CHAPTER VI.

“O vièrge, quand pourrai-je te posséder pour ma compagne cherie?Combien de temps faut-il encore que tes vœux soient accomplis?Dis-moi le jour qui doit devancer la belle nuit où tous deux,Alimenterons le feu qui nous fit naitre et que nous devonsperpetuer.”147-1

There is a bright as well as a dark side even to such a worship. In Mexico, Peru, and Yucatan, the women who watched the flames must be undoubted virgins; they were usually of noble blood, and must vow eternal chastity, or at least were free to none but the ruler of the realm. As long as they were consecrated to the fire, so long any carnal ardor was degrading to their lofty duties. The sentiment of shame, one of the first we find developed, led to the belief that to forego fleshly pleasures was a meritorious sacrifice in the eyes of the gods. In this persuasion certain of the Aztec priests practised complete abscission or entire discerption of the virile parts, and a mutilation of females was not unknown similar to that immemorially a custom inEgypt.147-2Such enforced celibacy was, however, neither common nor popular. Circumcision, if it can be proven to have existed among the red race—and though there are plenty of assertions to that effect, they are not satisfactory to an anatomist—was probably a symbolic renunciation of the lusts of the flesh. The same cannotbe said of the very common custom with the Aztec race of anointing their idols with blood drawn from the genitals, the tongue, and the ears. This was simply a form of those voluntary scarifications, universally employed to mark contrition or grief by savage tribes, and nowhere more in vogue than with the red race.

There was an ancient Christian heresy which taught that the true way to conquer the passions was to satiate them, and therefore preached unbounded licentiousness. Whether this agreeable doctrine was known to the Indians I cannot say, but it is certainly the most creditable explanation that can be suggested for the miscellaneous congress which very often terminated their dances and ceremonies. Such orgies were of common occurrence among the Algonkins and Iroquois at a very early date, and are often mentioned in the Jesuit Relations; Venegas describes them as frequent among the tribes of Lower California; and Oviedo refers to certain festivals of the Nicaraguans, during which the women of all rank extended to whosoever wished just such privileges as the matrons of ancient Babylon, that mother of harlots and all abominations, used to grant even to slaves and strangers in the temple of Melitta, as one of the duties of religion. But in fact there is no ground whatever to invest these debauches with any recondite meaning. They are simply indications of the thorough and utter immorality which prevailed throughout the race. And a still more disgusting proof of it is seen in the frequent appearance among diverse tribes of men dressed as women and yielding themselves to indescribablevices.149-1There was at first nothing of a religious nature in such exhibitions. Lascivious priests chose at times to invest them with some such meaning for their own sensual gratification, just as in Brazil they still claim thejus primænoctis.149-2The pretended phallic worship of the Natchez and of Culhuacan, cited by the Abbé Brasseur, rests on no good authority, and if true, is like that of the Huastecas of Panuco, nothing but an unrestrained and boundless profligacy which it were an absurdity to call areligion.149-3That which Mr. Stephens attempts to show existed once inYucatan,149-4rests entirely by his own statement on a fancied resemblance of no value whatever, and the arguments of Lafitau to the same effect are quite insufficient. There is a decided indecency in the remains of ancient American art, especially in Peru (Meyen), and great lubricity in many ceremonies, but the proof is altogether wanting to bind these with the recognition of a fecundating principle throughout nature, or, indeed, to suppose for them any other origin than the promptings of an impure fancy. I even doubt whether they often referred to fire as the deity of sexual love.

By a flight of fancy inspired by a study of oriental mythology, the worship of the reciprocal principle in America has been connected with that of the sun and moon, as the primitive pair from whose fecund union all creatures proceeded. It is sufficient to sayif such a myth exists among the Indians—which is questionable—it justifies no such deduction; that the moon is often mentioned in their languages merely as the “night sun;” and that in such important stocks as the Iroquois, Athapascas, Cherokees, and Tupis, the sun is said to be a feminine noun; while the myths represent them more frequently as brother and sister than as man and wife; nor did at least the northern tribes regard the sun as the cause of fecundity in nature at all, but solely as giving light andwarmth.150-1

In contrast to this, so much the more positive was their association of theTHUNDER-STORMas that which brings both warmth and rain with the renewed vernal life of vegetation. The impressive phenomena which characterize it, the prodigious noise, the awful flash, the portentous gloom, the blast, the rain, have left a profound impression on the myths of every land. Fire from water, warmth and moisture from the destructive breath of the tempest, this was the riddle of riddles to the untutored mind. “Out of the eater came forth meat, out of the strong came forth sweetness.” It was the visible synthesis of all the divine manifestations, the winds, the waters, and the flames.

The Dakotas conceived it as a struggle between the god of waters and the thunder bird for the command of theirnation,150-2and as a bird, one of those which make a whirring sound with their wings, the turkey, the pheasant, or the nighthawk, it was very generally depicted by their neighbors, the Athapascas,Iroquois, andAlgonkins.151-1As the herald of the summer it was to them a good omen and a friendly power. It was the voice of the Great Spirit of the four winds speaking from the clouds and admonishing them that the time of corn planting was athand.151-2The flames kindled by the lightning were of a sacred nature, proper to be employed in lighting the fires of the religious rites, but on no account to be profaned by the base uses of daily life. When the flash entered the ground it scattered in all directions those stones, such as the flint, which betray their supernal origin by a gleam of fire when struck. These were the thunderbolts, and from such an one, significantly painted red, the Dakotas averred their race hadproceeded.151-3For are we not all in a sense indebted for our lives to fire? “There is no end to the fancies entertained by the Sioux concerning thunder,” observes Mrs. Eastman. They typified the paradoxical nature of the storm under the character of the giant Haokah. To him cold was heat, and heat cold; when sad he laughed, when merry groaned; the sides of his face and his eyes were of different colors and expressions; he wore horns or a forked headdress to represent the lightning, and with his hands he hurled the meteors. His manifestations were fourfold, andone of the four winds was the drum-stick he used to produce thethunder.152-1

Omitting many others, enough that the sameness of this conception is illustrated by the myth of Tupa, highest god and first man of the Tupis of Brazil. During his incarnation, he taught them agriculture, gave them fire, the cane, and the pisang, and now in the form of a huge bird sweeps over the heavens, watching his children and watering their crops, admonishing them of his presence by the mighty sound of his voice, the rustling of his wings, and the flash of his eye. These are the thunder, the lightning, and the roar of the tempest. He is depicted with horns; he was one of four brothers, and only after a desperate struggle did he drive his fraternal rivals from the field. In his worship, the priests place pebbles in a dry gourd, deck it with feathers and arrows, and rattling it vigorously, reproduce in miniature the tremendous drama of thestorm.152-2

As nations rose in civilization these fancies put on a more complex form and a more poetic fulness. Throughout the realm of the Incas the Peruvians venerated as creator of all things, maker of heaven and earth, and ruler of the firmament, the god Ataguju. The legend was that from him proceeded the first of mortals, the man Guamansuri, who descended to the earth and there seduced the sister of certain Guachemines, rayless ones, or Darklings, who then possessed it. For this crime they destroyed him, but their sister proved pregnant, and died in her labor, giving birthto two eggs. From these emerged the twin brothers, Apocatequil and Piguerao. The former was the more powerful. By touching the corpse of his mother he brought her to life, he drove off and slew the Guachemines, and, directed by Ataguju, released the race of Indians from the soil by turning it up with a spade of gold. For this reason they adored him as their maker. He it was, they thought, who produced the thunder and the lightning by hurling stones with his sling; and the thunderbolts that fall, said they, are his children. Few villages were willing to be without one or more of these. They were in appearance small, round, smooth stones, but had the admirable properties of securing fertility to the fields, protecting from lightning, and, by a transition easy to understand, were also adored as gods of the Fire, as well material as of the passions, and were capable of kindling the dangerous flames of desire in the most frigid bosom. Therefore they were in great esteem as love charms.

Apocatequil’s statue was erected on the mountains, with that of his mother on one hand, and his brother on the other. “He was Prince of Evil and the most respected god of the Peruvians. From Quito to Cuzco not an Indian but would give all he possessed to conciliate him. Five priests, two stewards, and a crowd of slaves served his image. And his chief temple was surrounded by a very considerable village whose inhabitants had no other occupation than to wait on him.” In memory of these brothers, twins in Peru were deemed always sacred to the lightning, and when a woman or even a llama brought them forth, a fast was held and sacrifices offered to the two pristine brothers, with a chant commencing:A chuchu cachiqui, O Thou who causest twins, words mistaken by the Spaniards for the name of adeity.154-1

Garcilasso de la Vega, a descendant of the Incas, has preserved an ancient indigenous poem of his nation, presenting the storm myth in a different form,which as undoubtedly authentic and not devoid of poetic beauty I translate, preserving as much as possible the trochaic tetrasyllabic verse of the original Quichua:—

“Beauteous princess,Lo, thy brotherBreaks thy vesselNow in fragments.From the blow comeThunder, lightning,Strokes of lightning.And thou, princess,Tak’st the water,With it rainest,And the hail, orSnow dispensest.Viracocha,World constructor,World enliv’ner,To this officeThee appointed,Thee created.”155-1

In this pretty waif that has floated down to us from the wreck of a literature now forever lost, there is more than one point to attract the notice of the antiquary. He may find in it a hint to decipher those names of divinities so common in Peruvian legends, Contici and Illatici. Both mean “the Thunder Vase,” and both doubtless refer to the conception here displayed of the phenomena of thethunder-storm.155-2

Again, twice in this poem is the triple nature of the storm adverted to. This is observable in many of the religions of America. It constitutes a sort of Trinity, not in any point resembling that of Christianity, nor yet the Trimurti of India, but the only one in the New World the least degree authenticated, and which, as half seen by ignorant monks, has caused its due amount of sterile astonishment. Thus, in the Quiché legends we read: “The first of Hurakan is the lightning, the second the track of the lightning, and the third the stroke of the lightning; and these three are Hurakan, the Heart of theSky.”156-1It reappears with characteristic uniformity of outline in Iroquois mythology. Heno, the thunder, gathers the clouds and pours out the warm rains. Therefore he was the patron of husbandry. He was invoked at seed time and harvest; and as purveyor of nourishment he was addressed as grandfather, and his worshippers styled themselves his grandchildren. He rode through the heavens on the clouds, and the thunderbolts which split the forest trees were the stones he hurled at his enemies.Threeassistants were assigned him, whose names have unfortunately not been recorded, and whose offices were apparently similar to those of the three companions ofHurakan.156-2

So also the Aztecs supposed that Tlaloc, god ofrains 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 thethunder.157-1

But this conception of three in one was above the comprehension of the masses, and consequently these deities were also spoken of as fourfold in nature, threeandone. Moreover, as has already been pointed out, the thunder god was usually ruler of the winds, and thus another reason for his quadruplicate nature was suggested. Hurakan, Haokah, Tlaloc, and probably Heno, are plural as well as singular nouns, and are used as nominatives to verbs in both numbers. Tlaloc was appealed to as inhabiting each of the cardinal points and every mountain top. His statue rested on a square stone pedestal, facing the east, and had in one hand a serpent of gold. Ribbons of silver, crossing to form squares, covered the robe, and the shield was composed of feathers of four colors, yellow, green, red, and blue. Before it was a vase containing all sorts of grain; and the clouds were called his companions, the winds hismessengers.157-2As elsewhere, the thunderbolts were believed to be flints, and thus, as the emblem of fire and the storm, this stone figures conspicuously in their myths. Tohil, the god who gave the Quichés fire by shaking his sandals, was represented by a flint-stone. He is distinctly said to be the same as Quetzalcoatl, one of whose commonest symbols was a flint (tecpatl). Such a stone, in the beginning of things, fell from heavento earth, and broke into 1600 pieces, each of which sprang up agod;158-1an ancient legend, which shadows forth the subjection of all things to him who gathers the clouds from the four corners of the earth, who thunders with his voice, who satisfies with his rain “the desolate and waste ground, and causes the tender herb to spring forth.” This is the germ of the adoration of stones as emblems of the fecundating rains. This is why, for example, the Navajos use as their charm for rain certain long round stones, which they think fall from the cloud when itthunders.158-2

Mixcoatl, the Cloud Serpent, or Iztac-Mixcoatl, the White or Gleaming Cloud Serpent, said to have been the only divinity of the ancient Chichimecs, held in high honor by the Nahuas, Nicaraguans, and Otomis, and identical with Taras, supreme god of the Tarascos and Camaxtli, god of the Teo-Chichimecs, is another personification of the thunder-storm. To this day this is the familiar name of the tropical tornado in the Mexicanlanguage.158-3He was represented, like Jove, with a bundle of arrows in his hand, the thunderbolts. Both the Nahuas and Tarascos related legends in which he figured as father of the race of man. Like other lords of the lightning he was worshipped as the dispenser of riches and the patron of traffic; and in Nicaragua his image is described as being “engravedstones,”158-4probably the supposed products of the thunder.

124-1A. D’Orbigny,L’Homme Américain, i. p. 240.125-1Rivero and Tschudi,Peruvian Antiquities, 162, after J. Acosta.125-2Narrative ofOceola Nikkanoche, Prince of Econchatti, p. 141; Schoolcraft,Ind. Tribes, iv. p. 650.126-1The term in Maya iscaput zihil, corresponding exactly to the Latinrenasci, to be re-born, Landa,Rel. de Yucatan, p. 144.126-2Dumont,Mems. Hist. sur la Louisiane, i. p. 233.127-1Acosta,Hist. of the New World, lib. v. cap. 25.127-2Senate Report on Condition of Indian Tribes, p. 358: Washington, 1867.128-1Sahagun,Hist. de la Nueva España, lib. vi. cap. 37.128-2Ternaux-Compans,Pièces rel. à la Conq. du Mexique, p. 233.128-3Velasco,Hist. de la Royaume de Quito, p. 106, and others.128-4Whipple,Rep. on the Indian Tribes, p. 35. I am not sure that this practice was of native growth to the Cherokees. This people have many customs and traditions strangely similar to those of Christians and Jews. Their cosmogony is a paraphrase of that of Genesis (Squier,Serp. Symbol, from Payne’s MSS.); the number seven is as sacred with them as it was with the Chaldeans (Whipple, u. s.); and they have improved and increased by contact with the whites. Significant in this connection is the remark of Bartram, who visited them in 1773, that some of their females were “nearly as fair and blooming as European women,” and generally that their complexion was lighter than their neighbors (Travels, p. 485). Two explanations of these facts may be suggested. They may be descendants in part of the ancient white race near Cape Hatteras, to whom I have referred in a previous note. More probably they derived their peculiarities from the Spaniards of Florida. Mr. Shea is of opinion that missions were established among them as early as 1566 and 1643 (Hist. of Catholic Missions in the U. S., pp. 58, 73). Certainly in the latter half of the seventeenth century the Spaniards were prosecuting mining operations in their territory (SeeAm. Hist. Mag., x. p. 137).129-1Sprague,Hist. of the Florida War, p. 328.129-2Basanier,Histoire Notable de la Floride, p. 10.130-1Sahagun,Hist. de la Nueva España, lib. iii. app. cap. i.; Meyen,Ueber die Ureinwohner von Peru, p. 29.130-2Gabriel Thomas,Hist. of West New Jersey, p. 6: London, 1698.131-1Gama,Des. de las dos Piedras, etc., i. p. 36.131-2Garcia,Or. de los Indios, p. 109.131-3Oviedo,Rel. de la Prov. de Nicaragua, p. 41. The name is a corruption of the AztecQuiauhteotl, Rain-God.132-1Gumilla,Hist. del Orinoco, ii. cap. 23.132-2Doc. Hist. of New York, iv. p. 130.132-3Gama,Des. de las dos Piedras, ii. p. 41; Gallatin,Trans. Am. Ethnol. Soc., i. p. 343.133-1Adrian Van Helmont,Workes, p. 142, fol.: London, 1662.133-2The moon isnipaornipaz;nipa, I sleep;nipawi, night;nip, I die;nepua, dead;nipanoue, cold. This odd relationship was first pointed out by Volney (Duponceau,Langues de l’Amérique du Nord, p. 317). But the kinship of these words to that for water,nip,nipi,nepi, has not before been noticed. This proves the association of ideas on which I lay so much stress in mythology. A somewhat similar relationship exists in the Aztec and cognate languages,miqui, to die,micqui, dead,mictlan, the realm of death,te-miqui, to dream,cec-miqui, to freeze. Would it be going too far to connect these withmetzli, moon? (See Buschmann,Spuren der Aztekischen Sprache im Nördlichen Mexico, p. 80.)133-3Schoolcraft,Ind. Tribes, vol. iii. p. 485.134-1Rel. de la Nouv. France, 1634, p. 16.134-2Humboldt,Vues des Cordillères, p. 21.134-3Spix and Martius,Travels in Brazil, ii. p. 247.134-4Hist. de la Médecine, i. p. 34.134-5Gama,Des. de las dos Piedras, etc., ii. pp. 100-102. Compare Sahagun,Hist. de la Nueva España, lib. i. cap. vi.135-1Codex Chimalpopoca, in Brasseur,Hist. du Mexique, i. p. 183. Gama and others translate Nanahuatl byel buboso, Brasseur byle syphilitique, and the latter founds certain medical speculations on the word. It is entirely unnecessary to say to a surgeon that it could not possibly have had the latter meaning, inasmuch as the diagnosis between secondary or tertiary syphilis and other similar diseases was unknown. That it is so employed now is nothing to the purpose. The same or a similar myth was found in Central America and on the Island of Haiti.136-1Rel. de la Nouv. France, 1648, p. 75.136-2Charlevoix is in error when he identifies Michabo with the Spirit of the Waters, and may be corrected from his own statements elsewhere. Compare hisJournal Historique, pp. 281 and 344: ed. Paris, 1740.137-1Bradford,American Antiquities, p. 833; Martius,Von dem Rechtszustande unter den Ureinwohnern Brasiliens, p. 32; Schoolcraft,Ind. Tribes, i. p. 271.138-1La Vega,Hist. des Incas, liv. vi. cap. 9.138-2Lett. sur les Superstitions du Pérou, p. 111.138-3Schoolcraft,Ind. Tribes, iv. p. 224.139-1Chantico, according to Gama, means “Wolf’s Head,” though I cannot verify this from the vocabularies within my reach. He is sometimes called Cohuaxolotl Chantico, the snake-servant Chantico, considered by Gama as one, by Torquemada as two deities (see Gama,Des. de las dos Piedras, etc., i. p. 12; ii. p. 66). The English wordcanticoin the phrase, for instance, “to cut a cantico,” though an Indian word, is not from this, but from the Algonkin Delawaregentkehn, to dance a sacred dance. The Dutch describe it as “a religious custom observed among them before death” (Doc. Hist. of New York, iv. p. 63). William Penn says of the Lenape, “their worship consists of two parts, sacrifice and cantico,” the latter “performed by round dances, sometimes words, sometimes songs, then shouts; their postures very antic and differing.” (Letter to the Free Society of Traders, 1683, sec. 21.)139-2Charlevoix,Hist. Gén. de la Nouv. France, i. p. 394: Paris, 1740. On the different species of dogs indigenous to America, see a note of Alex. von Humboldt,Ansichten der Natur., i. p. 134. It may be noticed that Chichimec, properly Chichimecatl, the name of the Aztec tribe who succeeded the ancient Toltecs in Mexico, means literally “people of the dog,” and was probably derived from some mythological fable connected with that animal.140-1Narr. of the Captiv. of John Tanner, p. 362. From the word for fire in many American tongues is formed the adjectivered. Thus, Algonkin,skoda, fire,miskoda, red; Kolosch,kan, fire,kan, red; Ugalentz,takak, fire,takak-uete, red; Tahkali,cūn, fire,tenil-cūn, red; Quiche,cak, fire,cak, red, etc. From the adjectiveredcomes often the word forblood, and in symbolism the color red may refer to either of these ideas. It was the royal color of the Incas, brothers of the sun, and a llama swathed in a red garment was the Peruvian sacrifice to fire (Garcia,Or. de los Indios, lib. iv. caps. 16, 19). On the other hand the war quipus, the war wampum, and the war paint were all of this hue, boding their sanguinary significance. The word for fire in the language of the Delawares, Nanticokes, and neighboring tribes puzzles me. It istaendaortinda. This is the Swedish wordtaenda, from whose root comes ourtinder. Yet it is found in vocabularies as early as 1650, and is universally current to-day. It has no resemblance to the word for fire in pure Algonkin. Was it adopted from the Swedes? Was it introduced by wandering Vikings in remote centuries? Or is it only a coincidence?141-1Compare D’Orbigny,L’Homme Américain, i. p. 243, Müller,Amer. Urreligionen, p. 51, and Squier,Serpent Symbol in America, p. 111. This is a striking instance of the confusion of ideas introduced by false systems of study, and also of the considerable misapprehension of American mythology which has hitherto prevailed.142-1La Hontan,Voy. dans l’Amér. Sept., p. ii. 127;Rel. Nouv. France, 1637, p. 54.142-2Copway,Trad. Hist. of the Ojibway Nation, p. 165.Kesuchin Algonkin signifies both sky and sun (Duponceau,Langues de l’Amér. du Nord, p. 312). So apparently doeskinin the Maya.142-3Payne’s manuscripts quoted by Mr. Squier in his Serpent Symbol in America were compiled within this century, and from the extracts given can be of no great value.143-1The words for fire and sun in American languages are usually from distinct roots, but besides the example of the Natchez I may instance to the contrary the Kolosch of British America, in whose tongue fire iskan, sun,kakan(gake, great), and the Tezuque of New Mexico, who usetahfor both sun and fire.144-1Doc. Hist. of New York, ii. p. 634.144-2Emory,Milt’yReconnoissanceof New Mexico, p. 30.144-3Narrative of John Tanner, p. 161.144-4Loskiel,Ges. der Miss. der evang. Brüder, p. 55.144-5Nar. of John Tanner, p. 351.144-6Sahagun,Hist. Nueva España, lib. vi. cap. 4.145-1Letts. Edifiantes et Curieuses, iv. p. 104, Oviedo;Hist. du Nicaragua, p. 49;Gumilla,Hist. del Orinoco, ii. cap. 2.145-2Oviedo,Hist. Gen. de las Indias, p. 16, in Barcia’sHist. Prim.145-3Presdt’s Message and Docs.for 1851, pt. iii. p. 506.146-1Sahagun,Hist. de la Nueva España, i. cap. 13.147-1Voyage Pittoresque dans le Yucatan, p. 49.147-2Davila Padilla,Hist. de la Prov. de Santiago de Mexico, lib. ii. cap. 88 (Brusselas, 1625); Palacios,Des. de Guatemala, p. 40; Garcia,Or. de los Indios, p. 124. To such an extent did the priests of the Algonkin tribes who lived near Manhattan Island carry their austerity, such uncompromising celibates were they, that it is said on authority as old as 1624, that they never so much as partook of food prepared by a married woman. (Doc. Hist. New York, iv. p. 28.)149-1Martius,Von dem Rechtzustande unter den Ureinwohnern Brasiliens, p. 28, gives many references.149-2Id.ibid., p. 61.149-3Le Livre Sacré des Quichés, Introd., pp. clxi., clxix.149-4Travels in Yucatan, i. p. 434.150-1Schoolcraft,Ind. Tribes, v. pp. 416, 417.150-2Mrs. Eastman,Legends of the Sioux, p. 161.151-1Rel. de la Nouv. France, 1634, p. 27; Schoolcraft,Algic Researches, ii. p. 116;Ind. Tribes, v. p. 420.151-2De Smet,Western Missions, p. 135; Schoolcraft,Ind. Tribes, i. p. 319.151-3Mrs. Eastman,Legends of the Sioux, p. 72. By another legend they claimed that their first ancestor obtained his fire from the sparks which a friendly panther struck from the rocks as he scampered up a stony hill (McCoy,Hist. of Baptist Indian Missions, p. 364).152-1Mrs. Eastman, ubi sup., p. 158; Schoolcraft,Ind. Tribes, iv. p. 645.152-2Waitz,Anthropologie, iii. p. 417; Müller,Am. Urrelig., p. 271.154-1On the myth of Catequil see particularly theLettre sur les Superstitions du Pérou, p. 95 sqq., and compare Montesinos,Ancien Pérou, chaps. ii., xx. The letters g and j do not exist in Quichua, therefore Ataguju should doubtless readAta-chuchu, which means lord, or ruler of the twins, fromatiroot ofatini, I am able, I control, andchuchu, twins. The change of the rootatitoata, though uncommon in Quichua, occurs also inata-hualpa, cock, fromatiandhualpa, fowl. Apo-Catequil, or as given by Arriaga, another old writer on Peruvian idolatry, Apocatequilla, I take to be properlyapu-ccatec-quilla, which literally meanschief of the followers of the moon. Acosta mentions that the native name for various constellations wascatachillayorcatuchillay, doubtless corruptions ofccatec quilla, literally “following the moon.” Catequil, therefore, the dark spirit of the storm rack, was also appropriately enough, and perhaps primarily, lord of the night and stars. Piguerao, where the g appears again, is probably a compound ofpiscu, bird, anduira, white. Guachemines seems clearly the wordhuachi, a ray of light or an arrow, with the negative suffixymana, thus meaning rayless, as in the text, orymanamay mean an excess as well as a want of anything beyond what is natural, which would give the signification “very bright shining.” (Holguin,Arte de la Lengua Quichua, p. 106: Cuzco, 1607.) Is this sister of theirs the Dawn, who, as in the Rig Veda, brings forth at the cost of her own life the white and dark twins, the Day and the Night, the latter of whom drives from the heavens the far-shooting arrows of light, in order that he may restore his mother again to life? The answer may for the present be deferred. It is a coincidence perhaps worth mentioning that the Augustin monk who is our principal authority for this legend mentions two other twin deities, Yamo and Yama, whose names are almost identical with the twins Yama and Yami of the Veda.155-1Hist. des Incas, liv. ii. cap. 28, and corrected in Markham’sQuichua Grammar.155-2The latter is a compound ofticiorticcu, a vase, andylla, the root ofyllani, to shine,yllapantac, it thunders and lightens. The former is fromticiandcunorcon, whence by reduplicationcun-un-un-an, it thunders. Fromcunandtura, brother, is probably derivedcuntur, the condor, the flying thunder-cloud being looked upon as a great bird also. Dr. Waitz has pointed out that the Araucanians call by the titlecon, the messenger who summons their chieftains to a general council.156-1Le Livre Sacré, p. 9. The name of the lightning in Quiché iscak ul ha, literally, “fire coming from water.”156-2Morgan,League of the Iroquois, p. 158.157-1“El rayo, el relámpago, y el trueno.” Gama,Des. de las dos Piedras, etc., ii. p. 76: Mexico, 1832.157-2Torquemada,Monarquia Indiana, lib. vi. cap. 23. Gama, ubi sup. ii. 76, 77.158-1Torquemada, ibid., lib. vi. cap. 41.158-2Senate Report on the Indian Tribes, p. 358: Washington, 1867.158-3Brasseur,Histdu Mexique, i. p. 201, and on the extent of his worship Waitz,Anthropol., iv. p. 144.158-4Oviedo,Hist. du Nicaragua, p. 47.

124-1A. D’Orbigny,L’Homme Américain, i. p. 240.

125-1Rivero and Tschudi,Peruvian Antiquities, 162, after J. Acosta.

125-2Narrative ofOceola Nikkanoche, Prince of Econchatti, p. 141; Schoolcraft,Ind. Tribes, iv. p. 650.

126-1The term in Maya iscaput zihil, corresponding exactly to the Latinrenasci, to be re-born, Landa,Rel. de Yucatan, p. 144.

126-2Dumont,Mems. Hist. sur la Louisiane, i. p. 233.

127-1Acosta,Hist. of the New World, lib. v. cap. 25.

127-2Senate Report on Condition of Indian Tribes, p. 358: Washington, 1867.

128-1Sahagun,Hist. de la Nueva España, lib. vi. cap. 37.

128-2Ternaux-Compans,Pièces rel. à la Conq. du Mexique, p. 233.

128-3Velasco,Hist. de la Royaume de Quito, p. 106, and others.

128-4Whipple,Rep. on the Indian Tribes, p. 35. I am not sure that this practice was of native growth to the Cherokees. This people have many customs and traditions strangely similar to those of Christians and Jews. Their cosmogony is a paraphrase of that of Genesis (Squier,Serp. Symbol, from Payne’s MSS.); the number seven is as sacred with them as it was with the Chaldeans (Whipple, u. s.); and they have improved and increased by contact with the whites. Significant in this connection is the remark of Bartram, who visited them in 1773, that some of their females were “nearly as fair and blooming as European women,” and generally that their complexion was lighter than their neighbors (Travels, p. 485). Two explanations of these facts may be suggested. They may be descendants in part of the ancient white race near Cape Hatteras, to whom I have referred in a previous note. More probably they derived their peculiarities from the Spaniards of Florida. Mr. Shea is of opinion that missions were established among them as early as 1566 and 1643 (Hist. of Catholic Missions in the U. S., pp. 58, 73). Certainly in the latter half of the seventeenth century the Spaniards were prosecuting mining operations in their territory (SeeAm. Hist. Mag., x. p. 137).

129-1Sprague,Hist. of the Florida War, p. 328.

129-2Basanier,Histoire Notable de la Floride, p. 10.

130-1Sahagun,Hist. de la Nueva España, lib. iii. app. cap. i.; Meyen,Ueber die Ureinwohner von Peru, p. 29.

130-2Gabriel Thomas,Hist. of West New Jersey, p. 6: London, 1698.

131-1Gama,Des. de las dos Piedras, etc., i. p. 36.

131-2Garcia,Or. de los Indios, p. 109.

131-3Oviedo,Rel. de la Prov. de Nicaragua, p. 41. The name is a corruption of the AztecQuiauhteotl, Rain-God.

132-1Gumilla,Hist. del Orinoco, ii. cap. 23.

132-2Doc. Hist. of New York, iv. p. 130.

132-3Gama,Des. de las dos Piedras, ii. p. 41; Gallatin,Trans. Am. Ethnol. Soc., i. p. 343.

133-1Adrian Van Helmont,Workes, p. 142, fol.: London, 1662.

133-2The moon isnipaornipaz;nipa, I sleep;nipawi, night;nip, I die;nepua, dead;nipanoue, cold. This odd relationship was first pointed out by Volney (Duponceau,Langues de l’Amérique du Nord, p. 317). But the kinship of these words to that for water,nip,nipi,nepi, has not before been noticed. This proves the association of ideas on which I lay so much stress in mythology. A somewhat similar relationship exists in the Aztec and cognate languages,miqui, to die,micqui, dead,mictlan, the realm of death,te-miqui, to dream,cec-miqui, to freeze. Would it be going too far to connect these withmetzli, moon? (See Buschmann,Spuren der Aztekischen Sprache im Nördlichen Mexico, p. 80.)

133-3Schoolcraft,Ind. Tribes, vol. iii. p. 485.

134-1Rel. de la Nouv. France, 1634, p. 16.

134-2Humboldt,Vues des Cordillères, p. 21.

134-3Spix and Martius,Travels in Brazil, ii. p. 247.

134-4Hist. de la Médecine, i. p. 34.

134-5Gama,Des. de las dos Piedras, etc., ii. pp. 100-102. Compare Sahagun,Hist. de la Nueva España, lib. i. cap. vi.

135-1Codex Chimalpopoca, in Brasseur,Hist. du Mexique, i. p. 183. Gama and others translate Nanahuatl byel buboso, Brasseur byle syphilitique, and the latter founds certain medical speculations on the word. It is entirely unnecessary to say to a surgeon that it could not possibly have had the latter meaning, inasmuch as the diagnosis between secondary or tertiary syphilis and other similar diseases was unknown. That it is so employed now is nothing to the purpose. The same or a similar myth was found in Central America and on the Island of Haiti.

136-1Rel. de la Nouv. France, 1648, p. 75.

136-2Charlevoix is in error when he identifies Michabo with the Spirit of the Waters, and may be corrected from his own statements elsewhere. Compare hisJournal Historique, pp. 281 and 344: ed. Paris, 1740.

137-1Bradford,American Antiquities, p. 833; Martius,Von dem Rechtszustande unter den Ureinwohnern Brasiliens, p. 32; Schoolcraft,Ind. Tribes, i. p. 271.

138-1La Vega,Hist. des Incas, liv. vi. cap. 9.

138-2Lett. sur les Superstitions du Pérou, p. 111.

138-3Schoolcraft,Ind. Tribes, iv. p. 224.

139-1Chantico, according to Gama, means “Wolf’s Head,” though I cannot verify this from the vocabularies within my reach. He is sometimes called Cohuaxolotl Chantico, the snake-servant Chantico, considered by Gama as one, by Torquemada as two deities (see Gama,Des. de las dos Piedras, etc., i. p. 12; ii. p. 66). The English wordcanticoin the phrase, for instance, “to cut a cantico,” though an Indian word, is not from this, but from the Algonkin Delawaregentkehn, to dance a sacred dance. The Dutch describe it as “a religious custom observed among them before death” (Doc. Hist. of New York, iv. p. 63). William Penn says of the Lenape, “their worship consists of two parts, sacrifice and cantico,” the latter “performed by round dances, sometimes words, sometimes songs, then shouts; their postures very antic and differing.” (Letter to the Free Society of Traders, 1683, sec. 21.)

139-2Charlevoix,Hist. Gén. de la Nouv. France, i. p. 394: Paris, 1740. On the different species of dogs indigenous to America, see a note of Alex. von Humboldt,Ansichten der Natur., i. p. 134. It may be noticed that Chichimec, properly Chichimecatl, the name of the Aztec tribe who succeeded the ancient Toltecs in Mexico, means literally “people of the dog,” and was probably derived from some mythological fable connected with that animal.

140-1Narr. of the Captiv. of John Tanner, p. 362. From the word for fire in many American tongues is formed the adjectivered. Thus, Algonkin,skoda, fire,miskoda, red; Kolosch,kan, fire,kan, red; Ugalentz,takak, fire,takak-uete, red; Tahkali,cūn, fire,tenil-cūn, red; Quiche,cak, fire,cak, red, etc. From the adjectiveredcomes often the word forblood, and in symbolism the color red may refer to either of these ideas. It was the royal color of the Incas, brothers of the sun, and a llama swathed in a red garment was the Peruvian sacrifice to fire (Garcia,Or. de los Indios, lib. iv. caps. 16, 19). On the other hand the war quipus, the war wampum, and the war paint were all of this hue, boding their sanguinary significance. The word for fire in the language of the Delawares, Nanticokes, and neighboring tribes puzzles me. It istaendaortinda. This is the Swedish wordtaenda, from whose root comes ourtinder. Yet it is found in vocabularies as early as 1650, and is universally current to-day. It has no resemblance to the word for fire in pure Algonkin. Was it adopted from the Swedes? Was it introduced by wandering Vikings in remote centuries? Or is it only a coincidence?

141-1Compare D’Orbigny,L’Homme Américain, i. p. 243, Müller,Amer. Urreligionen, p. 51, and Squier,Serpent Symbol in America, p. 111. This is a striking instance of the confusion of ideas introduced by false systems of study, and also of the considerable misapprehension of American mythology which has hitherto prevailed.

142-1La Hontan,Voy. dans l’Amér. Sept., p. ii. 127;Rel. Nouv. France, 1637, p. 54.

142-2Copway,Trad. Hist. of the Ojibway Nation, p. 165.Kesuchin Algonkin signifies both sky and sun (Duponceau,Langues de l’Amér. du Nord, p. 312). So apparently doeskinin the Maya.

142-3Payne’s manuscripts quoted by Mr. Squier in his Serpent Symbol in America were compiled within this century, and from the extracts given can be of no great value.

143-1The words for fire and sun in American languages are usually from distinct roots, but besides the example of the Natchez I may instance to the contrary the Kolosch of British America, in whose tongue fire iskan, sun,kakan(gake, great), and the Tezuque of New Mexico, who usetahfor both sun and fire.

144-1Doc. Hist. of New York, ii. p. 634.

144-2Emory,Milt’yReconnoissanceof New Mexico, p. 30.

144-3Narrative of John Tanner, p. 161.

144-4Loskiel,Ges. der Miss. der evang. Brüder, p. 55.

144-5Nar. of John Tanner, p. 351.

144-6Sahagun,Hist. Nueva España, lib. vi. cap. 4.

145-1Letts. Edifiantes et Curieuses, iv. p. 104, Oviedo;Hist. du Nicaragua, p. 49;Gumilla,Hist. del Orinoco, ii. cap. 2.

145-2Oviedo,Hist. Gen. de las Indias, p. 16, in Barcia’sHist. Prim.

145-3Presdt’s Message and Docs.for 1851, pt. iii. p. 506.

146-1Sahagun,Hist. de la Nueva España, i. cap. 13.

147-1Voyage Pittoresque dans le Yucatan, p. 49.

147-2Davila Padilla,Hist. de la Prov. de Santiago de Mexico, lib. ii. cap. 88 (Brusselas, 1625); Palacios,Des. de Guatemala, p. 40; Garcia,Or. de los Indios, p. 124. To such an extent did the priests of the Algonkin tribes who lived near Manhattan Island carry their austerity, such uncompromising celibates were they, that it is said on authority as old as 1624, that they never so much as partook of food prepared by a married woman. (Doc. Hist. New York, iv. p. 28.)

149-1Martius,Von dem Rechtzustande unter den Ureinwohnern Brasiliens, p. 28, gives many references.

149-2Id.ibid., p. 61.

149-3Le Livre Sacré des Quichés, Introd., pp. clxi., clxix.

149-4Travels in Yucatan, i. p. 434.

150-1Schoolcraft,Ind. Tribes, v. pp. 416, 417.

150-2Mrs. Eastman,Legends of the Sioux, p. 161.

151-1Rel. de la Nouv. France, 1634, p. 27; Schoolcraft,Algic Researches, ii. p. 116;Ind. Tribes, v. p. 420.

151-2De Smet,Western Missions, p. 135; Schoolcraft,Ind. Tribes, i. p. 319.

151-3Mrs. Eastman,Legends of the Sioux, p. 72. By another legend they claimed that their first ancestor obtained his fire from the sparks which a friendly panther struck from the rocks as he scampered up a stony hill (McCoy,Hist. of Baptist Indian Missions, p. 364).

152-1Mrs. Eastman, ubi sup., p. 158; Schoolcraft,Ind. Tribes, iv. p. 645.

152-2Waitz,Anthropologie, iii. p. 417; Müller,Am. Urrelig., p. 271.

154-1On the myth of Catequil see particularly theLettre sur les Superstitions du Pérou, p. 95 sqq., and compare Montesinos,Ancien Pérou, chaps. ii., xx. The letters g and j do not exist in Quichua, therefore Ataguju should doubtless readAta-chuchu, which means lord, or ruler of the twins, fromatiroot ofatini, I am able, I control, andchuchu, twins. The change of the rootatitoata, though uncommon in Quichua, occurs also inata-hualpa, cock, fromatiandhualpa, fowl. Apo-Catequil, or as given by Arriaga, another old writer on Peruvian idolatry, Apocatequilla, I take to be properlyapu-ccatec-quilla, which literally meanschief of the followers of the moon. Acosta mentions that the native name for various constellations wascatachillayorcatuchillay, doubtless corruptions ofccatec quilla, literally “following the moon.” Catequil, therefore, the dark spirit of the storm rack, was also appropriately enough, and perhaps primarily, lord of the night and stars. Piguerao, where the g appears again, is probably a compound ofpiscu, bird, anduira, white. Guachemines seems clearly the wordhuachi, a ray of light or an arrow, with the negative suffixymana, thus meaning rayless, as in the text, orymanamay mean an excess as well as a want of anything beyond what is natural, which would give the signification “very bright shining.” (Holguin,Arte de la Lengua Quichua, p. 106: Cuzco, 1607.) Is this sister of theirs the Dawn, who, as in the Rig Veda, brings forth at the cost of her own life the white and dark twins, the Day and the Night, the latter of whom drives from the heavens the far-shooting arrows of light, in order that he may restore his mother again to life? The answer may for the present be deferred. It is a coincidence perhaps worth mentioning that the Augustin monk who is our principal authority for this legend mentions two other twin deities, Yamo and Yama, whose names are almost identical with the twins Yama and Yami of the Veda.

155-1Hist. des Incas, liv. ii. cap. 28, and corrected in Markham’sQuichua Grammar.

155-2The latter is a compound ofticiorticcu, a vase, andylla, the root ofyllani, to shine,yllapantac, it thunders and lightens. The former is fromticiandcunorcon, whence by reduplicationcun-un-un-an, it thunders. Fromcunandtura, brother, is probably derivedcuntur, the condor, the flying thunder-cloud being looked upon as a great bird also. Dr. Waitz has pointed out that the Araucanians call by the titlecon, the messenger who summons their chieftains to a general council.

156-1Le Livre Sacré, p. 9. The name of the lightning in Quiché iscak ul ha, literally, “fire coming from water.”

156-2Morgan,League of the Iroquois, p. 158.

157-1“El rayo, el relámpago, y el trueno.” Gama,Des. de las dos Piedras, etc., ii. p. 76: Mexico, 1832.

157-2Torquemada,Monarquia Indiana, lib. vi. cap. 23. Gama, ubi sup. ii. 76, 77.

158-1Torquemada, ibid., lib. vi. cap. 41.

158-2Senate Report on the Indian Tribes, p. 358: Washington, 1867.

158-3Brasseur,Histdu Mexique, i. p. 201, and on the extent of his worship Waitz,Anthropol., iv. p. 144.

158-4Oviedo,Hist. du Nicaragua, p. 47.

THE SUPREME GODS OF THE RED RACE.

Analysis of American culture myths.—The Manibozho or Michabo of the Algonkins shown to be an impersonation ofLight, a hero of the Dawn, and their highest deity.—The myths of Ioskeha of the Iroquois, Viracocha of the Peruvians, and Quetzalcoatl of the Toltecs essentially the same as that of Michabo.—Other examples.—Ante-Columbian prophecies of the advent of a white race from the east as conquerors.—Rise of later culture myths under similar forms.

Thephilosopher Machiavelli, commenting on the books of Livy, lays it down as a general truth that every form and reform has been brought about by a single individual. Since a remorseless criticism has shorn so many heroes of their laurels, our faith in the maxim of the great Florentine wavers, and the suspicion is created that the popular fancy which personifies under one figure every social revolution is an illusion. It springs from that tendency to hero worship, ineradicable in the heart of the race, which leads every nation to have an ideal, the imagined author of its prosperity, the father of his country, and the focus of its legends. As has been hinted, history is not friendly to their renown, and dissipates them altogether into phantoms of the brain, or sadly dims the lustre of their fame. Arthur, bright star of chivalry, dwindles into a Welsh subaltern; the Cid Campeador, defender of the faith, sells his sword asoften to Moslem as to Christian, andsellsit ever; while Siegfried and Feridun vanish into nothings.

As elsewhere the world over, so in America many tribes had to tell of such a personage, some such august character, who taught them what they knew, the tillage of the soil, the properties of plants, the art of picture writing, the secrets of magic; who founded their institutions and established their religions, who governed them long with glory abroad and peace at home; and finally, did not die, but like Frederick Barbarossa, Charlemagne, King Arthur, and all great heroes, vanished mysteriously, and still lives somewhere, ready at the right moment to return to his beloved people and lead them to victory and happiness. Such to the Algonkins was Michabo or Manibozho, to the Iroquois Ioskeha, Wasi to the Cherokees, Tamoi to the Caribs; so the Mayas had Zamna, the Toltecs Quetzalcoatl, the Muyscas Nemqueteba; such among the Aymaras was Viracocha, among the Mandans Numock-muckenah, and among the natives of the Orinoko Amalivaca; and the catalogue could be extended indefinitely.

It is not always easy to pronounce upon these heroes, whether they belong to history or mythology, their nation’s poetry or its prose. In arriving at a conclusion we must remember that a fiction built on an idea is infinitely more tenacious of life than a story founded on fact. Further, that if a striking similarity in the legends of two such heroes be discovered under circumstances which forbid the thought that one was derived from the other, then both are probably mythical. If this is the case in not two but in half a dozen instances, then the probability amountsto a certainty, and the only task remaining is to explain such narratives on consistent mythological principles. If after sifting out all foreign and later traits, it appears that when first known to Europeans, these heroes were assigned all the attributes of highest divinity, were the imagined creators and rulers of the world, and mightiest of spiritual powers, then their position must be set far higher than that of deified men. They must be accepted as the supreme gods of the red race, the analogues in the western continent of Jupiter, Osiris, and Odin in the eastern, and whatever opinions contrary to this may have been advanced by writers and travellers must be set down to the account of that prevailing ignorance of American mythology which has fathered so many other blunders. To solve these knotty points I shall choose for analysis the culture myths of the Algonkins, the Iroquois, the Toltecs of Mexico, and the Aymaras or Peruvians, guided in my choice by the fact that these four families are the best known, and, in many points of view, the most important on the continent.

From the remotest wilds of the northwest to the coast of the Atlantic, from the southern boundaries of Carolina to the cheerless swamps of Hudson’s Bay, the Algonkins were never tired of gathering around the winter fire and repeating the story of Manibozho or Michabo, the Great Hare. With entire unanimity their various branches, the Powhatans of Virginia, the Lenni Lenape of the Delaware, the warlike hordes of New England, the Ottawas of the far north, and the western tribes perhaps without exception, spoke of “this chimerical beast,” as one of the old missionaries calls it, as their common ancestor. The totem or clan which bore his name was looked up to with peculiar respect. In many of the tales which the whites have preserved of Michabo he seems half awizzard, half a simpleton. He is full of pranks and wiles, but often at a loss for a meal of victuals; ever itching to try his arts magic on great beasts and often meeting ludicrous failures therein; envious of the powers of others, and constantly striving to outdo them in what they do best; in short, little more than a malicious buffoon delighting in practical jokes, and abusing his superhuman powers for selfish and ignoble ends. But this is a low, modern, and corrupt version of the character of Michabo, bearing no more resemblance to his real and ancient one than the language and acts of our Saviour and the apostles in the coarse Mystery Plays of the Middle Ages do to those recorded by the Evangelists.

What he really was we must seek in the accounts of older travellers, in the invocations of the jossakeeds or prophets, and in the part assigned to him in the solemn mysteries of religion. In these we find him portrayed as the patron and founder of the medaworship,162-1the 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, hefashioned the habitable land and set it floating on the waters, till it grew to such a size that a strong young wolf, running constantly, died of old age ere he reached its limits. Under the name Michabo Ovisaketchak, the Great Hare who created the Earth, he was originally the highest divinity recognized by them, “powerful and beneficent beyond all others, maker of the heavens and the world.” He was founder of the medicine hunt in which after appropriate ceremonies and incantations the Indian sleeps, and Michabo appears to him in a dream, and tells him where he may readily kill game. He himself was a mighty hunter of old; one of his footsteps measured eight leagues, the Great Lakes were the beaver dams he built, and when the cataracts impeded his progress he tore them away with his hands. Attentively watching the spider spread its web to trap unwary flies, he devised the art of knitting nets to catch fish, and the signs and charms he tested and handed down to his descendants are of marvellous efficacy in the chase. In the autumn, in “the moon of the falling leaf,” ere he composes himself to his winter’s sleep, he fills his great pipe and takes a god-like smoke. The balmy clouds float over the hills and woodlands, filling the air with the haze of the “Indian summer.”

Sometimes he was said to dwell in the skies with his brother the snow, or, like many great spirits, to have built his wigwam in the far north on some floe of ice in the Arctic Ocean, while the Chipeways localized his birthplace and former home to the Island Michilimakinac at the outlet of Lake Superior. But in the oldest accounts of the missionaries he wasalleged to reside toward the east, and in the holy formulæ of the meda craft, when the winds are invoked to the medicine lodge, the east is summoned in his name, the door opens in that direction, and there, at the edge of the earth, where the sun rises, on the shore of the infinite ocean that surrounds the land, he has his house and sends the luminaries forth on their dailyjournies.164-1

It is passing strange that such an insignificant creature as the rabbit should have received this apotheosis. No explanation of it in the least satisfactory has ever been offered. Some have pointed it out as a senseless, meaningless brute worship. It leads to the suspicion that there may lurk here one of those confusions of words which have so often led to confusion of ideas in mythology. Manibozho, Nanibojou, Missibizi, Michabo, Messou, all variations of the same name in different dialects rendered according to different orthographies, scrutinize them closely as we may, they all seem compounded according to well ascertained laws of Algonkin euphony from the words corresponding togreatandhareorrabbit, or the first two perhaps fromspiritandhare(michi, great,wabos, hare,manito wabos, spirit hare, Chipeway dialect), and so they have invariably been translated even by the Indians themselves. But looking morenarrowly at the second member of the word, it is clearly capable of another and very different interpretation, of an interpretation which discloses at once the origin and the secret meaning of the whole story of Michabo, in the light of which it appears no longer the incoherent fable of savages, but a true myth, instinct with nature, pregnant with matter, nowise inferior to those which fascinate in the chants of the Rig Veda, or the weird pages of the Edda.

On a previous page I have emphasized with what might have seemed superfluous force, how prominent in primitive mythology is the east, the source of the morning, the day-spring on high, the cardinal point which determines and controls all others. But I did not lay as much stress on it as others have. “The whole theogony and philosophy of the ancient world,” says Max Müller, “centred in the Dawn, the mother of the bright gods, of the Sun in his various aspects, of the morn, the day, the spring; herself the brilliant image and visage ofimmortality.”165-1Now it appears on attentively examining the Algonkin rootwab, 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 meanswhite, and from it is derived the words for the east, the dawn, the light, the day and themorning.165-2Beyond a doubt this isthe compound in the names Michabo and Manibozho which therefore mean the Great Light, the Spirit of Light, of the Dawn, or the East, and in the literal sense of the word the Great White One, as indeed he has sometimes been called.

In this sense all the ancient and authentic myths concerning him are plain and full of meaning. They divide themselves into two distinct cycles. In the one Michabo is the spirit of light who dispels the darkness; in the other as chief of the cardinal points he is lord of the winds, prince of the powers of the air, whose voice is the thunder, whose weapon the lightning, the supreme figure in the encounter of the air currents, in the unending conflict which the Dakotas described as waged by the waters and the winds.

In the first he is grandson of the moon, his father is the West Wind, and his mother, a maiden, dies in giving him birth at the moment of conception. For the moon is the goddess of night, the Dawn is her daughter, who brings forth the morning and perishes herself in the act, and the West, the spirit of darkness as the East is of light, precedes and as it were begets the latter as the evening does the morning. Straightway, however, continues the legend, the son sought the unnatural father to revenge the death of his mother, and then commenced a long and desperatestruggle. “It began on the mountains. The West was forced to give ground. Manabozho drove him across rivers and over mountains and lakes, and at last he came to the brink of this world. ‘Hold,’ cried he, ‘my son, you know my power and that it is impossible to killme.’”167-1What is this but the diurnal combat of light and darkness, carried on from what time “the jocund morn stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops,” across the wide world to the sunset, the struggle that knows no end, for both the opponents are immortal?

In the second, and evidently to the native mind more important cycle of legends, he was represented as one of four brothers, the North, the South, the East, and the West, all born at a birth, whose mother died in ushering them into theworld;167-2for hardly has the kindling orient served to fix the cardinal points than it is lost and dies in the advancing day. Yet it is clear that he was something more than a personification of the east or the east wind, for it is repeatedly said that it was he who assigned their duties to all the winds, to that of the east as well as the others. This is a blending of his two characters. Here too his life is a battle. No longer with his father, indeed, but with his brother Chakekenapok, the flint-stone, whom he broke in pieces and scattered over the land, and changed his entrails into fruitful vines. The conflict was long and terrible. The face of nature was desolated as by a tornado, and the gigantic boulders and loose rocks found on the prairies are the missiles hurled by the mighty combatants. Or else his foe was the glittering prince of serpents whose abode was the lake; or was the shining Manito whose home was guarded by fiery serpents and a deep sea; or was the great king of fishes; all symbols of the atmospheric waters, all figurative descriptions of the wars of the elements. In these affrays the thunder and lightning are at his command, and with them he destroys his enemies. For this reason the Chipeway pictography represents him brandishing a rattlesnake, the symbol of the electricflash,168-1and sometimes they called him the Northwest Wind, which in the region they inhabit usually brings the thunder-storms.

As ruler of the winds he was, like Quetzalcoatl, father and protector of all species of birds, theirsymbols.168-2He was patron of hunters, for their course is guided by the cardinal points. Therefore, when the medicine hunt had been successful, the prescribed sign of gratitude to him was to scatter a handful of the animal’s blood toward each ofthese.168-3As daylight brings vision, and to see is to know, it was no fable that gave him as the author of their arts, their wisdom, and their institutions.

In effect, his story is a world-wide truth, veiled under a thin garb of fancy. It is but a variation of that narrative which every race has to tell, out of gratitude to that beneficent Father who everywhere has cared for His children. Michabo, giver of life and light, creator and preserver, is no apotheosis of a prudent chieftain, still less the fabrication of an idle fancy or a designing priestcraft, but in origin, deeds, and name the not unworthy personification of the purest conceptions they possessed concerning the Father of All. To Him at early dawn the Indian stretched forth his hands in prayer; and to the sky or the sun as his homes, he first pointed the pipe in his ceremonies, rites often misinterpreted by travellers as indicative of sun worship. As later observers tell us to this day the Algonkin prophet builds the medicine lodge to face the sunrise, and in the name of Michabo, who there has his home, summons the spirits of the four quarters of the world and Gizhigooke, the day maker, to come to his fire and disclose the hidden things of the distant and the future: so the earliest explorers relate that when they asked the native priests who it was they invoked, what demons or familiars, the invariable reply was, “the Kichigouai, the genii of light, those who make theday.”169-1

Our authorities on Iroquois traditions, though numerous enough, are not so satisfactory. The best, perhaps, is Father Brebeuf, a Jesuit missionary, who resided among the Hurons in 1626. Their culture myth, which he has recorded, is strikingly similar tothat of the Algonkins. Two brothers appear in it, Ioskeha and Tawiscara, names which find their meaning in the Oneida dialect as the White one and the Darkone.170-1They 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 literallyshe bathes herself, and which, in the opinion of Father Bruyas, a most competent authority, is derived from the word forwater.170-2

The brothers quarrelled, and finally came to blows; the former using the horns of a stag, the latter the wild rose. He of the weaker weapon was very naturally discomfited and sorely wounded. Fleeing for life, the blood gushed from him at every step, and as it fell turned into flint-stones. The victor returned to his grandmother, and established his lodgein the far east, on the borders of the great ocean, whence the sun comes. In time he became the father of mankind, and special guardian of the Iroquois. The earth was at first arid and sterile, but he destroyed the gigantic frog which had swallowed all the waters, and guided the torrents into smooth streams andlakes.171-1The 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 onlyfiguratively.171-2

From other writers of early date we learn that the essential outlines of this myth were received by the Tuscaroras and the Mohawks, and as the proper names of the two brothers are in the Oneida dialect, we cannot err in considering this the national legend of the Iroquois stock. There is strong likelihood that the Taronhiawagon, he who comes from the Sky, of the Onondagas, who was their supreme God, who spoke to them in dreams, and in whose honor the chief festival of their calendar was celebrated about the winter solstice, was, in fact, Ioskeha under anothername.172-1As to the legend of the Good and Bad Minds given by Cusic, to which I have referred in a previous chapter, and the later and wholly spurious myth of Hiawatha, first made public by Mr. Clark in his History of Onondaga (1849), and which, in the graceful poem of Longfellow, is now familiar to the world, they are but pale and incorrect reflections of the early native traditions.

So strong is the resemblance Ioskeha bears to Michabo, that what has been said in explanation of the latter will be sufficient for both. Yet I do not imagine that the one was copied or borrowed from the other. We cannot be too cautious in adopting such a conclusion. The two nations were remote in everything but geographical position. I call to mind another similar myth. In it a mother is also said to have brought forth twins, or a pair of twins, and to have paid for them with her life. Again the one is described as the bright, the other as the dark twin; again it is said that they struggled one with the other for the mastery. Scholars, likewise, have interpreted the mother to mean the Dawn, the twins either Light and Darkness, or the Four Winds. Yet this is not Algonkin theology; nor is it at all related to that of the Iroquois. It is the story of Sarama in the Rig Veda, and was written in Sanscrit, under the shadow of the Himalayas, centuries before Homer.

Such uniformity points not to a common source inhistory, but in psychology. Man, chiefly cognizant of his soul through his senses, thought with an awful horror of the night which deprived him of the use of one and foreshadowed the loss of all. Thereforelightandlifewere to him synonymous; therefore all religions promise to lead

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