KERESAN MYTHS
Curiosity and credulity are the characteristics of the
savage intellect. When a phenomenon presents itself, the
savage requires an explanation and that explanation he makes
for himself or receives from tradition in the shape of a
myth.—ANDREW LANG.
Although it is possible to regard the current beliefs of the Indian
concerning his origin, his migrations, and his religion, as largely
mythical, all such events are of a grandiose and serious character.
Besides these major beliefs, there exists a vast number of lesser myths
and superstitions, as well as familiar folk-tales, which are not to be
overlooked, since they have almost as much power over the primitive mind
as the more essential matters in his history and his faith. Careful
inquiry has proved that a myth is rarely or never confined to a single
tribe, and that certain myths can be traced from the Atlantic to the
Pacific. It is common knowledge also that as a myth travels its poetic
factor tends to predominate. We should expect to find, as we do, that
myth forms are most nearly alike in contiguous tribes, and most unlike
in those separated by great distances. Hence the myths of Ácoma are part
of the general lore of the Southwest. One group of scholars considers
that myths should be restricted to such tales as have an explanatory
tendency (which is easily overestimated), and would differentiate
between mythical tales on the one hand, and mythical ideas or concepts on
the other, for they say we can gain much information about the first of
these but very little about the second. Of “explanatory myths,” moreover,
there are two forms,—inclusive and particularistic. The first is well
exemplified by a culture-hero who “taught the people all the arts,”
and the second by a culture-hero who taught the people merely one art,
hitherto unknown, such as basket making. Another illustration is the
myth of the Thunder Bird, so widely believed in that it is used by some
authorities as a typical mythical concept. The conventionalized figure
is found in many silver ornaments, upon the pottery, and upon scores of
baskets. At Ácoma the best of her potters make a fine design of it upon
plaques and vessels of various sorts. Apparently the underlying idea
of this myth is of a bird flying through the heavens, so huge that he
darkens the skies. The flapping of his wings is the thunder, the winking
of his eyes causes the lightning, and so forth.
Fair weather signifies that the bird is in good humor; bad
weather that he is displeased. A big black bird therefore
seems to answer fairly well the inquiries of the native mind
regarding the phenomena of storms.[173]
All myths have at least one universal feature, animals and
heavenly bodies are endowed with human qualities, and associate
indiscriminately with man. [Powell tells us that whatever
challenges attention, gives rise to a myth.[174]]
If, then, the “tawny patch on the shoulder of a rabbit,” the antlers of a
deer, the crest of a bird, are full of meaning to the Indian mind, we can
understand that there must be an inexhaustible store of tales, varying
from tribe to tribe with the living creatures and the local conditions
that obtain in each. Though we to-day after the long sophistication of
the years may regard this phase as childish, ignorant, and superstitious,
and resent its tyrannous fettering of the human mind, we must remember
that it was the only view of life possible at the period of its sway—a
life of Nature, speaking with many voices, sensitive to every changing
facet of the created world—and that from such rude beginnings all
primitive religion and poetry have arisen. We cannot afford to ignore or
lose the only contribution thereto made on the western continent.
Myths represent incidents long past and not to be repeated, those which
occurred in the morning of the world when man had few or none of his
present customs and arts. Folk-tales, on the other hand, are busied with
more recent events and may even be woven about present-day occurrences.
The myth therefore appeals especially to the imagination and the
emotions, and to that deep-seated belief of the Indian that the world of
sense and the world of spirit are so intimately linked that the former is
ruled in minutest detail by the latter.[175]
The “ritualization of myths”[176] takes place when an attempt is made
to weave together these far-away happenings into a consistent tribal,
clan, or fraternity story, the telling of which is frequently accompanied
by ceremonies. Since there is usually a desire shown to arrange these
chronologically, they may become an historical record of the tribe’s
beginnings. At the same time, it must never be forgotten that these myths
are handed down verbally by the older men of the tribe through successive
generations, and must suffer certain alterations and embellishments as
time passes.
Strong resemblances exist between the origin-legends of all the different
Pueblo tribes, though each has its own variants. There is almost total
absence of intimate studies of the Ácoma tradition, such as have been
made with elaborate care and detail for both the Hopi and the Zuñi. It
is not possible to set forth any origin or religious myths as positively
or exclusively those of the Ácomas, yet since they, like the people of
Sía, only seventy miles away, both belong to the Keresan nation, we feel
something like assurance in assuming that the Ácoma legends must be
closely similar[177] to those described in the distinguished researches
of Sía.
To all Pueblo Indians the world was flat and round, like a great
disk. Before there was any life, the All-Father existed alone in the
Somewhere, and immemorial darkness covered all space. This primal
All-Father “thought outward into space” until mists finally penetrated
the thick and universal blackness, and the Middle Place appeared,
guarded by Six Warriors. In some legends, a god named Po-shai-an-ki-a
is identical with the All-Father, whereas in others he is only an early
culture hero, giver of domestic animals and of wealth. In the larger
number of legends the Spider—Sussistinnaka[178]—is the All-Father,
sometimes spoken of as a male, and in other tribes as a female, deity.
In Sía myths, however, the spider is the first living creature of the
underworld, dominating the actions of all other beings.
The creation of light follows that of the Middle Place, and the sun
becomes not only an emanation from the All-Father, but the Supreme Being
himself,[179] and Mother Earth is his complement. The Pueblo world is
divided into six regions, each having its centre in a spring somewhere
in the heart of a great mountain, on whose summit is a gigantic tree. I
combine the phrasing of the myths of two Keresan pueblos to make more
clear these six “points of the compass,” as we call them.[180] Each of
them has its especial color-symbol, which, however, is not uniformly
assigned by all tribes.
Tree Region Guardian Warrior
1. Mountain of the North Spruce Barren Plains Long Tail
(_Mountain Lion_)
2. Mountain of the West Pine Home of Waters Clumsy Foot
(_Bear_)
3. Mountain of the South Oak Place of Beautiful Blackmark-Face
Red (_Badger_)
4. Mountain of the East Aspen Home of the Day Hangtail
(_Wolf_)
5. Mountain of the Zenith Cedar Home of the High Whitecap
(_Eagle_)
6. Mountain of the Nadir Oak Home of the Low _Mole_
In Sía legends, those presumably most closely akin to Ácoma, the
creation was performed by the Spider, who drew two lines of meal upon
the lighted ground, which, by crossing each other, made four equal
squares. He then seated himself close to two parcels placed in the
two upper spaces, and chanted a low, sweet song, to which the parcels
“rattled” an accompaniment, and presently out of each walked a woman.
One, named Utset, was the mother of all Indians; the other, Nowutset, the
progenitress of all other people upon earth. Two male heroes called The
Twins, with names varying in different tribes, are universally described
as Dark and Light, having been born of a mother sometimes called The
Dawn, who died in giving them birth. These mythical heroes live in the
east, and the Twin called Light is always white—the “fixed emblem of
peace, friendship, happiness, propriety, purity, and holiness.”[181]
Light and Life, Darkness and Death, have been synonymous in all systems
of religion.
At first the earth was very hot, so that it melted, but later the people
lacked fire. In all the tribes we find a universal folk-tale of the Theft
of Fire, and generally it is Coyote who is commissioned to bring it from
beyond the Kingdom of Sussistinnako—a difficult and delicate task, for
there were three doors to pass, guarded first by the Snake, then by the
Cougar, and lastly by the Bear. When, finally, human beings began to
people the earth and had to disperse, their place of egress from the
underworld, in which all men and animals were born, was Si-pa-pu, and it
is to Si-pa-pu again that the spirits of those who die must return. The
road to and from Si-pa-pu is always spoken of as crowded by the two lines
of spirits passing each other, the ghostly forms of the dead crossing
those who are yet to be born into life.[182]
Life is the sunward hemisphere, a line
Invisibly, immeasurably fine
That perilously hangs between the vast
Unborn-to-come and no-more-living past.[183]
We find also the idea of death in life associated with the dying day, and
perhaps this is the origin of the expression of the soldier lads in the
World War who spoke of their comrades as “going west.” Rest from labor
with the setting sun led naturally to the search for some place of repose
for the weary soul in that region where the sun had sunk from sight of
mortal eyes.
One myth that Pueblo Indians possess in common with each other and with
almost all primitive peoples is that of a culture-hero, regarded as the
ancestor of a tribe, sometimes even as the creator of the universe.[184]
This half-divine being appeared on earth while all was still chaos,
taught the people their arts, and, having established their social and
religious order, vanished, not by death but in some mysterious manner,
promising to return to earth when the appointed time should arrive.[185]
Among the Pueblos, this many-sided culture-hero is known as
Montezuma,[186] and “is the centre of some of the most poetic myths
found in ancient American mythology.” Many places in New Mexico claim
to be his birthplace, and the variety of aspects under which Montezuma
is presented is due to the fact that each tribe jealously guards its
individual legends concerning his achievements. Emory wrote in 1847:
The Pueblos speak of every event preceding the Spanish Conquest
as of the days of Montezuma. Among the Pueblos, the Navajos,
and the Apaches, the name of Montezuma is as familiar as
is Washington to us. This is the more curious as none of
these tribes are related in any way to the Aztec race by
language.[187]
An old tradition given as common to all Pueblo Indians is to the effect
that they had no kinship with nomad tribes but were “a people seated on
the soil,” and that they were “Children of Montezuma;[188] when he and
his subjects were hard pressed by the Spaniards, they were summoned south
to help in the succor of the City of Mexico, from whence none of them
ever returned.” There is no foundation in fact for this legend, but a
reasonable explanation for the picturesque tale is given by Bandelier,
who says: “The Mexican Nahautl language has left positive traces, through
the Indians from Central Mexico and the Spaniards themselves, who brought
them to New Mexico as their servants.”[189]
One is surprised and impressed by so often coming across analogies,
in the tales of these so-called barbarians, with those which have all
the charm and authority of classic antiquity. For example, there are
everywhere among the Indians legends of a great flood and of mountains
of refuge which correspond to Ararat, though the actual locality varies
with the different tribes, just as is true of Si-pa-pu, their place of
emergence from the underworld. This was in truth so continuously heard
by the Spanish padres when first they came upon North American soil that
they were wont to affirm the Indian religion to be a pervert from their
own sacred theology.
In some of the tribes we find the belief that when the waters covered
the earth, all living things perished save Montezuma and his friend
Coyote. They had built a boat and moored it high on the summit of Santa
Rosa (their Ararat) in case of need. Montezuma in some of the tales thus
became the founder of the Indian pueblos, of which Ácoma was the first
and Pecos the second.
He entrusted to their guardianship the sacred fire, [and it
was at Pecos, before disappearing from their sight, that] he
planted a tree upside down 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 royal people to victory
and power. When the present generations saw their land glide,
mile by mile, into the rapacious hands of the Yankee, 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 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 through the morning beams at the
head of a conquering army.[190]
A variation of the deluge myth was told me at Isleta. The people there
believe that this continent was never overtaken by the great flood, and
that consequently the American Indian is in descent from the oldest
race that has had a continuous existence upon earth. In the summer of
1922 some fragments of this myth were told me by my host at the Rito de
los Frijoles, who had been shown “a very ancient manuscript by an aged
Indian, who had spent two days” in relating to him the Montezuma legend,
which the Indian affirmed had no connection with the Aztec king of the
same name.
We also meet among these American aborigines a world-wide myth which is
probably most familiar in the Minotaur, or in the legend of St. George,
who rescued the Libyan princess when she was chosen by lot to feed the
terrible dragon outside her father’s city, and who remained to convert
that heathen people to Christianity.
Professor Espinosa[191] found among the Pueblos a myth of the Monster
Viper which he is inclined to believe is purely Indian in origin—probably
derived from the Aztec. He says that the Indians were very vague about
it, or wished to deny it; but the legend is that in each pueblo is hidden
a monster viper to which several children are fed every year.
In New Mexico the belief is said to be widespread that the gradual
extinction of the Pueblo tribes there is due to the fact that
child-sacrifice no longer exists. Professor Espinosa has reason to
believe that it was at some time a common practice.[192] Mrs. Stevenson
no later than 1886 believed that she discovered that in at least two Tewa
pueblos the rattlesnake was propitiated by human sacrifice, either of
the youngest female, or failing this, of an adult woman who had neither
husband nor children—if such could be found.
We have very little to contribute about myths peculiar to Ácoma, but
Dr. Parsons[193] has discovered much concerning those that relate to
maternity-beliefs and practices there and at Laguna, and to her articles
the interested reader is referred. It must suffice here to mention only
a bare outline of the birth myth about which undoubtedly clusters, as is
true at Sía, much that is especially sacred and secret. All Ácoma clans
are maternal and exogamous, and many are the “beliefs of sympathetic
magic in connection with conception, pregnancy, and growth.” At Ácoma
the ritual for the increase of children is especially associated with
the Santu cult,[194] which, contrary to the case in most tribes, is both
at Ácoma and Laguna a male deity. “The Santu is regarded as a source of
light, in the same sense of life, and also a specific for rain,” and
therefore a power directly able to further fertility, whether in plants
or in animals. As such his favor is besought at the winter solstice
ceremonial by particular offerings at his altar. To it women desiring
children bring clay figures of a baby (_wiha_), and other prenatal
practices are arranged. The Santu then is supposed to lie in for four
days after the winter solstice, and all about him are placed images of
domestic animals, rings, bracelets, and so forth. When the birth is close
at hand, the human mother is carefully watched by her grandmother, and
for four days after the child has come into the world she also lies in,
with an ear of corn close beside her baby. “On the fourth morning the
‘Medicine Man’ and his wife arrive sometime before dawn. He prays and
sings four or five songs, after which he takes the child out to the east
side of the mesa to show it at sunrise to the Sun God. The child’s mother
goes along, and during the ceremonial sprinkles sacred meal.” The child’s
forehead, body, and legs are anointed with ashes in the form of a cross,
“because witches do not like ashes.”
The christening does not take place for seven or eight months because,
if the baby does not live, it is better not to have to remember it with
a name. When the time for this ceremony is decided upon, it is held in
the church, in the presence of its godparents, who make the child a gift
and then carry it to their own house, where its head is washed, “an
interesting instance of the way the Catholic rite may be combined with
native practice.” Presents must be exchanged between godparents and the
child on every following Christmas. What Indian name is given we may
never know; for more common is the nickname, given later to describe
some characteristic trait, or act, when a child’s personality becomes
apparent. A happy little girl may be called “Laughs in the Morning,” or
a fleet-footed boy who has shot his coyote will thereafter be known as
“Flying Wolf.”[195] Then, usually, the Roman priest administers Christian
baptism and bestows a Spanish name. If the child goes to an American
school, he or she is sure to receive an American name, and by the last,
to us as visitors from the outside, is most likely to be introduced.
Thus we have another complex to add to all the others, none of which
appears to confuse or disturb the serenity of the Indian.
Many writers about Indian life in the pueblos emphasize the obedience
of the children and speak of punishment by parents as being so little
merited that it is an almost unheard-of event. The fact appears to be
that parents terrify their children at a very early age with tales of
supernatural beings and their evil powers, so that to utter a single
talismanic word, like _el coco_, or _d’agüelo_, suffices to subdue the
naughtiest infant. They obey from fear, not of their parents, but of the
unseen powers. The _Agüelo_ (Spanish _abuelo_, for grandfather)[196] is a
very old man who goes about the pueblos during Christmas week to see if
all the children have learned their prayers properly. He is feared more
than anything else, and the children always give him sweets and cakes to
put in the bag he carries, but it is quite large enough to hold naughty
children also. At each home he makes himself known by a loud knock on the
door, and by the cry, _El Agüelo, El Agüelo! Aquí viene el Agüelo_![197]
The children must at once appear and recite their prayers, after which
he forms a circle with them and they dance from right to left, and then
from left to right, singing at the same time some verses. Children who
are frightened into good behavior all the year through by a mythical
bugaboo cannot be expected to differentiate him from the one they
actually see and propitiate at Christmas time.[198]
The deeper our study of Indian inheritances, the stronger grows the
conviction that, while the white conqueror has imposed upon the race
the outward observance of conventions in daily conduct, in morals and
religion, the mental attitude toward most of these things has not changed
in the slightest degree.
The conclusion of the whole matter is therefore that all Indians divide
the phenomena of nature, including man, into human and superhuman, and to
him almost every natural phenomenon is a mystery. As the Reverend J. Owen
Dorsey, a first authority on the subject, puts it: “Even man himself may
become mysterious by fasting, prayer, and vision,” and this was indeed
the chief function of the cacique, who by acts such as these expiated
vicariously the sins of his clan.
If the dictum of a wise man be justified, that “every man is to a greater
or less extent a dual personality,” the American Indian should rank as
the most evenly developed of all human creatures, since duality is the
essence of his being.