PLATE XXXVII.
PLATE XXXVII.
Vase painting of the sky-god, Tiahuanaco style, from Pachacamac. Compare PlatesXXXI,XXXIV,XXXV,XXXVI. After Baessler,Contributions to the Archaeology of the Empire of the Incas, Vol. IV, Plate CIV.
The tales are surely explanatory of the monuments; and in both we see the general outlines of the ancient Peruvian religion. Supreme in the pantheon was the great creator-god, High Heaven itself, Illa Tici Viracocha. Attendant upon this divinity (perhaps ancient doublets in some cases) was a group of two or three servants or sons, who were assuredly also celestial—Sun and Moon, or Sun and Moon and Morning Star, or Sun and Thunder (for in Perubidentaliawere everywhere). Tonapa (whom Markham regards as properlyConapa, "Heat-Bearing," and the same being as Coniraya) is the Peruvian equivalent of Quetzalcoatl and Bochica[145]—the robed and bearded white man, bearing a magic staff, who comes from the east and after teaching men the way of life, departs over the sea. It is no marvel that the first missionaries and their converts saw in this being, with his cruciform symbol, an apostle of their own faith who had journeyed by way of the Orient to preach the Gospel. Yet certainly it is no mere imagination to find another interpretation of the story—what better image could fancy suggest for the daily course of the sun than that of a bright-faced man, bearded with rays, mantled in light, transforming the world of darkness into a world of beauty and the domain of the concealed into a domain of things known, before his departure across the western waters, promising to return, or to send again his messengers of light, to renew the luminous mission? When the Spaniards came, bearded and white, in shining mail and weaponed with fire, the Indians beheld the embodied form of the mythic hero, and so they applied to them the name which, is still theirs for a white man—viracocha. In such devious ways have the faiths and the fancies of Earth's two worlds commingled.
What ground there is for the ascription of something approaching monotheism to the Peruvians centres in the sky-deity rather than in the Sun, whose cult under the Incas, to some extent replaced that of the elder supreme god. "No one can doubt," says Lafone Quevado,[146]"that Pachacamac and Viracochawere gods who correspond to our idea of a Supreme Being and that they were adored in America before the coming of Columbus; and it is logical to attribute to the same American soil the idea of such a conception, even when it occurs among the most savage tribes, since that simply presupposes an ethnic contact to which are opposed no insuperable difficulties of geography. The solar cult is farther from fetishism than is the idea of the Yahveh of the Jews from the solar cult: from this to the true God is a step, and the most savage nations of America found themselves surrounded by worshippers of the light of day."
The most striking feature of the Inca conquests is their professed motive—professed, that is, in Inca tradition, especially as represented by the writings of Garcilasso de la Vega—for the Incas proclaimed themselves apostles of a new creed and teachers of a new way of life; they were Children of the Sun, sent by their divine parent to bring to a darkened and barbarous world a purer faith and a more enlightened conduct. Garcilasso tells[147]how, when a boy, he inquired of his Inca uncle the origin of their race. "Know," said his kinsman, "that in ancient times all this region which you see was covered with forests and thickets, and the people lived like brute beasts without religion nor government, nor towns, nor houses, without cultivating the land nor covering their bodies, for they knew how to weave neither cotton nor wool to make garments. They dwelt two or three together in caves or clefts of the rocks, or in caverns under ground; they ate the herbs of the field and roots or fruit like wild beasts, and they also devoured human flesh; they covered their bodies with leaves and with the bark of trees, or with the skins of animals; in fine they lived like deer or other game, and even in their intercourse with women they were like brutes, for they knew nothing of cohabiting with separate wives.... Our Father, the Sun, seeing the humanrace in the condition I have described, had compassion upon them and from heaven he sent down to earth a son and daughter to instruct them in the knowledge of our Father, the Sun, that adoring Him, they might adopt Him as their God; and also to give them precepts and laws by which to live as reasonable and civilized men, and to teach them to dwell in houses and towns, to cultivate maize and other crops, to breed flocks, and to use the fruits of the earth as rational beings, instead of existing like beasts. With these commands and intentions our Father, the Sun, placed his two children in the lake of Titicaca, saying to them that they might go where they pleased and that at every place where they stopped to eat or sleep they were to thrust into the ground a sceptre of gold which was half a yard long and two fingers in thickness, giving them this staff as a sign and a token that in the place where, by one blow on the earth, it should sink down and disappear, there it was the desire of our Father, the Sun, that they should remain and establish their court. Finally He said to them: 'When you have reduced these people to our service, you shall maintain them in habits of reason and justice by the practice of piety, clemency, and meekness, assuming in all things the office of a pious father toward his beloved and tender children; for thus you will form a likeness and reflection of me. I do good to the whole world, giving light that men may see and do their business, making them warm when they are cold, cherishing their pastures and crops, ripening their fruits and increasing their flocks, watering their lands with dew and bringing fine weather in proper season. I take care to go around the earth each day that I may see the necessities that exist in the world and supply them, as the sustainer and benefactor of the heathen. I desire that you shall imitate this example as my children, sent to earth solely for the instruction and benefit of these men who live like beasts; and from this time I constitute and name you as kings and lords over all the tribes that you may instruct them in your rational works and government.'"
Viewed as theology, this utterance is remarkable. Even if it be taken (as perhaps it should be) rather as an excuse for conquests made than as their veritable pretext, the story still reflects an advanced stage of moral thinking, since utterly barbarous races demand no such justification for seizing from others what they desire; and in this broader scope the successors of Manco Capac and Mama Ocllo soon interpreted their liberal commission. The third Inca, Lloque Yupanqui, decided, Garcilasso says,[148]that "all their policy should not be one of prayer and persuasion, but that arms and power should form a part, at least with those who were stubborn and pertinacious." Having assembled an army, the Inca crossed the border, and entering a province called Cana, he sent messengers to the inhabitants, "requiring them to submit to and obey the child of the Sun, abandoning their own vain and evil sacrifices, and bestial customs"—a formula that became thenceforth the Inca preliminary to a declaration of war. The Cana submitted, but, the chronicler says, when he passed to the province of Ayaviri, the natives "were so stubborn and rebellious that neither promises, nor persuasion, nor the examples of the other subjugated aborigines were of any avail; they all preferred to die defending their liberty." And so fell many a province, after vainly endeavouring to protect its native gods, as the realm of the Incas grew, always advancing under the pretext of religious reform, the mandate of the Sun.
But while the extension of the solar cult was made the excuse for the creation of an empire, it was more than a political device; for the Incas called themselves "children of the Sun" in the belief that they were directly descended from this deity and under his special care. Molina[149]tells of an adventure which he ascribes to Inca Yupanqui, meaning, apparently, Pachacuti, the greatest of the Incas. While, as a young man, the Inca prince was journeying to visit his father, Viracocha Inca, he passed a spring in which he saw a piece of crystal fall, wherein appeared the figure of an Indian. From the back ofhis head issued three very brilliant rays, even as those of the Sun; serpents were twined round his arms, and on his head there was allautu[the fringe, symbol of the sun's rays, worn on the forehead by the Incas as token of royalty] like that of the Inca. His ears were bored, and ear-pieces, resembling those used by the Incas, were inserted; he was also dressed in the manner of the Inca. The head of a lion came from between his legs, and on his shoulders there was another lion whose legs appeared to join over the shoulders of the man; while, furthermore, a sort of serpent was twined about his shoulders. This apparition said to the youth: "Come hither, my son, and fear not, for I am the Sun, thy father. Thou shalt conquer many nations; therefore be careful to pay great reverence to me and remember me in thy sacrifices." The vision vanished, but the piece of crystal remained, "and they say that he afterward saw in it everything he wanted." The solar imagery and the analogy of this figure, with its lions and serpents, to the monumental representations of celestial deities, are at once apparent; and there is, too, in the tale, with its prophecy and its crystal-gazing more than a suggestion of the fast in the wilderness by which the North American Indian youth seeks a revelation of his personal medicine-helper, or totem. The Incas all had such personal tutelaries. That of Manco Capac was said to have been a falcon, called Inti; and the word came to mean the Sun itself in its character as deity—or, perhaps, as tutelary of the Inca clan, since the name Inti appears in the epithets applied to the "brothers" of more than one later Inca. Serpents, birds, and golden images were forms of these totemic familiars, each buried with the body of the Inca to whom it had pertained.
Just as individuals had their personal Genii of this character, so each clan had for ancestor its Genius, or tutelary, which might be a star, a mountain, a rock, or a spring. The Sun was such a Genius of the Incas, and it came to be an ever greater deity as Inca power spread by very reason of the growing importance of their clan; while its recognition bymembers of allied and conquered septs came to be demanded very much, we may suppose, as the cultic acknowledgement of the Genius of the Roman Emperor was required in expression of loyalty to the reigning race.
The Inca pantheon was not narrow.[150]Besides the ancestral deities, there were innumerablehuacas—sacred places, oracles, or idols—and whole classes of nature-powers; the generative Earth (Pacha Mama) and "mamas" of plant and animal kinds; meteorological potencies, especially the Rainbow and Thunder and Lightning, conceived as servants of the Sun; and, in the heaven itself, the Moon and the Constellations, by which the seasons were computed. Remote over all was the heaven-god and creator, Viracocha, with respect to whom the Sun itself was but a servitor. Salcamayhua declares that Manco Capac had set up a plate of fine gold, oval in shape, "which signified that there was a Creator of heaven and earth." Mayta Capac renewed this image—despising, tradition said, all created objects, even the highest, such as men and the sun and moon—and "he caused things to be placed round the plate, which I have shown that it may be perceived what these heathen thought." In illustration Salcamayhua gives a drawing which many authorities regard as the key to Peruvian mythology. At the top is a representation of the Southern Cross, the pole of the austral heavens. Below this is the oval symbol of the Creator, on one side of which is an image of the Sun, with the Morning Star beneath, while opposite is the Moon above the Evening Star. Under these is a group of twelve signs—a leaping puma, a tree, "Mama Cocha," a chart of this mountainous Earth surmounted by a rainbow and serving as source for a river into which levin falls, a group of seven circles called "shining eyes," and other emblems—the whole representing, so Stansbury Hagar argues, the Peruvian zodiac. Salcamayhua goes on to say that Huascar placed an image of the Sun in the place where the symbol of the Creator had been, and it was as thusaltered that the Spaniards found the great Temple of the Sun at Cuzco.
It would appear, indeed, that the action of Huascar was only a final step in the rise of the solar cult to pre-eminence in Peru. Doubtless the sun had been a principal deity from an early period, but its close relation to the Inca clan made it progressively more and more important, so that by the time of the coming of the Spaniards it had risen, as a national divinity, to a position analogous to that of Ashur in the later Assyrian empire. Meantime the older heaven-god, Viracocha, presumably the tutelary of the pre-Inca empire and of Tiahuanaco, had faded into obscurity. To be sure, there was a temple to this god in Cuzco (so Molina and Salcamayhua attest); but to the Sun there were shrines all over the land, with priests and priestesses; while Cuzco was the centre of a magnificent imperial cult, the sanctuary honoured by royalty itself and served not only by the sacerdotal head of all Inca temple-service, a high priest of blood royal, but also by hundreds of devoted Virgins of the Sun, who, like the Roman Vestals, kept an undying fire on the altars of the solar god.
Yet Viracocha was not forgotten, even by the Incas who subordinated him officially to the Sun; and few passages in American lore are more striking than are the records of Inca doubt as to the Sun's divinity and power. Molina says of that very Inca to whom the vision of the crystal appeared that "he reflected upon the respect and reverence shown by his ancestors to the Sun, who worshipped it as a god; he observed that it never had any rest, and that it daily journeyed round the earth; and he said to those of his council that it was not possible that the Sun could be the God who created all things, for if he was, he would not permit a small cloud to obscure his splendour; and that if he was creator of all things, he would sometimes rest, and light up the whole world from one spot. Thus, it cannot be otherwise but there is someone who directs him, and this is the Pacha-yachachi,the Creator." Garcilasso (quoting Blas Valera) states that the Inca Tupac Yupanqui likened the Sun rather to a tethered beast or to a shot arrow than to a free divinity, while Huayna Capac is credited with a similar judgement. In the prayers recorded by Molina, Viracocha is supreme, even over the Sun; and these petitions, it must be supposed, represent the deepest conviction of Inca religion.
Stories of Inca origins, as told by the chroniclers, present a certain confusion of incident that probably goes back to the native versions. There are obviously historical narratives mingled with clearly mythic materials and influencing each other. The islands of Titicaca and the ruins of Tiahuanaco appear as the source of remote provenance of the Incas; a place called Paccari-Tampu ("Tavern of the Dawn"), not far from Cuzco, and the mysterious hill of Tampu-Tocco ("Tavern of the Windows") are recorded as sites associated with their more immediate rise; yet as Manco Capac is associated with both origins, and as the narratives pertaining to both contain cosmogonic elements, the tales give the impression of blending and duplication.
PLATE XXXVIII.
PLATE XXXVIII.
"Temple of the three Windows," Machu Picchu. Windows are not a frequent feature of Inca architecture, and when Bingham discovered at Machu Picchu the temple with three conspicuous windows, here shown, this discovery seemed to give added plausibility to the theory that Machu Picchu is indeed the Tampu-Tocco of the Incas. See pages248ff. and compare PlateXXX. From photograph, courtesy of Hiram Bingham, Director of the Yale Peruvian Expedition.
With different degrees of confusion all the chroniclers (Cieza de León, Garcilasso, Molina, Salcamayhua, Betanzos, Montesinos, Huaman Porno, and others) tell the story of the coming forth of Manco Capac and his brothers from Tampu-Tocco to create the empire; but of all the accounts Markham regards that given by Sarmiento as the most authentic.[151]According to this version, Tampu-Tocco was a house on a hill, provided with three windows, named Maras, Sutic, and Capac. Through the first of these came the Maras tribe, through Sutic came the Tampu tribe, and through Capac, the regal window, came four Ayars with their four wives—Ayar Manco and Mama Ocllo; Ayar Auca (the "joyous," or "fighting," Ayar) and MamaHuaco (the "warlike"); Ayar Cachi (the "Salt" Ayar) and Mama Ipacura (the "Elder Aunt"); Ayar Uchu (the "Pepper" Ayar) and Mama Raua. The four pairs "knew no father nor mother, beyond the story they told that they came out of the said window by order of Ticci Viracocha; and they declared that Viracocha created them to be lords"; but it was believed that by the counsel of the fierce Mama Huaco they decided to go forth and subjugate peoples and lands. Besides the Maras and Tampu peoples, eight other tribes were associated with the Ayars, as vassals, when they began their quest, taking with them their goods and their families. Manco Capac carrying with him, as a palladium, a falcon, called Indi, or Inti—the name of the Sun-god—bore also a golden rod which was to sink into the land at the site where they were to abide; and Salcamayhua says that, in setting out, the hero was wreathed in rain-bows, this being regarded as an omen of success.
The journey was leisurely, and in course of it Sinchi Rocca, who was to be the second Inca, was born to Mama Ocllo and Manco Capac; but then came a series of magic transformations by which the three brothers disappeared, leaving the elder without a rival. Ayar Cachi (who, Cieza de León says,[152]"had such great power that, with stones hurled from his sling, he split the hills and hurled them up to the clouds") was the first to excite the envy of his brothers; and on the pretext that certain royal treasures had been forgotten in a cave of Tampu-Tocco, he was sent back to secure them, accompanied by a follower who had secret instructions from the brothers to immure him in the cave, once he was inside. This was done, and though Ayar Cachi made the earth shake in his efforts to break through, he could not do so. Nevertheless (Cieza tells us) he appeared to his brothers, "coming in the air with great wings of coloured feathers"; and despite their terror, he commanded them to go on to their destiny, found Cuzco, and establish the empire. "I shall remain in the form and fashion that ye shall see on a hill not distant from here; and it will be for your descendants a placeof sanctity and worship, and its name shall be Guanacaure [Huanacauri]. And in return for the good things that ye will have received from me, I pray that ye will always adore me as god and in that place will set up altars whereat to offer sacrifices. If ye do this, ye shall receive help from me in war; and as a sign that from henceforth ye are to be esteemed, honoured, and feared, your ears shall be bored in the manner that ye now behold mine." It was from this custom of boring and enlarging the ears that the Spaniards called the ruling casteOrejones("Big-Ears"); and it was at the hill of Huanacauri that the Ayar instructed the Incas in the rites by which they initiated youths into the warrior caste.
At this mount, which became one of the great Inca shrines, both the Salt and the Pepper Ayars were reputed to have been transformed into stones, or idols, and it was here that the rainbow sign of promise was given. As they approached the hill—so the legend states—they saw near the rainbow what appeared to be a man-shaped idol; and "Ayar Uchu offered himself to go to it, for they said that he was very like it." He did so, sat upon the stone, and himself became stone, crying: "O Brothers, an evil work ye have wrought for me. It was for your sakes that I came where I must remain forever, apart from your company. Go! go! happy brethren, I announce to you that ye shall be great lords. I therefore pray that, in recognition of the desire I have always had to please you, ye shall honour and venerate me in all your festivals and ceremonies, and that I shall be the first to whom ye make offerings, since I remain here for your sakes. When ye celebrate thehuarochico(which is the arming of the sons as knights), ye shall adore me as their father, for I shall remain here forever."
Finally Manco Capac's staff sank into the ground—"two shots of an arquebus from Cuzco"—and from their camp the hero pointed to a heap of stones on the site of Cuzco. "Showing this to his brother, Ayar Auca, he said, 'Brother! thou rememberest how it was arranged between us that thou shouldst go totake possession of the land where we are to settle. Well! behold that stone.' Pointing it out, he continued, 'Go thither flying,' for they say that Ayar Auca had developed some wings; 'and seating thyself there, take possession of the land seen from that heap of rocks. We will presently come and settle and reside.' When Ayar Auca heard the words of his brother, opening his wings, he flew to that place which Manco Capac had pointed out; and seating himself there, he was presently turned into stone, being made the stone of possession. In the ancient language of this valley the heap was calledcozco, whence the site has had the name of Cuzco to this day."
Markham placed the events commemorated in this myth at about 1100a. d., and Bingham's remarkable discoveries of Machu Picchu and of the Temple of the Three Windows appear to prove the truth of tales of a Tampu-Tocco dynasty, preceding the coming to Cuzco. The tribal divisions (in their numbers, three and ten, strikingly suggestive of Roman legend) are surely in part historical, for Sarmiento gives names of members of the variousayllusin Cuzco in his own day. Yet it is clear that the Ayars are mythical beings. Garcilasso says[153]that the four pairs came forth in the beginning of the world; that in the various legends about them the three brothers disappear in allegory, leaving Manco Capac alone; and that the Salt Ayar signifies "instruction in the rational life," while the Pepper Ayar means "delight received in this instruction." The association of the two Ayars with initiation ceremonies and civic destiny points, in fact, to the character of culture heroes; and their names, Salt and Pepper, again suggest association with economic life, perhaps, in some way, as genii of earth and vegetation, though in the myth of Ayar Cachi the suggestion of a volcanic power is almost irresistible. Ayar Auca is clearly thegenius lociof Cuzco, while Manco Capac himself, conceived as an Ayar, is little more than a culture hero. Perhaps the solution is to be found in Montesinos's lists, where Manco Capac is the first ruler of the dynasty of the oldestemperors, after the god Viracocha himself, while the first Inca is Sinchi Rocca. The myth of the Ayars would then hark back to the Megalithic age and to the cosmogonies associated with Titicaca, while their connexion with the Incas, after the dynasty of Tampu-Tocco, would be, as it were, but a natural telescoping of ancient myth and later history, adding to Inca prestige.
In Inca lore there are other legends—the tale of the prince who was stolen by his father's enemies and who wept tears of blood, by this portent saving his life; the legend of the virgin of the Sun who loved a pipe-playing shepherd and of their transformation into rocks; the story of Ollantay, the general, who loved the Inca's daughter, preserved in the drama which Markham has translated; and along with these are many fragments of creation-stories and aetiological myths chronicled by the early writers. History and poetic fancy combine in these to give materials into which are woven beliefs and practices far more ancient than the Inca race, just as Hellenic myth contains distorted reflections of the pre-Greek age of the Aegean. By means of such tales the ancient shrines are made to speak again, as through oracles.
Among earth's great continental bodies South America is second only to Australia in isolation. This is true not only geographically, but also in regard to flora and fauna, and in respect of its human aborigines and their cultures. To be sure, within itself the continent shows a diversity as wide, perhaps, as that of any; and certainly no continent affords a sharper contrast both of environment and of culture than is that of the Andes and the civilized Andeans to the tropical forests with their hordes of unqualified savages. There are, moreover, streams of influence reaching from the southern toward the northern America—the one, by way of the Isthmus, tenuously extending the bond of civilization in the direction of the cultured nations of Central America and Mexico; the other carrying northward the savagery of the tropics by the thin line of the Lesser Antilles; and it is, of course, possible that this double movement, under way in Columbian days, was the retroaction of influences that had at one time moved in the contrary direction. Yet, on the whole, South America has its own distinct character, whether of savagery or of civilization, showing little certain evidence of recent influence from other parts of the globe.Au fondthe cultural traits—implements, social organization, ideas—are of the types common to mankind at similar levels; but their special developments have a distinctly South American character, so that, whether we compare Inca with Aztec, orAmazonian with Mississippian, we perceive without hesitancy the continental idiosyncracy of each. It is certain that South America has been inhabited from remote times; it is certain, too, that her aboriginal civilizations are ancient, reckoned even by the Old World scale. A daring hypothesis would make this continent an early, and perhaps the first home of the human species—a theory that would not implausibly solve certain difficulties, assuming that the differences which mark aboriginal North from aboriginal South America are due to the fact that the former continent was the meeting-place and confluence of two streams—a vastly ancient, but continuous, northward flow from the south, turned and coloured by a thinner and later wash of Asiatic sources.[154]
The peoples of South America are grouped by d'Orbigny,[155]as result of his ethnic studies ofl'homme américainmade during the expedition of 1826-33, into three great divisions, or races: the Ando-Peruvian, comprising all the peoples of the west coast as far as Tierra del Fuego; the Pampean, including the tribes of the open countries of the south; and the Brasilio-Guaranian, composed of the stocks of those tropical forests which form the great body of the South American continent. With modifications this threefold grouping of the South American aborigines has been maintained by later ethnologists. One of the most recent studies in this field (W. Schmidt, "Kulturkreise und Kulturschichten in Südamerika," inZExlv [1913]), while still maintaining the triple classification, nevertheless shows that the different groups have mingled and intermingled in confusing complexity, following successive cycles of cultural influence. Schmidt's division is primarily on the basis of cultural traits, with reference to which he distinguishes three primary groups: (1) Peoples of the "collective grade," who live by hunting, fishing, and the gathering of plants, with the few exceptions of tribes that have learned some agriculture from neighbours of a higher culture. In this group are the Gez, or Botocudo, and the Puri-Coroados stocksof the east and south-east of Brazil; the stocks of the Gran Chaco, the Pampas, and Tierra del Fuego; while the Araucanians and certain tribes of the eastern cordilleras of the Andes are also placed in this class. (2) Groups of peoples of theHackbaustufe, mostly practicing agriculture and marked by a general advance in the arts, as well as by the presence of a well-defined patriarchy and evidences of totemism in their social organization. In this group are included the great South American linguistic stocks—the Cariban, Arawakan, and Tupi-Guaranian, inhabiting the forests and semi-steppes of the regions drained by the Orinoco and Amazon and their tributaries, as well as the tribes of the north-east coast of the continent. (3) Groups of the cultured peoples of the Andes—Chibcha, Incaic, and Calchaqui.
The general arrangement of these three divisions follows the contour of the continent. The narrow mountain ridge of the west coast is the seat of the civilized peoples; the home of the lowest culture is the east coast, extending in a broad band of territory from the highlands of the Brazilian provinces of Pernambuco and Bahia south-westward to the Chilean Andes and Patagonia; between these two, occupying the whole centre of the continent, with a broad base along the northern coast and narrowing wedge-like to the south, is the region of the intermediate culture group.
Most of what is known of the mythology of South American peoples comes from tribes and nations of the second and third groups—from the Andeans whose myths have been sketched in preceding chapters, and from the peoples of the tropic forests. The region inhabited by the latter group is too vast to be treated as a simple unit; nor is there, in the chaotic intermixture of tongues and tribes, any clear ethnic demarcation of ideas. In default of other principle, it is appropriate and expedient, therefore, to follow the natural division of the territory into the geographical regions broadly determined by the great river-systems that traverse the continent. Theseare three: in the north the Orinoco, with its tributaries, draining the region bounded on the west by the Colombian plateau and the Llanos of the Orinoco, and on the south by the Guiana Highlands; in the centre the Amazon, the world's greatest river, the mouth of which is crossed by the Equator, while the stream itself closely follows the equatorial line straight across the continent to the Andes, though its great tributaries drain the central continent, many degrees to the south; and in the south the Rio de la Plata, formed by the confluence of the Paraná and Uruguay, and receiving the waters of the territories extending from El Gran Chaco to the Pampas, beyond which the Patagonian plains and Chilean Andes taper southward to the Horn. In general, the Orinoco region is the home of the Carib and Arawak tribes; the Amazonian region is the seat and centre of the Tupi-Guaranians; while the region extending from the Rio de la Plata to the Horn is the aboriginal abode of various peoples, mostly of inferior culture. It should be borne in mind, however, that the simplicity of this plan is largely factitious. Linguistically, aboriginal South America is even more complex than North America (at least above Mexico); and the whole central region is amélangeof verbally unrelated stocks, of which, for the continent as a whole, Chamberlain's incomplete list gives no less than eighty-three.[156]
"The aborigines of Guiana," writes Brett,[157]"in their naturally wild and untaught condition, have had a confused idea of the existence of one good and supreme Being, and of many inferior spirits, who are supposed to be of various kinds, but generally of malignant character. The Good Spirit they regard as the Creator of all, and, as far as we could learn, they believe Him to be immortal and invisible, omnipotent and omniscient. But notwithstanding this, we have never discovered any trace of religious worship or adoration paid to Him by any tribe whilein its natural condition. They consider Him as a Being too high to notice them; and, not knowing Him as a God that heareth prayer, they concern themselves but little about Him." In another passage the same writer states that the natives of Guiana "all maintain the Invisibility of the Eternal Father. In their traditionary legends they never confoundHim—the Creator,—the 'Ancient of Heaven'—with the mythical personages of what, for want of a better term, we must call their heroic age; and though sorcerers claim familiarity with, and power to control, the inferior (and malignant) spirits, none would ever pretend to hold intercourse withHim, or that it were possible for mortal man to beholdHim." A missionary to the same region, Fray Ruiz Blanco,[158]earlier by some two hundred years, says of the religion of these aborigines that, "The false rites and diableries with which the multitude are readily duped are innumerable ... briefly ... there is the seated fact that all are idolaters, and there is the particular fact that all abhor and greatly fear the devil, whom they call Iboroquiamio."
Minds of a scientific stamp see the matter somewhat differently. "The natives of the Orinoco," Humboldt declares,[159]"know no other worship than that of the powers of nature; like the ancient Germans they deify the mysterious object which excites their simple admiration (deorum nominibus appellant secretum illud, quod sola reverentia vident)." From the point of view of an ethnologist of the school of Tylor, im Thurn describes the religion of the Indians of Guiana: Having no belief in a hierarchy of spirits, they can have, he says, "none in any such beings as in higher religions are called gods.... It is true that various words have been found in all, or nearly all, the languages, not only of Guiana, but also of the whole world, which have been supposed to be the names of a great spirit, supreme being, or god"; nevertheless, he concludes, "the conception of a God is not only totally foreign to Indian habits of thought, but belongs to a much higher stage of intellectual development than any attained by them."
It is from such contrary evidences as these that the true character of aboriginal beliefs must be reconstructed. Im Thurn says of the native names that they "to some extent acquired a sense which the missionaries imparted to them"; and when we meet, in such passages as that quoted from Brett, the ascription of attributes like omniscience and omnipotence to primitive divinities, there is indeed cause for humour at the missionary's expense. But there are logical idols in more than one trade; the ethnologists have their full share of them. Im Thurn gives us a list of indigenous appellations of the Great Spirit of Guiana:
Carib Tribes:True Caribs: Tamosi ("the Ancient One"); Tamosi kabotano ("the Ancient One in the Sky").Ackawoi: Mackonaima (meaning unknown).Macusi: Kutti (probably only Macusi-Dutch for "God").Arawak Tribes: Wa murreta kwonci ("our Maker"); Wa cinaci ("our Father"); Ifilici wacinaci ("our Great Father").Warrau-Wapianan: Kononatoo ("our Maker"); Tominagatoo (meaning unknown).
Carib Tribes:True Caribs: Tamosi ("the Ancient One"); Tamosi kabotano ("the Ancient One in the Sky").Ackawoi: Mackonaima (meaning unknown).Macusi: Kutti (probably only Macusi-Dutch for "God").
Arawak Tribes: Wa murreta kwonci ("our Maker"); Wa cinaci ("our Father"); Ifilici wacinaci ("our Great Father").
Warrau-Wapianan: Kononatoo ("our Maker"); Tominagatoo (meaning unknown).
Of all these names im Thurn remarks that in those whose meanings are known "only three ideas are expressed—(1) One who lived long ago and is now in sky-land; (2) the maker of the Indians; and (3) their father. None of these ideas," he continues, "in any way involve the attributes of a god...."[160]Obviously, acceptance of this negation turns upon one's understanding of the meaning of "god."
The Cariban Makonaima (there are many variants, such as Makanaima, Makunaima, and the like) is a creator-god and the hero of a cosmogony. It is possible that his name connects him with the class of Kenaima (or Kanaima), avengers of murder and bringers of death, who are often regarded as endowed with magical or mysterious powers; and in this case the term may be analogous to the Wakanda and Manito of thenorthern continent. Schomburgk[161]states that Makunaima means "one who works in the night"; and if this be true, it is curious to compare with such a conception the group of Arawakan demiurgic beings whom he describes. According to the Arawak myths, a being Kururumany was the creator of men, while Kulimina formed women. Kururumany was the author of all good, but coming to earth to survey his creation, he discovered that the human race had become wicked and corrupt; wherefore he deprived them of everlasting life, leaving among them serpents, lizards, and other vermin. Wurekaddo ("She Who Works in the Dark") and Emisiwaddo ("She Who Bores Through the Earth") are the wives of Kururumany; and Emisiwaddo is identified as thecushi-ant, so that we have here an interesting suggestion of world-building ants, for which analogues are to be found far north in America, in the Pueblos and on the North-West Coast. There is, however, afainéantgod high above Kururumany, one Aluberi, pre-eminent over all, who has no concern for the affairs of men; while other supreme beings mentioned by Schomburgk are Amalivaca—who is, however, rather a Trickster-Hero—and the group that, among the Maipuri, corresponds to the Arawakan family of divine beings, Purrunaminari ("He Created Men"), Taparimarru, his wife, and Sisiri, his son, whom she, without being touched by him, conceived to him from the mere love he bore her—a myth in which, as Schomburgk observes, we should infer European influence.
Humboldt, in describing the religion of the Orinoco aborigines says[162]of them that "they call the good spirit Cachimana; it is the Manitou, the Great Spirit, that regulates the seasons and favours the harvests. Along with Cachimana there is an evil principle, Iolokiamo, less powerful, but more artful, and in particular more active." On the whole, this characterization represents the consensus of observation of traveller, missionary, and scientist from Columbian days to the present and for the wilder tribes of the whole of both South and North America.There is a good being, the Great Spirit, more or less remote from men, often little concerned with human or terrene affairs, but the ultimate giver of life and light, of harvest food and game food. There is an evil principle, sometimes personified as a Lord of Darkness, although more often conceived not as a person, but as a mischievous power, or horde of powers, manifested in multitudes of annoying forms. Among shamanistic tribes little attention is paid to the Good Power; it is too remote to be seriously courted; or, if it is worshipped, solemn festivals, elaborate mysteries, and priestly rites are the proper agents for attracting its attention. On the other hand, the Evil Power in all its innumerable and tricky embodiments, must be warded off by constant endeavour—by shamanism, "medicine," magic. The tribes of the Orinoco region are,ab origine, mainly in the shamanistic stage. The peaiman is at once priest, doctor, and magician, whose main duty is to discover the deceptive concealment of the malicious Kenaima and, by his exorcisms, to free men from the plague. That the Kenaima is of the nature of a spirit appears from the fact that the term is applied to human malevolences, especially when these find magic manifestation, as well as to evils emanating from other sources. Thus, the avenger of a murder is a Kenaima, and he must not only exact life for life; he must achieve his end by certain means and with rites insuring himself against the ill will of his victim's spirit. Again, the Were-Jaguar is a Kenaima. "A jaguar which displays unusual audacity," says Brett,[163]"will often unnerve even a brave hunter by the fear that it may be aKanaima tiger. 'This,' reasons the Indian, 'if it be but an ordinary wild beast, I may kill with bullet or arrow; but what will be my fate if I assail the man-destroyer—the terribleKanaima?'"
The Kenaima, the man-killer, whether he be the human avenger upon whom the law of a primitive society has imposed the task of exacting retribution, or whether he be the no less dreaded inflicter of death through disease, or magically inducedaccident, or by shifting skins with a man-slaying beast, is only one type of the spirits of evil. Others are the Yauhahu and Orehu (Arawak names for beings which are known to the other tribes by other titles). The Yauhahu are the familiars of sorcerers, the peaimen, who undergo a long period of probationary preparation in order to win their favour and who hold it only by observing the most stringent tabus in the matter of diet. The Orehu are water-sprites, female like the mermaids, and they sometimes drag man and canoe down to the depths of their aquatic haunts; yet they are not altogether evil, for Brett tells a story, characteristically American Indian, of the origin of a medicine-mystery. In very ancient times, when the Yauhahu inflicted continual misery on mankind, an Arawak, walking besides the water and brooding over the sad case of his people, beheld an Orehu rise from the stream, bearing in her hand a branch which he planted as she bade him, its fruit being the calabash, till then unknown. Again she appeared, bringing small white pebbles, which she instructed him to enclose in the gourd, thus making the magic-working rattle; and instructing him in its use and in the mysteries of the Semecihi, this order was established among the tribes. The "Semecihi" are of course, the medicine-men of the Arawak, corresponding to the Carib peaimen, though the word itself would seem to be related to the Taïnozemi. Relation to the Islanders is, indeed, suggested by the whole myth, for the Orehu is surely only the mainland equivalent for the Haitian woman-of-the-sea, Guabonito, who taught the medicine-hero, Guagugiana, the use of amulets of white stones and of gold.
Not many primitive legends are more dramatically vivid than the Carib story of Maconaura and Anuanaïtu,[164]and few myths give a wider insight into the ideas and customs of a people. The theme of the tale is very clearly the coming of evil as the consequenceof a woman's deed, although the motive of her action is not mere curiosity, as in the tale of Pandora, but the more potent passion of revenge—or, rather, of that vengeful retribution of thelex talioniswhich is the primitive image of justice. In an intimate fashion, too, the story gives us the spirit of Kenaima at work, while itsdénouementsuggests that the restless Orehu, the Woman of the Waters, may be none other than the authoress of evil, the liberatress of ills.
In a time long past, so long past that even the grandmothers of our grandmothers were not yet born, the Caribs of Surinam say, the world was quite other than what it is today: the trees were forever in fruit; the animals lived in perfect harmony, and the little agouti played fearlessly with the beard of the jaguar; the serpents had no venom; the rivers flowed evenly, without drought or flood; and even the waters of cascades glided gently down from the high rocks. No human creature had as yet come into life, and Adaheli, whom now we invoke as God, but who then was called the Sun, was troubled. He descended from the skies, and shortly after man was born from the cayman, born, men and women, in the two sexes. The females were all of a ravishing beauty, but many of the males had repellent features; and this was the cause of their dispersion, since the men of fair visage, unable to endure dwelling with their ugly fellows, separated from them, going to the West, while the hideous men went to the East, each party taking the wives whom they had chosen.
Now in the tribe of the handsome Indians lived a certain young man, Maconaura, and his aged mother. The youth was altogether charming—tall and graceful, with no equal in hunting and fishing, while all men brought their baskets to him for the final touch; nor was his old mother less skilled in the making of hammocks, preparation of cassava, or brewing oftapana. They lived in harmony with one another and with all their tribe, suffering neither from excessive heat nor from foggy chill, and free from evil beasts, for none existed in that region.
One day, however, Maconaura found his basket-net broken and his fish devoured, a thing such as had never happened in the history of the tribe; and so he placed a woodpecker on guard when next he set his trap; but though he ran with all haste when he heard thetoc! toc!of the signal, he came too late; again the fish were devoured, and the net was broken. With cuckoo as guard he fared better, for when he heard thepon! pon!which was this bird's signal, he arrived in time to send an arrow between the ugly eyes of a cayman, which disappeared beneath the waters with aglou! glou!Maconaura repaired his basket-net and departed, only to hear again the signal,pon! pon!Returning, he found a beautiful Indian maiden in tears. "Who are you?" he asked. "Anuanaïtu," she replied. "Whence come you?" "From far, far." "Who are your kindred?" "Oh, ask me not that!" and she covered her face with her hands.
The maiden, who was little more than a child, lived with Maconaura and his mother; and as she grew, she increased in beauty, so that Maconaura desired to wed her. At first she refused with tears, but finally she consented, though the union lacked correctness in that Maconaura had not secured the consent of her parents, whose name she still refused to divulge. For a while the married pair lived happily until Anuanaïtu was seized with a great desire to visit her mother; but when Maconaura would go with her, she, in terror, urged the abandonment of the trip, only to find her husband so determined that he said, "Then I will go alone to ask you in marriage of your kin." "Never, never that!" cried Anuanaïtu; "That would be to destroy us all, us two and your dear mother!" But Maconaura was not to be dissuaded, for he had consulted a peaiman who had assured him that he would return safely; and so he set forth with his bride.
After several weeks their canoe reached an encampment, and Anuanaïtu said: "We are arrived; I will go in search of my mother. She will bring to you a gourd filled with blood andraw meat, and another filled withbeltiri[a fermented liquor] and cassava bread. Our lot depends on your choice." The young man, when his mother-in-law appeared, unhesitatingly took thebeltiriand bread, whereupon the old woman said, "You have chosen well; I give my consent to your marriage, but I fear that my husband will oppose it strongly." Kaikoutji ("Jaguar") was the husband's name. The two women went in advance to test his temper toward Maconaura's suit; but his rage was great, and it was necessary to hide the youth in the forest until at last Kaikoutji was mollified to such a degree that he consented to see the young man, only to have his anger roused again at the sight, so that he cried, "How dare you approach me?" Maconaura responded: "True, my marriage with your daughter is not according to the rites. But I am come to make reparation. I will make for you whatever you desire." "Make me, then," cried the other contemptuously, "ahalla[sorcerer's stool] with the head of a jaguar on one side and my portrait on the other." By midnight Maconaura had completed the work, excepting for the portrait; but here was a difficulty, for Kaikoutji kept his head covered with a calabash, pierced only with eye-holes; and when Maconaura asked his wife to describe her parent, she replied: "Impossible! My father is a peaiman; he knows all; he would kill us both." Maconaura concealed himself near the hammock of his father-in-law, in hopes of seeing his face; and first, a louse, then, a spider, came to annoy Kaikoutji, who killed them both without showing his visage. Finally, however, an army of ants attacked him furiously, and the peaiman, rising up in consternation, revealed himself—his whole horrible head. Maconaura appeared with thehalla, completed, when morning came. "That will not suffice," said Kaikoutji, "in a single night you must make for me a lodge formed entirely of the most beautiful feathers." The young man felt himself lost, but multitudes of humming-birds and jacamars and others of brilliant plumage cast their feathers down to him, so that thelodge was finished before daybreak, whereupon Maconaura was received as the recognized husband of Anuanaïtu.