formation. As either lemma conflicts with +fundamental laws of thought, this escape was eagerly adopted, and in the +suggestive words of Prescott, men "sought relief from the oppressive +idea of eternity by breaking it up into distinct cycles or periods of +time."[199-1] Vain but characteristic attempt of the ambitious mind of +man! The Hindoo philosopher reconciles to his mind the suspension of the +world in space by imagining it supported by an elephant, the elephant by +a tortoise, and the tortoise by a serpent. We laugh at the Hindoo, and +fancy we diminish the difficulty by explaining that it revolves around +the sun, and the sun around some far-off star. Just so the general mind +of humanity finds some satisfaction in supposing a world or a series of +worlds anterior to the present, thus escaping the insoluble enigma of +creation by removing it indefinitely in time. + +The support lent to these views by the presence of marine shells on high +lands, or by faint reminiscences of local geologic convulsions, I +estimate very low. Savages are not inductive philosophers, and by +nothing short of a miracle could they preserve the remembrance of even +the most terrible catastrophe beyond a few generations. Nor has any such +occurred within the ken of history of sufficient magnitude to make a +very permanent or wide-spread impression. Not physics, but metaphysics, +is the exciting cause of these beliefs in periodical convulsions of the +globe. The idea of matter cannot be separated from that of time, and +time and eternity are contradictory terms. Common words show this +connection. World, for example, in the old language _waereld_, from the +root to wear, by derivation means an age or cycle (Grimm). + +In effect a myth of creation is nowhere found among primitive nations. +It seems repugnant to their reason. Dry land and animate life had a +beginning, but not matter. A series of constructions and demolitions may +conveniently be supposed for these. The analogy of nature, as seen in +the vernal flowers springing up after the desolation of winter, of the +sapling sprouting from the fallen trunk, of life everywhere rising from +death, suggests such a view. Hence arose the belief in Epochs of Nature, +elaborated by ancient philosophers into the Cycles of the Stoics, the +Great Days of Brahm, long periods of time rounded off by sweeping +destructions, the Cataclysms and Ekpyrauses of the universe. Some +thought in these all beings perished; others that a few survived.[200-1] +This latter and more common view is the origin of the myth of the +deluge. How familiar such speculations were to the aborigines of America +there is abundant evidence to show. + +The early Algonkin legends do not speak of an antediluvian race, nor of +any family who escaped the waters. Michabo, the spirit of the dawn, +their supreme deity, alone existed, and by his power formed and peopled +it. Nor did their neighbors, the Dakotas, though firm in the belief that +the globe had once been destroyed by the waters, suppose that any had +escaped.[201-1] The same view was entertained by the Nicaraguans[201-2] +and the Botocudos of Brazil. The latter attributed its destruction to +the moon falling to the earth from time to time.[201-3] + +Much the most general opinion, however, was that some few escaped the +desolating element by one of those means most familiar to the narrator, +by ascending some mountain, on a raft or canoe, in a cave, or even by +climbing a tree. No doubt some of these legends have been modified by +Christian teachings; but many of them are so connected with local +peculiarities and ancient religious ceremonies, that no unbiased student +can assign them wholly to that source, as Professor Vater has done, even +if the authorities for many of them were less trustworthy than they are. +There are no more common heirlooms in the traditional lore of the red +race. Nearly every old author quotes one or more of them. They present +great uniformity of outline, and rather than engage in repetitions of +little interest, they can be more profitably studied in the aggregate +than in detail. + +By far the greater number represent the last destruction of the world to +have been by water. A few, however, the Takahlis of the North Pacific +coast, the Yurucares of the Bolivian Cordilleras, and the Mbocobi of +Paraguay, attribute it to a general conflagration which swept over the +earth, consuming every living thing except a few who took refuge in a +deep cave.[202-1] The more common opinion of a submersion gave rise to +those traditions of a universal flood so frequently recorded by +travellers, and supposed by many to be reminiscences of that of Noah. + +There are, indeed, some points of striking similarity between the deluge +myths of Asia and America. It has been called a peculiarity of the +latter that in them the person saved is always the first man. This, +though not without exception, is certainly the general rule. But these +first men were usually the highest deities known to their nations, the +only creators of the world, and the guardians of the race.[202-2] + +Moreover, in the oldest Sanscrit legend of the flood in the Zatapatha +Brahmana, Manu is also the first man, and by his own efforts creates +offspring.[202-3] + +A later Sanscrit work assigns to Manu the seven Richis or shining ones +as companions. Seven was also the number of persons in the ark of Noah. +Curiously enough one Mexican and one early Peruvian myth give out +exactly seven individuals as saved in their floods.[203-1] This +coincidence arises from the mystic powers attached to the number seven, +derived from its frequent occurrence in astrology. Proof of this appears +by comparing the later and the older versions of this myth, either in +the book of Genesis, where the latter is distinguished by the use of the +word Elohim for Jehovah,[203-2] or the Sanscrit account in the Zatapatha +Brahmana with those in the later Puranas.[203-3] In both instances the +number seven hardly or at all occurs in the oldest version, while it is +constantly repeated in those of later dates. + +As the mountain or rather mountain chain of Ararat was regarded with +veneration wherever the Semitic accounts were known, so in America +heights were pointed out with becoming reverence as those on which the +few survivors of the dreadful scenes of the deluge were preserved. On +the Red River near the village of the Caddoes was one of these, a small +natural eminence, "to which all the Indian tribes for a great distance +around pay devout homage," according to Dr. Sibley.[203-4] The Cerro +Naztarny on the Rio Grande, the peak of Old Zuni in New Mexico, that of +Colhuacan on the Pacific Coast, Mount Apoala in Upper Mixteca, and +Mount Neba in the province of Guaymi, are some of many elevations +asserted by the neighboring nations to have been places of refuge for +their ancestors when the fountains of the great deep broke forth. + +One of the Mexican traditions related by Torquemada identified this with +the mountain of Tlaloc in the terrestrial paradise, and added that one +of the seven demigods who escaped commenced the pyramid of Cholula in +its memory. He intended that its summit should reach the clouds, but the +gods, angry at his presumption, drove away the builders with lightning. +This has a suspicious resemblance to Bible stories. Equally fabulous was +the retreat of the Araucanians. It was a three-peaked mountain which had +the property of floating on water, called Theg-Theg, the Thunderer. This +they believed would preserve them in the next as it did in the last +cataclysm, and as its only inconvenience was that it approached too near +the sun, they always kept on hand wooden bowls to use as +parasols.[204-1] + +The intimate connection that once existed between the myths of the +deluge and those of the creation is illustrated by the part assigned to +birds in so many of them. They fly to and fro over the waves ere any +land appears, though they lose in great measure the significance of +bringing it forth, attached to them in the cosmogonies as emblems of the +divine spirit. The dove in the Hebrew account appears in that of the +Algonkins as a raven, which Michabo sent out to search for land before +the muskrat brought it to him from the bottom. A raven also in the +Athapascan myth saved their ancestors from the general flood, and in +this instance it is distinctly identified with the mighty thunder bird, +who at the beginning ordered the earth from the depths. Prometheus-like, +it brought fire from heaven, and saved them from a second death by +cold.[205-1] Precisely the same beneficent actions were attributed by +the Natchez to the small red cardinal bird,[205-2] and by the Mandans +and Cherokees an active participation in the event was assigned to wild +pigeons. The Navajos and Aztecs thought that instead of being drowned by +the waters the human race were transformed into birds and thus escaped. +In all these and similar legends, the bird is a relic of the cosmogonal +myth which explained the origin of the world from the action of the +winds, under the image of the bird, on the primeval ocean. + +The Mexican Codex Vaticanus No. 3738 represents after the picture of the +deluge a bird perched on the summit of a tree, and at its foot men in +the act of marching. This has been interpreted to mean that after the +deluge men were dumb until a dove distributed to them the gift of +speech. The New Mexican tribes related that all except the leader of +those who escaped to the mountains lost the power of utterance by +terror,[205-3] and the Quiches that the antediluvian race were "puppets, +men of wood, without intelligence or language." These stories, so +closely resembling that of the confusion of tongues at the tower of +Babel or Borsippa, are of doubtful authenticity. The first is an +entirely erroneous interpretation, as has been shown by Senor Ramirez, +director of the Museum of Antiquities at Mexico. The name of the bird in +the Aztec tongue was identical with the word _departure_, and this is +its signification in the painting.[206-1] + +Stories of giants in the days of old, figures of mighty proportions +looming up through the mist of ages, are common property to every +nation. The Mexicans and Peruvians had them as well as others, but their +connection with the legends of the flood and the creation is incidental +and secondary. Were the case otherwise, it would offer no additional +point of similarity to the Hebrew myth, for the word rendered _giants_ +in the phrase, "and there were giants in those days," has no such +meaning in the original. It is a blunder which crept into the +Septuagint, and has been cherished ever since, along with so many others +in the received text. + +A few specimens will serve as examples of all these American flood +myths. The Abbe Brasseur has translated one from the Codex Chimalpopoca, +a work in the Nahuatl language of Ancient Mexico, written about half a +century after the conquest. It is as follows:-- + +"And this year was that of Ce-calli, and on the first day all was lost. +The mountain itself was submerged in the water, and the water remained +tranquil for fifty-two springs. + +"Now towards the close of the year, Titlahuan had forewarned the man +named Nata and his wife named Nena, saying, 'Make no more pulque, but +straightway hollow out a large cypress, and enter it when in the month +Tozoztli the water shall approach the sky.' They entered it, and when +Titlacahuan had closed the door he said, 'Thou shalt eat but a single +ear of maize, and thy wife but one also.' + +"As soon as they had finished [eating], they went forth and the water +was tranquil; for the log did not move any more; and opening it they saw +many fish. + +"Then they built a fire, rubbing together pieces of wood, and they +roasted the fish. The gods Citlallinicue and Citlallatonac looking below +exclaimed, 'Divine Lord, what means that fire below? Why do they thus +smoke the heavens?' + +"Straightway descended Titlacahuan Tezcatlipoca, and commenced to scold, +saying, 'What is this fire doing here?' And seizing the fishes he +moulded their hinder parts and changed their heads, and they were at +once transformed into dogs."[207-1] + +That found in the oft quoted legends of the Quiches is to this effect:-- + +"Then by the will of the Heart of Heaven the waters were swollen and a +great flood came upon the mannikins of wood. For they did not think nor +speak of the Creator who had created them, and who had caused their +birth. They were drowned, and a thick resin fell from heaven. + +"The bird Xecotcovach tore out their eyes; the bird Camulatz cut off +their heads; the bird Cotzbalam devoured their flesh; the bird +Tecumbalam broke their bones and sinews, and ground them into +powder."[207-2] + +"Because they had not thought of their Mother and Father, the Heart of +Heaven, whose name is Hurakan, therefore the face of the earth grew dark +and a pouring rain commenced, raining by day, raining by night. + +"Then all sorts of beings, little and great, gathered together to abuse +the men to their faces; and all spoke, their mill-stones, their plates, +their cups, their dogs, their hens. + +"Said the dogs and hens, 'Very badly have you treated us, and you have +bitten us. Now we bite you in turn.' + +"Said the mill-stones, 'Very much were we tormented by you, and daily, +daily, night and day, it was _squeak, squeak, screech, screech_, for +your sake. Now yourselves shall feel our strength, and we will grind +your flesh, and make meal of your bodies,' said the mill-stones.[208-1] + +"And this is what the dogs said, 'Why did you not give us our food? No +sooner did we come near than you drove us away, and the stick was always +within reach when you were eating, because, forsooth, we were not able +to talk. Now we will use our teeth and eat you,' said the dogs, tearing +their faces. + +"And the cups and dishes said, 'Pain and misery you gave us, smoking our +tops and sides, cooking us over the fire, burning and hurting us as if +we had no feeling.[209-1] Now it is your turn, and you shall burn,' said +the cups insultingly. + +"Then ran the men hither and thither in despair. They climbed to the +roofs of the houses, but the houses crumbled under their feet; they +tried to mount to the tops of the trees, but the trees hurled them far +from them; they sought refuge in the caverns, but the caverns shut +before them. + +"Thus was accomplished the ruin of this race, destined to be destroyed +and overthrown; thus were they given over to destruction and contempt. +And it is said that their posterity are those little monkeys who live in +the woods."[209-2] + +The Algonkin tradition has often been referred to. Many versions of it +are extant, the oldest and most authentic of which is that translated +from the Montagnais dialect by Father le Jeune, in 1634. + +"One day as Messou was hunting, the wolves which he used as dogs entered +a great lake and were detained there. + +"Messou looking for them everywhere, a bird said to him, 'I see them in +the middle of this lake.' + +"He entered the lake to rescue them, but the lake overflowing its banks +covered the land and destroyed the world. + +"Messou, very much astonished at this, sent out the raven to find a +piece of earth wherewith to rebuild the land, but the bird could find +none; then he ordered the otter to dive for some, but the animal +returned empty; at last he sent down the muskrat, who came back with +ever so small a piece, which, however, was enough for Messou to form the +land on which we are. + +"The trees having lost their branches, he shot arrows at their naked +trunks which became their limbs, revenged himself on those who had +detained his wolves, and having married the muskrat, by it peopled the +world." + +Finally may be given the meagre legend of the Tupis of Brazil, as heard +by Hans Staden, a prisoner among them about 1550, and Coreal, a later +voyager. Their ancient songs relate that a long time ago a certain very +powerful Mair, that is to say, a stranger, who bitterly hated their +ancestors, compassed their destruction by a violent inundation. Only a +very few succeeded in escaping--some by climbing trees, others in caves. +When the waters subsided the remnant came together, and by gradual +increase populated the world.[210-1] + +Or, it is given by an equally ancient authority as follows:-- + +"Monan, without beginning or end, author of all that is, seeing the +ingratitude of men, and their contempt for him who had made them thus +joyous, withdrew from them, and sent upon them _tata_, the divine fire, +which burned all that was on the surface of the earth. He swept about +the fire in such a way that in places he raised mountains, and in others +dug valleys. Of all men one alone, Irin Monge, was saved, whom Monan +carried into the heaven. He, seeing all things destroyed, spoke thus to +Monan: 'Wilt thou also destroy the heavens and their garniture? Alas! +henceforth where will be our home? Why should I live, since there is +none other of my kind?' Then Monan was so filled with pity that he +poured a deluging rain on the earth, which quenched the fire, and, +flowing from all sides, formed the ocean, which we call _parana_, the +bitter waters."[211-1] + +In these narratives I have not attempted to soften the asperities nor +conceal the childishness which run through them. But there is no +occasion to be astonished at these peculiarities, nor to found upon them +any disadvantageous opinion of the mental powers of their authors and +believers. We can go back to the cradle of our own race in Central +Asia, and find traditions every whit as infantile. I cannot refrain from +adding the earliest Aryan myth of the same great occurrence, as it is +handed down to us in ancient Sanscrit literature. It will be seen that +it is little, if at all, superior to those just rehearsed. + +"Early in the morning they brought to Manu water to wash himself; when +he had well washed, a fish came into his hands. + +"It said to him these, words: 'Take care of me; I will save thee.' 'What +wilt thou save me from?' 'A deluge will sweep away all creatures; I wish +thee to escape.' 'But how shall I take care of thee?' + +"The fish said: 'While we are small there is more than one danger of +death, for one fish swallows another. Thou must, in the first place, put +me in a vase. Then, when I shall exceed it in size, thou must dig a deep +ditch, and place me in it. When I grow too large for it, throw me in the +sea, for I shall then be beyond the danger of death.' + +"Soon it became a great fish; it grew, in fact, astonishingly. Then it +said to Manu, 'In such a year the Deluge will come. Thou must build a +vessel, and then pay me homage. When the waters of the Deluge mount up, +enter the vessel. I will save thee.' + +"When Manu had thus taken care of the fish, he put it in the sea. The +same year that the fish had said, in this very year, having built the +vessel, he paid the fish homage. Then the Deluge mounting, he entered +the vessel. The fish swam near him. To its horn Manu fastened the ship's +rope, with which the fish passed the Mountain of the North. + +"The fish said, 'See! I have saved thee. Fasten the vessel to a tree, so +that the water does not float thee onward when thou art on the mountain +top. As the water decreases, thou wilt descend little by little.' Thus +Manu descended gradually. Therefore to the mountain of the north remains +the name, Descent of Manu. The Deluge had destroyed all creatures; Manu +survived alone."[213-1] + +Hitherto I have spoken only of the last convulsion which swept over the +face of the globe, and of but one cycle which preceded the present. Most +of the more savage tribes contented themselves with this, but it is +instructive to observe how, as they advanced in culture, and the mind +dwelt more intently on the great problems of Life and Time, they were +impelled to remove further and further the dim and mysterious Beginning. +The Peruvians imagined that _two_ destructions had taken place, the +first by a famine, the second by a flood--according to some a few only +escaping--but, after the more widely accepted opinion, accompanied by +the absolute extirpation of the race. Three eggs, which dropped from +heaven, hatched out the present race; one of gold, from which came the +priests; one of silver, which produced the warriors; and the last of +copper, source of the common people.[213-2] + +The Mayas of Yucatan increased the previous worlds by one, making the +present the _fourth_. Two cycles had terminated by devastating plagues. +They were called "the sudden deaths," for it was said so swift and +mortal was the pest, that the buzzards and other foul birds dwelt in the +houses of the cities, and ate the bodies of their former owners. The +third closed either by a hurricane, which blew from all four of the +cardinal points at once, or else, as others said, by an inundation, +which swept across the world, swallowing all things in its mountainous +surges.[214-1] + +As might be expected, the vigorous intellects of the Aztecs impressed +upon this myth a fixity of outline nowhere else met with on the +continent, and wove it intimately into their astrological reveries and +religious theories. Unaware of its prevalence under more rudimentary +forms throughout the continent, Alexander von Humboldt observed that, +"of all the traits of analogy which can be pointed out between the +monuments, manners, and traditions of Asia and America, the most +striking is that offered by the Mexican mythology in the cosmogonical +fiction of the periodical destructions and regenerations of the +universe."[215-1] Yet it is but the same fiction that existed elsewhere, +somewhat more definitely outlined. There exists great discrepancy +between the different authorities, both as to the number of Aztec ages +or Suns, as they were called, their durations, their terminations, and +their names. The preponderance of testimony is in favor of _four_ +antecedent cycles, the present being the _fifth_. The interval from the +first creation to the commencement of the present epoch, owing to the +equivocal meaning of the numeral signs expressing it in the picture +writings, may have been either 15228, 2316, or 1404 solar years. Why +these numbers should have been chosen, no one has guessed. It has been +looked for in combinations of numbers connected with the calendar, but +so far in vain. + +While most authorities agree as to the character of the destructions +which terminated the suns, they vary much as to their sequence. Water, +winds, fire, and hunger, are the agencies, and in one Codex (Vaticanus) +occur in this order. Gama gives the sequence, hunger, winds, fire, and +water; Humboldt hunger, fire, winds, and water; Boturini water, hunger, +winds, fire. As the cycle ending by a famine, is called the Age of +Earth, Ternaux-Compans, the distinguished French _Americaniste_, has +imagined that the four Suns correspond mystically to the domination +exercised in turn over the world by its four constituent elements. But +proof is wanting that Aztec philosophers knew the theory on which this +explanation reposes. + +Baron Humboldt suggested that the suns were "fictions of mythological +astronomy, modified either by obscure reminiscences of some great +revolution suffered by our planet, or by physical hypotheses, suggested +by the sight of marine petrifactions and fossil remains,"[216-1] while +the Abbe Brasseur, in his late works on ancient Mexico, interprets them +as exaggerated references to historical events. As no solution can be +accepted not equally applicable to the same myth as it appears in +Yucatan, Peru, and the hunting tribes, and to the exactly parallel +teachings of the Edda,[216-2] the Stoics, the Celts, and the Brahmans, +both of these must be rejected. And although the Hindoo legend is so +close to the Aztec, that it, too, defines four ages, each terminating by +a general catastrophe, and each catastrophe exactly the same in +both,[216-3] yet this is not at all indicative of a derivation from one +original, but simply an illustration how the human mind, under the +stimulus of the same intellectual cravings, produces like results. What +these cravings are has already been shown. + +The reason for adopting four ages, thus making the present the fifth, +probably arose from the sacredness of that number in general; but +directly, because this was the number of secular days in the Mexican +week. A parallel is offered by the Hebrew narrative. In it six epochs or +days precede the seventh or present cycle, in which the creative power +rests. This latter corresponded to the Jewish Sabbath, the day of +repose; and in the Mexican calendar each fifth day was also a day of +repose, employed in marketing and pleasure. + +Doubtless the theory of the Ages of the world was long in vogue among +the Aztecs before it received the definite form in which we now have it; +and as this was acquired long after the calendar was fixed, it is every +way probable that the latter was used as a guide to the former. +Echevarria, a good authority on such matters, says the number of the +Suns was agreed upon at a congress of astrologists, within the memory of +tradition.[217-1] Now in the calendar, these signs occur in the order, +earth, air, water, fire, corresponding to the days distinguished by the +symbols house, rabbit, reed, and flint. This sequence, commencing with +Tochtli (rabbit, air), is that given as that of the Suns in the Codex +Chimalpopoca, translated by Brasseur, though it seems a taint of +European teaching, when it is added that on the _seventh_ day of the +creation man was formed.[217-2] + +Neither Jews nor Aztecs, nor indeed any American nation, appear to have +supposed, with some of the old philosophers, that the present was an +exact repetition of previous cycles,[218-1] but rather that each was an +improvement on the preceding, a step in endless progress. Nor did either +connect these beliefs with astronomical reveries of a great year, +defined by the return of the heavenly bodies to one relative position in +the heavens. The latter seems characteristic of the realism of Europe, +the former of the idealism of the Orient; both inconsistent with the +meagre astronomy and more scanty metaphysics of the red race. + +The expectation of the end of the world is a natural complement to the +belief in periodical destructions of our globe. As at certain times past +the equipoise of nature was lost, and the elements breaking the chain of +laws that bound them ran riot over the universe, involving all life in +one mad havoc and desolation, so in the future we have to expect that +day of doom, when the ocean tides shall obey no shore, but overwhelm the +continents with their mountainous billows, or the fire, now chafing in +volcanic craters and smoking springs, will leap forth on the forests and +grassy meadows, wrapping all things in a winding sheet of flame, and +melting the very elements with fervid heat. Then, in the language of the +Norse prophetess, "shall the sun grow dark, the land sink in the waters, +the bright stars be quenched, and high flames climb heaven +itself."[218-2] These fearful foreboding shave[TN-9] cast their dark +shadow on every literature. The seeress of the north does but paint in +wilder colors the terrible pictures of Seneca,[219-1] and the sibyl of +the capitol only re-echoes the inspired predictions of Malachi. Well has +the Christian poet said:-- + + Dies irae, dies illa, + Solvet saeclum in favilla, + _Testis David cum Sibyla_. + +Savage races, isolated in the impenetrable forests of another continent, +could not escape this fearful looking for of destruction to come. It +oppressed their souls like a weight of lead. On the last night of each +cycle of fifty-two years, the Aztecs extinguished every fire, and +proceeded, in solemn procession, to some sacred spot. Then the priests, +with awe and trembling, sought to kindle a new fire by friction. +Momentous was the endeavor, for did it fail, their fathers had taught +them on the morrow no sun would rise, and darkness, death, and the +waters would descend forever on this beautiful world. + +The same terror inspired the Peruvians at every eclipse, for some day, +taught the Amautas, the shadow will veil the sun forever, and land, +moon, and stars will be wrapt in the vortex of a devouring conflagration +to know no regeneration; or a drought will wither every herb of the +field, suck up the waters, and leave the race to perish to the last +creature; or the moon will fall from her place in the heavens and +involve all things in her own ruin, a figure of speech meaning that the +waters would submerge the land.[220-1] In that dreadful day, thought +the Algonkins, when in anger Michabo will send a mortal pestilence to +destroy the nations, or, stamping his foot on the ground, flames will +burst forth to consume the habitable land, only a pair, or only, at +most, those who have maintained inviolate the institutions he ordained, +will he protect and preserve to inhabit the new world he will then +fabricate. Therefore they do not speak of this catastrophe as the end of +the world, but use one of those nice grammatical distinctions so +frequent in American aboriginal languages and which can only be +imitated, not interpreted, in ours, signifying "when it will be near its +end," "when it will no longer be available for man."[220-2] + +An ancient prophecy handed down from their ancestors warns the +Winnebagoes that their nation shall be annihilated at the close of the +thirteenth generation. Ten have already passed, and that now living has +appointed ceremonies to propitiate the powers of heaven, and mitigate +its stern decree.[220-3] Well may they be about it, for there is a +gloomy probability that the warning came from no false prophet. Few +tribes were destitute of such presentiments. The Chikasaw, the Mandans +of the Missouri, the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico, the Muyscas of +Bogota, the Botocudos of Brazil, the Araucanians of Chili, have been +asserted on testimony that leaves no room for scepticism, to have +entertained such forebodings from immemorial time. Enough for the +purpose if the list is closed with the prediction of a Maya priest, +cherished by the inhabitants of Yucatan long before the Spaniard +desolated their stately cities. It is one of those preserved by Father +Lizana, cure of Itzamal, and of which he gives the original. Other +witnesses inform us that this nation "had a tradition that the world +would end,"[221-1] and probably, like the Greeks and Aztecs, they +supposed the gods would perish with it. + + "At the close of the ages, it hath been decreed, + Shall perish and vanish each weak god of men, + And the world shall be purged with a ravening fire. + Happy the man in that terrible day, + Who bewails with contrition the sins of his life,[221-2] + And meets without flinching the fiery ordeal." + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[193-1] So far as this applies to the Eskimos, it might be questioned on +the authority of Paul Egede, whose valuable _Nachrichten von Groenland_ +contains several flood-myths, &c. But these Eskimos had had for +generations intercourse with European missionaries and sailors, and as +the other tribes of their stock were singularly devoid of corresponding +traditions, it is likely that in Greenland they were of foreign origin. + +[194-1] Pictet, _Origines Indo-Europeennes_ in Michelet, _La Mer_. The +latter has many eloquent and striking remarks on the impressions left by +the great ocean. + +[195-1] "Spiritus Dei incubuit superficei aquarum" is the translation of +one writer. The word for spirit in Hebrew, as in Latin, originally meant +wind, as I have before remarked. + +[195-2] Schoolcraft, _Ind. Tribes_, i. p. 266. + +[196-1] Mackenzie, _Hist. of the Fur Trade_, p. 83; Richardson, _Arctic +Expedition_, p. 239. + +[196-2] Ximenes, _Or. de los Ind. de Guat._, pp. 5-7. I translate freely, +following Ximenes rather than Brasseur. + +[197-1] Garcia, _Or. de los Indios_, lib. v. cap. 4. + +[197-2] _Doc. Hist. of New York_, iv. p. 130 (circ. 1650). + +[197-3] _Rel. de la Nouv. France_, An 1636, p. 101. + +[198-1] _Rel. de la Nouv. France_, An 1634, p. 13. + +[199-1] _Conquest of Mexico_, i. p. 61. + +[200-1] For instance, Epictetus favors the opinion that at the solstices +of the great year not only all human beings, but even the gods, are +annihilated; and speculates whether at such times Jove feels lonely +(_Discourses_, bk. iii. chap. 13). Macrobius, so far from coinciding with +him, explains the great antiquity of Egyptian civilization by the +hypothesis that that country is so happily situated between the pole and +equator, as to escape both the deluge and conflagration of the great +cycle (_Somnium Scipionis_, lib. ii. cap. 10). + +[201-1] Schoolcraft, _Ind. Tribes_, iii. p. 263, iv. p. 230. + +[201-2] Oviedo, _Hist. du Nicaragua_, pp. 22, 27. + +[201-3] Mueller, _Amer. Urrelig._, p. 254, from Max and Denis. + +[202-1] Morse, _Rep. on the Ind. Tribes_, App. p. 346; D'Orbigny, _Frag. +d'un Voyage dans l'Amer. Merid._, p. 512. + +[202-2] When, as in the case of one of the Mexican Noahs, Coxcox, this +does not seem to hold good, it is probably owing to a loss of the real +form of the myth. Coxcox is also known by the name of Cipactli, Fish-god, +and Huehue tonaca cipactli, Old Fish-god of Our Flesh. + +[202-3] My knowledge of the Sanscrit form of the flood-myth is drawn +principally from the dissertation of Professor Felix Neve, entitled _La +Tradition Indienne du Deluge dans sa Forme la plus ancienne_, Paris, +1851. There is in the oldest versions no distinct reference to an +antediluvian race, and in India Manu is by common consent the Adam as +well as the Noah of their legends. + +[203-1] Prescott, _Conquest of Peru_, i. p. 88; _Codex Vaticanus_, No. +3776, in Kingsborough. + +[203-2] And also various peculiarities of style and language lost in +translation. The two accounts of the Deluge are given side by side in Dr. +Smith's _Dictionary of the Bible_ under the word Pentateuch. + +[203-3] See the dissertation of Prof. Neve referred to above. + +[203-4] _American State Papers_, Indian Affairs, i. p. 729. Date of +legend, 1801. + +[204-1] Molina, _Hist. of Chili_, ii. p. 82. + +[205-1] Richardson, _Arctic Expedition_, p. 239. + +[205-2] Dumont, _Mems. Hist. sur la Louisiane_, i. p. 163. + +[205-3] Schoolcraft, _Ind. Tribes_, v. p. 686. + +[206-1] Desjardins, _Le Perou avant la Conq. Espagn._, p. 27. + +[207-1] Cod. Chimalpopoca, in Brasseur, _Hist. du Mexique_, Pieces +Justificatives. + +[207-2] These four birds, whose names have lost their signification, +represent doubtless the four winds, or the four rivers, which, as in so +many legends, are the active agents in overwhelming the world in its +great crises. + +[208-1] The word rendered mill-stone, in the original means those large +hollowed stones on which the women were accustomed to bruise the maize. +The imitative sounds for which I have substituted others in English, are +in Quiche, _holi, holi, huqui, huqui_. + +[209-1] Brasseur translates "quoique nous ne sentissions rien," but +Ximenes, "nos quemasteis, y sentimos el dolor." As far as I can make out +the original, it is the negative conditional as I have given it in the +text. + +[209-2] _Le Livre Sacre_, p. 27; Ximenes, _Or. de los Indios_, p. 13. + +[210-1] The American nations among whom a distinct and well-authenticated +myth of the deluge was found are as follows: Athapascas, Algonkins, +Iroquois, Cherokees, Chikasaws, Caddos, Natchez, Dakotas, Apaches, +Navajos, Mandans, Pueblo Indians, Aztecs, Mixtecs, Zapotecs, Tlascalans, +Mechoacans, Toltecs, Nahuas, Mayas, Quiches, Haitians, natives of Darien +and Popoyan, Muyscas, Quichuas, Tuppinambas, Achaguas, Araucanians, and +doubtless others. The article by M. de Charency in the _Revue Americaine, +Le Deluge, d'apres les Traditions Indiennes de l'Amerique du Nord_, +contains some valuable extracts, but is marred by a lack of criticism of +sources, and makes no attempt at analysis, nor offers for their existence +a rational explanation. + +[211-1] _Une Fete Bresilienne celebre a Rouen en 1550, par M. Ferdinand +Denis_, p. 82 (quoted in the _Revue Americaine_, ii. p. 317). The native +words in this account guarantee its authenticity. In the Tupi language, +_tata_ means fire; _parana_, ocean; Monan, perhaps from _monane_, to +mingle, to temper, as the potter the clay (_Dias, Diccionario da Lingua +Tupy_: Lipsia, 1858). Irin monge may be an old form from _mongat-iron_, +to set in order, to restore, to improve (_Martius, Beitraege zur +Ethnographie und Sprachenkunde Amerika's_, ii. p. 70). + +[213-1] Professor Neve, _ubi supra_, from the Zatapatha Brahmana. + +[213-2] Avendano, _Sermones_, Lima, 1648, in Rivero and Tschudi, _Peruv. +Antiqs._, p. 114. In the year 1600, Onate found on the coast of +California a tribe whose idol held in one hand a shell containing three +eggs, in the other an ear of maize, while before it was placed a cup of +water. Vizcaino, who visited the same people a few years afterwards, +mentions that they kept in their temples tame ravens, and looked upon +them as sacred birds (Torquemada, _Mon. Ind._, lib. v. cap. 40 in Waitz). +Thus, in all parts of the continent do we find the bird, as a symbol of +the clouds, associated with the rains and the harvests. + +[214-1] The deluge was called _hun yecil_, which, according to Cogolludo, +means _the inundation of the trees_, for all the forests were swept away +(_Hist. de Yucathan_, lib. iv. cap. 5). Bishop Landa adds, to +substantiate the legend, that all the woods of the peninsula appear as if +they had been planted at one time, and that to look at them one would say +they had been trimmed with scissors (_Rel. de las Cosas de Yucatan_, 58, +60). + +[215-1] _Vues des Cordilleres_, p. 202. + +[216-1] Ubi sup., p. 207. + +[216-2] The Scandinavians believed the universe had been destroyed nine +times:-- + + Ni Verdener yeg husker, + Og ni Himle, + +says the Voluspa (i. 2, in Klee, _Le Deluge_, p. 220). I observe some +English writers have supposed from these lines that the Northmen believed +in the existence of nine abodes for the blessed. Such is not the sense of +the original. + +[216-3] At least this is the doctrine of one of the Shastas. The race, it +teaches, has been destroyed four times; first by water, secondly by +winds, thirdly the earth swallowed them, and lastly fire consumed them +(Sepp., _Heidenthum und Christenthum_, i. p. 191). + +[217-1] Echevarria y Veitia, _Hist. de la Nueva Espana_, lib. i. cap. 4, +in Waitz. + +[217-2] Brasseur, _Hist. du Mexique_, iii. p. 495. + +[218-1] The contrary has indeed been inferred from such expressions of +the writer of the book of Ecclesiastes as, "that which hath been, is now, +and that which is to be, hath already been" (chap. iii. 15), and the +like, but they are susceptible of an application entirely subjective. + +[218-2] Voluspa, xiv. 51, in Klee, _Le Deluge_. + +[219-1] _Natur. Quaestiones_, iii. cap. 27. + +[220-1] Velasco, _Hist. du Royaume du Quito_, p. 105; Navarrete, +_Viages_, iii. p. 444. + +[220-2] _Rel. de la Nouv. France_, An 1637, p. 54; Schoolcraft, _Ind. +Tribes_, i. p. 319, iv. p. 420. + +[220-3] Schoolcraft, ibid., iv. p. 240. + +[221-1] Cogolludo, _Hist. de Yucathan_, lib. iv. cap. 7. + +[221-2] The Spanish of Lizana is-- + + "En la ultima edad, segun esta determinado, + Avra fin el culto de dioses vanos; + Y el mundo sera purificado con fuego. + El que esto viere sera llamado dichoso + Si con dolor llorare sus pecados." + +(_Hist. de Nuestra Senora de Itzamal_, in Brasseur, _Hist. du Mexique_, +ii. p. 603). I have attempted to obtain a more literal rendering from the +original Maya, but have not been successful. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +THE ORIGIN OF MAN. + + Usually man is the EARTH-BORN, both in language and + myths.--Illustrations from the legends of the Caribs, Apalachians, + Iroquois, Quichuas, Aztecs, and others.--The underworld.--Man the + product of one of the primal creative powers, the Spirit, or the + Water, in the myths of the Athapascas, Eskimos, Moxos, and + others.--Never literally derived from an inferior species. + + +No man can escape the importunate question, whence am I? The first +replies framed to meet it possess an interest to the thoughtful mind, +beyond that of mere fables. They illustrate the position in creation +claimed by our race, and the early workings of self-consciousness. Often +the oldest terms for man are synopses of these replies, and merit a more +than passing contemplation. + +The seed is hidden in the earth. Warmed by the sun, watered by the rain, +presently it bursts its dark prison-house, unfolds its delicate leaves, +blossoms, and matures its fruit. Its work done, the earth draws it to +itself again, resolves the various structures into their original mould, +and the unending round recommences. + +This is the marvellous process that struck the primitive mind. Out of +the Earth rises life, to it it returns. She it is who guards all germs, +nourishes all beings. The Aztecs painted her as a woman with countless +breasts, the Peruvians called her Mama Allpa, _mother_ Earth. _Homo_, +_Adam_, _chamaigen[=e]s_, what do all these words mean but the +earth-born, the son of the soil, repeated in the poetic language of +Attica in _anthropos_, he who springs up as a flower? + +The word that corresponds to the Latin _homo_ in American languages has +such singular uniformity in so many of them, that we might be tempted to +regard it as a fragment of some ancient and common tongue, their parent +stem. In the Eskimo it is _inuk_, _innuk_, plural _innuit_; in Athapasca +it is _dinni_, _tenne_; in Algonkin, _inini_, _lenni_, _inwi_; in +Iroquois, _onwi_, _eniha_; in the Otomi of Mexico _n-aniehe_; in the +Maya, _inic_, _winic_, _winak_; all in North America, and the number +might be extended. Of these only the last mentioned can plausibly be +traced to a radical (unless the Iroquois _onwi_ is from _onnha_ life, +_onnhe_ to live). This Father Ximenes derives from _win_, meaning to +grow, to gain, to increase,[223-1] in which the analogy to vegetable +life is not far off, an analogy strengthened by the myth of that stock, +which relates that the first of men were formed of the flour of +maize.[223-2] + +In many other instances religious legend carries out this idea. The +mythical ancestor of the Caribs created his offspring by sowing the soil +with stones or with the fruit of the Mauritius palm, which sprouted +forth into men and women,[224-1] while the Yurucares, much of whose +mythology was perhaps borrowed from the Peruvians, clothed this crude +tenet in a somewhat more poetic form, fabling that at the beginning the +first of men were pegged, Ariel-like, in the knotty entrails of an +enormous hole, until the god Tiri--a second Prospero--released them by +cleaving it in twain.[224-2] + +As in oriental legends the origin of man from the earth was veiled under +the story that he was the progeny of some mountain fecundated by the +embrace of Mithras or Jupiter, so the Indians often pointed to some +height or some cavern, as the spot whence the first of men issued, adult +and armed, from the womb of the All-mother Earth. The oldest name of the +Alleghany Mountains is Paemotinck or Pemolnick, an Algonkin word, the +meaning of which is said to be "the origin of the Indians."[224-3] + +The Witchitas, who dwelt on the Red River among the mountains named +after them, have a tradition that their progenitors issued from the +rocks about their homes,[225-1] and many other tribes the Tahkalis, +Navajos, Coyoteras, and the Haitians, for instance, set up this claim to +be autochthones. Most writers have interpreted this simply to mean that +they knew nothing at all about their origin, or that they coined these +fables merely to strengthen the title to the territory they inhabited +when they saw the whites eagerly snatching it away on every pretext. No +doubt there is some truth in this, but if they be carefully sifted, +there is sometimes a deep historical significance in these myths, which +has hitherto escaped the observation of students. An instance presents +itself in our own country. + +All those tribes, the Creeks, Seminoles, Choctaws, Chicasaws, and +Natchez, who, according to tradition, were in remote times banded into +one common confederacy under the headship of the last mentioned, +unanimously located their earliest ancestry near an artificial eminence +in the valley of the Big Black River, in the Natchez country, whence +they pretended to have emerged. Fortunately we have a description, +though a brief one, of this interesting monument from the pen of an +intelligent traveller. It is described as "an elevation of earth about +half a mile square and fifteen or twenty feet high. From its northeast +corner a wall of equal height extends for near half a mile to the high +land." This was the Nunne Chaha or Nunne Hamgeh, the High Hill, or the +Bending Hill, famous in Choctaw stories, and which Captain Gregg found +they have not yet forgotten in their western home. The legend was that +in its centre was a cave, the house of the Master of Breath. Here he +made the first men from the clay around him, and as at that time the +waters covered the earth, he raised the wall to dry them on. When the +soft mud had hardened into elastic flesh and firm bone, he banished the +waters to their channels and beds, and gave the dry land to his +creatures.[226-1] When in 1826 Albert Gallatin obtained from some +Natchez chiefs a vocabulary of their language, they gave to him as their +word for _hill_ precisely the same word that a century and a quarter +before the French had found among them as their highest term for +God;[226-2] reversing the example of the ancient Greeks who came in time +to speak of Olympus, at first the proper name of a peak in Thessaly, as +synonymous with heaven and Jove. + +A parallel to this southern legend occurs among the Six Nations of the +north. They with one consent, if we may credit the account of Cusic, +looked to a mountain near the falls of the Oswego River in the State of +New York, as the locality where their forefathers first saw the light of +day, and that they had some such legend the name Oneida, people of the +Stone, would seem to testify. + +The cave of Pacari Tampu, the Lodgings of the Dawn, was five leagues +distant from Cuzco, surrounded by a sacred grove and inclosed with +temples of great antiquity. From its hallowed recesses the mythical +civilizers of Peru, the first of men, emerged, and in it during the time +of the flood, the remnants of the race escaped the fury of the +waves.[227-1] Viracocha himself is said to have dwelt there, though it +hardly needed this evidence to render it certain that this consecrated +cavern is but a localization of the general myth of the dawn rising from +the deep. It refers us for its prototype to the Aymara allegory of the +morning light flinging its beams like snow-white foam athwart the waves +of Lake Titicaca. + +An ancient legend of the Aztecs derived their nation from a place called +Chicomoztoc, the Seven Caverns, located north of Mexico. Antiquaries +have indulged in all sorts of speculations as to what this means. +Sahagun explains it as a valley so named; Clavigero supposes it to have +been a city; Hamilton Smith, and after him Schoolcraft, construed +caverns to be a figure of speech for the _boats_ in which the early +Americans paddled across from Asia(!); the Abbe Brasseur confounds it +with Aztlan, and very many have discovered in it a distinct reference +to the fabulous "seven cities of Cibola" and the Casas Grandes, ruins of +large buildings of unburnt brick in the valley of the River Gila. From +this story arose the supposed sevenfold division of the Nahuas, a +division which never existed except in the imagination of Europeans. +When Torquemada adds that _seven_ hero gods ruled in Chicomoztoc and +were the progenitors of all its inhabitants, when one of them turns out +to be Xelhua, the giant who with six others escaped the flood by +ascending the mountain of Tlaloc in the terrestrial paradise and +afterwards built the pyramid of Cholula, and when we remember that in +one of the flood-myths _seven_ persons were said to have escaped the +waters, the whole narrative acquires a fabulous aspect that shuts it out +from history, and brands it as one of those fictions of the origin of +man from the earth so common to the race. Fictions yet truths; for +caverns and hollow trees were in fact the houses and temples of our +first parents, and from them they went forth to conquer and adorn the +world; and from the inorganic constituents of the soil acted on by +Light, touched by Divine Force, vivified by the Spirit, did in reality +the first of men proceed. + +This cavern, which thus dimly lingered in the memories of nations, +occasionally expanded to a nether world, imagined to underlie this of +ours, and still inhabited by beings of our kind, who have never been +lucky enough to discover its exit. The Mandans and Minnetarees on the +Missouri River supposed this exit was near a certain hill in their +territory, and as it had been, as it were, the womb of the earth, the +same power was attributed to it that in ancient times endowed certain +shrines with such charms; and thither the barren wives of their nation +made frequent pilgrimages when they would become mothers.[229-1] The +Mandans added the somewhat puerile fable that the means of ascent had +been a grapevine, by which many ascended and descended, until one day an +immoderately fat old lady, anxious to get a look at the upper earth, +broke it with her weight, and prevented any further communication. + +Such tales of an under-world are very frequent among the Indians, and +are a very natural outgrowth of the literal belief that the race is +earth-born. + +Man is indeed like the grass that springs up and soon withers away; but +he is also more than this. The quintessence of dust, he is a son of the +gods as well as a son of the soil. He is the direct product of the great +creative power; therefore all the Athapascan tribes west of the Rocky +Mountains--the Kenai, the Kolushes, and the Atnai--claim descent from a +raven--from that same mighty cloud-bird, who in the beginning of things +seized the elements and brought the world from the abyss of the +primitive ocean. Those of the same stock situate more eastwardly, the +Dogribs, the Chepewyans, the Hare Indians, and also the west coast +Eskimos, and the natives of the Aleutian Isles, all believe that they +have sprung from a dog.[229-2] The latter animal, we have already seen, +both in the old and new world was the fixed symbol of the water goddess. +Therefore in these myths, which are found over so many thousand square +leagues, we cannot be in error in perceiving a reflex of their +cosmogonical traditions already discussed, in which from the winds and +the waters, represented here under their emblems of the bird and the +dog, all animate life proceeded. + +Without this symbolic coloring, a tribe to the south of them, a band of +the Minnetarees, had the crude tradition that their first progenitor +emerged from the waters, bearing in his hand an ear of maize,[230-1] +very much as Viracocha and his companions rose from the sacred waves of +Lake Titicaca, or as the Moxos imagined that they were descended from +the lakes and rivers on whose banks their villages were situated. + +These myths, and many others, hint of general conceptions of life and +the world, wide-spread theories of ancient date, such as we are not +accustomed to expect among savage nations, such as may very excusably +excite a doubt as to their native origin, but a doubt infallibly +dispelled by a careful comparison of the best authorities. Is it that +hitherto, in the pride of intellectual culture, we have never done +justice to the thinking faculty of those whom we call barbarians? Or +shall we accept the only other alternative, that these are the +unappreciated heirlooms bequeathed a rude race by a period of higher +civilization, long since extinguished by constant wars and ceaseless +fear? We are not yet ready to answer these questions. With almost +unanimous consent the latter has been accepted as the true solution, but +rather from the preconceived theory of a state of primitive +civilization from which man fell, than from ascertained facts. + +It would, perhaps, be pushing symbolism too far to explain as an emblem +of the primitive waters the coyote, which, according to the Root-Diggers +of California, brought their ancestors into the world; or the wolf, +which the Lenni Lenape pretended released mankind from the dark bowels +of the earth by scratching away the soil. They should rather be +interpreted by the curious custom of the Toukaways, a wild people in +Texas, of predatory and unruly disposition. They celebrate their origin +by a grand annual dance. One of them, naked as he was born, is buried in +the earth. The others, clothed in wolf-skins, walk over him, snuff +around him, howl in lupine style, and finally dig him up with their +nails. The leading wolf then solemnly places a bow and arrow in his +hands, and to his inquiry as to what he must do for a living, paternally +advises him "to do as the wolves do--rob, kill, and murder, rove from +place to place, and never cultivate the soil."[231-1] Most wise and +fatherly counsel! But what is there new under the sun? Three thousand +years ago the Hirpini, or Wolves, an ancient Sabine tribe, were wont to +collect on Mount Soracte, and there go through certain rites in memory +of an oracle which predicted their extinction when they ceased to gain +their living as wolves by violence and plunder. Therefore they dressed +in wolf-skins, ran with barks and howls over burning coals, and gnawed +wolfishly whatever they could seize.[231-2] + +Though hasty writers have often said that the Indian tribes claim +literal descent from different wild beasts, probably in all other +instances, as in these, this will prove, on examination, to be an error +resting on a misapprehension arising from the habit of the natives of +adopting as their totem or clan-mark the figure and name of some animal, +or else, in an ignorance of the animate symbols employed with such +marked preference by the red race to express abstract ideas. In some +cases, doubtless, the natives themselves came, in time, to confound the +symbol with the idea, by that familiar process of personification and +consequent debasement exemplified in the history of every religion; but +I do not believe that a single example could be found where an Indian +tribe had a tradition whose real purport was that man came by natural +process of descent from an ancestor, a brute. + +The reflecting mind will not be offended at the contradictions in these +different myths, for a myth is, in one sense, a theory of natural +phenomena expressed in the form of a narrative. Often several +explanations seem equally satisfactory for the same fact, and the mind +hesitates to choose, and rather accepts them all than rejects any. Then, +again, an expression current as a metaphor by-and-by crystallizes into a +dogma, and becomes the nucleus of a new mythological growth. These are +familiar processes to one versed in such studies, and involve no logical +contradiction, because they are never required to be reconciled. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[223-1] _Vocabulario Quiche_, s. v., ed. Brasseur, Paris, 1862. + +[223-2] The Eskimo _innuk_, man, means also a possessor or owner; the +yelk[TN-10] of an egg; and the pus of an abscess (Egede, _Nachrichten von +Groenland_, p. 106). From it is derived _innuwok_, to live, life. Probably +_innuk_ also means the _semen masculinum_, and in its identification with +pus, may not there be the solution of that strange riddle which in so +many myths of the West Indies and Central America makes the first of men +to be "the purulent one?" (See ante, p. 135.) + +[224-1] Mueller, _Amer. Urrelig._, pp. 109, 229. + +[224-2] D'Orbigny, _Frag. d'une Voy. dans l'Amer. Merid._, p. 512. It is +still a mooted point whence Shakspeare drew the plot of The Tempest. The +coincidence mentioned in the text between some parts of it and South +American mythology does not stand alone. Caliban, the savage and brutish +native of the island, is undoubtedly the word Carib, often spelt +Caribani, and Calibani in older writers; and his "dam's god Setebos" was +the supreme divinity of the Patagonians when first visited by Magellan. +(Pigafetta, _Viaggio intorno al Globo_, Germ. Trans.: Gotha, 1801, p. +247.) + +[224-3] Both Lederer and John Bartram assign it this meaning. Gallatin +gives in the Powhatan dialect the word for mountain as _pomottinke_, +doubtless another form of the same. + +[225-1] Marcy, _Exploration of the Red River_, p. 69. + +[226-1] Compare Romans, _Hist. of Florida_, pp. 58, 71; Adair, _Hist. of +the North Am. Indians_, p. 195; and Gregg, _Commerce of the Prairies_, +ii. p. 235. The description of the mound is by Major Heart, in the +_Trans. of the Am. Philos. Soc._, iii. p. 216. (1st series.) + +[226-2] The French writers give for Great Spirit _coyocopchill_; Gallatin +for hill, _kweya koopsel_. The blending of these two ideas, at first +sight so remote, is easily enough explained when we remember that on "the +hill of heaven" in all religions is placed the throne of the mightiest of +existences. The Natchez word can be analyzed as follows: _sel_, _sil_, or +_chill_, great; _cop_, a termination very frequent in their language, +apparently signifying existence; _kweya_, _coyo_, for _kue ya_, from the +Maya _kue_, god; the great living God. The Tarahumara language of Sonora +offers an almost parallel instance. In it _regui_, is _above_[TN-11], up, +over, _reguiki_, heaven, _reguiguiki_, a hill or mountain (Buschmann, +_Spuren der Aztek. Sprache im noerd. Mexico_, p. 244). In the Quiche +dialects _tepeu_ is lord, ruler, and is often applied to the Supreme +Being. With some probability Brasseur derives it from the Aztec _tepetl_, +mountain (_Hist. du Mexique_, i. p. 106). + +[227-1] Balboa, _Hist. du Perou_, p. 4. + +[229-1] Long's _Expedition to the Rocky Mountains_, i. p. 274; Catlin's +_Letters_, i. p. 178. + +[229-2] Richardson, _Arctic Expedition_, pp. 239, 247; Klemm, +_Culturgeschichte der Menschheit_, ii. p. 316. + +[230-1] Long, _Exped. to the Rocky Mountains_, i. p. 326. + +[231-1] Schoolcraft, _Ind. Tribes_, v. p. 683. + +[231-2] Schwarz, _Ursprung der Mythologie_, p. 121. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +THE SOUL AND ITS DESTINY. + + Universality of the belief in a soul and a future state + shown by the aboriginal tongues, by expressed opinions, + and by sepulchral rites.--The future world never a place + of rewards and punishments.--The house of the Sun the + heaven of the red man.--The terrestrial paradise and the + under-world.--Cupay.--Xibalba.--Mictlan.--Metempsychosis?--Belief + in a resurrection of the dead almost universal. + + +The missionary Charlevoix wrote several excellent works on America +toward the beginning of the last century, and he is often quoted by +later authors; but probably no one of his sayings has been thus honored +more frequently than this: "The belief the best established among our +Americans is that of the immortality of the soul."[233-1] The tremendous +stake that every one of us has on the truth of this dogma makes it quite +a satisfaction to be persuaded that no man is willing to live wholly +without it. Certainly exceptions are very rare, and most of those which +materialistic philosophers have taken such pains to collect, rest on +misunderstandings or superficial observation. + +In the new world I know of only one well authenticated instance where +all notion of a future state appears to have been entirely wanting, and +this in quite a small clan, the Lower Pend d'Oreilles, of Oregon. This +people had no burial ceremonies, no notion of a life hereafter, no word +for soul, spiritual existence, or vital principle. They thought that +when they died, that was the last of them. The Catholic missionaries who +undertook the unpromising task of converting them to Christianity, were +at first obliged to depend upon the imperfect translations of half-breed +interpreters. These "made the idea of soul intelligible to their hearers +by telling them they had a gut which never rotted, and that this was +their living principle!" Yet even they were not destitute of religious +notions. No tribe was more addicted to the observance of charms, omens, +dreams, and guardian spirits, and they believed that illness and bad +luck generally were the effects of the anger of a fabulous old +woman.[234-1] The aborigines of the Californian peninsula were as near +beasts as men ever become. The missionaries likened them to "herds of +swine, who neither worshipped the true and only God, nor adored false +deities." Yet they must have had some vague notion of an +after.world[TN-12], for the writer who paints the darkest picture of +their condition remarks, "I saw them frequently putting shoes on the +feet of the dead, which seems to indicate that they entertain the idea +of a journey after death."[234-2] + +Proof of Charlevoix's opinion may be derived from three independent +sources. The aboriginal languages may be examined for terms +corresponding to the word soul, the opinions of the Indians themselves +may be quoted, and the significance of sepulchral rites as indicative of +a belief in life after death may be determined. + +The most satisfactory is the first of these. _We_ call the soul a ghost +or spirit, and often a shade. In these words, the _breath_ and the +_shadow_ are the sensuous perceptions transferred to represent the +immaterial object of our thought. Why the former was chosen, I have +already explained; and for the latter, that it is man's intangible +image, his constant companion, and is of a nature akin to darkness, +earth, and night, are sufficiently obvious reasons. + +These same tropes recur in American languages in the same connection. +The New England tribes called the soul _chemung_, the shadow, and in +Quiche _natub_, in Eskimo _tarnak_, express both these ideas. In Mohawk +_atonritz_, the soul, is from _atonrion_, to breathe, and other examples +to the same purpose have already been given.[235-1] + +Of course no one need demand that a strict immateriality be attached to +these words. Such a colorless negative abstraction never existed for +them, neither does it for us, though we delude ourselves into believing +that it does. The soul was to them the invisible man, material as ever, +but lost to the appreciation of the senses. + +Nor let any one be astonished if its unity was doubted, and several +supposed to reside in one body. This is nothing more than a somewhat +gross form of a doctrine upheld by most creeds and most philosophies. It +seems the readiest solution of certain psychological enigmas, and may, +for aught we know, be an instinct of fact. The Rabbis taught a threefold +division--_nephesh_, the animal, _ruah_, the human, and _neshamah_, the +divine soul, which corresponds to that of Plato into _thumos_, +_epithumia_, and _nous_. And even Saint Paul seems to have recognized +such inherent plurality when he distinguishes between the bodily soul, +the intellectual soul, and the spiritual gift, in his Epistle to the +Romans. No such refinements of course as these are to be expected among +the red men; but it may be looked upon either as the rudiments of these +teachings, or as a gradual debasement of them to gross and material +expression, that an old and wide-spread notion was found among both +Iroquois and Algonkins, that man has two souls, one of a vegetative +character, which gives bodily life, and remains with the corpse after +death, until it is called to enter another body; another of more +ethereal texture, which in life can depart from the body in sleep or +trance, and wander over the world, and at death goes directly to the +land of Spirits.[236-1] + +The Sioux extended it to Plato's number, and are said to have looked +forward to one going to a cold place, another to a warm and comfortable +country, while the third was to watch the body. Certainly a most +impartial distribution of rewards and punishments.[237-1] Some other +Dakota tribes shared their views on this point, but more commonly, +doubtless owing to the sacredness of the number, imagined _four_ souls, +with separate destinies, one to wander about the world, one to watch the +body, the third to hover around the village, and the highest to go to +the spirit land.[237-2] Even this number is multiplied by certain Oregon +tribes, who imagine one in every member; and by the Caribs of +Martinique, who, wherever they could detect a pulsation, located a +spirit, all subordinate, however, to a supreme one throned in the heart, +which alone would be transported to the skies at death.[237-3] For the +heart that so constantly sympathizes with our emotions and actions, is, +in most languages and most nations, regarded as the seat of life; and +when the priests of bloody religions tore out the heart of the victim +and offered it to the idol, it was an emblem of the life that was thus +torn from the field of this world and consecrated to the rulers of the +next. + +Various motives impel the living to treat with respect the body from +which life has departed. Lowest of them is a superstitious dread of +death and the dead. The stoicism of the Indian, especially the northern +tribes, in the face of death, has often been the topic of poets, and has +often been interpreted to be a fearlessness of that event. This is by +no means true. Savages have an awful horror of death; it is to them the +worst of ills; and for this very reason was it that they thought to meet +it without flinching was the highest proof of courage. Everything +connected with the deceased was, in many tribes, shunned with +superstitious terror. His name was not mentioned, his property left +untouched, all reference to him was sedulously avoided. A Tupi tribe +used to hurry the body at once to the nearest water, and toss it in; the +Akanzas left it in the lodge and burned over it the dwelling and +contents; and the Algonkins carried it forth by a hole cut opposite the +door, and beat the walls with sticks to fright away the lingering ghost. +Burying places were always avoided, and every means taken to prevent the +departed spirits exercising a malicious influence on those remaining +behind. + +These craven fears do but reveal the natural repugnance of the animal to +a cessation of existence, and arise from the instinct of +self-preservation essential to organic life. Other rites, undertaken +avowedly for the behoof of the soul, prove and illustrate a simple but +unshaken faith in its continued existence after the decay of the body. + +None of these is more common or more natural than that which attributes +to the emancipated spirit the same wants that it felt while on earth, +and with loving foresight provides for their satisfaction. Clothing and +utensils of war and the chase were, in ancient times, uniformly placed +by the body, under the impression that they would be of service to the +departed in his new home. Some few tribes in the far west still retain +the custom, but most were soon ridiculed into its neglect, or were +forced to omit it by the violation of tombs practised by depraved whites +in hope of gain. To these harmless offerings the northern tribes often +added a dog slain on the grave; and doubtless the skeletons of these +animals in so many tombs in Mexico and Peru point to similar customs +there. It had no deeper meaning than to give a companion to the spirit +in its long and lonesome journey to the far off land of shades. The +peculiar appropriateness of the dog arose not only from the guardianship +it exerts during life, but further from the symbolic signification it so +often had as representative of the goddess of night and the grave. + +Where a despotic form of government reduced the subject almost to the +level of a slave and elevated the ruler almost to that of a superior +being, not animals only, but men, women, and children were frequently +immolated at the tomb of the cacique. The territory embraced in our own +country was not without examples of this horrid custom. On the lower +Mississippi, the Natchez Indians brought it with them from Central +America in all its ghastliness. When a sun or chief died, one or several +of his wives and his highest officers were knocked on the head and +buried with him, and at such times the barbarous privilege was allowed +to any of the lowest caste to at once gain admittance to the highest by +the deliberate murder of their own children on the funeral pyre--a +privilege which respectable writers tell us human beings were found base +enough to take advantage of.[239-1] + +Oviedo relates that in the province of Guataro, in Guatemala, an actual +rivalry prevailed among the people to be slain at the death of their +cacique, for they had been taught that only such as went with him would +ever find their way to the paradise of the departed.[240-1] Theirs was +therefore somewhat of a selfish motive, and only in certain parts of +Peru, where polygamy prevailed, and the rule was that only one wife was +to be sacrificed, does the deportment of husbands seem to have been so +creditable that their widows actually disputed one with another for the +pleasure of being buried alive with the dead body, and bearing their +spouse company to the other world.[240-2] Wives who have found few +parallels since the famous matron of Ephesus! + +The fire built nightly on the grave was to light the spirit on his +journey. By a coincidence to be explained by the universal sacredness of +the number, both Algonkins and Mexicans maintained it for _four_ nights +consecutively. The former related the tradition that one of their +ancestors returned from the spirit land and informed their nation that +the journey thither consumed just _four_ days, and that collecting fuel +every night added much to the toil and fatigue the soul encountered, all +of which could be spared it by the relatives kindling nightly a fire on +the grave. Or as Longfellow has told it:-- + + "Four days is the spirit's journey + To the land of ghosts and shadows, + Four its lonely night encampments. + Therefore when the dead are buried, + Let a fire as night approaches + Four times on the grave be kindled, + That the soul upon its journey + May not grope about in darkness." + +The same length of time, say the Navajos, does the departed soul wander +over a gloomy marsh ere it can discover the ladder leading to the world +below, where are the homes of the setting and the rising sun, a land of +luxuriant plenty, stocked with game and covered with corn. To that land, +say they, sink all lost seeds and germs which fall on the earth and do +not sprout. There below they take root, bud, and ripen their +fruit.[241-1] + +After four days, once more, in the superstitions of the Greenland +Eskimos, does the soul, for that term after death confined in the body, +at last break from its prison-house and either rise in the sky to dance +in the aurora borealis or descend into the pleasant land beneath the +earth, according to the manner of death.[241-2] + +That there are logical contradictions in this belief and these +ceremonies, that the fire is always in the same spot, that the weapons +and utensils are not carried away by the departed, and that the food +placed for his sustenance remains untouched, is very true. But those who +would therefore argue that they were not intended for the benefit of the +soul, and seek some more recondite meaning in them as "unconscious +emblems of struggling faith or expressions of inward emotions,"[242-1] +are led astray by the very simplicity of their real intention. Where is +the faith, where the science, that does not involve logical +contradictions just as gross as these? They are tolerable to us merely +because we are used to them. What value has the evidence of the senses +anywhere against a religious faith? None whatever. A stumbling block +though this be to the materialist, it is the universal truth, and as +such it is well to accept it as an experimental fact. + +The preconceived opinions that saw in the meteorological myths of the +Indian, a conflict between the Spirit of Good and the Spirit of Evil, +have with like unconscious error falsified his doctrine of a future +life, and almost without an exception drawn it more or less in the +likeness of the Christian heaven, hell, and purgatory. Very faint traces +of any such belief except where derived from the missionaries are +visible in the New World. Nowhere was any well-defined doctrine that +moral turpitude was judged and punished in the next-world. No contrast +is discoverable between a place of torments and a realm of joy; at the +worst but a negative castigation awaited the liar, the coward, or the +niggard. The typical belief of the tribes of the United States was well +expressed in the reply of Esau Hajo, great medal chief and speaker for +the Creek nation in the National Council, to the question, Do the red +people believe in a future state of rewards and punishments? "We have an +opinion that those who have behaved well are taken under the care of +Esaugetuh Emissee, and assisted; and that those who have behaved ill +are left to shift for themselves; and that there is no other +punishment."[243-1] + +Neither the delights of a heaven on the one hand, nor the terrors of a +hell on the other, were ever held out by priests or sages as an +incentive to well-doing, or a warning to the evil-disposed. Different +fates, indeed, awaited the departed souls, but these rarely, if ever, +were decided by their conduct while in the flesh, but by the manner of +death, the punctuality with which certain sepulchral rites were +fulfilled by relatives, or other similar arbitrary circumstance beyond +the power of the individual to control. This view, which I am well aware +is directly at variance with that of all previous writers, may be shown +to be that natural to the uncultivated intellect everywhere, and the +real interpretation of the creeds of America. Whether these arbitrary +circumstances were not construed to signify the decision of the Divine +Mind on the life of the man, is a deeper question, which there is no +means at hand to solve. + +Those who have complained of the hopeless confusion of American +religions have but proven the insufficiency of their own means of +analyzing them. The uniformity which they display in so many points is +nowhere more fully illustrated than in the unanimity with which they all +point to the _sun_ as the land of the happy souls, the realm of the +blessed, the scene of the joyous hunting-grounds of the hereafter. Its +perennial glory, its comfortable warmth, its daily analogy to the life +of man, marked its abode as the pleasantest spot in the universe. It +matters not whether the eastern Algonkins pointed to the south, others +of their nation, with the Iroquois and Creeks, to the west, or many +tribes to the east, as the direction taken by the spirit; all these +myths but mean that its bourn is the home of the sun, which is perhaps +in the Orient whence he comes forth, in the Occident where he makes his +bed, or in the South whither he retires in the chilling winter. Where +the sun lives, they informed the earliest foreign visitors, were the +villages of the deceased, and the milky way which nightly spans the arch +of heaven, was, in their opinion, the road that led thither, and was +called the path of the souls (_le chemin des ames_).[244-1] To _hueyu +ku_, the mansion of the sun, said the Caribs, the soul passes when death +overtakes the body.[244-2] Our knowledge is scanty of the doctrines +taught by the Incas concerning the soul, but this much we do know, that +they looked to the sun, their recognized lord and protector, as he who +would care for them at death, and admit them to his palaces. There--not, +indeed, exquisite joys--but a life of unruffled placidity, void of +labor, vacant of strong emotions, a sort of material Nirvana, awaited +them.[244-3] For these reasons, they, with most other American nations, +interred the corpse lying east and west, and not as the traveller Meyen +has suggested,[244-4] from the reminiscences of some ancient migration. +Beyond the Cordilleras, quite to the coast of Brazil, the innumerable +hordes who wandered through the sombre tropical forests of that immense +territory, also pointed to the west, to the region beyond the mountains, +as the land where the souls of their ancestors lived in undisturbed +serenity; or, in the more brilliant imaginations of the later +generations, in a state of perennial inebriety, surrounded by infinite +casks of rum, and with no white man to dole it out to them.[245-1] The +natives of the extreme south, of the Pampas and Patagonia, suppose the +stars are the souls of the departed. At night they wander about the sky, +but the moment the sun rises they hasten to the cheerful light, and are +seen no more until it disappears in the west. So the Eskimo of the +distant north, in the long winter nights when the aurora bridges the sky +with its changing hues and arrowy shafts of light, believes he sees the +spirits of his ancestors clothed in celestial raiment, disporting +themselves in the absence of the sun, and calls the phenomenon _the +dance of the dead_. + +The home of the sun was the heaven of the red man; but to this joyous +abode not every one without distinction, no miscellaneous crowd, could +gain admittance. The conditions were as various as the national +temperaments. As the fierce gods of the Northmen would admit no soul to +the banquets of Walhalla but such as had met the "spear-death" in the +bloody play of war, and shut out pitilessly all those who feebly +breathed their last in the "straw death" on the couch of sickness, so +the warlike Aztec race in Nicaragua held that the shades of those who +died in their beds went downward and to naught; but of those who fell +in battle for their country to the east, "to the place whence comes the +sun."[246-1] In ancient Mexico not only the warriors who were thus +sacrificed on the altar of their country, but with a delicate and +poetical sense of justice that speaks well for the refinement of the +race, also those women who perished in child-birth, were admitted to the +home of the sun. For are not they also heroines in the battle of life? +Are they not also its victims? And do they not lay down their lives for +country and kindred? Every morning, it was imagined, the heroes came +forth in battle array, and with shout and song and the ring of weapons, +accompanied the sun to the zenith, where at every noon the souls of the +mothers, the Cihuapipilti, received him with dances, music, and flowers, +and bore him company to his western couch.[246-2] Except these, +none--without, it may be, the victims sacrificed to the gods, and this +is doubtful--were deemed worthy of the highest heaven. + +A mild and unwarlike tribe of Guatemala, on the other hand, were +persuaded that to die by any other than a natural death was to forfeit +all hope of life hereafter, and therefore left the bodies of the slain +to the beasts and vultures. + +The Mexicans had another place of happiness for departed souls, not +promising perpetual life as the home of the sun, but unalloyed pleasure +for a certain term of years. This was Tlalocan, the realm of the god of +rains and waters, the terrestrial paradise, whence flowed all the +rivers of the earth, and all the nourishment of the race. The diseases +of which persons died marked this destination. Such as were drowned, or +struck by lightning, or succumbed to humoral complaints, as dropsies and +leprosy, were by these tokens known to be chosen as the subjects of +Tlaloc. To such, said the natives, "death is the commencement of another +life, it is as waking from a dream, and the soul is no more human but +divine (_teot_)." Therefore they addressed their dying in terms like +these: "Sir, or lady, awake, awake; already does the dawn appear; even +now is the light approaching; already do the birds of yellow plumage +begin their songs to greet thee; already are the gayly-tinted +butterflies flitting around thee."[247-1] + +Before proceeding to the more gloomy portion of the subject, to the +destiny of those souls who were not chosen for the better part, I must +advert to a curious coincidence in the religious reveries of many +nations which finds its explanation in the belief that the house of the +sun is the home of the blessed, and proves that this was the first +conception of most natural religions. It is seen in the events and +obstacles of the journey to the happy land. We everywhere hear of a +water which the soul must cross, and an opponent, either a dog or an +evil spirit, which it has to contend with. We are all familiar with the +dog Cerberus (called by Homer simply "the dog"), which disputed the +passage of the river Styx over which the souls must cross; and with the +custom of the vikings, to be buried in a boat so that they might cross +the waters of Ginunga-gap to the inviting strands of Godheim. Relics of +this belief are found in the Koran which describes the bridge _el +Sirat_, thin as a hair and sharp as a scimetar,[TN-13] stretched in a +single span from heaven to earth; in the Persian legend, where the +rainbow arch Chinevad is flung across the gloomy depths between this +world and the home of the happy; and even in the current Christian +allegory which represents the waters of the mythical Jordan rolling +between us and the Celestial City. + +How strange at first sight does it seem that the Hurons and Iroquois +should have told the earliest missionaries that after death the soul +must cross a deep and swift river on a bridge formed by a single slender +tree most lightly supported, where it had to defend itself against the +attacks of a dog?[248-1] If only they had expressed this belief, it +might have passed for a coincidence merely. But the Athapascas +(Chepewyans) also told of a great water, which the soul must cross in a +stone canoe; the Algonkins and Dakotas, of a stream bridged by an +enormous snake, or a narrow and precipitous rock, and the Araucanians of +Chili of a sea in the west, in crossing which the soul was required to +pay toll to a malicious old woman. Were it unluckily impecunious, she +deprived it of an eye.[248-2] With the Aztecs this water was called +Chicunoapa, the Nine Rivers. It was guarded by a dog and a green dragon, +to conciliate which the dead were furnished with slips of paper by way +of toll. The Greenland Eskimos thought that the waters roared through +an unfathomable abyss over which there was no other bridge than a wheel +slippery with ice, forever revolving with fearful rapidity, or a path +narrow as a cord with nothing to hold on by. On the other side sits a +horrid old woman gnashing her teeth and tearing her hair with rage. As +each soul approaches she burns a feather under its nose; if it faints +she seizes it for her prisoner, but if the soul's guardian spirit can +overcome her, it passes through in safety.[249-1] + +The similarity to the passage of the soul across the Styx, and the toll +of the obolus to Charon is in the Aztec legend still more striking, when +we remember that the Styx was the ninth head of Oceanus (omitting the +Cocytus, often a branch of the Styx). The Nine Rivers probably refer to +the nine Lords of the Night, ancient Aztec deities guarding the +nocturnal hours, and introduced into their calendar. The Tupis and +Caribs, the Mayas and Creeks, entertained very similar expectations. + +We are to seek the explanation of these wide-spread theories of the +soul's journey in the equally prevalent tenet that the sun is its +destination, and that that luminary has his abode beyond the ocean +stream, which in all primitive geographies rolls its waves around the +habitable land. This ocean stream is the water which all have to attempt +to pass, and woe to him whom the spirit of the waters, represented +either as the old woman, the dragon, or the dog of Hecate, seizes and +overcomes. In the lush fancy of the Orient, the spirit of the waters +becomes the spirit of evil, the ocean stream the abyss of hell, and +those who fail in the passage the damned, who are foredoomed to evil +deeds and endless torture. + +No such ethical bearing as this was ever assigned the myth by the red +race before they were taught by Europeans. Father Brebeuf could only +find that the souls of suicides and those killed in war were supposed to +live apart from the others; "but as to the souls of scoundrels," he +adds, "so far from being shut out, they are the welcome guests, though +for that matter if it were not so, their paradise would be a total +desert, as Huron and scoundrel (_Huron et larron_) are one and the +same."[250-1] When the Minnetarees told Major Long and the Mannicicas of +the La Plata the Jesuits,[250-2] that the souls of the bad fell into the +waters and were swept away, these are, beyond doubt, attributable either +to a false interpretation, or to Christian instruction. No such +distinction is probable among savages. The Brazilian natives divided the +dead into classes, supposing that the drowned, those killed by violence, +and those yielding to disease, lived in separate regions; but no ethical +reason whatever seems to have been connected with this.[250-3] If the +conception of a place of moral retribution was known at all to the race, +it should be found easily recognizable in Mexico, Yucatan, or Peru. But +the so-called "hells" of their religions have no such significance, and +the spirits of evil, who were identified by early writers with Satan, no +more deserve the name than does the Greek Pluto. + +Cupay or Supay, the Shadow, in Peru was supposed to rule the land of +shades in the centre of the earth. To him went all souls not destined to +be the companions of the Sun. This is all we know of his attributes; and +the assertion of Garcilasso de la Vega, that he was the analogue of the +Christian Devil, and that his name was never pronounced without spitting +and muttering a curse on his head, may be invalidated by the testimony +of an earlier and better authority on the religion of Peru, who calls +him the god of rains, and adds that the famous Inca, Huayna Capac, was +his high priest.[251-1] + +"The devil," says Cogolludo of the Mayas, "is called by them +Xibilha,[TN-14] which means he who disappears or vanishes."[251-2] In the +legends of the Quiches, the name Xibalba is given as that of the +under-world ruled by the grim lords One Death and Seven Deaths. The +derivation of the name is from a root meaning to fear, from which comes +the term in Maya dialects for a ghost or phantom.[251-3] Under the +influence of a century of Christian catechizing, the Quiche legends +portray this really as a place of torment, and its rulers as malignant +and powerful; but as I have before pointed out, they do so, protesting +that such was not the ancient belief, and they let fall no word that +shows that it was regarded as the destination of the morally bad. The +original meaning of the name given by Cogolludo points unmistakably to +the simple fact of disappearance from among men, and corresponds in +harmlessness to the true sense of those words of fear, Scheol, Hades, +Hell, all signifying hidden from sight, and only endowed with more grim +associations by the imaginations of later generations.[252-1] + +Mictlanteuctli, Lord of Mictlan, from a word meaning to die, was the +Mexican Pluto. Like Cupay, he dwelt in the subterranean regions, and his +palace was named Tlalxicco, the navel of the earth. Yet he was also +located in the far north, and that point of the compass and the north +wind were named after him. Those who descended to him were oppressed by +the darkness of his abode, but were subjected to no other trials; nor +were they sent thither as a punishment, but merely from having died of +diseases unfitting them for Tlalocan. Mictlanteuctli was said to be the +most powerful of the gods. For who is stronger than Death? And who dare +defy the Grave? As the skald lets Odin say to Bragi: "Our lot is +uncertain; even on the hosts of the gods gazes the gray Fenris +wolf."[252-2] + +These various abodes to which the incorporeal man took flight were not +always his everlasting home. It will be remembered that where a +plurality of souls was believed, one of these, soon after death, +entered another body to recommence life on earth. Acting under this +persuasion, the Algonkin women who desired to become mothers, flocked to +the couch of those about to die, in hope that the vital principle, as it +passed from the body, would enter theirs, and fertilize their sterile +wombs; and when, among the Seminoles of Florida, a mother died in +childbirth, the infant was held over her face to receive her parting +spirit, and thus acquire strength and knowledge for its future +use.[253-1] So among the Tahkalis, the priest is accustomed to lay his +hand on the head of the nearest relative of the deceased, and to blow +into him the soul of the departed, which is supposed to come to life in +his next child.[253-2] Probably, with a reference to the current +tradition that ascribes the origin of man to the earth, and likens his +life to that of the plant, the Mexicans were accustomed to say that at +one time all men have been stones, and that at last they would all +return to stones;[253-3] and, acting literally on this conviction, they +interred with the bones of the dead a small green stone, which was +called the principle of life. + +Whether any nations accepted the doctrine of metempsychosis, and thought +that "the souls of their grandams might haply inhabit a partridge," we +are without the means of knowing. La Hontan denies it positively of the +Algonkins; but the natives of Popoyan refused to kill doves, says +Coreal,[254-1] because they believe them inspired by the souls of the +departed. And Father Ignatius Chome relates that he heard a woman of the +Chiriquanes in Buenos Ayres say of a fox: "May that not be the spirit of +my dead daughter?"[254-2] But before accepting such testimony as +decisive, we must first inquire whether these tribes believed in a +multiplicity of souls, whether these animals had a symbolical value, and +if not, whether the soul was not simply presumed to put on this shape in +its journey to the land of the hereafter: inquiries which are +unanswered. Leaving, therefore, the question open, whether the sage of +Samos had any disciples in the new world, another and more fruitful +topic is presented by their well-ascertained notions of the resurrection +of the dead. + +This seemingly extraordinary doctrine, which some have asserted was +entirely unknown and impossible to the American Indians,[254-3] was in +fact one of their most deeply-rooted and wide-spread convictions, +especially among the tribes of the eastern United States. It is +indissolubly connected with their highest theories of a future life, +their burial ceremonies, and their modes of expression. The Moravian +Brethren give the grounds of this belief with great clearness: "That +they hold the soul to be immortal, and perhaps think the body will rise +again, they give not unclearly to understand when they say, 'We Indians +shall not for ever die; even the grains of corn we put under the earth, +grow up and become living things.' They conceive that when the soul has +been a while with God, it can, if it chooses, return to earth and be +born again."[255-1] This is the highest and typical creed of the +aborigines. But instead of simply being born again in the ordinary sense +of the word, they thought the soul would return to the bones, that these +would clothe themselves with flesh, and that the man would rejoin his +tribe. That this was the real, though often doubtless the dimly +understood reason of the custom of preserving the bones of the deceased, +can be shown by various arguments. + +This practice was almost universal. East of the Mississippi nearly every +nation was accustomed, at stated periods--usually once in eight or ten +years--to collect and clean the osseous remains of those of its number +who had died in the intervening time, and inter them in one common +sepulchre, lined with choice furs, and marked with a mound of wood, +stone, and earth. Such is the origin of those immense tumuli filled with +the mortal remains of nations and generations which the antiquary, with +irreverent curiosity, so frequently chances upon in all portions of our +territory. Throughout Central America the same usage obtained in various +localities, as early writers and existing monuments abundantly testify. +Instead of interring the bones, were they those of some distinguished +chieftain, they were deposited in the temples or the council-houses, +usually in small chests of canes or splints. Such were the +charnel-houses which the historians of De Soto's expedition so often +mention, and these are the "arks" which Adair and other authors, who +have sought to trace the descent of the Indians from the Jews, have +likened to that which the ancient Israelites bore with them on their +migrations. A widow among the Tahkalis was obliged to carry the bones of +her deceased husband wherever she went for four years, preserving them +in such a casket handsomely decorated with feathers.[256-1] The Caribs +of the mainland adopted the custom for all without exception. About a +year after death the bones were cleaned, bleached, painted, wrapped in +odorous balsams, placed in a wicker basket, and kept suspended from the +door of their dwellings.[256-2] When the quantity of these heirlooms +became burdensome, they were removed to some inaccessible cavern, and +stowed away with reverential care. Such was the cave Ataruipe, a visit +to which has been so eloquently described by Alexander von Humboldt in +his "Views of Nature." + +So great was the filial respect for these remains by the Indians, that +on the Mississippi, in Peru, and elsewhere, no tyranny, no cruelty, so +embittered the indigenes against the white explorers as the sacrilegious +search for treasures perpetrated among the sepulchres of past +generations. Unable to understand the meaning of such deep feeling, so +foreign to the European who, without a second thought, turns a cemetery +into a public square, or seeds it down in wheat, the Jesuit missionaries +in Paraguay accuse the natives of worshipping the skeletons of their +forefathers,[257-1] and the English in Virginia repeated it of the +Powhatans. + +The question has been debated and variously answered, whether the art of +mummification was known and practised in America. Without entering into +the discussion, it is certain that preservation of the corpse by a long +and thorough process of exsiccation over a slow fire was nothing +unusual, not only in Peru, Popoyan, the Carib countries, and Nicaragua, +but among many of the tribes north of the Gulf of Mexico, as I have +elsewhere shown.[257-2] The object was essentially the same as when the +bones alone were preserved; and in the case of rulers, the same homage +was often paid to their corpses as had been the just due of their living +bodies. + +The opinion underlying all these customs was, that a part of the soul, +or one of the souls, dwelt in the bones; that these were the seeds +which, planted in the earth, or preserved unbroken in safe places, +would, in time, put on once again a garb of flesh, and germinate into +living human beings. Language illustrates this not unusual theory. The +Iroquois word for bone is _esken_--for soul, _atisken_, literally that +which is within the bone.[257-3] In an Athapascan dialect bone is +_yani_, soul _i-yune_.[257-4] The Hebrew Rabbis taught that in the bone +_lutz_, the coccyx, remained at death the germ of a second life, which, +at the proper time, would develop into the purified body, as the plant +from the seed. + +But mythology and supersitions[TN-15] add more decisive testimony. One of +the Aztec legends of the origin of man was, that after one of the +destructions of the world the gods took counsel together how to renew +the species. It was decided that one of their number, Xolotl, should +descend to Mictlan, the realm of the dead, and bring thence a bone of +the perished race. The fragments of this they sprinkled with blood, and +on the fourth day it grew into a youth, the father of the present +race.[258-1] The profound mystical significance of this legend is +reflected in one told by the Quiches, in which the hero gods Hunahpu and +Xblanque succumb to the rulers of Xibalba, the darksome powers of death. +Their bodies are burned, but their bones are ground in a mill and thrown +in the waters, lest they should come to life. Even this precaution is +insufficient--"for these ashes did not go far; they sank to the bottom +of the stream, where, in the twinkling of an eye, they were changed into +handsome youths, and their very same features appeared anew. On the +fifth day they displayed themselves anew, and were seen in the water by +the people,"[258-2] whence they emerged to overcome and destroy the +powers of death and hell (Xibalba). + +The strongest analogies to these myths are offered by the superstitious +rites of distant tribes. Some of the Tupis of Brazil were wont on the +death of a relative to dry and pulverize his bones and then mix them +with their food, a nauseous practice they defended by asserting that the +soul of the dead remained in the bones and lived again in the +living.[259-1] Even the lower animals were supposed to follow the same +law. Hardly any of the hunting tribes, before their original manners +were vitiated by foreign influence, permitted the bones of game slain in +the chase to be broken, or left carelessly about the encampment. They +were collected in heaps, or thrown into the water. Mrs. Eastman observes +that even yet the Dakotas deem it an omen of ill luck in the hunt, if +the dogs gnaw the bones or a woman inadvertently steps over them; and +the Chipeway interpreter, John Tanner, speaks of the same fear among +that tribe. The Yurucares of Bolivia carried it to such an inconvenient +extent, that they carefully put by even small fish bones, saying that +unless this was done the fish and game would disappear from the +country.[259-2] The traveller on our western prairies often notices the +buffalo skulls, countless numbers of which bleach on those vast plains, +arranged in circles and symmetrical piles by the careful hands of the +native hunters. The explanation they offer for this custom gives the key +to the whole theory and practice of preserving the osseous relics of the +dead, as well human as brute. They say that, "the bones contain the +spirits of the slain animals, and that some time in the future they will +rise from the earth, re-clothe themselves with flesh, and stock the +prairies anew."[259-3] This explanation, which comes to us from +indisputable authority, sets forth in its true light the belief of the +red race in a resurrection. It is not possible to trace it out in the +subtleties with which theologians have surrounded it as a dogma. The +very attempt would be absurd. They never occurred to the Indian. He +thought that the soul now enjoying the delights of the happy hunting +grounds would some time return to the bones, take on flesh, and live +again. Such is precisely the much discussed statement that Garcilasso de +la Vega says he often heard from the native Peruvians. He adds that so +careful were they lest any of the body should be lost that they +preserved even the parings of their nails and clippings of the +hair.[260-1] In contradiction to this the writer Acosta has been quoted, +who says that the Peruvians embalmed their dead because they "had no +knowledge that the bodies should rise with the soul."[260-2] But, +rightly understood, this is a confirmation of La Vega's account. Acosta +means that the Christian doctrine of the body rising from the dust being +unknown to the Peruvians (which is perfectly true), they preserved the +body just as it was, so that the soul when it returned to earth, as all +expected, might not be at a loss for a house of flesh. + +The notions thus entertained by the red race on the resurrection are +peculiar to it, and stand apart from those of any other. They did not +look for the second life to be either better or worse than the present +one; they regarded it neither as a reward nor a punishment to be sent +back to the world of the living; nor is there satisfactory evidence that +it was ever distinctly connected with a moral or physical theory of the +destiny of the universe, or even with their prevalent expectation of +recurrent epochs in the course of nature. It is true that a writer whose +personal veracity is above all doubt, Mr. Adam Hodgson, relates an +ancient tradition of the Choctaws, to the effect that the present world +will be consumed by a general conflagration, after which it will be +reformed pleasanter than it now is, and that then the spirits of the +dead will return to the bones in the bone mounds, flesh will knit +together their loose joints, and they shall again inhabit their ancient +territory.[261-1] + +There was also a similar belief among the Eskimos. They said that in the +course of time the waters would overwhelm the land, purify it of the +blood of the dead, melt the icebergs, and wash away the steep rocks. A +wind would then drive off the waters, and the new land would be peopled +by reindeers and young seals. Then would He above blow once on the bones +of the men and twice on those of the women, whereupon they would at once +start into life, and lead thereafter a joyous existence.[261-2] + +But though there is nothing in these narratives alien to the course of +thought in the native mind, yet as the date of the first is recent +(1820), as they are not supported (so far as I know) by similar +traditions elsewhere, and as they may have arisen from Christian +doctrines of a millennium, I leave them for future investigation. + +What strikes us the most in this analysis of the opinions entertained by +the red race on a future life is the clear and positive hope of a +hereafter, in such strong contrast to the feeble and vague notions of +the ancient Israelites, Greeks, and Romans, and yet the entire inertness +of this hope in leading them to a purer moral life. It offers another +proof that the fulfilment of duty is in its nature nowise connected with +or derived from a consideration of ultimate personal consequences. It is +another evidence that the religious is wholly distinct from the moral +sentiment, and that the origin of ethics is not to be sought in +connection with the ideas of divinity and responsibility. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[233-1] _Journal Historique_, p. 351: Paris, 1740. + +[234-1] _Rep. of the Commissioner of Ind. Affairs_, 1854, pp. 211, 212. +The old woman is once more a personification of the water and the moon. + +[234-2] Baegert, _Acc. of the Aborig. Tribes of the Californian +Peninsula_, translated by Chas. Rau, in Ann. Rep. Smithson. Inst., 1866, +p. 387. + +[235-1] Of the Nicaraguans Oviedo says: "Ce n'est pas leur coeur qui va +en haut, mais ce qui les faisait vivre; c'est-a-dire, le souffle qui leur +sort par la bouche, et que l'on nomme _Julio_" (_Hist. du Nicaragua_, p. +36). The word should be _yulia_, kindred with _yoli_, to live. +(Buschmann, _Uber die Aztekischen Ortsnamen_, p. 765.) In the Aztec and +cognate languages we have already seen that _ehecatl_ means both _wind_, +_soul_, and _shadow_ (Buschmann, _Spuren der Aztek. Spr. in Noerdlichen +Mexico_, p. 74). + +[236-1] _Rel. de la Nouv. France_, An 1636, p. 104; "Keating's +_Narrative_," i. pp. 232, 410. + +[237-1] French, _Hist. Colls. of Louisiana_, iii. p. 26. + +[237-2] Mrs. Eastman, _Legends of the Sioux_, p. 129. + +[237-3] _Voy. a la Louisiane fait en 1720_, p. 155: Paris, 1768. + +[239-1] Dupratz, _Hist. of Louisiana_, ii. p. 219; Dumont, _Mems. Hist. +sur la Louisiane_, i. chap. 26. + +[240-1] _Rel. de la Prov. de Cueba_, p. 140. + +[240-2] Coreal, _Voiages aux Indes Occidentales_, ii. p. 94: Amsterdam, +1722. + +[241-1] _Senate Rep. on the Ind. Tribes_, p. 358: Wash. 1867. + +[241-2] Egede, _Nachrichten von Groenland_, p. 145. + +[242-1] Alger, _Hist. of the Doctrine of a Future Life_, p. 76. + +[243-1] Hawkins, _Sketch of the Creek Country_, p. 80. + +[244-1] _Rel. de la Nouv. France_, 1634, pp. 17, 18. + +[244-2] Mueller, _Amer. Urreligionen_, p. 229. + +[244-3] La Vega, _Hist. des Incas._, lib. ii. cap. 7. + +[244-4] _Ueber die Ureinwohner von Peru_, p. 41. + +[245-1] Coreal, _Voy. aux Indes Occident._, i. p. 224; Mueller, _Amer. +Urrelig._, p. 289. + +[246-1] Oviedo, _Hist. du Nicaragua_, p. 22. + +[246-2] Torquemada, _Monarquia Indiana_, lib. vi. cap. 27. + +[247-1] Sahagun, _Hist. de la Nueva Espana_, lib. x. cap. 29. + +[248-1] _Rel. de la Nouv. France_, 1636, p. 105. + +[248-2] Molina, _Hist. of Chili_, ii. p. 81, and others in Waitz, +_Anthropologie_, iii. p. 197. + +[249-1] _Nachrichten von Groenland aus dem Tagebuche vom Bischof Paul +Egede_, p. 104: Kopenhagen, 1790. + +[250-1] _Rel. de la Nouv. France_, 1636, p. 105. + +[250-2] Long's _Expedition_, i. p. 280; Waitz, _Anthropologie_, iii. p. +531. + +[250-3] Mueller, _Amer. Urreligionen_, p. 287. + +[251-1] Compare Garcilasso de la Vega, _Hist. des Incas._, liv. ii. chap. +ii., with _Lett. sur les Superstitions du Perou_, p. 104. Cupay is +undoubtedly a personal form from _Cupan_, a shadow. (See Holguin, _Vocab. +de la Lengua Quichua_, p. 80: Cuzco, 1608.) + +[251-2] "El que desparece o desvanece," _Hist. de Yucathan_, lib. iv. +cap. 7. + +[251-3] Ximenes, _Vocab. Quiche_, p. 224. The attempt of the Abbe +Brasseur to make of Xibalba an ancient kingdom of renown with Palenque as +its capital, is so utterly unsupported and wildly hypothetical, as to +justify the humorous flings which have so often been cast at antiquaries. + +[252-1] Scheol is from a Hebrew word, signifying to dig, to hide in the +earth. Hades signifies the _unseen_ world. Hell Jacob Grimm derives from +_hilan_, to conceal in the earth, and it is cognate with _hole_ and +_hollow_. + +[252-2] Pennock, _Religion of the Northmen_, p. 148. + +[253-1] La Hontan, _Voy. dans l'Am. Sept._, i. p. 232; _Narrative of +Oceola Nikkanoche_, p. 75. + +[253-2] Morse, _Rep. on the Ind. Tribes_, App. p. 345. + +[253-3] Garcia, _Or. de los Indios_, lib. iv. cap. 26, p. 310. + +[254-1] _Voiages aux Indes Oc._, ii. p. 132. + +[254-2] _Lettres Edif. et Cur._, v. p. 203. + +[254-3] Alger, _Hist. of the Doctrine of a Future Life_, p. 72. + +[255-1] Loskiel, _Ges. der Miss. der evang. Brueder_, p. 49. + +[256-1] Richardson, _Arctic Expedition_, p. 260. + +[256-2] Gumilla, _Hist. del Orinoco_, i. pp. 199, 202, 204. + +[257-1] Ruis, _Conquista Espiritual del Paraguay_, p. 48, in Lafitau. + +[257-2] _Notes on the Floridian Peninsula_, pp. 191 sqq. + +[257-3] Bruyas, _Rad. Verborum Iroquaeorum_. + +[257-4] Buschmann, _Athapask. Sprachstamm_, pp. 182, 188. + +[258-1] Torquemada, _Monarquia Indiana_, lib. vi. cap. 41. + +[258-2] _Le Livre Sacre des Quiches_, pp. 175-177. + +[259-1] Mueller, _Amer. Urrelig._, p. 290, after Spix. + +[259-2] D'Orbigny, _Annuaire des Voyages_, 1845, p. 77. + +[259-3] Long's _Expedition_, i. p. 278. + +[260-1] _Hist. des Incas_, lib. iii. chap. 7. + +[260-2] _Hist. of the New World_, bk. v. chap. 7. + +[261-1] _Travels in North America_, p. 280. + +[261-2] Egede, _Nachrichten von Groenland_, p. 156. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +THE NATIVE PRIESTHOOD. + + Their titles.--Practitioners of the healing art by supernatural + means.--Their power derived from natural magic and the exercise of + the clairvoyant and mesmeric faculties.--Examples.--Epidemic + hysteria.--Their social position.--Their duties as religious + functionaries.--Terms of admission to the Priesthood.--Inner + organization in various nations.--Their esoteric languages and + secret societies. + + +Thus picking painfully amid the ruins of a race gone to wreck centuries +ago, thus rejecting much foreign rubbish and scrutinizing each stone +that lies around, if we still are unable to rebuild the edifice in its +pristine symmetry and beauty, yet we can at least discern and trace the +ground plan and outlines of the fane it raised to God. Before leaving +the field to the richer returns of more fortunate workmen, it will not +be inappropriate to add a sketch of the ministers of these religions, +the servants in this temple. + +Shamans, conjurers, sorcerers, medicine men, wizards, and many another +hard name have been given them, but I shall call them _priests_, for in +their poor way, as well as any other priesthood, they set up to be the +agents of the gods, and the interpreters of divinity. No tribe was so +devoid of religious sentiment as to be without them. Their power was +terrible, and their use of it unscrupulous. Neither men nor gods, death +nor life, the winds nor the waves, were beyond their control. Like Old +Men of the Sea, they have clung to the neck of their nations, throttling +all attempts at progress, binding them to the thraldom of superstition +and profligacy, dragging them down to wretchedness and death. +Christianity and civilization meet in them their most determined, most +implacable foes. But what is this but the story of priestcraft and +intolerance everywhere, which Old Spain can repeat as well as New Spain, +the white race as well as the red? Blind leaders of the blind, dupers +and duped fall into the ditch. + +In their own languages they are variously called; by the Algonkins and +Dakotas, "those knowing divine things" and "dreamers of the gods" +(_manitousiou_, _wakanwacipi_); in Mexico, "masters or guardians of the +divine things" (_teopixqui_, _teotecuhtli_); in Cherokee, their title +means, "possessed of the divine fire" (_atsilung kelawhi_); in Iroquois, +"keepers of the faith" (_honundeunt_); in Quichua, "the learned" +(_amauta_); in Maya, "the listeners" (_cocome_). The popular term in +French and English of "medicine men" is not such a misnomer as might be +supposed. The noble science of medicine is connected with divinity not +only by the rudest savage but the profoundest philosopher, as has been +already adverted to. When sickness is looked upon as the effect of the +anger of a god, or as the malicious infliction of a sorcerer, it is +natural to seek help from those who assume to control the unseen world, +and influence the fiats of the Almighty. The recovery from disease is +the kindliest exhibition of divine power. Therefore the earliest canons +of medicine in India and Egypt are attributed to no less distinguished +authors than the gods Brahma and Thoth;[265-1] therefore the earliest +practitioners of the healing art are universally the ministers of +religion. + +But, however creditable this origin is to medicine, its partnership with +theology was no particular advantage to it. These mystical doctors +shared the contempt still so prevalent among ourselves for a treatment +based on experiment and reason, and regarded the administration of +emetics and purgatives, baths and diuretics, with a contempt quite equal +to that of the disciples of Hahnemann. The practitioners of the rational +school formed a separate class among the Indians, and had nothing to do +with amulets, powwows, or spirits.[265-2] They were of different name +and standing, and though held in less estimation, such valuable +additions to the pharmacopoeia as guaiacum, cinchona, and ipecacuanha, +were learned from them. The priesthood scorned such ignoble means. Were +they summoned to a patient, they drowned his groans in a barbarous +clangor of instruments in order to fright away the demon that possessed +him; they sucked and blew upon the diseased organ, they sprinkled him +with water, and catching it again threw it on the ground, thus drowning +out the disease; they rubbed the part with their hands, and exhibiting a +bone or splinter asserted that they drew it from the body, and that it +had been the cause of the malady, they manufactured a little image to +represent the spirit of sickness, and spitefully knocked it to pieces, +thus vicariously destroying its prototype; they sang doleful and +monotonous chants at the top of their voices, screwed their +countenances into hideous grimaces, twisted their bodies into unheard of +contortions, and by all accounts did their utmost to merit the +honorarium they demanded for their services. A double motive spurred +them to spare no pains. For if they failed, not only was their +reputation gone, but the next expert called in was likely enough to +hint, with that urbanity so traditional in the profession, that the +illness was in fact caused or much increased by the antagonistic nature +of the remedies previously employed, whereupon the chances were that the +doctor's life fell into greater jeopardy than that of his quondam +patient. + +Considering the probable result of this treatment, we may be allowed to +doubt whether it redounded on the whole very much to the honor of the +fraternity. Their strong points are rather to be looked for in the real +knowledge gained by a solitary and reflective life, by an earnest study +of the appearances of nature, and of those hints and forest signs which +are wholly lost on the white man and beyond the ordinary insight of a +native. Travellers often tell of changes of the weather predicted by +them with astonishing foresight, and of information of singular accuracy +and extent gleaned from most meagre materials. There is nothing in this +to shock our sense of probability--much to elevate our opinion of the +native sagacity. They were also adepts in tricks of sleight of hand, and +had no mean acquaintance with what is called natural magic. They would +allow themselves to be tied hand and foot with knots innumerable, and at +a sign would shake them loose as so many wisps of straw; they would spit +fire and swallow hot coals, pick glowing stones from the flames, walk +naked through a fire, and plunge their arms to the shoulder in kettles +of boiling water with apparent impunity.[267-1] Nor was this all. With a +skill not inferior to that of the jugglers of India, they could plunge +knives into vital parts, vomit blood, or kill one another out and out to +all appearances, and yet in a few minutes be as well as ever; they could +set fire to articles of clothing and even houses, and by a touch of +their magic restore them instantly as perfect as before.[267-2] If it +were not within our power to see most of these miracles performed any +night in one of our great cities by a well dressed professional, we +would at once deny their possibility. As it is, they astonish us only +too little. + +One of the most peculiar and characteristic exhibitions of their power, +was to summon a spirit to answer inquiries concerning the future and the +absent. A great similarity marked this proceeding in all northern tribes +from the Eskimos to the Mexicans. A circular or conical lodge of stout +poles four or eight in number planted firmly in the ground, was covered +with skins or mats, a small aperture only being left for the seer to +enter. Once in, he carefully closed the hole and commenced his +incantations. Soon the lodge trembles, the strong poles shake and bend +as with the united strength of a dozen men, and strange, unearthly +sounds, now far aloft in the air, now deep in the ground, anon +approaching near and nearer, reach the ears of the spectators. At length +the priest announces that the spirit is present, and is prepared to +answer questions. An indispensable preliminary to any inquiry is to +insert a handful of tobacco, or a string of beads, or some such douceur +under the skins, ostensibly for the behoof of the celestial visitor, who +would seem not to be above earthly wants and vanities. 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. 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. + +But there is something more than these vulgar arts now and then to be +perceived. There are statements supported by unquestionable testimony, +which ought not to be passed over in silence, and yet I cannot but +approach them with hesitation. They are so revolting to the laws of +exact science, so alien, I had almost said, to the experience of our +lives. Yet is this true, or are such experiences only ignored and put +aside without serious consideration? Are there not in the history of +each of us passages which strike our retrospective thought with awe, +almost with terror? Are there not in nearly every community individuals +who possess a mysterious power, concerning whose origin, mode of action, +and limits, we and they are alike in the dark? I refer to such organic +forces as are popularly summed up under the words clairvoyance, +mesmerism, rhabdomancy, animal magnetism, physical spiritualism. +Civilized thousands stake their faith and hope here and hereafter, on +the truths of these manifestations; rational medicine recognizes their +existence, and while it attributes them to morbid and exceptional +influences, confesses its want of more exact knowledge, and refrains +from barren theorizing. Let us follow her example, and hold it enough to +show that such powers, whatever they are, were known to the native +priesthood as well as the modern spiritualists, and the miracle mongers +of the Middle Ages. + +Their highest development is what our ancestors called "second sight." +That under certain conditions knowledge can pass from one mind to +another otherwise than through the ordinary channels of the senses, is +familiarly shown by the examples of persons _en rapport_. The limit to +this we do not know, but it is not unlikely that clairvoyance or second +sight is based upon it. In his autobiography, the celebrated Sac chief +Black Hawk, relates that his great grandfather "was inspired by a belief +that at the end of four years, he should see a white man, who would be +to him a father." Under the direction of this vision he travelled +eastward to a certain spot, and there, as he was forewarned, met a +Frenchman, through whom the nation was brought into alliance with +France.[269-1] No one at all versed in the Indian character will doubt +the implicit faith with which this legend was told and heard. But we may +be pardoned our scepticism, seeing there are so many chances of error. +It is not so with an anecdote related by Captain Jonathan Carver, a +cool-headed English trader, whose little book of travels is an +unquestioned authority. In 1767, he was among the Killistenoes at a time +when they were in great straits for food, and depending upon the arrival +of the traders to rescue them from starvation. They persuaded the chief +priest to consult the divinities as to when the relief would arrive. +After the usual preliminaries, this magnate announced that next day, +precisely when the sun reached the zenith, a canoe would arrive with +further tidings. At the appointed hour the whole village, together with +the incredulous Englishman, was on the beach, and sure enough, at the +minute specified, a canoe swung round a distant point of land, and +rapidly approaching the shore brought the expected news.[270-1] + +Charlevoix is nearly as trustworthy a writer as Carver. Yet he +deliberately relates an equally singular instance.[270-2] + +But these examples are surpassed by one described in the _Atlantic +Monthly_ of July, 1866, the author of which, John Mason Brown, Esq., has +assured me of its accuracy in every particular. Some years since, at the +head of a party of voyageurs, he set forth in search of a band of +Indians somewhere on the vast plains along the tributaries of the +Copper-mine and Mackenzie rivers. Danger, disappointment, and the +fatigues of the road, induced one after another to turn back, until of +the original ten only three remained. They also were on the point of +giving up the apparently hopeless quest, when they were met by some +warriors of the very band they were seeking. These had been sent out by +one of their medicine men to find three whites, whose horses, arms, +attire, and personal appearance he minutely described, which description +was repeated to Mr. Brown by the warriors before they saw his two +companions. When afterwards, the priest, a frank and simple-minded man, +was asked to explain this extraordinary occurrence, he could offer no +other explanation than that "he saw them coming, and heard them talk on +their journey."[271-1] + +Many tales such as these have been recorded by travellers, and however +much they may shock our sense of probability, as well-authenticated +exhibitions of a power which sways the Indian mind, and which has ever +prejudiced it so unchangeably against Christianity and civilization, +they cannot be disregarded. Whether they too are but specimens of +refined knavery, whether they are instigations of the Devil, or whether +they must be classed with other facts as illustrating certain obscure +and curious mental faculties, each may decide as the bent of his mind +inclines him, for science makes no decision. + +Those nervous conditions associated with the name of Mesmer were nothing +new to the Indian magicians. Rubbing and stroking the sick, and the +laying on of hands, were very common parts of their clinical procedures, +and at the initiations to their societies they were frequently +exhibited. Observers have related that among the Nez Perces of Oregon, +the novice was put to sleep by songs, incantations, and "certain passes +of the hand," and that with the Dakotas he would be struck lightly on +the breast at a preconcerted moment, and instantly "would drop prostrate +on his face, his muscles rigid and quivering in every fibre."[272-1] + +There is no occasion to suppose deceit in this. It finds its parallel in +every race and every age, and rests on a characteristic trait of certain +epochs and certain men, which leads them to seek the divine, not in +thoughtful contemplation on the laws of the universe and the facts of +self-consciousness, but in an entire immolation of the latter, a sinking +of their own individuality in that of the spirits whose alliance they +seek. This is an outgrowth of that ignoring of the universality of Law, +which belongs to the lower stages of enlightenment.[273-1] And as this +is never done with impunity, but with iron certainty brings its +punishment with it, the study of the mental conditions thus evoked, and +the results which follow them, offers a salutary subject of reflection +to the theologian as well as the physician. For these examples of +nervous pathology are identical in kind, and alike in consequences, +whether witnessed in the primitive forests of the New World, among the +convulsionists of St. Medard, or in the excited scenes of a religious +revival in one of our own churches. + +Sleeplessness and abstemiousness, carried to the utmost verge of human +endurance--seclusion, and the pertinacious fixing of the mind on one +subject--obstinate gloating on some morbid fancy, rarely failed to bring +about hallucinations with all the garb of reality. Physicians are well +aware that the more frequently these diseased conditions of the mind are +sought, the more readily they are found. Then, again, they were often +induced by intoxicating and narcotic herbs. Tobacco, the maguey, coca; +in California the chucuaco; among the Mexicans the snake plant, +ollinhiqui or coaxihuitl; and among the southern tribes of our own +country the cassine yupon and iris versicolor,[273-2] were used; and, it +is even said, were cultivated for this purpose. The seer must work +himself up to a prophetic fury, or speechless lie in apparent death +before the mind of the gods would be opened to him. Trance and ecstasy +were the two avenues he knew to divinity; fasting and seclusion the +means employed to discover them. His ideal was of a prophet who dwelt +far from men, without need of food, in constant communion with divinity. +Such an one, in the legends of the Tupis, resided on a mountain +glittering with gold and silver, near the river Uaupe, his only +companion a dog, his only occupation dreaming of the gods. When, +however, an eclipse was near, his dog would bark; and then, taking the +form of a bird, he would fly over the villages, and learn the changes +that had taken place.[274-1] + +But man cannot trample with impunity on the laws of his physical life, +and the consequences of these deprivations and morbid excitements of the +brain show themselves in terrible pictures. Not unfrequently they were +carried to the pitch of raving mania, reminding one of the worst forms +of the Berserker fury of the Scandinavians, or the Bacchic rage of +Greece. The enthusiast, maddened with the fancies of a disordered +intellect, would start forth from his seclusion in an access of demoniac +frenzy. Then woe to the dog, the child, the slave, or the woman who +crossed his path; for nothing but blood could satisfy his inappeasable +craving, and they fell instant victims to his madness. But were it a +strong man, he bared his arm, and let the frenzied hermit bury his teeth +in the quivering flesh. Such is a scene at this day not uncommon on the +northwest coast, and few of the natives around Milbank Sound are without +the scars the result of this horrid custom.[275-1] + +This frenzy, terrible enough in individuals, had its most disastrous +effects when with that peculiar facility of contagion which marks +hysterical maladies, it swept through whole villages, transforming them +into bedlams filled with unrestrained madmen. Those who have studied the +strange and terrible mental epidemics that visited Europe in the middle +ages, such as the tarantula dance of Apulia, the chorea Germanorum, and +the great St. Vitus' dance, will be prepared to appreciate the nature of +a scene at a Huron village, described by Father le Jeune in 1639. A +festival of three days and three nights had been in progress to relieve +a woman who, from the description, seems to have been suffering from +some obscure nervous complaint. Toward the close of this vigil, which +throughout was marked by all sorts of debaucheries and excesses, all the +participants seemed suddenly seized by ten thousand devils. They ran +howling and shrieking through the town, breaking everything destructible +in the cabins, killing dogs, beating the women and children, tearing +their garments, and scattering the fires in every direction with bare +hands and feet. Some of them dropped senseless, to remain long or +permanently insane, but the others continued until worn out with +exhaustion. The Father learned that during these orgies not unfrequently +whole villages were consumed, and the total extirpation of some families +had resulted. No wonder that he saw in them the diabolical workings of +the prince of evil, but the physician is rather inclined to class them +with those cases of epidemic hysteria, the common products of violent +and ill-directed mental stimuli.[276-1] + +These various considerations prove beyond a doubt that the power of the +priesthood did by no means rest exclusively on deception. They indorse +and explain the assertions of converted natives, that their power as +prophets was something real, and entirely inexplicable to themselves. +And they make it easily understood how those missionaries failed who +attempted to persuade them that all this boasted power was false. More +correct views than these ought to have been suggested by the facts +themselves, for it is indisputable that these magicians did not +hesitate at times to test their strength on each other. In these strange +duels _a l'outrance_, one would be seated opposite his antagonist, +surrounded with the mysterious emblems of his craft, and call upon his +gods one after another to strike his enemy dead. Sometimes one, +"gathering his medicine," as it was termed, feeling within himself that +hidden force of will which makes itself acknowledged even without words, +would rise in his might, and in a loud and severe voice command his +opponent to die! Straightway the latter would drop dead, or yielding in +craven fear to a superior volition, forsake the implements of his art, +and with an awful terror at his heart, creep to his lodge, refuse all +nourishment, and presently perish. Still more terrible was the tyranny +they exerted on the superstitious minds of the masses. Let an Indian +once be possessed of the idea that he is bewitched, and he will probably +reject all food, and sink under the phantoms of his own fancy. + +How deep the superstitious veneration of these men has struck its roots +in the soul of the Indian, it is difficult for civilized minds to +conceive. Their power is currently supposed to be without any bounds, +"extending to the raising of the dead and the control of all laws of +nature."[277-1] The grave offers no escape from their omnipotent arms. +The Sacs and Foxes, Algonkin tribes, think that the soul cannot leave +the corpse until set free by the medicine men at their great annual +feast;[277-2] and the Puelches of Buenos Ayres guard a profound silence +as they pass by the tomb of some redoubted necromancer, lest they should +disturb his repose, and suffer from his malignant skill.[278-1] + +While thus investigating their real and supposed power over the physical +and mental world, their strictly priestly functions, as performers of +the rites of religion, have not been touched upon. Among the ruder +tribes these, indeed, were of the most rudimentary character. +Sacrifices, chiefly in the form of feasts, where every one crammed to +his utmost, dances, often winding up with the wildest scenes of +licentiousness, the repetition of long and monotonous chants, the making +of the new fire, these are the ceremonies that satisfy the religious +wants of savages. The priest finds a further sphere for his activity in +manufacturing and consecrating amulets to keep off ill luck, in +interpreting dreams, and especially in lifting the veil of the future. +In Peru, for example, they were divided into classes, who made the +various means of divination specialties. Some caused the idols to speak, +others derived their foreknowledge from words spoken by the dead, others +predicted by leaves of tobacco or the grains and juice of cocoa, while +to still other classes, the shapes of grains of maize taken at random, +the appearance of animal excrement, the forms assumed by the smoke +rising from burning victims, the entrails and viscera of animals, the +course taken by a certain species of spider, the visions seen in +drunkeness,[TN-16] the flights of birds, and the directions in which +fruits would fall, all offered so many separate fields of +prognostication, the professors of which were distinguished by different +ranks and titles.[279-1] + +As the intellectual force of the nation was chiefly centred in this +class, they became the acknowledged depositaries of its sacred legends, +the instructors in the art of preserving thought; and from their duty to +regulate festivals, sprang the observation of the motions of the +heavenly bodies, the adjustment of the calendars, and the pseudo-science +of judicial astrology. The latter was carried to as subtle a pitch of +refinement in Mexico as in the old world; and large portions of the +ancient writers are taken up with explaining the method adopted by the +native astrologers to cast the horoscope, and reckon the nativity of the +newly-born infant. + +How was this superior power obtained? What were the terms of admission +to this privileged class? In the ruder communities the power was +strictly personal. It was revealed to its possessor by the character of +the visions he perceived at the ordeal he passed through on arriving at +puberty; and by the northern nations was said to be the manifestation of +a more potent personal spirit than ordinary. It was not a faculty, but +an inspiration; not an inborn strength, but a spiritual gift. The +curious theory of the Dakotas, as recorded by the Rev. Mr. Pond, was +that the necromant first wakes to consciousness as a winged seed, wafted +hither and thither by the intelligent action of the Four Winds. In this +form he visits the homes of the different classes of divinities, and +learns the chants, feasts, and dances, which it is proper for the human +race to observe, the art of omnipresence or clairvoyance, the means of +inflicting and healing diseases, and the occult secrets of nature, man, +and divinity. This is called "dreaming of the gods." When this +instruction is completed, the seed enters one about to become a mother, +assumes human form, and in due time manifests his powers. _Four_ such +incarnations await it, each of increasing might, and then the spirit +returns to its original nothingness. The same necessity of death and +resurrection was entertained by the Eskimos. To become of the highest +order of priests, it was supposed requisite, says Bishop Egede, that one +of the lower order should be drowned and eaten by sea monsters. Then, +when his bones, one after another, were all washed ashore, his spirit, +which meanwhile had been learning the secrets of the invisible world, +would return to them, and, clothed in flesh, he would go back to his +tribe. At other times a vague and indescribable longing seizes a young +person, a morbid appetite possesses them, or they fall a prey to an +inappeasable and aimless restlessness, or a causeless melancholy. These +signs the old priests recognize as the expression of a personal spirit +of the higher order. They take charge of the youth, and educate him to +the mysteries of their craft. For months or years he is condemned to +entire seclusion, receiving no visits but from the brethren of his +order. At length he is initiated with ceremonies of more or less pomp +into the brotherhood, and from that time assumes that gravity of +demeanor, sententious style of expression, and general air of mystery +and importance, everywhere deemed so eminently becoming in a doctor and +a priest. A peculiarity of the Moxos was, that they thought none +designated for the office but such as had escaped from the claws of the +South American tiger, which, indeed, it is said they worshipped as a +god.[281-1] + +Occasionally, in very uncultivated tribes, some family or totem claimed +a monopoly of the priesthood. Thus, among the Nez Perces of Oregon, it +was transmitted in one family from father to son and daughter, but +always with the proviso that the children at the proper age reported +dreams of a satisfactory character.[281-2] Perhaps alone of the Algonkin +tribes the Shawnees confined it to one totem, but it is remarkable that +the greatest of their prophets, Elskataway, brother of Tecumseh, was not +a member of this clan. From the most remote times, the Cherokees have +had one family set apart for the priestly office. This was when first +known to the whites that of the Nicotani, but its members, puffed up +with pride and insolence, abused their birthright so shamefully, and +prostituted it so flagrantly to their own advantage, that with savage +justice they were massacred to the last man. Another was appointed in +their place who to this day officiates in all religious rites. They +have, however, the superstition, possibly borrowed from Europeans, that +the _seventh_ son is a natural born prophet, with the gift of healing by +touch.[281-3] Adair states that their former neighbors, the Choctaws, +permitted the office of high priest, or Great Beloved Man, to remain in +one family, passing from father to eldest son, and the very influential +_piaches_ of the Carib tribes very generally transmitted their rank and +position to their children. + +In ancient Anahuac the prelacy was as systematic and its rules as well +defined, as in the Church of Rome. Except those in the service of +Huitzilopochtli, and perhaps a few other gods, none obtained the +priestly office by right of descent, but were dedicated to it from early +childhood. Their education was completed at the _Calmecac_, a sort of +ecclesiastical college, where instruction was given in all the wisdom of +the ancients, and the esoteric lore of their craft. The art of mixing +colors and tracing designs, the ideographic writing and phonetic +hieroglyphs, the songs and prayers used in public worship, the national +traditions and the principles of astrology, the hidden meaning of +symbols and the use of musical instruments, all formed parts of the +really extensive course of instruction they there received. When they +manifested a satisfactory acquaintance with this curriculum, they were +appointed by their superiors to such positions as their natural talents +and the use they had made of them qualified them for, some to instruct +children, others to the service of the temples, and others again to take +charge of what we may call country parishes. Implicit subordination of +all to the high priest of Huitzilopochtli, hereditary _pontifex +maximus_, chastity, or at least temperate indulgence in pleasure, +gravity of carriage, and strict attention to duty, were laws laid upon +all. + +The state religion of Peru was conducted under the supervision of a +high priest of the Inca family, and its ministers, as in Mexico, could +be of either sex, and hold office either by inheritance, education, or +election. For political reasons, the most important posts were usually +enjoyed by relatives of the ruler, but this was usage, not law. It is +stated by Garcilasso de la Vega[283-1] that they served in the temples +by turns, each being on duty the fourth of a lunar month at a time. Were +this substantiated it would offer the only example of the regulation of +public life by a week of seven days to be found in the New World. + +In every country there is perceptible a desire in this class of men to +surround themselves with mystery, and to concentrate and increase their +power by forming an intimate alliance among themselves. They affected +singularity in dress and a professional costume. Bartram describes the +junior priests of the Creeks as dressed in white robes and carrying on +their head or arm "a great owlskin, stuffed very ingeniously, as an +insignia of wisdom and divination. These bachelors are also +distinguishable from the other people by their taciturnity, grave and +solemn countenance, dignified step, and singing to themselves songs or +hymns, in a low sweet voice, as they stroll about the towns."[283-2] The +priests of the civilized nations adopted various modes of dress to +typify the divinity which they served, and their appearance was often in +the highest degree unprepossessing. + +To add to their self-importance they pretended to converse in a tongue +different from that used in ordinary life, and the chants containing +the prayers and legends were often in this esoteric dialect. Fragments +of one or two of these have floated down to us from the Aztec +priesthood. The travellers Balboa and Coreal, mention that the temple +services of Peru were conducted in a language not understood by the +masses,[284-1] and the incantations of the priests of Powhatan were not +in ordinary Algonkin, but some obscure jargon.[284-2] The same +peculiarity has been observed among the Dakotas and Eskimos, and in +these nations, fortunately, it fell under the notice of competent +linguistic scholars, who have submitted it to a searching examination. +The results of their labors prove that certainly in these two instances +the supposed foreign tongues were nothing more than the ordinary +dialects of the country modified by an affected accentuation, by the +introduction of a few cabalistic terms, and by the use of descriptive +circumlocutions and figurative words in place of ordinary expressions, a +slang, in short, such as rascals and pedants invariably coin whenever +they associate.[285-1] + +All these stratagems were intended to shroud with impenetrable secrecy +the mysteries of the brotherhood. With the same motive, the priests +formed societies of different grades of illumination, only to be entered +by those willing to undergo trying ordeals, whose secrets were not to be +revealed under the severest penalties. The Algonkins had three such +grades, the _waubeno_, the _meda_, and the _jossakeed_, the last being +the highest. To this no white man was ever admitted. All tribes appear +to have been controlled by these secret societies. Alexander von +Humboldt mentions one, called that of the Botuto or Holy Trumpet, among +the Indians of the Orinoko, whose members must vow celibacy and submit +to severe scourgings and fasts. The Collahuayas of Peru were a guild of +itinerant quacks and magicians, who never remained permanently in one +spot. + +Withal, there was no class of persons who so widely and deeply +influenced the culture and shaped the destiny of the Indian tribes, as +their priests. In attempting to gain a true conception of the race's +capacities and history, there is no one element of their social life +which demands closer attention than the power of these teachers. +Hitherto, they have been spoken of with a contempt which I hope this +chapter shows is unjustifiable. However much we may deplore the use they +made of their skill, we must estimate it fairly, and grant it its due +weight in measuring the influence of the religious sentiment on the +history of man. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[265-1] Haeser, _Geschichte der Medicin_, pp. 4, 7: Jena, 1845. + +[265-2] Schoolcraft, _Ind. Tribes_, v. p. 440. + +[267-1] Carver, _Travels in North America_, p. 73: Boston, 1802; +_Narrative of John Tanner_, p. 135. + +[267-2] Sahagun, _Hist. de la Nueva Espana_, lib. x. cap. 20; _Le Livre +Sacre des Quiches_, p. 177; _Lett. sur les Superstit. du Perou_, pp. 89, +91. + +[269-1] _Life of Black Hawk_, p. 13. + +[270-1] _Travs. in North America_, p. 74. + +[270-2] _Journal Historique_, p. 362. + +[271-1] Sometimes facts like this can be explained by the quickness of +perception acquired by constant exposure to danger. The mind takes +cognizance unconsciously of trifling incidents, the sum of which leads it +to a conviction which the individual regards almost as an inspiration. +This is the explanation of _presentiments_. But this does not apply to +cases like that of Swedenborg, who described a conflagration going on at +Stockholm, when he was at Gottenberg, three hundred miles away. +Psychologists who scorn any method of studying the mind but through +physiology, are at a loss in such cases, and take refuge in refusing them +credence. Theologians call them inspirations either of devils or angels, +as they happen to agree or disagree in religious views with the person +experiencing them. True science reserves its opinion until further +observation enlightens it. + +[272-1] Schoolcraft, _Indian Tribes_, iii. p. 287; v. p. 652. + +[273-1] "The progress from deepest ignorance to highest enlightenment," +remarks Herbert Spencer in his _Social Statics_, "is a progress from +entire unconsciousness of law, to the conviction that law is universal +and inevitable." + +[273-2] The Creeks had, according to Hawkins, not less than seven sacred +plants; chief of them were the cassine yupon, called by botanists _Ilex +vomitoria_, or _Ilex cassina_, of the natural order Aquifoliaceae; and the +blue flag, _Iris versicolor_, natural order Iridaceae. The former is a +powerful diuretic and mild emetic, and grows only near the sea. The +latter is an active emeto-cathartic, and is abundant on swampy grounds +throughout the Southern States. From it was formed the celebrated "black +drink," with which they opened their councils, and which served them in +place of spirits. + +[274-1] Martius, _Von dem Rechtzustande unter den Ureinwohnern +Brasiliens_, p. 32. + +[275-1] Mr. Anderson, in the _Am. Hist. Mag._, vii. p. 79. + +[276-1] Such spectacles were nothing uncommon. They are frequently +mentioned in the Jesuit Relations, and they were the chief obstacles to +missionary labor. In the debauches and excesses that excited these +temporary manias, in the recklessness of life and property they fostered, +and in their disastrous effects on mind and body, are depicted more than +in any other one trait the thorough depravity of the race and its +tendency to ruin. In the quaint words of one of the Catholic fathers, "If +the old proverb is true that every man has a grain of madness in his +composition, it must be confessed that this is a people where each has at +least half an ounce" (De Quen, _Rel. de la Nouv. France_, 1656, p. 27). +For the instance in the text see _Rel. de la Nouv. France_, An 1639, pp. +88-94. + +[277-1] Schoolcraft, _Indian Tribes_, v. p. 423. + +[277-2] J. M. Stanley, in the _Smithsonian Miscellaneous Contributions_, +ii. p. 38. + +[278-1] D'Orbigny, _L'Homme Americain_, ii. p. 81. + +[279-1] See Balboa, _Hist. du Perou_, pp. 28-30. + +[281-1] D'Orbigny, _L'Homme Americain_, ii. p. 235. + +[281-2] Schoolcraft, _Ind. Tribes_, v. p. 652. + +[281-3] Dr. Mac Gowan, in the _Amer. Hist. Mag._, x. p. 139; Whipple, +_Rep. on the Ind. Tribes_, p. 35. + +[283-1] _Hist. des Incas_, lib. iii. ch. 22. + +[283-2] _Travels in the Carolinas_, p. 504. + +[284-1] _Hist. du Perou_, p. 128; _Voiages aux Indes Occidentales_, ii. +p. 97. + +[284-2] Beverly, _Hist. de la Virginie_, p. 266. The dialect he specifies +is "celle d'Occaniches," and on page 252 he says, "On dit que la langue +universelle des Indiens de ces Quartiers est celle des _Occaniches_, +quoiqu'ils ne soient qu'une petite Nation, depuis que les Anglois +connoissent ce Pais; mais je ne sais pas la difference qui'l y a entre +cette langue et celle des Algonkins." (French trans., Orleans, 1707.) +This is undoubtedly the same people that Johannes Lederer, a German +traveller, visited in 1670, and calls _Akenatzi_. They dwelt on an +island, in a branch of the Chowan River, the Sapona, or Deep River +(Lederer's _Discovery of North America_, in Harris, Voyages, p. 20). +Thirty years later the English surveyor, Lawson, found them in the same +spot, and speaks of them as the _Acanechos_ (see _Am. Hist. Mag._, i. p. +163). Their totem was that of the serpent, and their name is not +altogether unlike the Tuscarora name of this animal _usquauhne_. As the +serpent was so widely a sacred animal, this gives Beverly's remarks an +unusual significance. It by no means follows from this name that they +were of Iroquois descent. Lederer travelled with a Tuscarora (Iroquois) +interpreter, who gave them their name in his own tongue. On the contrary, +it is extremely probable that they were an Algonkin totem, which had the +exclusive right to the priesthood. + +[285-1] Riggs, _Gram. and Dict. of the Dakota_, p. ix; Kane, _Second +Grinnell Expedition_, ii. p. 127. Paul Egede gives a number of words and +expressions in the dialect of the sorcerers, _Nachrichten von Groenland_, +p. 122. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +THE INFLUENCE OF THE NATIVE RELIGIONS ON THE MORAL AND SOCIAL LIFE OF +THE RACE. + + Natural religions hitherto considered of Evil rather than of + Good.--Distinctions to be drawn.--Morality not derived from + religion.--The positive side of natural religions in incarnations + of divinity.--Examples.--Prayers as indices of religious + progress.--Religion and social advancement.--Conclusion. + + +Drawing toward the conclusion of my essay, I I am sensible that the vast +field of American mythology remains for most part untouched--that I have +but proved that it is not an absolute wilderness, pathless as the +tropical jungles which now conceal the temples of the race; but that, go +where we will, certain landmarks and guide-posts are visible, revealing +uniformity of design and purpose, and refuting, by their presence, the +oft-repeated charge of entire incoherence and aimlessness. It remains to +examine the subjective power of the native religions, their influence on +those who held them, and the place they deserve in the history of the +race. What are their merits, if merits they have? what their demerits? +Did they purify the life and enlighten the mind, or the contrary? Are +they in short of evil or of good? The problem is complex--its solution +most difficult. The author who of late years has studied most profoundly +the savage races of the globe, expresses the discouraging conviction: +"Their religions have not acted as levers to raise them to +civilization; they have rather worked, and that powerfully, to impede +every step in advance, in the first place by ascribing everything +unintelligible in nature to spiritual agency, and then by making the +fate of man dependent on mysterious and capricious forces, not on his +own skill and foresight."[288-1] + +It would ill accord with the theory of mythology which I have all along +maintained if this verdict were final. But in fact these false doctrines +brought with them their own antidotes, at least to some extent, and +while we give full weight to their evil, let us also acknowledge their +good. By substituting direct divine interference for law, belief for +knowledge, a dogma for a fact, the highest stimulus to mental endeavor +was taken away. Nature, to the heathen, is no harmonious whole swayed by +eternal principles, but a chaos of causeless effects, the meaningless +play of capricious ghosts. He investigates not, because he doubts not. +All events are to him miracles. Therefore his faith knows no bounds, and +those who teach that doubt is sinful must contemplate him with +admiration. The damsels of Nicaragua destined to be thrown into the +seething craters of volcanoes, went to their fate, says Pascual de +Andagoya, "happy as if they were going to be saved,"[288-2] and +doubtless believing so. The subjects of a Central American chieftain, +remarks Oviedo, "look upon it as the crown of favors to be permitted to +die with their cacique, and thus to acquire immortality."[288-3] The +terrible power exerted by the priests rested, as they themselves often +saw, largely on the implicit and literal acceptance of their dicta. + +In some respects the contrast here offered to enlightened nations is not +always in favor of the latter. Borrowing the pointed antithesis of the +poet, the mind is often tempted to exclaim-- + + "This is all + The gain we reap from all the wisdom sown + Through ages: Nothing doubted those first sons + Of Time, while we, the schooled of centuries, + Nothing believe." + +But the complaint is unfounded. Faith is dearly bought at the cost of +knowledge; nor in a better sense has it yet gone from among us. Far more +sublime than any known to the barbarian is the faith of the astronomer, +who spends the nights in marking the seemingly wayward motions of the +stars, or of the anatomist, who studies with unwearied zeal the minute +fibres of the organism, each upheld by the unshaken conviction that from +least to greatest throughout this universe, purpose and order everywhere +prevail. + +Natural religions rarely offer more than this negative opposition to +reason. They are tolerant to a degree. The savage, void of any clear +conception of a supreme deity, sets up no claim that his is the only +true church. If he is conquered in battle, he imagines that it is owing +to the inferiority of his own gods to those of his victor, and he rarely +therefore requires any other reasons to make him a convert. Acting on +this principle, the Incas, when they overcame a strange province, sent +its most venerated idol for a time to the temple of the Sun at Cuzco, +thus proving its inferiority to their own divinity, but took no more +violent steps to propagate their creeds.[290-1] So in the city of Mexico +there was a temple appropriated to the idols of conquered nations in +which they were shut up, both to prove their weakness and prevent them +from doing mischief. A nation, like an individual, was not inclined to +patronize a deity who had manifested his incompetence by allowing his +charge to be gradually worn away by constant disaster. As far as can now +be seen, in matters intellectual, the religions of ancient Mexico and +Peru were far more liberal than that introduced by the Spanish +conquerors, which, claiming the monopoly of truth, sought to enforce its +claim by inquisitions and censorships. + +In this view of the relative powers of deities lay a potent corrective +to the doctrine that the fate of man was dependent on the caprices of +the gods. For no belief was more universal than that which assigned to +each individual a guardian spirit. This invisible monitor was an ever +present help in trouble. He suggested expedients, gave advice and +warning in dreams, protected in danger, and stood ready to foil the +machinations of enemies, divine or human. With unlimited faith in this +protector, attributing to him the devices suggested by his own quick +wits and the fortunate chances of life, the savage escaped the +oppressive thought that he was the slave of demoniac forces, and dared +the dangers of the forest and the war path without anxiety. + +By far the darkest side of such a religion is that which it presents to +morality. The religious sense is by no means the voice of conscience. +The Takahli Indian when sick makes a full and free confession of sins, +but a murder, however unnatural and unprovoked, he does not mention, not +counting it crime.[291-1] Scenes of brutal licentiousness were approved +and sustained throughout the continent as acts of worship; maidenhood +was in many parts freely offered up or claimed by the priests as a +right; in Central America twins were slain for religious motives; human +sacrifice was common throughout the tropics, and was not unusual in +higher latitudes; cannibalism was often enjoined; and in Peru, Florida, +and Central America it was not uncommon for parents to slay their own +children at the behest of a priest.[291-2] The philosophical moralist, +contemplating such spectacles, has thought to recognize in them one +consoling trait. All history, it has been said, shows man living under +an irritated God, and seeking to appease him by sacrifice of blood; the +essence of all religion, it has been added, lies in that of which +sacrifice is the symbol, namely, in the offering up of self, in the +rendering up of our will to the will of God.[291-3] But sacrifice, when +not a token of gratitude, cannot be thus explained. It is not a +rendering up, but a _substitution_ of our will for God's will. A deity +is angered by neglect of his dues; he will revenge, certainly, terribly, +we know not how or when. But as punishment is all he desires, if we +punish ourselves he will be satisfied; and far better is such +self-inflicted torture than a fearful looking for of judgment to come. +Craven fear, not without some dim sense of the implacability of nature's +laws, is at its root. Looking only at this side of religion, the ancient +philosopher averred that the gods existed solely in the apprehensions of +their votaries, and the moderns have asserted that "fear is the father +of religion, love her late-born daughter;"[292-1] that "the first form +of religious belief is nothing else but a horror of the unknown," and +that "no natural religion appears to have been able to develop from a +germ within itself anything whatever of real advantage to +civilization."[292-2] + +Far be it from me to excuse the enormities thus committed under the garb +of religion, or to ignore their disastrous consequences on human +progress. Yet this question is a fair one--If the natural religious +belief has in it no germ of anything better, whence comes the manifest +and undeniable improvement occasionally witnessed--as, for example, +among the Toltecs, the Peruvians, and the Mayas? The reply is, by the +influence of great men, who cultivated within themselves a purer faith, +lived it in their lives, preached it successfully to their fellows, and, +at their death, still survived in the memory of their nation, +unforgotten models of noble qualities.[293-1] Where, in America, is any +record of such men? We are pointed, in answer, to Quetzalcoatl, +Viracocha, Zamna, and their congeners. But these august figures I have +shown to be wholly mythical, creations of the religious fancy, parts and +parcels of the earliest religion itself. The entire theory falls to +nothing, therefore, and we discover a positive side to natural +religions--one that conceals a germ of endless progress, which +vindicates their lofty origin, and proves that He "is not far from every +one of us." + +I have already analyzed these figures under their physical aspect. Let +it be observed in what antithesis they stand to most other mythological +creations. Let it be remembered that they primarily correspond to the +stable, the regular, the cosmical phenomena, that they are always +conceived under human form, not as giants, fairies, or strange beasts; +that they were said at one time to have been visible leaders of their +nations, that they did not suffer death, and that, though absent, they +are ever present, favoring those who remain mindful of their precepts. I +touched but incidentally on their moral aspects. This was likewise in +contrast to the majority of inferior deities. The worship of the latter +was a tribute extorted by fear. The Indian deposits tobacco on the rocks +of a rapid, that the spirit of the swift waters may not swallow his +canoe; in a storm he throws overboard a dog to appease the siren of the +angry waves. He used to tear the hearts from his captives to gain the +favor of the god of war. He provides himself with talismans to bind +hostile deities. He fees[TN-17] the conjurer to exorcise the demon of +disease. He loves none of them, he respects none of them; he only fears +their wayward tempers. They are to him mysterious, invisible, capricious +goblins. But, in his highest divinity, he recognized a Father and a +Preserver, a benign Intelligence, who provided for him the comforts of +life--man, like himself, yet a god--God of All. "Go and do good," was +the parting injunction of his father to Michabo in Algonkin +legend;[294-1] and in their ancient and uncorrupted stories such is ever +his object. "The worship of Tamu," the culture hero of the Guaranis, +says the traveller D'Orbigny, "is one of reverence, not of fear."[294-2] +They were ideals, summing up in themselves the best traits, the most +approved virtues of whole nations, and were adored in a very different +spirit from other divinities. + +None of them has more humane and elevated traits than Quetzalcoatl. He +was represented of majestic stature and dignified demeanor. In his train +came skilled artificers and men of learning. He was chaste and temperate +in life, wise in council, generous of gifts, conquering rather by arts +of peace than of war; delighting in music, flowers, and brilliant +colors, and so averse to human sacrifices that he shut his ears with +both hands when they were even mentioned.[295-1] Such was the ideal man +and supreme god of a people who even a Spanish monk of the sixteenth +century felt constrained to confess were "a good people, attached to +virtue, urbane and simple in social intercourse, shunning lies, skilful +in arts, pious toward their gods."[295-2] Is it likely, is it possible, +that with such a model as this before their minds, they received no +benefit from it? Was not this a lever, and a mighty one, lifting the +race toward civilization and a purer faith? + +Transfer the field of observation to Yucatan, and we find in Zamna, to +New Granada and in Nemqueteba, to Peru and in Viracocha, or his reflex +Manco Capac, the lineaments of Quetzalcoatl--modified, indeed, by +difference of blood and temperament, but each combining in himself all +the qualities most esteemed by their several nations. Were one or all of +these proved to be historical personages, still the fact remains that +the primitive religious sentiment, investing them with the best +attributes of humanity, dwelling on them as its models, worshipping them +as gods, contained a kernel of truth potent to encourage moral +excellence. But if they were mythical, then this truth was of +spontaneous growth, self-developed by the growing distinctness of the +idea of God, a living witness that the religious sense, like every +other faculty, has within itself a power of endless evolution. + +If we inquire the secret of the happier influence of this element in +natural worship, it is all contained in one word--its _humanity_. "The +Ideal of Morality," says the contemplative Novalis, "has no more +dangerous rival than the Ideal of the Greatest Strength, of the most +vigorous life, the Brute Ideal" (_das Thier-Ideal_).[296-1] Culture +advances in proportion as man recognizes what faculties are peculiar to +him _as man_, and devotes himself to their education. The moral value of +religions can be very precisely estimated by the human or the brutal +character of their gods. The worship of Quetzalcoatl in the city of +Mexico was subordinate to that of lower conceptions, and consequently +the more sanguinary and immoral were the rites there practised. The +Algonkins, who knew no other meaning for Michabo than the Great Hare, +had lost, by a false etymology, the best part of their religion. + +Looking around for other standards wherewith to measure the progress of +the knowledge of divinity in the New World, _prayer_ suggests itself as +one of the least deceptive. "Prayer," to quote again the words of +Novalis,[296-2] "is in religion what thought is in philosophy. The +religious sense prays, as the reason thinks." Guizot, carrying the +analysis farther, thinks that it is prompted by a painful conviction of +the inability of our will to conform to the dictates of reason.[296-3] +Originally it was connected with the belief that divine caprice, not +divine law, governs the universe, and that material benefits rather than +spiritual gifts are to be desired. The gradual recognition of its +limitations and proper objects marks religious advancement. The Lord's +Prayer contains seven petitions, only one of which is for a temporal +advantage, and it the least that can be asked for. What immeasurable +interval between it and the prayer of the Nootka Indian on preparing for +war!-- + +"Great Quahootze, let me live, not be sick, find the enemy, not fear +him, find him asleep, and kill a great many of him."[297-1] + +Or again, between it and the petition of a Huron to a local god, heard +by Father Brebeuf:-- + +"Oki, thou who livest in this spot, I offer thee tobacco. Help us, save +us from shipwreck, defend us from our enemies, give us a good trade, and +bring us back safe and sound to our villages."[297-2] + +This is a fair specimen of the supplications of the lowest religion. +Another equally authentic is given by Father Allouez.[297-3] In 1670 he +penetrated to an outlying Algonkin village, never before visited by a +white man. The inhabitants, startled by his pale face and long black +gown, took him for a divinity. They invited him to the council lodge, a +circle of old men gathered around him, and one of them, approaching him +with a double handful of tobacco, thus addressed him, the others +grunting approval:-- + +"This, indeed, is well, Blackrobe, that thou dost visit us. Have mercy +upon us. Thou art a Manito. We give thee to smoke. + +"The Naudowessies and Iroquois are devouring us. Have mercy upon us. + +"We are often sick; our children die; we are hungry. Have mercy upon us. +Hear me, O Manito, I give thee to smoke. + +"Let the earth yield us corn; the rivers give us fish; sickness not slay +us; nor hunger so torment us. Hear us, O Manito, we give thee to smoke." + +In this rude but touching petition, wrung from the heart of a miserable +people, nothing but their wretchedness is visible. Not the faintest +trace of an aspiration for spiritual enlightenment cheers the eye of the +philanthropist, not the remotest conception that through suffering we +are purified can be detected. + +By the side of these examples we may place the prayers of Peru and +Mexico, forms composed by the priests, written out, committed to memory, +and repeated at certain seasons. They are not less authentic, having +been collected and translated in the first generation after the +conquest. One to Viracocha Pachacamac, was as follows:-- + +"O Pachacamac, thou who hast existed from the beginning and shalt exist +unto the end, powerful and pitiful; who createdst man by saying, let man +be; who defendest us from evil and preservest our life and health; art +thou in the sky or in the earth, in the clouds or in the depths? Hear +the voice of him who implores thee, and grant him his petitions. Give +us life everlasting, preserve us, and accept this our sacrifice."[299-1] + +In the voluminous specimens of Aztec prayers preserved by Sahagun, moral +improvement, the "spiritual gift," is very rarely if at all the object +desired. Health, harvests, propitious rains, release from pain, +preservation from dangers, illness, and defeat, these are the almost +unvarying themes. But here and there we catch a glimpse of something +better, some dim sense of the divine beauty of suffering, some feeble +glimmering of the grand truth so nobly expressed by the poet:-- + + aus des Busens Tiefe stroemt Gedeihn + Der festen Duldung und entschlossner That. + Nicht Schmerz ist Unglueck, Glueck nicht immer Freude; + Wer sein Geschick erfuellt, dem laecheln beide. + +"Is it possible," says one of them, "that this scourge, this affliction, +is sent to us not for our correction and improvement, but for our +destruction and annihilation? O Merciful Lord, let this chastisement +with which thou hast visited us, thy people, be as those which a father +or mother inflicts on their children, not out of anger, but to the end +that they may be free from follies and vices." Another formula, used +when a chief was elected to some important position, reads: "O Lord, +open his eyes and give him light, sharpen his ears and give him +understanding, not that he may use them to his own advantage, but for +the good of the people he rules. Lead him to know and to do thy will, +let him be as a trumpet which sounds thy words. Keep him from the +commission of injustice and oppression."[300-1] + +At first, good and evil are identical with pleasure and pain, luck and +ill-luck. "The good are good warriors and hunters," said a Pawnee +chief,[300-2] which would also be the opinion of a wolf, if he could +express it. Gradually the eyes of the mind are opened, and it is +perceived that "whom He loveth, He chastiseth," and physical give[TN-18] +place to moral ideas of good and evil. Finally, as the idea of God rises +more distinctly before the soul, as "the One by whom, in whom, and +through whom all things are," evil is seen to be the negation, not the +opposite of good, and itself "a porch oft opening on the sun." + +The influence of these religions on art, science, and social life, must +also be weighed in estimating their value. + +Nearly all the remains of American plastic art, sculpture, and painting, +were obviously designed for religious purposes. Idols of stone, wood, or +baked clay, were found in every Indian tribe, without exception, so far +as I can judge; and in only a few directions do these arts seem to have +been applied to secular purposes. The most ambitious attempts of +architecture, it is plain, were inspired by religious fervor. The great +pyramid of Cholula, the enormous mounds of the Mississippi valley, the +elaborate edifices on artificial hills in Yucatan, were miniature +representations of the mountains hallowed by tradition, the "Hill of +Heaven," the peak on which their ancestors escaped in the flood, or that +in the terrestrial paradise from which flow the rains. Their +construction took men away from war and the chase, encouraged +agriculture, peace, and a settled disposition, and fostered the love of +property, of country, and of the gods. The priests were also close +observers of nature, and were the first to discover its simpler laws. +The Aztec sages were as devoted star-gazers as the Chaldeans, and their +calendar bears unmistakable marks of native growth, and of its original +purpose to fix the annual festivals. Writing by means of pictures and +symbols was cultivated chiefly for religious ends, and the word +_hieroglyph_ is a witness that the phonetic alphabet was discovered +under the stimulus of the religious sentiment. Most of the aboriginal +literature was composed and taught by the priests, and most of it refers +to matters connected with their superstitions. As the gifts of votaries +and the erection of temples enriched the sacerdotal order individually +and collectively, the terrors of religion were lent to the secular arm +to enforce the rights of property. Music, poetic, scenic, and historical +recitations, formed parts of the ceremonies of the more civilized +nations, and national unity was strengthened by a common shrine. An +active barter in amulets, lucky stones, and charms, existed all over the +continent, to a much greater extent than we might think. As experience +demonstrates that nothing so efficiently promotes civilization as the +free and peaceful intercourse of man with man, I lay particular stress +on the common custom of making pilgrimages. + +The temple on the island of Cozumel in Yucatan was visited every year by +such multitudes from all parts of the peninsula, that roads, paved with +cut stones, had been constructed from the neighboring shore to the +principal cities of the interior.[302-1] Each village of the Muyscas is +said to have had a beaten path to Lake Guatavita, so numerous were the +devotees who journeyed to the shrine there located.[302-2] In Peru the +temples of Pachacama, Rimac, and other famous gods, were repaired to by +countless numbers from all parts of the realm, and from other provinces +within a radius of three hundred leagues around. Houses of entertainment +were established on all the principal roads, and near the temples, for +their accommodation; and when they made known the object of their +journey, they were allowed a safe passage even through an enemy's +territory.[302-3] + + * * * * * + +The more carefully we study history, the more important in our eyes will +become the religious sense. It is almost the only faculty peculiar to +man. It concerns him nearer than aught else. It is the key to his origin +and destiny. As such it merits in all its developments the most earnest +attention, an attention we shall find well repaid in the clearer +conceptions we thus obtain of the forces which control the actions and +fates of individuals and nations. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[288-1] Waitz, _Anthropologie der Naturvoelker_, i. p. 459. + +[288-2] Navarrete, _Viages_, iii. p. 415. + +[288-3] _Relation de Cueba_, p. 140. Ed. Ternaux-Compans. + +[290-1] La Vega, _Hist. des Incas_, liv. v. cap. 12. + +[291-1] Morse, _Rep. on the Ind. Tribes_, App. p. 345. + +[291-2] Ximenes, _Origen de los Indios de Guatemala_, p. 192; Acosta, +_Hist. of the New World_, lib. v. chap. 18. + +[291-3] Joseph de Maistre, _Eclaircissement sur les Sacrifices_; Trench, +_Hulsean Lectures_, p. 180. The famed Abbe Lammenaais and Professor Sepp, +of Munich, with these two writers, may be taken as the chief exponents of +a school of mythologists, all of whom start from the theories first laid +down by Count de Maistre in his _Soirees de St. Petersbourg_. To them the +strongest proof of Christianity lies in the traditions and observances of +heathendom. For these show the wants of the religious sense, and +Christianity, they maintain, purifies and satisfies them all. The rites, +symbols, and legends of every natural religion, they say, are true and +not false; all that is required is to assign them their proper places and +their real meaning. Therefore the strange resemblances in heathen myths +to what is revealed in the Scriptures, as well as the ethical +anticipations which have been found in ancient philosophies, all, so far +from proving that Christianity is a natural product of the human mind, in +fact, are confirmations of it, unconscious prophecies, and presentiments +of the truth. + +[292-1] Alfred Maury, _La Magie et l'Astrologie dans l'Antiquite et au +Moyen Age_, p. 8: Paris, 1860. + +[292-2] Waitz, _Anthropologie_, i. pp. 325, 465. + +[293-1] So says Dr. Waitz, _ibid._, p. 465. + +[294-1] Schoolcraft, _Algic Researches_, i. p. 143. + +[294-2] _L'Homme Americain_, ii. p. 319. + +[295-1] Brasseur, _Hist. du Mexique_, liv. iii. chaps. 1 and 2. + +[295-2] Sahagun, _Hist. de la Nueva Espana_, lib. x. cap. 29. + +[296-1] Novalis, _Schriften_, i. p. 244: Berlin, 1837. + +[296-2] Ibid., p. 267. + +[296-3] _Hist. de la Civilisation en France_, i. pp. 122, 130. + +[297-1] _Narrative of J. R. Jewett among the Savages of Nootka Sound_, p. +121. + +[297-2] _Rel. de la Nouv. France_, An 1636, p. 109. + +[297-3] Ibid., An 1670, p. 99. + +[299-1] Geronimo de Ore, _Symbolo Catholico Indiano_, chap, ix., quoted +by Ternaux-Compans. De Ore was a native of Peru and held the position of +Professor of Theology in Cuzco in the latter half of the sixteenth +century. He was a man of great erudition, and there need be no hesitation +in accepting this extraordinary prayer as genuine. For his life and +writings see Nic. Antonio, _Bib. Hisp. Nova_, tom. ii. p. 43. + +[300-1] Sahagun, _Hist. de la Nueva Espana_, lib. vi. caps. 1, 4. + +[300-2] Morse, _Rep. on the Ind. Tribes_, App. p. 250. + +[302-1] Cogolludo, _Hist. de Yucathan_, lib. iv. cap. 9. Compare +Stephens, _Travs. in Yucatan_, ii. p. 122, who describes the remains of +these roads as they now exist. + +[302-2] Rivero and Tschudi, _Antiqs. of Peru_, p. 162. + +[302-3] La Vega, _Hist. des Incas_, lib. vi. chap. 30; Xeres, _Rel de la +Conq. du Perou_, p. 151; _Let. sur les Superstit. du Perou_, p. 98, and +others. + + + + +INDEX. + + +Abnakis, 174 + +Acagchemem, a Californian tribe, 105 + +Age of man in America, 35-37 + +Ages of the world, 213 sq. + +Akakanet, 61 + +Akanzas, 238 + +Akenatzi, 284 + +Algonkins, location, 26 + name of God, 58 n.[TN-19] + mythical ancestors, 77 + veneration of birds, 103 + of serpents, 108, 109, 113, 116 + myths and rites, 133, 136, 144, 147, 151, 161, 174, 198, 209, 220, + 224, 236, 240, 244, 248, 277, 297 + +Aluberi, a name of God, 58 n.[TN-19] + +Anahuac, 29, 282 + +Angont, a mythical serpent, 136 + +Apalachian tribes, 27, 225 + +Apocatequil, a Peruvian deity, 153 + +Ararats, of America, 203 + +Araucanians, 33 + name of God, 48, 61 + myths, 204, 248 + +Arks, 255 + +Arowacks, 58 n.[TN-19] + +Ataensic, an Iroquois deity, 123, 131, 170 + +Ataguju, or Atachuchu, 152 + +Atatarho, mythical Iroquois chief, 118 + +Athapascan tribes, 24 + myths, 104, 150, 195, 205, 229, 248, 257 + +Atl, an Aztec deity, 131 + +Aurora borealis, 245 + +Aymaras, 31, 34, 177 + +Aztecs, their books and characters, 10 + divisions, 29 + names of God, 48, 50, 58 n.[TN-19] + government, 69 + rites, 72, 126, 127, 147 + calendar, 74 + worship of cross, 95 + names of cardinal points, 93 + worship of birds, 102, 106, 107 + of serpents, 111 + myths, 132, 133, 134, 138, 144, 156, 171, 181, 205, 214 sq., 227, + 240, 246, 248, 252, 258 + priests, 282 + prayers, 292 + +Aztlan, 181 + + +Bacab, Maya gods, 80 + +Baptism, 125 seq. + +Bimini, 87 + +Bird, symbol of, 101 sq., 195 sq., 229, 254 + +Blue, symbolic meaning of, 47 + +Bochica, 183 + +Boiuca, a mythical isle, 87 + +Bones, preservation of, 255 + soul in the, 257 + +Botocudos, 123, 201 + +Brasseur, Abbe, his works, 41 + +Brazilian tribes, 102, 134, 250 + (See _Tupis_, _Botocudos_.) + +Busk, a Creek festival, 71, 96 + + +Caddoes, 93, 203 + +Camaxtli, 158 + +Cardinal points, adoration of, 67 sq. + names of, 93 sq. + +Caribs, 32 + theory of lightning, 104, 114 + myths and rites, 145, 184, 223, 237, 244, 256 + priests, 282 + +Catequil. (See _Apocatequil_.) + +Centeotl, goddess of maize, 22, 134 + +Chac, Maya gods, 80 + +Chalchihuitlycue, an Aztec god, 123 + +Chantico, an Aztec god, 138 + +Cherokees, location, 25 + name of God, 51 + serpent myth, 115 + baptism, 128 + deluge, 205 + priests, 281 + +Chia, goddess of Muyscas, 134 + +Chichimec, 139 n., 158 + +Chicomoztoc, the Seven Caves, 227 + +Chicunoapa, the Aztec Styx, 249 + +Chipeways, picture-writing, 10 + records, 17 + magicians, 71 + myths, 163, 168 + +Choctaws, location, 27 + name of God, 51 + myths, 84 n.,[TN-20] 225, 261 + priests, 281 + +Cholula, 180, 181, 204, 228 + +Cihuacoatl, the Serpent Woman, 120 + +Cihuapipilti, 246 + +Circumcision, 147 + +Citatli, 131 + +Clairvoyance, 269 + +Coatlicue, 118 + +Colors, symbolism of, 47, 80, 140, 165 + +Con or Contici, 155, 176 + +Coxcox, 202 + +Craniology, American, 35 + +Creation, myths of, 193 seq. + +Creeks, location, 27 + name of God, 50 + rites, 71, 96 + mythical ancestors, 77 + serpent myth, 115 + other myths, 137, 225, 242, 244 + priests, 273, 283 + +Cross, symbolic meaning of, 95-7, 183, 188 + of Palenque, 118 + +Cupay,[TN-21] the Quichua Pluto, 61, 251 + +Cusic, his Iroquois legends, 63, 108 n. + + +Dakotas, location, 28 + rites, 71 + language, 75 + mythical ancestors, 77 + myths, 62, 103, 133, 150, 237, 259, 279 + +Dawn, myths of, 166, 167, 175, 227 + +Delawares, 140 n., 144 + (See _Lenni Lenape_.) + +Deluge, myth, origin, etc., 198-212 + +Devil, idea of unknown to red race, 59, 251 + +Divination, 278 + +Dobayba, 123 + +Dog, as a symbol, 137, 229, 247-9 + +Dove, as a a[TN-22] symbol, 107 + +Dualism, moral, not found in America, 59 + sexual not found, 146 + + +Eagle, as a symbol, 104 + +East, myths, concerning, 91, 165, 174, 180 + (See _Dawn_.) + +Eastman, Mrs., her _Legends of the Sioux_, 103 + +Eldorado,[TN-23] 87 + +Enigorio and Enigohahetgea, 63 + +Epochs of nature, 200 seq. + +Esaugetuh Emissee, 50 + +Eskimos, location, 23 + name of chief god, 50, 76 + term for south, 94 + veneration of birds, 101 + myths, 173 n., 193, 226, 229, 241, 245, 261, 280 + + +Fear in religion, 141, 292 + +Fire-worship, 140 seq. + +Flood-myth. (See _Deluge_.) + +Florida, 87 + +Forty, a sacred number, 94 + +Fountain of youth, 129 + +Four, the sacred number of red race, 66 sq., 105, 157, 167, 178, 182, + 184, 240 + +Four brothers, the myth of, 76-83, 152, 167, 178, 182 + + +Garhonia, Iroquois deity, 48 + +Gizhigooke, the day-maker, 169 + +Guaranis, 32, 84 n.[TN-20] + +Guatavita Lake, 124 + +Gucumatz, the bird-serpent, 118 + +Gumongo, god of the Monquis, 93 + + +Haitians, myths of, 78, 85, 135, 188 + +Hand, symbol of the, 183 + +Haokah, Dakota thunder god, 151 + +Hawaneu. (See _Neo_.) + +Heaven, the, of the red race, 243 + +Hell, the hidden world, 252 + +Heno, Iroquois thunder-god, 156 + +Hiawatha, myth of, 172 + +Hobbamock, 60 + +Huemac, the Strong-hand, 181, 183 + +Huitzilopochtli, the god of war, 118, 282 + +Hunting, its effect on the mind, 21, 67, 100 + +Hurakan or hurricane, meaning of, 51 + a Maya god, 81, 82, 114, 156, 196 + +Hurons, 25, 48, 114, 136, 169, 248, 250, 275 + +Hushtoli, Choctaw name of God, 51 + + +Illatici, Quichua name of God, 55, 155 + +Incas, secret language, 31 + official title, 69 + ancestors, 82, 153 + arms, 120 + sun-worship, 142 + myths, 188, 191, 244 + +Ioskeha, supreme god of Iroquois, 63, 170-2 + +Iroquois, location, 25 + name of God, 48, 53 + myths of, 83, 85, 169-72, 196, 227, 236 + veneration of serpents, 108, 116, 118 + of fire, 148 + +Isolation of the red race, 20, 34 + +Itzcuinan, the Bitch-Mother, 138 + + +Jarvis, Dr., his Discourse on American Religions, 39 + +Juripari, 61 + + +Killistenoes, 270 + +Kittanitowit, 58, 60 + +Ku, a name of divinity, 46, 47 + +Kukulcan, god of air, 118 + + +Languages of America, 7 + esoteric of priests, 284 + +Lenni Lenape, 26, 96, 161, 231 + +Light, universal symbol of divinity, 173 + +Lightning, the, 112 seq., 151 seq., 168 + + +Madness, as inspiration, 274 seq. + +Magic, natural, 266 + +Maistre, Joseph de, his theory of mythology, 291, n.[TN-24] + +Maize, distribution of, 22, 37 + +Man, origin of, 222 sq., 258 + word for, 223 + +Mandans, 71, 85, 107, 184, 205, 228 + +Manibozho. (See _Michabo_.) + +Mannacicas, 250 + +Manoa, 87 + +Manes, 111 + +Mayas, alphabet, 13 + location, 30 + calendar, 74, 80 + mythical ancestors, 79, 80, 85 + myths and rites, 93, 146, 183, 188, 214, 221 + name of cross, 97 + +Mbocobi, 201 + +Meda worship, 162 n. + +Medicine, 45 + lodge, 267 + men, 264, 277 seq. + +Memory, cultivated by picture-writing, 18 + +Mesmerism, 272 + +Messou, 209 + (See _Michabo_.) + +Metempsychosis, 253 + +Mexicans, (See _Aztecs_.) + +Meztli, 132, 135 + +Michabo, supreme Algonkin god, 63, 116, 136, 161-9, 198, 220, 294 + +Mictlan, god of the dead, 92, 252 + +Migrations, coarse of, 34 + +Milky-way, 244 + +Millennium, 261 + +Minnetarees, 228, 230, 250 + +Mixcoatl, or Mixcohuatl, 22, 51, 158 + +Mixtecas, 90, 196 + +Monan, 211 + +Monquis, 93, 106 + +Montezuma, 187, 190 + +Moon, worship of, 130 seq. + +Moxos, 124, 230 + +Mueller, J. G., his work on American religions, 40, 59, 61 + +Mummies, 257-60 + +Muscogees, 195 + (See _Creeks_.) + +Muyscas, 31 + myths, 84 n.,[TN-20] 183-4 + + +Nahuas, 29, 73 + myths, 84 n.,[TN-20] 118, 138, 158, 206 + (See _Aztecs_.) + +Nanahuatl, 135 + +Natchez, 27, 28 n.[TN-25] + myths, 126, 142, 149, 205, 225, 239 + +Natural religions, 3 + +Navajos, 79, 84 n.,[TN-20] 103, 127, 205, 241 + +Neo, Iroquois corruption of _Dieu_, 53 + +Nemqueteba, 183 + +Netelas, 50, 105 n. + +Nez Perces[TN-26] 272, 281 + +Nicaraguans, 145, 158, 201, 245, 288 + +Nine Rivers, the, 248 + +Nootka Indians, 297 + +North, myths concerning, 82 + +Nottoways, 25, 84 + +Numbers, sacred, 66, 98 + (See _Four_, _Three_, _Seven_.) + + +Occaniches, 284 + +Oki, name of God, 46-8 + +Onniont, a mythical serpent, 114 + +Onondagas, 171 + +Oonawleh unggi, 51 + +Otomis, 6, 158 + +Ottawas, 93, 145, 161 + +Ottoes, 84 n.[TN-20] + + +Pacari Tampu, 82, 179, 227 + +Pachacamac, 56, 176-7, 298 + +Panos, 13 + +Paradise, myth of, 86 seq. + +Paria, 87 + +Passions, worship of, 146, 149 + +Pawnees, 71 n., 84 n.[TN-20] + +Pend d'Oreilles, 233 + +Peru, 69 + rites and myths, 82, 102, 106, 131, 132, 137, 138, 142, 149, + 152 sq,[TN-27] 176-9, 188, 213, 219, 227, 240, 251, 260 + priests, 278, 282, 284 + (See _Aymaras_, _Incas_.) + +Phallic worship, 146, 149 + +Picture writing, 9 + +Pilgrimages, custom of, 301 + +Pimos, 185 + +Prayers, specimens of, 296-300 + +Priesthood, native, 263 sq. + +Puelches, 277 + + +Quetzalcoatl, the supreme Aztec god, 106, 118, 157, 180-3, 188, 294-6 + +Quiateot, a rain god, 131 + +Quiches, 30 + Sacred Book, 41 + names for God, 51, 58 n.[TN-19] + evil deities, 64 + myth of first four brothers, 81 + of paradise, 89 + of creation, 196 + of flood, 207 + of hell, 251, 258 + +Quichuas, 31 + religion, 55 + ancestors, 82, 153 + names of cardinal points, 93 n. + myths, 155 + (_See_ Peru, Incas.)[TN-28] + +Quipus, 14 + + +Rattlesnake, as a symbol, 108 sq. + +Raven, as a symbol, 195, 204, 213, 229 + +Red, symbolic meaning, 80, 88, 140 + + +Sacrifice, its meaning, 291 + +Sacs, 84, 277 + +Sanscrit flood-myth, 212 + +Schwarz, Dr., his views of mythology, 112 + +Seminoles, 129 + +Serpent, as a symbol, 107 sq., 136, 158 + +Seven, a sacred number, 66, 128 n., 202, 204, 273 n., 281, 283 + +Shawnees, 26, 84 n.,[TN-20] 110, 113, 114, 144, 281 + +Shoshonees, 28, 138 + +Sillam Innua, 50, 76 + +Sioux, 28, 151, 236 + +Soul, notions concerning, 235 sq., 277 + +Sua, the Muysca God, 184 + +Sun-worship, 141 sq., 149, 243-9 + +Suns, Aztec, 215 sq. + + +Takahlis, 127, 197, 201, 253, 256 + +Tamu, 184, 294 + +Taras, 158 + +Taronhiawagon, 171 + +Tawiscara, 170 + +Teczistecatl, 132 + +Teatihuacan,[TN-29] 46, 69 + +Three, a sacred number, 66, 98, 156 + +Thunder-storm, in myths, 150 sq. + +Tici, the vase, 130 + +Timberlake, Lt., his _Memoirs_, 115 + +Titicaca, Lake, 124, 178 + +Tlacatecolotl, supposed Aztec Satan, 106 + +Tlaloc, god of rain, 75, 88, 156-7 + +Tlalocan, 88, 246 + +Tlapallan, 88, 91, 181 + +Tloque nahuaque, 58 n.[TN-19] + +Tohil, 157 + +Toltecs, 29, 180 + +Tonacatepec, 88 + +Toukaways, 231 + +Trinity, in American religions, 156 + +Tulan, 88, 89, 181 + +Tupa, 32, 84, 152, 185 + +Tupis, 32 + myths, 83 n., 152, 185, 210, 258, 274 + +Twins, sacred to lightning, 153-4 + + +Unktahe, a Dakota god, 133 + + +Vase, symbol of, 130, 155 + +Viracocha, supreme god in Peru, 124, 155, 177-80 + + +Waitz, Dr., his _Anthropology_, 40, 288 + +Wampum, 15 + +Water, myths of, 122 seq., 194 + +West, myths of, 92, 93, 166 + +White, as a symbol, 165, 174-6 + +Whiteman's land, 21 n. + +Winds, myths of, 49-52, 74 sq., 96, 103, 166, 182 + +Winnebagoes, 220 + +Witchitas, 224 + +Writing, modes of, 9-13 + + +Xelhua, 228 + +Xibalba, 64, 251 + +Xochiquetzal, 137 + +Xolotl, 258 + + +Yakama language, 50 + +Yamo and Yama, twin deities, 154 n. + +Yoalli-ehecatl, 50 + +Yohualticitl, 132 + +Yupanqui, Inca, 55 + +Yurucares, 201, 224, 259 + + +Zac, empire of, 31, 124 + +Zamna, culture hero of Mayas, 93, 183, 188 + +Zapotecs, 183 + + + + +ERRATA. + + + Page 31, note, for "_Ureinbewohner_" read "_Ureinwohner_."[TN-30] + " 101, line 10 from bottom, _for_ "clouds" _read_ "clods." + " 145, note 1, _for_ "Gomara" _read_ "Gumilla." + + + + +Transcriber's Note + +The following typographical errors were noted in the original text. + + Page Error + TN-1 57 the Inds. p. should read the Inds., p. + TN-2 89 Orstnamen should read Ortsnamen + TN-3 115 o should read of + TN-4 134 knaws should read gnaws + TN-5 140 extingish should read extinguish + TN-6 144 fn. 2 Reconnoissance was spelled this way in the title of + original publication, quoted correctly + TN-7 158 fn. 3 Hist du Mexique should read Hist. du Mexique + TN-8 162 wizzard should read wizard + TN-9 218 foreboding shave should read forebodings have + TN-10 223 fn. 2 yelk should read yolk + TN-11 226 fn. 2 _above_ should read above + TN-12 234 after.world should read after world + TN-13 248 scimetar should read scimitar + TN-14 251 Xibilha should read Xibalba + TN-15 258 supersitions should read superstitions + TN-16 278 drunkeness should read drunkenness + TN-17 294 fees should read frees or feeds? + TN-18 300 give should read gives + TN-19 303 (and elsewhere) 58 n. refers to footnote 57-3, the + continued text of this footnote was printed on p. 58 in + the original book + TN-20 304 (and elsewhere) 84 n. refers to footnote 83-3, the + continued text of this footnote was printed on p. 84 in + the original book + TN-21 304 Cupay should read Cupay + TN-22 304 a a symbol should read a symbol + TN-23 304 Eldorado should read El Dorado + TN-24 305 291, n. should read 291 n. + TN-25 305 28 n. refers to footnote 27-2, the continued text of this + footnote was printed on p. 28 in the original book + TN-26 306 Nez Perces should read Nez Perces, + TN-27 306 152 sq, should read 152 sq., + TN-28 306 _See_ Peru, Incas should read See _Peru_, _Incas_ + TN-29 306 Teatihuacan should read Teotihuacan + TN-30 307 Ureinbewohner was not found in the text + +The following words were inconsistently spelled: + + Mannacicas / Mannicicas + Perces / Perces + Quiche / Quiche + role / role + Tamoei / Tamoi + +The following words were inconsistently hyphenated: + + Aka-kanet / Akakanet + Ama-livaca / Amalivaca + child-birth / childbirth + Teo-tihuacan / Teotihuacan + under-world / underworld + Ur-religionen / Urreligionen + Yoalli-ehecatl / Yoalliehecatl + +Other inconsistencies + +Titles of works referred to in the footnotes are occasionally not +italicized. Author names of the works referred to in the footnotes are +occasionally italicized. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Myths of the New World, by Daniel G. 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