summaryrefslogtreecommitdiff
path: root/19347-8.txt
diff options
context:
space:
mode:
Diffstat (limited to '19347-8.txt')
-rw-r--r--19347-8.txt10194
1 files changed, 10194 insertions, 0 deletions
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: 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 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 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,
+_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 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 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 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 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 physeôs~.
+"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 voeux 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, _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 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] ~Ho Theos phôs 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 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:--
+
+ 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, _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_, _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_, _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 coeur 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 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 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. Brinton
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MYTHS OF THE NEW WORLD ***
+
+***** This file should be named 19347-8.txt or 19347-8.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+ http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/3/4/19347/
+
+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))
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
+paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works. See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+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
+
+1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+ the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+ you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is
+ owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+ has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+ Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments
+ must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+ prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+ returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+ sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+ address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+ the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+ you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+ does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+ License. You must require such a user to return or
+ destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+ and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+ Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+ money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+ electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+ of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+ distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+ Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+ Chief Executive and Director
+ gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included. 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.
generated by cgit v1.2.3 (git 2.25.1) at 2026-04-11 08:39:54 +0000