“From night to light,From night to heavenly light;”
“From night to light,From night to heavenly light;”
therefore He who rescues is ever the Light of the World; therefore it is said “to the upright ariseth light in darkness;” therefore everywhere the kindling East, the pale Dawn, is the embodiment of his hopes and the centre of his reminiscences. Who shall say that his instinct led him here astray? For is not, in fact, all life dependent on light? Do not all those marvellous and subtle forces known to the older chemists as the imponderable elements, without which not even the inorganic crystal is possible, proceed from the rays of light? Let us beware of that shallow science so ready to shout Eureka, and reverently acknowledge a mysterious intuition here displayed which joins with the latest conquests of the human mind to repeat and emphasize that message which the Evangelist heard of the Spirit and declared unto men, that “God isLight.”173-1
Both these heroes, let it be observed, live in the uttermost east; both are the mythical fathers of the race. To the east, therefore, should these nations have pointed as their original dwelling place. This they did in spite of history. Cusic, who takes up the story of the Iroquois a thousand years before the Christian era, locates them first in the most eastern region they ever possessed. While the Algonkins with one voice called those of their tribes living nearest the rising sunAbnakis, our ancestors at the east, or at the dawn; literally ourwhiteancestors.174-1I designedly emphasize this literal rendering. It reminds one of the white twin of Iroquois legend, and illustrates how the color white came to be intimately associated with the morning light and its beneficent effects. Moreover color has a specific effect on the mind; there is a music to the eye as well as to the ear; and white, which holds all hues in itself, disposes the soul to all pleasant and elevatingemotions.174-2Not fashion alone bids the bride wreathe her brow with orange flowers, nor was it a mere figure of speech that led the inspired poet to call his love “fairest among women,” and to prophecy a Messiah “fairer than the children of men,” fulfilledin that day when He appeared “in garments so white as no fuller on earth could white them.” No nation is free from the power of this law. “White,” observes Adair of the southern Indians, “is their fixed emblem of peace, friendship, happiness, prosperity, purity, andholiness.”175-1Their priests dressed in white robes, as did those of Peru and Mexico; the kings of the various species of animals were all supposed to bewhite;175-2the cities of refuge established as asylums for alleged criminals by the Cherokees in the manner of the Israelites were called “white towns,” and for sacrifices animals of this color were ever most highly esteemed. All these sentiments were linked to the dawn. Language itself is proof of it. Many Algonkin words for east, morning, dawn, day, light, as we have already seen, are derived from a radical signifyingwhite. Or we can take a tongue nowise related, the Quiché, and find its words for east, dawn, morning, light, bright, glorious, happy, noble, all derived fromzak, white. We read in their legends of the earliest men that they were “white children,” “white sons,” leading “a white life beyond the dawn,” and the creation itself is attributed to the Dawn, the White One, the White Sacrificer ofBlood.175-3But why insist upon the point when in European tongues we find thedaybreak calledl’aube,alva, fromalbus, white? Enough for the purpose if the error of those is manifest, who, in such expressions, would seek support for any theory of ancient European immigration; enough if it displays the true meaning of those traditions of the advent of benevolent visitors of fair complexion in ante-Columbian times, which both Algonkins andIroquois176-1had in common with many other tribes of the western continent. Their explanation will not be found in the annals of Japan, the triads of the Cymric bards, nor the sagas of Icelandic skalds, but in the propensity of the human mind to attribute its own origin and culture to that white-shining orient where sun, moon, and stars, are daily born in renovated glory, to that fair mother, who, at the cost of her own life, gives light and joy to the world, to the brilliant womb of Aurora, the glowing bosom of the Dawn.
Even the complicated mythology of Peru yields to the judicious application of these principles of interpretation. Its peculiar obscurity arises from the policy of the Incas to blend the religions of conquered provinces with their own. Thus about 1350 the Inca Pachacutec subdued the country about Lima where the worship of Con and Pachacamàprevailed.176-2Thelocal myth represented these as father and son, or brothers, children of the sun. They were without flesh or blood, impalpable, invisible, and incredibly swift of foot. Con first possessed the land, but Pachacamà attacked and drove him to the north. Irritated at his defeat he took with him the rain, and consequently to this day the sea-coast of Peru is largely an arid desert. Now when we are informed that the south wind, that in other words which blows to the north, is the actual cause of the aridity of thelow-lands,177-1and consider the light and airy character of these antagonists, we cannot hesitate to accept this as a myth of the winds. The name ofCon tici, the Thunder Vase, was indeed applied to Viracocha in later times, but they were never identical. Viracocha was the culture hero of the ancient Aymara-Quichua stock. He was more than that, for in their creed he was creator and possessor of all things. Lands and herds were assigned to other gods to support theirtemples, and offerings were heaped on their altars, but to him none. For, asked the Incas: “Shall the Lord and Master of the whole world need these things from us?” To him, says Acosta, “they did attribute the chief power and commandement over all things;” and elsewhere “in all this realm the chief idoll they did worship was Viracocha, andafter himtheSunne.”178-1
Ere sun or moon was made, he rose from the bosom of Lake Titicaca, and presided over the erection of those wondrous cities whose ruins still dot its islands and western shores, and whose history is totally lost in the night of time. He himself constructed these luminaries and placed them in the sky, and then peopled the earth with its present inhabitants. From the lake he journeyed westward, not without adventures, for he was attacked with murderous intent by the beings whom he had created. When, however, scorning such unequal combat, he had manifested his power by hurling the lightning on the hill-sides and consuming the forests, they recognized their maker, and humbled themselves before him. He was reconciled, and taught them arts and agriculture, institutions and religion, meriting the title they gave him ofPachayachachic, teacher of all things. At last he disappeared in the western ocean. Four personages, companions or sons, were closely connected with him. They rose together with him from the lake, or else were his first creations. These are the four mythical civilizers of Peru, who another legend asserts emerged from the cave Pacarin tampu the Lodgingsof theDawn.179-1To these Viracocha gave the earth, to one the north, to another the south, to a third the east, to a fourth the west. Their names are very variously given, but as they have already been identified with the four winds, we can omit their considerationhere.179-2Tradition, as has rightly been observed by the Inca Garcilasso de laVega,179-3transferred a portion of the story of Viracocha to Manco Capac, first of the historical Incas. King Manco, however, was a real character, the Rudolph of Hapsburg of their reigning family, and flourished about the eleventh century.
There is a general resemblance between this story and that of Michabo. Both precede and create the sun, both journey to the west, overcoming opposition with the thunderbolt, both divide the world between the four winds, both were the fathers, gods, andteachers of their nations. Nor does it cease here. Michabo, I have shown, is the white spirit of the Dawn. Viracocha, all authorities translate “the fat or foam of the sea.” The idea conveyed is of whiteness, foam being called fat from itscolor.180-1So true is this that to-day in Peru white men are calledviracochas, and the early explorers constantly received the sameepithet.180-2The name is a metaphor. The dawn rises above the horizon as the snowy foam on the surface of a lake. As the Algonkins spoke of the Abnakis, their white ancestors, as in Mexican legends the early Toltecs were of fair complexion, so the Aymaras sometimes called the first four brothers,viracochas, whitemen.180-3It is the ancient story how
“LightSprang from the deep, and from her native eastTo journey through the airy gloom began.”
“LightSprang from the deep, and from her native eastTo journey through the airy gloom began.”
The central figure of Toltec mythology is Quetzalcoatl. Not an author on ancient Mexico but has something to say about the glorious days when he ruled over the land. No one denies him to have been a god, the god of the air, highest deity of the Toltecs, in whose honor was erected the pyramid of Cholula, grandest monument of their race. But many insist that he was at first a man, some deified king. There were in truth many Quetzalcoatls, for his high priest always bore his name, but he himself is a pure creation of the fancy, and all his alleged history is nothing but a myth.
His emblematic name, the Bird-Serpent, and his rebus and cross at Palenque, I have already explained. Others of his titles were, Ehecatl, the air; Yolcuat, the rattlesnake; Tohil, the rumbler; Huemac, the strong hand; Nani he hecatle, lord of the four winds. The same dualism reappears in him that has been noted in his analogues elsewhere; He is both lord of the eastern light and the winds.
As the former, he was born of a virgin in the land of Tula or Tlapallan, in the distant Orient, and was high priest of that happy realm. The morning star was his symbol, and the temple of Cholula was dedicated to him expressly as the author oflight.181-1As by days we measure time, he was the alleged inventor of the calendar. Like all the dawn heroes, he too was represented as of white complexion, clothed in long white robes, and, as most of the Aztec gods, with a full and flowingbeard.181-2When his earthly-work was done he too returned to the east, assigning as a reason that the sun, the ruler of Tlapallan, demandedhis presence. But the real motive was that he had been overcome by Tezcatlipoca, otherwise called Yoalliehecatl, the wind or spirit of night, who had descended from heaven by a spider’s web and presented his rival with a draught pretended to confer immortality, but, in fact, producing uncontrollable longing for home. For the wind and the light both depart when the gloaming draws near, or when the clouds spread their dark and shadowy webs along the mountains, and pour the vivifying rain upon the fields.
In his other character, he was begot of the breath of Tonacateotl, god of our flesh orsubsistence,182-1or (according to Gomara) was the son of Iztac Mixcoatl, the white cloud serpent, the spirit of the tornado. Messenger of Tlaloc, god of rains, he was figuratively said to sweep the road for him, since in that country violent winds are the precursors of the wet seasons. Wherever he went all manner of singing birds bore him company, emblems of the whistling breezes. When he finally disappeared in the far east, he sent back four trusty youths who had ever shared his fortunes, “incomparably swift and light of foot,” with directions to divide the earth between them and rule it till he should return and resume his power. When he would promulgate his decrees, his herald proclaimed them from Tzatzitepec, the hill of shouting, with such a mighty voice that it could be heard a hundred leagues around. The arrows which he shot transfixed great trees, the stones he threw levelled forests, and when he laid his hands on the rocks the mark was indelible. Yet as thus emblematic of the thunder-storm, he possessed in full measure its betterattributes. By shaking his sandals he gave fire to men, and peace, plenty, and riches blessed his subjects. Tradition says he built many temples to Mictlanteuctli, the Aztec Pluto, and at the creation of the sun that he slew all the other gods, for the advancing dawn disperses the spectral shapes of night, and yet all its vivifying power does but result in increasing the number doomed to fell before the remorseless stroke ofdeath.183-1
His symbols were the bird, the serpent, the cross, and the flint, representing the clouds, the lightning, the four winds, and the thunderbolt. Perhaps, as Huemac, the Strong Hand, he was god of the earthquakes. The Zapotecs worshipped such a deity under the image of this member carved from a preciousstone,183-2calling to mind the “Kab ul,” the Working Hand, adored by theMayas,183-3and said to be one of the images of Zamna, their hero god. The human hand, “that divine tool,” as it has been called, might well be regarded by the reflective mind as the teacher of the arts and the amulet whose magic power has won for man what vantage he has gained in his long combat with nature and his fellows.
I might next discuss the culture myth of the Muyscas, whose hero Bochica or Nemqueteba bore theother nameSua, the White One, the Day, the East, an appellation they likewise gave the Europeans on their arrival. He had taught them in remotest times how to manufacture their clothing, build their houses, cultivate the soil, and reckon time. When he disappeared, he divided the land between four chiefs, and laid down many minute rules of government which ever after were religiouslyobserved.184-1Or I might choose that of the Caribs, whose patron Tamu called Grandfather, and Old Man of the Sky, was a man of light complexion, who in the old times came from the east, instructed them in agriculture and arts, and disappeared in the same direction, promising them assistance in the future, and that at death he would receive their souls on the summit of the sacred tree, and transport them safely to his home in thesky.184-2Or from the more fragmentary mythology of ruder nations, proof might be brought of the well nigh universal reception of these fundamental views. As, for instance, when the Mandans of the Upper Missouri speak of their first ancestor as a son of the West, who preserved them at the flood, and whosegarb was always of four milk-white wolfskins;185-1and when the Pimos, a people of the valley of the Rio Gila, relate that their birthplace was where the sun rises, that there for generations they led a joyous life, until their beneficent first parent disappeared in the heavens. From that time, say they, God lost sight of them, and they wandered west, and further west till they reached their presentseats.185-2Or I might instance the Tupis of Brazil, who were named after the first of men, Tupa, he who alone survived the flood, who was one of four brothers, who is described as an old man of fair complexion,un vieillardblanc,185-3and who is now their highest divinity, ruler of the lightning and the storm, whose voice is the thunder, and who is the guardian of their nation. But is it not evident that these and all such legends are but variations of those already analyzed?
In thus removing one by one the wrappings of symbolism, and displaying at the centre and summit of these various creeds, He who is throned in the sky, who comes with the dawn, who manifests himself in the light and the storm, and whose ministersare the four winds, I set up no new god. The ancient Israelites prayed to him who was seated above the firmament, who commanded the morning and caused the day-spring to know its place, who answered out of the whirlwind, and whose envoys were the four winds, the four cherubim described with such wealth of imagery in the introduction to the book of Ezekiel. The Mahometan adores “the clement and merciful Lord of the Daybreak,” whose star is in the east, who rides on the storm, and whose breath is the wind. The primitive man in the New World also associated these physical phenomena as products of an invisible power, conceived under human form, called by name, worshipped as one, and of whom all related the same myth differing but in unimportant passages. This was the primeval religion. It was not monotheism, for there were many other gods; it was not pantheism, for there was no blending of the cause with the effects; still less was it fetichism, an adoration of sensuous objects, for these were recognized as effects. It teaches us that the idea of God neither arose from the phenomenal world nor was sunk in it, as is the shallow theory of the day, but is as Kant long ago defined it, a conviction of a highest and first principle which binds all phenomena into one.
One point of these legends deserves closer attention for the influence it exerted on the historical fortunes of the race. The dawn heroes were conceived as of fair complexion, mighty in war, and though absent for a season, destined to return and claim their ancient power. Here was one of those unconscious prophecies, pointing to the advent of a white race from theeast, that wrote the doom of the red man in letters of fire. Historians have marvelled at the instantaneous collapse of the empires of Mexico, Peru, the Mayas, and the Natchez, before a handful of Spanish filibusters. The fact was, wherever the whites appeared they were connected with these ancient predictions of the spirit of the dawn returning to claim his own. Obscure and ominous prophecies, “texts of bodeful song,” rose in the memory of the natives, and paralyzed their arms.
“For a very long time,” said Montezuma, at his first interview with Cortes, “has it been handed down that we are not the original possessors of this land, but came hither from a distant region under the guidance of a ruler who afterwards left us and returned. We have ever believed that some day his descendants would come and resume dominion over us. Inasmuch as you are from that direction, which is toward the rising of the sun, and serve so great a king as you describe, we believe that he is also our natural lord, and are ready to submit ourselves tohim.”187-1
The gloomy words of Nezahualcoyotl, a former prince of Tezcuco, foretelling the arrival of white and bearded men from the east, who would wrest the power from the hands of the rightful rulers and destroy in a day the edifice of centuries, were ringing in his ears. But they were not so gloomy to the minds of his down-trodden subjects, for that day was to liberate them from the thralls of servitude. Therefore when they first beheld the fair complexionedSpaniards, they rushed into the water to embrace the prows of their vessels, and despatched messengers throughout the land to proclaim the return ofQuetzalcoatl.188-1
The noble Mexican was not alone in his presentiments. When Hernando de Soto on landing in Peru first met the Inca Huascar, the latter related an ancient prophecy which his father Huayna Capac had repeated on his dying bed, to the effect that in the reign of the thirteenth Inca, white men (viracochas) of surpassing strength and valor would come from their father the Sun and subject to their rule the nations of the world. “I command you,” said the dying monarch, “to yield them homage and obedience, for they will be of a nature superior toours.”188-2
The natives of Haiti told Columbus of similar predictions long anterior to hisarrival.188-3And Father Lizana has preserved in the original Maya tongue several such foreboding chants. Doubtless he has adapted them somewhat to proselytizing purposes, but they seem very likely to be close copies of authentic aboriginal songs, referring to the return of Zamna or Kukulcan, lord of the dawn and the four winds, worshipped at Cozumel and Palenque under the sign of the cross. An extract will show their character:—
“At the close of the thirteenth Age of the world,While the cities of Itza and Tancah still flourish,The sign of the Lord of the Sky will appear,The light of the dawn will illumine the land,And the cross will be seen by the nations of men.A father to you, will He be, Itzalanos,A brother to you, ye natives of Tancah;Receive well the bearded guests who are coming,Bringing the sign of the Lord from the daybreak,Of the Lord of the Sky, so clement yet powerful.”189-1
“At the close of the thirteenth Age of the world,While the cities of Itza and Tancah still flourish,The sign of the Lord of the Sky will appear,The light of the dawn will illumine the land,And the cross will be seen by the nations of men.A father to you, will He be, Itzalanos,A brother to you, ye natives of Tancah;Receive well the bearded guests who are coming,Bringing the sign of the Lord from the daybreak,Of the Lord of the Sky, so clement yet powerful.”189-1
The older writers, Gomara, Cogolludo, Villagutierre, have taken pains to collect other instances of this presentiment of the arrival and domination of a white race. Later historians, fashionably incredulous of what they cannot explain, have passed them over in silence. That they existed there can be no doubt, and that they arose in the way I have stated, is almost proven by the fact that in Mexico, Bogota, and Peru, the whites were at once called from the proper names of the heroes of the Dawn,Suas,Viracochas, andQuetzalcoatls.
When the church of Rome had crushed remorselessly the religions of Mexico and Peru, all hope of the return of Quetzalcoatl and Viracocha perished with the institutions of which they were the mythical founders. But it was only to arise under new incarnations and later names. As well forbid the heart of youth to bud forth in tender love, as that of oppressed nationalities to cherish the faith that some ideal hero, some royal man, will yet arise, and breakin fragments their fetters, and lead them to glory and honor.
When the name of Quetzalcoatl was no longer heard from the teocalli of Cholula, that of Montezuma took its place. From ocean to ocean, and from the river Gila to the Nicaraguan lake, nearly every aboriginal nation still cherishes the memory of Montezuma, not as the last unfortunate ruler of a vanished state, but as the prince of their golden era, their Saturnian age, lord of the winds and waters, and founder of their institutions. When, in the depth of the tropical forests, the antiquary disinters some statue of earnest mien, the natives whisper one to the other, “Montezuma!Montezuma!”190-1In the legends of New Mexico he is the founder of the pueblos, and intrusted to their guardianship the sacred fire. Departing, he planted a tree, and bade them watch it well, for when that tree should fall and the fire die out, then he would return from the far East, and lead his loyal people to victory and power. When the present generation saw their land glide, mile by mile, into the rapacious hands of the Yankees—when new and strange diseases desolated their homes—finally, when in 1846 the sacred tree was prostrated, and the guardian of the holy fire was found dead on its cold ashes, then they thought the hour of deliverance had come, and every morning at earliest dawn a watcher mounted to the house-tops, and gazed long and anxiously in the lightening east, hoping to descry the noble form of Montezuma advancing throughthe morning beams at the head of a conqueringarmy.191-1
Groaning under the iron rule of the Spaniards, the Peruvians would not believe that the last of the Incas had perished an outcast and a wanderer in the forests of the Cordilleras. For centuries they clung to the persuasion that he had but retired to another mighty kingdom beyond the mountains, and in due time would return and sweep the haughty Castilian back into the ocean. In 1781, a mestizo, Jose Gabriel Condorcanqui, of the province of Tinta, took advantage of this strong delusion, and binding around his forehead the scarlet fillet of the Incas, proclaimed himself the long lost Inca Tupac Amaru, and a true child of the sun. Thousands of Indians flocked to his standard, and at their head he took the field, vowing the extermination of every soul of the hated race. Seized at last by the Spaniards, and condemned to a public execution, so profound was the reverence with which he had inspired his followers, so full their faith in his claims, that, undeterred by the threats of the soldiery, they prostrated themselves on their faces before this last of the children of the sun, as he passed on to a felon’sdeath.191-2
These fancied reminiscences, these unfounded hopes, so vague, so child-like, let no one dismiss them as the babblings of ignorance. Contemplated in their broadest meaning as characteristics of the race of man, they have an interest higher than any history, beyond that of any poetry. They point to the recognized discrepancy between what man is, and what he feels he should be, must be; they are the indignant protests of the race against acquiescence in the world’s evil as the world’s law; they are the incoherent utterances of those yearnings for nobler conditions of existence, which no savagery, no ignorance, nothing but a false and lying enlightenment can wholly extinguish.
162-1Themedaworship is the ordinary religious ritual of the Algonkins. It consists chiefly in exhibitions of legerdemain, and in conjuring and exorcising demons. Ajossakeedis an inspired prophet who derives his power directly from the higher spirits, and not as themedawin, by instruction and practice.164-1For these particulars see theRel. de la Nouv. France, 1667, p. 12, 1670, p. 93; Charlevoix,Journal Historique, p. 344; Schoolcraft,Indian Tribes, v. pp. 420 sqq., and Alex. Henry,Travs. in Canada and the Ind. Territories, pp. 212 sqq. These are decidedly the best references of the many that could be furnished. Peter Jones’History of the Ojibway Indians, p. 35, may also be consulted.165-1Science of Language, Second Series, p. 518.165-2Dialectic forms in Algonkin for white, arewabi,wape,wompi,waubish,oppai; for morning,wapan,wapaneh,opah; for east,wapa,waubun,waubamo; for dawn,wapa,waubun; for day,wompan,oppan; for light,oppung; and many others similar. In the Abnaki dialect,wanbighen, it is white, is the customary idiom to express the breaking of the day (Vetromile,The Abnakis and their History, p. 27: New York, 1866). The loss in composition of the vowel sound represented by the English w, and in the French writers by the figure 8, is supported by frequent analogy.167-1Schoolcraft,Algic Researches, i. pp. 135-142.167-2The names of the four brothers, Wabun, Kabun, Kabibonokka, and Shawano, express in Algonkin both the cardinal points and the winds which blow from them. In another version of the legend, first reported by Father De Smet and quoted by Schoolcraft without acknowledgment, they are Nanaboojoo, Chipiapoos, Wabosso, and Chakekenapok. See for the support of the text, Schoolcraft,Algic Res., ii. p. 214; De Smet,Oregon Missions, p. 347.168-1Narrative of John Tanner, p. 351.168-2Schoolcraft,Algic Res., i. p. 216.168-3Narrative of John Tanner, p. 354.169-1Compare theRel. de la Nouv. France, 1634 p. 14, 1637, p. 46, with Schoolcraft,Ind. Tribes, v. p. 419.Kichigouaiis the same word asGizhigooke, according to a different orthography.170-1The namesI8skehaandTa8iscaraI venture to identify with the Oneidaowisskeorowiska, white, andtetiucalas(tyokaras,tewhgarlars, Mohawk), dark or darkness. The prefix i toowisskeis the impersonal third person singular; the suffixhagives a future sense, so thati-owisske-haoriouskehameans “it is going to become white.” Brebeuf gives a similar example ofgaon, old;a-gaon-ha,il va devenir vieux(Rel. Nouv. France, 1636, p. 99). But “it is going to become white,” meant to the Iroquois that the dawn was about to appear, just aswanbighen, it is white, did to the Abnakis (see note on page 166), and as the Eskimos say,kau ma wok, it is white, to express that it is daylight (Richardson’s Vocab. of Labrador Eskimo in hisArctic Expedition). Therefore, that Ioskeha is an impersonation of the light of the dawn admits of no dispute.170-2The orthography of Brebeuf isaataentsic. This may be analyzed as follows: rootaouen, water; prefixat,il y a quelque chose là dedans;ataouen,se baigner; from which comes the formataouensere. (See Bruyas,Rad. Verb. Iroquæor., pp. 30, 31.) Here again the mythological role of the moon as the goddess of water comes distinctly to light.171-1This offers an instance of the uniformity which prevailed in symbolism in the New World. The Aztecs adored the goddess of water under the figure of a frog carved from a single emerald; or of human form, but holding in her hand the leaf of a water lily ornamented with frogs. (Brasseur,Hist. du Mexique, i. p. 324.)171-2Rel. de la Nouv. France, 1636, p. 101.172-1Rel. de la Nouv. France, 1671, p. 17. Cusic spells itTarenyawagon, and translates it Holder of the Heavens. But the name is evidently a compound ofgaronhia, sky, softened in the Onondaga dialect totaronhia(see Gallatin’s Vocabs. under the word sky), andwagin, I come.173-1Ὁ Θεος φως εστι, The First Epistle General of John, i. 5. In curious analogy to these myths is that of the Eskimos of Greenland. In the beginning, they relate, were two brothers, one of whom said: “There shall be night and there shall be day, and men shall die, one after another.” But the second said, “There shall be no day, but only night all the time, and men shall live forever.” They had a long struggle, but here once more he who loved darkness rather than light was worsted, and the day triumphed. (Nachrichten von Grönland aus einem Tagebuche vom Bischof Paul Egede, p. 157: Kopenhagen, 1790. The date of the entry is 1738.)174-1I accept without hesitation the derivation of this word, proposed and defended by that accomplished Algonkin scholar, the Rev. Eugene Vetromile, fromwanb, white or east, andnaghiancestors (The Abnakis and their History, p. 29: New York, 1866).174-2White light, remarks Goethe, has in it something cheerful and ennobling; it possesses “eine heitere, muntere, sanft reizende Eigenschaft.”Farbenlehre, sec’s 766, 770.175-1Hist. of the N. Am. Indians, p. 159.175-2La Hontan,Voy. dans l’Amér. Sept., ii. p. 42.175-3“Blanco pizote,” Ximenes, p. 4,Vocabulario Quiché, s. v.zak. In the far north the Eskimo tongue presents the same analogy. Day, morning, bright, light, lightning, all are from the same root (kau), signifying white (Richardson, Vocab. of Labrador Eskimo).176-1Some fragments of them may be found in Campanius,Acc. of New Sweden, 1650, book iii. chap. 11, and in Byrd,The Westover Manuscripts, 1733, p. 82. They were in both instances alleged to have been white and bearded men, the latter probably a later trait in the legend.176-2ConorCunI have already explained to mean thunder,Con tici, the mythical thunder vase. Pachacamà is doubtless, as M. Leonce Angrand has suggested, fromppacha, source, andcamà, all, the Source of All things (Desjardins,Le Pérou avant la Conq. Espagnole, p. 23, note). But he and all other writers have been in error in considering this identical withPachacámac, nor can the latter meancreator of the world, as it has constantly been translated. It is a participial adjective frompacha, place, especially the world, andcamac, present participle ofcamani, I animate, from which also comescamakenc, the soul, and meansanimating the world. It was never used as a proper name. The following trochaic lines from the Quichua poem translated in the previous chapter, show its true meaning and correct accent:—Pāchă rūrăc,World creating,Pāchă cāmăc,World animating,Viracocha,Viracocha,Camasunqui,He animates thee.The last word is the second transition, present tense, ofcamani, whilecamacis its present participle.177-1Ulloa,Mémoires Philosophiques sur l’Amérique, i. p. 105.178-1Acosta,Hist. of the New World, bk. v. chap. 4, bk. vi. chap. 19, Eng. trans., 1704.179-1The name is derived fromtampu, corrupted by the Spaniards totambo, an inn, andpaccarimorning, orpaccarin, it dawns, which also has the figurative signification, it is born. It may therefore mean either Lodgings of the Dawn, or as the Spaniards usually translated it, House of Birth, or Production,Casa de Producimiento.179-2The names given by Balboa (Hist. du Pérou, p. 4) and Montesinos (Ancien Pérou, p. 5) are Manco, Cacha, Auca, Uchu. The meaning of Manco is unknown. The others signify, in their order, messenger, enemy or traitor, and the little one. The myth of Viracocha is given in its most antique form by Juan de Betanzos, in theHistoria de los Ingas, compiled in the first years of the conquest from the original songs and legends. It is quoted in Garcia,Origen de los Indios, lib. v. cap. 7. Balboa, Montesinos, Acosta, and others have also furnished me some incidents. Whether Atachuchu mentioned in the last chapter was not another name of Viracocha may well be questioned. It is every way probable.179-3Hist. des Incas, liv. iii. chap. 25.180-1It is compounded ofvira, fat, foam (which perhaps is akin toyurac,white), andcocha, a pond or lake.180-2See Desjardins,Le Pérou avant la Conq. Espagnole, p. 67.180-3Gomara,Hist. de las Indias, cap. 119, in Müller.181-1Brasseur,Hist. du Mexique, i. p. 302.181-2There is no reason to lay any stress upon this feature. Beard was nothing uncommon among the Aztecs and many other nations of the New World. It was held to add dignity to the appearance, and therefore Sahagun, in his description of the Mexican idols, repeatedly alludes to their beards, and Müller quotes various authorities to show that the priests wore them long and full (Amer. Urreligionen, p. 429). Not only was Quetzalcoatl himself reported to have been of fair complexion—white indeed—but the Creole historian Ixtlilxochitl says the old legends asserted that all the Toltecs, natives of Tollan, or Tula, as their name signifies, were so likewise. Still more, Aztlan, the traditional home of the Nahuas, or Aztecs proper, means literally the white land, according to one of our best authorities (Buschmann,Ueber die Aztekischen Ortsnamen, 612: Berlin, 1852).182-1Kingsborough,Antiquities of Mexico, v. p. 109.183-1The myth of Quetzalcoatl I have taken chiefly from Sahagun,Hist. de la Nueva España, lib. i. cap. 5; lib. iii. caps. 3, 13, 14; lib. x. cap. 29; and Torquemada,Monarquia Indiana, lib. vi. cap. 24. It must be remembered that the Quiché legends identify him positively with the Tohil of Central America (Le Livre Sacré, p. 247).183-2Padilla Davila,Hist. de la Prov. de Santiago de Mexico, lib. ii. cap. 89.183-3Cogolludo,Hist. de Yucathan, lib. iv. cap. 8.184-1He is also called Idacanzas and Nemterequetaba. Some have maintained a distinction between Bochica and Sua, which, however, has not been shown. The best authorities on the mythology of the Muyscas are Piedrahita,Hist. de las Conq. del Nuevo Reyno de Granada, 1668 (who is copied by Humboldt,Vues des Cordillères, pp. 246 sqq.), and Simon,Noticias de Tierra Firme, Parte ii., in Kingsborough’sMexico.184-2D’Orbigny,L’Homme Américain, ii. p. 319, and Rochefort,Hist. des Isles Antilles, p. 482 (Waitz). The name has various orthographies, Tamu, Tamöi, Tamou, Itamoulou, etc. Perhaps the Ama-livaca of the Orinoko Indians is another form. This personage corresponds even minutely in many points with the Tamu of the island Caribs.185-1Catlin,Letters and Notes, Letter 22.185-2Journal of Capt. Johnson, in Emory,Reconnoissance of New Mexico, p. 601.185-3M. De Charency, in theRevue Américaine, ii. p. 317.Tupait may be observed means in Quichua, lord, or royal. Father Holguin gives as an exampleâ tupa Dios, O Lord God (Vocabulario Quichua, p. 348: Ciudad de los Reyes, 1608). In the Quiché dialectstepeuis one of the common appellations of divinity and is also translated lord or ruler. We are not yet sufficiently advanced in the study of American philology to draw any inference from these resemblances, but they should not be overlooked.187-1Cortes,Carta Primera, pp. 113, 114.188-1Sahagun,Hist. de la Nueva España, lib. xii. caps. 2, 3.188-2La Vega,Hist. des Incas, lib. ix. cap. 15.188-3Peter Martyr,De Reb. Oceanicis, Dec. iii. lib. vii.189-1Lizana,Hist. de Nuestra Señora de Itzamal, lib. ii. cap. i. in Brasseur,Hist. du Mexique, ii. p. 605. The prophecies are of the priest who bore the title—not name—chilan balam, and whose offices were those of divination and astrology. The verse claims to date from about 1450, and was very well known throughout Yucatan, so it is said. The number thirteen which in many of these prophecies is the supposed limit of the present order of things, is doubtless derived from the observation that thirteen moons complete one solar year.190-1Squier,Travels in Nicaragua, ii. p. 35.191-1Whipple,Report on the Ind. Tribes, p. 36. Emory,Recon. of New Mexico, p. 64. The latter adds that among the Pueblo Indians, the Apaches, and Navajos, the name of Montezuma is “as familiar as Washington to us.” This is the more curious, as neither the Pueblo Indians nor either of the other tribes are in any way related to the Aztec race by language, as has been shown by Dr. Buschman,Die Voelker und Sprachen Neu Mexico’s, p. 262.191-2Humboldt,Essay on New Spain, bk. ii. chap. vi, Eng. trans.;Ansichten der Natur, ii. pp. 357, 386.
162-1Themedaworship is the ordinary religious ritual of the Algonkins. It consists chiefly in exhibitions of legerdemain, and in conjuring and exorcising demons. Ajossakeedis an inspired prophet who derives his power directly from the higher spirits, and not as themedawin, by instruction and practice.
164-1For these particulars see theRel. de la Nouv. France, 1667, p. 12, 1670, p. 93; Charlevoix,Journal Historique, p. 344; Schoolcraft,Indian Tribes, v. pp. 420 sqq., and Alex. Henry,Travs. in Canada and the Ind. Territories, pp. 212 sqq. These are decidedly the best references of the many that could be furnished. Peter Jones’History of the Ojibway Indians, p. 35, may also be consulted.
165-1Science of Language, Second Series, p. 518.
165-2Dialectic forms in Algonkin for white, arewabi,wape,wompi,waubish,oppai; for morning,wapan,wapaneh,opah; for east,wapa,waubun,waubamo; for dawn,wapa,waubun; for day,wompan,oppan; for light,oppung; and many others similar. In the Abnaki dialect,wanbighen, it is white, is the customary idiom to express the breaking of the day (Vetromile,The Abnakis and their History, p. 27: New York, 1866). The loss in composition of the vowel sound represented by the English w, and in the French writers by the figure 8, is supported by frequent analogy.
167-1Schoolcraft,Algic Researches, i. pp. 135-142.
167-2The names of the four brothers, Wabun, Kabun, Kabibonokka, and Shawano, express in Algonkin both the cardinal points and the winds which blow from them. In another version of the legend, first reported by Father De Smet and quoted by Schoolcraft without acknowledgment, they are Nanaboojoo, Chipiapoos, Wabosso, and Chakekenapok. See for the support of the text, Schoolcraft,Algic Res., ii. p. 214; De Smet,Oregon Missions, p. 347.
168-1Narrative of John Tanner, p. 351.
168-2Schoolcraft,Algic Res., i. p. 216.
168-3Narrative of John Tanner, p. 354.
169-1Compare theRel. de la Nouv. France, 1634 p. 14, 1637, p. 46, with Schoolcraft,Ind. Tribes, v. p. 419.Kichigouaiis the same word asGizhigooke, according to a different orthography.
170-1The namesI8skehaandTa8iscaraI venture to identify with the Oneidaowisskeorowiska, white, andtetiucalas(tyokaras,tewhgarlars, Mohawk), dark or darkness. The prefix i toowisskeis the impersonal third person singular; the suffixhagives a future sense, so thati-owisske-haoriouskehameans “it is going to become white.” Brebeuf gives a similar example ofgaon, old;a-gaon-ha,il va devenir vieux(Rel. Nouv. France, 1636, p. 99). But “it is going to become white,” meant to the Iroquois that the dawn was about to appear, just aswanbighen, it is white, did to the Abnakis (see note on page 166), and as the Eskimos say,kau ma wok, it is white, to express that it is daylight (Richardson’s Vocab. of Labrador Eskimo in hisArctic Expedition). Therefore, that Ioskeha is an impersonation of the light of the dawn admits of no dispute.
170-2The orthography of Brebeuf isaataentsic. This may be analyzed as follows: rootaouen, water; prefixat,il y a quelque chose là dedans;ataouen,se baigner; from which comes the formataouensere. (See Bruyas,Rad. Verb. Iroquæor., pp. 30, 31.) Here again the mythological role of the moon as the goddess of water comes distinctly to light.
171-1This offers an instance of the uniformity which prevailed in symbolism in the New World. The Aztecs adored the goddess of water under the figure of a frog carved from a single emerald; or of human form, but holding in her hand the leaf of a water lily ornamented with frogs. (Brasseur,Hist. du Mexique, i. p. 324.)
171-2Rel. de la Nouv. France, 1636, p. 101.
172-1Rel. de la Nouv. France, 1671, p. 17. Cusic spells itTarenyawagon, and translates it Holder of the Heavens. But the name is evidently a compound ofgaronhia, sky, softened in the Onondaga dialect totaronhia(see Gallatin’s Vocabs. under the word sky), andwagin, I come.
173-1Ὁ Θεος φως εστι, The First Epistle General of John, i. 5. In curious analogy to these myths is that of the Eskimos of Greenland. In the beginning, they relate, were two brothers, one of whom said: “There shall be night and there shall be day, and men shall die, one after another.” But the second said, “There shall be no day, but only night all the time, and men shall live forever.” They had a long struggle, but here once more he who loved darkness rather than light was worsted, and the day triumphed. (Nachrichten von Grönland aus einem Tagebuche vom Bischof Paul Egede, p. 157: Kopenhagen, 1790. The date of the entry is 1738.)
174-1I accept without hesitation the derivation of this word, proposed and defended by that accomplished Algonkin scholar, the Rev. Eugene Vetromile, fromwanb, white or east, andnaghiancestors (The Abnakis and their History, p. 29: New York, 1866).
174-2White light, remarks Goethe, has in it something cheerful and ennobling; it possesses “eine heitere, muntere, sanft reizende Eigenschaft.”Farbenlehre, sec’s 766, 770.
175-1Hist. of the N. Am. Indians, p. 159.
175-2La Hontan,Voy. dans l’Amér. Sept., ii. p. 42.
175-3“Blanco pizote,” Ximenes, p. 4,Vocabulario Quiché, s. v.zak. In the far north the Eskimo tongue presents the same analogy. Day, morning, bright, light, lightning, all are from the same root (kau), signifying white (Richardson, Vocab. of Labrador Eskimo).
176-1Some fragments of them may be found in Campanius,Acc. of New Sweden, 1650, book iii. chap. 11, and in Byrd,The Westover Manuscripts, 1733, p. 82. They were in both instances alleged to have been white and bearded men, the latter probably a later trait in the legend.
176-2ConorCunI have already explained to mean thunder,Con tici, the mythical thunder vase. Pachacamà is doubtless, as M. Leonce Angrand has suggested, fromppacha, source, andcamà, all, the Source of All things (Desjardins,Le Pérou avant la Conq. Espagnole, p. 23, note). But he and all other writers have been in error in considering this identical withPachacámac, nor can the latter meancreator of the world, as it has constantly been translated. It is a participial adjective frompacha, place, especially the world, andcamac, present participle ofcamani, I animate, from which also comescamakenc, the soul, and meansanimating the world. It was never used as a proper name. The following trochaic lines from the Quichua poem translated in the previous chapter, show its true meaning and correct accent:—
The last word is the second transition, present tense, ofcamani, whilecamacis its present participle.
177-1Ulloa,Mémoires Philosophiques sur l’Amérique, i. p. 105.
178-1Acosta,Hist. of the New World, bk. v. chap. 4, bk. vi. chap. 19, Eng. trans., 1704.
179-1The name is derived fromtampu, corrupted by the Spaniards totambo, an inn, andpaccarimorning, orpaccarin, it dawns, which also has the figurative signification, it is born. It may therefore mean either Lodgings of the Dawn, or as the Spaniards usually translated it, House of Birth, or Production,Casa de Producimiento.
179-2The names given by Balboa (Hist. du Pérou, p. 4) and Montesinos (Ancien Pérou, p. 5) are Manco, Cacha, Auca, Uchu. The meaning of Manco is unknown. The others signify, in their order, messenger, enemy or traitor, and the little one. The myth of Viracocha is given in its most antique form by Juan de Betanzos, in theHistoria de los Ingas, compiled in the first years of the conquest from the original songs and legends. It is quoted in Garcia,Origen de los Indios, lib. v. cap. 7. Balboa, Montesinos, Acosta, and others have also furnished me some incidents. Whether Atachuchu mentioned in the last chapter was not another name of Viracocha may well be questioned. It is every way probable.
179-3Hist. des Incas, liv. iii. chap. 25.
180-1It is compounded ofvira, fat, foam (which perhaps is akin toyurac,white), andcocha, a pond or lake.
180-2See Desjardins,Le Pérou avant la Conq. Espagnole, p. 67.
180-3Gomara,Hist. de las Indias, cap. 119, in Müller.
181-1Brasseur,Hist. du Mexique, i. p. 302.
181-2There is no reason to lay any stress upon this feature. Beard was nothing uncommon among the Aztecs and many other nations of the New World. It was held to add dignity to the appearance, and therefore Sahagun, in his description of the Mexican idols, repeatedly alludes to their beards, and Müller quotes various authorities to show that the priests wore them long and full (Amer. Urreligionen, p. 429). Not only was Quetzalcoatl himself reported to have been of fair complexion—white indeed—but the Creole historian Ixtlilxochitl says the old legends asserted that all the Toltecs, natives of Tollan, or Tula, as their name signifies, were so likewise. Still more, Aztlan, the traditional home of the Nahuas, or Aztecs proper, means literally the white land, according to one of our best authorities (Buschmann,Ueber die Aztekischen Ortsnamen, 612: Berlin, 1852).
182-1Kingsborough,Antiquities of Mexico, v. p. 109.
183-1The myth of Quetzalcoatl I have taken chiefly from Sahagun,Hist. de la Nueva España, lib. i. cap. 5; lib. iii. caps. 3, 13, 14; lib. x. cap. 29; and Torquemada,Monarquia Indiana, lib. vi. cap. 24. It must be remembered that the Quiché legends identify him positively with the Tohil of Central America (Le Livre Sacré, p. 247).
183-2Padilla Davila,Hist. de la Prov. de Santiago de Mexico, lib. ii. cap. 89.
183-3Cogolludo,Hist. de Yucathan, lib. iv. cap. 8.
184-1He is also called Idacanzas and Nemterequetaba. Some have maintained a distinction between Bochica and Sua, which, however, has not been shown. The best authorities on the mythology of the Muyscas are Piedrahita,Hist. de las Conq. del Nuevo Reyno de Granada, 1668 (who is copied by Humboldt,Vues des Cordillères, pp. 246 sqq.), and Simon,Noticias de Tierra Firme, Parte ii., in Kingsborough’sMexico.
184-2D’Orbigny,L’Homme Américain, ii. p. 319, and Rochefort,Hist. des Isles Antilles, p. 482 (Waitz). The name has various orthographies, Tamu, Tamöi, Tamou, Itamoulou, etc. Perhaps the Ama-livaca of the Orinoko Indians is another form. This personage corresponds even minutely in many points with the Tamu of the island Caribs.
185-1Catlin,Letters and Notes, Letter 22.
185-2Journal of Capt. Johnson, in Emory,Reconnoissance of New Mexico, p. 601.
185-3M. De Charency, in theRevue Américaine, ii. p. 317.Tupait may be observed means in Quichua, lord, or royal. Father Holguin gives as an exampleâ tupa Dios, O Lord God (Vocabulario Quichua, p. 348: Ciudad de los Reyes, 1608). In the Quiché dialectstepeuis one of the common appellations of divinity and is also translated lord or ruler. We are not yet sufficiently advanced in the study of American philology to draw any inference from these resemblances, but they should not be overlooked.
187-1Cortes,Carta Primera, pp. 113, 114.
188-1Sahagun,Hist. de la Nueva España, lib. xii. caps. 2, 3.
188-2La Vega,Hist. des Incas, lib. ix. cap. 15.
188-3Peter Martyr,De Reb. Oceanicis, Dec. iii. lib. vii.
189-1Lizana,Hist. de Nuestra Señora de Itzamal, lib. ii. cap. i. in Brasseur,Hist. du Mexique, ii. p. 605. The prophecies are of the priest who bore the title—not name—chilan balam, and whose offices were those of divination and astrology. The verse claims to date from about 1450, and was very well known throughout Yucatan, so it is said. The number thirteen which in many of these prophecies is the supposed limit of the present order of things, is doubtless derived from the observation that thirteen moons complete one solar year.
190-1Squier,Travels in Nicaragua, ii. p. 35.
191-1Whipple,Report on the Ind. Tribes, p. 36. Emory,Recon. of New Mexico, p. 64. The latter adds that among the Pueblo Indians, the Apaches, and Navajos, the name of Montezuma is “as familiar as Washington to us.” This is the more curious, as neither the Pueblo Indians nor either of the other tribes are in any way related to the Aztec race by language, as has been shown by Dr. Buschman,Die Voelker und Sprachen Neu Mexico’s, p. 262.
191-2Humboldt,Essay on New Spain, bk. ii. chap. vi, Eng. trans.;Ansichten der Natur, ii. pp. 357, 386.
THE MYTHS OF THE CREATION, THE DELUGE, THE EPOCHS OF NATURE, AND THE LAST DAY.
Cosmogonies usually portray the action of theSpiriton theWaters.—Those of the Muscogees, Athapascas, Quichés, Mixtecs, Iroquois, Algonkins, and others.—The Flood-Myth an unconscious attempt to reconcile a creation in time with the eternity of matter.—Proof of this from American mythology.—Characteristics of American Flood-Myths.—The person saved usually the first man.—The number seven.—Their Ararats.—The rôle of birds.—The confusion of tongues.—The Aztec, Quiché, Algonkin, Tupi, and earliest Sanscrit flood-myths.—The belief in Epochs of Nature a further result of this attempt at reconciliation.—Its forms among Peruvians, Mayas, and Aztecs.—The expectation of the End of the World a corollary of this belief.—Views of various nations.
Couldthe reason rest content with the belief that the universe always was as it now is, it would save much beating of brains. Such is the comfortable condition of the Eskimos, the Rootdiggers of California, the most brutish specimens of humanity everywhere. Vain to inquire their story of creation, for, like the knife-grinder of anti-Jacobin renown, they have no story to tell. It never occurred to them that the earth had a beginning, or underwent any greater changes than those of theseasons.193-1Butno sooner does the mind begin to reflect, the intellect to employ itself on higher themes than the needs of the body, than the law of causality exerts its power, and the man, out of such materials as he has at hand, manufactures for himself a Theory of Things.
What these materials were has been shown in the last few chapters. A simple primitive substance, a divinity to mould it—these are the requirements of every cosmogony. Concerning the first no nation ever hesitated. All agree that before time beganwaterheld all else in solution, covered and concealed everything. The reasons for this assumed priority of water have been already touched upon. Did a tribe dwell near some great sea others can be imagined. The land is limited, peopled, stable; the ocean fluctuating, waste, boundless. It insatiably swallows all rains and rivers, quenches sun and moon in its dark chambers, and raves against its bounds as a beast of prey. Awe and fear are the sentiments it inspires; in Aryan tongues its synonyms are thedesertand thenight.194-1It produces an impression of immensity, infinity, formlessness, and barren changeableness, well suited to a notion of chaos. It is sterile, receiving all things, producing nothing. Hence the necessity of a creative power to act upon it, as it were to impregnate its barren germs. Some cosmogonies find this in one, some in another personification of divinity. Commonest ofall is that of the wind, or its emblem the bird, types of the breath of life.
Thus the venerable record in Genesis, translated in the authorized version “and the Spirit of God moved on the face of the waters,” may with equal correctness be rendered “and a mighty wind brooded on the surface of the waters,” presenting the picture of a primeval ocean fecundated by the wind as abird.195-1The eagle that in the Finnish epic of Kalewala floated over the waves and hatched the land, the egg that in Chinese legend swam hither and thither until it grew to a continent, the giant Ymir, the rustler (as wind in trees), from whose flesh, says the Edda, our globe was made and set to float like a speck in the vast sea between Muspel and Niflheim, all are the same tale repeated by different nations in different ages. But why take illustrations from the old world when they are so plenty in the new?
Before the creation, said the Muscogees, a great body of water was alone visible. Two pigeons flew to and fro over its waves, and at last spied a blade of grass rising above the surface. Dry land gradually followed, and the islands and continents took their presentshapes.195-2Whether this is an authentic aboriginal myth, is not beyond question. No such doubt attaches to that of the Athapascas. With singular unanimity, most of the northwest branches of this stock trace their descent from a raven, “a mighty bird, whose eyes were fire, whose glances were lightning, and the clapping of whose wings was thunder. On his descent to the ocean, the earth instantly rose, and remained on the surface of the water. This omnipotent bird then called forth all the variety ofanimals.”196-1
Very similar, but with more of poetic finish, is the legend of the Quichés:—
“This is the first word and the first speech. There were neither men nor brutes; neither birds, fish, nor crabs, stick nor stone, valley nor mountain, stubble nor forest, nothing but the sky. The face of the land was hidden. There was naught but the silent sea and the sky. There was nothing joined, nor any sound, nor thing that stirred; neither any to do evil, nor to rumble in the heavens, nor a walker on foot; only the silent waters, only the pacified ocean, only it in its calm. Nothing was but stillness, and rest, and darkness, and the night; nothing but the Maker and Moulder, the Hurler, the Bird-Serpent. In the waters, in a limpid twilight, covered with green feathers, slept the mothers and thefathers.”196-2
Over this passed Hurakan, the mighty wind, and called out Earth! and straightway the solid land was there.
The picture writings of the Mixtecs preserved a similar cosmogony: “In the year and in the day of clouds, before ever were either years or days, the world lay in darkness; all things were orderless, and a water covered the slime and the ooze that the earththen was.” By the efforts of two winds, called, from astrological associations, that of Nine Serpents and that of Nine Caverns, personified one as a bird and one as a winged serpent, the waters subsided and the landdried.197-1
In the birds that here play such conspicuous parts, we cannot fail to recognize the winds and the clouds; but more especially the dark thunder cloud, soaring in space at the beginning of things, most forcible emblem of the aerial powers. They are the symbols of that divinity which acted on the passive and sterile waters, the fitting result being the production of a universe. Other symbols of the divine could also be employed, and the meaning remain the same. Or were the fancy too helpless to suggest any, they could be dispensed with, and purely natural agencies take their place. Thus the unimaginative Iroquois narrated that when their primitive female ancestor was kicked from the sky by her irate spouse, there was as yet no land to receive her, but that it “suddenly bubbled up under her feet, and waxed bigger, so that ere long a whole country wasperceptible.”197-2Or that certain amphibious animals, the beaver, the otter, and the muskrat, seeing her descent, hastened to dive and bring up sufficient mud to construct an island for herresidence.197-3The muskrat is also the simple machinery in the cosmogony of the Takahlis of the northwest coast, the Osages and some Algonkin tribes.
These latter were, indeed, keen enough to perceive that there was really nocreationin such an account.Dry land was wanting, but earth was there, though hidden by boundless waters. Consequently, they spoke distinctly of the action of the muskrat in bringing it to the surface as a formation only. Michabo directed him, and from the mud formed islands and main land. But when the subject of creation was pressed, they replied they knew nothing of that, or roundly answered the questioner that he was talkingnonsense.198-1Their myth, almost identical with that of their neighbors, was recognized by them to be not of a construction, but a reconstruction only; a very judicious distinction, but one which has a most important corollary. A reconstruction supposes a previous existence. This they felt, and had something to say about an earth anterior to this of ours, but one without light or human inhabitants. A lake burst its bounds and submerged it wholly. This is obviously nothing but a mere and meagre fiction, invented to explain the origin of the primeval ocean. But mark it well, for this is the germ of those marvellous myths of the Epochs of Nature, the catastrophes of the universe, the deluges of water and of fire, which have laid such strong hold on the human fancy in every land and in every age.
The purpose for which this addition was made to the simpler legend is clear enough. It was to avoid the dilemma of a creation from nothing on the one hand, and the eternity of matter on the other.Ex nihilo nihilis an apothegm indorsed alike by the profoundest metaphysicians and the rudest savages. But the other horn was no easier. To escape accepting the theory that the world had ever been as it now is, was the only object of a legend of its formation. As either lemma conflicts with fundamental laws of thought, this escape was eagerly adopted, and in the suggestive words of Prescott, men “sought relief from the oppressive idea of eternity by breaking it up into distinct cycles or periods oftime.”199-1Vain but characteristic attempt of the ambitious mind of man! The Hindoo philosopher reconciles to his mind the suspension of the world in space by imagining it supported by an elephant, the elephant by a tortoise, and the tortoise by a serpent. We laugh at the Hindoo, and fancy we diminish the difficulty by explaining that it revolves around the sun, and the sun around some far-off star. Just so the general mind of humanity finds some satisfaction in supposing a world or a series of worlds anterior to the present, thus escaping the insoluble enigma of creation by removing it indefinitely in time.
The support lent to these views by the presence of marine shells on high lands, or by faint reminiscences of local geologic convulsions, I estimate very low. Savages are not inductive philosophers, and by nothing short of a miracle could they preserve the remembrance of even the most terrible catastrophe beyond a few generations. Nor has any such occurred within the ken of history of sufficient magnitude to make a very permanent or wide-spread impression. Not physics, but metaphysics, is the exciting cause of these beliefs in periodical convulsions of the globe. The idea of matter cannot be separated from that oftime, and time and eternity are contradictory terms. Common words show this connection. World, for example, in the old languagewaereld, from the root to wear, by derivation means an age or cycle (Grimm).
In effect a myth of creation is nowhere found among primitive nations. It seems repugnant to their reason. Dry land and animate life had a beginning, but not matter. A series of constructions and demolitions may conveniently be supposed for these. The analogy of nature, as seen in the vernal flowers springing up after the desolation of winter, of the sapling sprouting from the fallen trunk, of life everywhere rising from death, suggests such a view. Hence arose the belief in Epochs of Nature, elaborated by ancient philosophers into the Cycles of the Stoics, the Great Days of Brahm, long periods of time rounded off by sweeping destructions, the Cataclysms and Ekpyrauses of the universe. Some thought in these all beings perished; others that a fewsurvived.200-1This latter and more common view is the origin of the myth of the deluge. How familiar such speculations were to the aborigines of America there is abundant evidence to show.
The early Algonkin legends do not speak of an antediluvian race, nor of any family who escaped thewaters. Michabo, the spirit of the dawn, their supreme deity, alone existed, and by his power formed and peopled it. Nor did their neighbors, the Dakotas, though firm in the belief that the globe had once been destroyed by the waters, suppose that any hadescaped.201-1The same view was entertained by theNicaraguans201-2and the Botocudos of Brazil. The latter attributed its destruction to the moon falling to the earth from time totime.201-3
Much the most general opinion, however, was that some few escaped the desolating element by one of those means most familiar to the narrator, by ascending some mountain, on a raft or canoe, in a cave, or even by climbing a tree. No doubt some of these legends have been modified by Christian teachings; but many of them are so connected with local peculiarities and ancient religious ceremonies, that no unbiased student can assign them wholly to that source, as Professor Vater has done, even if the authorities for many of them were less trustworthy than they are. There are no more common heirlooms in the traditional lore of the red race. Nearly every old author quotes one or more of them. They present great uniformity of outline, and rather than engage in repetitions of little interest, they can be more profitably studied in the aggregate than in detail.
By far the greater number represent the last destruction of the world to have been by water. A few, however, the Takahlis of the North Pacific coast, the Yurucares of the Bolivian Cordilleras, and the Mbocobi of Paraguay, attribute it to a general conflagration which swept over the earth, consuming every living thing except a few who took refuge in a deepcave.202-1The more common opinion of a submersion gave rise to those traditions of a universal flood so frequently recorded by travellers, and supposed by many to be reminiscences of that of Noah.
There are, indeed, some points of striking similarity between the deluge myths of Asia and America. It has been called a peculiarity of the latter that in them the person saved is always the first man. This, though not without exception, is certainly the general rule. But these first men were usually the highest deities known to their nations, the only creators of the world, and the guardians of therace.202-2
Moreover, in the oldest Sanscrit legend of the flood in the Zatapatha Brahmana, Manu is also the first man, and by his own efforts createsoffspring.202-3
A later Sanscrit work assigns to Manu the seven Richis or shining ones as companions. Seven was also the number of persons in the ark of Noah. Curiously enough one Mexican and one early Peruvian myth give out exactly seven individuals as saved in theirfloods.203-1This coincidence arises from the mystic powers attached to the number seven, derived from its frequent occurrence in astrology. Proof of this appears by comparing the later and the older versions of this myth, either in the book of Genesis, where the latter is distinguished by the use of the word Elohim forJehovah,203-2or the Sanscrit account in the Zatapatha Brahmana with those in the laterPuranas.203-3In both instances the number seven hardly or at all occurs in the oldest version, while it is constantly repeated in those of later dates.
As the mountain or rather mountain chain of Ararat was regarded with veneration wherever the Semitic accounts were known, so in America heights were pointed out with becoming reverence as those on which the few survivors of the dreadful scenes of the deluge were preserved. On the Red River near the village of the Caddoes was one of these, a small natural eminence, “to which all the Indian tribes for a great distance around pay devout homage,” according to Dr.Sibley.203-4The Cerro Naztarny on the Rio Grande, the peak of Old Zuñi in New Mexico, that of Colhuacan on the Pacific Coast, Mount Apoala inUpper Mixteca, and Mount Neba in the province of Guaymi, are some of many elevations asserted by the neighboring nations to have been places of refuge for their ancestors when the fountains of the great deep broke forth.
One of the Mexican traditions related by Torquemada identified this with the mountain of Tlaloc in the terrestrial paradise, and added that one of the seven demigods who escaped commenced the pyramid of Cholula in its memory. He intended that its summit should reach the clouds, but the gods, angry at his presumption, drove away the builders with lightning. This has a suspicious resemblance to Bible stories. Equally fabulous was the retreat of the Araucanians. It was a three-peaked mountain which had the property of floating on water, called Theg-Theg, the Thunderer. This they believed would preserve them in the next as it did in the last cataclysm, and as its only inconvenience was that it approached too near the sun, they always kept on hand wooden bowls to use asparasols.204-1
The intimate connection that once existed between the myths of the deluge and those of the creation is illustrated by the part assigned to birds in so many of them. They fly to and fro over the waves ere any land appears, though they lose in great measure the significance of bringing it forth, attached to them in the cosmogonies as emblems of the divine spirit. The dove in the Hebrew account appears in that of the Algonkins as a raven, which Michabo sent out to search for land before the muskrat brought it tohim from the bottom. A raven also in the Athapascan myth saved their ancestors from the general flood, and in this instance it is distinctly identified with the mighty thunder bird, who at the beginning ordered the earth from the depths. Prometheus-like, it brought fire from heaven, and saved them from a second death bycold.205-1Precisely the same beneficent actions were attributed by the Natchez to the small red cardinalbird,205-2and by the Mandans and Cherokees an active participation in the event was assigned to wild pigeons. The Navajos and Aztecs thought that instead of being drowned by the waters the human race were transformed into birds and thus escaped. In all these and similar legends, the bird is a relic of the cosmogonal myth which explained the origin of the world from the action of the winds, under the image of the bird, on the primeval ocean.