Light they now had, and fire; but one thing was still wanting to men; they had no fresh water. A personage called Khanukh[II-66]kept all the fresh water in his well, in an island to the east of Sitka, and over the mouth of the well, for its better custody, he had built his hut. Yehl set out to the island in his boat, to secure the water, and on his way he met Khanukh himself, paddling along in another boat. Khanukh spoke first: How long hast thou been living in the world? Proudly Yehl answered: Before the world stood in its place, I was there. Yehl in his turn questioned Khanukh: But how long hast thou lived in the world? To which Khanukh replied: Ever since the time that the liver came out frombelow.[II-67]Then said Yehl: Thou art older than I. Upon this Khanukh, to show that his power was as great as his age, took off his hat, and there rose a dense fog, so that the one could no longer see the other. Yehl then became afraid, and cried out to Khanukh; but Khanukh answered nothing. At last when Yehl found himself completely helpless in the darkness, he began to weep and howl; upon which the old sorcerer put on his hat again, and the fog vanished. Khanukh then invited Yehl to his house, and entertained him handsomely with many luxuries, among which was fresh water. The meal over, host and guest sat down, and the latter began a long relation of his many exploits and adventures. Khanukh listened as attentively as he could, but the story was really so interminable that he at last fell asleep across the cover of his well. This frustrated Yehl's intention of stealing the water while its owner slept, so he resorted to another stratagem: he put some filth under the sleeper, then waking him up, made him believe he had bewrayed himself. Khanukh, whose own nose abhorred him, at once hurried off to the sea to wash, and his deceiver as quickly set about securing the precious water. Just as All-father Odin, the Raven-god, stole Suttung's mead, drinking it up and escaping in the form of a bird, so Yehl drank what fresh water he could, filling himself to the very beak, then took the form of a raven and attempted to fly off through the chimney of the hut. He stuck in the flue however, and Khanukh returning at that instant recognized his guest in the struggling bird. The old man comprehended the situation, and quietly piling up a roaring fire, he sat down comfortably to watch the choking and scorching of his crafty guest. The raven had always been a white bird, but so thoroughly was he smoked in the chimney on this occasion that he has ever since remained the sootiest offowls. At last Khanukh watching the fire, became drowsy and fell asleep; so Yehl escaped from the island with the water. He flew back to the continent, where he scattered it in every direction; and wherever small drops fell there are now springs and creeks, while the large drops have produced lakes and rivers. This is the end of the exploits of Yehl; having thus done everything necessary to the happiness of mankind, he returned to his habitation, which is in the east, and into which no other spirit, nor any man can possibly enter.
The existing difference in language between the Thlinkeets and other people is one of the consequences of a great flood—perhaps that flood already described as having been brought on through the jealousy of the canoe-builder. Many persons escaped drowning by taking refuge in a great floating building. When the waters fell, this vessel grounded upon a rock, and was broken into two pieces; in the one fragment were left those whose descendants speak the Thlinkeet language, in the other remained all whose descendants employ a different idiom.
CHETHL AND AHGISHANAKHOU.
Connected with the history of this deluge is another myth in which a great Bird figures. When the waters rose a certain mysterious brother and sister found it necessary to part. The name of the brother was Chethl, that is, Thunder or Lightning, and the name of the sister was Ahgishanakhou, which means the Underground Woman. As they separated Chethl said to her: Sister, you shall never see me again, but while I live you shall hear my voice. Then he clothed himself in the skin of a great bird, and flew towards the south-west. His sister climbed to the top of Mount Edgecomb, which is near Sitka, and it opened and swallowed her up, leaving a great hole, or crater. The world itself is an immense flat plate supported on a pillar, and under the world, in silence and darkness, this Under-ground Woman guards the great pillar from evil and malignant powers. She has never seen her brother since she left the upper world, and she shall never see him again; butstill, when the tempest sweeps down on Edgecomb, the lightning of his eyes gleams down her crater-window, and the thundering of his wings re-echoes through all her subterranean halls.[II-68]
The Koniagas, north of the Thlinkeets, have their legendary Bird and Dog—the latter taking the place occupied in the mythology of many other tribes by the wolf or coyote. Up in heaven, according to the Koniagas, there exists a great deity called Shljam Schoa. He created two personages and sent them down to the earth, and the Raven accompanied them carrying light. This original pair made sea, rivers, mountains, forests, and such things. Among other places they made the Island of Kadiak, and so stocked it that the present Koniagas assert themselves the descendants of a Dog.[II-69]
The Aleuts of the Aleutian Archipelago seem to disagree upon their origin. Some say that in the beginning a Bitch inhabited Unalaska, and that a great Dog swam across to her from Kadiak; from which pair the human race have sprung. Others, naming the bitch-mother of their race Mahakh, describe a certain Old Man, called Iraghdadakh, who came from the north to visit this Mahakh. The result of this visit was the birth of two creatures, male and female, with such an extraordinary mixing up of the elements of nature in them that they were each half man, half fox. The name of the male creature was Acagnikakh, and by the other creature he became father of the human race. The Old Man however seems hardly to have needed any help to people the world, for like the great patriarch of Thessaly, he was able to create men by merely casting stones on the earth. He flung also other stones into the air, into the water, and over the land, thus making beasts, birds, and fishes. In another version of the narrative, the first father of theAleuts is said to have fallen from heaven in the shape of a dog.[II-70]
THE DOG-ORIGIN OF THE HYPERBOREANS.
In the legends of the Tinneh, living inland, north-east of the Koniagas, the familiar Bird and Dog again appear. These legends tell us that the world existed at first as a great ocean frequented only by an immense Bird, the beating of whose wings was thunder, and its glance lightning. This great flying monster descended and touched the waters, upon which the earth rose up and appeared above them; it touched the earth, and therefrom came every living creature—except the Tinneh, who owe their origin to a Dog. Therefore it is that to this day a dog's flesh is an abomination to the Tinneh, as are also all who eat such flesh. A few years before Captain Franklin's visit they almost ruined themselves by following the advice of some fanatic reformer. Convinced by him of the wickedness of exacting labor from their near relations, the dogs, they got rid at once of the sin and of all temptation to its recommission, by killing every cur in their possession.
To return to the origin of the Tinneh, the wonderful Bird before mentioned made and presented to them a peculiar arrow, which they were to preserve for all time with great care. But they would not; they misappropriated the sacred shaft to some common use, and immediately the great Bird flew away never to return. With its departure ended the Golden Age of the Tinneh—an age in which men lived till their throats were worn through with eating, and their feet with walking.[II-71]
Belonging to the Northern-Indian branch of the Tinneh we find a narrative in which the Dog holds a prominent place, but in which we find no mention at all of the Bird: The earth existed at first in a chaotic state, with only one human inhabitant, a woman who dwelt in a cave and lived on berries. While gathering these one day, she encountered an animal like a dog, which followedher home. This Dog possessed the power of transforming himself into a handsome young man, and in this shape he became the father by the woman of the first men. In course of time a giant of such height that his head reached the clouds, arrived on the scene and fitted the earth for its inhabitants. He reduced the chaos to order; he established the land in its boundaries, he marked out with his staff the position or course of the lakes, ponds, and rivers. Next he slew the Dog and tore him to pieces, as the four giants did the Beaver of the Palouse River, or as the creating Æsir did Aurgelmir. Unlike the four brothers, however, and unlike the sons of Bör, this giant of the Tinneh used the fragments not to create men or things, but animals. The entrails of the dog he threw into the water, and every piece became a fish; the flesh he scattered over the land, and every scrap became an animal; the bits of skin he sowed upon the wind, and they became birds. All these spread over the earth, and increased and multiplied; and the giant gave the woman and her progeny power to kill and eat of them according to their necessities. After this he returned to his place, and he has not since been heard of.[II-72]
Leaving now this division of our subject, more particularly concerned with cosmogony, it may not be amiss to forestall possible criticism as to the disconnected manner in which the various myths are given. I have but to repeat that the mythology with which we have to deal is only known in fragments, and to submit that a broken statue, or even a broken shard, of genuine or presumably genuine antiquity, is more valuable to science and even to poetry, than the most skillful ideal restoration.
INTERPRETATION OF MYTHS.
Further, the absence of any attempt to form a connected whole out of the myths that come under our notice cannot but obviate that tendency to alter in outline and to color in detail which is so insensibly natural to any mythographer prepossessed with the spirit of asystem. In advancing lastly the opinion that the disconnected arrangement is not only better adapted toward preserving the original myths in their integrity, but is also better for the student, I may be allowed to close the chapter with the second of the Rules for the Interpretation of Mythes given by so distinguished an authority as Mr. Keightley: "In like manner the mythes themselves should be considered separately, and detached from the system in which they are placed; for the single mythes existed long before the system, and were the product of other minds than those which afterwards set them in connection, not unfrequently without fully understanding them."[II-73]
Sun, Moon, and Stars—Eclipses—The Moon Personified in the Land of the Crescent—Fire—How the Coyote Stole Fire for the Cahrocs—How the Frog Lost His Tail—How the Coyote Stole Fire for the Navajos—Wind and Thunder—The Four Winds and the Cross—Water, the First of Elemental Things—Its Sacred and Cleansing Power—Earth and Sky—Earthquakes and Volcanoes—Mountains—How the Hawk and Crow Built the Coast Range—The Mountains of Yosemite.
Fetichism seems to be the physical philosophy of man in his most primitive state. He looks on material things as animated by a life analogous to his own, as having a personal consciousness and character, as being severally the material body that contains some immaterial essence or soul. A child or a savage strikes or chides any object that hurts him, and caresses the gewgaw that takes his fancy, talking to it much as to a companion.
VAGARIES CONCERNING CELESTIAL BODIES.
Let there be something peculiar, mysterious, or dangerous about the thing and the savage worships it, deprecates its wrath and entreats its favor, with such ceremonies, prayers, and sacrifices as he may deem likely to win upon its regard. In considering such cases mythologically, it will be necessary to examine the facts to see whether we have to deal with simple fetichism or with idolatry. That savage worships a fetich who worships the heaving sea as a great living creature, or kneels to flame as to a hissing roaring animal; but the Greeks in conceiving a separate anthropomorphic god of the sea orof the fire, and in representing that god by figures of different kinds, were only idolaters. The two things, however, are often so merged into each other that it becomes difficult or impossible to say in many instances whether a particular object, for example the sun, is regarded as the deity or merely as the representation or symbol of the deity. It is plain enough, however, that a tolerably distinct element of fetichism underlies much of the Indian mythology. Speaking of this mythology in the mass, the North American Review says: "A mysterious and inexplicable power resides in inanimate things. They, too, can listen to the voice of man, and influence his life for evil or for good. Lakes, rivers, and waterfalls are sometimes the dwelling-place of spirits, but more frequently they are themselves living beings, to be propitiated by prayers and offerings."[III-1]
The explicit worship of the sun and more or less that of other heavenly bodies, or at least a recognition of some supernatural power resident in or connected with them, was widely spread through Mexico, as well among the uncivilized as among the civilized tribes. The wild Chichimecs or that portion of the wild tribes of Mexico to which Alegre applied this name, owned the sun as their deity, as did also the people of the Nayarit country.[III-2]
In what we may call civilized Mexico, the sun was definitely worshiped under the name of Tonatiuh, the Sun in his substance, and under that of Naolin, the Sun in his four motions. He was sometimes represented by a human face surrounded with rays, at other times by a full-length human figure, while again he often seems to be confused or connected with the element fire and the god of fire. Sahagun, for instance, usually speaks of the festival of the month Itzcalli as appertaining to the god of fire, but in at least one place he describes it as belonging to the sun and the fire.[III-3]The sun, it is tolerablycertain, held, if not the highest place, one not far removed from that position in the Mexican pantheon. Brasseur de Bourbourg, Tylor, Squier, and Schoolcraft agree in considering sun-worship the most radical religious idea of all civilized American religions.[III-4]Professor Müller considers the sun-god and the supreme Mexican Teotl to be identical.[III-5]Dr. Brinton, as we shall see when we come to notice the mythology of fire, while not denying the prominence of the sun-cult, would refer that cult to a basal and original fire-worship. Many interpreters of mythology see also the personification of the sun in others of the Mexican gods besides Tonatiuh. More especially does evidence seem to point strongly in this direction in the case of Quetzalcoatl, as will be seen when we come to deal with this god.
The Mexicans were much troubled and distressed by an eclipse of the sun. They thought that he was much disturbed and tossed about by something, and that he was becoming seriously jaundiced. This was the occasion of a general panic, women weeping aloud, and men howling and shouting and striking the hand upon the mouth. There was an immediate search for men with white hair and white faces, and these were sacrificed to the sun, amid the din and tumult of singing and musical instruments. It was thought that should the eclipse become once total, there would be an end of the light, and that in the darkness the demons would come down to the devouring of the people.[III-6]
ECLIPSES, AND THEIR EFFECT ON MAN.
The Tlascaltecs, regarding the sun and the moon as husband and wife, believed eclipses to be domestic quarrels, whose consequences were likely to be fatal to the world if peace could not be made before things proceeded to an extremity. To sooth the ruffled spirit of the sun when he was eclipsed, a human sacrifice was offered to him of the ruddiest victims that could be found; and when the moon was darkened she was appeased with the blood of those white-complexioned persons commonly known as Albinos.[III-7]
The idea of averting the evil by noise, in case of an eclipse either of the sun or moon, seems to have been a common one among other American tribes. Alegre ascribes it to the natives of Sonora in general. Ribas tells how the Sinaloas held that the moon in an eclipse was darkened with the dust of battle. Her enemy had come upon her, and a terrible fight, big with consequence to those on earth, went on in heaven. In wild excitement the people beat on the sides of their houses, encouraging the moon and shooting flights of arrows up into the sky to distract her adversary. Much the same as this was also done by certain Californians.[III-8]
With regard to an eclipse of the moon the Mexicans seem to have had rather special ideas as to its effects upon unborn children. At such times, women who were with child became alarmed lest their infant should be turned into a mouse, and to guard against such an undesirable consummation they held a bit of obsidian,iztli, in their mouth, or put a piece of it in their girdle, so that the child should be born perfect and not lipless, or noseless, or wry-mouthed, or squinting, or a monster.[III-9]These ideas are probably connected with the fact that the Mexicans worshiped the moon under the name of Meztli, as a deity presiding over human generations.This moon-god is considered by Clavigero to be identical with Joaltecutli, god of night.[III-10]
It is to the Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg, however, that we must turn for a truly novel and cyclopean theory of Mexican lunolatry. He sees back to a time when the forefathers of American civilization lived in a certain Crescent Land in the Atlantic; here they practiced Sabaism. Through some tremendous physical catastrophe their country was utterly overwhelmed by the sea; and this inundation is considered by the abbé to be the origin of the deluge-myths of the Central-American nations. A remnant of these Crescent people saved themselves in the seven principal islands of the Lesser Antilles; these are, he explains, the seven mythical caves or grottoes celebrated in so many American legends as the cradle of the nations. The saved remnant of the people wept the loss of their friends and of their old land, making the latter, with its crescent shape, memorable forever by adopting the moon as their god. "It is the moon," writes the great Américaniste, "male and female, Luna and Lunas, personified in the land of the Crescent, engulfed in the abyss, that I believe I see at the commencement of this amalgam of rites and symbols of every kind."[III-11]I confess inability to follow the path by which the abbé has reached this conclusion; but I have indicated its whereabouts, and future students may be granted a further insight into this new labyrinth and the subtleties of its industrious Dædalus.
WHAT THE MEXICANS THOUGHT OF STARS AND COMETS.
The Mexicans had many curious ideas about the stars, some of which have come down to us. They particularly reverenced a certain group of three calledmamalhoaztli, in, or in the neighborhood of, the sign Taurus of the zodiac. This name was the same as that of the sticks from which fire was procured: a resemblance of somekind being supposed to exist between them and these stars. Connected again with this was the burning by every male Mexican of certain marks upon his wrist, in honor of the same stars; it being believed that the man who died without these marks should, on his arrival in hades, be forced to draw fire from his wrist by boring upon it as on a fire-stick. The planet Venus was worshiped as the first light that appeared in the world, as the god of twilight, and, according to some, as being identical with Quetzalcoatl. This star has been further said to borrow its light from the moon, and to rise by four starts. Its first twinkle was a bad augury, and to be closed out of all doors and windows; on appearing for the third time, it began to give a steady light, and on the fourth it shone forth in all its clearness and brilliancy.
Comets were called eachcitlalinpopoca, or the smoking star; their appearance was considered as a public disaster, and as announcing pest, dearth, or the death of some prince. The common people were accustomed to say of one, This is our famine, and they believed it to cast down certain darts, which falling on any animal, bred a maggot that rendered the creature unfit for food. All possible precautions of shelter were of course taken by persons in positions exposed to the influence of these noxious rays. Besides the foregoing, there were many stars or groups of stars whose names were identical with those of certain gods; the following seem to belong to this class: Tonacatlecutli or Citlalalatonalli, the milky way; Yzacatecutli, Tlahvizcalpantecutli, Ceyacatl, Achitumetl, Xacupancalqui, Mixcoatl, Tezcatlipoca, and Contemoctli.[III-12]
I have already noticed a prevailing tendency to connect the worship of fire and that of the sun. The rites of a perpetual fire are found closely connected witha sun-cult, and, whichever may be the older, it is certain they are rarely found apart. "What," says Tylor, "the sea is to Water-worship, in some measure the Sun is to Fire-worship."[III-13]Brinton would reverse this and give to fire the predominance: in short, he says, the sun "is always spoken of as a fire;" "and without danger or error we can merge the consideration of its worship almost altogether in this element."[III-14]This sounds rather extravagant and is hardly needed in any case; for sufficient reason for its deification can always be found in its mysterious nature and awful powers of destruction, as well as in its kind and constantly renewed services, if gratitude have any power in making a god. The mere guarding and holding sacred a particular fire probably originated in the importance of possessing an unfailing source of the element, and in the difficulty of its production if allowed to die out, among men not possessed of the appliances of civilization.
When we come to review the gods in general, those connected with fire will be pointed out as they appear; for the present, let it suffice to say that many American peoples had such gods, or had ceremonies suggesting their existence and recognition, or lastly, had legends of the origin or procurement of the fire they daily used on the altar or on the hearth. In the Pueblos of New Mexico, and more especially among the Pecos, sacred perpetual fires were kept up by special command of their traditionary god and ruler Montezuma; but these fires were not regarded as fetiches.[III-15]The Mexican fire-god was known by the name of Xiuhtecutli, and by other names appertaining to the different aspects in which he was viewed. While preserving his own well-marked identity, he was evidently closely relatedalso to the sun-god. Many and various, even in domestic life, were the ceremonies by which he was recognized; the most important ritual in connection with his service being, perhaps, the lighting of the new fire, with which, as we shall see, the beginning of every Mexican cycle was solemnized.[III-16]
There are various fables scattered up and down among the various tribes regarding the origin or rather the procuring of fire. We know how the Quichés received it from the stamp of the sandal of Tohil; how, from the home of the cuttle-fish, a deer brought it to the Ahts in a joint of his leg; how from a distant island the great Yehl of the Thlinkeets fetched the brand in his beak that filled the flint and the fire-stick with seeds of eternal fire.
HOW THE CAHROCS OBTAINED FIRE.
The Cahrocs hold that, when in the beginning the creator Chareya made fire, he gave it into the custody of two old hags, lest the Cahrocs should steal it. The Cahrocs, having exhausted every means to procure the treasure, applied for help to their old friend the Coyote; who, having maturely considered how the theft might best be accomplished, set about the thing in this way: From the land of the Cahrocs to the home of the old women he stationed a great company of animals, at convenient distances; the strongest nearest the den of the old beldames, the weakest farthest removed. Last of all he hid a Cahroc in the neighborhood of the hut, and, having left the man precise directions how to act, he trotted up to the door and asked to be let in out of the cold. Suspecting nothing, the crones gave him admittance; so he lay down in front of the fire, and made himself as comfortable as possible, waiting for the further action of his human accomplice without. In good time, the man made a furious attack on the house and the old furies rushed out at once to drive off the invader. This was the Coyote's opportunity. Instantly he seized ahalf-burnt brand and fled like a comet down the trail; and the two hags, seeing how they had been outwitted, turned after him in immediate and furious chase. It had gone hard then with the hopes of the Cahrocs, if their four-legged Prometheus had trusted to his single speed; but just as he began to feel the pace tell on him, and just as the weird women thought they were about to recover the brand, the Cougar relieved him of it. Great was the satisfaction of our wise Coyote, as he sank down, clearing his sooty eyes and throat, and catching his breath, to see the great lithe cat leap away with the torch, and the hags gnash their choppy gums as they rushed by, hard in pursuit, on the dim trail of sparks. The Cougar passed the brand to the Bear, the Bear to his neighbor, and so on to the end. Down the long line of carriers, the panting crones plied their withered old legs in vain; only two mishaps occurring among all the animals that made up the file. The squirrel, last in the train but one, burned his tail so badly that it curled up over his back, and even scorched the skin above his shoulders. Last of all, the poor Frog, who received the brand when it had burned down to a very little piece, hopped along so heavily that his pursuers gained on him, gained fast and surely. In vain he gathered himself for every spring, in vain he stretched at every leap till the jarred muscles cracked again. He was caught. The smoke-dimmed eyes stood out from his head, his little heart thumped like a club against the lean fingers that closed upon his body—yet that wild croak was not the croak of despair. Once more for the hope of the Cahrocs! one more struggle for the Coyote that trusted him in this great thing! and with a gulp the plucky little martyr swallowed the fire, tore himself from the hands that held him, leaped into a river, and diving deep and long, gained his goal; but gained it a mournful wreck, the handsome tail, which, of all his race, only the tadpole should ever wear again, was utterly gone, left, like that of an O'Shanter's mare, in the witch's grasp; only the ghost of himself was left to spit out onsome pieces of wood the precious embers preserved at so great a cost. And it is because the Frog spat out this fire upon these pieces of wood that it can always be extracted again by rubbing them hard together.[III-17]
FIRE, THE LIGHTNING, AND WIND.
The Navajos have a legend as to the procuring of fire, that has many analogies to the foregoing. They tell how, when they first gained the earth, they were without fire, and how the Coyote, the Bat, and the Squirrel agreed to procure it for them. The object of their desire seems to have been in the possession of the animals in general, in some distant locality. The Coyote, having attached pine splinters to his tail, ran quickly through the fire and fled with his lighted prize. Being keenly pursued, however, by the other animals, he soon tired; upon which the Bat relieved him, and dodging and flitting here and there, carried the splinters still farther. Then the Squirrel came to the assistance of the Bat, and succeeding him in his office, contrived to reach the hearths of the Navajos with the coveted embers.[III-18]
The natives of Mendocino county, California, believe that lightning is the origin of fire, that a primeval bolt hurled down by the Man Above fell upon certain wood, from which, consequently fire can always be extracted by rubbing two pieces together.[III-19]
From fire let us turn for a moment to wind, whose phenomena, as might be expected, have not been allowed to pass wholly unnoticed by the mythologies with which we have to deal. When we come to examine ideas connected with death and with the soul of man and its future, we shall find the wind, or the air, often in use as the best name and figure for the expression of primitive conceptions of that mysterious thing, the vital essence or spirit. The wind too is often considered as a god, or at least as the breath of a god, and in many American languages the Great Spirit and the Great Wind are one and the same both in word and signification. The nameof the god Hurakan, mentioned in Quiché myths, still signifies the Storm in many a language strange to his worshipers, while in Quiché it may be translated Spirit, or swiftly moving Spirit;[III-20]and the name of the Mexican god Mixcoatl is said to be to this day the correct Mexican term for the whirlwind.[III-21]
An interesting point here arises with regard to the division of the heavens into four quarters and the naming of these after the names of the wind. Dr. Brinton believes this fact to be at the bottom of the sacredness and often occurrence of the number four in so many early legends, and he connects these four winds and their embodiment in many quaternions of deities, with the sacredness of the cross and its use among widely separated nations, to whom its later Christian signification was utterly unknown.[III-22]
If we may suppose that the Great Spirit and the wind are often represented under the form of an enormous bird, we must connect with them, as their most inseparable attributes, the thunder and the lightning; the first, as we have so often seen, is the rustling or stridor of the wings of the bird, the second is the flashing of his eyes. The Raven of the Koniagas is not, however, as among most other tribes of the great Northwest, the author of these things; but their principal deity when he is angry sends down two dwarfs, who thunder and lighten according to his command.[III-23]Of the god Hurakan, whom we have noticed as the etymon of the word hurricane, the Popol Vuh says: "The flash is the first sign of Hurakan; the second is the furrow of the flash; the third is the thunderbolt that strikes;"[III-24]and to the Mexican god, Tlaloc, are also attached the same three attributes.[III-25]
WATER AS A PURIFYING ELEMENT.
Turning to water, we find it regarded among many tribes as the first of elemental things. It is from a primeval ocean of water that the earth is generally supposed to come up. Water is obviously a first and chief nourisher of vegetable life, and an indispensable prerequisite of all fertility; from this it is but a short step to saying that it is the mother of those that live by the earth's fertility. "Your mother, Chalchiuhtlicue, goddess of water," is a phrase constantly found in the midwife's mouth, in her address to the child, in the Mexican washing or baptismal service.[III-26]
The use of water more or less sanctified or set apart or made worthy the distinction 'holy;' the employment of this in a rite of avowed purification from inherent sin, at the time of giving a name—baptism, in one word—runs back to a period far pre-Christian among the Mexican, Maya, and other American nations; as ancient ceremonies to be hereafter described will show. That man sets out in this life-journey of his with a terrible bias toward evil, with a sad and pitiful liability to temptation, is a point upon which all religions are practically unanimous. How else could they exist? Were man born perfect he would remain perfect, otherwise the first element of perfection would be wanting; and perfection admits of no superlative, no greater, no god. Where there is a religion then, there is generally a consciousness of sin voluntary and involuntary. How shall I be cleansed? how shall my child be cleansed from this great wickedness? is the cry of the idolater as well as of the monotheist. Is it strange that the analogy between corporal and spiritual pollution should independently suggest itself to both? Surely not. Wash and be clean, is to all the world a parable needing no interpreter.[III-27]
The ceremonial use of water followed the Mexican through all his life; though for the present we shall only notice one more custom connected with it, the last of all. When a body was buried, a vase of clean, sweet water was let down into the tomb; bright, clear, life-giving and preserving water—hope and love, dumb and inarticulate, stretching vague hand toward a resurrection.
The Mexican rain and water god was Tlaloc, sender of thunder and lightning, lord of the earthly paradise, and fertilizer of earth; his wife was the Chalchiuhtlicue, already mentioned.[III-28]Like Tlaloc was Quiateot, the Nicaraguan rain-god, master of thunderbolts and general director of meteorological phenomena.[III-29]
The Navajos puffed tobacco smoke straight up toward heaven to bring rain, and those of them that carried a corpse to burial were unclean till washed in water.[III-30]In a deep and lonely cañon near Fort Defiance there is a spring that this tribe hold sacred, approaching it only with much reverence and the performance of certain mystic ceremonies. They say it was once a boiling spring, and that even yet if approached heedlessly or by a bad Indian, its waters will seethe up and leap forth to overwhelm the intruder.[III-31]
The Zuñis had also a sacred spring; sacred to the rain-god, who, as we see by implication, is Montezuma the great Pueblo deity himself. No animal might taste of its sacred waters, and it was cleansed annually with vessels also sacred—most ancient vases that had been transmitted from generation to generation since times towhich even tradition went not back. These vessels were kept ranged on the wall of the well. The frog, the rattlesnake, and the tortoise were depicted upon them, and were sacred to the great patron of the place, whose terrible lightning should consume the sacrilegious hand that touched these hallowed relics.[III-32]
THE EARTH, THE SEA, THE SKY.
We have seen how the Californian tribes believe themselves descended from the very earth, how the bodiless ancestor of the Tezcucans came up from the soil, how the Guatemaltecs, Papagos, and Pimas were molded from the clay they tread, and how the Navajos came to light from the bowels of a great mountain near the river San Juan. It seems long ago and often to have come into men's mind that the over-arching heaven or something there and the all-producing earth are, as it were, a father and mother to all living creatures. The Comanches call on the earth as their mother, and on the Great Spirit as their father. The Mexicans used to pray: Be pleased, O our Lord, that the nobles who may die in the war be peacefully and pleasingly received by the sun and the earth, who are the father and mother of all.[III-33]It was probably, again, with some reference to the motherly function of the earth that the same people, when an earthquake came, took their children by the head or hand, and lifted them up saying: The earthquake will make them grow.[III-34]Sometimes they specified a particular part of the earth as closer to them in this relation than other parts. It is said that on the tenth day of the month Quecholli, the citizens of Mexico and those of Tlatelolco were wont to visit a hill called Cacatepec, for they said it was their mother.[III-35]
As to the substance, arrangement, and so on of the earth and sky there remain one or two ideas not already given in connection with the general creation. The Tlascaltecs, and perhaps others of the Anáhuac peoples, believed that the earth was flat, and ending with the sea-shore,was borne up by certain divinities, who when fatigued relieved each other, and that as the burden was shifted from shoulder to shoulder earthquakes occurred. The sea and sky were considered as of one material, the sea being more highly condensed; and the rain was thought to fall not from clouds but from the very substance of heaven itself.[III-36]The Southern Californians believed that when the Creator made the world he fixed it on the back of seven giants, whose movements, as in the preceding myth, caused earthquakes.[III-37]The sky, according to certain of the Yucatecs, was held up by four brothers called each of them Bacab, in addition to their several names, which seem to have been Kan, Muluc, Ix, and Cauac. These four, God had placed at the four corners of the world when he created it, and they had escaped when all else were destroyed by flood.[III-38]
In the interior of the earth, in volcanoes, subterranean gods were often supposed to reside. The Koniagas, for example, held that the craters of Alaska were inhabited by beings mightier then men, and that these sent forth fire and smoke when they heated their sweat-houses or cooked their food.[III-39]
The rugged majesty of hills and mountains has not been without its effect on the reverential mind of the American aborigines. Direct worship was unusual, but several incidents must have already informed the reader that a kind of sanctity is often attached to great elevations in nature. A predilection for hills and mounds as landmarks and fanes of tradition, and as places of worship, was as common among the Americans as among the people of the old world. The Choles of the province of Itza had a hill in their country that they regarded as the god of all the mountains, and on which they burned a perpetual fire.[III-40]The Mexicans, praying for rain, wereaccustomed to vow that they would make images of the mountains if their petitions were favorably received;[III-41]and, in other points connected with their religion to show, as has appeared and will appear both with them and with other people, their recognition of a divinity abiding on or hedging about the great peaks. What wonder, indeed, that to the rude and awe-struck mind, the everlasting hills seemed nearer and liker heaven than the common-place level of earth? and that the wild man should kneel or go softly there, as in the peculiar presence of the Great Spirit? This is hardly a new feeling, it seems an instinct and custom as old as religion. Where went Abraham in that awful hour, counted to him for righteousness through all the centuries? Where smoked the thunderings and lightnings that heralded the delivery of the Law, when the son of Amram talked with Jehovah face to face, as a man talketh with his friend? Whence saw a greater than Moses the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them? whence, in the all-nights that came after, did the prayers of the Christ ascend? and where stood he when his raiment became as no fuller on earth could white it; Moses and Elias talking with him, and Peter so sore afraid?
HILLS AND MOUNTAIN RANGES.
Where hills were not found conveniently situated for purposes of worship, they seem to have been counterfeited after man's feeble fashion: from high-place and mound, from pyramid and teocalli, since the morning stars sang together, the smoke of the altar and the censer has not ceased to ascend. But the day begins to broaden out, and the mists of the morning flee away; though the hills be not lowered, God is lifted up. Yet they have their glory and their charm still even to us, and to the savage they often appear as the result of a special and several creation. We remember how the Great Spirit made Mount Shasta as his only worthy abiding-place on earth; and I give here another legend of a much more trivial sort than the first,telling how, not Mount Shasta alone, but all the mountains of California were built and put into position:—[III-42]At a time when the world was covered with water there existed a Hawk and a Crow and a very small Duck. The latter, after diving to the bottom and bringing up a beakful of mud, died; whereupon the Crow and the Hawk took each a half of the mud that had been brought up, and set to work to make the mountains. Beginning at a place called Teheechaypah Pass, they built northwards, the Hawk working on the eastern range and the Crow on the western. It was a long and weary toil, but in time the work was finished, and as they laid the last peak the workers met at Mount Shasta. Then the Hawk saw that there had been foul play somewhere, for the western range was bigger than his; and he charged the Crow with stealing some of his mud. But the smart bird laughed a hoarse guffaw in the face of his eastern brother, not even taking the trouble to disown the theft, and chuckled hugely over his own success and western enterprise. The honest Hawk was at his wits' end, and he stood thinking with his head on one side for quite a long time; then in an absent kind of way he picked up a leaf of Indian tobacco and began to chew, and wisdom came with chewing. And he strengthened himself mightily, and fixed his claws in the mountains, and turned the whole chain in the water like a great floating wheel, till the range of his rival had changed places with his, and the Sierra Nevada was on the east and the Coast Range on the west, as they remain to this day.
This legend is not without ingenuity in its way but there is more of human interest in the following pretty story of the Yosemite nations, as to the origin of the names and present appearance of certain peaks and other natural features of their valley:—
TOTOKÓNULA AND TISAYAC OF YOSEMITE.
A certain Totokónula was once chief of the people here: a mighty hunter and a good husbandman, histribe never wanted food while he attended to their welfare. But a change came; while out hunting one day, the young man met a spirit-maid, the guardian angel of the valley, the beautiful Tisayac. She was not as the dusky beauties of his tribe, but white and fair, with rolling yellow tresses that fell over her shoulders like sunshine, and blue eyes with a light in them like the sky where the sun goes down. White, cloudlike wings were folded behind her shoulders, and her voice was sweeter than the song of birds; no wonder the strong chief loved her with a mad and instant love. He reached toward her, but the snowy wings lifted her above his sight, and he stood again alone upon the dome, where she had been.
No more Totokónula led in the chase or heeded the crops in the valley; he wandered here and there like a man distraught, ever seeking that wonderful shining vision that had made all else on earth stale and unprofitable in his sight. The land began to languish, missing the industrious directing hand that had tended it so long; the pleasant garden became a wilderness where the drought laid waste, and the wild beast spoiled what was left, and taught his cubs to divide the prey. When the fair spirit returned at last to visit her valley, she wept to see the desolation, and she knelt upon the dome, praying to the Great Spirit for succor. God heard, and stooping from his place, he clove the dome upon which she stood, and the granite was riven beneath her feet, and the melted snows of the Nevada rushed through the gorge, bearing fertility upon their cool bosom. A beautiful lake was formed between the cloven walls of the mountain, and a river issued from it to feed the valley for ever. Then sang the birds as of old, laving their bodies in the water, and the odor of flowers rose like a pleasant incense, and the trees put forth their buds, and the corn shot up to meet the sun and rustled when the breeze crept through the tall stalks.
Tisayac moved away as she had come, and none knew whither she went; but the people called the dome by her name, as it is indeed known to this day. After herdeparture the chief returned from his weary quest; and as he heard that the winged one had visited the valley, the old madness crept up into his eyes and entered, seven times worse than at the first, into his empty soul; he turned his back on the lodges of his people. His last act was to cut with his hunting-knife the outline of his face upon a lofty rock, so that if he never returned his memorial at least should remain with them forever. He never did return from that hopeless search, but the graven rock was called Totokónula, after his name, and it may be still seen, three thousand feet high, guarding the entrance of the beautiful valley.[III-43]
Leaving this locality and subject, I may remark that the natives have named the Póhono Fall, in the same valley, after an evil spirit; many persons having been swept over and dashed to pieces there. No native of the vicinity will so much as point at this fall when going through the valley, nor could anything tempt one of them to sleep near it; for the ghosts of the drowned are tossing in its spray, and their wail is heard forever above the hiss of its rushing waters.[III-44]
Rôles Assigned to Animals—Auguries from their Movements—The Ill-omened Owl—Tutelary Animals—Metamorphosed Men—The Ogress-Squirrel of Vancouver Island—Monkeys and Beavers—Fallen Men—The Sacred Animals—Prominence of the Bird—An Emblem of the Wind—The Serpent, an Emblem of the Lightning—Not Specially connected With Evil—The Serpent of the Pueblos—The Water-Snake—Ophiolatry—Prominence of the Dog, or the Coyote—Generally though not always a Benevolent Power—How the Coyote let Salmon up the Klamath—Danse Macabre and Sad Death of the Coyote.
The reader must have already noticed the strange rôles filled by animals in the creeds of the Native Races of the Pacific States. Beasts and birds and fishes fetch and carry, talk and act, in a way that leaves even Æsop's heroes in the shade; while a mysterious and inexplicable influence over human destiny is often accorded to them. It is of course impossible to say precisely how much of all this is metaphorical, and how much is held as soberly and literally true. Probably the proportion varies all the way from one extreme to the other among different nations, and among peoples of different stages of culture in the same nation. They spake only in part, these priests and prophets of barbaric cults, and we can understand only in part; we cannot solve the dark riddle of the past; we can oftenest only repeat it, and even that in a more or less imperfect manner.
The Mexicans had their official augurs and soothsayers,who divined much as did their brethren of classic times. The people also drew omen and presage from many things: from the howling of wild beasts at night; the singing of certain birds; the hooting of the owl; a weasel crossing a traveler's path; a rabbit running into its burrow; from the chance movements of worms, beetles, ants, frogs, and mice; and so on in detail.[IV-1]
The owl seems to have been in many places considered a bird of ill omen. Among all the tribes visited by Mr Lord, from the Fraser River to the Saint Lawrence, this bird was portentously sacred, and was a favorite decoration of the medicine-men. To come on an owl at an unusual time, in daylight for example, and to hear its mystic cry, were things not desirable of any that loved fulness of pleasure and length of days.[IV-2]In California, by the tribes on the Russian River, owls were held to be devils or evil spirits incarnate.[IV-3]
We often find an animal adopted in much the same way as a patron saint was selected by the mediæval knight. The Hyperborean lad, for example, when he reaches manhood, takes some beast or fish or bird to be his patron, and the spirit connected with that animal is supposed to guard him. Unlike most Indians, the Eskimo will have no hesitation in killing an animal of his tutelary species: he is only careful to wear a piece of its skin or bone, which he regards as an amulet, which it were to him a serious misfortune to lose. Prolonged ill luck sometimes leads a man to change his patron beast for another. The spirits connected with the deer, the seal, the salmon, and the beluga are regarded by all with special veneration.[IV-4]
The Mexicans used to allot certain animals to certain parts of the body; perhaps in much the same way as astrologers and alchemists used to connect the stars of heaven with different substances and persons. The following twenty Mexican symbols were supposed to ruleover the various members of the human body: The sign of the deer, over the right foot; of the tiger, over the left foot; of the eagle, over the right hand; of the monkey, over the left hand; of death—represented by a skull—over the skull; of water, over the hair; of the house, over the brow; of rain, over the eyes; of the dog, over the nose; of the vulture, over the right ear; of the rabbit, over the left ear; of the earthquake, over the tongue; of flint, over the teeth; of air, over the breath; of the rose, over the breast; of the cane, over the heart; of wind, over the lungs—as appears from the plate in the Codex Vaticanus, the Italian interpreter giving, however, "over the liver;" of the grass, over the intestines; of the lizard, over the loins; and of the serpent, over the genitals.[IV-5]
THE HUMANITY OF ANIMALS.
Sometimes the whole life and being of a man was supposed to be bound up in the bundle with that of some animal. Thus, of the Guatemaltecs, old Gage quaintly enough writes: "Many are deluded by the Devil to believe that their life dependeth upon the life of such and such a beast (which they take unto them as their familiar spirit) and think that when that beast dieth they must die; when he is chased their hearts pant; when he is faint they are faint; nay it happeneth that by the devil's delusion they appear in the shape of that beast."[IV-6]
Animals are sometimes only men in disguise; and this is the idea often to be found at the bottom of that sacredness which among particular tribes is ascribed to particular animals.
The Thlinkeet will kill a bear only in case of great necessity, for the bear is supposed to be a man that has taken the shape of an animal. We do not know if they think the same of the albatross, but they certainly willnot kill this bird, believing, like mariners ancient and modern, that such a misdeed would be followed by bad weather.[IV-7]
Among the natives seen by Mr Lord on Vancouver Island, ill-luck is supposed to attend the profane killing of the ogress-squirrel, and the conjurers wear its skin as a strong charm among their other trumpery. As tradition tells, there once lived there a monstrous old woman with wolfish teeth, and finger-nails like claws. She ate children, this old hag, wiling them to her with cunning and oily words, and many were the broken hearts and empty cradles that she left. One poor Rachel, weeping for her child and not to be comforted because it was not, cries aloud: Oh, Great Spirit, Great Medicine, save my son, in any way, in any form! And the great, good Father, looking down upon the red mother pities her; lo, the child's soft brown skin turns to fur, and there slides from the ogress's grip no child, but the happiest, liveliest, merriest little squirrel of all the west—but bearing, as its descendants still bear, those four dark lines along the back that show where the cruel claws plowed into it escaping.[IV-8]
Where monkeys are found, the idea seems often to have occurred to men, to account for the resemblance of the monkey to the man by making of the first a fallen or changed form of the latter. We have already seen how the third Quiché destruction of the human race terminated thus; and how the hurricane-ended Sun of the Air in Mexican mythology, also left men in the apish state. The intelligence of beavers may have been the means of winning them a similar distinction. The Flathead says these animals are a fallen race of Indians, condemned for their wickedness to this form, but who will yet, in the fulness of time, be restored to their humanity.[IV-9]
As we shall see more particularly, when we come todeal with the question of the future life, it was a common idea that the soul of the dead took an animal shape, sometimes inhabiting another world, sometimes this. The Thlinkeets, for example, believed that their shamáns used to have interviews with certain spirits of the dead that appeared to them in two forms, some as land animals, some as marine.[IV-10]
SACREDNESS OF CERTAIN BRUTES.
The Californians round San Diego will not eat the flesh of large game, believing such animals are inhabited by the souls of generations of people that have died ages ago; 'eater of venison!' is a term of reproach among them.[IV-11]
The Pimos and Maricopas had, if Bartlett's account be correct, some curious and unusual ideas regarding their future state; saying that the several parts of the body should be changed into separate animals; the head would perhaps take the form of an owl, the feet become wolves, and so on.[IV-12]The Moquis supposed that at death they should be severally changed into animals—bears, deer, and such beasts; which indeed, as we have already seen, they believed to have been their original form.[IV-13]
Different reasons are given by different tribes for holding certain animals sacred; some of these we have already had occasion to notice. Somewhat different from most, however, is that given by the Northern-Indian branch of the Tinneh, for not eating the flesh of foxes, wolves, ravens, and so on. This tribe are accustomed to abandon the bodies of their dead wherever they happen to fall, leaving them to the maws of kites or of any other animals of prey in the neighborhood; therefore nothing but the extremest necessity can force any member of the nation to make use of such animals as food.[IV-14]
Certain natives of Guatemala in the province of Acalán, called by Villagutierre Mazotecas, kept deer in so tame astate that they were easily killed by the least active soldiers. These deer were held as sacred by the inhabitants; for tradition told them that their greatest god had visited them in this figure.[IV-15]The Apaches greatly respect the bear, neither killing him nor tasting his flesh. They think that there are spirits of divine origin within or connected with the eagle, the owl, and all birds perfectly white. Swine, they hold to be wholly unclean.[IV-16]Some animals are sacred to particular gods: with the Zuñis, the frog, the turtle, and the rattlesnake were either considered as specially under the protection of Montezuma—here considered as the god of rain—or they were themselves the lesser divinities of water.[IV-17]
It is sometimes necessary to guard against being misled by names. Thus the natives of Nicaragua had gods whose name was that of a rabbit or a deer; yet these animals were not considered as gods. The identity of name went only to say that such and such were the gods to be invoked in hunting such and such animals.[IV-18]
THE WIND OR THUNDER BIRD.
The reader must have already noticed how important is the part assigned to birds in our mythology, especially in creation-myths. A great bird is the agent of the chief deity, perhaps the chief deity himself. The sweep of his wings is thunder; the lightnings are the glances of his eyes.[IV-19]Chipewyans, Thlinkeets, Atnas, Koltschanes, Kenai, and other nations give this being great prominence in their legends.
Brinton believes this bird to be the emblem of the wind, to be "a relic of the cosmogonal myth which explained the origin of the world from the action of the winds, underthe image of the bird, on the primeval ocean;"[IV-20]and his view is probably correct in many cases.
The savage is ever ready to be smitten by natural powers. Ignorant and agape with wonder, is it unnatural that he should regard, with a superstitious awe and respect, the higher and more peculiar animal gifts, relating them to like physical powers, and managing to mix and confuse the whole by a strange synthesis of philosophy? Birds flew, the winds flew; the birds were of the kith of the winds, and the winds were of the kin of the gods who are over all. Poor, weary, painted man, who could only toil dustily along, foot-sore and perhaps heart-sore, with strange longings that venison and bear-meat could not satisfy—was it very wonderful if the throbbing music and upward flight of the clear-throated and swift-winged were to him very mysterious and sacred things? "All living beings," say the north-eastern Eskimos, "have the faculty of soul, but especially the bird." From the flight and song of birds, the Mexican divined and shadowed forth the unborn shapes of the to-come. He died too, if he died in an odor of warlike sanctity, in the strong faith that his soul should ultimately take the form of a bird and twitter through the ages in the purple shadows of the trees of paradise.[IV-21]
The Kailtas on the south fork of the Trinity in California,though they do not turn the soul into a bird, do say that as it leaves the body a little bird carries it up to the spirit-land.[IV-22]
The Spaniards of Vizcaino's expedition, in 1602, found the Californians of Santa Catalina Island venerating two great black crows, which, according to Señor Galan, were probably a species of bird known in Mexico asrey de los zopilotes, or king of turkey-buzzards; he adding that these birds are still the objects of respect and devotion among most Californian tribes.[IV-23]
As another symbol, sign, or type of the supernatural, the serpent would naturally suggest itself at an early date to man. Its stealthy, subtle, sinuous motion, the glittering fascination of its eyes, the silent deathly thrust of its channeled fangs—what marvel if the foolishest of men, like the wisest of kings, should say "I know it not; it is a thing too wonderful for me?" It seems to be immortal: every spring-time it cast off and crept from its former skin, a crawling unburnt phœnix, a new animal.
Schwartz, of Berlin, affirms, from deep research in Greek and German mythology, that the paramount germinal idea in this wide-spread serpent-emblem is the lightning, and Dr. Brinton develops the same opinion at some length.[IV-24]
Tlaloc, the Aztec rain-god, held in his hand a serpent-shaped piece of gold, representing most probably the lightning. Hurakan, of the Quiché legends, is otherwise the Strong Serpent, he who hurls below, referring in all likelihood to storm powers as thunderer.[IV-25]This view being accepted, the lightning-serpentis the type of fruitfulness; the thunder storm being inseparably joined with the thick, fertilizing summer showers.[IV-26]Born, too, in the middle heaven, of a cloud mother and of an Ixion upon whom science cannot yet place her finger, amid moaning breeze and threatening tempest, the lightning is surely also akin to the wind and to the bird that is their symbol. The amalgamation of these powers in one deity seems to be what is indicated by such names as Quetzalcoatl, Gucumatz, Cukulcan, all titles of the God of the Air in different American languages, and all signifying 'Bird-Serpent.'
THE CROSS AND THE FOUR WINDS.
In a tablet on the wall of a room at Palenque is a cross surmounted by a bird, and supported by what appears to be the head of a serpent: "The cross," says Brinton, "is the symbol of the four winds; the bird and serpent, the rebus of the air god, their ruler."
It does not appear that savages attach any special significance of evil to the snake, though the prepossessions of early writers almost invariably blind them on this point.[IV-27]This rule is not without its exceptions however; the Apaches hold that every rattlesnake contains the soul of a bad man or is an emissary of the Evil Spirit.[IV-28]The Piutes of Nevada have a demon-deity in the form of a serpent still supposed to exist in the waters of Pyramid Lake. The wind when it sweeps down among the nine islands of the lake drives the waters into the most fantastic swirls and eddies, even when the general surface of the lake is tolerably placid. This, say the Piutes, is the devil-snake causing the deep to boil like a pot; this is the old serpent seeking whom he may devour; and no native in possession of his five sober wits will be found steering toward those troubled waters at such a time.[IV-29]
In the Pueblo cities, among the Pecos especially, there existed in early times an immense serpent, supposed to be sacred, and which, according to some accounts, wasfed with the flesh of his devotees. Gregg heard an "honest ranchero" relate how, one snowy morning, he had come upon this terrible reptile's trail, "large as that of a dragging ox;" the ranchero did not pursue the investigation farther, not obtruding his science, such as it was, upon his religion. This serpent was supposed to be specially connected with Montezuma, and with rain phenomena: it is often called "the great water-snake." It was described to Whipple "as being as large round as a man's body; and of exceeding great length, slowly gliding upon the water, with long wavy folds" like the Nahant sea-serpent—to Möllhausen, as being a great rattlesnake, possessor of power over seas, lakes, rivers and rain; as thick as many men put together, and much longer than all the snakes in the world; moving in great curves and destroying wicked men. The Pueblo Indians prayed to it for rain and revered its mysterious powers.[IV-30]