The myths of the New World : a treatise on the symbolism and mythology of the red race of America

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., LL.D., D.Sc.

PROFESSOR OF AMERICAN ARCHAEOLOGY AND LINGUISTICS IN THE UNIVERSITY
OF PENNSYLVANIA

THIRD EDITION REVISED

PHILADELPHIA

DAVID McKAY, PUBLISHER
1896

tf

Copyrighted, 1896, by DANIEL G. BBINTON

SHEBMAN & Co., PRINTEKS

PHILADELPHIA

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.

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 reli-
gions ? 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 eth-
nology, my objects will have been accomplished.

PHILADELPHIA, 1868.

PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.

THE present edition has been subjected to a thorough
revision, much of the text having been rewritten and
about fifty pages of new matter added.

The most important contributions to native Ameri-
can mythology which have been published since the
appearance of the second edition have been consulted
and will be found mentioned in the notes.

While this study of the latest writers was necessary,
in order that the work should represent the present
condition of the science, the earliest authorities on the
myths and customs of tribes have been constantly
preferred, as in later days there has been a certain
though often unconscious infiltration of European ideas
and influences into the native mind.

Many of the opinions concerning the red race and
its religions advanced as novelties in the former editions
have now been accepted by most students of these
subjects ; others are still held as doubtful. It is hoped
that the additional evidence in their favor presented
in the present edition will win for them also a favor-
able consideration from careful writers.

PHILADELPHIA, 1896.

(vii)

CONTENTS.

CHAPTEE 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 peculiari-
ties of the red race : 1. Its languages unfriendly to abstract
ideas. Native modes of writing by means of pictures, sym-
bols, 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. 5eyond
all others, a hunting race. — Principal linguistic subdivi-
sions : 1. The Eskimos. 2. The Athapascas. 3. The
Algonkins and Iroquois. 4. The Apalachian tribesr 5.
The Dakotas. 6. The Aztecs. 7. The Mayas. 8. The
Muyscas. 9. TheQuichuas. 10. The Caribs and Tupis.. 11.
The Araucanians. — General course of migrations. — Age of
man in America. — Unity of type in the red race. — Mytho-
logical parallels. — Bibliographical note . . . .13

CHAPTEE 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 . . . .60

X CONTENTS.

CHAPTER III.

THE SACKED NUMBER, ITS ORIGIN AND APPLICATIONS.

PAGE

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 were derived the symbolic
value of the number Forty, the Sign of the Cross, the Sacred
Tree, the ceremonial circuit, and other symbols . . . 83

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 locomo-
tion, 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 god of riches. — Both symbols devoid of moral
significance 120

CHAPTER V.

THE MYTHS OP 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. — Burn-
ing the dead. — The worship of the passions, and of the
reciprocal principle of Nature. — Dualism of Deities. —
American goddesses. — Phallic worship in America. — Syn-
thesis of the worship of Fire, Water, and the Winds in the

CONTENTS. XI

PAGE

THUNDER-STORM, personified as Haokah, Tupa, Catequil,
Contici, Heno, Tlaloc, Mixcoatl, and other deities, many of
them triune .... ..... 144

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 loskeha of the Iroquois, Viracocha of the Peru-
vians, 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 191

CHAPTER VII.

THE MYTHS OF THE CREATION, THE DELUGE, THE EPOCHS
OF NATURE, AND THE LAST DAY.

Cosmogonies usually portray the action of the SPIRIT on the
WATERS. — Those of the Muscogees, Athapascas, Quiches,
Mixtecs, Iroquois, Algonkins, and others. — The Flood -Myth
an unconscious attempt to reconcile a creation in time with
the eternity of matter.— Proof of this from American my-
thology — Characteristics of American Flood-Myths. — The
person saved usually the first man. — The number seven. —
Their Ararats. — The r61e of birds. — The confusion of
tongues. — The Aztec, Quiche", Algonkin, Tupi, and earliest
Sanscrit flood-myths. — The belief in Epochs of Nature a
further result of this attempt at reconciliation. — Its forms
amon'g Peruvians, Mayas, and Aztecs. — The expectation of
the End of the World a corollary of this belief. — Views of
various nations 226

CHAPTER VIII.

THE ORIGIN OF MAN.

Usually man is the EARTH-BORN, both in language and myths.
— The Earth-Mother. — Illustrations from the legends of the
Caribs, Apalachians, Iroquois, Quichuas, Aztecs, and others.

Xll CONTENTS.

PAGE

— 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. — Not literally
derived from an inferior species 257

CHAPTEE 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 sepul-
chral rites.— The Seat of the Soul.— The "name soul."—
The future world never a place of rewards and punishments.
— The house of the Sun the heaven of the red man. — The
terrestrial paradise and the under-world. — £upay. — Xibalba.
— Mictlan. — Metempsychosis. — Preservation of Bones. —
Mummies. — Belief in a resurrection of the dead almost uni-
versal 271

CHAPTEE 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. — Exam-
ples.— 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 304

CHAPTEE XL

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 in-
carnations of divinity. — Examples. — Prayers as indices of
religious progress. — Eeligion and social advancement. —
Conclusion 329

I. INDEX OF AUTHORITIES 347

TT. INDEX OF SUBJECTS .... 351

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 migra-
tions.— Age of man in America. — Unity of type in the red race.
— Mythological parallels. — Bibliographical note.

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

(13)

14 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE RED RACE.

to develop an innate idea of God, and that all reli-
gions, 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 phi-
losophy, 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 late writer whose work is
still a standard in the science of ethnology, the
severest and most patient investigations show that
" not only do acknowledged facts permit the assump-
tion 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."1 And as to the religions of heathendom,
the view of St. Paul is but expressed with a more
poetic turn by a distinguished philosopher when he
calls them, " not fables, but truths, though clothed in
a garb woven by fancy, wherein the web is the notion

1 Waitz, Anthropologie der Naturvoelker, i. p. 256. The theory of
"monogenism," or the specific unity of Man, is now adopted by
most anthropologists.

MEANING OF MYTHOLOGY. 15

of God, the ideal of reason in the soul of man, the
thought of the Infinite."1

Inspiration and science unite therefore to bid us dis-
miss as effete the 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 in-
finite; they are the expressions of that "yearning
after the gods " which the earliest of poets discerned in
the hearts of all men.

Studied in this sense they are rich in teachings.
Would we estimate the intellectual and aesthetic culture
of a people, would we generalize the laws of progress,
would we appreciate the sublimity of Christianity, and
read the seals of its authenticity : the natural concep-
tions 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 intuition of
reason.

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 con-
ceptions. The task bristles with difficulties. Careless-
ness, prepossessions, and ignorance have disfigured
them with false colors and foreign additions without
number. The first maxim, therefore, must be to sift

1 Carriere, Die Kunst im 2/usammenhang der CuLturentwickdung,
i. p. 66.

16 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE RED RACE.

and scrutinize authorities, and to reject whatever be-
trays the plastic hand of the European. For the
religions developed by the Red Race, not those mixed
creeds learned from foreign invaders, not the old
myths as colored and shot with the hues of Aryan and
Semitic imagery, 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 pas-
sions, 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 in-
quiries. In dealing with these matters beyond the
cognizance of the senses, the mind is forced to express
its meaning in terms transferred from sensuous percep-
tions, 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
sphinx, need not hope to gain admittance to the shrine.

RELIGIOUS RITES. 17

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 has to seek
amid its concrete conceptions for those suited to convey
its abstract intuitions ; when it chooses* from the in-
finity 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 first 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 un-
expected 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 lin-
guistics is still almost in its infancy, and that an ex-
haustive handling of the materials it even now offers
involves a more critical acquaintance with its innu-
merable dialects than I possess ; but though the glean-
ing be sparse, it is enough that I break the ground.

Secondly, religious rites are unconscious commenta-
ries on religious beliefs. At first they are rude represen-
tations 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

2

18 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE RED RACE.

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 such 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. Lan-
guage, pursuits, habits, geographical position, and
those subtle mental traits which make up the character-
istics 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 pecu-
liarities, 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 reveals to us its prevail-
ing, and to a certain degree its unavoidable mode of
thought. Here the red race offers a notable phenom-
enon. Scarcely any other trait, physical or mental,
binds together its scattered clans so unmistakably as
this of language. From the Frozen Ocean to the Land
of Fire, with few exceptions the native dialects, though
varying endlessly in words, are alike in certain pecu-
liarities of construction, certain morphological fea-
tures, rarely found elsewhere on the globe, and nowhere
else with such persistence.

INCORPORATIVE TONGUES. 19

So foreign are these traits to the grammar of the
Aryan tongues that it is not easy to explain them in a
few sentences. They depend on a peculiarly complex
method of presenting the relations of the idea in the
word. This construction has been called by some
philologists polysynthesis ; but it is better to retain for its
chief characteristic the term originally applied to it by
Wilhelm von Humboldt, incorporation (Einverleibung).

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 pre-
cise bearing of which could only be guessed by their
position ; a Greek or a German would use independent
words, indicating their relations by terminations mean-
ingless in themselves ; a Finn would add syllable after
syllable to the end of the principal word, each modify-
ing the main idea; an Englishman gains the same end
chiefly by the use of particles and by position.

Very different from all these is the spirit of an incor-
porative language. It seeks to unite in the most inti-
mate 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 to-
gether, to express the whole in one word, and to banish
any conception except as it arises in relation to
others.1 Thus in many American tongues there is, in

1 The term polysynthesis refers properly to the external form of
the expression, incorporation to the linguistic process itself. Incor-
poration was fully defined and illustrated by Wilhelm von Hum-
boldt in his celebrated essay prefixed to his work on the Kawi
language, $ 17. It has since been explained with abundant clear-
ness by Steinthal in his Charakteristik der Typen des Sprachbaucs.
The assertion repeatedly advanced by writers superficially ac-

20 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE RED RACE.

fact, no word for father, mother, brother, but only for
my, your, his father, etc. This has advantages and de-
fects. It offers marvelous facilities for defining the
perceptions of the senses with accuracy ; but regarding
everything in the concrete, it is unfriendly to the
nobler labors of the mind, to abstraction and generali-
zation.

In the numberless changes of these languages, their
bewildering flexibility, their variable forms, and their
rapid alteration, they seem to betray a lack of individ-
uality, and to resemble the vague and tumultuous
history of the tribes who employ them. They exhibit
at times a strange 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 seems to the European ear quite
different modes of expression. Their phonetics are
fluctuating, the consonantal sounds often alternating
between several which in our tongue are clearly defined.

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 ; though it is
everywhere true that the basic radicals of each stock
and the main outlines of its grammatical forms reveal

quainted with the process that it is the same as agglutination, or a
form of it, proves that they are not familiar with the subject.
Incorporation may exist without polysynthesis, as is the case in
the Otomi and various other American tongues. Those who would
pursue the question further may consult my Essays of an Americanist,
pp. 328, sqq ; and Heinrich Winkler, Zur Sprachgeschichte, passim.
Another term for incorporation, employed by M. Cuoq, is iiitro-
susception. (Jugement erroni sur les Langues Sauvages. 2d Ed. , p. 31. )

FUNDAMENTAL MYTHS. 21

a surprising tenacity in the midst of these surface
changes. Vocabularies collected by the earliest navi-
gators are easily recognized from existing tongues, and
the widest wanderings of vagrant bands can be traced
by the continued relationship of their dialects to the
parent stem.

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 natu-
ralist 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 lin-
guistic 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 lan-
guages. Much there must be that will be obscure,
much that is vague, an exhausting variety in repeti-
tion, and a strong tendency to lose the idea in the sym-
bol.

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 gener-
ation to another. The fundamental myths of a race
have a surprising tenacity of life. How many centu-
ries had elapsed between the period the Germanic
hordes separated from the Argans of Central Asia, and
when Tacitus listened to their wild songs on the banks
of the Rhine ? Yet we know that through those un-
numbered 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

22 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE RED RACE.

Sanscrit Manu, and his three sons, and of the great god
Tuisco, the Indian Dyu.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 grisly scalps, the bear's
claws around his neck, were not only trophies of his
prowess, but records of his exploits, and to the con-
templative mind contain the rudiments of the benefi-
cent 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 ad-
vancing. He had mastered the elements of picture
writing, beyond which hardly the wisest of his race pro-
gressed. 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 ideo-
graphic notation.

On what principle of mental association a given sign
was adopted to express a certain idea, why, for in-
stance, 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 writ-
ing once lost can never be recovered.

The number of such arbitrary characters in the

1 Grimm, Gcschichte der Deutschen Sprache, p. 571.

PICTURE WRITING. 28

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 pre-
served to the present day. Such is the once celebrated
inscription on Dighton Rock, Massachusetts, long sup-
posed to be a record of the Northmen of Vinland ; such
are 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 epitaphs
of vanished generations.1

I would it could be said that in favorable contrast to
our ignorance of these inscriptions is our comprehen-
sion of the highly wrought pictography of the Nahuas
or Aztecs.2 No nation ever reduced it more to a sys-
tem. 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

1 The classical work on the subject is Garrick Mallery, Picture
Writing of the American Indians (Washington, 1893).

2 The Aztecs and many other tribes of Mexico spoke the Nahuatl
language, and hence are called collectively Nahuas.

24 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE RED RACE.

come from the shop of a skilful bookbinder. They
also covered buildings, tapestries and scrolls of parch-
ment 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.1
What is still more astonishing, there is reason to be-
lieve, 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, some-

1 Peter Martyr, De Insulisnupcr Repertis, p. 354 : Colon, 1574.

NATIVE WRITING. 25

times 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, in
many instances it is 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 oppo-
site direction from the preceding one. There are good
authorities for all these methods, and they may all be
correct, for there is no evidence that any fixed rule had
been laid down in this respect.1

Immense masses of such documents were stored in
the archives of ancient Mexico. The historian Torque-
mada asserts that five cities alone yielded to the Spanish
governor on one requisition no less than sixteen thou-
sand 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
very few remain to whet the wits of antiquaries.

What there are, however, have been diligently col-
lected and published by the interest of learned societies
and the generosity of individuals, so that the student
has a reasonable apparatus at hand for his attention.

Beyond all others the Mayas, resident on the penin-
sula of Yucatan and in the adjacent parts of Central
America, seem to have approached nearest to a definite
graphic system. Several of their books, written before

1 The principal recent authorities on the Mexican picture writ-
ing are Dr. E. Seler, and Dr. Antonio Pefiafiel. For the earlier
views see Waitz, Anthropologie der Naturvoelker, Bd. IV, p. 173.

26 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE RED RACE.

the Europeans invaded their country, have been pre-
served, and innumerable inscriptions on the stone
facades of walls, on their pottery, and on wooden
beams, remain to attest the uniformity of their method
throughout nearly the whole area occupied by their
many affiliated tribes. This native literature has been
searchingly analyzed by Forstemann, Seler, Schellhas,
Cyrus Thomas and other scholars, and the results
though far from exhaustive are so complete that the
general tenor and purpose of most of such writings can
be ascertained. We do not find a developed phonetic
system and yet one more than pictographic. The
figures are combinations of symbols, ideograms and
phonetic equivalents, the last mentioned being in suffi-
ciently large proportion to render some knowledge of
the Maya language necessary to an interpretation of
the records.1

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 ven-
erable man seated under the shade of a palm tree, with
a great book open before him from which he was read-
ing to an attentive circle of auditors the wars and wan-
derings of their forefathers. With difficulty the priest
got a sight of the precious volume, and found it covered
with figures and signs in marvelous symmetry and

1 An idea of the zeal with which the study of the Maya writing
has been prosecuted may be gained from an examination of Dr.
K. Haebler's bibliography of it published in the number for De-
cember, 1895, of the Centralblatt filr Bibliothckwesen. It mentions
436 titles ! For a summary of the subject I may refer to my Primer
of Mayan Hieroglyphics. (Boston, 1895.)

QVIPVS. 27

order.1 No wonder such a romantic scene left a deep
impression on his mind.

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 re-
quired length, to which were attached numerous small
strings of different colors, lengths, and textures, vari-
ously knotted and twisted one with another. Each of
these peculiarities represented a certain number, a qual-
ity, 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 pre-
vent confusion the quipus relating to the various depart-
ments of knowledge were placed in separate storehouses,
one for war, another for taxes, a third for history, and
so forth.

On what principle of mnemotechnics the ideas were
connected with the knots and colors we are very much
in the dark; it has even been doubted whether they
had any application beyond the art of numeration.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.

1 Humboldt, Vues des Cordilteres, p. 72.

2 Desjardins, Le Perou avant la, ConquHe Espagnole, p. 122.
Modern quipu reading is explained by Max Uhle in the Ethnolo-
yisches Notizblatt, Heft. 2, 1895. An early author on Peru states
that the most recondite theories of the native religious philosophy
were recorded by quipus. (Relaci&n Anonima in Trcs Relaciones Peru-
anas, Madrid, 1879.)

28 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE RED RACE.

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
or shell 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 invariably harbingers of peaceful or
pleasant tidings, while the darker portended war and
danger. The general substitution of beads 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, small wheels 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 count of the fallen.

This exhausts the list. All other methods of writ-
ing, the hieroglyphs of the Micmacs of Acadia, the syl-
labic 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, in-
scription, or memorial of any kind whatever, has been
found on the American continent showing the employ-
ment, 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

NA TIVE LITER A TUBE. 2 9

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 intelli-
gent 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 exam-
ple, 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 per-
taining 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 Guate-
mala,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 fel-
lows, that the Chipeways of Lake Superior have a
college composed of ten "of the wisest and most vener-
erable 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 guar-
dians, that they may be repaired, and their contents
explained to new members of the society.2

1 An instance is given by Ximenes, Origen de los Indios de Gua-
temala, p. 186.

2 George Copway, Traditional History of the Ojibway Nation, p.

30 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE RED RACE.

In spite of these precautions, the end seems to have
been very imperfectly attained. The most distin-
guished 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, the genealogies of their
ruling families, are preserved in such a vague and con-
tradictory 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. Never-
theless, we may profit by the warning to remember
that their myths are myths only, and not the reflec-
tions 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 dispro-
portionate 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

130 (London, 1850). Mr. Horatio Hale tells me that the Iroquois
still preserve a similar institution to keep up the interpretation of
their wampum belts.

NATIVE SONGS. 31

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 aston-
ished 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.1 Such a fact reminds us of a beautiful ex-
pression 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 ex-
tent 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 univer-
sities 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 mbmoire" 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

1 Morse, Report on the Indian Tribes, App. p. 352. Similar in-
stances have been reported by Dr. Washington Matthews, Mr.
Frank H. Cashing and other close observers of the modern Indian,

32 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE RED RACE.

precedents, and ever alert to novel combinations of
ideas. Give a race this, and it will guide it to civiliza-
tion as surely as the needle directs the ship to its haven.
It is here that ideographic writing reveals its fatal in-
feriority. It is forever specifying, materializing, dealing
in minutiae. In the Egyptian symbolic alphabet there
is a figure for a virgin, another for a married woman,
for a widow without offspring, for a widow with one
child, two children, and I know not in how many other
circumstances, but for woman there is no sign. It must
be so in the nature of things, for the symbol represents
the object as it appears or is fancied to appear, and not
as it is thought. Furthermore, the constant learning by
heart infallibly leads to heedless repetition and mental
servility.

A symbol when understood is independent of sound,
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 ele-
gance of style, sonorous periods, or delicacy of expres-
sion, 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 gener-
ations is injurious to the aesthetic sense, and dulls the
mind to the beautiful in art and nature.

The transmission of thought by figures and symbols
would, on the whole, therefore, foster those narrow and
material tendencies which the genius of incorporative

RACIAL TRAITS. 66

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 dust-bin by every
unbiased student, and when we see learned men essay-
ing to resuscitate them, we regretfully look upon it in
the light of a scientific anachronism.1 The most com-
petent observers are agreed that American art bears the
indisputable stamp of its indigenous growth. Those
analogies and identities which have been brought for-
ward to prove its Asiatic or European or Polynesian
origin, whether in myth, folk-lore or technical details,

1 These words, written thirty years ago, have not been in the
least invalidated by subsequent research. There are still a few
writers who, misconstruing the meaning of analogies of culture,
continue to produce them as evidence of the foreign origin of na-
tive American civilization ; but their number is yearly dimin-
ishing.

3

34 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE RED RACE.

belong wholly and only to the uniform development of
human culture under similar conditions. This is their
true anthropological interpretation, and we need no
other.

The second trait is the entire absence of the herds-
man's life with its softening associations. Throughout
the continent there is not a single authentic instance of
a pastoral tribe, not one of an animal raised for its
milk, nor for the transportation of persons, and very
few for their flesh.1 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 marvelous instincts and quick
perceptions of the brute, training his senses to preter-
natural 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 old

1 The lamas in Peru were domesticated in considerable numbers,
chiefly for the fleece. Some similar animal may have been
tamed by the ancient inhabitants of the Bio Salado, and Gomara
asserts that a tribe near Cape Hatteras kept flocks of deer (Hist,
de las IndiaSj cap. 43). Dogs were occasionally trained to draw
loads, but not as pack animals.

THE MAIZE. 35

English law with reason objected 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 length
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 con-
tingency, 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 the only general
cereal, and it was found in cultivation from the
southern extremity of Chili to the fiftieth parallel of
of north latitude, beyond which limits the low temper-
ature renders it an uncertain crop. In their legends it
is represented as the gift of the Great Spirit (Chipe-
ways), 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).1

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

1 Dr. J. W. Harshberger, in his Maize : a Botanical and Economic
Study (1893), enters at considerable length into the historical ques-
tion of its origin and early distribution in America.

36 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON TEE RED RACE.

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, pre-
vailed over the continent. Earnest students of such
matters — Gallatin, Turner, Buschmann, Adam — have,
however, demonstrated that three-fourths of the area of
America, at its discovery, was controlled 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. Law-
rence on the east, rarely seen a hundred miles from the
coast, were the Eskimos.1 They occupy the inter-
mediate geographical position between the races of the
Old and New Worlds, and in physical appearance and
mental traits have been in parts influenced by the
former, but in language betray their near kinship to the
latter. An amphibious race, born fishermen, in their
buoyant skin kayaks they brave fearlessly the tem-
pests, make long voyages, and merit the sobriquet

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, possi-
bly near Cape Cod, of the same race as they were familiar with in
Labrador. They call them contemptuously Skrcdingar, chips, and
describe them as numerous and short of stature (Eric Eothens Saga,
in Mueller, Sagcenhibliothek, p. 214). It is curious that the tradi-
tions of the Tuscaroras, who placed their arrival on the Virginian
coast about 1300, spoke of the race they found there (called Tacci
or Dogi) as eaters of raw flesh and ignorant of maize. (Lederer,
Account of North America, in Harris, Voyages.)

THE ATHAPASCANS. 37

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 peo-
ple, knowing no longing for a sunnier clime, given to
song, music and merry tales. They are cunning handi-
craftsmen to a degree, but withal wholly ingulfed in a
sensuous existence. The desperate struggle for life
engrosses them, and their mythology is comparatively
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 Ore-
gon south of the mouth of the Columbia, and spreading
over the plains of New Mexico under the names of
Apaches, Navajos, and Lipans, almost reached 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.1 Agri-
culture is impossible, and the only chance for life lies
in the uncertain fortunes of the chase and the penurious
gifts of an arctic flora.

1 Richardson, Arctic Expedition, p. 374.

38 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE RED RACE.

The denizens of these wilds are abject, slovenly, hope-
lessly 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 ancient empire of the Montezumas, presents in
all its subdivisions the same mental physiognomy and
linguistic peculiarities.1

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
the Cherokees, whose homes were in the secluded vales
of East Tennessee, appear to have been one of their
early offshoots.2 They were a race of warriors, cour-
ageous, cruel, unimaginative, but of rare political

1 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. There is some affinity
between the Otomi of Mexico and the Athapascan dialects. They
are also known as the De*n6 or Tinne".

3 The Cherokee tongue has a limited number of words in com-
mon with the Iroquois, and its structural similarity is close. Their
name is properly Atsalagi, and is that by which they call a person
of their own people.

THE ALGONKINS. 39

sagacity. They are more like ancient Romans than
Indians, and are leading figures in the colonial wars.

The Algonkins surrounded them on every side, occu-
pying 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.1

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 instiga-
tion 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.

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

40 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON TEE RED RACE.

Between their southernmost outposts and the Gulf
Coast were a number of clans speaking dialects of the
Chahta-Muskoki tongue, including the Choctaws, Chick-
asaws, Upper and Lower Creeks and the Seminoles.
Their common legend stated that long ago they entered
this district from the west, and destroyed or allied
themselves with its earlier occupants. Among these
were the Uchees and the Timucuas, the latter possessing
the greater part of the peninsula of Florida when it was
first explored by the Spanish and French colonists in
the sixteenth century. l The Chahta-Muskoki dialects
stretched from the Savannah and Tennessee Rivers to
the Gulf Coast, and from the Mississippi to the Atlantic
seaboard ; but no trace of that tongue or of any other on
the northern mainland existed on the Bahamas or the
Antilles; nor, so far as is now known, did any linguistic
stock of the West Indian Archipelago or South American
continent locate a colony in Florida or the Gulf States.

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 "hold warriors, tall and strong of body.2 Their

substantive and adjective. Iroquois is a French compound of the
native word /tiro, I have said, and kou&, an interjection of assent or
applause, terms constantly heard in their councils.

1 By a strange chance the language of the Timucuas has been
preserved, though probably the last soul that could speak it died
more than a century ago. Their high artistic capacity, as revealed
in the collections of Clarence Moore and Frank H. Gushing, lend to
them especial interest. (Raoul de la Grasserie, Grammaire et
Vocabulaire Timucua. )

2 Dakota, a native word, means friends or allies. By the Bureau
of American Ethnology the stock is called the "Siouan."

THE AZTECS. 41

religious notions have been carefully studied, and as
they are remarkably primitive and transparent, they
will often be referred to. The Sioux and the Winne-
bagoes are well known branches of this family.

Some distant fragments of it, such as the Tuteloes of
Virginia and the Catawbas of Carolina, were found east
of the Alleghanies near the sea board, and the Biloxis
on the Gulf Coast in Louisiana.1

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 Sho-
shonee 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."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 partake
in some measure 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.3

1 On these consult the excellent monograph of James Mooney,
The Siouan Tribes of the East (Washington, 1894).

2 Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1854, p. 209. Pro-
fessor E. Virchow assigns to one of their skulls the very lowest
position of any he had examined. Crania Ethnica Americana,
Tafel xvi.

8 According to Professor Buschmann Aztec is probably from iztac,

42 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE RED RACE.

This great family, the " Uto-Aztecan/'1 whose language
has been traced from Nicaragua to the Columbia
River, and whose bold intellects and enterprising char-
acter colored much of the civilization in this wide area,
seems to have journeyed southward at some remote
epoch from a centre between the Great Lakes and the
Rocky Mountains. They peopled the Sierras of Sonora
and controlled the land between the Pacific and the
Gulf of Mexico. One of their small bands, the Toltecs,
became invested in later legend with the halo of heroes
and magicians, and were mythically represented as the
founders of that civilization which it is probable they
largely borrowed in germ from tribes in the south of
Mexico. Such as it was, they readily assimilated and
increased it, and their distant colonies in Nicaragua
and Costa Rica carried it with them to these remote
points.

Of an older and higher civilization than the Nahuas
were the Mayan tribes. At the discovery, their con-
tiguous bands occupied all the soil of Yucatan and

white, and Nahuatlacatl signifies those who speak the language
Nahuatl, clear sounding, sonorous. The Abb6 Brasseur (de Bour-
bourg), 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). 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 Pro-
fessor Buschmann in his great work, Ueber die Spilren der Aztekischen
Sprache im nordlichen Mexico und hoJieren Amerikanischen Norden, p.
648 (Berlin, 1854).

1 Such is the general name I have proposed for it in my Ameri-
can Race, p. 118 (Philadelphia, 1891).

THE MAYAS. 43

most of that of Guatemala, Chiapas, Tabasco and
Western Honduras. An outlying colony dwelt in the
valley of the Rio Panuco north of Vera Cruz. They
were the builders of the famous ruins of Palenque,
Copan, Uxmal and Chichen Itza, as well as of hundreds
less known but not less majestic cities, now hidden in
the shades of the tropical forests.

Their language is radically distinct from that of the
Aztecs, but their calendar and a portion of their myth-
ology are common property. They seem an ancient
race of mild manners and considerable polish. Their
own annals, preserved by means of their calendars and
graphic methods, carry their history back nearly to the
beginning of the Christian era.1

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 tra-
dition dates the close of the golden age of Yucatan a
century anterior to its discovery by Europeans. Previ-
ously 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 dis-
sensions ruined most of their cities.

Very slight connection has been shown between the
civilization of North and South America, and that
only near the Isthmus of Panama. In the latter conti-
nent 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
were divided into two primary divisions, the one the
Quichuas, including the Incas and Aymaras, possessing

i Tfte Maya Chr&nicles, Edited by D. G. Brinton (Philadelphia,

1882).

44 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE RED RACE.

the Andean region, and the Yuncas of the coast. The
former were the dominant tribe and extended their
language and race along the highlands of the Cordil-
leras 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.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 indis-
criminately on every hand. These turned out to be
the notorious Caribs, whose other name Cannibals, has

1 His opinion was founded on an analysis of fifteen words of the
secret language of the Incas preserved in the Koyal Commentaries
of Garcilasso de la Vega. On examination, they all proved to be
modified forms from the lengua general (Meyen, Ueber die Ureinbe-
wohner von Peru, p. 6). The Quichuas of Peru must not be con-
founded with the Quiches, a Mayan tribe 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. The most accurate studies of the
tongues of ancient Peru are those of Dr. E. W. Middendorf
(Leipzig, 1890-1895). He includes the Quichua, Aymara and
Yunca (or Chimu).

CARIES AND ARAWACKS. 45

descended as a common noun to oiir language, ex-
pressive of one of their inhuman practices. These
warlike robbers had extended their plundering voyages
to Cuba and Haiti and permanently occupied some of
the Lesser Antilles, but pointed for their home to the
mainland of South America. This they possessed along
the shore west of the mouth of the Orinoco nearly to the
Cordilleras. Their original home was far to the South,
and the most primitive dialects of their tongue are found
to-day surviving in the highlands near the sources of
the River Plate. They won renown as bold fighters,
daring navigators and skilled craftsmen ; but that they
ever formed permanent settlements in any part of the
northern continent is now not credited by careful
students.1

Except the islands seized by these marauders the
whole of the West Indian Archipelago at the arrival
of Columbus was peopled by a branch of the Arawack
stock.2 They had at some remote time migrated from
the mainland, the coast of which they then occupied
between the mouths of the Orinoco and the Amazon.
They have abundant affiliations in the southern conti-
nent, and there are reasons to believe that their
primitive home was in the Bolivian highlands, where
we still meet representatives of their family.

In the immense territory of the Amazon basin were

1 The distribution of the Caribs has been especially studied by
von den Steinen ( Unter den Naturvolkem Zentral-Brasiliem, Berlin,
1894). He gives the meaning of "caraibe" as stranger, for-
eigner, "not like us." Die Bakairi-Sprache, Vorwort (Leipzig,
1892).

1 The evidence for this will be found in my article, The Arawack
Language of Guiana in its Linguistic and Ethnological Relations, in the
Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, 1871.

46 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE RED RACE.

numerous tribes not yet clearly distinguished ; but the
most prominent in history are the members of the
Tupi stock. They dwelt on the Atlantic coast from
the mouth of the Amazon to the Plate River and along
the shore and tributaries of the former almost to the
great Cordillera of the west. Their tongue has a com-
paratively rich literature and is still known as the
" general language," lingoa geral, of Brazil. Like their
neighbors, the Arawacks, they had a moderately high
development, carrying on some agriculture, building
permanent villages and manufacturing excellent boats
and graceful pottery.1

The immense forest-covered tract in the northern por-
tion of the Argentine Republic called the Grand Chaco,
the Great Hunting Ground, was peopled by roving
tribes of still undetermined affinities ; while stfuth of
it the extensive grassy plains known as the Pampas
were controlled by sparse population affined to the
Araucanians of Chili, a warlike, freedom-loving race,
unconquered for centuries by the white invaders. The
inhospitable tracts of Patagonia and the Land of Fire
were the abode of isolated groups, many of them in
the lowest stages of culture and the utmost apparent
wretchedness.

There are many small tribes who seem to have no
linguistic affinities with others, 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, seems to have
isolated and split up beyond recognition the indi-
genous families on that shore of the continent; while

1 Their geographic extension is shown in Lucien Adam's Gram-
moire Comparee des dialectes de la Famille Tupi (Paris, 1896).

MIGRATIONS. 47

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.1

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 tra-
ditions, take even the most cultivated, are confused,
contradictory, and in great part manifestly fabulous.
To construct from them by means of daring combina-
tions 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, Chahta-Muskokis and Nahuas all
migrated from the north or west to the regions they
occupied. In South America, curiously enough, the
direction is largely reversed. The Caribs, the Ara-
wacks and the Tupis, and perhaps we should add the
Aymaras and the Quichuas (though their relationship
is not wholly sure), according to both linguistic and
legendary testimony, wandered forth from the steppes
and valleys at the head waters of the Rio de la Plata

1 The reader who desires a closer acquaintance with the linguis-
tic stocks and various aboriginal tribes is referred to my work, The
American Race ; a Linguistic Classification and Ethnographic Descrip-
tion of the Native Tribes of North and South America (pp. 392, New
York, 1891).

48 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE RED RACE.

toward the Gulf of Mexico, where they came face to
face with the other wave of migration surging down
from high northern latitudes. For the banks of the
river Paraguay and the steppes of the Bolivian Cordil-
leras are unquestionably the earliest traditional homes
of all these stocks.

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, the laws of the evolution of the
higher verterbrates offer no support to the idea that
the species Man was developed on the American conti-
nent. Its living and fossil fauna are alike devoid of
high apes, of tailless monkeys, or those with thirty-two
teeth; in the absence of which links we must accept
man as an immigrant, not a native in the new world.
Nor can we place his advent extremely remote. The
persistent examination of the glacial moraines which
date back to the close of the Ice Age, of the Equus
beds west of the Mississippi and the megalonyx layers
in the caves of the Alleghanies, of the undisturbed,
auriferous gravels of the Pacific, and the Trenton and
similar ancient gravels of the Atlantic slope, have re-
sulted in seriously weakening the numerous alleged
evidences of the presence of man at the dates of their
deposit. No so-called "paleolithic" art, none older
than or different from that of the modern red Indian,
as we know him through the descriptions of the early
travelers, has been established by evidence so clear as to
be beyond grave doubt ; and the same may be said of

CRANIOLOGY. 49

the similar supposed discoveries in other portions of
the continent.1

The cranial forms of the American aborigines have
by some been supposed to present anomalies distin-
guishing 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 crani-
ology, 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 diver-
sity, and the same diversity, among them in this re-
spect as among the races of the Old Continent.2 Pecu-
liarities of structure, though they may pass as general
truths, offer no firm foundation whereon to construct
a scientific ethnography. Anatomy shows nothing
unique in the Indian, nothing demanding for its de-

1 This appears at the present time (1896) to be the result of the
investigations which for several years have been carried on by Mr.
Thomas Wilson, Prof. F. W. Wright, C. C. Abbott and F. W.
Putnam on the one side, and W. J. McGee, W. H. Holmes and
Gerard Fowke on the other ; to mention only a few of those inter-
ested in them. As for the South American evidences, advanced by
F. Ameghino, Burmeister, Lovisato and others, they are too un-
determinate to be convincing. Any day, however, unquestionable
evidence of glacial or pre glacial man in America may be ex-
humed. There is no reason why he should not have been on this
continent that long ago.

2 These conclusions, based at the time they were written (1867)
on studies of the Morton collections of skulls in Philadelphia,
confirmed by J. Aitken Meigs (Catalogue of Human Crania], are
substantially those reached by Prof. Virchow in his Crania Ethnica
Americana (Berlin, 1892) ; whose conclusions should be checked by
the observations of Prof. G. Sergi, in his Le Varieta Umane, 1895.

4

50 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE RED RACE.

velopment an antiquity beyond that of other races,
still less an original diversity of species.

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 dis-
tant 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 haunts.

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 thus gradually to 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,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 collec-
tor finds only those arrow-heads which lie upon the
surface. Even a certain degree of civilization is most

1 Second Visit to the United States, i. p. 252.

ETHNO-BOTANY. 51

ancient ; for the evidences are abundant that the mines
of California and Lake Superior were worked by tribes
using metals at a very remote epoch.

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 iden-
tified 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 spedosa; all have been cultivated
from immemorial time by the aborigines of America,
and, except cotton, by no other race ; few of them can be
positively identified with any known wild species;
several are sure to perish unless fostered by human
care.

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 some say, Egyptians.1

While these and other considerations testify forcibly

1 The ethno-botany of America was studied by von Martius in
his Seitrdge zur Ethnographic und Sprachenkunde Amerikas, Bd. II. ;
and has received productive attention later from J. W. Harsh-
berger, J. W. Fewkes and others.

52 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE RED RACE.

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;
although the activity of primitive barter must be
placed very high. There must have been also wide
wanderings, distant colonization by war or in peace,
carrying the arts of a tribe bodily into remote realms.

We cannot overlook the unity of the physical type
throughout the continent. The American race is physi-
cally more homogeneous than any other on the globe.
There is no mistaking a group of American Indians,
whether they come from Chili or from Canada, from
the shores of Hudson Bay or the banks of the Amazon.
And this superficial resemblance is a correct indication
of what a close anatomical study confirms.

Then there are verbal similarities running through
wide families of languages which, in the words of Pro-
fessor Buschmann, are calculated " to fill us with be-
wildering amazement,"1 some of which will hereafter
be pointed out ; and lastly, passing to the psychologi-
cal 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,

1 Athapaskische Sprachstamm, p. 164 (Berlin, 1856).

MYTHICAL PARALLELS. 53

however diverse the natural influences under which
they live."1

Penetrated with the truth of these views, all artificial
divisions into tropical or temperate, civilized or bar-
barous, will in the present work, so far as possible, be
avoided, and the race will be studied as a unit, its re-
ligion 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.

In the pursuance of this study we shall discover
similarities in the mythical concepts of the red race as
striking as are its peculiar physical features, and not
unfrequently not less singular analogies with the tropes
and tales, the rituals and symbols, in which many a
nation of the old world or of the distant islands of
the east, chose as the appropriate forms under which to
express their notions of the gods and their doings.

The explanation of such parallels has exercised the
minds of students of mythology and folk-lore. There
are those who would see in them sufficient evidence of
former contact and transference, while another school
believes that unless there is precise proof of connec-
tion in the tale itself or from other sources, it is more
likely that the true explanation lies in the oneness of
the human mind, the narrow limits in which it works
in primitive conditions, and the almost fatal certainty
with which it will seek the same concrete forms under
which to convey a given abstract idea.

We may indeed assume that a myth has been dif-
fused from one source when it is found with marked
peculiarities in nations in geographical contact ; when

1 Marti us, Von dem Rechtzustande unter den Ureinwohnem Brasiliens,
p. 77.

54 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE RED RACE.

the proper names it contains are the same in different
versions, or obviously merely translations the one from
the other ; where the features of one landscape and
culture are retained in another and different horizon;
or where a tribe preserved the memory of the importa-
tion of the tale or ritual from a foreign center.

Thus, as Dr. Boas and Father Morice have pointed
out, the tribes of the northwest coast as well as the
Athabascan bands far inland, drew largely from some
common source of mythological conception ; we know
as a fact that the Eskimos and the Algonkins of Labra-
dor " swapped stories " until the legendary lore of the
one nation colored that of the other; the same has been
shown by Von den Steinen and Ehrenreich of the tales
of the Arawacks, Tupis and Caribs of South America ;
and the evidence is incontrovertible that the peculiar
divinatory calendar of Mexico and Central America
with its mass of associated rite and myth was in use
among tribes belonging to seven different linguistic
stocks.

These and similar examples testify amply to the
transference of myths; but when writers would bring
into prominence the mere external similarities of nar-
ratives, no matter how minute these may seem, and on
these alone insist that there was an early historic con-
nection between Yucatan and New Zealand, or between
tribes of Hudson Bay and Syria, or of Mexico and an-
cient Egypt, or those of the shores of the Amazon and the
Siberian Lena — as has repeatedly been set forth and is
still advocated by some — then the student of myths
who follows the precepts of a sound anthropology will
prefer the interpretation which in such recognizes
merely psychological parallels, proofs of the unity of
the soul of man, obliged or inclined to follow the same

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE. 55

paths when setting forth on that quest which has for its
goal the invisible world and the home of the gods. *

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE.

As the subject of American mythology is an unfamiliar 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
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 ar-
rived at are at times different from those who have previously
touched upon the topic, so such a step seems doubly advisable.

The first who undertook a philosophical survey of American re-
ligions 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

1 The discussion of this vital question has been carried on of late
years by Andrew Lang, J. Jacobs, E. S. Hartland, and others with
reference to the myths and tales of the Old World ; and concerning
those of America I would cite Franz Boas, Indianische Sagen von der
Nord-Pacifischen Kiiste, and Jour. Arner. Folk-lore, March, 1891 , and
March, 1896; Emile Petitot, Accord des Mythologies ; Cyrus Thomas,
in American Antiquarian; Rev. A. G. Morice, in Trans. Roy. Soc.
Canada, 1892 ; C. G. Leland, The Algonquin Legends of New Eng-
land, Introduction ; Von den Steinen, Die Naturvolker Zentral-Brasil-
iens ; P. Ehrenreich, Beitrdge zur Volkerkunde Brasiliens; etc., etc.
To infer from such similarities that they are the "relics of an
ancient period of culture in Asia and Europe," as does Goeken in
his essay on the religious life of the Bella Coola Indians (in Pro-
ceedings of the Berlin Museum) is quite as unfounded as is the theory
that from an enumeration of the "elements" or incidents in a
story we can decide its relationship. Such " elements " arise inde-
pendently, often in the same connection, owing to the uniformity
of the action of the human mind under similar conditions and
seeking the expression of similar ideas. This is the anthropologic
principle so vigorously and ably defended by Professor A. Bastian,
of Berlin, in his numerous and profound works.

56 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE RED RACE.

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 develop-
ments. 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, also
published a work on the subject, of wider scope than its title
indicated (The Serpent Symbol in America, New York, 1851).
Though written in a much more liberal spirit than the preceding,
it is 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 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 coun-
terbalance 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 ex-
isted in America in a well-defined and clearly recognized form ; "
and elsewhere that "the monotheistic idea stands out clearly in
att the religions of America" (p. 151).

These are views which to-day probably have no defenders ; cer-
tainly not among those who have made a study of the scientific
analysis of primitive religions.

The important work on the Indians edited by Mr. Henry R School-
craft (History, Condition and Prospects of the Indian Tribes of the United
States, Washington, 1851-59) derives its chief or perhaps only
value from the reports of original observers which it contains.
The general views of aboriginal history and religion expressed by
its editor are shallow and untrustworthy.

A German professor, Dr. J. G. Miiller, about forty years ago,
wrote 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

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE. 57

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 Algonkian 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 Yaudoux worship
of the Negroes with that of Votan in Chiapa. While an indus-
trious compilation, his volume must be used with constant caution.

Very much better was the Anthropology of the late Dr. Theo-
dore Waitz (Anthropologie d&r Naturwdker : Leipzig, 1862-66). No
more comprehensive, sound and critical work on the indigenes of
America as a whole has since been written. But on their relig-
ions 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 here, therefore, his views are neither new nor tenable.

It is unfortunate that we cannot praise the work in this depart-
ment of the indefatigable and meritorious Abbe E. C. Brasseur
(de Bourbourg). His fixed idea was to explain American myth-
ology after the example of Euhemerus, of Thessaly, as the apo-
theosis of history. This theory, which has been repeatedly
applied to other mythologies with invariable failure, is now dis-
owned 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 in-
terested in American antiquity cannot too much thank this inde-
fatigable explorer for the priceless materials he 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

58 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE RED RACE.

lost even by the Abb£ Brasseur himself in 1850 (Lettre a M. le Due
de Valmy, Mexique, Oct. 15, 1850). Made aware of their import-
ance by the expressions of regret used in the Abbe's letters, Dr.
C. Scherzer, 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 Abbfe
Brasseur took a copy of the original which he brought out at
Paris in 1861, with a translation of his own, under the title Vuh
Popol: Le Livre Sacre des Quiches ct les Mythes de I'Antiquite Ameri-
caine. 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, and lacking in
accuracy, this is one of the most valuable works on American
mythology extant.

Another authority of inestimable value was placed within the
reach of scholars some years ago. This is the reprint of the Rela-
tions de la Nouvelle France, containing the annual reports of the
Jesuit missionaries among the Iroquois and Algonkins from and
after 1611.

The annual reports of the Bureau of Ethnology at Washington,
which began to appear in 1881, contain a mass of material indis-
pensable to the student of the myths of the Indians dwelling
within the area of the United States. Though the contributions
contained vary in merit with the faculties and opportunities of the
observer for investigations of this nature, they all have solid
value. Especially those by the late Bev. James Owen Dorsey may
be mentioned as models of their kind.

Canadian legends and tales have been diligently and accurately
edited by the Abbe Petitot (Traditions Indiennes du Canada, 1888,
etc.) ; those on the northwest coast by Dr. Franz Boas ; and at an
earlier date those of the vanishing Californian tribes by Mr.
Stephen Powers (Indian Tribes of California, 1877).

On the mythology of Mexico and Central America, the compre-
hensive work of PL PL Bancroft (The Native Races of the Pacific States,
1875) is important for its encyclopaedic survey of the literature of

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE. 59

the subject, but does not attempt a serious analysis of the religious
concepts of the tribes. For this we must turn to the numerous
essays of Professor Eduard Seler, of Berlin ; of Dr. P. Schellhas ;
and of Alfredo Chavero in Mexico.

Our understanding of Peruvian mythology has been greatly fur-
thered by the collations and linguistic analyses of von Tschudi
and Dr. Middendorf ; while the great stems of eastern South
America, the Caribs, the Tupi-Guaranis and the Arawacks, have
been fruitfully examined by Barbosa Eodriguez, von den Steinen,
Paul Ehrenreich, Lafone Quevedo and others.

Singularly few attempts have been made toward the philosophi-
cal analysis of American religions, either in the whole or of any
one tribe. Nearly all writers have confined themselves to collect-
ing tales, or else have contented themselves with such superficiali-
ties as "sun worship," "snake worship," etc. Major J. W.
Powell's Mythology of the North American Indians (1881) aims at
something broader, but is too brief to be satisfactory. Dr. Albert
Seville's Origin and Growth of Religion as Illustrated by the Native Re-
ligions of Mexico and Peru (Hibbart lectures, 1884), reveals but a
second-hand acquaintance with those religions, and none what-
ever with the languages in which they were couched. The Abbd
Petitot's Accord des Mythologies (Paris, 1890), based on American
religions, measures all by a merely dogmatic standard.

A mass of new material has been provided within the last score
of years for the study of American mythology. Much of it offers
the expression of religious thought genuinely aboriginal in char-
acter ; but much is also obviously modified by contact with the
whites and by the infiltration of ideas belonging to their intellec-
tual horizon.

60 THE IDEA OF GOD.

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 mono-
theism, 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 im-
portation.

TF 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 em-
bodiment in language, but also, for the sake of com-
parison, 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 prin-
ciple 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

NOTION OF DIVINITY. 61

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. If either of these be cor-
rect, 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.1

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 pre-
vailed, 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 abstrac-
tion. 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

1 Of course, the reader of travels will often meet such expres-
sions as that of Lovisato about the Yahgans of Tierra del Fuego —
"Non hanno alcuna nozione di Dio, quindi nessuna religione,"
etc. (Appunti Etnografici sulla Terra del. Fuoco, p. 32). These as-
sertions may easily be corrected from the information of closer
observers.

62 THE IDEA OF GOD.

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 sentiment."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, ^medi-
cine." In the Algonkin dialects this word is manito
and okij in Iroquois otkon, in the Hidatsa hopa ; 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 primi-
tive terms the same trope appears discoverable. Wakan
as an adverb means above, oki is but another orthog-
raphy for oghee, and otkon seems allied to hetken, both of
which have the same signification.2

1 Die Kunst im Zusammenhang der Oudturentwickelung, i. pp. 50,
252.

a On wakan see Biggs, Dakota English Diet. s.v. and Rohrig, On
the Language of the Dakota, Smithsonian Keport, 1871. Another
example may be added from the Guarani of South America, in
which tupa means the supernatural, tupir to mount or ascend.
The word hua'ka belongs both to Quichua and A ymara. It has
been derived from huekey, to weep (Zarate), or from huaikow, to

THE HIGHER POWERS. 63

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 al-
ways the stronger and the nobler ; a superior is one who
is better than we are, and therefore a chieftain in Algon-
kin is called agliee-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.1 Its deep color brings thoughts of serenity,
peace, sunshine and warmth. Even the rudest hunt-
ing 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.2

So it came to pass that the idea of God was linked to

dig a hole (von Tschudi}. With equal probability it may be from
the same radical as huichay, to rise, to ascend. (Comp. Tschudi,
Beitrage zur Kennt. des Alien Peru, p. 146 ; Middendorf, Keshua
Worterbuch, p. 452.)

1 A distinguished authority, M. Cuoq, has denied that oki is
Algonkian and that okima is derived from oki in the sense of
above. The former belongs to the southern dialects and certainly
is from Lenape wochki, at the top or above ; and as certainly okima
has the derivation I assign it. Comp. Cuoq, Lexique de la Langue
Iroquoise, p. 176 ; Brinton and Anthony, Lendpe-English Dic-
tionary, p. 166, and Baraga, Otchipwe Diet., p. 315. Trumbull de-
rives Manito from a verb anit, to surpass, to be greater than.
Koger Williams, Language of America, p. 147, note.

2 Loskiel, Geschichte der Mission der Evang. Brueder, p. 63
(Barby, 1789).

64 THE IDEA OF GOD.

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 refer to the sky above, and
our own word heaven is often employed synonymously
with God.

There is at first no personification in these expres-
sions. 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,1 u does not signify any par-
ticular god ; yet their prayers are sometimes addressed
to hue" 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. Per-
haps 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 un-
dertakings, and relieve all their wants."2

In another and far distant branch of the Iroquois,
the Nottoways of southern Virginia, it reappears under

1 Cogolludo, Historic, de Yucathan, lib. iv. cap. vii.
3 Ed. de la Nouv. France. An 1636, p. 107.

THE HE A VENL Y FA THER. 6 5

the curious form quaker, doubtless a corruption of the
Powhatan qui-oki, lesser gods.1 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.2 The Californian
tribes spoke of their chief deity as " The Old Man
above "3 reminding us of " Der Alte im Himmel " of
Mephistopheles ; and the Creek term for their Jove is
" He who lives in the sky."* In the legends of the
Aztecs and Quiches such phrases as " Heart of the
Sky," " Lord of the Sky," " Prince of the Azure Plan-
isphere, ""He above all," are of frequent occurrence;
and by a still bolder metaphor, the Araucanians, ac-
cording 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 lan-
guage, sometimes trod one, sometimes another, What-
ever else skeptics have questioned, no one has yet pre-

1 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.

8 Bruyas, Radices Verborum Iroquoeorum, 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, Mceurs des Sauvages, etc., p. 65. Cuoq. Lexique Iroquoise, p.
106.

8 H. H. Bancroft, Native Races of the Pacific States, vol. III., p. 158.

* A. T. Gatschet, Migration Legend of the Creeks, vol. I., p. 216.
I may add the Choctaw, yubapaik, " Our Father Above."

5

66 THE IDEA OF GOD.

sumed 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 spirit-
ual world. If we seek hints from idioms more familiar
to us than the tongues of the Indians, and take for ex-
ample this word spiritual, we find it is from the Latin
spirare, to blow, to breathe. If in Latin again we look
for the derivation of animus, the mind, anima, the soul,
they point to the Greek anemos, wind, and aemi, to
blow. In Greek the words for soul or ' spirit, psuche,
pneuma, thumos, all are directly from verbal roots ex-
pressing 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. The Egyptian kneph is another example.

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, slack-
ening 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 u 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."

LIFE AND BREATH. 67

Armed with these analogies, we turn to the primi-
tive tongues of America, and find them there as dis-
tinct as in the Old World. In Dakota niya is literally
breath, figuratively life; Elliott in his translation of
the Bihle into the Massachusetts tongue renders soul by
nashanonk, a breathing ; in Netela pints 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 AiT or
Wind. In the Yakama tongue of Oregon wJcrisha signi-
fies there is wind, wkrishwit life; with the Aztecs, ehecati
expressed both air, life, and the soul, and person-
ified in their myths it was said to have been born
of the breath of Tezcatlipoca, their highest divinity,
who is himself often called Yoalli ehecati, the Wind of
Night.1

The descent is, indeed, almost perceptible 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 in-
vincible ruler, when they addressed him as ESAUGETUH
EMISSEE, Master of Breath,3 and doubtless it was at first
but a title of equivalent purport which the Cherokees,

1 My authorities are Riggs, Diet, of the Dakota, Boscana, Account
of New California, Richardson's and Egede's Eskimo Vocabularies,
Pandosy, Gram, and Diet, of the Yakama (Shea's Lib. of Am. Lin-
guistics), and Molina for the Aztec.

2 Properly, isakita immissi, "He who carries the life or breath
for others." A. S. Gatschet, Migration Legend of the Greeks, vol. I.,
p. 216. "This conception," adds that writer, "is as thoroughly
North American as Jahve is Semitic."

68 THE IDEA OF GOD.

their neighbors, were wont to employ, OOXAWLEH UNGGI,
Eldest of Winds, but rapidly leading to a complete
identification of the divine with the natural pheno-
mena 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.1

The idea, indeed, was constantly being lost in the
symbol. In the legends of thej^uiches, the mysterious

^creative power is HURAKAX, a name of no appropriate-
ness in their language, oneTwEch was perhaps brought
them from the Antilles, which finds its meaning in the

Ancient tongue joJLH&ki, and which, under the forms
of hurrican^ ouragan, orkan, was adopted into European
marine languages as the native name of the terrible
tornado of the Carribean Sea.1

Mixcohuatl, the Gloud_Serpent? chief divinity of
several tribes in ancient Mexico, is to this day the cor-
rect term in their language for the tropical whirlwind,

1 These terms are found in Gallatin's vocabularies. The last
mentioned is not, as Adair thought, derived from issto ulla or
ishto hootto, great man, for in Choctaw the adjective cannot precede
the noun it qualifies. Its true sense is visible in the analogous
Creek word holvle, the storm wind.

1 Webster derives hurricane from the Latin fitrio. 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 6 altro que un grandissimo vento e
pioggia insieme." Historic del P Indie, lib. vi. cap. iii. The name
Hurakan in the Quiche myths is translated "One-leg" by Father
Ximenes, which seems to have no meaning. The Dictionarium
Galibi, Paris, 1763, gives the forms iroucan and hyorocan. The
presence of the same word with the same meaning over such an ex-
tent of territory occupied by different stocks is puzzling. The
Carib form appears to be from ye?lo, thunder, lightning, whence
Island-Carib, ioilalhu (von den Steinen, Die Bakairi Sprache, p. 30).

THE GREAT SPIRIT. 69

and the natives of Panama worshipped the same
phenomenon under the name Tuyra.1 To kiss the air
was in Peru the commonest and simplest sign of ador-
ation to the collective divinities.2

Many writers on mythology have commented on the
prominence so frequently given to the winds. None
has traced it to its true source. The facts of meteor-
ology have been thought all sufficient for a solution.
As if man ever did or ever could draw the idea of God
from, naturej. „ 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 insensi-
ble 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 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 at-
tach 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 travelers. 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 con-
ception of personality to the native mind, very rarely

1 Oviedo, Eel. de la Prov. de Cueba, p. 141, ed. Ternaux-Compans.
3 Garcia, Origen,de los Indies, lib. iv. cap. xxii.

70 THE IDEA OF GOD.

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 intro-
duced first by themselves in its personal sense.1 The
supreme Iroquois Deity Neo or Hawaneu, triumph-
antly 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 Chris-
tian instruction, and the words themselves to be cor-
ruptions of the French. Dieu and le bon Dieu !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 al-
together 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.

1 See the Rel de la Nouv. France pour V An 1637, p. 49.

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 mat-
ter is ably discussed in the Etudes Philologiqucs sur Quelques Lan-
gues Sauvages deV Amerique, p. 14 : and comp. Shea, Diet. Francais-
Onontague, Preface. Mr. J. N. B. Hewitt offers a less probable
etymology, "Great Voice," referring to the thunder. Proc. Am.
Assoc. Adv. Science, 1895, p. 250.

UNCONSCIOUS MONOTHEISM. 71

Man cannot escape the belief that behind all form is
one essence ; but the moment he would seize and de-
fine 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 undis-
turbed 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 UnseenSpirit,who_aJsks

/ ' 1^ • • • ~ Jfc— *J^Efcqf^^^

jieither supplication nor sacrifice, who,, as.-th.e- .natives
of Texas told Joutel in 1684, " does not concern him-
self about things here below,"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 as-
sertion can be more contrary to the laws of religious
progress than that which pretends that a purer and
more monotheistic religion exists among nations de-
void of mythology. There are only two instances on
the American continent where the worship of an im-
material God was definitely instituted, and these as the
highest conquests of American natural religions de-
serve especial mention.

They occurred, as we might expect, in the two most
civilized nations, the Quichuas of Peru, and the Na-
huas of Tezcuco. It is related that about the year

1 " Qui ne prend aucun soin des choses icy has." Jour. Hist, d'un
Voyage de I'Amerique, p. 225 (Paris, 1713).

72 THE IDEA OF GOD.

1440, at a grand religious council held at the conse-
cration of the newly-built temple of the Sun at Cuzco,
the Inca Yupanqui rose before the assembled multi-
tude, 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."1

To express this greatest of all existences, a name was
proclaimed, based upon that of the highest divinities
known to the ancient Inca race, Illatici Viracocha Pa-
chacamac, 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 here-
after. A temple was constructed in a vale by the sea
near Callao, wherein his worship was to be conducted

1 In attributing this speech to the Inca Yupanqui, I have fol-
lowed Balboa, who expressly says this was the general opinion of
the Indians (Hist, du Perou, p. 62, ed. Ternaux-Compans). Others
assign it to other Incas. See Garcilasso de la Vega, Hist, des Incas,
lib. viii., chap. 8, and Acosta, Nat. and Morall Hist, of the New
World, chap. 5. The fact and the approximate time are beyond
question.

NATIVE MONOTHEISTS. 73

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.1

No better success attended the attempt of Neza-
huatl, 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 ador-
ing, 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 Bay affliction and take away my sor-
row. "

Strengthened in this conviction by a timely fulfil-
ment 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.2

In neither case, be it observed, was any attempt made

1 Xeres, Rd. de la Conq. duPerou, p. 151, ed. Ternaux-Compans.
! Prescott, Conq. of Mexico, i. pp. 192, 193, on the authority of
Ixtlilxochitl.

74 THE IDEA OF GOD.

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 ser-
vices 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.1 They were but expressions
of that monotheism which is ever present, " not in con-
trast to polytheism, but in living intuition in the relig-
ious sentiments."

If this subtle but true distinction be rightly under-
stood, 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 com-
plete 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.2 It will not seem contra-

1 Brasseur, Hist, du Mexique, in. p. 297, note.

2 Of very many authorities that I have at hand, I shall only
mention Heckewelder, Ace. of the Inds., p. 422, Duponceau, Mem.
sur les Langues de PAmer. 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, JRel. des
Conq. du Mexique, p. 2. These terms bear the severest scrutiny.
The Aztec appellation of the Supreme Being Tloque nahuaque is
compounded of Hoc, together, with, and nahuac, at, by, with, with
possessive forms added, giving the signification, Lord of all exist-
ence and coexistence (alles Mitseyns und alles Beiseyns, bei wel-
chem das Seyn aller Dinge ist. Buschmann, Ueber die Aztekischen
Ortsnamen, p. 642). These terms are undoubtedly of native origin.
In the Quiche legends the Supreme Being is called Bitol, the sub-

GOOD AND BAD SPIRITS. 75

dictory to hear of them in a purely polytheistic wor-
ship ; 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 par-
ticular 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 con-
sciousness of divinity hedging us about, but nothing
at all in favor of a recognition of one God ; they exem-
plify 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 un-
lucky football who gets all the blows.

This notion, which has its historical origin among
the Parsees of ancient Iran, is unknown to savage na-

stantive form of bit, to make, to form, and Tzakol, substantive
form of tzak, to build, the Creator, the Constructor. The Ara-
wacks, of Guyana, applied the term Aluberi to their highest con-
ception of a first cause, from the verbal form alin, he who makes
(Martius, Ethnographic und Sprachenkunde Amerikas, i. p. 696).
The Minnetarees interpret the name of their deity Itsikamahidis
as "He who first made" (W. Matthews, Grammar of the Hidatsa,
p. xxi.).

76 THE IDEA OF GOD.

tions. "The Hidatsa," says Dr. Matthews, "believe
neither in a hell nor a devil."1 ''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 approv-
ingly quoting this saying, complacently proceeds to
classify the deities as good or bad spirits !2

This view, which has obtained without question in
earlier works 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 writ-
ings furnish conclusive proof that no such distinction
existed out of their own fancies. The same word
(oikon) 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,"3 which is a rather amusing illus-
tration 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 ; where-
upon his auditors replied, that so far from this being
the case, whom he called a wicked being was the power

1 Grammar of the Hidatsa, p. xxii. " The idea that the Creeks
knew anything of a devil,'' remarks Mr. Gatschet, "is an inven-
tion of the missionaries." Migration Legend of the Creeks, vol. i.
p. 216.

J Oeschichte der Amerikanischen Urreligionen, p. 403.

8 Bruyas, Rad. Verb. Iroquceorum, p. 38.

THE EVIL SPIRIT. 77

that sent them all good things, and indignantly left the
missionary to preach to the winds.1

A passage often quoted in support of this mistaken
view is one in Winslow's " Good News from New Eng-
land," written in 1622. The author says that the In-
dians 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 proba-
bly an abbreviation of Kittanitowit, the great manito,
a vague term mentioned by Roger Williams and other
early writers, manufactured probably by them and not
the appellation of any personified deity.3 The latter,
so far from corresponding to the power of evil, was, ac-
cording to Winslow's own statement, the kindly god
who cured diseases, aided them in the chase, and ap-
peared to them in dreams as their protector. There-
fore, with great justice, Dr. Jarvis has explained it to
mean " the oke or tutelary deity which each Indian wor-
ships," as the word itself signifies.3

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, wor-
shipped by certain tribes of Brazil, and said to be their
wicked spirit, is in fact the name in their language for

1 Alcazar, Chrono-historia de la Prov. de Toledo, Dec. iii., Ano
viii., cap. iv. (Madrid, 1710). This rare work contains the only
faithful copies of Father KogeFs letters extant.

a It is analyzed by Duponceau, Langues de VAm&rique du Nord,
p. 309.

8 Discourse on the Religion of the Ind. Tribes of N. Am., p. 252 in
the Trans. N. Y. Hist. Soc.

78 THE IDEA OF GOD.

supernatural in general;1 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."2 The Qupay 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 unani-
mous testimony that " the idea of a devil, a prince of
darkness, they first received in later times through the
Europeans."3 So the Cherokees, remarks an intelligent
observer, " know nothing of the Evil One and his do-
mains, except what they have learned from white
men."4

The term Great Spirit conveys, for instance, to the

1 The radical may be the Tupi-Guarani jara, master. From
him came both pleasant and unpleasant events. D'Evreux, His-
toire du Marignan, p. 405.

9 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 preposessions lead. " Grau
ist alle Theorie."

8 Loskiel, Ges. der Miss, der evang. Brueder, p. 46.

4 Whipple, Report on the Ind. Tribes, p. 35 (Washington, 1855).
Pacific Kailroad Docs.

GOOD AND BAD GODS. 79

Chipeway just as much the idea of a bad as of a good
spirit ; he is unaware of any distinction until it is ex-
plained to him.1 " 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,' "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 opin-
ion."

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 en-
grafted it on their ancient traditions. Writers anxious
to discover Jewish or Christian analogies, forcibly con-
strued myths to suit their pet theories, and for indolent
observers it was convenient to catalogue their gods in
antithetical classes. In Mexican and Peruvian mythol-
ogy this is so plainly false that historians no longer in-
sist 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
OUT race. It is of undoubted native origin and vener-
able antiquity. The version given by the Tuscarora
chief Cusic in 1825, relates that in the beginning of
things there were two brothers, Enigorio and Enigo-
hahetgea, names literally meaning the Good Mind and

i Schoolcraft, Indian Ti-ibes, I p. 359.
» In Schoolcraft, Ibid., iv. p. 642.

80 THE IDEA OF GOD.

the Bad Mind.1 The former went about the world fur-
nishing it with gentle streams, fertile plains and plen-
teous 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 4iim 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 loskeha, 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 ser-
pent, a spirit of evil. "2 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

1 Or more exactly, the Beautiful Spirit, the Ugly Spirit. In
Onondaga the radicals are onigonra spirit, hio beautiful, ahetken
ugly. Dictionnaire Fran$ais-0nontagu£, edite par Jean-Marie Shea
(New York, 1869).

3 Squier, The Serpent Symbol in America.

QUICHE MYTHS. 81

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.1

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 im-
pressed 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.2

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

1 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.

2 Compare the translation and remarks of Ximenes, Or. de los
Indios de GuaL, p. 76, with those of Brasseur, Le Livre Sacre des
Quiches, p. 189.

6

82 THE IDEA OF GOD.

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 divin-
ities were disposed to punish, and that severely, any
neglect of their ceremonies.

Moral dualism can only arise 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. Some gods favored man and others
hurt him ; some, like the forces they embodied, were
beneficent to him, others injurious. But no ethical
contrast, beyond what this would imply, existed to the
native mind.

SACRED NUMBERS. 83

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. — Ap-
pears 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, of the Sign of the Cross,
the Sacred Tree, the ceremonial circuit and other symbols.

T?VERY one familiar with the ancient religions of
J-J the world must have noticed the mystic power
they attach to certain numbers, and how these num-
bers became the measures and formative quantities,
as it were, of traditions and ceremonies, and had a
symbolical meaning nowise connected with their arith-
metical 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 con-
nections 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 ha,ve been
coeval with the first expressions of the religious senti-

84 THE SACRED NUMBER, ITS ORIGIN.

ment. Their sacredness is so wide-spread, so nigh
Universal in all times and places, that any explanation,
to be valid, must rest on some equally universal rela-
tions either of man or of mind. I believe that such can
be shown ; for the three, in the necessary processes of
thought, in the syllogism, which proceeds by three
mental operations; and for the four in certain obliga-
tory relations of the individual to his environment,
as I shall mention later. Through this explanation
we perceive why the idea of the Trinity is so natu-
ral to the mind, and of such frequent recurrence in
religions.1

Only one of them, the FOUR, has noteworthy promi-
nence in the myths 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 in these myths would be dis-
pelled.

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 him-

1 I have expanded this theory in an article "On the Origin of
Sacred Numbers," in the American Anthropologist, for April, 1894;
and comp. " Zahlen-Symbolik," in Zeit. fur Volker-psychologie,
Bd. xiv.

THE CARDINAL POINTS. 85

self accordingly in words, although it shall be of mat-
ters in his own house."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 com-
pounds ; he imagined for it novel applications ; he con-
stantly 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."2

1 Buckingham Smith, Gram. Notices of the Heve Language, p. 26
(Shea's Lib. Am. Linguistics). Since I called attention to this
in the first edition (1868) of this work, many writers have added
facts in evidence of it from scores of American tribes. It should
be noticed that in some instances the ceremonial north and south
points are not those astronomically correct. (J. W. Fewkes, in
Jour. Am. Folk-lore, 1892.) The same was true in ancient Babylon.

2 I refer to the four "ultimate elementary particles" of Empe-

86 THE SACRED NUMBER, ITS ORIGIN.

In primitive geography the figure of the earth is a
square plain ; in the legend of the Quiches 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."1 The
earliest divisions of territory were in conformity to this
view. Thus it was with ancient Egypt, Syria, Mesopo-
tamia, India and China ;2 and in the new world, the
states of Peru, Araucania, the Muyscas, the Quiche's,
Tlascala and Michoacan were tetrarchies divided in
accordance with, and in the first two instances named
after, the cardinal points. So their chief cities — Cuzco,
Quito, Tezcuco, Tenochtitlan, 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

docles. 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

T£rpaicri>s : vat pa rov a^srcpa i//u\ajrapu(5oura Terpaxrvv, irayav asvaov Qwcats.

"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 appre-
ciate.

1 Ximenes, Or. de los Indios, etc., p. 5.

2 See Sepp, Iieidenthum und dessen Bedeutung fur das Christen-
thum, i. p. 464 saq., a work full of learning, but written in the
wild vein of Joseph de Maistre's school of Romanizing mythology.

ORIENTATION. 87

points.1 They carried out the idea in their architec-
ture, building their palaces in squares with doors open-
ing, 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 ave-
nues corresponding exactly to the parallels and merid-
ians of the central tumuli of the sun and moon ;2 and
however ignorant we are about the mound-builders of
the Mississippi valley, we know that they constructed
their earth-works with a constant regard to the quar-
ters of the compass.

Nothing can be more natural than to take into con-
sideration the regions of the heavens in the construc-
tion 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.3

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

1 Brasseur, HisL du Mexique, ii. p. 227, Le Livre Sacre des
Quiches, introd. p. ccxlii. The four provinces of Peru were Anti,
Cunti, Chincha, and Colla. The meaning of these names has
been lost, but to repeat them, says LafVega, was the same as to
use our words, east, west, north, and south (Hist, des Incas, lib.
ii. cap. 11).

2 Humboldt, Polit. Essay on New Spain, ii. p. 44.

3 Prof. Holmes (Arch. Studies among the Ancient Cities of Mexico,
p. 24, 1895) observes that in the valley of Mexico and in Oaxaca,
the orientation of buildings was attended to with great care ; but
less strictly in Yucatan.

88 THE SACRED NUMBER, ITS ORIGIN.

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 men-
tioned by travellers than another as an indispensable
preliminary to all serious business, it is that of smok-
ing, 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.1

These were the spirits who made and governed the
earth, and under whatever difference of guise the un-
cultivated 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 num-
ber or its multiples were repeated.2

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 festi-
val of the Mandans, a Dakota tribe, and brings for-
ward with emphasis the ceaseless reiteration of this
number from first to last.3 He did not detect its origin

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.)

2 Schoolcraft, Indian Tribes, v. pp. 424 et seq.

3 Letters on the North American Indians, vol. i., Letter 22.

THE HOLY FOUR. 89

in the veneration of the cardinal points, but the in-
formation that has since been furnished of the myths
of this stock leaves no doubt that such was the case.1

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 pro-
scribed 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 cere-
mony, was shaped and ruled by the application of the
number four and its multiples in every imaginable re-
lation. 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.2

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

1 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 dis-
tinctly identified it with the cardinal points. See De Smet, Oregon
Missions, pp. 360, 361.

2 Benj. Hawkins, Sketch of the Creek Country, pp. 75, 78
(Savannah, 1848) The proper term is puskita, which means a
fasting. It was also known to the English (Bartram, Adair,
Milfort) as the " green corn dance." It was much more than a
"rejoicing over the first fruits," as some have maintained.

90 THE SACRED NUMBER, ITS ORIGIN.

points ; they conducted the human victim four times
around the temple, then tore out his heart, and catch-
ing the blood in four vases scattered it in the same
directions.1

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 recur-
rence 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,
their greatest festivals were every fourth year, and their
offerings of blood were to the four points of the com-
pass. At death food was placed on the grave, as among
the Eskimos, Creeks and Algonkins, for four days (for
all these nations and many others 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.2

1 Palacios, Des. de la Prov. de Guatemala, pp. 31, 32, ed.
Ternaux-Compans.

2 All familiar with Mexican antiquity will recall many such
examples. I may particularly refer to Kingsborough, Antiqs. of
Mexico, v. p. 480, Ternaux-Compans' Recueil de pieces rel. d 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,

THE FOUR SEASONS. 91

It were fatiguing and unnecessary to extend the cata-
logue 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 Louisi-
ana, the Quiches of Guatemala and the Caribs of the
Orinoco, instance after instance might be marshalled
to illustrate how universally a sacred character was
attached to this number, and how uniformly it is trace-
able to a veneration of the cardinal points. It is suf-
ficient that it be displayed in some of its more unusual
applications.

It is well known that the calendar common to the
Nahuas, Zapotecs and Maya 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.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, Muys-

1832), who gives numerous instances beyond those I have cited,
and directs with emphasis the attention of the reader to this con-
stant repetition.

1 Cyrus Thomas, Notes on Maya and Mexican Manuscripts ; D. G.
Brinton, The Native Calendar of Central America and Mexico, etc.;
and Codex Vaticanus, in Kingsbo rough's Mexican Antiquities.

92 THE SACRED NUMBER, ITS ORIGIN.

cas, 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 monoto-
nous 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. Uni-
versally 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 lan-
guages of the Mayas, Huastecas, and Quiches of Central
America ; in all of them the word for north is synony-
mous with north wind, and so on with the other three
points of the compass. Or, again, that of the Dakotas,
and the word tate-ouye-toba, translated " the four quar-
ters of the heavens," means literally, " whence the four
winds come."1

It were not difficult to extend the list ; but illustra-
tions 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 light-
ning and the storm, the zephyr that cools the brow, and
the tornado that levels the forest ; how they summon

1 Biggs, Gram, and Diet, of the Dakota Lang., s. v.

WORSHIP OF WINDS. 93

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 hun-
dred ways, they intimately concern his comfort and his
life ; and it will not seem strange that they almost occu-
pied 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," com-
menced the Aztec prayer to the Tlalocs, gods of the
showers.1 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, 0 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 incan-
tations, 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 Fauna the East
and Sauna the West, to Kauna the South and Auna
the North.2

1 Sahagun, Hist, de la Nueva Espafia, in Kingsborough, v. p. 375.

2 Egede, Nachrichten wm Oronland, pp. 137, 173, 285 (Kopen-
hagen, 1790).

94 THE SACRED NUMBER, ITS ORIGIN.

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 bro-
thers, to have at some time been led by four leaders or
princes, or in some manner to have connected the ap-
pearance 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, gro-
tesque 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 narra-
tives, the more strongly marked personifications of
more cultivated nations, until it assumes the outlines
of, and has palmed itself upon the world as actual his-
tory.

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 identi-
fied with the four winds. Whether from one or all of
these the world was peopled, whether by process of gen-
eration or some other more obscure way, the old people
had not said, or saying, had not agreed.1

It is a shade more complex when we come to the
Creeks. They told of four men who came from the

1 Schoolcraft, Algic Researches, i. p. 139, and Indian Tribes, iv. p.
229.

HAITIAN MYTHS. 95

four corners of the earth, who brought them the sacred
fire from the cardinal points, and pointed out the seven
sacred plants. They were called the Hi-you-yul-gee.1
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 car-
dinal points.2

The ancient inhabitants of Haiti, when first discov-
ered 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

1 Probably the plural form of the sacred interjection or chorus,
hi-yo-yu ; though Gatschet, who spells it hayayalgi, considers it de-
rived from hayayagi, light or radiance. Migration Legend of the
Greeks, vol. ii. p. 83.

2 Hawkins, Sketch of the Creek Country, pp. 81, 82 ; Blomes, Ace.
of his Majesty's Colonies, p. 156, London, 1687 ; Gatschet, Migration
Legend of the Creeks, vol. i. p. 231.

96 THE SACEED NUMBER, ITS ORIGIN.

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.1 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 exclama-
tion, " Lo, he is of our race."2 It is a poor and feeble
effort to tell the same old story.

In the tolerably well-preserved legends of the various
Mayan tribes, the Quiches, Cakchiquels, and Tzentals,
we find constant reference to the four ancestors, or genii,
or guardians, the Tutul Xiu, or the Ghanan. But, in-
deed, 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 aston-
ishment : " 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

1 Peter Martyr, De Reb. Ocean., Dec. i. lib. ix. The story is also
told more at length by the Brother Eomain Pane, in the essay on
the ancient histories of the natives he drew up by the order of
Columbus. It has been reprinted with notes by the Abbe Bras-
seur, Paris, 1864, p. 438, sqq. Las Casas also mentions it, Histoi*ia
de las Indicts : Lib. ii.

2 Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, iv. p. 89.

THE FOUR QUARTERS. 97

their migrations ; or as kings and rulers of monarchies
after their foundation ; and even to the time of the con-
quest, there are always four princes who compose the
supreme government, whether in Guatemala or in
Mexico."1

This fourfold division points not to a common his-
tory, but to a common nature. The ancient heroes and
demigods, who, four in number, figure in all these an-
tique 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.2

1 Brasseur, Le Liv. Sac,, Introd., p. cxvii.

2 Diego de Landa, Eel. de las Cosas de Yucatan, pp. 160, 206,
208, ed. Brasseur. The assignment of the colors was not uniform.
See my Primer of Mayan Hieroglyphics, p. 41. Such a dedication of
colors to the cardinal points is universal in Central Asia. The
geographical names of the Ked 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 car-

7

98 THE SACRED NUMBER, ITS ORIGIN.

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 por-
tentous 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 min-
isters of the highest power. As such they were repre-
sented in the religious ceremonies by four old men,
constant attendants on the high priest in his official
functions. In this most civilized branch of the red
race, as everywhere else, we thus find four mythological
characters prominent beyond all others, giving a pecu-
liar 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
Quich6 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, Beau-
tiful Water, Water of Serpents, and Water of Birds.1
Truly he who can see aught but a transparent myth in

dinal points. (Sepp, Heidenthum und Christenthum, i. p. 177.) The
coincidence furnishes food for reflection.

Le Livre Sacre des Quiches, pp. 203-5, note.

THE FOUR IN ONE. 99

this recital is a realist who 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 con-
ception. 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.1

This acute and extraordinary analysis of the origin
and laws of organic life, clothed under the ancient be-
lief in the action of the winds, reveals a depth of
thought for which we were hardly prepared, and is one
of the few instances of speculative generalization among
the red race. It is clearly visible in the earlier portions
of the legends of the Quiche's, 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 civil izers are said to have emerged from a

* The analogy is remarkable between these and the ' c quatre
actes de la puissance generatrice jusqu'a Pentier developpement
des corps organises," portrayed by four globes in the Mycenean
bas-reliefs. See Guigniaut, Religions de PAntiquite, 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
refrain from the temptation, as their discussion would involve the
study of primitive religions in general, which would take me too
far from the aim of the present work.

100 THE SACRED NUMBER, ITS ORIGIN.

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 Tona-
catepec, 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 an-
other Aztec legend which points for the birthplace of
the race to Tula in the distant orient.1

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, or with that in which, according to early Christian
legend, Jesus was born. 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 an-
other transformation of the Protean myth we have so
long pursued.2

There are traces of the same legend among many
other tribes of the continent, but the trustworthy re-

1 See H. Cunow, Die sociale Verfasmng des Inkareichs, p. 20 (Stutt-
gart, 1896).

2 For the mythology of Peru, Garcilasso de la Vega, Comentarios
Reales, and the Tres Relaciones Peruanas, published in Madrid,
1879, are valuable authorities. A good resume is given by J. G.
Miiller, Amerikanische Urreligionen, pp. 308 sqq., from the older
writers. Von Tschudi, Middendorf and Markham are more recent.

THE FOUR BROTHERS. 101

ports we have of them are too scanty to permit analy-
sis. Enough that they are mentioned in a note, for
it is every way likely that could we resolve their mean-
ing they too would carry us back to the four winds,1

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,

1 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 Ceem ; the latter he ex-
plains 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 Adam, Gram. Comp. de la Langue Tupi, s. v.
Koema). 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 four-
fold division of the Muyscas of Bogota was traced back to four
chieftains created by their hero god Nemqueteba (E. Eestrepo,
Los Aborigines de Colombia, cap. iii., Bogota, 1892). The Nahuas
of Mexico much more frequently spoke of themselves as descend-
ants 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 de-
scent 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. A tribe visited by Lederer in Vir-
ginia was composed of four clans, who neither married nor buried
together (Discoveries, p. 5, London, 1672).

102 THE SACKED NUMBER, ITS ORIGIN.

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,1 or four gigantic caryatides who sustain
the heavens and blow the winds from their capacious
lungs,2 or more frequently as four rivers flowing from
the broken calabash on high, as the Haitians, draining
the waters of the primitive world,3 as four animals who
bring from heaven the maize,* 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.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 men-
tion of a celestial fountain, Arduisur, the virgin daugh-
ter of Ormuzd, whence four all nourishing rivers roll
their waves toward the cardinal points ; therefore the
Tibetans believe that on the sacred mountain of Hi-
mavata grows the tree of life Zampu, from whose foot

1 Mandans in Catlin, Letts, and Notes, I p. 181.

2 The Mayas, Cogolludo, Hist, de Yucathan, lib. iv. cap. 8.

3 The Navajos, Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, iv. p. 89.
* The Quiches, Ximenes, Or. de los Indios, p. 79.

6 The Iroquois, Muller, Amer. Urrelicfionen, p. 109.

THE RIVERS OF PARADISE. 103

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 Kou-
antun, by the Edda of the mountain in Asaheim,
whence flows the spring Hvergelmir, by the Brahmins
of Mount Meru, and by the Parsees of Mount Albors
in the Caucasus. Need I add to this catalogue the
legend of the four rivers of Paradise, borrowed in
Genesis from ancient Babylonian myths, and which
learned men to-day, like the writer of that venerable
document, strive in vain to identify with rivers of ter-
restrial geography ?

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 in-
crease.1 Beyond all other spots were they accounted
fertile, scenes of joyous plaisance, of repose, and eter-
nal 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 un-
alloyed delight the first of men; thence driven by
untoward fate, no more anywhere could they find the

1 The navel string was regarded as a specially sacred object by
many American tribes. It was buried, and at certain seasons the
individual to whom it belonged visited the spot to perform reli-
gious rites. See Sahagun, Historia, Lib. v. App. ; Kingsborough,
Mexican Antiquities, vol. v. p. 91 ; Brinton, The Native Calendar,
p. 18.

104 THE SACRED NUMBER, ITS ORIGIN.

path thither. Some thought that in the north among
the fortunate Hyperboreans, others that in the moun-
tains of the moon where dwelt the long lived Ethio-
pians, 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 para-
dise,1 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 in 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 f 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.3

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

1 That such was in part his purpose, see Navarrete, Viages,
Tom. i. p. 259.

2 Peter Martyr, De Reb. Ocean., Dec. iii., lib. ix. p. 195 (Colon,
1574).

8 Ibid., Dec. iii., lib. x. p. 202.

THE FOUNTAIN OF LIFE. 105

Cuba, Yucatan, and Honduras in search of these reno-
vating 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 seduc-
tive joys, forgetful of former ties.1

Perhaps it was but another rendering of the same
belief that pointed to the impenetrable forests of the
Orinoco, the ancient homes of the Caribs and Ara-
wacks, 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 spon-
taneously maize, cacao, 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, tur-
quoises, gold, and silver."2

This land was also called Tlalocan, from Tlaloc, the
god of rain, who there had his dwelling place, and Tla-
pallan, the land of colors, or the red land, for the hues

1 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).

2 Sahagun, Hist, de la Nuew Esparto, lib. iii. cap. iii.

106 THE SACRED NUMBER, ITS ORIGIN.

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 Tonacate-
pec, the mountain of our life or subsistence. Its sup-
posed 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.1

But here, as elsewhere, its site was not determined.
u There is a Tulan," says an ancient authority, u 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."2

1 Le Invre Sacre des Quiches, Introd ., p. clviii.

2 Memorial de Tecpan Atitlan, in Brasseur, Hist, du Mexique,
i. p. 167. The derivation of Tulan, or Tula, is extremely uncer-
tain. The Abb6 Brasseur saw in it the ultima Thule of the ancient
geographers, which suited his idea of early American history. Her-
nando De Soto found a village of this name on the Mississippi, or
near it. But on looking into Gallatin's vocabularies, tutta 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. Busch-
mann, who spells it Tollan, takes it from fo/m, a rush, and translates,
juncetum, Ort der Binsen. (Ueber die Aztekischen Orstnamen, p. 682.) It
is sometimes found in the form Tonallan, which means "the sunny
place," from tonatiuh with the ending tlan. Those who have at-
tempted 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, Clavi-
gero north of Anahuac, etc. etc. M. de Charencey remarks that
more than twenty cities in Mexico and Central America bore this

THE EDEN GARDEN. 107

The myth of the Quiches but changes the name of
this pleasant land. With them it was Pan-paxil-pa-
cayala, where the waters divide in falling, or, between
the waters parcelled out and mucky. This was " an
excellent land, full of pleasant things, where was store
of white corn and yellow corn, where one could not
count the fruits, nor estimate the quantity of honey
and food." Over it ruled the lord of the air, and from
it the four sacred animals carried the corn to make the
flesh of men.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 sec-
ond 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.2

name. (Le Mythe de Votan, p. 29.) Aztlan, literally the White Land,
is another name originally of 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, there-
fore, the Revealer, or the Wondrous One ( Vocab. de la Lengua
Quiche, p. 209 : Paris, 1862).

1 Ximenes, Or. de los Indios, p. 80, Le Livre Sacre, p. 195.

2 Garcia, Origen de los Indios, lib. iv. cap. 4.

108 THE SACRED NUMBER, 'ITS ORIGIN.

Wherever, in short, the lust of gold lured the early
adventurers, they were told of some nation a little fur-
ther 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 fic-
tion 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 nat-
urally group themselves around each of the cardinal
points, and watch how these are mirrored on the sur-
face 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.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,

1 Compare the German expression sich orientiren, to right one-
self by the east, to understand one's surroundings.

EAST AND WEST. 109

Tlalocavitl. " The East," says Mr. Dorsey, speaking
of the Dakotas, " symbolizes life and the source there-
of;" therefore they lay a corpse with the head to the
east, as intimating the hope of a future life.1

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 car-
dinal 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, as
also did the Egyptians and many other nations of the
Old World. "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,

1 J. O. Dorsey, A Study of Siouan Cults, in llth Kep. Bur. of
Ethnology, p. 377.

110 THE SACRED NUMBER, ITS ORIGIN.

to the west, and there joins its family and friends who
went before it.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.2 A floe of ice in the Arctic
Sea was the home of the guardian spirit of the Algon-
kins ;s on a mountain near the north star the Dakotas
thought Heyoka dwelt who rules the seasons ; and the
realm of Mictli, the Aztec god of death, lay where the
shadows pointed. From that cheerless abode his
sceptre reached over all creatures, even the gods them-
selves, for sooner or later all must fall before him. The
great spirit of the dead, said the Ottawas, lives in the
dark north,4 and there, in the opinion of the Monquis
of California, resided their chief god, Gumongo.5

Unfortunately the makers of vocabularies have rarely
included the words north, south, east, and west, in their
Jists, 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 debarka-
tion ; 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.6

Hawkins, Sketch of the Greek Country, p. 80.

See Jacob Grimm, Geschichte der Deutechen Sprache, p. 681.

De Smet, Oregon Missions, p. 352.

Bressani, Relation Abrege, p. 93.

Venegas, Hist, of California, i. p. 91 (London, 1759).

Cogolludo, Hist, de Yucathan, lib. iv. cap. iii.

NORTH AND SOUTH. Ill

The Aztecs spoke of the east as u the direction of
Tlalocan," the terrestrial paradise.

For north and south there were no such natural
appellations, and consequently the greatest diversity is
exhibited in the plans adopted to express them. The
north in the Caddo tongue is " the place of cold," in
Dakota " the situation of the pines," in Creek " the
abode of the (north) star," in Algonkin " the home of
the soul," in Aztec "the direction of Mictla," the realm
of death, in Quiche and Quichua " to the right hand;"1
while for the south we find such terms as in Dakota
" the downward direction," in Algonkin " the place of
warmth," in Quiche " to the left hand," while among
the Eskimos, who look in this direction for the sun, its
name implies " before one," just as does the Hebrew
word kedem, which, however, this more southern tribe
applied to the east.

We can trace the sacredness of the number four in
other curious and unlooked-for developments. Multi-
plied into the number of the fingers — the arithmetic
of every child and primitive man — or by adding to-
gether 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

1 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 sun (Ansichten der Natur, ii. p.
368). But the distinguished naturalist overlooked the literal
meaning of the phrases he quotes for north and south, intip chau-
tuta 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 hatia la
media noche, hacia d medio dia, for they could not have originated
among a people under or south of the equatorial line. Other terms
are given by Middendorf, Keshua Worterbuch, s. v. inti.

112 THE SACRED NUMBER, ITS ORIGIN.

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 prepara-
tion or purification. The females of the Orinoco 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.1

No one is ignorant how widely this belief was preva-
lent in the old world, nor how the quadrigesimal is still
a sacred term with some denominations of Christianity.

In another phase of custom the cardinal points were
closely associated with ceremonies relating to reverence
paid the heavenly bodies, not only in America but nigh
universally. The marriage rite of the Indian Aryans
prescribed that the couple should walk together thrice
around a fire, keeping it on their right, thus following
the apparent motion of the sun and stars. In Scot-
land there still survive many superstitions connected
with the deisel, the similar movement from left to right,
and with the widdershins, the motion in the reverse
direction. Thus arose the " sinistral and dextral cir-
cuits," and the notions of good or ill luck connected
with one or the other hand, the left often bearing the
happier augury.2

From their original associations the motion with the
heavenly bodies came to represent celestial, that con-

i Catlin, Letters and Notes, i., Letter 22; La Hontan, Memoires,
ii. p. 151; Gumilla, Hist, del Orinoco, p. 159.

1 As in Home, China and also Mexico. Orozco y Berra, Hist.
Antigua de Mexico, i. p. 125.

THE CEREMONIAL CIRCUIT. 113

trary to them terrestrial symbolism, and so they arc
explained to this day in Korea, where, as in many other
lands, they are prominent in methods of divination, in
the rituals of religion, in the offices of courtesy, and in
games of chance and recreation,1

All this is repeated in America. We find the same
games, patolli, tlachtli, etc., the same methods of divi-
nation, the same religious processions, based on the
idea of following or reversing the apparent motions
of the stars in naming, arranging or visiting the four
world quarters. When in the tribal circle the various
gentes were assigned their places with reference to the
cardinal points, the formal movements of the assembly
were prescribed in a " ceremonial circuit " of this na-
ture with rigidity. In the sacred dances the similar
motions were taught, the men sometimes moving in
one, the women in the other direction. As the gods visit
the regions of the heavens in due order and solemn
procession, so it was conceived should man ceremoni-
ally move from one to another of the regions of the ter-
restrial plane ; but as man is not of the gods, there were
reasons why his circuit should often differ from theirs.2

But a more striking parallelism awaits us. The sym-
bol 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 nat-
ural religions, and have reverently accepted it as a
mystery, or offered scores of conflicting and often de-
basing interpretations. It is but another symbol of
the four cardinal points, the four winds of heaven. This

1 Stewart Culin, Korean Games, Introduction.

2 On this interesting subject see J. O. Dorsey, Study of Siouan
Otdts, chap. vii. ; J. W. Fewkes, in Jour. Amer. Folk-lore, 1892, p.
33 ; F. II. Gushing, in Amer. Anthropologist, 1892, p. 303, etc.

114 THE SACRED NUMBER, ITS ORIGIN.

will luminously appear by a study of its use and mean-
ing 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 St. Thomas or
the sacrilegious subtlety of Satan. It was the central
object in the great temple of Cozumel, and is still pre-
served on the bas-reliefs of the ruined city of Palenque.
From time immemorial it had received the prayers and
sacrifices of the Nahuas and Mayas, and was suspended
as an august emblem from the walls of temples in Po-
poyan 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 Yu-
catan," say the chroniclers, " prayed to the cross as the
god of rains when they needed water." And Las Casas,
the early bishop of Chiapas, tells us that " around the
principal water-springs, the natives were wont to erect
four altars, in the form of a cross."1 The Aztec goddess
of rains bore a cross in her hand, and at the feast cele-
brated to her honor in the early spring, victims were
nailed to a cross and shot with arrows.

Quetzalcoatl, as 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.2

1 Historid Apologetica, cap. 121 .

2 On the worship of the cross in Mexico and Yucatan and
its invariable meaning as representing the gods of rain, con-
sult Ixtlilxochitl, Hist, des Chichimeques, p. 5 ; Las Casas,
Hist. Apologetica, c. 121 ; Sahagun, Hist, de la Nueva Espafta, lib.
i. cap. ii. Garcia, Or. de los Indios, lib. iii. cap. vi. p. 109 ; Pala-

RAIN-MAKING. 115

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.1 The arms of the
cross were designed to point to the cardinal points and
represent the four winds, the rain bringers. To con-
firm this explanation, let us have recourse to the sim-
pler ceremonies of the less cultivated tribes, and see
the transparent meaning of the symbol as they em-
ployed 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 to-
wards 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.2 The Blackfeet
were accustomed to arrange the glacial boulders on the
prairies in the form of a cross, in honor, they said, of
Natose, " the Old Man who sends the winds " (Gen. J.
M. Brown). The Creeks at the festival of the Busk,
celebrated, as we have seen, to the four winds, and ac-
cording to their legends instituted by them, commenced
with making the new fire. The manner of this was

cios, Des. delaProv. de Guatemala, p. 29; Cogolludo, Hist, de Yuca-
than, liv. iv. cap. ix. ; Villagutierre Sotomayor, Hist, de el Itza y
de el Lacandon, lib. iii. cap. 8 ; and many others might be men-
tioned. In some instances the " mace " of the Mexican divinities
is the atlatl, or throwing stick, as has been clearly shown by Mrs.
Zelia Nuttall (Peabody Museum Papers, vol. i. No. 3). The cross
also appears in this connection.

1 E. Restrepo, Los Aborigenes de Colombia, p. 45, after Simon and
Acosta.

2 Loskiel, Ges. der Miss, der evang. Briider, p. 60.

116 THE SACRED NUMBER, ITS ORIGIN.

" 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."1 This was the precise form of the cross
which, according to Las Casas, was an object of worship
on the coast of South America, near Cumana, at and
long before the arrival of the Christians.2

As the emblem of the winds who dispense the fer-
tilizing 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,3 the
tombs of the Mexicans were cruciform, it was perhaps
with reference to a resurrection and a future life as por-
trayed 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 in-

1 Hawkins, Sketch of the Creek Country, p. 75. Laphara 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 car-
dinal 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 ' ' (Kiggs, Diet, 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 de-
fence or protection, as the warrior lifts his lance or shield (Landa,
Eel. de las Cosas de Yucatan, p. 65). The Siouan gentes are placed
in the tribal circle with reference to the form of the Greek cross
(Dorsey, Siouan Cults, chap. vi.).

2 Historia Apologetica, MS., cap. 125. The figure he gives of it
is that of the Greek cross, two lines of equal length meeting in
their centres at right angles. The natives of Cumana were Caribs.

3 Squier, The Serpent Symbol in America, p. 98.

THE TREE OF LIFE. 117

terpreted life ; doubtless, could we trace the hieroglyph
to its source, it would likewise prove to be derived
from the four winds. Just as these dwellers in the Nile
valley placed the entrails of the mummy in the four
Canopic vases around the body, so did the Mayas, ar-
ranging the jars in groups of four, and called them
bacabs, from the four gods of the rain or the cardinal
points.1

Often derived from the cross, always associated with
the same ideas of life and vitality, the TREE figures
conspicuously in American mythology, and occupied a
prominent position in the ceremonies and rites of the
native religions. In the cosmical pictographs of the
Mayas and Nahuas it stands in the centre of the uni-
verse, its branches rise to the fertilizing rain clouds,
while its trunk is rooted in the vase of primeval waters
from which all things took their origin.3 In the Mexi-
can sacred formulas the tree was prayed to as iota,
"Our Father," and was called god of the waters and
the green foliage.3 Did the ancient Quiches desire off-
spring, they sought some spot where a tree overhung
a fountain, and to it they addressed their prayers and
offered their sacrifices.4 To this day the green tree,
the vax che, usually the ceiba, is an object of reverence
near the native hamlets of Central America. It is the
sign of life, and its honor is a survival of that of the
primal tree which their ancestors adored.

It would be 'easy to accumulate from all parts of

1 H. de Charencey, Le My the de Votan, p. 39.

2 Brinton, Primer of Mayan Hieroglyphics, pp. 49, 101.

3 Diego Duran, Historia de los Indios, T. ii. p. 240.

4 F. Ximenes, Origen de los Indios, p. 189. On the cross as an
art-form conventionalized from the tree, see the remarks of W. H.
Holmes in 2d An. Kep. Bur. of Ethnol., pp. 270, 271.

118 THE SACKED NUMBER, ITS ORIGIN.

America the evidence of the worship of trees as an
emblem of life, and their connection with the waters,
the four winds and the cross. In the picturesque
myths of the Yurucares of Bolivia, when all men had
been destroyed by fire, the god Tiri opened a«tree, and
from it allowed various tribes to emerge, until he
deemed the earth sufficiently peopled, when he closed
it. But the men were weak and ignorant. Then a
virgin prayed to Ule, the most beautiful tree of the
forest, and he came forth and embraced her, engender-
ing the culture hero who taught them the arts of life.1

Everywhere we find traces of the world-tree, the
primal growth which lifted man from his dark ante-
rior dwelling place, or from the earth to heaven. The
Mbocobis of Paraguay tell of such a one which existed
in the good old times, and by which the souls of the
departed could climb commodiously to the delightful
streams of Paradise ; but a wicked old woman, angered
at her ill luck in fishing in the celestial waters, changed
herself into a rat and enviously gnawed the roots of
the tree, so that it fell and could no more be raised.2

It is not necessary to extend such references. They
indicate that the sacredness of trees was connected
with the mythical concepts I have been considering,
and find in them their main (though not only) ex-
planation. In a symbolic or ceremonial form we see
them reappear in the sacred poles of so many tribes
the sticks or stakes which surrounded the temples and
the allied objects which stood for the ideas of life.3

1 A. D'Orbigny, L* Homme Am&ricain, ii. p. 365.

2 The tree had a special name, nalliagdigua. Guevara, Hist, del
Paraguay, cap. xiv.

3 The Iroquois and Algonkins regarded the tree as an emblem
of peace, and planted one at the conclusion of a treaty (Smith,

UNIVERSAL SYMBOLS. 119

While thus recognizing the origin of these wide-
spread symbols in the structure and necessary relations
of the human body, therefore disowning the mysticism
that Joseph de Maistre and his disciples have advo-
cated, 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 la-
bors, 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 perception of a fundamental fact, a
recognition by the intellect of the method of its own
action. The laws of chemical combination, of the
various modes of motion, of all organic growth, show
that simple numerical relations govern all the proper-
ties and are inherent to the very constitution of matter.
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 mys-
teries of religion?''

Hist. New York, pp. 63, 64, 79) ; one was allowed to grow in their
villages to indicate tranquillity (Hazard, Reg. of Penna., v. p. 131).
The Abenakis honored a particular tree, and suspended offerings
on its branches (Lafitau). The "sacred pole" of the Omahas
typified the cosmic tree, the centre of the four winds and the home
of the thunder bird. (See Alice C. Fletcher in American Anti-
quarian, September, 1895, and Proc. Am. Assoc. Adv. Science, 1895,
p. 278.) It was the sacred or "mystery tree" (Dorsey, Siouan
Cult, pp. 390, 455). The custom of tree burial, or placing the corpse
in trees, no doubt in some instances bore a mythical relation to
placing them in the tree of life. It was quite common among the
western tribes.

120 THE SYMBOLS OF THE BIRD AND THE SERPENT.

CHAPTER IV.

THE SYMBOLS OF THE BIRD AND THE SERPENT.

Kelations 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 Ser-
pent 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 god of riches. — Both symbols
devoid of moral significance.

rpHOSE stories which the Germans call Thierfabeln,
wherein the actors are different kinds of brutes,
seem to have a particular relish for children and un-
cultivated nations. Who cannot recall with what de-
light 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 phy-
siognomy in so many of them. The fox is always
cunning, the wolf ravenous, the owl gloomy and wise,
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 can-
not doubt but that the former was the case. Going back
to the dawn of civilization, we find these relations not

ANIMAL WORSHIP. 121

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.

The effort has been made to trace early faiths to an
animal worship exclusively, but it has failed, as must
all such narrow theories. The idea of the divine ac-
knowledges no single source in nature. The infinite
power imminent in all phenomena expresses itself to
man in all. The form of animal worship called " to-
temism " prevailed extensively among the American
Indians, as it did also in Australia. The " totem " was
the mythical animal after whom the clan or gens was
named, and from which in the mythic philosophy it
was genealogically descended. In many legends these
animal gods created and directed in their course the
heavenly bodies, and established the institutions of
human society.1

It is probable, however, that the totemic badge had a
political or social rather than a distinctly religious sig-
nificance. It was not always an animal, as we find
snow, ice and water totems as well.2 Nevertheless, there
are instances, and abundance of them, where supersti-
tious honors were paid directly to inferior animals. The
Lower Creeks, like the ancient Egyptians, venerated the
alligator, and never destroyed one.8 The jaguar was

1 J. W. Powell, Mythology of the North American Indians, pp. 39,
40. The word totem is from the Algonkin verbal root ot or od, to
belong to ; hence ote, family, nind otem, my family, etc. Thavenet
believed it related to teh or oteh, heart, life, soul. Cuoq, Lexique
Algonquine, p. 312, and J. H Trumbull, in Am. Phttol. Assoc., 1872,
p. 23. The literature about totemism is so extended that I need
not quote titles.

2 C. S. Wake, in the American Antiquarian, 1889, p. 354.

3 B. Roman, Nat. and Civ. Hist, of Florida, p. 101.

122 THE SYMBOLS OF THE BIRD AND THE SERPENT.

worshipped by the Moxos of Bolivia, and they ap-
pointed as priests those who had escaped from its
claws.1 The extensive and mysterious doctrine of Na-
gualism in Mexico and Central America is based on
the belief that each individual has a beast as a patron
and protector, and an adept can assume its form at will.2

Man, the paragon of animals, praying to the beast,
is a spectacle so humiliating that it prompts us to 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 cloth-
ing. 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 qual-
ities 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 sor-
cerer could break this charm, but such an one could

1 A. D'Orbigny, L'Homme Americain, ii. p. 235.

2 D. G. Brinton, Nagualism, p. 59 (Philadelphia, 1894).

THE BIRD. 123

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 omni-
present deity which he thought he perceived under its
form.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 pres-
ent 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
clods 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

1 That these were the real views entertained by the Indians in
regard to the brute creation, see Heckewelder, Ace. of the Ind.
Nations, p. 247; Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, iii. p. 520. As von den
Steinen accurately says : — " Wir miissen uns die Grenzen zwischen
Mensch und Tier vollstandig wegdenken." Naturvolker Zentral
Braztiiens, p. 351 (1894).

124 THE SYMBOLS OF THE BIRD AND THE SERPENT.

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 Eski-
mos, have the faculty of soul (tarrak), but especially
the birds.1

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.
u 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. "*
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 pretending to interpret
the songs of fowls.

So natural and so general is such a superstition, and
so widespread is the respect it still obtains in civilized
and Christian lands, that it is not worth while to sum-
mon witnesses to show that it prevailed universally
among the red race also. What imprinted it with re-
doubled 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 ;3 while the Aztecs and various

1 Egede, Nachrichten con Gronland, p. 156.

* Voiages aux Indes Occidentales, pt. iii p. 203 (Amst. 1722).

3 Beverly, Hist, de la Virginie, liv. iii. chap. viii.

BIRDS AS WINDS. 125

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 forest, 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 con-
ceive 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 ani-
mal 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 j1 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.2 The thunder cloud wns

1 Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, v. p. 420.

2 Mrs. Eastman, Legends of the Sioux, p. 191 (New York, 1849).
This is a trustworthy and meritorious book, which can be said of

126 THE SYMBOLS OF THE BIRD AND THE SERPENT.

also a bird to the Caribs, and they imagined it pro-
duced the lightning in true Carib fashion by blow-
ing it through a hollow reed, just as they to this clay
hurl their poisoned darts.1 Most of the natives of the
northwest coast explain the thunder as the flapping of
the wings of a giant bird, the lightning as the flash of
his eye. Tupis, Iroquois, Athapascas, for certain, per-
haps 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 what
they considered 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 pano-
rama 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

very few of the older 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 narra-
tions.

1 De la Borde, Religion des Caraibes, p. 7 (Paris, 1674).

THE EAGLE. 127

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 ad-
mirable qualities. Its feathers composed the war flag
of the Creeks, and its images carved in wood or its
stuffed skin surmounted their council lodges (Bar-
tram) ; none but an approved warrior dared wear it
among the Cherokees (Timberlake) ; and the Dakotas
allowed such an honor only to him who had first
touched the corpse of the common foe (De Smet).

The Natchez and Akanzas seem to have paid it even
religious honors, and to have installed it in their most
sacred shrines (Sieur de Tonty, Du Pratz) ; and very
clearly it was not so much for ornament as for a mark
of dignity and a recognized sign of worth that its
plumes were so highly prized.

The natives of Zuni, in New Mexico, employed four
of its feathers to represent the four winds in their in-
vocations for rain (Whipple, Gushing), and probably it
was the eagle which a tribe in upper California (the Acag-
chemem) 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.1

1 Ace. of the Inds. of California, ch. ix. Eng. trans, by Robinson
(New York, 1847). The Acagchemem were a branch of the Netela

128 THE SYMBOLS OF THE BIRD AND THE SERPENT.

The owl was regarded by Nahuas, Quiches, Mayas,
Peruvians, Araucanians, and Algonkins as sacred to the
lord of the dead. " The Owl " was one of the names
of the Mexican Pluto, whose realm was in the north,1
and the wind from that quarter was supposed by the
Chipeways to be made by the owl, as the south by the
butterfly.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.3
The Arickarees placed one above the "medicine stone"
in their council lodge, and the culture hero of the Mon-
quis 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 Nahuas rever-
enced a bird called quetzal, the beautiful Trogon splendens.
Its plumage is of a bright green hue, and was prized

tribe of Shoshonees who dwelt near the mission San Juan Capis-
trano (see Buschmann, Spuren der Aztek. Sprache, etc. , p. 548 ;
Brinton, The American Race, p. 123).

1 Called in the Aztec tongue Tecoloti, night owl ; literally, the
stone scorpion. The transfer was mythological. The Christians
prefixed to this word tlaca, man, and thus formed a name for Sa-
tan, which Prescott and others have translated "rational owl."
No such deity existed in ancient Anahuac (see Buschmann, Die
Voelkerund SprachenNeu Mexico's, p. 262).

2 Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, v. p. 420.

3 William Bartram, Travels, p. 504. Columbus found the natives
of the Antilles wearing tunics with figures of these birds embroi-
dered upon them. Prescott, Conq. of Mexico, i. p. 58, note.

THE DOVE. 129

extravagantly as a decoration. It was one of the sym-
bols and part of the name of Quetzalcoatl, their mythi-
cal 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 the Mandans would kill them,
for they believed they were inhabited by the souls of
the departed/ 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.

il 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 crea-
tures 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 ser-
pentine. The name Serpentine is borne by an English
/ stream ; a river in British America is called the Ser-

1 Ed. de la Nww. France, An. 1636, ch. ix. Catlin, Letters and
Notes, Lett. 22.

9

130 THE SYMBOLS OF THE BIRD AND THE SERPENT.

pent; and in Arcadia the Greeks had the Ophis. So
with 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 lit-
erally, 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 Algonquins 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.1

The rattlesnake was the species almost exclusively
honored by the red race.2 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 fas-
cination is nothing more than by its presence near their

1 Ed. 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, and is
commented on by Mrs. E. A. Smith in her Myths of the Iroquois, in
Eep. Bur. Ethnology for 1880-81.

2 In North American art, both modern and that from the mounds
and shell-heaps, "the rattlesnake is the variety almost univer-
sally represented. " W. H. Holmes, Art in Shell of the Ancient Ameri-
cans in 2d An. Eep. of the Bureau of Ethnology, p. 289. In the
Mayan manuscripts and carvings it is the only serpent represented
as a symbol. Its name in their language is Serpent King, ahau
can, and to it are assigned the four sacred colors. Brinton, Primer
of Mayan Hieroglyphics, p. 75.

SNAKE-CHARMING. 131

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 at-
tributed by the unreflecting to some diabolic spell cast
upon them by the animal.

They have the same strange susceptibility to the in-
fluence of rhythmic sounds as the vipers, in which lies
the secret of snake charming. Most of the Indian ma-
gicians were familiar with this singularity. They em-
ployed it with telling effect to put beyond question
their intercourse with the unseen powers, and to vindi-
cate the potency of their own guardian spirits who
thus enabled them to handle with impunity the most
venomous of reptiles.1

The well-known antipathy of these serpents to certain
plants, for instance the hazel, which bound around the
ankles is an alleged protection against their attacks, and
perhaps some antidote to their poison used by the
magicians, led to their frequent introduction in relig-
ious ceremonies. Such exhibitions must have made a
profound impression on the spectators, and redounded
in a corresponding degree to the glory of the per-
former. " Who is a manito ?" asks the mystic meda

1 For example, in Brazil, Miiller, Amer. Urrelig.,p. 277 ; in Yu-
catan, Cogolludo, Hist, de Yucathan, lib. iv. cap. 4 ; among the
Western Algonkins, Hennepin, Decouverte dans V Amer. Septen. , chap.
33. The literature relating to serpent worship in America is very
rich. I mention Squier, The Serpent /Symbol in America, 1851 ;
Bourke, The Snake-dance of the Moquis, 1884, as important. Mrs.
M. C. Stevenson, J. W. Fewkes, F. C. Hodge, and F. H. Gushing
have written fully on the snake ceremonies of the Pueblo Indians.

132 THE SYMBOLS OF THE BIRD AND THE SERPENT.

chant of the Algonkins. " He," is the reply, " he who
walketh with a serpent, walking on the ground, he is a
manito."1

The intimate alliance of this symbol with the mys-
teries 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 the supernatural
in its broadest sense, are also used as terms for 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 inter-
course with demoniac powers, to practice magic, and to
consult familiar spirits.*

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 Wyo-
ming 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

1 Narrative of the Captivity and Adventures of John Tanner, p. 3oti.

2 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 inter-
course with demons, to conjure, a magician, etc. See JSoldeke in
the Zeitschrift filr Vodkerpsychologie und Sprachenwissenschaft, i.
p. 413. The dialects of the Algonquin referred to are the Shaw-
nee and the Saukie. For similar relations in Iroquois and Dakota
see Hewitt, Amer. Anthropologist, 1889, p. 179; Dorsey, Siouan
Cults, p. 366.

THE LIFE-SYMBOL.

133

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 mur-
derers 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 has-
tened to catch some serpent and give her its blood to
drink.1

It is well known that in ancient art this animal was
the symbol of ^Esculapius, and to this day Professor
Agassiz found that the Maues Indians, who live between
the upper Tapajos and Madeira Rivers, in Brazil, when-
ever they assign a form to any " remedio," give it that
of a serpent.3 And among the Lenape Indians their
most famous doctors were called " Big Snakes."3

Probably this notion that it was annually rejuve-
nated led to its adoption as a symbol of Time among

1 Alexander Henry, Travels, p. 117.

2 Bost. Med. and Surg. Journal, vol. 76, p. 21.

3 William Nelson, The Indians of New Jersey, p. 53 (1894).
After Wassenacr.

134 THE SYMBOLS OF THE BIRD AND THE SERPENT.

the Nahuas ; 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 these 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.

A natural object with so many strange traits as I
have mentioned would necessarily as a symbol be as-
sociated with various conceptions in primitive religions ;
therefore it would be a manifest error to explain the
serpent symbol by any one interpretation. But that it
has one which is prominent beyond others in America
is unquestionable. It is the same which a number of
years ago the German writer Schwartz proved to be so
prevalent in German and Greek mythology.

He demonstrated that a meaning which recurs very
frequently 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 zig-
zag course, the rapid flash, and sudden stroke of the
electric discharge. He even went so far as to imagine
that by this resemblance the serpent first acquired the
veneration of men. But this was an extravagance not
supported by more thorough research.

He has further shown with great aptness of illustra-
tion how, by its dread effects, the lightning, the heav-
enly 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

THE LIGHTNING- SERPENT. 135

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 frag-
ments, and was one source of the stone worship so fre-
quent 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.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 Schil-
ler:—

' ' Unter alien 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

1 Schwarz, Der Ursprung der Mythologie dargdegt an Griechischer
und Deutscher Sage : passim.

136 THE SYMBOLS OF THE BIRD AND THE SERPENT.

have often found huge snakes." " Here is a novel phi-
losophy for you !" exclaims the Father.1

So the Shawnees called the thunder " the hissing of
the great snake ;V2 and Tlaloc, the Aztec thunder god,
held in his hand a serpent of gold to represent the
lightning.3 For this reason the Caribs spoke of the god
of the thunder storm as a great serpent dwelling in the
fruit forests,4 and in the Quiche legends other names
for Hurakan, the hurricane or thunder-storm, are the
Strong Serpent, He who hurls below, referring to the
lightning.5

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, fur-
nished them at times small fragments for a large con-
sideration.6

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

1 JRel. de la, Nouv. France; An. 1637, p. 53, and Peter Jones,
Hist, of the Ojibway Indians, pp. 86, 87.

2 James A. Jones, Traditions of the North American Indians, p. 21.
A work of small merit, but presenting a few valuable facts.

3 Torquemada, Monarquia Indiana, lib. vi. cap. 37.

4 De la Borde, ubi supra.

5 Le Livre Sucre des Quiches, p. 3.

6 Rel. de la Nouv. France, 1648, p. 75.

THE RATTLESNAKE. 137

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 rattle-
snakes. Obedient subjects guarded his palace, and on
his head glittered in place of a crown a gem of mar-
vellous 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 re-
ligious 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.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 unimpeach-
able authority toward the close of the last century, the

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.

138 THE SYMBOLS OF THE BIRD AND THE SERPENT.

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 of 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.1

The myth recurs where no historical connection can
be presumed. In the central region of the volanic
island of Dominica is a deep vale, wherein, alleged the
Carib natives, dwelt a monstrous serpent; "upon its
head is a sparkling stone like a carbuncle, which is
commonly covered with a thin moving skin, like a
man's eyelid; but when he drank and sported himself
in that deep bottom, it was plainly discovered, the
rocks about the place receiving a wondrous lustre from
the fire issuing out of that precious crown." This was
probably the great serpent, Racumon, brother of Sava-
con, who, according to De la Borde, these islanders
believed to be the lord of the hurricane and the maker
of the winds.2

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 moun-
tains, we shall not overstep the bounds of prudent
reasoning if we see the thunderbolt, sign of the fructi-
fying rain, symbol of the strength of the lightning,

1 Hawkins, Sketch of the Creek Country, p. 80.

2 Blomes, State of His Majesties Territories in America, p. 73
(London, 1687) ; De la Borde, Relation des Caraibes, p. 7 (Paris,
1674).

THE THUNDER BIRD. 139

horn of the heavenly serpent. They are obviously
meteorological in their original meaning, though this
is often obscured and lost to sight in later renderings.
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 fur-
ther 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 j1 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,2 we
cannot be wrong in rejecting any historical or ethical
interpretation, and in constructing them as allegories
which at first represented the atmospheric changes
which accompany the advancing seasons and the ripen-
ing 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.3 They are
the same stories which in the old world have been
elaborated into the struggles of Ormuzd and Ahriman,

1 Schoolcraft, Algic Researches, i. p. 179 sq. ; compare ii. p. 117.

2 Morgan, League of the Iroquois, p. 159 ; Cusic, Trad. Hist, of the
Six Nations, p. ii.

3 Mrs. Eastman, Legends of the Sioux, pp. 161, 212. In this
explanation I depart from Prof. Schwarz, who, collecting various
legends almost identical with these of the Indians (with which he
was not acquainted^, interpreted the precious crown or horn to be
the summer sun, brought forth by the early vernal lightning.
Ursprung der Mythologie, p. 27, note. It is needless to refer to the
numerous later writers who have developed these views.

140 THE SYMBOLS OF THE BIRD AND THE SEEPENT.

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. We may
find reason to prefer one or another in a given in-
stance ; but the maxim to be remembered is 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
most of 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 signi-
fying his incomparable skill in war, the Iroquois repre-
sent 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 an-
other to take their places,1 so, by a precisely similar
mental process, the myth of the Nahuas assigns as a
mother to their war god Huitzilopochtli, 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 emblem of the fertilizing summer showers the

1 Cusic, Traditional History, pt. ii.

THE TREE OF LIFE. 141

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.7'

The " masters " in native magic craft explained to
the bishop Nunez de la Vega that this compound sym-
bolism was to represent " the snake with feathers which
moves in the waters," that is, the heavenly waters, the
clouds and the rains.1

Frequently, therefore, in the codices and carvings
from Mexico and Central America we find the tree of
life, in the form of the cross, symbolizing the four car-
dinal points and their associations, connected with these
symbols of the serpent and the bird ; as in the cele-
brated cross of Palenque, which is surmounted by the
quetzal bird and perhaps rests on a serpent mask.

Quetzalcoatl, called also Yolcuat, the rattlesnake, was
no less intimately associated with serpents than with
birds. The entrance to his temple at Mexico repre-
sented 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, and over that which it typified.

He was also said to be the god of riches and the
patron consequently of merchants. For with the sum-
mer lightning come the harvest and the ripening fruits,
come riches and traffic. Moreover " the golden color

1 Nunez de la Vega, Constituciones Diocesaruts de Chiapiis, p. 9.

142 THE SYMBOLS OF THE BIRD AND THE SERPENT.

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 An-
cient Germans.

So it was in Peru, where the god of riches was wor-
shipped under the image of a rattlesnake horned and
hairy, with a tail of gold. It was said to have de-
scended from the heavens in the sight of all the people,
and to have been seen by the whole army of the
Inca.1 Whether it was in reference to it, or as em-
blems of their prowess, that the Incas themselves
chose as their arms two serpents with their tails inter-
laced, is uncertain ; possibly one for each of these sig-
nifications.

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 pros-
perous 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.2 For like reasons Cihuacoatl, the Serpent

1 "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 Supersti-
tions du Perou, p. 106, ed. Ternaux-Compans. This document is
very valuable).

2 Narrative of John Tanner, p. 355 ; Henry, Travels, p. 176.

THE SEEPENT SYMBOL. 143

Woman, in the myths of the Nahuas was also called
Tonantzin, our mother.1

The serpent symbol in America has, however, met
with frequent misinterpretation. It had such an omin-
ous significance in Christian art. and one which chimed
so well with the favorite proverb of the early mission-
aries— " 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 recogni-
tion of divinity in natural occurrences, it far more fre-
quently typified what was favorable and agreeable than
the reverse.

1 Torquemada, Monarquia Indiana, lib. vi. cap. 31.

144 MYTHS OF WATER, FIRE AND THUNDER-STORM.

CHAPTER V.

THE MYTHS OF WATER, FIRE, AND THE
THUNDER-STORM.

Water the oldest element. — Its use in purification. — Holy Water.
—The Kite 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 repre-
sented by a dog. — Fire worship under the form of Sun worship.
— The perpetual fire. — The new fire.— Burning the dead. - The
worship of the passions, and the reciprocal principle of Nature.
— Dualism of Deities. —American goddesses. — 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.

TVHE 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 in-
visible 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 ear-
liest, divinities.

With a nearly unanimous voice mythologies assign
the priority to Water. It was the first of all things, the

THE PRIMEVAL OCEAN. 145

parent of all things. Even the gods themselves were
born of water, said the Greeks and the Aztecs. Cos-
mogonies 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 for-
mula, " 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. From the foam-cap of the primal ocean,
said the Zunis, impregnated by the All-father, pro-
ceeded the first of beings.1

How account for such unanimity ? Not by suppos-
ing 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 nour-
ish the unborn child, nor emphasizing how indispensa-
ble 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
valleys, 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 pre-

1 F. H. Clashing, ZuHi Creatwn Myths, p. 381.
10

146 MYTHS OF WATER, FIRE AND THUNDER-STORM.

serves. " Bodies, unless dissolved, cannot act," is a
maxim of the earliest chemistry. Very plausibly, there-
fore, 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: some-
times 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 j1
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 a 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 sac-
rificial 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 rea-
son— protection from attack. Security once obtained,
growth and power followed. Thus we can trace the
earliest rays of Aztec civilization rising from Lake Tez-
cuco, of the Peruvian from Lake Titicaca, of the Muys-
cas 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 an-
cient empire of the Zac. Once a year the high priest

i A. D' Orbigny, .77 Homme Americain, i. p. 240.

HOLY WATER. 147

bore the collective offerings of the multitude into its
waves, and anointed with oils and glittering with gold
dust, dived deap in its midst, professing to hold com-
munion with the goddess who there had her home.1

Not only does the life of man but his well-being de-
pends 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 popu-
lar not only as a remedy in any and every disease, but
as a preliminary to a council or an important transac-
tion. Its real value in cold climates is proved 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 sprin-
kled 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.2

At appointed seasons the Tupi priests assembled the
people, filled large jars with water, spake certain words
of power over them, and dipping in palm branches
sprinkled their hearers.3 In the elaborate ritual of the
Mayan priests the aspergillum, with which to asperge

1 E. Restrepo, Aborigines de Columbia, cap. ii.

2 Narrative of Oceola Nikkanoche, Prince of Econchatti, p. 141 ;
Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, iv. p. 650.

3 Ives d'Evreux, Histoire de Maragnan, p. 306.

148 MYTHS OF WATER, FIEE AND THUNDER-STORM.

the sacred objects and the votaries, was an indispensa-
ble adjunct. The sacred fluid should be the dew gath-
ered at dawn from the leaves, or that which flowed from
a well of which no woman had ever tasted.1

The use of such " holy water " astonished the Roman-
ist missionaries, and they at once detected Satan paro-
dying 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."2

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 St. Thomas to explain its presence
in America.

As corporeal is near akin to spiritual pollution, and
cleanliness to godliness, ablution preparatory to en-
gaging in religious acts came early to have an emble-
matic 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 multi-

1 Landa, Relacion de Yucatan, p. 87 ; Brinton, Primer of Mayan
Hieroglyphics, p. 104.

2 The term in Maya is caput zihil, corresponding exactly to the
Latin renasci, to be re-born, Landa, Eel. de Yucatan, p. 144. It has
every appearance of an ancient word and is in the MS. Diet, de
Motul of 1576.

WATER CEREMONIES. 149

tude 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.1

When an ancient Peruvian had laid bare his guilt
by confession, he bathed himself in a neighboring river
and repeated this formula : —

" 0 thou River, receive the sins I have this day con-
fessed unto the Sun, carry them down to the sea, and
let them never more appear."2

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.3 When a Bri-bri has
touched a corpse or a pregnant woman he takes a cala-
bash of water to purify himself.4 A bath was an in-
dispensable step in the mysteries of Mithras, the initia-
tion 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 cer-
tainly as our actions fall short of our volitions, so cer-
tainly is man painfully aware of various imperfections

1 Dumont, Mems. Hist, sur la Louisiane, i. p. 233.

2 Acosta, Hist, of the New World, lib. v. cap. 25.

3 Senate Report on Condition of Indian Tribes, p. 358 (Washing-
ton, 1867).

4 Gabb, Indian Tribes of Costa Rica, p. 505.

150 MYTHS OF WATER, FIRE AND THUNDER-STORM.

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, " 0
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 crea-
tion 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."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 en-
lightened lands nobility was a matter of money — he
underwent a second baptism and received another
name, but still ostensibly from the goddess of water.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.8 In either
country sprinkling could take the place of immersion.
The Cherokees believe that unless the rite is punctually

1 Sahagun, Hist, de la Nueva Espana, lib. vi. cap. 37.

2 Ternaux-Compans, Pieces ret. a la Conq. da, Mexique, p. 233.
8 Velasco, Hist, de la Royaume de Quito, p. 106, and others.

FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH. 151

performed when the child is three days old, it will
inevitably die.1

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 Colum-
bus saw the surf of San Salvador to exist in the Baha-
ma 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. Augus-
tine. " In my dream," said he, " I visited the happy
hunting grounds and saw my twin sister, lon<? since
gone. She offered me a cup of pure water, which she
said came from the spring of the Great Spirit, and if I

1 Whipple, Rep. on the Indian Ti~ibes, 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. (Payne's MSS. in Penna. Hist. Soc.) The number
seven, according to Whipple, is as sacred with them as it was
with the Chaldeans ; 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 neigh-
bors (Travels, p. 485). Possibly they derived these peculiarities
from the Spaniards of Florida. Mr. Shea" is of opinion that mis-
sions were established among them as early as 1566 and 1643
(Hint, of Catholic Missions in the U. S., pp. 58, 73). Certainly in the
latter half of the seventeenth century the Spaniards were prose-
cuting mining operations in their territory. (See Am. Hist. Mag.,
x. p. 137.) The Cherokees of to-day retain many of the rites and
feelings of their ancestors. A valuable study of them has been
made by Mr. James Mooney, The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees,
in 7th An. Kep. Bureau of Ethnology.

152 MYTHS OF WATER, FIRE AND THUNDER-STORM.

should drink of it, I should return and live with her
forever."1

Some such mystical respect for the element, rather
than as a mere outfit for his spirit home, probably in-
duced the earlier tribes of the same territory to place
the conch-shell which the deceased had used for a cup
conspicuously upon his grave,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 association.3 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 and in the art of ancient America. As Ak-
bal 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 men-
tioned by the Caribs and Tupis as the parent of the
atmospheric waters. Large reclining images, bearing
vases, have been exhumed in the Valley of Mexico, in
Tlascala, in Yucatan, and elsewhere. They represent
the rain god, the water bearer, the patron of agriculture.4

1 Sprague, Hist, of the Florida War, p. 328.

2 Basanier, Histoire Notable de la Floride, p. 10.

3 Sahagun, Hist, de la NuevaEspana, lib. iii. app. cap. i. ; Meyen,
Ucber die Ureinwohner von Pery, p. 29.

4 Several figures of them are collected by Jesus Sanchez in an
article in the Anales del Museo Nacional de Mexico, Tom. I. The
significance of the vase-symbol in primitive cosmic conceptions is
ably set forth by Leo V. Frobenius in the VerJiand. der Berliner
Anthrop. Oesettschaft, 1895, pp. 532 sqq.

THE MOON GOD. 153

As the MOON is associated with the dampness and
dews of night, an ancient and wide-spread myth iden-
tified 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 de-
cidedly approved by the Indians, who were all, in the
words of an old author, " great observers of the weather
by the moon."1 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;
Ataerisic, whom the Hurons said was the moon, is de-
rived from the word for water. The Hidatsa word midi
means both moon and 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 pro-
tect 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 my-
thology is from many gods toward one, that it is a syn-
thesis, not an analysis, and that in this process the ten-
dency is to blend in one the traits and stories of
originally separate divinities. As has justly been ob-
served by the Mexican antiquarian Gama : " It was a
common trait among the Indians to worship many gods

1 Gabriel Thomas,. Hist, of West New Jersey, p. 5 (London, 1698).

154 MYTHS OF WATER, FIRE AND THUNDER-STORM.

under the figure of one, principally those whose activi-
ties lay in the same direction, or those in some way re-
lated among themselves."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,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,3 thus hinting how this
connection originated. At a lunar eclipse the Orinoco
Indians seized their hoes and labored with exemplary
vigor on their growing corn, saying the moon was veil-
ing herself in anger at their habitual laziness ;* 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."5 With the Ipurinas
of Brazil the moon is the god who sends the crops and
fruits. He is addressed as " Our father," and described
as a little old man with his hair over his forehead.6
Among the Guaycurus of Paraguay the women only,
the tillers of the fields, performed the rites to the lunar
deity, whose favor they asked as the giver of increase
and the harvest.7

This venerable superstition, common to all races, still
lingers among our own farmers, many of whom con-
tinue to observe (( the signs of the moon " in sowing

Gama, Des. de las dos Piedras, etc., i. p. 36.
Garcia, Or. de los Indios, p. 109.

Oviedo, Eel. de la Prov. de Nicaragua, p. 41. The name is a
co ruption of the Aztec Quiauhteotl, Eain-God.
Gumilla, Hist, del Orinoco, ii. cap. 23.
Doc. Hist, of New York, iv. p. 130.
Paul Ehrenreich, Volker Erasiliens, p. 72 (1891).
Guido Boggiani, I Caduvei, p. 298 (1895).

THE MOON GOD. 155

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
fgoddess 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 Metztli in Anahauc.
Under the title of Yohualticitl, the Lady of Night, she
was also in this latter country the guardian of babes,
and as Tecziztecatl, the cause of generation.1

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 is familiar to her ;
she it is who sends dreams wherein gods and devils
have their sport with man, and slumber, the twin
brother of Death. In the occult philosophy of the mid-
dle ages she was ''Chief over the Night, Darkness,
Rest, Death, and the Waters;"2 in the language of the
Algonkins, her name is identical with the words for
night, death, cold, sleep, and water.3

1 Gama, Des. de las dos Piedras, ii. p. 41 ; Gallatin, Trans. Am.
Ethnol. Soc., i. p. 343.

2 Adrian Van Helmont, Workes, p. 142, fol. (London, 1662).

3 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 V Amerique du

156 MYTHS OF WATER, FIRE AND THUNDER-STORM.

She is the evil minded woman who thus brings dis-
eases 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.1
The Hurons related of Ataensic that she was mistress
of the souls of the dead, and destroyed the living.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, other-
wise they would never die; she eats their flesh and
gnaws their vitals, till they fall away and miserably
perish."3

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.4 Her reputation was
notoriously bad. Did she appear in a dream to a Sauk
warrior, he dressed himself as a woman and labored as

Nord, p. 317). But the kinship of these Avords to that for water,
nip, nipi, nepi, has not before been noticed. This proves the asso-
ciation of ideas on which I lay so much stress in mythology. A
somewhat similar relationship exists in the Aztec and cognate lan-
guages, 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 Azte-
kischen Sprache im Nordlichen Mexico, p. 80.)

1 Schoolcraft, Ind. tribes, vol. iii. p. 485.

2 Ed. de la Nauvelle France, 1635, p. 34 ; Sagard, Diet, de la Langue
Huronne.

8 Eel. de la Nouv. France, 1634, p. 16.
4 Humboldt, Vues des Cordilleres, p. 21.

LUNAR INFLUENCES. 157

such for a time, to avoid her anger.1 The Brazilian
mother carefully shielded her infant from the lunar
rays, believing that they would produce sickness f 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.3

We have here the key to many myths. Take that of
Centeotl, the Aztec goddess of Maize. Although gene-
rally beneficent, she was said at times to appear as a
woman of surpassing beauty, and allure some unfortu-
nate 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.4 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 per-
sons 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

1 Keating, Narrative, i. p. 216, in Waitz.

2 Spix and Martius, Travels in Brazil, ii. p. 247.
* Hist, de la Medecine, i. p. 34.

4 Gama, Des. de las dos Piedras, etc., ii. pp. 100-102. Compare
Sahagun, Hist, de la Nueva Espafta, lib. i. cap. vi.

158 MYTHS OF WATER, FIRE AND THUNDER-STORM.

word accursed is derived from a root meaning ccnise-
crated to God, so in the Aztec, Quiche", and other tongues,
the word for leprous, eczematous, or syphilitic, means also
divine.

This bizarre change of meaning is illustrated in a
very ancient myth of their family. It is said that in
the absence of the sun all mankind lingered in dark-
ness. Nothing but a human sacrifice could hasten his
arrival. Then Metztli, the moon, led forth one Nana-
huatl, the leprous, and building a pyre, the victim
threw himself in its midst. Straightway Metztli fol-
lowed his example, and as she disappeared in the
bright flames the sun rose over the horizon.1 Is not
this a reference to the kindling rays of the aurora, in
which the dank and baleful night is sacrified, 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

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. Several suggestions have been offered by ancient and
modern writers about this singular association of ideas. I have
collected them in Essays of an Americanist, pp. 115, 116.

WATER SPIRITS. 159

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 ac-
company the lightning serpent, this animal was oc-
casionally 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 An-
gont, 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.1

The legends of the Algonkins mention a rivalry be-
tween Michabo, creator of the earth, and the Spirit of
the Waters, who was unfriendly to the project.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 rep-
resented as producing beneficent effects than the re-
verse.

Dogs were supposed to stand in some peculiar rela-
tion 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

1 Rel de la Nouv. France, 1648, p. 75.

2 Charlevoix is in error when he identifies Michabo with the
Spirit of the Waters, and maybe corrected from his own statements
elsewhere. Compare his Journal Historiqw, pp. 281 and 344 (ed.
Paris, 1740).

160 MYTHS OF WATER, FIRE AND THUNDER-STORM.

so widely asunder as Peruvians, Tupis, Creeks, Iroquois,
Algonkins, and Greenland Eskimos to thrash the curs
most soundly during an eclipse.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 pre-
pared 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 agreea-
ble 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 iving
representative, to pray to it and offer it sacrifice, and
when well fattened, to serve it up with solemn cere-
monies at a great .feast, eating their god substantialiter.

1 Bradford, American Antiquities, p. 333 ; Martius, Von dan Eechts-
zustande unter d^n Ureinwohnern Brasiliens, p. 32 ; Sehooloraft, Ind.
Tribes, i. p. 271 ; Von Tschudi, Beitrage, p. 29.

DOG S TORIES. 161

The priests in this province summoned their attendants
to the temple by blowing through an instrument fash-
ioned from a dog's skull.1

This canine canonization explains why in some parts
of Peru a priest was called by way of honor allco, dog P
And why in many tombs both there and in Mexico
their skeletons are found carefully interred with the
human remains. Many tribes of the Pacific coast
united in the adoration of a wild species, the coyote,
the canis latrans of naturalists. The Shoshonees of New
Mexico call it their progenitor ;3 in the myths of the
Shuswap and Kootenay of British Columbia it is the
creator of the world ;4 and with the Nahuas it was in
such high honor that it had a temple of its own, a con-
gregation of priests devoted to its service, statues carved
in stone, an elaborate tomb at death, and is said to be
meant by the god Ghantico, whose audacity caused one
of the destructions 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 in-
voked 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.5

1 La Vega, Hist, des Incas, liv. vi. cap. 9.

2 Lett, sur les Superstitions du Perou, p. 111.

3 Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, iv. p. 224.

* Geo. M. Dawson, Trans. Roy. Soc. Canada, 1891, p. 28 ; A. F.
Chamberlain, Amer. Antiquarian, 1892. Numerous other coyote
myths have been recorded by Dr. Franz Boas, Stephen Powers
(Tribes of California), etc.

5 Chantico or Chancoti, according to Gama, means "Wolf's
Head," though I cannot verify this from the vocabularies within
my reach. He (or she) is sometimes called Cohuaxolotl Chantico,
the snake-servant Chantico, considered by Gama as one, by Tor-

11

162 MYTHS OF WATER, FIRE AND THUNDER-STORM.

During a storm on our northern Likes 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.1
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^re 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.

quemada as two deities (see Gama, Des. delas 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.)

1 Charlevoix, Hist. Gen. de la Nouv. France, i. p. 394 (Paris,
1740). The different species of dogs indigenous to America, and
domesticated by the red race, have been studied by E. D. Cope,
Ihering and others. Von Tschudi has an interesting article on
those of South America (Bcitrage, p. 26, sq. )

SOLAR MYTHS. 163

In the figurative language of the red race, it is con-
stantly used as " an emblem of peace, happiness, and
abundance."1 To extinguish 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 abo-
rigines of America that it is essential to assign to it the
correct position that it held.

A decade or two ago it was a fashion very much ap-
proved to explain as a " solar myth " every symbolic
narrative coined by the primitive religious fancy.
Wiser opinions now prevail. It has come to be recog-
nized that no one key will open all the arcana of sym-
bolism. Man devised means as varied as nature her-
self to express the idea of God within him. The sun
was certainly one of these, and it holds a prominent
position in the pantheon of many primitive peoples.
The " mysterious one of day," as this orb was called by
the Dakotas, frequently appears in the mythg as the
father of the race of men, as the divinity which watches
their progress, lends them aid and listens to their
prayers. The Algonquin word, kesuk, sun, is derived

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, cun, fire, tenil-
cun, red ; Quiche, cak, fire, cak, red, etc. From the adjective red
comes often the word for blood, as Iroquois, onekwensa, blood, onek-
wentara, red ; Algonkin, miskw, blood, miskoda, red, etc., 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.

164 MYTHS OF WATER, FIRE AND THUNDER-STORM.

from a verb which means ''to give life;"1 expressed in
the Zufiian myths by the figure that " the sun formed
the seed-stuff of the world."2

But these and a hundred more such tropes which
could easily be collected, set forth incompletely the
thought which is behind them, and which appears
clearly in other forms of the same narratives and terms.
Almost everywhere in the native religious expres-
sions we can discover a carefully-guarded distinction
between the sun itself as a visible object, and certain
attributes for which it symbolically stood. These were
especially light and warmth, and what appears as sun-
worship will prove generally to be on close examina-
tion, worship of light and fire ; a distinction well-main-
tained in myth and ritual, and therefore of prime im-
portance in studying their traits.

This is visible both in words and expressions. In
the Algonkin dialects (and in very many others) the
word for sun above quoted, means also "sky" and
" day." Old authorities state that they did not regard
the sun as a divinity but as merely a symbol. It was
the " wigwam of the Great Spirit," and when ques-
tioned as to whether they prayed to it they answered,
" Not to the sun, but to the Old Man who lives there.'13
In many native languages the same word stands for
both sun and moon, the distinction, when required,
being made by some qualifying term. In others,
as the Natchez, the Kolosch, the Tezuque, and the

1 J. H. Trumbull, in notes to Koger Williams, Language of
America, p. 104 But kesuk means moon as well as sun.

2 F. H. Gushing, Zufiian Creation Myths, p. 379.

8 Compare La Hontan, Voy. dans VAmer., vol. ii. p. 127;
Eel Nouv. Fiance, 1637, p. 54 ; Copway, Trad. Hist, of the Ojibway
Nation, p. 165.

SUN AND FIRE. 165

Arawack dialects of South America, the word for
" sun " is derived from that for " fire," and the sun is
often referred to merely as " the great fire," thus assign-
ing to that element the predominance in thought. We
are definitely informed by a close observer that the
Nahuas regarded, not the sun, but fire as " the father
and mother of all things and the author of nature."1
To them fire was the active generator, the life-giver,
the source of animate existence ; and this we shall dis-
cover running widely through the alleged heliolatry of
the American Indian.

It is reflected in the Choctaw expressions about fire
and the sun. They refer to fire as shahli miko, " the
greater chief," and speak of it as hashe ittiapa, " He
who accompanies the sun and the sun him." Their
language has a " fire particle," used to express the real
or imagined actions of the element. On going to war
they call for aid on both sun and fire ; " but except as
fire, they do not address the sun, nor does that body
stand in any relation to their religious thought other
than as fire."2

Numerous myths reveal this distinction which I
somewhat insist upon, because I believe its proper un-
derstanding is essential to a correct appreciation of the
inner and higher meanings of American religions. For
example, the Mohaves of Colorado related that their
chief divinity, Matowelia, was above the sun, moon
and stars, and guided them in their journeys. His
dwelling place was beyond them, on the summit of
the " White Mountain," the sky or heavens, and to him
fared the souls of those fortunate Mohaves whose

1 Martin de Leon, Camino del Cielo, fol. 100 (Mexico, 1611).

2 Byington, Grammar of the Choctaw Language, p. 43 ; Rev. Al-
fred Wrignt, Missionary Herald, vol. xxiv.

166 MYTHS OF WATER, FIRE AND THUNDER-STORM.

bodies were duly incinerated; while those toward
whom this was neglected turned into owls, gloomy
birds of night.1

So of the Pawnees. Their prayers for help " are not
directed to the sun in any other sense than one of many
mediators." The intangible and omnipotent Atius
Tirawa, whose house is the heavens and whose messen-
gers are the eagle and the buzzard, is he who called
sun, moon and stars into being and ordered them their
various circuits.2

All the tribes on the Northwest Coast attribute the
creative act to the original Raven who lived before the
sun was formed. He found it by one or another acci-
dent, and, picking it up, " placed it in the heavens,
where it has been ever since." With the Kootenays it
is either the coyote or the chicken hawk who manu-
factures the sun out of a ball of grease and sets it in
the sky to pursue its course, — rude fancies, but serving
as well as any to show that these tribes did not regard
the sun as the visible creator or the highest divinity.3
The Brazilian Indian says that the sun is a ball of
bright feathers, which some mysterious being shows
during the day and covers at night with a pot.*

In another relation, as I shall show later, the sun
was connected with the perception of light, but not
identified with it. Light comes with the dawn, before
the sun brings it forth, creates it, as it were. Hence
the Light God is not the sun god, but his antecedent
and maker.

1 G. A. Allen, in Smithsonian Report, 1890.

2 G. B. Grinnell, in Jour. Amer. Folk-lore, 1893, p. 113, sq.

8 James Deans and A. F. Chamberlain, in the American Anti-
quarian, March, 1895.

4 Von den Steinen, Naturvolker Zentral-Braziliens, p. 359.

BELIOLATRY. 167

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 rarely 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) ; as freed from some cave by
a kindly deity (Haitians and Quichuas) ; as obtained
by a god sacrificing himself on the fire (Nahuas) ; as
moulded and started on its journey by the Light-god
(Muyscas) ; and in a variety of other names. Where
the sun is reported to have been literally the Creator,
it is usually owing to a lack of knowledge of the lan-
guage or of insight into the religious thought of the
tribe on the part of the observer.

Where we have any considerable body of the myths
of a tribe, of pure alloy and in the native tongue, we
scarcely anywhere discover that the Sun represents
either their first, greatest or central theistic conception.
Thus, among the Nahuas, Tonatiuh, the Sun, was a
very subordinate deity compared to Yaotl and others j1
and in the Popol Vuh of the Quiches it does not ap-
pear as a deity at all.

Comp. Sahagun, Historia, lib.iii.. App. cap. iv.

168 MYTHS OF WATER, FIRE AND THUNDER-STORM.

Some readers will be surprised that I assign a so much
more prominent place in primitive religions to the moon
than to the sun ; but not only is this borne out in refer-
ence to them by the facts I have stated and by a long
list of others that could be adduced, but also it is
reiterated in the modern folk-lore of all countries.
In this, as specialists are aware, moon superstitions are
incomparably more frequent than those relating to the
sun. Various explanations have been offered for this,
but no one questions the fact.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 ori-
gin of such practices, rather than the ceremonies with
which they were attended, have an interest. The sav-
age 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 solem-
nity 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 su-
perstitions. 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.
u You know it was a saying among our ancestors," said
an Iroquois chief in 1753, " that when the fire at Onon-
daga goes out, we shall no longer be a people."2

So deeply rooted was this notion, that the Catholic
missionaries in New Mexico were fain to wink at it,

1 See the remarks of W. W. Newell in introduction to Mrs.
Fanny D. Bergen's Current Superstition*, 1896.
» Dos. Hist, of New York, ii. p. 634.

FIRE- WORSHIP. 169

and perform the sacrifice of the mass in the same build-
ing where the flames were perpetually burning, that
were not allowed to die until Montezuma and the fabled
glories of ancient Anahuac with its heathenism should
return.1

Throughout the continent 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.2
Such an expression was wholly in the spirit of his race.
The greatest feast of the Delawares was that to their
"grandfather, the fire."3 "Their fire burns forever,"
was the Algonkin figure of speech to express the im-
mortality of their gods.4 " 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 ;" dark sayings of the priests, referring
to the glittering lightning fire borne from the sides of
the earth. In their rituals fire was named Tota, Our
Father, and Huehueteotl, Oldest of Gods ; the infant
passed through a baptism of fire on the fourth day of
its life, up to which time a fire lighted at its birth was
kept alive in order to nourish its life.5

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-Otta-
•

1 Emory, Milfy Reconnaissance of New Mexico, p. 30.

2 Narrative of John Tanner, p. 161.

3 Loskiel, Ges. der Miss, der evang. Briider, p.. 55.

4 Nor. of John Tanner, p. 351 .

5 Sahagnn, Hist. Nueva Espana, lib. vi cap. 4 ; Jacinto de la
Serna, Manual de Ministros, pp. 16, 24, etc. ; Brinton's Nagualism,
pp. 43-46, etc.

170 MYTHS OF WATER, FIRE AND THUNDER-STORM.

was, 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 en-
titled to this peculiar honor.1 The first gave as a reason
for such an exceptional custom, that the members of so
illustrious a 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 them-
selves on the pyre of their chieftain would escape anni-
hilation at death ;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.3 Strangely enough we thus find a sort of bap-
tism by fire deemed essential to a higher life beyond the
grave, as, among the Nahuas, one was for this.

Another analogy strengthened the symbolic force of
fire as life. This is that which exists between the sen-
sation of warmth and those passions whose physiologi-
cal 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 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

1 Letts. Edifiantes et Curieuses, iv. p. 104, Oviedo ; Hist, de Nicara-
gua, p. 49 ; Gomara, Hist, dd Orinoco, ii. cap. 2.

2 Oviedo, Hist. Gen. delaslndias, p. 16, in Barcia's Hist. Prim.
8 Presdt's Message and Docs, for 1851, pt. iii. p. 506.

SEXUAL MYTHS. 171

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 satisfac-
tion of the sexual instincts, are the .unvarying themes
of primitive mythology. Like other exclusive theories,
this falls before comprehensive criticism ; and yet it is
true that in America as in so many other parts of the
globe, the notion of reciprocal sexual action was ex-
tended to the ideas of the creation and continuance of
the world about us.

There existed a personification and deification 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,1 and there is good reason to be-
lieve 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 occu-
pation asks with a fine allusion to its mystic meaning —

" O vierge, quand pourrai-je te posse"der pour ma corapagne

cherie ?
Combien de temps faut-il encore que tes voeux soient ac-

complis ?

Dis-moi le jour qui doit devancer la belle nuit ou tous deux
Alimenterons le feu qui nous fit naitre et que nous devons

perpetuer."2

There is a bright as well as dark side to such a wor-
ship. In Mexico, Peru, and Yucatan, the women who

1 Sahagun, Hist, de la Nueva Espafia, i. cap. 13.

2 Voyage Pittorcsque dans le Yucatan, p. 49.

172 MYTHS OF WATER, FIRE AND THUNDER-STORM.

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. In the medicine dances of the Mandans
only virgins were allowed to take part (Lewis and
Clark)."

Many of the goddesses were virgin deities, as the
Aztec Coatlicue, Xochiquetzal, and Chimalman; and
many of the great gods of the race, as Quetzalcoatl,
Manibozho, Viracocha, and loskeha, were said to have
been born of a virgin. Even among the low Indians
of Paraguay the early missionaries were startled to find
this tradition of the maiden mother of the god, so simi-
lar to that which they had come to tell.1

Celibacy was not unusually enjoined upon the priest-
hood, and complete restraint was often ordered during ^^
religious ceremonies. The medicine men of an Algon-
kin tribe who lived on the Hudson river were so severe
in this respect that they would not so much as partake
of food prepared by a married woman.2 On the Rio
Negro, Martius met a tribe whose priestly healers were
scrupulous celibates, because it was believed that medi-
cines would lose their efficacy if administered by a
married man.3 It is probably in some obscure connec-
tion with this belief that a mutilation analogous to cir-
cumcision was practiced among many tribes ; it was a
symbolical sacrifice of sexuality, a type of the surren-
der of the passions to the religious sentiments.4

1 Lettres Ed. et Curieuses, vol. v. p. 309.

2 Doc. Hist, of New York, vol. iv. p. 28.

8 Von Martius, Vb'lkerschaften Brazil/lens, p. 587.

* Gumilla asserts this of tribes on the Orinoco. Hist. Orinoco, p.

SEXUAL BITES. 173

According to some authorities of weight, certain
classes of the Aztec priesthood, doubtless carrying out
the same intention, practiced complete abscission or
discerption of the virile parts, and a mutilation of
females was not unknown similar to that which has
existed immemorially in Egypt.1

In both sexes the period of puberty was observed
with numerous and solemn religious ceremonies, of
which fasting, solitude and seclusion were prominent
features. At that time in many tribes the youth or girl
was believed to receive the personal guardian spirit,
which should govern his or her after-life, and with it a
new name known only to the family.

The woman's later career was surrounded with semi-
religious observances. She was considered unclean dur-
ing her recurrent illnesses and in some tribes, as the Bri-
bri of Costa Rica, also during pregnancy. " She is sup-
posed," writes Mr. Gabb, "at that time to infect the whole
neighborhood. All the deaths and misfortunes in the
vicinity are laid to her charge."2 Among the Ottawas of
the north, the Cunas of Darien, and various other tribes,
childbirth was regarded as especially dangerous to the
husband, and either he or she must keep away from the
marital abode until a period of purification had passed.

Among the Mbocobis of Paraguay he must fast rigor-
ously for fifteen days after her confinement, and pass
the time in seclusion.3

119 ; CorealofNicaraguans and Yucatecans, Voiages, i., pp. 73, 291;
Garcia of the Guaycurus, Or. de los Indios, p. 124 ; Mackenzie of
the Hares and Dogribs, Voyage, p. 27 ; etc.

1 Davilla 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.

2 Gabb, Indian Tribes of Costa Rica, p. 505.

3 Perrot, Mem. del'Amer. Sept., p. 12 (1665); Oviedo, Hist de las

174 MYTHS OF WATER, FIRE AND THUNDER-STORM.

Some such notion was at the bottom of the extraor-
dinary custom of the couvade. This was, that when the
wife was delivered of the child, the husband took to his
bed, and was waited upon and treated as if he had been
the sick one. He must there remain either a specified
time, four or eight days, or until the navel string falls.
Were he_ to fail in this, death or some disaster would
befall the infant, with whom, in the native imagination,
he is linked by mysterious bonds.1

The mystery which surrounds the process of repro-
duction centred more in the female than in the male.
It was believed she could impart it even to inanimate
things. When Father Gumilla asked the men of an
Orinoco tribe why they did not help the women in the
labors of the field, they replied : " Because women know
how to bring forth and can tell it to the grain ; but we
do not know how they do it, and we cannot teach the
grains." The wife of a Sioux, after she has planted
her corn patch, will rise in the night, strip herself
naked and walk around it, thus to impart to the grains
the magic of her own fecundity. The Pawnees were
wont to moisten their seed corn with the blood of a
woman, choosing a female prisoner to supply it.2

As a counterpart to the occasional austerities above
mentioned, there was frequent unbridled licentiousness

Indias, lib. xvii., cap. 4; Navarrete, Viages, iii., p. 414; Guevara,
Hist, del Paraguay, cap. viii.

1 The latest and most satisfactory discussion of the couvade is by
von den Steinen in his Naturvolker Zcntral-Brasiliens, p. 334 (1894).
It was not confined to South America. Vetancurt describes it in
full force among the Indians of Parras, in the State of Coahuila
(Teatro Mexicano, i., p. 417).

2 Gumilla, Hist. Orinoco, ii., p. 237 ; Schoolcraft, Indian Tribes,
vol. v., p. 70 ; ibid. Oneota, p. 20.

PHALLIC WORSHIP. 175

in the religious ceremonies. Orgies of this nature were
of common occurrence among the Algonkins and Iro-
quois, and are often mentioned in the Jesuit relations ;
Venegas describes them as frequent among the tribes
of Lower California ; and Oviedo refers to certain festi-
vals among the Nicaraguans, during which the women
of all rank extended to whosoever wished, such^privi-
leges as the matrons of ancient Babylon used to grant
even to slaves and strangers in the temple of Melitta, as
one of the duties of religion. In the esoteric cult of
Nagualism, which prevails widely to-day in Mexico
and Central America, men and women join in the
dances in a state of nudity, and the Christian priests
elaim with probability that these rites terminate in
wild debauches.1

This sensual coarseness extended to their stories and
poetry, and the early missionaries complained with jus-
tice of the " lascivious songs and indecent dances " (can-
tares lascivosybailesindecentes), which in some tribes were
instituted by the native priests as ceremonies of religion.8
Collectors of Indian stories and myths to-day well
know that it is rarely possible to print these in the
terms in which they are told around the camp fire.
They must undergo a rigid expurgation. h£fe(K&44.

Such excesses passed at times into the ceremonial
practice of unnatural vices, examples of which we find
in abundance among the Pueblo Indians of Arizona,
the natives of Paraguay, the ancient Floridians, the
Guaycurus of Brazil, and elsewhere.8 These artificial

1 Brinton, Nagualism, p. 49.

* Guevara, Hist, del Paraguay, cap. xi.

3 Von Martius, Ethnog. und Sprach. Amerikas, p. 75, gives many
references. It has also been discussed by Dr. Wm. A. Hammond
and other American writers.

176 MYTHS OF WATER, FIRE AND THUNDER-STORM.

hermaphrodites are repeatedly mentioned by the early
writers, and their continued presence in several of our
western tribes has been noted by living observers.

Doubtless in many instances such sensuality as re-
ferred to was cultivated merely under the guise of re-
ligion by those who profited by it; for example, the jits
primae noctis, claimed by the shamans among various
Brazilian tribes and still conceded among the Tarahu-
maras of Northern Mexico (Lumholtz). Although it
is quite possible that this custom arose from a supersti-
tious fear that the husband would come to some ill
luck unless his bride yielded herself first to another,
a notion not at all uncommon in the religions of the
old world, and asserted to have prevailed among the
Caribs and Tupis and various tribes of Cuba and Nica-
ragua. Among the Mundrucus and Guaycurus of Bra-
zil, the bridegroom remained in an adjacent lodge
under arms all night.1

The mystery that surrounds the shedding of blood
as the first step toward the creation of a new life, was
one which the world over impressed the imagination
of the primitive man. It was the physical sign of
crossing the threshold into new and strange activities ;
and hence in a thousand modes it became intertwined
with the symbolism of his house and his home and his
pledges of faith to God and man.2

The emblem of the phallus with ceremonial associa-
tions has been observed in various parts of America.
The women of a tribe in Paraguay carried an image of

1 Martius, u. s. p. 113 ; Navarrete, Vidges, iii. p. 114 ; Oviedo,
Hist, de las Indias, Lib. xvii.

2 See the full and learned study of this subject by Dr. Henry
Clay Trumbull, The Threshold Convenant (New York, 1896) ; also H.
L. Strack, Der BlutaJberglaube (Munich, 1892).

PHALLIC WOESHIP. 177

it as an amulet j1 the soldiers of Cortes noted it in relief
on the walls of the temples in Panuco ; and other in-
stances could be quoted. In native American art it
frequently recurs in relations which authorize us to
believe that it bore a religious meaning and was con-
nected with the recognition and adoration of the repro-
ductive principle in nature. Designs carved in stone
or baked in terra cotta have been disinterred from the
ancient graves in the lower Mississippi valley, Florida,
Michoacan, Tabasco, Peru and elsewhere.2 It is probable
that its burial with the corpse referred to an expectation
of another life hereafter.

Huge phalli of stone in the shape of pillars have
been discovered among the ancient ruins of Mexico and
Yucatan, and the early interpreters of Mexican picto-
graphic manuscripts inform us that in the symbols
employed for divination, this was esteemed to be the
most potent of all. As in the analogous rituals of the
Greeks and Romans, we have evidence that in America
also this emblem was correlated or identified with the
serpent.8

The dual division of the gods into male and female
obtained in America as it does in polytheisms every-
where ; but it is noteworthy how frequently we come
upon bisexual or androgynous deities, those who com-
bine in themselves the functions of both sexes. Such
in Aztec myth is Tonacatecutli, God of our Life or Flesh.
Such in the creation myths of the Zunis is Awonawi-
lona, the Maker and Container of all, among the Nava-

1 Lafitau, Meurs des Amei-ieains, p. 72, quoting Father Kuis.

2 Theobert Maler and Andree in Globus, 1896 ; Bull de la Soe.
tfAnthrop. de Parts, 1893 ; G. Tarayre, Explor. des Reg. Met., p. 233.

3 Pedro de los Eios, Codex Vaticanus; Boban, Cat. dela Coll.
Goupil, Tom. ii. p. 207 ; Brinton, Ndgualism, pp. 49-50.

12

178 MYTHS OF WATER, FIRE AND THUNDER-STORM.

jos Ahsonnutli, "the turquoise hermaphrodite," and
such among the Quiches was Hun Ahpu, the Master of
Magic, all of them demiurgic deities of the prime, self-
evolving, " self-begetting " " doubly all-mother and
doubly all-father," in the words of the Quiche myth j1
and various examples could be quoted from tribes in
more primitive conditions.

This is not peculiar to the New World. Many of the
gods of the orient are either epicene, or androgynous.
Such avowedly were Mithras, Janus, Brahma and, in
the esoteric doctrine of the cabala, Jehovah. This no-
tion is not abnormal or monstrous. It is a natural de-
velopment of deep religious meditation on the nature
of the first cause. " There is something," observed
Wilhelm von Humboldt, " in the traits of the divine
which is opposed to the full and clear expression of
sexual attributes." As I have remarked in another
work: ''The gods are spirits, beings of another order
from man, and the cultivated ethical and assthetic emo-
tions protest against classifying them as of either one
or the other gender. Never can the ideal of beauty,
either physical or moral, be reached until the charac-
teristics of sex are lost in the concept of the purely
human."2

The traits and activities of the two sexes as repre-
sented in the deities which appear in American myths
offer many curious subjects for investigation. The
prominence and potency assigned to the female divini-
ties are very noticeable, whether their power tends
toward the benefit or the injury of man. The goddess

1 F. H. Gushing, ZuHi Creation Myths, p. 281 ; the Popol Vuht
p. 1 ; James Stevenson, in 8th An. Rep. Bur. Eth., p. 275.

2 W. v. Humboldt, in his (jssay Ueber die Mdnnliche und Weihlicht
Form (Werke, i. ) ; Brinton, The Religious Sentiment, p. 67.

WOMAN IN MYTHOLOG Y. 1 79

Tonantzin, Our Dear Mother, was the most widely loved
of Nahuatl divinities, and it is because her mantle fell
upon Our Lady of Guadalupe, that the latter now can
boast of the most popular shrine in Mexico. When
Cortes first explored Acalan, the modem Tabasco, he
found th'e chief temple of their greatest town dedicated
to a goddess, not to a god ; and the Isla de las Mugeres,
off the coast of Yucatan, was so named because all its
fanes were sacred to female deities.

Nothing I have found, however, better illustrates the
high position of woman in the mythologies of these
cultivated nations than the myths of the Tzentals, a
Mayan tribe who lived and still live in the Mexican
State of Chiapas. At the summit of their Olympus
stood the male god Patol, whose name, from the verb
pat, means to mould, form or fashion. He it was who
gave to things their bodies or shapes. The highest of
the goddesses, his spouse and helper, was Alaghom
Naom, literally, " she who brings forth mind." To her
was due the mental or immaterial part of nature ; hence
another of her names was Iztat Ix, the Mother of
Wisdom.1

Almost equal to this spirituel myth of the Tzentals
in the lofty position assigned to woman, was that of
the Tarascas of Mechoacan, a nation ranking high
among those which merited the epithet of " civilized."
Their chief goddess was named in their harmonious
tongue Cueravaperi. "She was held in high esteem
throughout this whole province, and was constantly
mentioned in their legends and orations. They spoke
of her as mother of all the gods and of men as well,
saying that it was she who sent them to dwell in their

1 Domingo de Ara, Vocabulario de laLengua Tzeltal, MS.

180 MYTHS OF WATER, FIRE AND THUNDER-STORM.

lands and gave them the grains and seeds which they
cultivated." In the latter role, as another Ceres, she
was the goddess of the rains, the springs and the
waters. Four attendant goddesses (the spirits of the
cardinal points) waited upon her, and to stand for
these at her festivals, four priests were clad in the sym-
bolic hues, white, yellow, red and black, "to represent
the four colors of the clouds," which she sent forth
from her dwelling place in the east.1

From a far distant locality, from the bleak shores of
Greenland and Labrador, we may take a goddess-myth
not less striking and beautiful. It tells of Sedna, a
divine woman, the supreme being of the Eskimo people,
creator of all things having life, protecting divinity of
their tribes. She established the regulations for the
purity of women, and punishes them with disease if
they are negligent. In another capacity she is mistress
of one of the underworlds, where she lies in wait for
souls ; and she it is, when the wintry storms hurl the
ice masses against the rocky shores, who screams in the
blast, and watches to snatch the unwary seal-hunter to
her murk abode.1

/" It was said of the Tarascan goddess that she was not
/ averse to human sacrifices, and that the blood of vic-
tims was cast into the springs sacred to her cult : but
precisely the opposite is recorded of the goddess who
occupied a similar lofty position in the religion of the
Totonacos, a civilized tribe who lived near where Vera
Cruz now is. The name that was applied to her meant
"The Sustainer of our Life," and her attributes were

1 Relation de los Ritos de Mechoacan, in Coll. de Doc. para la
Hist, de Espana, vol. 53.

2 Dr. Franz Boas, The Central Eskimo, in 6th An. Rep. Bur. of
EthnoL, pp. 583 sqq.

THE RECIPROCAL PRINCIPLE. 181

similar to the Ceres of Michoacan ; but no human sac-
/ rifices were allowed in her temples, and her priests
were vowed to chastity, simplicity of life, silence unless
addressed, and an exclusively vegetarian diet. Her
shrines were built on the summits of hills, and so
closely did her sweet and merciful ritual parallel that
assigned by the Roman Church to the Virgin Mary,
that the early missionaries declared that it could have
been inspired only by the Devil with the intent of foil-
ing their labors.1

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 r
the moon, as the primitive pair from whose fecund v
union all creatures proceeded. It is sufficient to say
that this relation is rarely and vaguely expressed in
the myths, and in many instances is inconsistent with
the terms employed to designate these celestial bodi<
The moon is often mentioned in their languages merely'
as the "night sun." Among the Mbocobis of Paraguay
the sun was styled the female companion, companera,
of the moon.2 In such important stocks as the Iro-
quois, Athapascas, Cherokees and Tupis, the sun is
also said to be regarded as feminine. The myths rep-
resent 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.^

Almost racial in its universality was the red man's
veneration of the THUNDER-STORM as a manifestation

1 Mendieta, Hist. Eclesiastica Indiana, lib. ii. cap. ix.; Las
Casas, Hist. Apologetica, cap. 121.

2 P. Guevara, Hist, del Paraguay, cap. xv.

3 Schoolcraft, Indian Tribes, v. pp. 416, 417.

182 MYTHS OF WATER, FIRE AND THVNDER-STORM.

of divine power and as that which brings warmth and
rain with the renewed vernal life of vegetation. The
impressive phenomena wljich characterize it, the pro-
digious 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 j1 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, the Iro-
quois, and Algonquins.2 As the herald of the summer
it was to them a good omen, and friendly power. It was
the voice of the Great Spirit oi the four winds speak-
ing from the clouds and admonishing them that the
time of corn planting was at hand.8

The flames kindled by the lightning were of a sacred
nature, properly 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

1 Mrs. Eastman, Legends of the Sioux, p. 161.

2 Ed. de la Nouv. France, 1634, p. 27 ; Schoolcraft, Algic Re-
searches, ii. p. 116; Ind. Tribes, v. p. 420; an article by A. F.
Chamberlain on " the thunder bird among the Algoukins " is in
Amer. Anthropologist, Jan. 1890.

» De Smet, Western Missions, p. 135 ; Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, i.
p. 319.

THUNDER- MYTHS. 183

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 thunder-
bolts, and from such an one, significantly painted red,
the Dakotas averred their race proceeded.1 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 un-
der 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.2

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. Dur-
ing 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

1 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 scam-
pered up a stony hill (McCoy, Hist, of Baptist Indian Missions,
p. 364).

2 Mrs. Eastman, ubi sup., p. 158; Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, iv.
p. 645.

184 MYTHS OF WATER, FIRE AND THUNDER-STORM.

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, repro-
duce in miniature the tremendous drama of the storm.1

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 vene-
rated 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 Guache-
mines, 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 light-
ning by hurling stones with his sling ; and the thunder-
bolts that fall, said they, are his children.

1 Waitz, Anihropologic^ iii. p. 417 ; Muller, Am. Urrdig., p. 271,
from various early authorities. Tupa was distinctly the god of
the thunderstorm and the word is still so applied in the Tupi dia-
lects (Adam, Grammaire Tupi, 1895). As the rain-god, it was he,
said the Guaranis, who saved their ancestors in the universal
deluge (Guevara, Hist, del Paraguay, cap. xix. )

SACRED TWINS. 185

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 con-
ciliate 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 inhab-
itants 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, " 0 Thou
who causest twins," words mistaken by the Spaniards
for the name of a deity.1

1 On the myth of Catequil see particularly the Lettre sur les
Superstitions du Perou, p. 95 sqq. , and compare Montesinos, Ancien
Perou, chaps, ii. , xx. The letters g and j do not exist in Quichua,
therefore Ataguja should doubtless read Ata-ckuchu, which means
lord, or ruler of the twins, from ati root of atini, I am able, I con-
trol, and chuchu, twins. The change of the root ati to ata, though
uncommon in Quichua, occurs also in atahualpa, 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

186 MYTHS OF WATER, FIRE AND THUNDER-STORM.

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,

apu-ccatec-quilla, which literally means chief of the followers of the
moon. Acosta mentions that the native name for various constella-
tions was catachillay or catuchillay, doubtless corruptions of eatec
quitta, 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 hauchi, a ray
of light or an arrow, with the negative suffix ymana, thus meaning
ray less, as in the text, or ymana ma/ 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,
Qaichua, 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 ?

NATIVE TRINITY. 187

World enliv'ner,
To this office
Thee appointed,
Thee created."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.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 resembling that of Christianity, nor yet the Tri-
murti of India, but doubtless founded on the same
psychic laws. Thus in the Quiche* legends we read :
" The first of Hurakan is the lightning, the second the
track of the lightning, and the third the stroke of the

1 Hist, des Incas, liv. ii. cap. 28. It is repeated, with correc-
tions, in the works of Von Tschudi and Middendorf.

2 The latter is a compound of tici or ticcu, a vase, and ylla, the
root of yllani, to shine, yllupantac, 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. Von Tschudi, in his excellent study
of this Peruvian myth, is not willing to connect the deity Con
with the storm, the rain or fire, and denies correlation of the word
to these ideas (Beitrage zur Kenntniss des Alien Peru, p. 179). In
answer I adduce the Quichua words, cun-pay, the crackling of
fire, konoy, to build a great fire, koncha, the fire-place, etc.
(Middendorf, Worterbiich der Keshua-Sprache) .

188 MYTHS OF WATER, FIEE AND THUNDER-STORM.

lightning ; and these three are Hurakan, the Heart of
the Sky."1

It reappears with characteristic uniformity of out-
line 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 thun-
derbolts which split the forest trees were the stones he
hurled at his enemies. Three assistants were assigned
him, whose names have unfortunately not been re-
corded, and whose offices were apparently similar to
those of the three companions of Hurakan.3 Among
the Tupis of Brazil, according to a careful student,
their highest mythical conception was of three deities,
the one representing the animal, the second the vege-
table kingdom, and the third the productive union of
the two, the god of love, Peruda.8

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 thun-
der.4 Among the Dakotas, each wind or world-quar-
ter was reckoned as three, making with the sacred
centre, thirteen in all.5

1 Le Livre SacrS, p. 9. The name of the lightning in QuichS
is cakidka, literally, "fire coming from water."

2 Morgan, League of the Iroquois, p. 158.

3 Conto de Magelhaes, 0 Selvagem, vol. ii. p. 123.

4 "El rayo, el relampago, y el trueno." Gama, Des. delasdos
Piedras, etc., ii. p. 76. The sacredness of the three was also retained
by the Nagualists (Brinton, Nagucdism, p. 41).

6 Dorsey, Shuan Cidts, p. 537. The Navahos believe that twelve

THUNDERBOLTS. 189

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 sug-
gested. 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 ap-
pealed 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.1

As elsewhere, the thunderbolts were believed to be
flints, and thus, as the emblem of fire and the storm,
this stone figures conspicuously in their myths. Tohil,
the god who gave the Quiches fire by shaking his san-
dals, was represented by a flint-stone. 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 ;2 an ancient legend, which shadows forth the sub-
jection of all things to him who gathers the clouds

men live at each of the cardinal points. Their duty is to hold up
the heavens, to which they were assigned by the hermaphrodite
demiurge, Ahsonnutli (James Stevenson, in 8th An. Rep. Bur. of
Ethnol., p. 275).

1 Torquemada, Monarquia Indiana, lib. vi. cap. 23. Gama, ubi
sup. ii. 76, 77.

2 Torquemada, ibid., lib. vi. cap. 41.

190 MYTHS OF WATER, FIRE AND THUNDER-STORM.

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 em-
blems of the fecundating rains. This is why, for ex-
ample, the Navajos use as their charm for rain certain
long round stones, which they think fall from the cloud
when it thunders.1 With similar imagery, the Chotas
of Mexico continued to a late day the worship of their
trinity, the Dawn, the Stone, and the Serpent.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 Mexi-
can language.3

He was represented, like Jove, with a bundle of ar-
rows 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,"4 probably the
supposed products of the thunder.

1 Senate Report on the Indian Tribes, p. 358 (Washington, 1867).

2 Diccionario Universal, App. Tom. iii. p. 11. Brinton, Nagual-
ism, p. 41.

* Brasseur, Hist, du Mexique, i. p. 201, and on the extent of his
worship Waitz, Anthropol , iv. p. 144.

* Oviedo, Hist, du, Nicaragua, p. 47.

SUPREME GODS. 191

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 los-
keha of the Iroquois, Viracocha of the Peruvians, and Quetzal-
coatl 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.

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, ineradica-
ble 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,

192 THE SUPREME GODS OF THE RED RACE.

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 insti-
tutions 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, van-
ished 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 loskeha, Wasi to the Cherokees, Tamoi
to the Caribs; so the Mayas had Itzamna, the Nahuas
Quetzalcoatl, the Muyscas Nemqueteba; such among
the Quichuas was Viracocha, among the Mandans Nu-
mock-muckenah, among the Hidatsa Itamapisa, 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 na-
tion's poetry or its prose. In arriving at a conclusion
we must remember that a fiction built on an idea is in-
finitely 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

CULTURE-MYTHS. 193

task remaining is to explain such narratives on con-
sistent 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. It would
not be inconsistent with this view if along with these
hero-gods there existed some vague faith in an abstract,
remote Cause of All, occasionally present to the reflect-
ing mind of the worshipper. Such an abstraction, like
the metaphysical definitions of God in higher creeds,
is not the active leaven of the religious emotions ; this
must ever be connected in some way with a personifi-
cation of the divine attributes ; be, as more or less
crudely understood, the Word made Flesh.

To solve these knotty points I shall choose for analy-
sis the culture myths of the Algonkins, the Iroquois,
the Toltecs of Mexico, and the Quichuas 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 Bay, the
Algonkins were never tired of gathering around the

13

194 THE SUBREME GODS OF THE RED RACE.

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 wizard, 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 there-
in ; 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, bear-
ing 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.1

What he really was we must seek in the accounts of
older travellers, in the invocations of the jossakeeds or

1 Another example of such modern deterioration is shown by
the Brazilian stories of Curupira. They represent him as an imp
and a buffoon ; but the oldest travellers, De Laet for example,
speak of him as numen mentium, and a dignified member of the
pantheon. See C. F. Harrt, O Mytho do Curupira, in the Aurora
Brasileira, 1873, and the excellent collection of nature myths by
J. Barbosa Kodriguez, Poranduba Amazonense, Introd. (Eio de
Janeiro, 1890).

THE GREAT HARE. 195

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,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 the founder of the medicine hunt in which
after appropriate ceremonies and incantations the In-
dian 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 foot-
steps 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 effi-
cacy in the chase. In the autumn, in " the moon of
the falling leaf," ere he composes himself to his winter's

1 The meda worship is the ordinary religious ritual of the Al-
gonkins. 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.

196 THE SUPREME GODS OF THE RED RACE.

sleep, he fills his great pipe and takes a godlike 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 Chippeways localized
his birthplace and former home to the Island Michili-
makinac at the outlet of Lake Superior. But in the
oldest accounts of the missionaries he was alleged to
reside toward the east, and in the holy formulae of the
meda craft, when the winds are invoked to the medi-
cine 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 journeys.1

It is passing strange that such an insignificant crea-
ture 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

i For these particulars see the Rd. de la Nouv. France, 1667, p.
12, 1670, p. 93 ; Charlevoix, Journal Historique, p. 344 ; Schoolcraft,
Indian Tribes, v. pp. 420 sqq. ; Alex. Henry, Travs. in Canada
andthelnd. Territories, pp. 212 sqq.; Nic. Perrot, Mem. surPAmer.
Sept., pp. 12, 19, 339 (1665); Blomes, Stale of his Maj. Terr., p.
193; Strachey, Travafle into Virginia, p. 98, etc. Of the many
modern writers who have studied the myth, I name J. G. Kohl,
C. G. Leland, T. L. McKinney, J. I. Hind ley, A. F. Chamberlain,
S. T. Hand, W. J. Hoffman, etc. Dr. Hoffman (American Anthro-
pologist, July, 1889) makes Manibozho the servant of Dje Manedo,
the Great Spirit. This is a frequent, but modern, variant of the
ancient mvth.

THE RABBIT MYTH. 197

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, scruti-
nize 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 j hare, manito wabos, spirit hare, Chipeway dialect),
and so they have invariably been translated even by
the Indians themselves.1 But looking more narrowly
at the second member of the word, it is clearly capable
of another and very different interpretation, of an in-
terpretation 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.

1 The rabbit called wabos is the small gray rabbit. It reappears
in Iroquois and Cherokee folk-tales. In the latter it overcomes
one of the demi-gods and blows him to pieces, the fragments be-
coming the bits of flint or chert which were found in their land
(J. Mooney, in Jour. Amer. Folk-lore, vol. ii. No. 4). In the
Siouan legends it is so cunning that it tricks Ikto, the most crafty
of beings and the discoverer of human speech (Dorsey, Study of
Siouan Cults, p. 472). Among the Nahuas the " Man in the Moon "
was called a rabbit, and the calendar count began with the day
named after this animal, Tochtli. In the mystic language of the
Nagualists the rabbit represented the air or wind (De la Serna,
Manual de Ministros, p. 223). Two gentes among the Algonkins
were called from it. Many other instances could be cited of its
prominent position in native mythology.

198 THE SUPREME GODS OF THE RED RACE.

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. il The
whole theogony and philosophy of the ancient world,"
says Max Miiller, <c 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.1

Now it appears on attentively examining the Algon-
kin 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.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.

1 Science of Language, Second Series, p. 518.

2 Dialectic forms in Algonkin for white, are 10061, wape, ivompi,
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, as it was with the Latins, albente ccelo.
Cuoq, Lexique Algonquine, p. 413 ; Lacombe, Diet, de la Langue des
Oris, p. 635, etc.

MAN1BOZHO. 199

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 dark-
ness; 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 light-
ning, 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 giv-
ing him birth at the moment of conception. For the
moon is the goddess of light, the Dawn is her daugh-
ter, 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. Manibozho drove him across
rivers and over mountains and lakes, and at last
he came to the brink of this world. ' Hold,' cried he,
1 my son, you know my power and that it is impossi-
ble to kill me.' m What is this but the diurnal combat
of light and darkness, carried on from what time
"the jocund morn stands tiptoe on the misty moun-
tain tops," across the wide world to the sunset, the
struggle that knows no end, for both the opponents are
immortal ?

1 Schoolcraft, Algic Researches, i. pp. 135-142.

200 THE SUPREME GODS OF THE RED RACE.

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 j1 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 na-
ture was desolated as by a tornado, and the gigantic

1 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, Wa-
bosso, and Chakekenapok. See for the support of the text, School-
craft, Algic Res., ii. p. 214 ; De Smet, Oregon Missions, p. 347, and
authors above mentioned. Lederer gives their names in the Vir-
ginian dialect as Pash, Sepoy, Askarin, and Maraskarin (Discov-
eries, p. 4). When Captain Argoll visited the Potomac in 1610 a
chief told him : " We have five gods in all ; our chief god ap-
pears often unto us in the form of a mighty great hare ; the other
four have no visible shape, but are indeed the four winds which
keep the four corners of the earth" (Strachey, Virginia, p. 98).
The modern connection of the Michabo legend with the cardinal
points and colors is well shown in the article of Dr. Hoffman above
referred to.

RULER OF THE WINDS. 201

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 at-
mospheric 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 elec-
tric flash,1 and sometimes they called him the North-
west 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.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 grati-
tude to him was to scatter a handful of the animal's
blood toward each of these.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 insti-
tutions.

In effect, his story is a world- wide truth, veiled under
a thin garb of fancy. It is but a variation of that nar-
rative 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,

1 Narrative of John Tanner, p. 351.
3 Schoolcraft, Algic Res., i. p. 216.
8 Narrative of John Tanner, p. 354.

202 THE SUPREME GODS OF THE RED RACE.

still less the fabrication of an idle fancy or a designing
priestcraft, but in origin, deeds, and name the not un-
worthy 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 home, he first
pointed the pipe in his ceremonies, rites often misin-
terpreted by travelers 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."1

Our authorities on Iroquois traditions, though nu-
merous enough, are not so satisfactory. The best, per-

i Compare the Rd. 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. In the
Micmac stories collected by Rev. Silas T. Rand and Mr. Leland,
Michabo figures under the name Glooscap, the Deceiver, on account
of his skill in foiling his enemies. This is a modern and imperfect
form of the legend, as I have pointed out (American Antiquarian,
May, 1885) allied to the Cree conception of Wisakedjak (Cuoq,
Lexique Algonquine, p. 442, Lacombe, Diet. Oris, p. 653). The
Indian author, John Nicolas, of Maine, has recently published
the true, ancient traditions of Glooscap, whom he spells Klose-
kur-beh and translates "the man from (made out of) nothing."
(Life and Traditions of the Eed Man, 1893.) See also Edward Jack,
in Transactions of the Canadian Institute, 1892, pp. 202, sqq. ; Silas T.
Rand, Legends of the Micmacs, 189 1.

THE VIRGIN MOTHER. 203

haps, 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,
loskeha and Tawiscara, names which find their mean-
ing in the Oneida dialect as the White one and the
Dark one.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.2

The brothers quarreled, 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

1 The names ISskeha and TaSiscara 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 imper-
sonal 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 goon, 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 198), and as the Eskimos say, kau ma wok, it is white, to
express that it is daylight (Erdman, Eskimoisches Worterbuch}.

2 The orthography of Brebeuf is aataentsic. This may be ana-
lyzed as follows : root aoucn, water ; prefix at, il y a quelque chose la
dedans ; ataouen, se baigner ; from which comes the form ataouensere.
(See Bruyas, Ead. Verb. Iroqiweor., pp. 30, 31.) Here again the
mythological role of the moon as the goddess of water comes dis-
tinctly to light. These etymologies have been attacked by Mr. J.
B. N. Hewitt (Proceedings Amer. Assoc. Adv. of Science, 1895, pp.
241, sqq.) and others proposed; but I prefer the opinions of
Brebeuf and Cuoq to those of Mr. Hewitt ; although to concede his
derivations would not affect the interpretation of the myth.

204 THE SUPREME GODS OF THE RED RACE.

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 de-
stroyed the gigantic frog which had swallowed all the
waters, and guided the torrents into smooth streams
and lakes.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.2

From other writers of early date we learn that the
essential outlines of this myth were received by the
Tuscaroras and 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

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. In the Maya codices it appears as a sym-
bol of the water and the rains. Cod. Cortesianius, pp. 12, 17, etc.
Images of it cut from stone or of clay are frequent in American
art. They were kept by the later Indians as talismans. B. de
Alva, Confessionario en Lengua Mexicana, fol. 9.

2 Rel de la Nouv. France, 1636, p. 101.

SIMILAR MYTHS. 205

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 sol-
stice, was, in fact, loskeha under another name.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 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 reflections of
the early native traditions, in which history and fancy
are commingled.2

So strong is the resemblance loskeha 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 every-
thing 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 inter-

1 Ed. de la Nouv. France, 1671, p. 17. Cusic spells it Tarenya-
wagon,, 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.

The story of Hiawatha, in so far as it pertains to history, has
been carefully summed up by Horatio Hale in his Iroquois Book
of Rites, chap. ii.

f

206 - THE SUPREME GODS OF THE RED RACE.

preted 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 existence 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 relig-
ions 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, pro-
ceed from the rays of light? Let us beware of that
shallow science so ready to shout Eureka, and reve-
rently acknowledge a mysterious intuition here dis-
played 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."1

1 'O QEOS QMS sen, The First Epistle General of John, i. 5. In

LIGHT AND DARKNESS. 207

Both these heroes, let it be observed, live in the utter-
most 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 ; liter-
ally our white ancestors.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.2 Not

curious analogy to these myths is that of the Eskimos of Green-
land. 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 tri-
umphed. (Nachrichten von Grontand aus einem Tagebuche vom Bischof
Paul Egede, p. 157 : Kopenhagen, 1790. The date of the entry is
1738.)

1 I accept without hesitation the derivation of this word, pro-
posed and defended by that accomplished Algonkin scholar, the
Kev. Eugene Vetromile, from wanb, white or east, and naghi, an-
cestors (T he Abnakis and their History, p. 29, New York, 1866).

2 White light, remarks Goethe, has in it something cheerful
and ennobling ; it possesses "cine heitere, muntere, sanft reizende
Eigenschaft." Farbenlehre, see's 766, 770.

208 THE SUPREME GODS OF THE RED RACE.

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 prophesy a Messiah " fairer than the
children of men," fulfilled in that day when He ap-
peared " 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."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 ;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 sacri-
fices animals of this color were ever most highly es-
teemed.

All these sentiments were linked to the dawn. Lan-
guage itself is a proof of it. Many Algonkin words for
east, morning, dawn, day, light, as we have already
seen, are derived from a radical signifying white. Or
we can take a tongue nowise related, the Quiche*, and
find its words for east, dawn, morning, light, bright,
glorious, happy, noble, all derived from zak, white.
We read in their legends of the earliest men that they
were " white children," " white sons," leading " a white
life beyond the dawn," and the creation itself is attrib-
uted to the Dawn, the White One, the White Sacrificer
of Blood.3

1 Hist, of the N. Am. Indians, p. 159.

2 La Hontan, Voy. dans PAmer. Sept., ii. p. 42.

3 " Blanco pizote," Ximenes, p. 4, Vocabulario Quiche, s. v. zak.
In the far north the Eskimo tongue presents the same analogy.

THE WHITE GOD. 209

But why insist upon the point when in European
tongues we find the daybreak called Vaube, alva, from
albuSj 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 immigra-
tion ; 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 Al-
gonkins and Iroquois1 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 hu-
man 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 glow-
ing bosom of the Dawn.

Even the complicated mythology of Peru yields to
the judicious application of these principles of interpre-
tation. Its peculiar obscurity arises from the policy
of the Incas to blend the religions of conquered prov-
inces with their own. Thus about 1350 the Inca Pa-
chacutec subdued the country about Lima where the

Day, morning, bright, light, lightning, all are from the same root
(kau), signifying white. So in Hidatsa, from hati, to grow light,
come ahati, white, amahati, to shine, etc. (W. Matthews, Hidatsa,
Grammar}.

1 Some fragments of them may be found in Campanius, Ace. 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.

14

210 THE SUPREME GODS OF THE RED RACE.

worship of Con and Pachacamac prevailed.1 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 Pachacamac 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 lowlands,2 and consider the
light and airy character of these antagonists, we can-
not 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 sup-
port 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 at-

1 Con or Oun I have already explained (see note, p. 187) to mean
thunder, Con tici, the mythical thunder vase. The name Pacha-
camac is analyzed with minuteness by Von Tschudi (Beitrage zur
Kennt. des cdtenPeru, p. 121, Vienna, 1891). It may mean the cre-
ator, producer or sustainer of the world, both in space and time ;
or, he who animates time and space, or gives them their value and
use. In actual formulas, such as have been preserved, its meaning
is usually the former, i.e., " the world-sustainer. " In later myth
he was personified as son of Con, brother of the sun or moon, etc.
Middendorf prefers for Pachacama the simple meaning " Creator
of the World," Ollanta, p. 21.

2 Ulloa, Meinoires sur PAmerique, i. p. 105.

PERUVIAN M Y THS. 211

tribute the chief power and commandment over all
things;" and elsewhere, " in all this realm the chief
idoll they did worship was Viracocha, and after him the
Sunne."1

Ere sun or moon was made, he rose from the bosom
of Lake Titicaca, and presided over the erection of
those wondrous cities whoso ruins still dot its islands
and* western shores, and whose history is totally lost in
the night of time. He himself constructed these lumi-
naries 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 hurl-
ing 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

1 Acosta, Hist of the New World, bk. v. chap. 4, bk. vi. chap. 19,
Eng. trans., 1704. The Quichua culture-hero Tonapa was appa-
rently another form or incarnation of Viracocha. In reference to
his mythical cyclus see Tres Relaciones Peruanas (Madrid, 1879) ;
von Tschudi, Beitrage; Lafone-Quevedo, ElCultode Tonapa (1892);
Brinton, American Hero-Myths, chap. v. Von Tschudi recognizes
in Viracocha the impersonation of Light, and places him in an-
tithesis to Con, whom he believes to represent darkness (Beitrage,
p. 211).

212 THE SUPREME GODS OF THE RED RACE.

four mythical civilizers of Peru, who another legend
asserts emerged from the cave Pacarin tampu, the
Lodgings of the Dawn.1 To these Yiracocha 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 identi-
fied with the four winds, we can omit their considera-
tion here.2 Tradition, as has rightly been observed by
the Inca Garcilasso de la Vega, transferred a portion of
the story of Viracocha to Manco Capac, first of the his-
torical Incas. King Manco, however, was a real char-
acter, 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

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.

2 The names given by Balboa (Hist, du Perou, p 4) and Monte-
sinos (Ancien Perou, p. 5) are Manco, Cacha, Auca, Uchu. The
meaning of Manco is unknown. The others signify, in their order,
messenger, enemy or traitor, and the little one. The myth of
Viracocha is given in its most antique form by Juan de Betanzos,
in the Histoi*ia de los Ingas, compiled in the first years of the con-
quest 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. The most
scholarly study of the Viracocha legends is that by the late von
Tschudi, published in his Beitrdge zur Kenntniss des Alien Peru, Vi-
enna, 1891. I also refer to that in my American Hero Myths, pp.
168-202, and the discussion of the myth by Dr. Middendorf in his
introduction to the drama of Ollanta, Leipzig, 1890.

Q UETZAL CO A TL. 213

the four winds, both were the fathers, gods, and teach-
ers 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.1 So true is this that to-
day in Peru white men are called viracochas, and the
early explorers constantly received the same epithet.
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.2 It is the
ancient story how

"Light

Sprung from the deep, and from her native east
To journey through the airy gloom began."

The central figure of Nahuatl mythology is Quetzal-
coatl. Not an author on ancient Mexico but has some-
thing 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 Tezcucans, in

1 It is compounded of uira, fat, foam (which perhaps is akin to
yurac, white), and cocha, a pond or lake. This simple and ancient
derivation has not pleased modern students. Von Tschudi derives
uira from uayra, wind or air, and makes Viracocha originally a god
of the winds (Beitrdge, p. 196). Middendorf thinks uira refers to
lava and translates therefore " Lord of the Lava Stream," or the
fluid interior of the earth ! ( Ollanta, p. 24. ) Lafone Quevedo gives
a still more fanciful rendering. (El Culto de Tonapa, 1892. ) The
hirth of the hero god from the fat or scum of the sea reappears in
theZuni Creation Myths (Gushing, u. s., p. 379).

2 Gomara, Hist, de las Indias, cap. 119, in Miiller.

214 THE SUPREME GODS OF THE RED RACE.

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
connection with the wind-cross, I have already ex-
plained. Others of his titles were : Ehecatl, the air ;
Yolcuat, the rattlesnake ; Tohil, the rumbler ; Huemac,
the strong hand ; Nanihehecatle, lord of the four winds;
Tlaviz-calpan-tecutli, lord of the light of the dawn.
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 dedi-
cated to him expressly as the author of light.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 many of the Aztec gods, with a full
and flowing beard.2

1 Brasseur, Hist, du Mexique, i. p. 302.

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 Miiller quotes various
authorities to show that the priests wore them long and full (Amer.
Urrdigionen, p. 429). Not only was Quetzalcoatl himself reported

THE CLOUD-SERPENT. 215

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 uncon-
trollable 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,1 or
(according to Gomara) was the son of Iztac Mixcoatl,
the white cloud serpent, the spirit of the tornado. Mes-
senger of Tlaloc, god of rains, he was figuratively said
to sweep the road for him, since in that country vio-
lent 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 for-
tunes, "incomparably swift and light of foot," with
directions to divide the earth between them and rule

to have been of fair complexion — white indeed — but the historian
Ixtlilxochitl says the old legends asserted that all the Toltecs,
natives of Tollan, or Tula, as their name signifies, were so like-
wise. 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,
p. 612).

1 Kingsbo rough, Antiquities of Mexico, v. p. 109.

216 THE SUPREME GODS OF THE RED RACE.

it till he should return and resume his power. When
he would promulgate his decrees, his herald pro-
claimed 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 fall before the remorseless stroke of death.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 earth-
quakes. The Zapotecs worshipped such a deity under
the image of this member carved from a precious stone,2
calling to mind the " Kab-ul," the Working Hand,
adored by the Mayas,3 and said to be One of the images

1 The myth of Quetzalcoatl I have taken chiefly from Sahagun,
Hist, de la Nueva Espana, lib. i. cap. 5 ; lib. iii. caps 3, 13, 14 ;
lib. x. cap. 29 ; Torquemada, Monarquia Indiana, lib. vi. cap. 24;
and the Anales de Quauhtitlan. It must be remembered that
the Quiche legends identify him positively with the Tohil of
Central America (Le Livre Sacre, p. 247).

2 Padilla, Davila, Hist, de la Prov. de Santiago de Mexico, lib. ii.
cap. 89.

3 Cogolludo, Hist, de Yucathan, lib. iv. cap. 8.

PARALLEL MYTHS. 217

of Itzamna, their hero god. The human hand, " that
divine tool," as it has been called, might well be re-
garded 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 Muys-
cas, whose hero Bochica or Nemqueteba bore the other
name SUA, the White One, the Day, the East, an ap-
pellation they likewise gave the Europeans on their
arrival. He had taught them in remotest times how
to manufacture their clothing, build their houses, cul-
tivate 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.1

Or I might choose that of the Caribs, whose pa-
tron 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 agricul-
ture 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.2

1 He is also called Idacanzas and Nemterequetaba. Some have
maintained a distinction between Bochica and Sua, which, how-
ever, has not been shown. The best authorities on the mythology
of the Muyscas are Piedrahita, Hist, de la Cong, del Nuevo Reyno de
Granada, 1668 (who is copied by Humboldt, Vues des Cordilleres,
pp. 246 sqq.), and Simon, Noticias de Tierra Firme, Parte ii. The
myths are well summed up by E. Kestrepo, Aborigines de Colombia,
cap. ii. iii.

2 D'Orbigny, L'Homme Americain, ii. p. 319, and Rochefort,
Hid. des Isles Antilles, p. 482. The name has various orthographies,

218 THE SUPREME GODS OF THE RED RACE.

Or from the more fragmentary mythology of ruder
nations, proof might be brought of the well nigh uni-
versal 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 :l 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 genera-
tions 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.2

Or I might instance the Tupis of Brazil, who were
named after the first of men, Tupa, he who alone sur-
vived the flood, who was one of four brothers, who is
described as an old man of fair complexion, unvieittard
blanc? and who is now their highest divinity, ruler of

Tamu, Tamoi, Tamou, Itamoulou, and is probably identical with
the Zume of the Guaranis of Paraguay, and who, they said, came
from the sun-rising, and was their instructor in arts N. del Techo,
Hist. Prov. Paraquariae, lib vi. cap. iv. Dr. Ehrenreich considers
him identical with the Kamu of the Arawacks, and the Kaboi of
the Carayas. In the legend of the latter, he dwelt with their an-
cestors in the underworld until a bird, the Dicholophos cristatus, by
its call, led them to light and life in the upper world. Die Karay-
astdmme, p. 39 (1891).

1 Catlin, Letters and Notes, Letter 22.

2 Journal of Capt. Johnson, in Emory, Reconnaissance of New
Mexico, p. 601.

3 ''II a fait tout," says Father Ives d'Evreux, Hist, de Marignan,
p. 280. Tupa now means god and thunder. Further references
by M. de Charency, Revue Americaine, ii. p. 317. Another similar
Tupi myth is that of Tiraondonar and Aricoute. They were
brothers, the one of fair complexion, the other dark. They were

THE DAWN. 219

the lightning and the storm, whose voice is the thun-
der, 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 sym-
bolism, 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 phenom-
enal world nor was sunk in it, as is the shallow
theory of the day, but is as Kant long ago defined it,

constantly struggling and Aricoute, which means the cloudy or
stormy day, was worsted (Fd. Denis, line Fete Bresilienne, p. 88).

220 THE SUPREME GODS OF THE RED RACE.

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 prophe-
cies, 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 col-
lapse 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."1

The gloomy words of Nezahualcoyotl, a former
prince of Tezcuco, foretelling the arrival of white and

1 Cortes, Carta Primera, pp. 113, 114.

PRESENTIMENTS. 221

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.1

The noble Mexican was not alone in his presenti-
ments. 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."2

The natives of Haiti told Columbus of similar pre-
dictions long anterior to his arrival.3 The Maryland
Indians said the whites were an ancient generation
who had come to life again, and had returned to seize
their former land;* and the Lenape of the Delaware
told the Moravian missionaries that it was an ancient
belief that divine men should come to them from the
east, and for these they took the first Europeans.5

1 Sahagun, Hist, de la Nu&va Espana, lib. xii. caps. 2, 3.

2 La Vega, Hist, des Incas., lib. ix. cap. 15.

3 Peter Martyr, De Eeb. Oceanicis, Dec. iii. lib. vii.

4 Blomes, State of his Maj. Terr., p, 199.

5 Brinton, The Lenape and their Legends, p. 132 and authorities
there quoted.

222 THE SUPREME GODS OF THE BED RACE.

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 Itzamna or
Kukulcan, lord of the dawn and the four winds, wor-
shipped 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."1

The older writers, Gomara, Cogolludo, Villagutierre,
have taken pains to collect other instances of this pre-
sentiment of the arrival and domination of a white
race.2 Later historians, fashionably incredulous of
what they cannot explain, have passed them over in
silence. That they existed there can be no doubt, and

1 Lizana, Hist, de Nuestra Senora de Itzamal, lib. ii. cap. i. in
Brasseur, Hist, du Mexique, ii. p. 605. The prophecies are of the
priest who bore the title — not name — chilan balam, and whose
offices were those of divination and astrology. The verse claims to
date from about 1450, and was very well known throughout Yuca-
tan, so it is said. The " Books of Chilan Balam" copied in fac-
simile by the late Dr. C. H. Berendt are in my possession. They
contain several ancient prophecies of a similar character. I have
described them in Essays of an Americanist, pp. 255-273.

2 The benevolent hero-god of the Tarascos, by name Surites, was
also said to have predicted the arrival of the whites (F. X. Alegre,
Hist, de laComp. Jesus en la Nueva Espana, Tom. i. p. 91).

THE EXPECTED SA VIOB. 223

that they arose in the way I have stated, is almost
proved 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 Quetzal-
coatls.

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 insti-
tutions 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 )7et 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 in-
stitutions. 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!"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
1 Squier, Travels in Nicaragua, ii. p. 35.

224 THE SUPREME GODS OF THE RED RACE.

the last 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 deliver-
ance 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.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

1 Whipple, Report on the Indian Tribes, p. 36. Emory, Eecon.
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 is in
any way related to the Aztec race by language, as has been shown
by Dr. Buschmann, Die Vodker und Spracken Neu Mexicos, p. 262.

THE MESSIAH CRAZE. 225

profound was the reverence with which he had inspired
his followers, so full their faith in his claims, that, un-
deterred 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.1

But we need not go so wide either in time or space
to see how deeply this hope is rooted in the native
mind. It is but a few years since the Indians on our
reservations, in wild despair at the misery and deaths
of those dearest to them, broke out in mad appeals, in
furious ceremonies, to induce that longed for Saviour
and friend to appear. The heartless whites called it a
"ghost dance" and a "Messiah craze," and shot the
participants in their tracks, hastening the implacable
destiny against which the poor wretches had prayed
in vain."

These fancied reminiscences, these unfounded hopes,
so vague, so child-like, let no one dismiss them as the
babblings of ignorance. Contemplated in their broad-
est 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 dis-
crepancy 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.

1 Humboldt, Essay on New Spain, bk. ii. chap, vi., Eng. Trans ;
Ansichten der Natur, ii. pp. 357, 386.

a See the touching account of Warren K. Moorehead in the
American Antiquarian, May, 1891 ; also Alice C. Fletcher in Jour.
Am. Folk-lore, March, 1891.

15

226 MYTHS OF CREATION, DELUGE AND LAST DAY

CHAPTER VII.

THE MYTHS OF THE CREATION, THE DELUGE, THE
EPOCHS OF NATURE, AND THE LAST DAY.

Cosmogonies usually portray the action of the SPIRIT on the
WATERS. — Those of the Muscogees, Athapascas, Quiches, Zunis,
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 r61e of birds. — The confusion of tongues. — The Aztec,
Quiche", Algonkin, Tupi, and earliest Sanscrit flood-myths. — The
belief in Epochs of Nature a further result of this attempt at
reconciliation. — Its forms among Peruvians, Mayas, and Aztecs.
— The expectation of the End of the World a corollary of this
belief. — Views of various nations.

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 con-
dition 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.1 But no sooner does the

1 So far as this applies to the Eskimos, it might be questioned
on the authority of Paul Egede, whose valuable Nachrichten von
Gronland contains several Hood-myths, etc. But these Eskimos,

WATER THE FIRST. 227

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 material as he has at hand, manufactures for him-
self 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.1 It produces an impression of immensity, in-
finity, formlessness, and barren changeableness, well
suited to a notion of chaos. It is sterile, receiving all
things, producing nothing. Hence the necessity of a

like those of the South, 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. The Eskimo
highest divinity, Tornarsuk, was not presented in the ancient
stories as the Creator of things. (Morillot, Mythologie des Esqui-
maux, ActesSoc. Phibl, iv. p. 232.)

1 Pictet, Origines Indo-Europeennes in Michelet, La Mer. The
latter has many eloquent and striking remarks on the impressions
left by the great ocean.

228 MYTHS OF CREATION, DELUGE AND LAST DAY.

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 sur-
face of the waters," presenting the picture of a primeval
ocean fecundated by the wind as a bird.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 con-
tinent, the giant Ymir, the rustler (as wind in trees),
from whose flesh, says the Eddil, 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 illus-
trations from the old world when they are so plenty in
the new ?

Before the creation, said the Muscokis, 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.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

1 '* Spiritus Dei incubuit superficei aquarum " is the translation
of one writer. The word for spirit in Hebrew, as in Latin, origi-
nally meant wind, as I have before remarkjed.

2 Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, I p. 266.

CREATION MYTHS. 229

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."1

Very similar, but with more of poetic finish, is the
legend of the Quiches ; —

" This is the first word and the first speech. There
were neither men nor brutes ; neither birds, fish, nor
crabs, stick nor stone, valley nor mountain, stubble
nor forest, nothing but the sky. The face of the land
was hidden. There was naught but the salient 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 dark-
ness, 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."2

Over this passed Hurakan, the mighty wind, and
called out Earth ! and straightway the solid land was
there.

Turning to the pueblo-dwelling Zunis, we hear as
follows :

" With the substance of himself did the all-father
Awonawilona impregnate the great water, the world-

1 Mackenzie, Hist, of the Fur Trade, p. 83 ; Eichardson, Arctic
Expedition, p. 239.

2 Ximenes, Or. de los Ind. de GuaL, pp. 5-7. I translate freely,
following Ximenes rather than Brasseur.

230 MYTHS OF CREATION, DELUGE AND LAST DAY.

holding sea, so that scums rose upon its surface, wax-
ing wide and apart, until they became the all-contain-
ing earth and the all-covering sky. From the lying
together of these twain upon the great world waters,
all beings of earth, men and creatures came to exist,
and firstly in the fourfold womb of the world. In the
nethermost of the cave-wombs of the world, the seed
of men and creatures took form and life. The earth
lay like a vast island, wet and shifting, amid the great
waters, and the men groped about down in the murk
underworld. Then arose the master magician, Janau-
luha, and bearing a staff plumed and covered with
feathers, he guided them upward to the world of light.
There, by the power of his wand, caused he to be and
become birds of shining plumage, the raven and the
macaw, who were indeed the spirits of the winter and
the summer, and the totems of the two first clans of
men."1

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 astro-
logical 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.2

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

1 Freely transcribed from Mr. Gushing' s ZiiHi Creation Myths
(1896).

2 Garcia, Or. de los Indios, lib. v. cap. 4.

ORE A TION M YTHS. 231

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.

The creation myth of the Guaymis of Costa Rica
related that the mysterious being Noncomala formed
the world and the waters, but they were in darkness
and clouds. Wading into the river he met and fecun-
dated the water-sprite Rutbe, who bore him twins,
brothers, who lived and throve with their mother for
twelve years. Then they left her, one becoming the
sun the other the moon, the twin lights of the world.1

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 u suddenly bubbled up under her feet,
and waxed bigger, so that ere long a whole country was
perceptible."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.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

1 Juan Melendez, Tesoros Verdaderos de las Yndias, p. 4.
8 Doc. Hist, of New York, iv. p. 130 (circ. 1650).
3 Ed. de la Nouv. France, An. 1636, p. 101.

232 MYTHS OF CREATION, DELUGE AND LAST DAY.

hidden by boundless waters. Consequently, they
spoke distinctly of the action of the muskrat in bring-
ing 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.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 judi-
cious distinction, but one which has a most important
corollary.3

A reconstruction supposes a previous existence. This
they felt, and had something to say about an earth an-
terior to this of ours, but one without light or hu-
man inhabitants. A lake burst its bounds and sub-
merged it wholly. This is obviously nothing but a
mere and meagre fiction, invented to explain the ori-
gin 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 del-
uges 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

1 Eel de la Nouv. France, An. 1634, p. 13.

2 Various animals take the place of the muskrat in this myth as
it occurred among other tribes. Among the Uchees (or Yuchi)
the crawfish brought the mud from the bottom, and the buzzard,
by flapping its wings, formed the hills. A. S. Gatschet, Amer.
Anthropologist, 1893, p. 280.

ANTERIOR WORLDS. 233

is an apothegm indorsed alike by the profoundest meta-
physicians and the rudest savages.

But the other horn was no easier. To escape accept-
ing the theory that the world had ever been as it now
is, was the only object of a legend of its formation.
As either lemma conflicts with fundamental laws of
thought, this escape was eagerly adopted, and in the
suggestive words of Prescott, men " sought relief from
the oppressive idea of eternity by breaking it up into
distinct cycles or periods of time."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 im-
agining 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 re-
moving 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

1 Conquest of Mexico, i. p. 61.

a It is regretable that such a thoughtful author as 1m Thurn
should content himself with the memory of local floods and fires
as sufficient explanation of these cataclysmal myths. Indians of
Gfaiana, p. 375.

234 MYTHS OF CREATION, DELUGE AND LAST DAY.

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 ex-
ample, 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 animal 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, elabo-
rated 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.1

This latter and more common view is the origin of
the myth of the deluge. How familiar such specula-

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 coin-
ciding with him, explains the great antiquity of Egyptian civiliza-
tion 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 Sdpionis, lib. ii. cap. 10).

ANTEDILUVIANS. 235

tions were to the aborigines of America there is abun-
dant evidence to show.1

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 es-
caped.2 The same view was entertained by the Nica-
raguans3 and the Botocudos of Brazil. The latter
attributed its destruction to the moon falling to the
earth from time to time.* The Aschochimi of Califor-
nia told of the drowning of the world, so that no man
escaped ; but when the waters retired the coyote went
forth and planted the feathers of various birds, which
grew into the various tribes of men.5

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 ascend-
ing 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 peculi-
arities and ancient religious ceremonies, that no un-

1 A general discussion of the creation myths of the world may
be found in the learned work of Professor Bastian, Vorgeschichtliche
Schopfangslieder, Berlin, 1893 ; and of the deluge myths of many
nations in Dr. K. Andree's Fluthsagen; though the analysis of
their origin in the latter appears to me to be incomplete.

2 Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, iii. 263, iv. p. 230.

3 Oviedo, Hist, du Nicaragua, pp. 22, 27.

4 Miillor, Amer. Urrelig., p. 254.

6 Stephen Powers, Indians of California, p. 200.

236 MYTHS OF CREATION, DELUGE AND LAST DAY.

biased student can assign them wholly to that source,
as Professor Vater and others have 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 destruc-
tion of the world to have been by water. A few, how-
ever, 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.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.2

1 Morse, Rep. on the Ind. Tribes, App. p. 346 ; D'Orbigny, Frag,
d'un Voyage dans V Amer. Merid., p. 512.

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.

THE ARK. 237

Moreover, in an ancient Sanscrit legend of the flood
in the Zatapatha Brahmana, Manu is also the first man,
and by his own efforts creates offspring.1

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.2 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,3 or the Sanscrit ac-
count in the Zatapatha Brahmana with those in the
later Puranas. 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.

In oriental mythology the seven planets are gen-
erally supposed to have conferred this sacredness on
the heptad. This was not the case in America. Nor
was it derived as a rule from the observation of celestial
bodies. It was from terrestrial relations and mythi-
cally represented the objective universe or the All,

* The oldest Sanscrit reference to the flood -myth occurs in the
Atharva Veda. Professor Hopkins is positive that it is indigenous
to India, and not borrowed from Babylonian lore (Religions of In-
dia, p. 160, Boston, 1895).

2 Prescott, Conquest of Peru, i. p. 88 ; Codex Vaticanus, No. 3776,
in Kingsborough.

3 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 Penta-
teuch.

238 MYTHS OF CREATION, DELUGE AND LAST DAY.

being derived from the four quarters of the earth-plane,
the zenith, the nadir, and the centre. This is shown
clearly in the rituals of the Zuiiis and other tribes. As
thus typifying completion, it became intimately asso-
ciated with the computations of the calendar in Mexico
and Central America, and entered into numerous other
divinatory and mythical relations, such as the seven
ancestors or seven caves Chicomoztoc, from whom the
Aztec claimed descent, the seven council fires of the
Dakotas, the seven clans of the Cakchiquels, etc.1

As the mountain or rather mountain chain of Ararat
was regarded with veneration wherever the Semitic ac-
counts 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.2
The Cerro Naztarny on the Rio Grande, the peak of
Old Zuni in New Mexico, that of Colhuacan on the
Pacific coast, Mount Apoala in Upper Mixteca, and
Mount Neba in the province of Guaymi, are some of
many elevations asserted by the neighboring nations
to have been places of refuge for their ancestors when
the fountains of the great deep broke forth.

One of the Mexican traditions related by Torque-
mada 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

1 Compare S. E. Eiggs, Dakota Grammar, p. 187 (1893) ; Annals
of the Cakchiquels, passim ; Brinton, Native Calendar, p. 13.

2 American State Papers, Indian A/airs, i. p. 729. Date of legend,
about 1801.

BIRDS IN THE DELUGE. 239

Cholula in its memory. He intended that its summit
should reach the clouds, but the gods, angry at his pre-
sumption, 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 prop-
erty of floating on water, called Theg-Theg, the Thun-
derer. This they believed would preserve them in the
next as it did in the last cataclysm, and as its only in-
convenience was that it approached too near the sun,
they always kept on hand wooden bowls to use as
parasols.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 signifi-
cance of bringing it forth, attached to them in the cos-
mogonies 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 Thlinkit and derived myths saved
their ancestors from the general flood, and in this in-
stance it is distinctly identified with the mighty thun-
der 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.a

i Molina, Hist, of Chili, ii. p. 82.

* See Bichardson, Arctic Expedition, p. 239 ; A. Krause, Die
Thlinkit Indianer, chap. x. ; A. G. Mo rice, in Trans. Roy. Soc. Canada,
1892, p. 124 ; the writings of Dr. Franz Boas, etc. The Kwakiutl
called this mythic bird, Kaneakeluh; the Carriers, Estas ; the Hai-
dah, Nikilstlas; the Tshimshians, Caugh.

240 MYTHS OF CREATION, DELUGE AND LAST DAY.

This wondrous bird Yetl was the central character of
the myths of all the coast tribes from the Eskimos well
into and beyond Vancouver Island ; and under various
names, but playing the same role in the mighty drama
of the creation and destruction of things, was familiar
to the Athapascan tribes far inland.

Precisely the same beneficent actions were attributed
by the Natchez to the small red cardinal bird,1 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 tranformed 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 distrib-
uted 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,2 and the Quiche's that the antediluvian race
were " puppets, men of wood, without intelligence or
language."

These stories, so closely resembling that of the con-
fusion of tongues at the tower of Babel or Borsippa, are
of doubtful authenticity. The first is an erroneous

1 Dumont, Mems. Hist, sur la Louisiane, i. p. 163.

2 Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, v. p. 686.

STORIES OF GIANTS. 241

interpretation, as has been shown by Senor Ramirez,
director of the Museum of Antiquities at Mexico. The
name of the bird in the Aztec tongue was identical
with the word departure, and this is its signification in
the painting.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 con-
nection with the legends of the flood and the creation
is incidental and secondary. Were the case otherwise,
it would offer no additional point of similarity to the
Hebrew myth, for the word rendered giants in the
phrase, " and there were giants in those days," has no
such meaning in the original. It is a blunder which
crept into the Septuagint, and has been cherished ever
since, along with so many others in the received text.

A few specimens will serve as examples of all these
American flood myths. The Abbe Brasseur has trans-
lated 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, Titlacahuan 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

1 Desjardins, Le Perou avant la Conq. Espagn., p. 27.
16

242 MYTHS OF CREATION, DELUGE AND LAST DAY.

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.

11 Then they built a fire, rubbing together pieces of
wood, and they roasted the fish. The gods Citlallinicue
and Citlallatonac looking below exclaimed. l Divine
Lord, what means that fire below ? Why do they thus
smoke the heavens ?'

"Straightway descended Titlacahuan Tezcatlipoca,
and commenced to scold, saying, l What is this fire do-
ing here?' And seizing the fishes he moulded their
hinder parts and changed their heads, and they were
at once transformed into dogs."1

That found in the oft quoted legends of the Quiche's
is to this effect : —

" Then by the will of the Heart of Heaven the waters
were swollen and a great flood came upon the manikins
of wood. For they did not think nor speak of the Cre-
ator 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 de-
voured their flesh ; the bird Tecumbalam broke their
bones and sinews and ground them into powder."2

" Because they had not thought of their Mother and

1 Cod. Chimalpopoca, in Brasseur, Hist', du Meorique, Pieces Jus-
tificatives.

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.

THE QUICHE DELUGE. 243

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.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.2 Now it is your turn, and you shall burn,' said
the cups insultingly.

1 The word rendered mill-stones, in the original means those
large hollowed stones called metates on which the women were ac-
customed to bruise the maize. The imitative sounds for which I
have substituted others in English, are in Quiche*, holi, holi, huqui,
huqui.

2 Brasseur translates "quoique nous ne sentissions rien," but
Ximenes, "nos quemasteis, y sentimos el dolor." As far as I can
make ont the original, it is the negative conditional as I have
given it in the text.

244 MYTHS OF CEEATION, DELUGE AND LAST DAY.

" 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, des-
tined 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."1

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 Montag-
nais 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

1 Le Llvre Sacre, p. 27 ; Ximenes, Or. de los Indios, p. 13.

THE TUPI DELUGE. 245

limbs, revenged himself on those who had detained his
wolves, and having married the muskrat, by it peopled
the world."

Next 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 de-
struction 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.1

• Or, it is narrated by an equally ancient authority as
follows : —

" Monan (the Maker, the Begetter), 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

1 The American nations among whom a distinct and well-
authenticated myth of the deluge was found are the Athapascas,
Algonkins, Iroquois, Cherokees, Chikasaws, Caddos, Caraxas,
Guaymis, Ptimarys, Pawnees, Natchez, Dakotas, Apaches, Nava-
jos, Mandans, Pueblo Indians, Aztecs, Mixtecs, Zapotecs, Tlas-
calans, Mechoacans, Toltecs, Nahuas, Mayas, Quiches, Haitians,
natives of Darien and Popoyan, Muyscas, Quichuas, Tupinamhas,
Achaguas, Araucanians, and many others. The article by M. de
Charency in the Revue Americaine, " Le Deluge d'apres les Traditions
Indiennes de V Amerique du Nord," contains some valuable extracts,
but offers for their existence no rational explanation. Andree's
Fluthsayen quotes a number.

246 MYTHS OF CREATION, DELUGE AND LAST DAY.

dug valleys. Of all men one alone, Irin Mage (the one
who sees), was saved, whom Monan carried into the
heaven. He, seeing all things destroyed, spoke thus to
Monan : l 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 calljparcma, the great waters."1

A reflection of this myth appears in that of the
Mbocobis of Paraguay. The destruction of the world
was due to the sun. This orb once fell from the sky,
but a Mbocobi hastened to pick it up before it did any
injury, and fastened it in its place with pegs. A second
time it fell and burnt up the earth. Two of the tribe,
a man and his wife, climbed a tree and escaped destruc-
tion, but a flash of flame reached them and they fell to
the ground, where they were changed into monkeys.2

The Guaymis of Costa Rica, a tribe with South
American affinities, told the story thus :

" Angered with the world, the mighty Noncomala
poured over it a flood of water, killing every man and
woman ; but the kindly god Nubu had preserved the
seed of a man, and when the waters had dried up he
sowed it on the moist earth. From the best of it rose
the race of men, and from that which was imperfect
came the monkeys."3

1 The original authority for this is Thevet. In other myths
collected by Simon de Vasconcellos, Tamandare is the Brazilian
Noah. Barbosa Rodriguez gives that of the Pamerys, Poranduba
Amazonense, p. 213.

2 Guevara, Hist, del Paraguay, cap. xv.

8 Pedro Melendez, Tesoros Verdaderos de las Yndias, I. p. 4.

THE HINDOO DELUGE. 247

In most of the true South American myths the pecu-
liar machinery is that the god pours the water from a
calabash or jar, while in North America he causes a
lake or sea to overflow.1

In these narratives I have not attempted to soften
the asperities nor conceal the childishness which runs
through them. But there is no occasion to be aston-
ished 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 tradi-
tions 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 San-
scrit 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.' 4 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, aston-
ishingly. Then it said to Manu, * In such a year the

1 Cf. Paul Ehrenreich, Die Karayastiimme, p. 41.

248 MYTHS OF CREATION, DELUGE AND LAST DAY.

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
that 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, i 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."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 prob-
lems 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,

1 Felix Neve, La Tradition Indienne du Deluge ; also Hopkins, The
Religions of India, p. 214. The original is in the £atapatha Brahmana.
There is in the oldest versions no distinct reference to an antedilu-
vian race, and in India Manu is by common consent the Adam as
well as the Noah of their legends.

AGES OF THE WORLD. 249

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.1

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 mor-
tal 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 hur-
ricane, 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.8

As might be expected, the vigorous intellects of the

1 Avendano, Sermones (Lima, 1648), in Bivero and Tschudi,
Peruv. Antiqs., p. 114. In the year 1600, Onate found on the coast
of California a tribe whose idol held in one hand a shell contain-
ing 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.j lib. v. cap. 40). 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.

* 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 sub-
stantiate 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 (Bel. de fas Cosas de
Yucatan, 58, 60).

250 MYTHS OF CREATION, DELUGE AND LAST DAY.

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 rudi-
mentary forms throughout the continent, Alexander
von Humboldt observed that, " of all the traits of
analogy which can be pointed out between the monu-
ments, manners, and traditions of Asia and America,
the most striking is that offered by the Mexican my-
thology in the cosmogonical fiction "of the periodical
destructions and regenerations of the universe."1 Yet
it is but the same fiction that existed elsewhere, some-
what 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 termi-
nations, and their names. The preponderance of tes-
timony 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 15,228,
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.2

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)

1 Vues des CordilUres, p. 202.

2 The most careful modern study of the Aztec Ages or Suns is
that by Dr. Ed. Seler (Berlin, 1895).

THE MEXICAN " SUNS." 251

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 Am'eri-
caniste, 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 " fic-
tions of mythological astronomy, modified either by
obscure reminiscences of some great revolution suf-
fered by our planet, or by physical hypotheses, sug-
gested by the sight of marine petrifactions and fossil
remains,"1 while the Abbe Brasseur, in his works on
ancient Mexico, interprets them as exaggerated refer-
ences 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 teach-
ings of the Edda,2 the Stoics, the Celts, and the Brah-
mans, both of these must be rejected. Arid although
the Hindoo legend is so close to the Aztec, that it, too,
defines four ages, each terminating by a general catas-

1 Vuesdes Corditt&res, ii. p. 118, sq.

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.

252 M YTHS OF ORE A TION, DEL UGE AND LAST DA Y.

trophe, and each catastrophe exactly the same in both,1
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 crav-
ings, 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, as connected with the four
cardinal points, the four quarters of the world or space,
and hence an assumed fourfold period of time or dura-
tion; 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, em-
ployed 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.2

Now in the calendar, these signs occur in the order,

1 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 con-
sumed them (Sepp, Heidenthum und Christenthum, i. p. 191).

2 Echevarria y Veitia, Hist, de la Nueva Espana, lib. i. cap. 4.

THE END OF THE WORLD. 253

earth, air, water, fire, corresponding to the days distin-
guished 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 Chimal-
popoca, 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.1

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,2 but rather that each was an im-
provement 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 incon-
sistent 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 over-
whelm the continents with their mountainous billows,

1 Brasseur, Hist, du Mexique, iii. p. 495.

2 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.

254 MYTHS OF CREATION, DELUGE AND LAST DAY.

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."1 These fearful forebodings have cast
their dark shadow on every literature. The seeress of
the north does but paint in wilder colors the terrible
pictures of Seneca,2 and the sibyl of the capitol only
re-echoes the inspired predictions of Malachi. Well
has the Christian poet said : —

Dies irae, dies ilia,
Solvet sseclum in favilla,
Teste David cum Sibyla.

Savage races, isolated in the impenetrable forests of
another continent, could not escape this fearful looking
for of destruction to come. It oppressed their souls
like a weight of lead. On the last night of each cycle
of fifty-two years, the Aztecs extinguished every fire,
and proceeded, in solemn procession, to some sacred
spot. Then the priests, with awe and trembling, sought
to kindle a new fire by friction. Momentous was the
endeavor, for did it fail, their fathers had taught them
on the morrow no sun would rise, and darkness, death,
and the waters would descend forever on this beautiful
world.

The same terror inspired the Peruvians at every
eclipse, for some day, taught the Amautas, the shadow

1 Voluspa, xiv. 51, in Klee, Le Deluge.

2 Natur. Qucestiones, iii. cap. 27.

THE END OF THE WORLD. 255

will veil the sun forever, and land, moon, and stars will
be wrapt in 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.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 catas-
trophe 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."2

An ancient prophecy handed down from their ances-
tors 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.3 Well may they be about
it, for there is a gloomy probability that the warning
came from no false prophet.

1 Velasco, Hist, du Royaume du Quito, p. 105 ; Navarrete, Viages,
iii. p. 444.

2 Ed. de la N<wv. France, An. 1637, p. 54 ; Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes,
i. p. 319, iv. p. 420. 3 Schoolcraft, ibid., iv. p. 240.

256 MYTHS OF CREATION, DELUGE AND LAST DAY.

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 inhabi-
tants of Yucatan long before the Spaniard desolated
their stately cities. It is one of those preserved by
Father Lizana, cure of Itzamal, and of which he gives
the original. Other witnesses inform us that this na-
tion " had a tradition that the world would end,"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,
And meets without flinching the fiery ordeal."*

1 Cogolludo, Hist, de Yucathan, lib. iv. cap. 7.

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 sara llamado dichoso

Si con dolor llorarS sus pecados."

(Hist, de Nuestra Senora de Itzamal, in Brasseur, Hist, du Mexique,
p. 603.)

THE ORIGIN OF MAN. 257

CHAPTER VIII.

THE ORIGIN OF MAN.

Usually man is the EARTH-BORN, both in language and myths. —
The Earth-Mother.— 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 Athapas-
cas, Eskimos, Moxos, and others. Not literally derived from
an inferior species.

"VTOman can escape the importunate question, Whence

I u •*• J. A

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 pass-
ing 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 primi-
tive 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

17

258 THE ORIGIN OF MAN.

earth ; the Caribs addressed her as Mama Nono, " the
good mother from whom all things come."1 In the
Algonkin dialects the word for earth, ohke, is derived
from the same radical as mother and father, a verbal
which means to come forth from.2 So in the creation
myths of the Zunis we read of the " Fourfold contain-
ing Mother Earth," and of " Earth with her fourfold
Womb."3

In the legends of the Dakotas, the female Unktahe,
the invisible powers which conduct the motions of the
world, dwell in the earth. It was they, indeed, who
first lifted it to the surface of the primeval waters and
fitted it for habitable land. They are still its vitalizers,
and their cult is connected with that of the reproduc-
tive powers and the lingam symbol.4

In the legends of the western Algonkins the earth is
spoken of by the tender word Nokomis, my grand-
mother, and from her fertile womb issued all nations
of the world.

It was a curious result of this myth of the Earth-
Mother that led the Passes of Brazil to the surprising
conclusion that the earth moves around the sun ! It
is a great creature, said they, the rivers and streams are
its bloodvessels, and it turns itself, first one side then
the other to the sun, that it may keep itself warm.5

Distinctly related to the notion of the earth as the
mother and matrix of men and animals was the re-
verse of the concept, to wit, that which regarded her
as the tomb as well as the womb of all.

1 Rochefort, Hist, des Isles Antilles, p. 469.

2 Trumbull, note to Eoger Williams, Lang, of America, p. 56.

3 Gushing, Creation Myths of the Zunis, p. 379.

4 Riggs in Dorsey, Siouan Cults, pp. 438, 534.

6 Martius, Eihnoy. und Sprach, Amerikas, p. 508.

THE EA R TH-MO THER. 259

In the esoteric language of the Nagualists of Mexico
which preserved in later days the national religion,
the earth was invoked as Tonan, Our Mother, and as
" the flower which contains all flowers," for from her
prolific breast all come forth ; but another and ominous
one of her titles was, " The mouth which eats all
mouths ;" for she it is that at last eats all eaters.1

Those of Tezcuco therefore painted her in their sa-
cred books under the figure of a wild beast with mouths
at every joint, dripping with blood ; for, said they, she
it is who eats and swallows all things. One of her
names was llama, " The Old Woman," to whom a
woman victim was sacrificed at night, with tears and
grief, for the earth-mother will be the grave of all that
breathes.2 How appropriate the name was to the na-
tive mind is seen in the Quichua language of Peru,
where our expression, " to grow old," is rendered by
allpa-way, " to become earthen," " to change to earth,"8
and unwittingly, how correctly does it express that
gradual increase of inorganic matter in the system
which is the physiological cause of senile changes !

With almost the same imagery the Creeks in their
national legend say that " the Earth ate up the children
of the ancestors ;" and they add that when the day of
the final extinction of their nation shall arrive, they
will disappear in " the navel of the earth," returning
whence they came.* In the Mayan theogony the earth

1 l De la Serna, Manual de Ministros, p. 223.

2 Torquemada, Monarquia Indiana, lib. vi. c. 44 ; lib. x. c. 29, etc.

3 Middendorf, Keshua Worterbuch, s. v. allpa.

* Gatschet, Migration Legend of Creeks, ii. 27. He cites a similar
belief of the Klamaths. In Aztec legend, the temple Tlalxicco, "the
Navel of the Earth," was supposed to be the entrance to the un-
derworld of the dead (Torquemada, I/on,. Indiana, lib. viii. cap. 12).

260 THE ORIGIN OF MAN.

is, indeed, the common ancestress of the race of men ;
but her usual name is Ix-mucane, " the woman who
buries " all things.

From the womb of the earth, therefore, figuratively
or literally, did man, in the primitive thought of many
races, proceed and emerge. Homo, Adam, chamaigenes,
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 Latin1 homo in
American languages has such singular uniformity in so
many of them, that we might be tempted to regard it
as a fragment of some ancient and common tongue,
their parent stem. In the Eskimo it is inuk, innuk,
plural innuit; in Athapasca it is dinni, tenne; in Pima,
tinot; in Algonkin, mini, lenni, inwi; in Iroquois, onwi,
emha; in the Otomi of Mexico, n-aniehe ; in Zapotec,
beni; 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,2 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.8

i From the root oi/o, aw, up, upward. The derivation is as likely
as any other offered.

8 Vocabulario Quiche, s. v., ed. Brasseur (Paris, 1862).

3 The Eskimo innuk, man, means also a possessor or owner ; the
yolk of an egg ; and the pus of an abscess (Egede, Nachrichten von
Gronland, p. 106). From it is derived innuwok, to live, life. Prob-
ably innuk also means the semen masculinum, and in its identifica-

ALL-MOTHER EARTH. 261

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,1 while the Yurucares 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 bole,
until the god Tiri — a second Prospero — released them
by cleaving it in twain.2

As in oriental legends the origin of man from the
earth was veiled under the story that he was the pro-
geny 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."8

tion 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.
158.) In the Chipeway dialect the verb miniw means "I have a
running sore," and "I beget." (Baraga, Otchipwe Diet. )

1 Miiller, Amer. Urrelig., pp. 109, 229.

2 D'Orbigny, Frag, cPune Voy. dans PAmer. Mtrid., p. 512. It
is still a mooted point whence Shakespeare 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. 217.)

3 Both Lederer and John Bartram assign it this meaning. Gal-

262 THE ORIGIN OF MAN.

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,1 the Blackfoot legends point for the origin of
their class to Nina Stahu, " chief of mountains," a
bold, square-topped peak of the Rocky Mountains
near Lake Omaxeen, and many other tribes, the Tah-
kalis, Navajos, Coyoteros, 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 care-
fully sifted, there is sometimes a deep psychological
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 con-
federacy 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.

latin gives in the Powhatan dialect the word for mountain as
pomottinke, doubtless another form of the same. This curious rela-
tionship is beautifully illustrated in the Lenape dialect. In it, pem-
auchsoheen, is "to cause to live;" pemhakamik, the earth; pemhaka-
mixit, all living creatures ; pemhakamixitschik, mankind. Brinton
and Anthony, Lendpt-English Dictionary, p. 112.
1 Marcy, Exploration of the Red River, p. 69.

HOLY HILLS. 263

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.1 The Muskokis call
this mountain " King of Mountains," or " King of the
Land," rime em mekko.

It is at first sight astonishing with what uniformity
the traditional lore of tribes widely sundered in North
and South America repeat the story of the early men
climbing up from the underworld; with what almost
monotony their religions refer to the earth as the mother
of living creatures as well as of the vegetable kingdom.
But the explanation which would cite these similarities
as examples of a borrowing," or of the " diffusion of
myths," is not merely without historic support, but
misses in this study the most precious fruit it brings to
the science of man — the proof of his psychological unity,

* Compare Komans, Hist, of Florida, pp. f 8, 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. Soe.t iii. p. 216.

264 THE ORIGIN OF MAN.

It is easy to multiply examples. We may turn, for
instance, to the legends of the Iroquois 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, peo-
ple 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.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 proto-
type to the Aymara allegory of the morning light fling-
ing its beams like snow-white foam athwart the waves
of Lake Titicaca.

An ancient legend of the Aztecs derived their nation
from a place called Chicomoztoc, the Seven Caverns,
located north of Mexico. Antiquaries have indulged
in all sorts of speculations as to what this means.
Sahagun explains it as a valley so named ; Clavigero
supposes it to have been a city ; Hamilton Smith, and
after him Schoolcraft, construed caverns to be a figure
of speech for the boats in which the early Americans
paddled across from Asia (!) ; the Abbe Brasseur con-
founds it with Aztlan, and very many have discovered

1 Balboa, Hist, du Perou, p. 4.

HOLY CAVES. 265

in it a distinct reference to the fabulous " seven cities of
Cibola " and the Casas Grandes, ruins of large build-
ings 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, vivi-
fied by the Spirit, did in reality the first of men proceed.

This cavern, which thus dimly lingered in the
memories of nations, frequently 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.

According to a myth extensively disseminated among
the Caribs, Arawacks, Warraus, Carayas and other
South American tribes, in the beginning of things sky
and earth were as one, and man abode within the earth
in a joyous realm, where death and disease were un-

266 THE ORIGIN OF MAN.

known, and even the trees never rotted but lived on
forever. One day the ruler of that happy realm walk-
ing forth discovered the surface of the world as we
know it, but returning warned his people that though
sunlight was there, so also were decay and death.
Some, however, went thither, and the present unhappy
race of men are their descendants, while others still
dwell in gladness far below.1

The Mandans and Minnetarees on the Missouri River
supposed this exit was near a certain hill in their terri-
tory, 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.2

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 im-
moderately fat old lady, anxious to get a look at the
upper earth, broke it with her weight, and prevented
any further communication. Yet even this detail re-
curs with precise parallelism in the legends of the
Warraus, who live a semi-aquatic life at the mouths
of the Orinoco.3

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

1 Ehrenreich, Die Karayastamme, p. 39.

2 Long's Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, i. p. 274 ; Catlin's
Letters, i. p. 178.

3 Im Thurn, Indians of Guiana, p. 377.

SON OF THE GODS. 267

quintessence of dust, he is a son of the gods as well as
a son of the soil. He is a direct product of the great
creative power ; therefore the Northwest Coast Indians
and the Athapascan tribes west of the Rocky Moun-
tains— the Kenai, the Kolushes, and the Atnai — claim
descent from a raven — from that same mighty cloud-
bird, Yetl, already referred to, who in the beginning of
things seized the elements and brought the world from
the abyss of the primitive ocean.

The Athabascans, situate more eastwardly, the Dog-
ribs, 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.1
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 tra-
dition that their first progenitor emerged from the
waters, bearing in his hand an ear of maize,2 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 river on whose
banks their villages were situated.

These myths, and many others, hint of general con-

1 Richardson, Arctic Expedition, pp. 239, 247. It takes the place
of the coyote in the myths of California. Stephen Powers, Indians
of California, cites many.

2 Long, Exped to the Rocky Mountains, i. p. 326.

268 THE OEIGIN OF MAN.

ceptions of life and the world, wide-spread theories of
things, 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 faculties of
those whom we call barbarians ? Or shall we accept the
alternative, that these are the unappreciated heirlooms
bequeathed a rude race by a period of higher civiliza-
tion, long since extinguished by constant wars and
ceaseless fear? Or that they have been passed from
hand to hand to America from the famed and ancient
centres of civilization in Asia and Egypt ?*

With almost unanimous consent the latter has been
accepted as the true solution, but rather from the pre-
conceived theory of a state of primitive civilization from
which man fell, than from ascertained facts. Let us
rather prefer that explanation which has been previously
urged in these pages, that the faculties of the races of
men differ little, that in dealing with the problems of
the unknown their resources were limited, and that
often they reached the same conceptions about it, and
embodied them under the same or similar figures of
speech, myths and stories.

1 I believe that most students who have long and deeply studied
the psychology of the American aborigines of almost any tribe will
agree with these words of H. E. Schoolcraft :— " There is a subtlety
in some of their modes of thought and belief on life and the ex-
istence of spiritual and creative power, which would seem to have
been eliminated from some intellectual crucible without the limits
of their present sphere " (Oneota, p. 131). It is difficult for the civ-
ilized man to concede equal intellectual faculties to those whom he
knows are beneath him in acquirements, so that it at first requires
an effort to accept this statement.

THE COYOTE. 269

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 Cali-
fornia, brought their ancestors into the world ; or to
the wolf, which the Lenni Lenape pretended released
mankind from the dark bowels of the earth by scratch-
ing away the soil. They should rather be interpreted
by the curious custom of the Tonka ways, 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 in-
quiry 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."1 Most wise and fatherly counsel !

But what is there new under the sun ? Three thou-
sand 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.2

Though hasty writers have often said that the Indian
tribes claim literal descent from different wild beasts,
probably in many instances, as in these, this will prove,

1 Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, v. p. 683.

2 Schwarz, Ursprung der Mythotogie, 121 ; F. Granger, The
Worship of the Romans, p. 112.

270 THE ORIGIN OF MAN.

on examination, to be an error resting on a misappre-
hension arising from the habit of the natives of adopt-
ing 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. The totemic animal
is, to the native mind, by no means identical in traits
with a member of the existing species.

In some cases, doubtless, the natives themselves
came, in time, to confound the symbol with the idea,
by that familiar process of personification and conse-
quent 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, regarded
merely as such.

The reflecting mind will not be offended at the con-
tradictions 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.

IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. 271

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 seat of the soul. — The "name soul." — The future
world never a place of rewards and punishments. — The house of
the Sun the heaven of the red man. — The terrestrial paradise
and the under-world. — Cupay. — Xibalba. — Mictlan. — Metem-
psychosis. — Preservation of Bones. — Mummies. — Belief in a
resurrection of the dead almost universal.

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."1 His statement is em-
phatically sup'ported by the expression of one of the
acutest living students of American aboriginal thought
when he says of the Indian : " He knows he will not
die."2

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

i Journal Historique, p. 351 (Paris, 1740).

1 Von den Steinen, Naturvolker Zentral-Braziliens, p. 348.

272 THE SOUL AND ITS DESTINY.

taken such pains to collect, rest on misunderstandings
or superficial observation.

In the New World I know of only one well authenti-
cated instance where the 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 peo-
ple had no burial ceremonies, no notion of a life here-
after, 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 under-
took the unpromising task of converting them to Chris-
tianity, were at first obliged to depend upon the imper-
fect translations of half-breed interpreters. These
11 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 ill-
ness and bad luck generally were the effects of the anger
of a fabulous old woman.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 wor-
shipped the true and only God, nor adored false deities."
Yet they must have had some vague notion of an after-
world, 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. m

1 Eep. of the Commissioner of Ind. Affairs, 1854, pp. 211, 212. The
old woman is once more a personification of the water and the
moon.

2 Baegert, Ace. of the Aborig. Tribes of the Californian Peninsula,

WORDS FOR SOUL. 273

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 deter-
mined.

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 per-
ceptions 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 suffi-
ciently obvious reasons.

These same tropes recur in American languages in
the same connection. The New England tribes called
the soul chemung, the shadow, and in Quiche natub, in
Eskimo tarnak, in Dakota nagi 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.1

translated by Chas. Kau, in Ann. Kep. Smithson. Inst., 1866, p.
387. Mr. James Mooney (Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees, p. 319)
seems to deny that the Cherokees had any belief in a life here-
after ; but many of their rites and expressions appear distinctly to
imply such a faith.

1 Of the Nicaraguans, Oviedo says : "Ce n'est pas leur coeur qui
va en haut, mais ce qui les faisait vivre ; c'est-a-dire, le souffle qui
leur sort par la bouche, et que Ton nomme Julio " (Hist, du Nica-
ragua, 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

18

274 THE SOUL AND ITS DESTINY.

Of course, no one need demand that a strict immate-
riality be attached to these words. Such a colorless
negative abstraction never existed for them, neither
does it for us, though we delude ourselves into believ-
ing 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 — ne-
phesh, the animal, ruah, the human, and neshamah, the
divine soul, which corresponds to that of Plato into
thumoSj epithumia, and nous. And even Saint Paul
seems to have recognized such inherent plurality when
he distinguishes between the bodily soul, the intellec-
tual soul, and the spiritual gift, in his Epistle to the
Romans.

No such refinements, of course, as these are to be ex-
pected among the red men ; but it may be looked upon
either as the rudiments of these teachings, or as a grad-
ual debasement of them to gross and material expres-
sion, 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

Nb'rdlichen Mexico, 74). See also S. E. Riggs, Dakota Grammar,
p. 213.

THE M UL TIPLE SO UL. 275

or trance, and wander over the world, and at death goes
directly to the land of spirits.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 punish-
ments.2 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 vil-
lage, and the highest to go to the spirit land.3

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.4 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 conse-
crated to the rulers of the next.

In many of the native tongues the compound words

1 Rd. de la Nouv. France, An. 1636, p. 104 ; Keating' s Narrative,
i. pp. 232, 410. The Iroquoian concept of the double soul is care-
fully explained by J. N. B. Hewitt, in Jour, of Amer. Folk-lore,
1895, pp. 107, sqq.

2 French, Hist. Golls. of Louisiana, iii. p. 26.

3 Mrs. Eastman, Legends of the Sioux, p. 129.

* Voy. a la Louisianefait en 1720, p. 155 (Paris, 1768).

276 THE SOUL AND ITS DESTINY.

formed with its name indicate that various motions and
conditions feelings were supposed to arise from its con-
ditions.

The seat of the soul was, however, variously located.
The Costa Rica Indians place the powers of thought
and memory in the liver ; and a Thlinkit legend relates
that the first of all men came into being " when the
liver came out from below," showing that this tribe also
regarded that viscus as the seat of life.1 Frequently
the head was regarded as the vital member. Roger
Williams remarks of the New England Indians : " In
the braine theire opinion is that the soule keeps her
chiefe seate and residence."2 By an easy metonymy,
exemplified in all the classical languages, the head
represents the man, and in this meaning appears in the
picture writing, in the usage of preserving heads and
skulls, and in the custom of scalping which was
encountered by the early explorers in both North and
South America.

Between these various souls there was a clear distinc-
tion made by most of the aboriginal philosophers. In
their meditations on the principle of personality, on the
Ego, they had reached certain subtle distinctions not
unworthy a Hegelian dialectician, and which the most
astute of students of their thoughts fails completely to
grasp. For example, Dr. Washington Matthews, a most
competent scholar, in explaining this doctrine as it
exists among the Navajos, says that the personal soul
is neither the vital force which animates the body, nor
yet the mental power, but a tertium quid, " a sort of
spiritual body," which has the uncomfortable habit of

1 Gabb, Ind. Tribes of Costa Rica, p. 538 ; A. Krause, Die
Thlinkit Indianer, 1885.

2 Eoger Williams, Language of America, p. 86.

THE NAME-SOUL. 277

sometimes leaving its owner, or getting lost, much to
his pain and peril. Just such an unstable ghost do the
Chinook Indians believe belongs to every one ; and the
recognition of it was common in North and South
America, Among the Nahuas it bore the name tonal,
which is probably from a root meaning (divine) knowl-
edge, or else light.1

In many tribes this third soul, or " astral body,"
bore a relation to the private personal name. Among
the Mayas and Nahuas, it was conferred or came into
existence with the name, and for this reason the per-
sonal name was sacred and rarely uttered. It was part
of the individuality, and through it this capricious ele-
ment of the I could be injured.

What Miss Fletcher remarks of the Dakotas is true
generally : " The personal name among Indians indi-
cates the protecting presence of a deity, and must
therefore partake of the ceremonial character of the
Indian's religion."2 From almost any part of the con-
tinent I might choose examples to illustrate this. Let
us go to the east coast of Greenland, among people who
a dozen years ago had never seen or heard of a white
man. They believe that the person consists of three
components, his living body, his thinking faculty and
his name (atekata). This last enters the body when the
child is named. It survives physical death, whereas the
body and the thinking faculty die, the first certainly,
the latter sometimes. After the death of a person, his
private name is not mentioned, and if it is a common
noun, the tribe devise some other term in its place.8

1 Matthews in Amer. Anthropologist, May, 1888 ; Boas, in Jour.
Amer. Folk-lore, March, 1893; Brinton, Nagualism, p. 11.

2 Rep. Peabody Museum, 1884.

3 Holm, Com. sur. le Orb'nland, p. 373.

278 THE SOUL AND ITS DESTINY.

In many of the invocations of the Shamans, we find
the object to be the recovery or restitution to the indi-
vidual of this soul, or, as Dr. Rink says of the Eskimo
angekoks, the " repairing the soul." Father de la Serna
cites a long prayer for this special purpose and Dr.
Matthews gives another. It is through their malevolent
influence on this that the evil spirits and unfriendly
sorcerers cast sickness or misfortune upon one, and they
can go so far as to capture this soul or drive it away ;
wicked intentions, to be counteracted by the more
potent spells of the friendly shaman summoned for the
purpose.1

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 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

1 Serna, Manual de Ministros, p. 223 ; Matthews, ubi supra. The
mystical relations of Indian personal names lias been discussed by
many writers, as Garrick Mallery (Pictographs\ J. G. Bourke, J.
W. Powell, F. Boas, etc. Also Eink, Tales of the Eskhno, p. 60.

BVRfAL CUSTOMS. 279

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 repug-
nance 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 skele-
tons 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 rep-
resentative of the goddess of night and the grave.

280 THE SOUL AND ITS DESTINY.

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 sad custom. On the lower
Mississippi the Natchez Indians practised it 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 de-
liberate murder of their own children on the funeral pyre
— a privilege of which respectable writers tell us human
beings were found base enough to take advantage.1

Oviedo relates that in the province of Guataro, in
Guatemala, an actual rivalry prevailed among the peo-
ple 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.2 Theirs was therefore somewhat of a selfish
motive, and only in certain parts of Peru, where polyg-
amy 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.3 Wives who

1 Dupratz, Hist, of Louisiana, ii. p. 219 ; Dumont, Means.
Hist, sur la Louisiane, i. chap. 26.

2 Eel. de la Prov. de Cueba, p. 140.

3 Coreal, Voiages aux Indes Occidentales, ii. p. 94 (Amsterdam,

1722).

JOURNEY OF THE SOUL. 281

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 Al-
gonkins 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.1
The Nahuas held that the journey of the soul lasted
four years before it reached its final resting-place.2

1 Senate Rep. on the Indian Tribes, p. 358 (Wash. 1867).

2 Codex Telleriano-Remensis.

282 THE SOUL AND ITS DESTINY.

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.1

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 suste-
nance 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 strug-
gling faith or expressions of inward emotions,"2 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 any-
where 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 meteor-
ological 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 pur-
gatory. Very faint traces of any such belief except

1 Egede, Nachrichten von Gronland, p. 145.

1 Alger, Hist, of the Doctrine of a Future Life, p. 76.

NO PLACE OF TORMENT. 283

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 Na-
tional 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 as-
sisted ; and that those who have behaved ill are left to
shift for themselves ; and that there is no other pun-
ishment."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, in-
deed, 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 aware is at variance with that
of all previous writers, may be shown to be that natu-
ral to the uncultivated intellect everywhere, and the
real interpretation of the creeds of America.3 Whether

1 Hawkins, Sketch of the Creek Country, p. 80.

2 These words of the first edition I retain, although now the

284 THE SOUL AND ITS DESTINY.

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 confu-
sion of American religions have but proven the insuffi-
ciency 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 chill-
ing winter.

Where the sun lives, they informed the earliest for-
eign 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 souls (le chemin des ames).1 To hueyu
ku, the mansion of the sun, said the Caribs, the soul
passes when death overtakes the body.2 To the warm

opinion of the text is that of many scholars who have carefully
studied the subject.

1 Eel. de la Nmiv. France, 1634, pp. 17, 18.

3 Miiller, Amer. Urreligionen, p. 229.

THE NA TIVE NIR VAN A. 285

southwest, whence blows the wind which brings the
sunny days and the ripening corn, said the New Eng-
land natives to Roger Williams, will all souls go.1

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 in-
deed, exquisite joys — but a life of unruffled placidity,
void of labor, vacant of strong emotions, a sort of ma-
terial Nirvana, awaited them.2 For these reasons, they,
with most other American nations, interred the corpse
lying east and west, and not as the traveller Meyen has
suggested,3 from the reminiscences of some ancient mi-
gration.

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 moun-
tains, 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 per-
ennial inebriety, surrounded by infinite casks of rum,
and with no white man to dole it out to them.4

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

1 Language of America, p. 148.

2 La Vega, Hist, des Incas, lib. ii. cap. 7.

3 Udxr die Ureinwohner von Peru, p. 41.

4 Co real, Voy. aux Indes Occident., i. p. 224; Miiller, Amer. Ur-
relig., p. 289.

286 TEE SOUL AND ITS DESTINY.

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 rai-
ment, 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 distinc-
tion, no miscellaneous crowd, could gain admittance.
The conditions were as various as the national temper-
aments. 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-death7' 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."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

1 Oviedo, H ist. de Nicaragua, p. 22.

THE PARADISE. 287

Cihuapipilti, received him with dances, music, and
flowers, and bore him company to his western couch.1
Except these, none — unless it may be the victims sac-
rificed to the gods, and this is doubtful — was 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 per-
sons 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 commence-
ment of another life, it is as waking from a dream, and
the soul is no more human but divine (teotl)" There-
fore 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 flit-
ting around thee."s

1 Torquemada, Monarquia Indiana, lib. vi. cap. 27.

2 Sahagun, Hist, de la Nueva Espafta, lib. x. cap. 29.

288 THE SOUL AND ITS DESTINY.

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 scimitar, 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 mis-
sionaries 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 ?* If only they had

1 Eel. de la Nouv. France, 1636, p. 105.

JO VRNEY OF THE SO UL. 289

expressed this belief, it might have passed for a coinci-
dence 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 preci-
pitous 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 im-
pecunious, she deprived it of an eye.1

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.3 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.3

The similarity to the passage of the soul across the
Styx, and the toll of the obolus to Charon is in the

1 Molina, Hist, of Chili, ii. p. 81, and others in Waitz, Anthropo-
fagie, iii. p. 197.

2 I have given a detailed comparison of the "journey of the
soul " as recorded in Aztec, Egyptian, Greek and Teutonic beliefs,
showing their remarkable similarities, in Essays of an Americanist,
pp. 135-147. How anachronistic to find Dr. E. B. Tylor as late
as 1894 (Proc. BriL Assoc. Adv. Science) quoting such parallelisms
as evidence of the Asiatic origin of Mexican culture !

3 Nachrichten von Gronland aus dem Tagebuche von Bischof Paul
Egede, p. 104 Copenhagen, 1790).

19

290 THE SOUL AND ITS DESTINY.

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 expect-
ations.

We are to seek the explanation of these widespread
theories of the soul's journey in the equally prevalent
tenet that the sun is its destination, and that that lumi-
nary 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 larrori) are one and the
same."1

When the Minnetarees told Major Long and the

1 Ed. de la Nouv. France, 1636, p. 105.

NO PUNISHMENT. 291

Mannicicas of the La Plata the Jesuits,1 that the souls
of the bad fell into the waters and were swept away,
this was, beyond doubt, attributable either to a false
interpretation, or to Christian instruction. No such
distinction is probable among savages. The Brazilian
natives divided their dead into classes, supposing that
the drowned, those killed by violence, and those yield-
ing to disease, lived in separate regions, but no ethical
reason whatever seems to have been connected with
this.2

If the conception of a place of moral retribution was
known at all to the race, it should be found easily re-
cognizable in Mexico, Yucatan, or Peru, But the so-
called " hells " of their religions have no such signifi-
cance, and the spirits of evil, who were identified by
early writers with Satan, no more deserve the name
than does the Greek Pluto.

Qupay 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 compan-
ions 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 testi-
mony of an earlier and better authority on the religion
of Peru, who calls him the god of rains, and adds that
the famous Inca, Huyana Capac, was his high priest.3

1 Long's Expedition, i. p. 280 ; Waitz, Anthropologie, iii. p. 531.

2 Miiller, Amer. Urreligionen, p. 287.

3 Compare Garcilasso de la Vega, Hist, des Incas, liv. ii. chap,
ii., with Lett, sur les Superstitions du P'erou, p. 104. £upay is un-
doubtedly a personal form from Qupan, a shadow. (See Holguin,
FOCO&. de la Lengua Quiehua, p. 80 : Cuzco, 1608.)

292 THE SOUL AND ITS DESTINY.

" The devil," says Cogolludo of the Mayas, " is called
by them Xibilha, which means he who disappears or
vanishes."1 In the legends of the Quiches, the name
Xibalba is given as that of the under- world ruled by
the grim lords One Death and Seven Deaths. The de-
rivation of the name is from a root meaning to fear,
from which comes the term in Maya dialects for a
ghost or phantom.2

Under the influence of a century of Christian cate-
chizing, the Quiche legends portray this really as a
place of torment, and its rulers as malignant and pow-
erful ; but as I have before pointed out, they do so, pro-
testing that such was not the ancient belief, and they let
fall no word that shows that it was regarded as the desti-
nation 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 associa-
tions by the imaginations of later generations.3

Mictlanteuctli, Lord of Mictlan, from a word mean-
kig to kill, was the Mexican Pluto. Like Qupay, he
dwelt in the subterranean regions, and his palace was
named Tlalxicco, the navel of the earth. Yet he was

1 "Elque desparece 6 desvanece," Hist, de Yucathan, lib. iv.
cap. 7.

2 Ximenes, Vocab. QuicM, p. 224. The attempt of the Abb6
Brasseur to make of Xibalba an ancient kingdom of renown, with
Palenque as its capital, is so unsupported as to justify the humor-
ous flings which have so often been cast at antiquaries.

8 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 hottow.

THE ABODE OF THE DEAD. 293

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.

Doubtless in many instances the darkened abode of
the dead was regarded with that natural fear and hor-
ror which everywhere environ the fact of death.
Among the Nahuas it bore the ominous name, "the
valley of Ximohuayan," eternal oblivion, and Apoch-
quiahuayan, "where there are neither tracks nor
trails." Both with them, with the Mayas and with the
Caribs of the South, its principal deity was represented
by the bat, the ill-omened bird of darkness.1

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."*

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

1 Tezozomoc, Crortica Mexicana, cap. 81 ; Sahagun, Historia, lib.
iii. App. cap. 1. On the Bat God, Dr. Seler has written an excel-
lent monograpli in Verhand. der Berlin. Anthrop. GeselL, Dec. 1894.

2 Pennock, Rdiyion of the Northmen, p. 148.

294 THE SOUL AND ITS DESTINY.

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.1

So among the Takahlis, 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.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 ;3 and, act-
ing 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 me-
tempsychosis, and thought that "the souls of their
grandams might haply inhabit a partridge," we are
without the means of knowing. La Hontan denies it
positively of the Algonkins ; but the natives of Popo-
yan refused to kill doves, says Coreal,4 because they
believe them inspired by the souls of the departed.
And Father Ignatius Chome relates that he heard a
woman of the Chiriquanes in Buenos Ay res say of a fox :
" May that not be the spirit of my dead daughter?"5

But before accepting such testimony as decisive, we
must first inquire whether these tribes believed in a

1 La Hontan, Voy. dans I' Am. Sept., i. p. 232 ; Narrative of Oceola
Nikkanoche, p. 75.

2 Morse, Eep. on the Ind. Tribes, App. p. 345.

3 Garcia, Or. de los Indios, lib. iv. cap. 26, p. 310.

4 Voiages aux Indes Oc., ii. p. 132.

5 Lettres Edif. et Cur., v. p. 203.

THE RESURRECTION. 295

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 unan-
swered. 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,1 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."2

This is the highest and typical creed of the aborig-
ines. 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 doubt-
less the dimly understood reason of the custom of

1 Alger, Hist, of the Doctrine of a Future Life., p. 72.

2 Loskiel, Oes. der Miss, der evang. Briider, p. 49.

296 THE SOUL AND ITS DESTINY.

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
rilled with the mortal remains of nations and genera-
tions which the antiquary, with irreverent curiosity,
has so frequently chanced upon in all portions of our
territory.

Throughout Central America the same usage obtained
in various localities, as early writers and existing mon-
uments 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 mentioned, 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 de-
ceased husband wherever she went for four years, pre-
serving them in such a casket handsomely decorated
with feathers.1

The Caribs of the mainland adopted the custom for
all without exception. About a year after death the

1 Richardson, Arctic Expedition, p. 260.

ANCESTRAL WORSHIP. 297

bones were cleaned, bleached, painted, wrapped in
odorous balsams, placed in a wicker basket, and kept
suspended from the door of their dwellings.1 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 de-
scribed 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 else-
where, no tyranny, no cruelty, so embittered the in-
digenes against the white explorers as the sacrilegious
search for treasures perpetrated among the sepulchres
of past generations. Unable to understand the mean-
ing 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 wor-
shipping the skeletons of their forefathers, and the
English of Virginia repeated it of the Powhatans.8

In a certain sense this may be regarded as a devel-
opment of the worship of ancestors. In America, how-
ever, ancestral worship in its true sense, as it has long
existed in China for example, was not prominent. The
Knisteneaux on Nelson River were accustomed to
strangle their parents when old ; yet each master of a

- Gumilla, Hist, dd Orinoco, i. pp. 199, 202, 204.

2 Much light is thrown upon the native beliefs in the destiny of
the soul and the after life, by an intelligent analysis of funeral
rites and ceremonies. Excellent material for this is furnished by
the essays of Dr. H. C. Yarrow, Introduction to the Study of Mortuary
Customs among the American Indians (Washington, 1880), and a
"Further Contribution" in 1st An. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology.

298 THE SOUL AND ITS DESTINY.

family, the deed performed, kept by him a bunch of
feathers tied with a string, called it " his father's head,"
and regarded it with superstitious reverence.1

The Aztecs celebrated a feast to the dead once in each
year, at which time they gazed to the north and called
upon their ancestors to "come soon, for we wait you."
The Quiches of Guatemala had a similar annual fes-
tival when they recited the names of their deceased
ancestors, and when also each person visited the spot
where his or her navel-string had been buried.2 The
Tupis worshipped Tamoin and the Incas Pacarina,
alleged ancestors of their nation, but only in the recon-
dite sense well explained by Mr. Markham, " as the
forefathers of the clan idealized in the soul or essence
of his descendants."3

In some of the gentes in various parts of the conti-
nent there prevailed a belief that the soul would some-
how return to the eponymous ancestor ; that is, that
those of the buffalo gens, for example, would at death
either enter buffaloes, or go where dwells the great
original buffalo.* For the totemic eponym, or original
forefather of the gens was not considered to be a brute
merely, but one of the mighty primal spirits to whom
was given or who had assumed the brute form.5

The question has been debated and variously an-
swered, whether the art of mummification was known
and practised in America. Without entering into the

1 J. Eobson, Ac. of Res. in Hudson Bay, p. 48.

2 Codex Telleriano-Remensis, p. 192 ; Brinton, Native Calendar,
p. 17.

3 C. E. Markham, Jour. Roy. Geog. Soc., 1871, p. 291.
* J. O. Dorsey, Siouan Cults, p. 542.

5 As Dr. W. J. Hoffman reports of the Menomonis, Amer. An-
thropologist, July, 1890.

MUMMIES. 299

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, Po-
poyan, the Carib countries, and Nicaragua, but among
many of the tribes north of the Gulf of Mexico, as I
have elsewhere shown.1 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.2

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.8 In an Athapascan dialect bone is yani, soul
i-yune* The Hebrew Rabbis taught that in the bone
lutZj the coccyx, remained at death the germ of a sec-
ond life, which, at the proper time would develop into
the purified body, as the plant from the seed.

But mythology and superstitions 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 spe-
cies. 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 frag-

1 Notes on the Floridian Peninsula, pp. 191 sqq.

* See Dr. H. C. Yarrow, 1st Rep. Bur. Ethnology, pp. 130-137.

3 Bruyas, Had. Verborum Iroquceorum.

4 Buschmann, Athapask. Sprachstamm, pp. 182, 188.

300 THE SOUL AND ITS DESTINY.

ments of this they sprinkled with blood, and on the
fourth day it grew into a youth, the father of the
present race.1

The profound mystical significance of this legend is
reflected in one told by the Quiche's, 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,"2 whence they emerged to overcome and de-
stroy 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 rela-
tive 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.3 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 care-
lessly about the encampment. They were collected in
heaps, or thrown into the water. Mrs. Eastman ob-
serves that even yet the Dakotas deem it an omen of

1 Torquemada, Monarquia Indiana, lib. vi. cap. 41.

2 Le Uvre Sacre des Quiches, pp. 175-177.

3 Miiller, Amer. Urrelig., p. 290, after Spix.

SOUL IN THE BONES. 301

ill luck in the hunt, if the dogs gnaw the bones or a
woman inadvertently steps over them ; and the Chipe-
way interpreter, John Tanner, speaks of the same fear
among that tribe.

The Yurucares of Bolivia carried it to such an incon-
venient extent, that they carefully put by even small
fish bones, saying that unless this is done the fish and
game will disappear from the country.1 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 oss eous 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."2

This explanation, which comes to us from indisputa-
ble 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

1 D'Orbigny, Annuaire des Voyages, 1845, p. 77.

2 Long' 's Expedition, i. p. 278.

302 THE SOUL AND ITS DESTINY.

even the parings of their nails and clippings of the
hair.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."2 But, rightly under-
stood, 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 con-
nected with a moral or physical theory of the destiny
of the universe, or even with their prevalent expecta-
tion 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.3

There was also a similar belief among the Eskimos.

1 Hist, deslncas, lib. iii. chap. 7.

2 Hist, of the New World, bk. v. chap. 7.
8 Travels in North America, p. 280.

A MILLENNIUM. 303

They said that in the course of time the waters will
overwhelm the land, purify it of the blood of the dead,
melt the icebergs, and wash away the steep rocks. A
wind will then drive off the waters, and the new land
will be peopled by reindeers and young seals. Then
will He above blow once on the bones of the men and
twice on those of the women, whereupon they will at
once start into life, and lead thereafter a joyous exist-
ence.1

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 sup-
ported (so far as I know) by similar traditions else-
where, and as they may have arisen from Christian
doctrines of a millennium, I leave them for future in-
vestigation.

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 inert-
ness 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 con-
sideration 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.

1 Egede, Nachrichten von Gronland, p. 156. Further on the
Eskimo belief is given by Dr. Henry Eink, Tales and Traditions
of the Eskimo, p. 32 sq. ; Dr. Franz Boas, The Central Eskimo, pp.
588, 589.

304 THE NATIVE PRIESTHOOD.

CHAPTER X.

THE NATIVE PRIESTHOOD.

Their titles. — Practitioners of the healing art by supernatural
means. — Their power derived from natural magic and the exer-
cise 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 lan-
guages and secret societies.

HTHUS 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, 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 unhesitating. Neither men nor gods, death nor
life, the winds nor the waves, were beyond their con-
trol.

NAMES OF PEIESTS. 305

Like Old Men of the Sea, they have clung to the
neck of their nations, throttling all attempts at pro-
gress, 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 in-
tolerance 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 " (manitomiou,
wakanwacipi) ; in Mexico, " masters or guardians of the
divine things " (teopixqui, teotecuhtli) and nanahualtin,
" those who know ;" in Cherokee, their title means
" possessed of the divine fire " (atdlung kelawhi) • in
Iroquois, " keepers of the faith " (honundeunf) ; in
Quichua, " the learned " (amauta) ; in Maya, " the lis-
teners " (cocome) ; in Eskimo, angakok, " the ancient
ones " (those possessing the elder knowledge) ; in
Apache, diyi, the "wise ones.''1

The popular term in French and English of " medi-
cine men " is not such a misnomer as might be sup-
posed. The noble science of medicine is connected
with divinity not only by the rudest savage but the pro-
foundest 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

1 The article on " The Medicine Men of the Apache," in 9th
An. Rep. Bur. Ethnology, by the Jate Captain John G. Bourke, con-
tains much general as well as special information on the position
and practice of these native priests.

20

306 THE NATIVE PRIESTHOOD.

is natural to seek help from those who assume to con-
trol 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 j1 therefore the earliest practitioners of the heal-
ing 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 disrespect
still so prevalent among ourselves for a treatment based
on experiment and reason, and regarded the adminis-
tration 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.2
They were of different name and standing, and though
held in less estimation, such valuable additions to the
pharmacopoeia as guaiacum, cinchona, and ipecacuan-
ha, 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

1 Haeser, Geschichte der Median, pp. 4, 7 (Jena, 1845).

2 Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, v. p. 440.

PRIESTLY DOCTORS. 307

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 destroy-
ing its prototype ; they sang doleful and monotonous
chants at the top of their voices, screwed their counte-
nances 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.1

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 doc-
tor'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 proba-

1 Judge Im Thurn gives an interesting acqpunt of his own ex-
perience with such a physician. Among the Indians of Guiana,
p. 337.

308 THE NATIVE PRIESTHOOD.

bility — 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 with naked
feet over live ashes, and plunge their arms to the
shoulder in kettles of boiling water with apparent im-
punity.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. Says Father Bau-
tista : " They can make a stick look like a serpent, a
mat like a centipede, and a piece of stone like a scor-
pion."2 If it were not within our power to see most
of these miracles performed any night in our great
cities by a well dressed professional, we should at once
deny their possibility. As it is they astonish us but
little.

One of the most peculiar and characteristic exhibi-
tions 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

1 Carver, Traveh in North America, p. 73 (Boston, 1802); Narrative
of John Tanner, p. 135, etc.

2 Sahagun, Hist, de la Nucva Espana, lib. x. cap. 20 ; Le Livre
Sacre des Quiches, p. 177 ; Lett, sur les Superstit. du Perou, pp, 89, 91 ;
Bautista, Advertencia para los Confesores, fol. 112 (1600).

SUMMONING SPIRITS. 309

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 com-
menced 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 in-
dispensable 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 ma-
terially interfere with this view, that converted Indians,
on whose veracity we can implicitly rely, have repeat-
edly averred that in performing this rite they them-
selves 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 phe-
nomenon 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

310 THE NATIVE PRIESTHOOD.

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 retro-
spective 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 spiritual-
ism. Civilized thousands stake their faith and hope
here and hereafter, on the truth of these manifesta-
tions; rational medicine recognizes their existence,
and while she attributes them to morbid and excep-
tional influences, confesses her 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 spiritual-
ists 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 other-
wise than through the ordinary channels of the senses,
is 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

SECOND SIGHT. 311

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.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 scepti-
cism, 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 ar-
rival of the traders to rescue them from starvation.
They persuaded the chief priest to consult the divini-
ties as to when the relief would arrive. After the usual
preliminaries, this magnate announced that the 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.2

Charlevoix is nearly as trustworthy a writer as Carver.
Yet he deliberately relates an equally singular instance.3

But these examples are surpassed by one described
in the Atlantic Monthly of July, 1866, the author of
which, the late Col. John Mason Brown, has assured

1 Life of Slack Hawk, p. 13.

2 Travs. in North America, p. 74.

3 Journal Historique, p. 362.

THE NATIVE PRIESTHOOD.

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 appear-
ance he minutely described, which description was
repeated to Col. 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."1

Many tales such as these have been recorded by
travellers, and however much they may shock our sense

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, two 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.

MESMERISM. 313

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 ob-
scure 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 proce-
dures, and at the initiations to their societies they were
frequently exhibited. Observers have related that
among the Nez Perces of Oregon, the novice was put to
sleep by songs, incantations, and " certain passes of the
hand," and that with the Dakotas he would be struck
lightly on the breast at a preconcerted moment, and
instantly " would drop prostrate on his face, his muscles
rigid and quivering in every fibre."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 im-
molation of the latter, a sinking of their owji individ-
uality in that of the spirits whose alliance they seek.

This is an outgrowth of that ignoring of the univer-
sality of Law, which belongs to the lower stages of en-'

1 Schoolcraft, Indian Tribes, iii. p. 287; v. p. 652.

314 THE NATIVE PRIESTHOOD.

lightenment.1 And as this is never done with impun-
ity, but with certainty brings punishment with it, the
study of the mental conditions thus evoked, and the
results which follow them, offer 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 verge
of human endurance— seclusion, and the pertinacious
fixing of the mind on one subject — the swallowing or
inhalation of cerebral intoxicants — obstinate gloating
on some morbid fancy, these rarely failed to bring
about hallucinations with all the garb of reality. Phy-
sicians are well aware that the more frequently these
diseased conditions of the mind are sought, the more
readily they are found.

They were often induced by intoxicating and nar-
cotic herbs. Tobacco, the maguey, coca ; in California
the chucuaco ; among the Mexicans the snake plant,
ololiuhqui, and the peyotl; and among the southern
tribes of our own country the cassine yupon and iris
versicolor,3 were used ; and, it is even said, were culti-
vated for this purpose.

1 " The progress from deepest ignorance to highest enlighten-
ment," remarks Herbert Spencer in his Social Statics, "is a pro-
gress from entire unconsciousness of law, to the conviction that
law is universal and inevitable."

2 The Creeks had, according to Hawkins, not less than seven
sacred plants ; chief of them were the cassine yupon, called by
botanists Hex vomitoria, or Ilex cassina, of the natural order Aqui-
foliacepp ; and the blue flag, Iris versicolor, natural order Iridaceae.

TRANCE AND ECSTASY. 315

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, with-
out 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 occu-
pation 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.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, remind-
ing 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 dis-
ordered 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

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. On the various plants used by the ancient Mexicans to
produce the divine delirium see my Nagualism, pp. 6-8.

1 Martins, Von dem Rechtzustande unter den Ureinwohnern Brasili-
ens, p. 32.

316 THE NATIVE PRIESTHOOD.

path; for nothing but blood could satisfy his inap-
peasable 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 quiv-
ering flesh. Such is a scene to a recent day not uncom-
mon on the northwest coast, and few of the natives
around Milbank Sound are without the scars the result
of this horrid custom.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 bed-
lams 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 ap-
preciate the nature of a scene at a Huron village, de-
scribed 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 nerv-
ous 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 de-
structible 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 perma-
nently insane, but the others continued until worn out
with exhaustion.

1 Mr. Anderson, in the Am. Hist. Mag., vii. p. 79.

EPIDEMIC MANIAS. 317

The Father learned that during these orgies not un-
frequently 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.1 Precisely analogous is the epidemic madness
which at times raged among the Guaranis of Paraguay.
Bands of men and women would roam the country at
night, seizing, tearing with their teeth, and sometimes
killing the wayfarers they would encounter.2

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 per-
suade them that all this boasted power was false.

More correct views than these ought to have been

1 Such spectacles were nothing uncommon. They are fre-
quently mentioned in the Jesuit Kelations, and they were the
chief obstacles to missionary labor. In the debauches and ex-
cesses 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, Rd. de la Nouv. France, 1656, p. 27).
For the instance in the text see Rel, de la Nouv. France, An. 1639,
pp. 88-94.

2 Antonio Kuiz, Conquista Espiritual de Paraguay, fol. 90.

318 THE NA Tl VE PRIESTHOOD.

suggested by the facts themselves, for it is indisputable
that these magicians did not hesitate at times to test
their strength on each other. In these strange duels a
Voutrancq, 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 medi-
cine," 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 imple-
ments of his art, and with an awful terror at his heart,
creep to his lodge, refuse all nourishment, and pres-
ently 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, " ex-
tending to the raising of the dead and the control of
all laws of nature."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 ;3 and the Puelches of Buenos Ayres guard a pro-

1 Schoolcraft, Indian Tribes, v. p. 423.

2 J. M. Stanley, in the Smithsonian Miscellaneous Contributions, ii.
p. 38.

DIVINATION. 319

found silence as they pass by the tomb of some re-
doubted necromancer, lest they should disturb his re-
pose, and suffer from his malignant skill.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
wild 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,2 in interpreting dreams, and especially in lift-
ing 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 to-
bacco or the grains and juice of coca, 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

1 D'Orbigny, J} Homme Americain, ii. p. 81.

2 The amulet is a sort of personal fetich , and has been so called
(Dorsey, Siouan Cults, p. 515). Their classes and origin are dis-
cussed by Frank H. Gushing, Zufti Fetiches, p. 44, sq. ; J. G.
Bourke, Medicine Men of the Apaches, p. 587; John Murdoch, The
Point Barrow Eskimo, p. 434, and others.

320 THE NATIVE PRIESTHOOD.

drunkenness, the flights of birds, and the direction in
which fruits would fall, all offered so many separate
fields of prognostication, the professors of which were
distinguished by different ranks and titles.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 regu-
late 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.2

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 in-
spiration ; 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

1 See Balboa, Hist, du Perou, pp. 28-30.

2 See especially Sahagun, Hist, de In Nueva Espana, who devotes
two books of his work to the ancient Mexican astrology and divina-
tion.

DREAMING OF THE GODS. 321

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 in-
flicting 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 its 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 invis-
ible 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 aim-
less 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 im-
portance, everywhere deemed so eminently becoming

21

322 THE NATIVE PRIESTHOOD.

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.1

Occasionally, in very uncultivated tribes, some family
or totem claimed a monopoly of the priesthood. Thus,
among the Nez Perces of Oregon, it was transmitted in
one family from father to son and daughter, but always
with the proviso that the child at the proper age re-
ported dreams of a satisfactory 'character.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 Nico-
tani, but its members, puffed up with pride, 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 super-
stition, possibly borrowed from Europeans, that the
seventh son is a natural born prophet, with the gift of
healing by touch.8

Adair states that their former neighbors, the Choc-
taws, permitted the office of high priest, or Great Be-
loved Man, to remain in one family, passing from

1 D'Orbigny, L'Homme Americain, ii. p. 235.

2 Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, v. p. 652.

3 Dr. MacGowan, in the Amer. Hist. Mag., x. p. 139 ; Whipple,
Hep. on tlie Ind. Tribes, p. 35.

COLLEGE OF PRIESTS. 323

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 in-
struction 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 re-
ceived.

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 maximuSj chastity, or at least temperate in-
dulgence 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

324 THE NATIVE PRIESTHOOD.

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 Vega1 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 the religions of the red man, as above intimated,
sex erected no barriers to the admission of the inspired
into the arcana of the divine. In nearly all tribes
there were " medicine women " as well as " medicine
men." Nor were their activities confined to minister-
ing to the sick. The most potent angakok of the Innuit
might be a woman j_ and among the Algonkins the
mysteries of the secret society of the Mediwiwin were
open to both sexes alike.2

Still more prominent was this feature elsewhere.
The one only member of the Zufii tribe who had the
key to all the secret sodalities was a woman (Gushing),
and in the far south, in Chiapas, when the master
Votan hollowed out of the rock his cave-temple by
blowing with his breath, and in it stored the potent
implements of his magical craft, he placed in charge
of the sacred trust, not a priest but a priestess. In the
chronicles of Mexican nagualism it is recorded that the
marvellous power of the adepts in transforming them-
selves into the brute form of their guardian spirit (toned)
was first taught them by a mighty enchantress, who
herself could assume at will any one of four forms.3

1 Comentarios Recdes, lib. iii. cap. 22.

2 W. J. Hoffman, The Midewiwin of the Ojibway, p. 159. Cap-
tain Bourke says the same of the Apaches, u. s., p. 468.

3 Brinton, Nagualism, pp. 33 sqq.

WARRIOR WOMEN. 325

This explains why in the later revolts of these tribes,
even down to that in Guatemala in 1885, we find so
often that the moving spirit, the prompter and leader
of the rebellion, is some warrior woman, driven by a
divine energy to seek the independence of her tribe
from the hated yoke of the whites. Such was Maria
Candelaria, the heroine of the Tzental insurrection of
1712, a girl of twenty summers, but fired by an elo-
quence and a resolution that summoned to her banners
fifteen thousand fighting men, and for many months
bade defiance to the arms of Spain. Nor would she
then have failed, had it not been for cowardice and
treachery in her own camp.

In every country there is perceptible a desire in the
priestly class 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 coun-
tenance, dignified step, and singing to themselves
songs or hymns, in a low sweet voice, as they stroll
about the towns."1 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 ordi-
nary life, and the chants containing the prayers and

1 Travels in the Carolinas, p. 504.

326 THE NA TIVE PRIESTHOOD.

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,1 and the incantations of the priests of Powhatan
were not in ordinary Algonkin, but some obscure jar-
gon.2

The same peculiarity has been observed among the
Dakotas and Eskimos, and in these nations, fortu-
nately, it fell under the notice of competent linguistic
scholars, who have submitted it to a searching exami-
nation. The results of their labors prove that in these
two instances the supposed foreign tongues were nothing
more than the ordinary dialects of the country modi-
fied 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 ordi-

1 Hist, du Perou, p. 128 ; Voiages aux Indes Occidentales, ii.
p. 97.

3 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 AcaTiechos (see Am. Hist. Mag., i. p. 163).
Their totem was that of the serpent. Mr. James Mooney iden-
tifies them with the Occaneechi, a tribe of Siouan affinities.
Siouan Tribes of the East, p. 29.

SECRET LANGUAGE. 827

nary expressions, a slang, in short, such as rascals and
pedants invariably coin whenever they associate.1

Numerous other examples have been added of recent
years to these. The secret or sacred language of the
Guaymis, the Chahtas, the Cherokees, the Zunis, have
been learned and analyzed by competent scholars.
They all prove, as we might expect, to be modifications
of the ordinary speech. Sometimes they contain words
unknown in the idiom of daily life ; and these we may
regard as archaisms, or as borrowed from other stocks
along with the ceremonies or myths to which they have
reference.

Frequently they are metaphorical in a high degree,
the most striking example of which is that of the
Mexican Nagualists, curious specimens of which were
collected by Father de la Serna about the middle of the
seventeenth century, and the sacred formulas of the
Cherokees which have been published by Mr. James
Mooney. There is much analogy in the modes of
thought and the figurative expressions which are pre-
sented.2

• 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 wabeno, the

1 Biggs, Gram, and Diet, 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, Nachriehten
von Gronland, p. 122.

s Jacinto de la Serna, Manual de Minislros ; James Mooney, /Sa-
cred Formulas of the Cherokees, Brinton, Nagualism, etc.

328 THE NATIVE PRIESTHOOD.

mide, and the jossakeed, the last being the highest. To
this no white man was ever admitted.1

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 des-
tiny of the Indian tribes as their priests. In attempt-
ing 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.

1 A full description of these important bodies, as they are to-
day, is given by Dr. W. J. Hoffman, in his essay " The Midewiwin
of the Ojibwa," in. 7th An. Rep. Bur. Ethnology.

NATIVE RELIGIONS. 329

CHAPTER XL

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.

"TjRAWING toward the conclusion of my essay, I am
*^ sensible that the vast field of American mythology
remains for the 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 land-
marks and guide-posts are visible, revealing uniformity
of design and purpose, and refuting, by their presence,
the oft-repeated charge of entire incoherence and aim-
lessness.

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.
An author who some years ago studied profoundly the
savage races of the globe, expressed the discouraging

330 THE INFLUENCE OF RELIGION.

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."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 contem-
plate 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,7'2 and doubtless believing so. The
subjects of a Central American chieftain, remarks
Oviedo, " look upon it as the crown of favors to be per-
mitted to die with their cacique, and thus to acquire
immortality."3 The terrible power exerted by the priests

1 Waitz, Anthropologie der Naturvodker, i. p. 459.

2 Navarrete, Viages, iii. p. 415.

3 Relation de Cueba, p. 140. Ed. Ternaux-Compans.

RELIGIOUS TOLERATION. 331

rested, as they themselves often saw, largely on the im-
plicit acceptance of their dicta.

In some respects the contrast here offered to en-
lightened 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." — Lytton.

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 an-
atomist, 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 nega-
tive opposition to reason. They are tolerant to a de-
gree. 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 over-
came 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

332 THE INFLUENCE OF RELIGION.

took no more violent steps to propagate their creeds.1
So in the city of Mexico there was a temple appropri-
ated 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 pa-
tronize 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 sug-
gested expedients, gave advice and warning in dreams,
protected in danger, and stood ready to foil the machi-
nations 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

1 La Vega, Commentaries Recdes, liv. v. cap. 12.

MISTAKEN ETHICS. 333

Indian when sick makes a full and free confession of
sins, but a murder, however unnatural and unpro-
voked, he does not mention, not counting it a crime.1
Scenes of licentiousness were approved and sustained
throughout the continent as acts of worship ; maiden-
hood 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.2

The philosophical moralist, contemplating such spec-
tacles, 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.3

1 Morse, Rep. on the Tnd. Tribes, App. p. 345.

2 Ximenes, Origen de los Indios de Guatemala, p. 192 ; Acosta,
Hist, of the New World, lib. v., chap. 18.

3 Joseph de Maistre, Edaircissement sur les Sacrifices; Trench,
Hulsean Lectures, p. 180. The famed Abb6 Lammennais and Pro-
fessor Sepp, of Munich, with these two writers, may be taken as
the chief exponents of a school of mythologists, all of whom start
from the theories first laid down by Count de Maistre in his Soirees
de St. Peiersbourg. 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

334 THE INFLUENCE OF RELIGION.

But sacrifice, when not a token of gratitude, cannot
be thus explained. It is not a rendering up, but a sub-
stitution of our will for God's will. A deity is angered
by neglect of his dues ; he will revenge, certainly, ter-
ribly, we know not how or when. But as punishment
is all he desires, if we punish ourselves he will be satis-
fied ; 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 ;m 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."2

Far be it from me to excuse the enormities thus com-
mitted 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

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 prophe-
cies, and presentiments of the truth.

1 Alfred Maury, La Magie et I'Astrologie dans PAntiquitS et au
Moyen Age, p. 8.

3 Waitz, Anthropologie, i. pp. 325, 465.

THE HERO-GODS. 335

witnessed — as, for example, among the Aztecs, the
Peruvians, and the Mayas ?

The reply is, hy the influence of great men, who cul-
tivated 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 na-
tion, unforgotten models of noble qualities.1

Where, in America, is any record of such men ? We
are pointed, in answer, to Quetzalcoatl, Viracocha,
Itzamna, 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 mind-
ful 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 ex-
torted by fear. The Indian deposits tobacco on the

1 So says Dr. Waitz, ibid. p. 465, and various later Euhemerists.

336 THE INFL UENCE OF RELIGION.

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 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, invisi-
ble, 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 part-
ing injunction of his father to Michabo in Algonkin
legend j1 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'Or-
bigny, " is one of reverence, not of fear."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.3

1 Schoolcraft, Algic Researches, i. p. 143.

2 UHomme Americain, ii. p. 319.

8 Brasseur, Hist, du Mexique, liv. iii. chaps. 1 and 2.

THE IDEAL MAN. 337

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, shun-
ning lies, skilful in arts, pious toward their gods."1 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 Itzamna, to New Granada and in Nemqueteba,
to Peru and in Viracocha, or his reflex Tonapa, the
lineaments of Quetzalcoatl — modified, indeed, by dif-
ference of blood and temperament, but each combining
in himself all the qualities most esteemed by their
several nations.

They are credited with an ethical elevation in their
teachings which needs not blush before the loftiest pre-
cepts of Old World moralists. According to the earliest
and most trustworthy accounts, the doctrines of Tonapa
were filled with the loving kindness and the deep sense
of duty which characterized the purest Christianity.
lt Nothing was wanting in them," says a historian,
" save the name of God and that of his son, Jesus
Christ."2

In the numerous ancient formulas or huehuetlatolli,
collected by the first missionaries to Mexico, we per-
ceive a constant tendency toward inculcating purity of
life, kindness to companions, and control of the appe-
tites, which would not be out of place in the most
civilized communities.3

1 Sahagun, Hist, de la Nueva Espafla, lib. vi. cap. 29.

2 Pachacuti in Tres Edaciones Peruanas, p. 237.

8 For these valuable documents see Sahagun, Historia, Lib. vi.,
22

338 THE INFL UENCE OF RELIGION.

The Iroquois sage, Hiawatha, probably an historical
character, made it the noble aim of his influence and
instruction to abolish war altogether and establish the
reign of universal peace and brotherhood among men.1

Were one or all of these proved to be historial per-
sonages, still the fact remains that the primitive reli-
gious sentiment, in vesting them with the best attributes
of humanity, dwelling on them as its models, worship-
ping 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, ft has no more dangerous
rival than the Ideal of the Greatest Strength, of the
most vigorous life, the Brute Ideal (das Thier- Ideal). m
Culture advances in proportion as man recognizes what
faculties are peculiar to him as man, and devotes him-
self 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 con-
sequently the more sanguinary and immoral were the

who assures his readers that they are genuine ; Olmos, Gram, de la
Langue Nahuatl, p. 231 sq.; Juan de Bautista, Huehuetlatotti, a
scarce work published in Mexico in 1599.

1 Hale, The Iroquois Book of Rife*, Introduction.

» Novalis, Schriften, i. p. 244 ^Berlin, 1837).

PRAYER. 339

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,1 " is in religion what thought is in philoso-
phy. 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.2

Originally it was connected with the belief that di-
vine 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."3

Or again, between it and a petition of a Huron to a
local god, heard by Father Brebeuf : —

"Oki, thou who livest in this spot, I offer thee to-
bacco. Help us, save us from shipwreck, defend us

1 Ibid., p. 267.

2 Hist, de la Civilisation en France, i. pp. 122, 130.

3 Narrative of J. R. Jewett among the Savages of Nootka Sound, p.
121.

340 THE INFLUENCE OF RELIGION.

from our enemies, give us a good trade and bring us
back safe and sound to our villages."1

This is a fair specimen of the supplications of the
lowest religions. Another equally authentic is given
by Father Allouez.2 In 1670 he penetrated to an out-
lying 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 in-
vited 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 : —

tl 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 hun-
gry. 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 wretch-
edness is visible. Not the faintest trace of an aspira-
tion 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

1 Ed. de la N&uv. France, An. 1636, p. 109.

2 Ibid., An. 1670, p. 99.

BE A UTY OF S UFFEBING. 341

priests, written out, committed to memory, and re-
peated at certain seasons. They are not less authentic,
having been collected and translated in the first gen-
eration after the conquest. One to Viracocha Pacha-
camac was as follows :

" 0 Pachacamac, thou who hast existed from the be-
ginning 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 ever-
lasting, preserve us, and accept this our sacrifice."1

In the voluminous specimens of Aztec prayers pre-
served by Sahagun, moral improvement, the " spiritual
gift,'' is not generally the object desired, as it is not in
many Christian liturgies. 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 sense of the divine beauty of suffering,
some glimmering of the grand truth so nobly expressed
by the poet : —

aus des Busens Tiefe stromt Gedeihn
Der festen Duldung und entschlossner That.
Nicht Schmerz 1st Ungliick, Gluck nicht immer Freude ;
Wer sein Geschick erfiillt, Dem lacheln beide.

" Is it possible," says one of them, " that this scourge,

1 Geronimo de Ore, Symbolo Oatholico Indi.ano, chap. ix. De Ore
was a native of Peru and held the position of Professor of The-
ology in Cuzco in the latter half of the sixteenth century. He was
a man of great erudition, and there need be no hesitation in accept-
ing this extraordinary prayer as genuine.

342 THE INFLUENCE OF RELIGION.

this affliction, is sent to us not for our correction and
improvement, but for our destruction and annihila-
tion? 0 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 : " 0 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 whom 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 oppres-
sion."1

At first, good and evil are identical with pleasure
and pain, luck and ill-luck. " The good are good war-
riors and hunters," said a Pawnee chief,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 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 open-
ing on the sun."

The influence of these religions on art, science, and

1 Sahagun, Hist, de la Nueva Espafia, lib. vi. caps. 1, 4. Many
other examples of prayers might be quoted from the works of de la
Serna, Dr. Washington Matthews, James Mooney, etc., but those
in the text will be sufficient to illustrate their usual character.

2 Morse, Rep. on the Ind. Tribes, App. p. 250.

UEL1GIOVS GAINS. 343

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 or, what is practically the same, divinatory
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 civil 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 senti-
ment.

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

344 THE INFLUENCE OF RELIGION.

votaries and the erection of temples enriched the sa-
cerdotal order individually and collectively, the terrors
of religion were lent to the secular arm to enforce the
rights of property. Music, poetic, scenic, and histori-
cal recitations formed parts of the ceremonies of the
more civilized nations, and national unity was strength-
ened by a common shrine. An active barter in amu-
lets, 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 inter-
course 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.1 Each vil-
lage 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.2

In Peru the temples of Pachacarna, 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 accom-
modation ; and when they made known the object of

1 Cogolludo, Hist, de Yucathan, lib. iv. cap 9. Compare Ste-
phens, Travs. in Yucatan, ii. p. 122, who describes the remains of
these roads as they now exist.

2 Rivero and Tschudi, Antiqs. of Pent, p. 162.

THE CONCLUSION. 345

their journey, they were allowed a safe passage even
through an enemy's territory.1

The more carefully we study history, the more im-
portant in our eyes will become the religious sense. It
is almost the only faculty peculiar to man. It con-
cerns him nearer than aught else. It holds the key to
his origin and destiny. As such it merits in all its de-
velopments 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.

1 La Vega, Hist, des Incas, lib. vi. chap. 30 ; Xeres, Eel. de la
Conq. du Perou, p. 151 ; Let. sur les Superstit. du Perou, p. 98, and
others.

THE END.

INDICES.

I.— AUTHORS.

Abbott, C. C., 49.

Acosta, J., 72, 149, 186, 211, 302,

333.

Adam, L., 36, 46, 101, 134.
Adair, J., 89, 208, 263.
Agassiz, A., 133.
Alcazar, F., 77.
Alegre, F. X., 222.
Alger.W. B.,282,295.
Allen, G. A., 166.
Allouez, P., 340.
Alva, B. de, 204.
Ameghino, F.,49.
Andagoya, P., 330.
Anderson. Mr., 316.
Andree, R., 177, 235, 245.
Aunals of the Cakchiquels, 238.
Anthony. A. S., 63, 262.
Ara, D., 179.
Arriaga, P., 185.
Atharva Veda, the, 237.
Avendano, P., 249.

Baegert, P., 272.

Baer. von. 37.

Balboa, M. C.. 72, 012, 264, 320,326.

Bancroft, H. H.,58, 65.

Baraga, F., 63, 261.

Bartram, J..261.

Bartraui, W.. S9. 128.151,325.

Basanier, M., 152

Bastiau, A., 55, 235.

Baatista, J., 308, 338.

Berendt. C. H., 222.

Bergen. F. D., 16S.

Betanzos, J. de, 212.

Beverly. R. B., 124, 326.

Blonies, B., 95, 138, 196, 221.

Boas, F., 54, 55, 161, 180, 239, 277,

278, 303.
Boban, E.. 177.
Boggiani, G.. 154.
Borde, de la. H., 126, 136, 138.
Boscana, G., 67, 127.
Boturini, B.. 251.
Bourke, J. G., 131, 278, 305, 319,

324.

Bressani, P., 110.
Bradford, A., 160.
Brassenr, E. C.. 42, 57, 74, 81, 106,

214,222, 251,336.
Brebeuf, P., 80, 203, 290.
Brown, J. M., 115, 311.
Bruyas, J., 65, 76, 203, 299.
Burmeister, H., 49.
Buschmann, J. E., 36, 38, 42, 52,

74, 106, 128, 156, 215, 224, 273,

299.

Buteux, F., 135.
Byington, C., 165.
Byrd, W., 209.

Cabrera. F., 57. 106.

Campanius, T., 209.

Carriere, Prof., 15, 62.

Carver, J., 308, 311.

Catlin, G., 88, 102, 112, 129, 218.

266.
Chamberlain, A. F., 161, 166, 182,

196.
Charencey, H. de, 106, 117, 218,

245.
Charlevoix, P., 159, 162, 196, 271,

311.

Chavero, A., 59.
Chilan Balam, Books of, 222.
(347)

348

INDICES.

Clark, J. V. HM 205.
Clavigero, F. S.. 106, 264.
Codex Chimalpopoca, 158, 241,
253.

Telleriano-Rernensis,281, 298.

Vatican us, 237,240, 250.

Cortesianus,204.
Cogolludo, F., 64, 102, 110, 131,

216, 249, 256, 292, 344.
Cope, E. D., 162.
Copway, G., 29, 164.
Coreal, F., 124, 173, 280, 285, 326.
Cortes, H., 220.
Culin, S.. 113.
Cunow, H., 100.
Cuoq, M., 20, 63, 65, 121.
Cashing, F.H., 31, 40, 113, 127,
131, 145, 164, 178, 213, 230, 258,
319, 324.
Cusic, D., 79, 130, 139, 205. 264.

Dawson, G. M., 161.
Deans, J., 166.
Denis, F., 219.
Desjardins, E., 27, 241.
D'Evreux, Y., 78, 147, 218.
D'Orbigny, A., 118, 122, 146, 217,

236 301 319
Dorse'y, J.' O., 58, 109, 113, 116, 132,

188, 197, 319.
Dumont, M., 28, 149, 240.
Duponceau, S., 74, 77, 155.
Dupratz, le P., 280.
Duran, D., 117.

Eastman, Mrs., 125, 139, 182,275.

Echevarria y Veitia, 252.

Egede, H., 67, 93, 124, 207, 226,

260, 289, 321. 327.
Ehrenreich, P., 55, 59, 154, 218,

247, 266, 282.
Eliot, J.t 67.

Emory, W. H., 169, 218, 224.
Epictetus, 234.
Erdman, F., 203.

Fewkes, J. W., 51, 85, 113, 131.
Fletcher, A. C., 119, 225, 277.
Forstemann, E., 26,
Fowke, G., 49.
French, B. F.,275.
Frobenius,L.V.,152.

Gabb,W. M., 149, 173, 276.

Gallatin, A., 36, 65, 68, 132, 155,

205.

Gama, A. L., 90, 154, 157, 162, 188.
Garcia, G., 69, 107, 154, 163, 230.
Gatschet, A. S., 65, 67, 76, 95, 232,

259.

Gilbar, N., 26.
Goekeu, H., 55.
Goethe, J. W., 207.
Gomara. F., 34, 213.
Granger, F., 269.
Grasserie, E., 40.
Gregg, J., 263.
Grimm, J., 22. 108, 110, 234.
Grinuell, G. B.. 166.
Guevara, P., 101, 118, 174, 246.
Guigniaut, M., 99.
Gumilla, J., 154, 172, 174.

Haebler, K., 26.

Haeser, Dr., 306.

Hale, H., 30, 205, 338.

Hammond, W. A., 175.

Harris, 36.

Harrt, C. F., 194.

Harshberger, J. W., 35, 51.

Hartland, E. S., 55.

Hawkins, B., 89, 95, 110, 138, 283,

314.

Hazard, S., 119.
Heart, I., 263.
Heckewelder, J., 74, 123.
Helmont, A., 155.
Hennepin, P., 131.
Henry, A., 133, 142, 196.
Hewitt, J. N. B., 70, 132, 203, 275.
Hindley, J. I., 196.
Hodge, F. C., 131.
Hodgson, A., 302.
Hoffman, W. J., 196, 200, 298, 324,

328.

Holm, G., 277.
Holguin, D. G., 186, 291.
Holmes, W. H., 49, 87, 117, 130.
Hontan, La, 31, 112, 164, 208.
Hopkins, E. W., 237, 248.
Humboldt, W., 19, 32, 44, 178.
Humboldt, A., 27, 32, 87, 101, 111,

156, 225, 250, 297, 328.

Ihering, 162.

Im Thurn, E. F., 233, 266, 307.

Ixtlilxochitl, 73, 74, 114.

INDICES.

349

Jack, E., 202.

Jacobs, J., 55.

Jarvis, S. F., 55, 77.

Jesuit Relations, 58, 70, 317.

Jeune, P. C., 81.

Jewitt, J. E., 339.

Johnson, Capt., 218.

Jones, J. A., 136.

Jones, P., 136.

Joutel, M., 71.

Kalewala, the, 228.
Kane, E. KM 327.
Kant, I., 60, 219.
Keating, W. H., 157, 275.
Kingsborough, L., 90, 103, 214.
Klee, M., 251.
Kohl, J. G., 196.
Krause, A., 239, 276.

Lacombe, A., 198, 202.
Laet, de, J., 194.
Lafitau, J. F., 65, 117, 119.
Lafone-Quevedo, S., 59, 211.
Landa, D., 97, 116, 148, 249.
Lapham, I., 116.
Las Casas, B., 96, 114.
Lawson, J., 326.
Lederer, J., 36, 101, 200, 326.
Leland, C. G., 55, 196.
Leon, M. de, 165.
Lewis and Clark, 172.
Lizana, P., 222, 256.
Long, S. H., 266, 290,301.
Longfellow, H. W., 205, 281.
Loskiel, G. H., 63, 78, 115, 295.
Lovisato, D., 49, 61;
Lumholtz, C., 176.
Lyell, C., 50.

McCoy, I., 182.
McGee, W. J., 49.
MacGowan, Dr., 322.
McKinney, T. L.. 196.
Mackenzie, A., 173, 229.
Macrobius, 234.
Magelhaes, C., 188.
Maistre, J. de, 119, 333.
Maler, T., 177.
Mallery, G., 23. 278.
Marcy, Lt., 262.
Markham, C., 100, 298.
Martius, C. F. P. von, 51, 53, 75,
1GO, 315.

Martyr, P., 23, 74, 95, 96, 104, 221.
Matthews, W., 31, 75, 76, 209, 276,

278, 342.
Maury, A., 334.
Maya Chronicles, the, 43.
Meigs, J. A., 49.
Melendez, J., 231, 246.
Mendieta, G., 181.
Meyen, H., 44, 152, 285.
Middendorf, E. W., 44, 59, 63, 111,

187, 210.
Mil fort, G., 89.
Molina, A., 67.
Molina, I., 65, 74, 239, 289.
Montesinos, F., 185, 212.
Mooney, J., 41, 151, 197, 273, 326,

327, 342.
Moore, C., 40.
Moorehead, W. K., 225.
Morgan, L., 70, 188.
Morice, A. G., 54, 55, 239.
Morillot, P., 227.
Morse, J., 31, 101, 236, 294, 333,

342.

Morton, S. G., 49, 139.
Motul, Dice, de, 148.
Miiller, J. G., 56, 76, 78, 214, 284.
Miiller, Max, 198.
Murdoch, J., 319.

Navarrete, M. F., 104, 174, 255, 330.

Nelson, W., 133.

Neve, F., 248.

Newell, W. W., 168.

Nicolas, J., 202.

Nikkanoche, O., 147, 294.

Noldeke, H., 132.

Novalis, 338, 339.

Nuttall, T., 88.

Nuttall, Z., 115.

Olmos, A., 338.

Ore, G. de, 341.

Orozco y Berra, M., 112.

Oviedo, F. de, 68, 154, 173, 273.

280, 285.

Pachacuti, J. S., 334.
Padilla, D., 173, 216.
Palacios, D. G., 90, 173.
Pandosy, C., 67.
Pane, R., 96.
Paul, St., 13, 274.
Payne, Mr., 151.

350

INDICES.

Penafiel, A., 25.

Penn, W., 162.

Pen nock, J., 293.

Perrot, N., 173, 196.

Petitot, E., 55, 58, 59.

Pictet, M., 227.

Piedrahita, L. F.f 217.

Pigafetta, A., 261.

Pond, G. H., 79, 89.

Powell, J. W., 59, 121, 278.

Powers, S., 58, 161, 235, 267.

Pratz, du L., 127.

Prescott, W. H., 73, 78, 128, 233,

237.

Putnam, F. W., 49.
Pythagoras, 86.

Quen, P. do, 317.

Ramirez, J. F., 241.

Rand,S. T., 196, 202.

Eau, C., 273.

Restrepo, E., 101, 115, 147, 217.

Eeville, A., 59.

Richardson, J., 37, 38, 229, 239.

Riggs, S. E., 62, 67, 92, 116, 258,

274, 327.

Rink, H., 278, 303.
Rios, P. de los, 177.
Rivero and Tschudi, 249, 344.
Robson, J., 298.
Rochefort, C., 217, 258.
Rodriguez, B. J., 59, 194, 246.
Roman, B., 121, 263.
Rogel, P., 76.
Rothen, E.,36.
Ruiz, A., 317.

Sagard,G. T., 156.

Sagas, the, 36.

Sahagun, B., 93, 103, 105, 106, 114,

150, 157, 216, 287, 320, 337.
Sanchez, J., 152.
Schellhas, Dr., 26, 59.
Scherzer, C., 58.
School craft, H. R., 39,56,70, 94,

160, 200, 255, 268, 318.
Schwartz, F. L. W., 135, 139, 269,
Selor, E , 25. 26, 59, 250, 293.
Sepp, Prof . 86, 98, 252, 333.
Sergi, G., 49.
Serna. J., 169, 197, 259, 278, 327,

342.
Sh^a, J. G., 05, 70, 80, 151.

Sibley, Dr., 238.

Simon, P., 217.

Smet, P. de, 89, 110, 182, 200.

Smith, B., 85.

Smith, E. A., 130.

Smith, H., 264

Smith, J.,64.

Smith, W., 237.

Smith, W., 119.

Spencer, H., 314.

Sprague, J. P., 152.

Spix, J. B. von, 157.

Sprengel, K., 157.

Squier, E. G., 56, 80, 116, 131, 223.

Staden, H., 101, 245.

Stanley, J. M., 318.

Stephens, J. L., 344.

Stevenson, J., 178, 189.

Stevenson, M. C., 131.

Strachey, W., 196, 200.

Strack, H. L., 176.

Steinen, C. v. d., 45, 55, 59, 68, 123,

166, 174, 271.
Steiuthal, H., 19.

Tanner, J., 142, 163, 169, 201, 301,

308.

Tarayre, G., 177.
Ternaux-Compans, 90, 150, 251.
Techo, N. de, 218.
Tezozomoc, H, A., 293.
Thevet, A., 246.
Thomas, C., 26, 55, 91.
Thomas, G., 153.
Timberlake, Lt., 127, 137.
Tonty, S. de, 127.
Torquemada. J., 25, 136, 142, 189,

216, 249, 259, 287,
Trumbull, H. C., 176.
Trumbull, J. H., 63, 121, 164, 258.
Tschudi, V. J., 59, 63, 160, 162,

187,210,211,212,213.
Turner, W. W., 36, 38.
Tylor, E. B., 289.

Uhle, M., 27.
Ulloa, A. de, 210.

Vasconcellos, S., 246.

Vater, J. S., 236.

Vega, G. de la, 44, 72, 87, 100, 161,

186, 285, 301, 324, 332, 345.
Vega, N. de la, 141.
Velasco, J. D., 150, 255.

INDICES.

351

Venegas, M., 110.
Vetancurt, 174.
Vetromile, E., 207.
Villagutierre Sotomayor, 115.
Virchow, R., 41, 49.
Volney, 155.
Voluspa, the, 251, 254.

Waitz, T., 14, 25, 57, 184, 289, 330,

Wilson, T., 49.
Winkler, H.,20.
Winslow, 77.
Wright, A., 165.
Wright, F. W., 49.

Xeres, F. de, 73, 345.
Ximenes, F., 29, 57, 68, 81, 102,
208, 229, 243, 260, 292, 333.

335.

Wake, C. S., 121.
Waldeck, de, 171.
Whipple, A. W., 78, 151, 224, 322.
Williams, R., 63, 77, 164, 276, 285. Zatapatha Brahmana, the, 237, 248.

Yarrow, H. C., 297, 299.

II.— SUBJECTS.

Abenakis, the, 119, 198, 207.
Acagchemem, tribe, 127.
Acalan, the province of, 179.
Achaguas, tribe, 245.
Age of Man in America, 48 sq.
Ages of the World, 251.
Agriculture, native, 35.

gods of, 152, 157.
Ahsonnutli, a deity, 178, 189.
Air, children of the, 106.

Lord of the, 213.

rabbit as symbol of, 197.

kissing the, 69.
Akakanet, a deity, 78.
Akbal, the holy or cosmic vase,

152.

Akanzas, tribe, 127, 278.
Alaghom Naom, a deity, 179.
Aleutian Islanders, 267.
Algonkins, location, 39.

language, 63.

prayers, 340.

mythology, 77, 78, 80, 94, 118,
125, 130, 142, 159, 169, 193
sq., 235, 239, 244, 255, 274,
278, 281, 293, 318, 327, 336,
etc.

Alligator, a sacred animal, 121.
Aluberi, an Arawack deity, 75
Amalivacn. a hero-god, 192.
Amulets, 136-139, 319, 344.

Ancestors, worship of, 297 sq.

mythical, of the race, 96, 101,

218, 238.

Androgynous deities, 177 sq.
Angont, a deity, 159.
Antediluvian people, 235, 240.
Apaches, tribe, 37, 224.

medicine men of, 305, 319.
Apocatequil, a deity, 184.
Apochquiahuayan, an Aztec

Hades, 293.

Ararats, the, of America, 238.
Arawacks, location, 45, 47.

myths, 75, 165, 265.
Araucanians, 46, 65, 74, 78, 239, 245.
Architecture, religious, 343.
Arickarees, the, 128.
Aricoute, a deity, 218.
" Arks" of the Indians, 296.
Arrows, as thunderbolts, 190, 216.

in divination, 90.
Aschochimi, tribe, 235.
Aspergillum, the, 147.
Astrology, the science of, 320.
Ataensic, a deity, 145, 153, 156,

203 sq.

Ataguju, a deity, 184.
Atatarho. a deity, 140.
Athapascas, location, 37, 47.

myths, 126, 181, 182, 228, 267,
289.

352

INDICES.

Atius Tirawa, a deity, 166.
Atl, a deity, 153.
Atlatl, as a symbol, 115.
Atnai, tribe, 267.
Augurs, college of, 124.
Aurora, myths of, 158, 209. See
Dawn.

borealis, in myths, 282, 286.
Awoniwilona, a deity, 177, 229.
Aymaras, location, 43-4, 47.

myths, 62, 210, 264.

See Peruvians, Quichuas,

Incas.
Aztec writing, 23.

language, 23, 41, 67, 273.

customs, 86, 89, 254.

myths, 74, 93, 99, 105, 153, 157,
169, 177, 188, 240, 257, 264,
289, 298, 323.

prayers, 337, 341.

See Mexicans, Nahuas.
Aztlan, the white land, 107, 215.

Bacabs. deities, 97, 117.
Bad Spirit, unknown, 77.
Bakairi, tribe, 45, 68.
Baptism, aboriginal, 149, 156.

of fire, 169.

Bat, the, in symbolism, 293.
Bathing, ceremonial, 147.
Beards among Indians, 214.
Biloxis, tribe, 41.
Bimini, a fabulous land, 104.
Bird, as a symbol, 123 sq., 182 sq.,

187, 201, *214, 215, 228 sq., 230,

239, 242, 249, 315.
Bird-Serpent, the, 141, 214, 229
Birth, the house of, 212.

the second, 148.
Bisexual deities, 177 sq.
Bitch -mother, the, 160.
Bitol, a deity, 74.
Black, as a symbolic color, 97.

drink, of Creeks, 315.
Blackfeet. the, tribe, 115, 262.
Black Hawk, a chieftain, 310.
Blood, symbolism of, 163, 176, 201.
Blue, symbolism of, 63, 189.
Bochica, a hero-god, 217.
Boiuca, a fabulous land, 104.
Bones, the soul in the, 295 sq.,299,

321.

Books of Aztecs, 23.
Botocudos, tribe, 145, 235, 256.

Botuto, order of the, 328.
Breath, Master of, 67, 263.
as soul, 67, 126, 273 sq.
Bribri, tribe, 149, 173.
Burial customs, 90, 109, 116, 119,

169, 272, 278-282, 285.
Burning the dead, 169.
Busk, a Creek festival, 89, 115.
Butterfly, as symbol, 128.

Caddoes, tribe, 111, 238, 245.

Cakchiquels, tribe, 96.

Calendar, the native, 91, 98, 205,
238, 252, 343.

Caliban, in Shakespeare's Tem-
pest, 261.

California!! Indians, 58, 161, 235,
272.

Calmecac, a college of priests, 323.

Camaxtli, a deity, 190.

Candelaria, Maria, a heroine, 325.

Cannibalism, ceremonial, 333.

Cantico, derivation of, 162.

Carayas, tribe, 245, 265.

Cardinal points, adoration of, 84
sq., 189, 200 sq.

Caribs, location, 45.

mythology, 68, 78, 116, 126,
136, 138, 258, 261, 265, 275,
284, 296, 323.

Carriers, tribe, 239.

Casas grand es, the, 265.

Catawbas, tribe, 41.

Catequil, a deity, 185.

Caugh, a deity, 239.

Caves, sacred, 95, 100, 238, 265.
sepulchral, 297.

Celibate priesthood, 172, 181.

Centeotl, a deity, 35, 157.

Ceremonial circuit, 112-114.

Chac, deities, 98.

Chaco, Gran, the, 46.

Chahta-Muskoki dialects, 40.

Chakekenapok, a deity, 200.

Chalchihuitlicue, a deity, 145.

Chantico, a deity, 161.

Chepewyans. See Athapascas.

Cherokees, alphabet of, 28.
location, 38.
words, 67, 327.

mythology, 78, 137, 151, 192,
197, 273, 322.

Chia, a deity, 156.

Chibchas. See Muyscas. '

INDICES.

353

Chichimecs, tribe, 190.
Chickasaws, location, 140.

myths, 256, 262, 263.
Chicomoztoc, the seven caves,

228, 264.

Chilan Balain, priests, 222.
Childbirth, deities of, 153, 155, 160.

ceremonies concerning, 90,
112.

beliefs about, 286.
Chimalman, a deity, 172.
H3himu language, 44.
Chinooks, tribe, 277.
JChippewa picture writing, 23, 29.
U- mythology, 88, 196, 301.

See Algonkins.
Choctaws, location, 40.

terms, 65, 68.

myths, 65, 101, 165, 263, 302,

322, 326.

Cholula, pyramid of, 239, 265.
Chotas, tribe, 190.
Cibola, seven cities of, 265.
Cihuacoatl, a deity, 142.
Cihuapipilti, of Aztecs, 287.
Cipactli, a deity, 236.
Circumcision, 172.
Citatli, a deity, 153.
Circuit, the ceremonial, 112.
Clairvoyance of native priests, 310

sq., 321.

Cloud-Serpent, the, 190, 215.
Coacooche, his dream, 151.
Coatlicue, a deity, 140, 172.
Colhuacan, a sacred hill, 238.
Collahuayas, tribe, 328.
Colors, symbolism of, 63, 97, 163,

180, 189, 203, 207 sq. '
Comanches, tribe, 41.
Con or Gun, a deity, 187, 210 sq.
Confession of sins, 149, 333.
Cosmogony, beliefs of, 226 sq.

Asian and American com-
pared, 250.

Costa Rica, Indians of, 173, 276.
Couvade, the, 174.
Coxcox, a mythical hero, 236.
Coyote, in myths, 161, 235.
Coyoteros, tribe, 262.
Cozumel. cross of, 114.

island of, 344.

Craniology, American, 41, 49.
Creation, myths of, 167, 226, 235.
Creator, idea of a, 74, 75, 231.

Creeks, location, 40.
words, 65, 67.

myths, 76, 89, 95, i09, 115, 121,
137, 228, 259, 263, 283, 314,

Crees, tribe, 202.

Crescent, the, as a symbol, 142.

Cross, symbol of, 113 sq.

of Palenque, 141, 222.
Cueravaperi, a deity, 179.
Cunas, tribe, 173.
Cundinamarca, 114.
Curupira, a deity, 194,
Cycles, belief in recurrent, 234,

, 252.

of Aztecs, 254.

Dakotas, location, 40.

words, 62, 67, 305, 326.
mythology, 79, 88, 94, 109, 116,
125, 139, 174, 188, 197, 258,
277, 300, 313.
Dance of the dead, 286.
Dances, sacred, 89, 113, 162, 225.
Dawn, symbolism of the, 109, 166,
186, 190, 198 sq., 212, 214,
264.

lodgings of the, 264.
heroes of the, 220.
Daybreak, Lord of the, 219.
Delawares. See Lenni Lenape.
Delirium, the divine, 315.
Deluge, myths of the, 218, 234 sq.
Dene. See Athapascas.
Devil, unknown to primitive re-
ligions, 76, 292.
Dew as holy water, 148.
Dialects, esoteric, 326.
Dighton Eock inscription, 23.
Divination, methods of, 113, 319.
Dje Manedo, a late name of deity,

196.

Dobayba, a deity, 145.
Dogi, tribe, 36.
Dogribs, tribe, 173, 267.
Dogs, in symbol and myth, 159
sq., 242, 243, 274, 279, 288-290,
315, 336.

Dove, as a symbol, 129, 239, 294.
" Dreaming of the gods," 321.
Dreams as divine intimations, 156,

305, 312.

Dualism of divinities, 79, 177.
ethical unknown, 81.

23

354

INDICES.

Eagle, as a symbol, 127.

Earth, myths concerning, 257 sq.
mother, the, 258.

Earthquakes, god of, 216.

East, symbolism of, 109, 154, 199,
207, 217.

Eclipse, customs at, 154, 160.

Education, native, 31.

Eggs, in symbolism, 228, 249.

Ehecatl, a deity, 214, 273.

El Dorado, location of, 105.

Enigohatgea, a deity, 79.

Enigorio, a deity, 79.

Epochs of nature, myths of, 232
sq., 250 sq.

Eponymous ancestor, the, 298.

Esaugetuh Emissee, a deity, 67.

Eskimos, location, 36.

customs and myths, 90, 93, 124,
160, 180, 207, 226, 267, 277,
282, 286, 289, 302, 319, 321,
324.
words, 67.

Estas, a deity, 239.

Ethno-botany of America, 51.

Evil One, the, 78.

Fear, as origin of religion, 334.
Feathered Serpent, the, 141.
Female deities, 179-183.
Fetiches, personal, 319.
Fetichism, 57, 319.
Fire, gods of, 169, 185.

new, how made, 115, 116,
168.

on graves, 281.

origin of, 239.

perpetual, 168, 224.

worship of, 162 sq., 187.
Fish-god, the, 236, 247.
Five Nations. See Iroquois,
Flint-stone, symbolic, 189, 197,

200, 204, 216.

Flood-myths. See Deluge.
Floridian tribes, 40, 105, 151, 175,

294, 333.

Foam, as symbol, 145, 213.
Forty, a sacred number, 111.
Fountain of Youth, the, 104, 105,

151.
Four, as the sacred number, 84

sqq., 189, 215, 218, 252, 321, etc.
Frog, symbolism of the, 204.
Fruitfulness, god of, 141.

Games, symbolism of, 113.
Garonhia, a deity, 65.
Generative principle, worship of,

99, 155, 177.

Ghost dances, of Indians, 225.
Giants, stories of, 241.
Gizhigooke, a deity, 202.
Glacial age in America, 49.
Glooscap, a deity, 202.
Great Spirit, the, 69.
Green, symbolism of, 117, 189,229.
tree, the, 117.
corn dance, 89.
Guachemines, deities, 185 sq.
Guamansuri, the first man, 184.
Guaranis, tribe, 62, 101, 184, 317,

336.

Guardian Spirit, the, 77, 89, 173.
Guatavita, Lake, 146, 344.
Guaycurus, tribe, 154, 173, 176.
Guaymis, tribe, 231, 246, 326.
Gucumatz, a deity, 141.
Gumongo, a deity, 110.

Haidah, tribe, 239.
Haitians, 45, 68, 74, 95, 221, 262.
Hand, the, symbolism of, 214, 216.
Haokah, a deity, 183, 189.
Hare Indians, 173.

the Great, 194 sq., 339.
Hawaneu, a deity, 70.
Head, as seat of the soul, 276.
Heaven of the red man, 284. j^

Hill of, 343.
Heliolatry, 167, 284.
Hell, unknown in American

myths, 291.
Heno, a deity, 188.
Herbs, use of narcotic, 314.
Hermaphrodite deities, 178.
Heyoka, a deity, 110.
Hiawatha, a hero-god, 205, 338.
Hidatsa, the tribe, 62, 153, 209.
Hieroglyphics, Mayan, 26 sq., 343.
Hills, holy, see Mountains.
Hiyouyulgee, the mythical ances-
tors, 95.

Hobbamock, a deity, 77.
Holy Water, 147.
Horn, of the serpent, 138.

as a weapon, 203.
Huaca, meaning of, 62.
Huastecas, 92.
Huecomitl, the cosmic Vase, 152.

INDICES.

355

Huehueteotl, a deity, 169.
Huehuetlatolli, Aztec formularies,

337.

Huemao, a deity, 214, 216.
Huitzilopochtli, an Aztec deity,

140, 323.

Humanity, the ideal of, 338.
Hunahpu, a Quiche deity, 178, 300.
Huracau, the storm-god, 68,98, 99,

136, 183, 229.
Hurons, tribe, 38, 64.

myths, 80, 136, 156, 159, 316.
prayers of, 339.
Hushtoli, a deity, 68.
Hysteria, epidemic, 317.

Idacanzas, a hero-god, 217.

Ideographic writing, 22, 32.

Idols, found everywhere, 343.

Ikto, a deity, 197.

llama, a deity, 259.

Illatici, a deity, 72, 187.

Incas, the, of Peru, 43, 44, 72, 86,

99, 167, 209, 298, 323, 331.
Incineration of corpses, 169.
Incorporation in language, 19.
Indian summer, cause of, 196.
Innuit, see Eskimos,
loskeha, a deity, 203 sq.
Ipurinas, tribe, 154.
Iroquois, location, 38.

terms, 65, 70, 76.

mythology, 79, 100, 118, 130,

202 sq., 231, 264, 274, 338,
Isla de las Mugeres, the, 179.
Isolation of the red race, 33.
Itsikamahidis,sx deity, 75.
Itzcuinan, a deity, 160.
Itzainna, a hero-god, 217,222, 335.
Ixmucane, a deity, 260.
Iztac Mixcoatl, a deity, 190, 215.
Iztat Ix, a deity, 179.

Jaguar, a sacred animal, 121.
Jossakeed, a prophet, 195.
Journey of the Soul, 289.
Jugglery, native, 308.
Juripari, a deity, 77.
Jus primes noctis, 176, 333.

Kaboi, a deity, 218.
Kab-ul, a deity, 216.
Kamu, a hero-god, 218.
Kaneakeluh, a deity, 239.

Kenai, tribe, 264.
Killistenoes, 311.
Kittauitowit, deity, 77.
Klamath, tribe, 259.
Knisteneaux, tribe, 297.
Kolusch, tribe, 163, 164, 267.
Kootenay, tribe. 161, 166.
Ku, a divine name, 64.
Kukulcan, a hero-god, 141, 222.
Kwakiutl, a tribe, 239.

Lakes, as centres of civilization,

146.
Languages, American, 19, 36, 52.

sacred, of priests, 325 sq.
Lenni Lenape, tribe, 39, 74, 115,

133, 162, 169, 221, 269.
Life, symbol of, 117, 133.

the Sustainer of, 180.

Tree of, 117, 217.
Light, symbolism of, 166, 198 sq.,
214.

god, the, 166, 198, 206, 210.

derivation, 198.
Lightning, symbol of, 126, 134,

139, 182 sq., 190.

Lingain symbol, the, 176, 258, 261.
Lipans, tribe, 37.
Literature, aboriginal, 25, 343.
Liver, as seat of the soul, 276.
Love, gods of, 153, 160, 188.
Lunar deities, see Moon.

Magicians, native, 141, 308.
Maize, cultivation of, 85, 51.

gods of, 157.

myths concerning, 35, 290.
Mama Alppa, a deity, 257.
Mama Nono, a deity, 258.
Mama Cocha, a deity, 145.
Mama Quilla, a deity, 155.
Man, origin of, 257 sq.

word for, 260.

not developed in America, 48.

in the moon, 197.

the first, 237.
Manco Capac, 212.
Mandans, tribe, 88, 102, 112, 172,

218, 240, 266.
Manibozho, a deity, 80, 194 sq., see

Michabo.

Manito, derivation, 63, 131, 132,
340.

kitchi, 70, 135.

356

INDICES.

Manu, a deity, 237, 247.
Marriage rites, 112, 172, 176.

gods of, 155.

Master of Breath, 67, 263.
Matowelia, deity, 165.
Maues, tribe, 133.
Mayas, graphic system, 25.
hieroglyphics, 26, 97.
location, 43.
words, 116.
myths, 64, 96, 102, 147, 216,

249, 256, 259, 277.
Mbocobis, tribe, 118, 173, 236, 246.
Meda-society, 88, 142, 195, 324,

328.
Medicine men, 133, 147, 195, 304

sq.

Medicine women, 324.
Medicine stone, the, 128.
Memory, of natives, 31.
Mesmerism, among natives, 310,

313.
Messiah, hoped for, 208, 223.

craze, the, 225.
Messou, a name of Michabo, 197,

244.
Mesuk kum megokwa, a deity,

142.

Metempsychosis, doctrine of, 294.
Metztli, the Moon, 155, 158.
Mexican writing, 25.

mythology, 78, 90, 117, 281,
287. See Aztecs, Nahuas,
Toltecs.
Michabo, 159, 170, 194 sq., 232,

235, 255, 336.
Micmac hieroglyphs, 28.
Mictla, 78.

Mictlan, in Aztec myths, 292, 299.
Mictlanteuctli, a deity, 292, 293.
Midewiwin society. See Meda.
Milky way, path of souls, 284.
Millennium, notion of a, 303.
Minnetarees, tribe, 75, 266, 267.
Missibizi, a deity, 197.
Mixcoatl, a deity, 35, 68, 190.
Mixtecas, the tribe, 107, 230.
Mohaves, tribe, 165.
Mohawks, tribe, 204, 273.
Monan, a deity, 245.
Monkeys, origin of, 244, 246.
Monotheism, native American, 56,

69, 71-75.
Monquis, the tribe, 110, 128.

Montezuma, his address, 220.

myths, concerning. 223.
Moon, symbolism of, 153 sq., 181.

man in the, 197.
Moquis, tribe, 131.
Mother of the Gods, 169, 178, 198.

of Wisdom, 179.
Mound-builders, the, 87, 146.
Mounds, emblematic, 116, 263.

bone, 296, 302.

sacrificial, 146.
Mountains, holy, 165, 262, 315.

of paradise, 97, 165.
Mourn ing customs, 90.
Moxos, the tribe, 122, 146, 267,

322.

Muskokees. See Creeks.
Mummification, practice of, 298 sq.
Mundrucus, tribe, 176.
Muskokis. See Creeks.
Muskrat, in myths, 231, 239, 244.
Muyscas, location, 43.

mythology, 91, 101, 115, 156,
217, 337, 344.

Nagualism, doctrine of, 122, 169,

175, 188, 197, 259, 315, 324, 327.
Nahuas, 23, 90, 101, 117, 134, 140,
143, 165, 179, 190, 197, 213 sq.,
265, 277. See Aztecs, Mexicans,
Toltecs.
Nahuatl language, 23, 42.~~>

mythology, 101. ,X^
Names, sacredness of, 86, 277-8.

bestowing, 150.
Nanahuatl, deity, 158.
Nanibojou, 197, 200.
Narcotics, use of, 314.
Natchez, tribe, 91, 101, 127, 149,

240, 262, 280.
Natose, a deity, 115.
Navajos, tribe, 37.

customs, 149, 224, 281.
myths, 96, 102, 125, 240, 262,

276.
Navel string, sacredness of, 103,

174.

of the earth, 103,259, 292.
Nemqueteba, a hero-god, 217, 337.
Neo, a deity, 70.
Netelas, tribe, 67.
Nezahualcoyotl, his address, 220.
Nezahuatl, 73.
Nez Perces, tribe, 313, 322.

INDICES.

357

Nicaraguans, 170, 173, 190, 235,

273, 330.

Night, gods of the, 155, 160, 290.
Nikilstlas, a deity, 239.
Nine, a mystic number, 230, 251,

289 sq.

Nokomis, a deity, 258.
Noncomala, a deity, 231, 24*>.
Nootka Indians, the, 339.
North, symbolism of, 110.
Nottaways, the, tribe, 38, 64.
Numbers, sacred, origin of, 84, 86.

See Three, Four, Seveu, Nine,

Thirteen.
Numock-muckenah, a hero-god,

192.

Nunne Chaha, a hill, 263.
Nubu, a deity, 246.

Occaniches, tribe, 326.
Ocean-stream, the primitive, 158,

227 sq.

Omahas, the, tribe, 119.
Oneidas, tribe, 264.
Onniont, a deity, 136.
Onondagas, tribe, 205.
Oonawlch Unggi, a deity, 68.
Orientation of buildings, 87.
Osages, tribe, 231.
Otomi language, 20, 38.
Ottawas, the, tribe, 110, 173.
Ottoes, the, tribe, 101.
Owl, as symbol, 128, 325.

Pacarina, a Quichua deity, 298.

Pacari-tampu, 100.

Pachacamac, a deity, 72, 73, 210

sq., 341.

Pachayacachic, a deity, 211.
Palaeolithic Age in America, 48.
Palenque, cross of, 141.
Pamerys, tribe, 246.
Panes, a deity, 127.
Panos, tribe, 26
Parallels in mythology, 53.
Paradise, the earthly, 103-106.
Passes, tribe, 258.
Patol, a deity, 179.
Patolli, a game, 113.
Pawnees, tribe, 89, 101, 166, 174,

245, 342.

Pemolnick, a Lenape word, 261.
Pend d'Oreilles, tribe, 272.
Peruda, a deity, 188.

Peruvians, records of, 27.

customs and myths, 78, 86, 90,
99, 142, 145, 209 sq., 224, 248,
254, 280, 301, 319, 326, 344.

See Aymaras, Incas, Qui-

chuas.

Phallic worship, 170, 176 sq., 258,
Picture-writing, 22-24, 91.
Pile-dwellings, 146.
Pilgrimages, custom of, 146, 344.
Pimos, tribe, 218.
Pleiades, the, 78.
Pole, sacred, 118.

of Omahas, 119.
Polysynthesis, 19.
Powhatans, 64, 124, 326.
Prayers, the native, 339.
Pregnancy, fears of, 173.
Priests, the native, 304 sq. See

Medicine Men.
Printing, native, 24.
Puberty, customs concerning, 173,

321.

Pueblo Indians, 175, 223, 245, 256.
Puelches, tribe, 318.
Pumarys, tribe, 245.

Qabavil, a deity, 107.
Quahootze, a deity, 339.
Quetzal bird, the, 128, 141.
Quetzalcoatl, a hero-god, 114, 124,

141, 172, 213 sq., 221, 335-338.
Quiateot, a deity, 154.
Quiches, records of, 29.

name, 44.

myths, 68, 74, 81, 86, 96, 102,
107, 117, 189, 229, 242, 291.
Quichuas, location, 43, 47.
words, 111.
myths, 72, 78, 185 sq., 210, 259,

264, 298.

See Incas, Peruvians.
Quipus, of Peruvians, 27, 163.

Babbit, myths of, 197.
symbolism of, 253.
Racumon, a deity, 138.
Rain, gods of, 93, 114 sq., 184 sq.,

249.

Rain-making, 115.
Rattlesnake, as symbol, 130 sq.,

142, 201, 214.

Raven, in myths, 166, 229, 230,
239, 244, 249.

358

INDICES.

Bebus writing, 24.

Beciprocal principle, in myths,

171.
Eed, symbolic color, 97, 98, 163,

189.
Reproductive principle, worship

of, 99, 177, 261.

Eesurrection of the body, 295.
Eiches, god of, 141, 142.
Eight and left, in mythology, 112.
Eimac, a Quichua deity, 344.
Eivers of Paradise, the, 103, 118.

the nine, 289, 290.
Boot-Diggers, tribe, 41, 226, 269.
Eutbe, a deity, 231.

Sacrifices, human, 74, 90, 180, 280
sq., 330, 333.

origin of, 333, 334.
Sacs, the tribe, 101, 132, 156, 310,

318.

Sarama, a Vedic deity, 206.
Sauks, see Sacs.
Savacon, a deity, 138.
Scalping, origin of, 276.
Seasons, the four, 91.
Sedna, a deity, 180.
Semiuoles, tribe, 152,262, 294.
Serpent-symbol, the, 129 sq., 201,
230.

King, the, 130, 135, 142.

charming, 140.

woman, the. 142.

as phallus, 177.

hill of, 140.

Setebos, a Patagonian deity, 261.
Seven, a sacred number, 83, 151,
237, 252, 253, 265, 314, 322, 324.
Sexual dualism in myths, 171 sq.
Shadow, the, as soul, 273.

as god of the dead, 291.
Shamans, see Medicine-men,

Priests.
Shawnees, the, 101, 132, 136, 169,

322.

Shell-heaps, 50.
Shoshonees, tribe location, 41.

myths, 161.
Shuswap, tribe, 161.
Sillam Innua, an Eskimo deity,

67, 93.

Sin, original, sense of, 150.
Siouan, see Dakotas.
Skralingar, the, 36.

[ Sky as a god, 65, 164.

j Smoking, ceremonial, 88.

j Snake, see Serpent.

! Snake Indians, see Shoshonees.

j Snake plant, the, 314.

Sodomy as a rite, 175.

Solar myths, analyzed, 163 sq.

Soul,, beliefs in, 124, 271 sq., 318.

Soul as breath, 66.

"Soul of the World," 74.

Soul, path of the, 284.
journey of the, 289.

Soul in the bones, 299.

South, symbolism of the, 111.

Star, the morning, 214.

Stars, as departed souls, 285.
knowledge of the, 343.

Stones, sacred and symbolic. 189,
190, 264, 294, 344.

Sua, a hero-god, 217.

Sun, in myths, 71, 163 sq., 181.
as female, 181.

" Suns " or Ages, of Aztecs, 250,

Supay, a Peruvian deity, 78, 291.
Surites, a hero-god, 222.
Susquehannocks, the, tribe, 38.
Swedenborg, his singular powers,

312.
Syphilis, in myths, 158.

Tacci, tribe, 36.

Takahlis, tribe, 231, 236, 262, 294,

296, 332.

Tamandare, a hero-god, 246.
Tamu, a hero-god, 217, 298, 336.
Tarahumaras, tribe, 176.
Taras, a deity, 190.
Tarascas, tribe, 179, 190, 222.
Taru, a deity, 145.
Tareuyawagon, a deity, 205.
Tawiscara, a deity, 203.
Tecolotl, a deity, 128.
Tecziztecatl, a deity, 155.
Telepathy, among the natives,

310.

Teo-Chichimecs, tribe, 190.
Tezcatlipoca, a deity, 67, 215.
Theg-theg, a holy hill, 239.
Thirteen, a sacred number, 188,

255.

Thlinkit, a tribe, 239, 276.
Three, as a sacred number, 84, 188,

239, 249.

INDICES.

359

Throwing-stick, as a symbol, 115.
Thunder, symbolism of, 68, 136,
182, 187, 210, 219.

storm, in mythology, 181 sq.

stones, 184, 185.

mountain of, 239.
Thunder-bird, the, 119, 139, 182,
239.

vase, 72, 187, 210.
Time, symbolical, 133.
Timondonar, a deity, 218.
Timucuas, tribe, 40.
Tinn6, see Athapascas.
Tiri, a deity, 118, 261.
Titicaca, Lake, 44, 146, 264.
Titlacahuan, a deity, 241.
Tlaloc, a sacred hill, 238, 265.
Tlalocs, deities, 93, 105, 136, 188,

189, 215.

Tlalocan, 105, 111, 287, 293.
Tlalocavitl, 109.
Tlapallan, 105, 106: 108, 214.
Tlalxicco, in Aztec myth, 292.
Tloque Nahuaque, a deity, 74.
Tochtli, the rabbit, in myths, 197.
Tohil,a deity, 189,214.
Tollan, see Tulan.
Toltecs, a mythical tribe, 42. 57,

96, 215.

Tombs, cruciform, 116.
Tonacatepec, 100, 106.
Tonacaquahuitl, sacred tree, 114.
Tonacatecutli, a deity, 177,215.
Tonan, Our Mother, a deity, 259.
Tonantzin, a deity, 179.
Tonapa, a hero-god, 211, 337.
Tonatiuh, a solar deity, 167.
Tonkaways. tribe, 269.
Tornarsuk, a deity, 227.
Tortoise, the great, 204.
Tota, Our Father, 117, 169.
Totems and totemism, 121, 230,

270, 298.

Totonacos, tribe, 180.
Tree-burial, 119.
Tree of Life, 118, 217.
Trees, symbolism of, 114, 117 sq.
Tribal circle, the, 116.
Trinity, native American, 84, 187,

188.

Tshimshians, tribe, 239.
Tulan, in Aztec myth, 105, 106,

214.
Tupa, a deity, 183, 218.

Tupis, location, 46.

mythology, 77, 101, 147, 183,

218, 245, 298, 300, 315.
Tuscaroras, the, tribe, 36, 38.
Tutelary deity, the, 77, 89, 173.
Tuteloes, tribe, 41.
Tutul Xiu, deities, 96.
Tuyra, a deity, 69.
Twins, myths of, 185, 203, 206, 231.

sacrifice of, 333.
Tzentals, tribe, 96, 179, 325.

Uchees, tribe, 40, 232.
Ugalentz, tribe, 163.
U16, a deity, 118.
Unity of red race, 52.
Unktahe, deities, 156, 258.
Uto-Aztecan family, 42.

Vase, symbolism of, 72, 152, 187,

210.

in burials, 117.
Viracocha, a hero-god, 72, 210 sq.,

264, 335, 241.
Virgin goddesses, 118.

mothers, 172.
Virgins, sacred, 172.
Votan, a hero-god, 57, 107, 324.

Wakan, name of the divine among

the Dakotas, 62, 88.
Wakinyan, deities, 125.
Wampum, uses of, 28, 163.
War physic, the, 138, 140.

paint, 163.

Warraus, tribe, 265, 266.
Warrior women, 325.
Wasi, a hero-god, 192.
Water, in myths, 144 sq., 159,

227 sq.
Waters, god of, 139, 159, 180, 204,

231.

Wauhkeon, a deity, 139.
Weather, governed by the moon,

153.

Week of seven days, 252, 324.
West, symbolism of, 109, 199, 218.
White, a symbolic color, 97, 165,

198, 203, 207-209.
man in ancient America, 215,

221.
" White towns " of Cherokees,

208.
Wind, as soul and life, 66-69.

360

INDICES.

Wind, spirits of the cardinal

points, 92-95.
Wind-cross, the, 114-116.
Winds, Old Man of the, 115.

House of the, 93.

the four, as deities, 92 sq.
Winnebagoes, tribe, 41, 255.
Wisakedjuk, a deity, 202.
Wisdom, the Mother of, 179.
Witch itas, tribe, 262.
Wolves, in myths, 161, 218, 269.
Women, as priestesses, 324.
World, creators of the, 193, 210.

end of the, 253 sq.

Sustainer of the, 210.
Writing, methods of, 22-26, 343.

Xblanque, a Quiche deity, 300.

Xelhua, a giant, 265.

Xibalba, the underworld, 81, 292,

300.
Ximohuayan, the Aztec Hades,

293.

Xochiquetzal, a deity, 160, 172.
Xolotl, an Aztec deity, 299.

Yahgans, tribe, 61.
Yakamas, tribe, 67.
Yaotl, a deity, 167.
Yellow, symbolism of, 97, 189,

287.

Yetl, a deity, 240.
Yoalli Ehecatl, a deity, 67.
Yohualticitl, a deity, 155.
Yolcuat, a deity, 141, 214.
Yucatan, natives of, 42, 87.

mythology, 97, 114, 173, 249.
See Mayas.
Yuchi, tribe, 232.
Yuncas, tribe, 44.
Yupanqui, Inca, 72.
Yurucares, the, tribe, 118, 336,261,

301.

Zacs, the, 43.

Zamna, a culture-hero, 110
Zapotecs, tribe, 91.
Ziuzendorf, anecdote about, 132.
Zunie, a hero-god, 218.
Zunis, the, tribe, 127, 145, 177, 229,
238, 258, 319, 324, 326.

BY THE SAME AUTHOR:

THE FLORIDIAN PENINSULA. (1869.) Pp. 202.

THE RELIGIOUS SENTIMENT : A CONTRIBUTION TO THE SCIENCE OP RE-
LIGION. (1876.) Pp.284.

AMERICAN HERO-MYTHS. (1882.) Pp. 2G1.

ABORIGINAL AMERICAN AUTHORS. (1883.) Pp. 63.

A GRAMMAR OF THE CHOCTAW LANGUAGE. (1870.) Pp. 56.

A GRAMMAR OF THE CAKCHIQUEL LANGUAGE. (1884.) Pp. 67.

THE PHILOSOPHIC GRAMMAR OF AMERICAN LANGUAGES. (1885.)
Pp. 51.

GENERAL ANTHROPOLOGY AND ETHNOLOGY. (1886.) Pp. 184.
GENERAL PREHISTORIC ARCHAEOLOGY. (1887.) Pp. 116.
A LENAPE-ENGLISH DICTIONARY. Edited. (1888.) Pp. 236.

LIBRARY OF ABORIGINAL AMERICAN LITERATURE. Eight Volumes.
(1882 to 1890.)

I. CHRONICLES OF THE MAYAS. Pp. 279. By D. G. Brinton.
II. THE IROQUOIS BOOK OF RITES. Pp. 222. By Horatio Hale.

III. COMEDY-BALLET OF GUEGUENCE. Pp. 146. By D. G. Brinton.

IV. A MIGRATION-LEGEND OF THE CREEKS. Pp.251. By A. S. Gatschet.
V. THE LENApfe AND THEIR LEGENDS. Pp. 262. By D. G. Brinton.

VI. ANNALS OF THE CAKCHIQUELS. Pp. 234. By D. G. Brinton.
VII. ANCIENT NAHUATL POETRY. Pp. 176. By D. G. Brinton.
VIII. SACRED CHANTS OF THE ANCIENT MEXICANS. Pp. 95. By D. G.
Brinton.

RACES AND PEOPLES : LECTURES ON ETHNOGRAPHY. Pp. 313.
ESSAYS OF AN AMERICANIST. (1890.) Pp. 489.

THE AMERICAN RACE : A LINGUISTIC CLASSIFICATION AND ETHNOGRAPHIC
DESCRIPTION OF THE NATIVE TRIBES OF AMERICA. (1891.) Pp. 392.

STUDIES IN SOUTH AMERICAN LANGUAGES. (1892.) Pp. 67.
THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS. (1893.) Pp. 292.

THE NATIVE CALENDAR OF CENTRAL AMERICA AND MEXICO.
(1893.) Pp. 59.

NAGUALISM : A STUDY IN NATIVE AMERICAN FOLK-LORE AND HISTORY.
(1894.) Pp.65.

A PRIMER OF MAYAN HIEROGLYPHICS. (1895.) Pp. 152.

REPORT ON THE COLUMBIAN HISTORICAL EXPOSITION AT MADRID.
(1895.) Pp.70.

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