THE MYTHS OF WATER, FIRE, AND THE THUNDER-STORM.
Water the oldest element.--Its use in purification.--Holy
water.--The Rite of Baptism.--The Water of Life.--Its symbols.--The
Vase.--The Moon.--The latter the goddess of love and agriculture,
but also of sickness, night, and pain.--Often represented by a
dog.--Fire worship under the form of Sun worship.--The perpetual
fire.--The new fire--Burning the dead.--A worship of the passions,
but no sexual dualism in myths, nor any phallic worship in
America.--Synthesis of the worship of Fire, Water, and the Winds in
the THUNDER-STORM, personified as Haokah, Tupa, Catequil, Contici,
Heno, Tlaloc, Mixcoatl, and other deities, many of them triune.
The primitive man was a brute in everything but the susceptibility to
culture; the chief market of his time was to sleep, fight, and feed; his
bodily comfort alone had any importance in his eyes; and his gods were
nothing, unless they touched him here. Cold, hunger, thirst, these were
the hounds that were ever on his track; these were the fell powers he
saw constantly snatching away his fellows, constantly aiming their
invisible shafts at himself. Fire, food, and water were the gods that
fought on his side; they were the chief figures in his pantheon, his
kindliest, perhaps his earliest, divinities.
With a nearly unanimous voice mythologies assign the priority to water.
It was the first of all things, the parent of all things. Even the gods
themselves were born of water, said the Greeks and the Aztecs.
Cosmogonies reach no further than the primeval ocean that rolled its
shoreless waves through a timeless night.
"Omnia pontus erant, deerant quoque litora ponto."
Earth, sun, stars, lay concealed in its fathomless abysses. "All of us,"
ran the Mexican baptismal formula, "are children of Chalchihuitlycue,
Goddess of Water," and the like was said by the Peruvians of Mama Cocha,
by the Botocudos of Taru, by the natives of Darien of Dobayba, by the
Iroquois of Ataensic--all of them mothers of mankind, all
personifications of water.
How account for such unanimity? Not by supposing some ancient
intercourse between remote tribes, but by the uses of water as the
originator and supporter, the essential prerequisite of life. Leaving
aside the analogy presented by the motherly waters which nourish the
unborn child, nor emphasizing how indispensable it is as a beverage, the
many offices this element performs in nature lead easily to the
supposition that it must have preceded all else. By quenching thirst, it
quickens life; as the dew and the rain it feeds the plant, and when
withheld the seed perishes in the ground and forests and flowers alike
wither away; as the fountain, the river, and the lake, it enriches the
valley, offers safe retreats, and provides store of fishes; as the
ocean, it presents the most fitting type of the infinite. It cleanses,
it purifies; it produces, it preserves. "Bodies, unless dissolved,
cannot act," is a maxim of the earliest chemistry. Very plausibly,
therefore, was it assumed as the source of all things.
The adoration of streams, springs, and lakes, or rather of the spirits
their rulers, prevailed everywhere; sometimes avowedly because they
provided food, as was the case with the Moxos, who called themselves
children of the lake or river on which their village was, and were
afraid to migrate lest their parent should be vexed;[124-1] sometimes
because they were the means of irrigation, as in Peru, or on more
general mythical grounds. A grove by a fountain is in all nature worship
the ready-made shrine of the sylphs who live in its limpid waves and
chatter mysteriously in its shallows. On such a spot in our Gulf States
one rarely fails to find the sacrificial mound of the ancient
inhabitants, and on such the natives of Central America were wont to
erect their altars (Ximenes). Lakes are the natural centres of
civilization. Like the lacustrine villages which the Swiss erected in
ante-historic times, like ancient Venice, the city of Mexico was first
built on piles in a lake, and for the same reason--protection from
attack. Security once obtained, growth and power followed. Thus we can
trace the earliest rays of Aztec civilization rising from lake Tezcuco,
of the Peruvian from Lake Titicaca, of the Muyscas from Lake Guatavita.
These are the centres of legendary cycles. Their waters were hallowed by
venerable reminiscences. From the depths of Titicaca rose Viracocha,
mythical civilizer of Peru. Guatavita was the bourne of many a foot-sore
pilgrim in the ancient empire of the Zac. Once a year the high priest
poured the collective offerings of the multitude into its waves, and
anointed with oils and glittering with gold dust, dived deep in its
midst, professing to hold communion with the goddess who there had her
home.[125-1]
Not only does the life of man but his well-being depends on water. As an
ablution it invigorates him bodily and mentally. No institution was in
higher honor among the North American Indians than the sweat-bath
followed by the cold douche. It was popular not only as a remedy in
every and any disease, but as a preliminary to a council or an important
transaction. Its real value in cold climates is proven by the sustained
fondness for the Russian bath in the north of Europe. The Indians,
however, with their usual superstition attributed its good effects to
some mysterious healing power in water itself. Therefore, when the
patient was not able to undergo the usual process, or when his medical
attendant was above the vulgar and routine practice of his profession,
it was administered on the infinitesimal system. The quack muttered a
formula over a gourd filled from a neighboring spring and sprinkled it
on his patient, or washed the diseased part, or sucked out the evil
spirit and blew it into a bowl of water, and then scattered the liquid
on the fire or earth.[125-2]
The use of such "holy water" astonished the Romanist missionaries, and
they at once detected Satan parodying the Scriptures. But their
astonishment rose to horror when they discovered among various nations a
rite of baptism of appalling similarity to their own, connected with
the imposing of a name, done avowedly for the purpose of freeing from
inherent sin, believed to produce a regeneration of the spiritual
nature, nay, in more than one instance called by an indigenous word
signifying "to be born again."[126-1] Such a rite was of immemorial
antiquity among the Cherokees, Aztecs, Mayas, and Peruvians. Had the
missionaries remembered that it was practised in Asia with all these
meanings long before it was chosen as the sign of the new covenant, they
need have invoked neither Satan nor Saint Thomas to explain its presence
in America.
As corporeal is near akin to spiritual pollution, and cleanliness to
godliness, ablution preparatory to engaging in religious acts came early
to have an emblematic as well as a real significance. The water freed
the soul from sin as it did the skin from stain. We should come to God
with clean hands and a clean heart. As Pilate washed his hands before
the multitude to indicate that he would not accept the moral
responsibility of their acts, so from a similar motive a Natchez chief,
who had been persuaded against his sense of duty not to sacrifice
himself on the pyre of his ruler, took clean water, washed his hands,
and threw it upon live coals.[126-2] When an ancient Peruvian had laid
bare his guilt by confession, he bathed himself in a neighboring river
and repeated this formula:--
"O thou River, receive the sins I have this day confessed unto the Sun,
carry them down to the sea, and let them never more appear."[127-1]
The Navajo who has been deputed to carry a dead body to burial, holds
himself unclean until he has thoroughly washed himself in water prepared
for the purpose by certain ceremonies.[127-2] A bath was an
indispensable step in the mysteries of Mithras, the initiation at
Eleusis, the meda worship of the Algonkins, the Busk of the Creeks, the
ceremonials of religion everywhere. Baptism was at first always
immersion. It was a bath meant to solemnize the reception of the child
into the guild of mankind, drawn from the prior custom of ablution at
any solemn occasion. In both the object is greater purity, bodily and
spiritual. As certainly as there is a law of conscience, as certainly as
our actions fall short of our volitions, so certainly is man painfully
aware of various imperfections and shortcomings. What he feels he
attributes to the infant. Avowedly to free themselves from this sense of
guilt the Delawares used an emetic (Loskiel), the Cherokees a potion
cooked up by an order of female warriors (Timberlake), the Takahlies of
Washington Territory, the Aztecs, Mayas, and Peruvians, auricular
confession. Formulize these feelings and we have the dogmas of "original
sin," and of "spiritual regeneration." The order of baptism among the
Aztecs commenced, "O child, receive the water of the Lord of the world,
which is our life; it is to wash and to purify; may these drops remove
the sin which was given to thee before the creation of the world, since
all of us are under its power;" and concluded, "Now he liveth anew and
is born anew, now is he purified and cleansed, now our mother the Water
again bringeth him into the world."[128-1]
A name was then assigned to the child, usually that of some ancestor,
who it was supposed would thus be induced to exercise a kindly
supervision over the little one's future. In after life should the
person desire admittance to a superior class of the population and had
the wealth to purchase it--for here as in more enlightened lands
nobility was a matter of money--he underwent a second baptism and
received another name, but still ostensibly from the goddess of
water.[128-2]
In Peru the child was immersed in the fluid, the priest exorcised the
evil and bade it enter the water, which was then buried in the
ground.[128-3] In either country sprinkling could take the place of
immersion. The Cherokees believe that unless the rite is punctually
performed when the child is three days old, it will inevitably
die.[128-4]
As thus curative and preservative, it was imagined that there was water
of which whoever should drink would not die, but live forever. I have
already alluded to the Fountain of Youth, supposed long before Columbus
saw the surf of San Salvador to exist in the Bahama Islands or Florida.
It seems to have lingered long on that peninsula. Not many years ago,
Coacooche, a Seminole chieftain, related a vision which had nerved him
to a desperate escape from the Castle of St. Augustine. "In my dream,"
said he, "I visited the happy hunting grounds and saw my twin sister,
long since gone. She offered me a cup of pure water, which she said came
from the spring of the Great Spirit, and if I should drink of it, I
should return and live with her forever."[129-1] Some such mystical
respect for the element, rather than as a mere outfit for his spirit
home, probably induced the earlier tribes of the same territory to place
the conch-shell which the deceased had used for a cup conspicuously on
his grave,[129-2] and the Mexicans and Peruvians to inter a vase filled
with water with the corpse, or to sprinkle it with the liquid, baptizing
it, as it were, into its new associations.[130-1] It was an emblem of
the hope that should cheer the dwellings of the dead, a symbol of the
resurrection which is in store for those who have gone down to the
grave.
The vase or the gourd as a symbol of water, the source and preserver of
life, is a conspicuous figure in the myths of ancient America. As Akbal
or Huecomitl, the great or original vase, in Aztec and Maya legends it
plays important parts in the drama of creation; as Tici (Ticcu) in Peru
it is the symbol of the rains, and as a gourd it is often mentioned by
the Caribs and Tupis as the parent of the atmospheric waters.
As the MOON is associated with the dampness and dews of night, an
ancient and wide-spread myth identified her with the Goddess of Water.
Moreover, in spite of the expostulations of the learned, the common
people the world over persist in attributing to her a marked influence
on the rains. Whether false or true, this familiar opinion is of great
antiquity, and was decidedly approved by the Indians, who were all, in
the words of an old author, "great observers of the weather by the
moon."[130-2] They looked upon her not only as forewarning them by her
appearance of the approach of rains and fogs, but as being their actual
cause.
Isis, her Egyptian title, literally means moisture; Ataensic, whom the
Hurons said was the moon, is derived from the word for water; and
Citatli and Atl, moon and water, are constantly confounded in Aztec
theology. Their attributes were strikingly alike. They were both the
mythical mothers of the race, and both protect women in child-birth, the
babe in the cradle, the husbandman in the field, and the youth and
maiden in their tender affections. As the transfer of legends was nearly
always from the water to its lunar goddess, by bringing them in at this
point their true meaning will not fail to be apparent.
We must ever bear in mind that the course of mythology is from many gods
toward one, that it is a synthesis not an analysis, and that in this
process the tendency is to blend in one the traits and stories of
originally separate divinities. As has justly been observed by the
Mexican antiquarian Gama: "It was a common trait among the Indians to
worship many gods under the figure of one, principally those whose
activities lay in the same direction, or those in some way related among
themselves."[131-1]
The time of full moon was chosen both in Mexico and Peru to celebrate
the festival of the deities of water, the patrons of agriculture,[131-2]
and very generally the ceremonies connected with the crops were
regulated by her phases. The Nicaraguans said that the god of rains,
Quiateot, rose in the east,[131-3] thus hinting how this connection
originated. At a lunar eclipse the Orinoko Indians seized their hoes and
labored with exemplary vigor on their growing corn, saying the moon was
veiling herself in anger at their habitual laziness;[132-1] and a
description of the New Netherlands, written about 1650, remarks that the
savages of that land "ascribe great influence to the moon over
crops."[132-2] This venerable superstition, common to all races, still
lingers among our own farmers, many of whom continue to observe "the
signs of the moon" in sowing grain, setting out trees, cutting timber,
and other rural avocations.
As representing water, the universal mother, the moon was the
protectress of women in child-birth, the goddess of love and babes, the
patroness of marriage. To her the mother called in travail, whether by
the name of "Diana, diva triformis" in pagan Rome, by that of Mama
Quilla in Peru, or of Meztli in Anahuac. Under the title of
Yohualticitl, the Lady of Night, she was also in this latter country the
guardian of babes, and as Teczistecatl, the cause of generation.[132-3]
Very different is another aspect of the moon goddess, and well might the
Mexicans paint her with two colors. The beneficent dispenser of harvests
and offspring, she nevertheless has a portentous and terrific phase. She
is also the goddess of the night, the dampness, and the cold; she
engenders the miasmatic poisons that rack our bones; she conceals in her
mantle the foe who takes us unawares; she rules those vague shapes which
fright us in the dim light; the causeless sounds of night or its more
oppressive silence are familiar to her; she it is who sends dreams
wherein gods and devils have their sport with man, and slumber, the twin
brother of the grave. In the occult philosophy of the middle ages she
was "Chief over the Night, Darkness, Rest, Death, and the
Waters;"[133-1] in the language of the Algonkins, her name is identical
with the words for night, death, cold, sleep, and water.[133-2]
She is the evil minded woman who thus brings diseases upon men, who at
the outset introduced pain and death in the world--our common mother,
yet the cruel cause of our present woes. Sometimes it is the moon,
sometimes water, of whom this is said: "We are all of us under the power
of evil and sin, _because_ we are children of the Water," says the
Mexican baptismal formula. That Unktahe, spirit of water, is the master
of dreams and witchcraft, is the belief of the Dakotas.[133-3] A female
spirit, wife of the great manito whose heart is the sun, the ancient
Algonkins believed brought death and disease to the race; "it is she
who kills men, otherwise they would never die; she eats their flesh and
knaws[TN-4] their vitals, till they fall away and miserably
perish."[134-1] Who is this woman? In the legend of the Muyscas it is
Chia, the moon, who was also goddess of water and flooded the earth out
of spite.[134-2] Her reputation was notoriously bad. The Brazilian
mother carefully shielded her infant from the lunar rays, believing that
they would produce sickness;[134-3] the hunting tribes of our own
country will not sleep in its light, nor leave their game exposed to its
action. We ourselves have not outgrown such words as lunatic,
moon-struck, and the like. Where did we get these ideas? The
philosophical historian of medicine, Kurt Sprengel, traces them to the
primitive and popular medical theories of ancient Egypt, in accordance
with which all maladies were the effects of the anger of the goddess
Isis, the Moisture, the Moon.[134-4]
We have here the key to many myths. Take that of Centeotl, the Aztec
goddess of Maize. She was said at times to appear as a woman of
surpassing beauty, and allure some unfortunate to her embraces, destined
to pay with his life for his brief moments of pleasure. Even to see her
in this shape was a fatal omen. She was also said to belong to a class
of gods whose home was in the west, and who produced sickness and
pains.[134-5] Here we see the evil aspect of the moon reflected on
another goddess, who was at first solely the patroness of agriculture.
As the goddess of sickness, it was supposed that persons afflicted with
certain diseases had been set apart by the moon for her peculiar
service. These diseases were those of a humoral type, especially such as
are characterized by issues and ulcers. As in Hebrew the word _accursed_
is derived from a root meaning _consecrated to God_, so in the Aztec,
Quiche, and other tongues, the word for _leprous_, _eczematous_, or
_syphilitic_, means also _divine_. This bizarre change of meaning is
illustrated in a very ancient myth of their family. It is said that in
the absence of the sun all mankind lingered in darkness. Nothing but a
human sacrifice could hasten his arrival. Then Metzli, the moon, led
forth one Nanahuatl, the leprous, and building a pyre, the victim threw
himself in its midst. Straightway Metzli followed his example, and as
she disappeared in the bright flames the sun rose over the
horizon.[135-1] Is not this a reference to the kindling rays of the
aurora, in which the dark and baleful night is sacrificed, and in whose
light the moon presently fades away, and the sun comes forth?
Another reaction in the mythological laboratory is here disclosed. As
the good qualities of water were attributed to the goddess of night,
sleep, and death, so her malevolent traits were in turn reflected back
on this element. Other thoughts aided the transfer. In primitive
geography the Ocean Stream coils its infinite folds around the speck of
land we inhabit, biding its time to swallow it wholly. Unwillingly did
it yield the earth from its bosom, daily does it steal it away piece by
piece. Every evening it hides the light in its depths, and Night and the
Waters resume their ancient sway. The word for ocean (_mare_) in the
Latin tongue means by derivation a desert, and the Greeks spoke of it as
"the barren brine." Water is a treacherous element. Man treads boldly on
the solid earth, but the rivers and lakes constantly strive to swallow
those who venture within their reach. As streams run in tortuous
channels, and as rains accompany the lightning serpent, this animal was
occasionally the symbol of the waters in their dangerous manifestations.
The Huron magicians fabled that in the lakes and rivers dwelt one of
vast size called _Angont_, who sent sickness, death, and other mishaps,
and the least mite of whose flesh was a deadly poison. They added--and
this was the point of the tale--that they always kept on hand portions
of the monster for the benefit of any who opposed their designs.[136-1]
The legends of the Algonkins mention a rivalry between Michabo, creator
of the earth, and the Spirit of the Waters, who was unfriendly to the
project.[136-2] In later tales this antagonism becomes more and more
pronounced, and borrows an ethical significance which it did not have at
first. Taking, however, American religions as a whole, water is far more
frequently represented as producing beneficent effects than the reverse.
Dogs were supposed to stand in some peculiar relation to the moon,
probably because they howl at it and run at night, uncanny practices
which have cost them dear in reputation. The custom prevailed among
tribes so widely asunder as Peruvians, Tupis, Creeks, Iroquois,
Algonkins, and Greenland Eskimos to thrash the curs most soundly during
an eclipse.[137-1] The Creeks explained this by saying that the big dog
was swallowing the sun, and that by whipping the little ones they could
make him desist. What the big dog was they were not prepared to say. We
know. It was the night goddess, represented by the dog, who was thus
shrouding the world at midday. The ancient Romans sacrificed dogs to
Hecate and Diana, in Egypt they were sacred to Isis, and thus as
traditionally connected with night and its terrors, the Prince of
Darkness, in the superstition of the middle ages, preferably appeared
under the form of a cur, as that famous poodle which accompanied
Cornelius Agrippa, or that which grew to such enormous size behind the
stove of Dr. Faustus. In a better sense, they represented the more
agreeable characteristics of the lunar goddess. Xochiquetzal, most
fecund of Aztec divinities, patroness of love, of sexual pleasure, and
of childbirth, was likewise called _Itzcuinan_, which, literally
translated, is _bitch-mother_. This strange and to us so repugnant title
for a goddess was not without parallel elsewhere. When in his wars the
Inca Pachacutec carried his arms into the province of Huanca, he found
its inhabitants had installed in their temples the figure of a dog as
their highest deity. They were accustomed also to select one as his
living representative, to pray to it and offer it sacrifice, and when
well fattened, to serve it up with solemn ceremonies at a great feast,
eating their god _substantialiter_. The priests in this province
summoned their attendants to the temples by blowing through an
instrument fashioned from a dog's skull.[138-1] This canine canonization
explains why in some parts of Peru a priest was called by way of honor
_allco_, dog![138-2] And why in many tombs both there and in Mexico
their skeletons are found carefully interred with the human remains.
Wherever the Aztec race extended they seem to have carried the adoration
of a wild species, the coyote, the _canis latrans_ of naturalists. The
Shoshonees of New Mexico call it their progenitor,[138-3] and with the
Nahuas it was in such high honor that it had a temple of its own, a
congregation of priests devoted to its service, statues carved in stone,
an elaborate tomb at death, and is said to be meant by the god Chantico,
whose audacity caused the destruction of the world. The story was that
he made a sacrifice to the gods without observing a preparatory fast,
for which he was punished by being changed into a dog. He then invoked
the god of death to deliver him, which attempt to evade a just
punishment so enraged the divinities that they immersed the world in
water.[139-1]
During a storm on our northern lakes the Indians think no offering so
likely to appease the angry water god who is raising the tempest as a
dog. Therefore they hasten to tie the feet of one and toss him
overboard.[139-2] One meets constantly in their tales and superstitions
the mysterious powers of the animals, and the distinguished actions he
has at times performed bear usually a close parallelism to those
attributed to water and the moon.
Hunger and thirst were thus alleviated by water. Cold remained, and
against this _fire_ was the shield. It gives man light in darkness and
warmth in winter; it shows him his friends and warns him of his foes;
the flames point toward heaven and the smoke makes the clouds. Around it
social life begins. For his home and his hearth the savage has but one
word, and what of tender emotion his breast can feel, is linked to the
circle that gathers around his fire. The council fire, the camp fire,
and the war fire, are so many epochs in his history. By its aid many
arts become possible, and it is a civilizer in more ways than one. In
the figurative language of the red race, it is constantly used as "an
emblem of peace, happiness, and abundance."[140-1] To extingish[TN-5] an
enemy's fire is to slay him; to light a visitor's fire is to bid him
welcome. Fire worship was closely related to that of the sun, and so
much has been said of sun worship among the aborigines of America that
it is well at once to assign it its true position.
A generation ago it was a fashion very much approved to explain all
symbols and myths by the action of this orb on nature. This short and
easy method with mythology has, in Carlylian phrase, had its bottom
pulled from under it in these later times. Nowhere has it manifested its
inefficiency more palpably than in America. One writer, while thus
explaining the religions of the tribes of colder regions and higher
latitudes, denies sun worship among the natives of hot climates; another
asserts that only among the latter did it exist at all; while a third
lays down the maxim that the religion of the red race everywhere "was
but a modification of Sun or Fire worship."[141-1] All such sweeping
generalizations are untrue, and must be so. No one key can open all the
arcana of symbolism. Man devised means as varied as nature herself to
express the idea of God within him. The sun was but one of these, and
not the first nor the most important. Fear, said the wise Epicurean,
first made the gods. The sun with its regular course, its kindly warmth,
its beneficent action, no wise inspires that sentiment. It conjures no
phantasms to appal the superstitious fancy, and its place in primitive
mythology is conformably inferior. The myths of the Eskimos and
northern Athapascas omit its action altogether. The Algonkins by no
means imagined it the highest god, and at most but one of his
emblems.[142-1] That it often appears in their prayers is true, but this
arose from the fact that in many of their dialects, as well as in the
language of the Mayas and others, the word for heaven or sky was
identical with that for sun, and the former, as I have shown, was the
supposed abode of deity, "the wigwam of the Great Spirit."[142-2] The
alleged sun worship of the Cherokees rests on testimony modern,
doubtful, and unsupported.[142-3] In North America the Natchez alone
were avowed worshippers of this luminary. Yet they adored it under the
name Great Fire (_wah sil_), clearly pointing to a prior adoration of
that element. The heliolatry organized principally for political ends by
the Incas of Peru, stands alone in the religions of the red race. Those
shrewd legislators at an early date officially announced that Inti, the
sun, their own elder brother, was ruler of the cohorts of heaven by like
divine right that they were of the four corners of the earth. This
scheme ignominiously failed, as every attempt to fetter the liberty of
conscience must and should. The later Incas finally indulged publicly in
heterodox remarks, and compromised the matter by acknowledging a
divinity superior even to their brother, the sun, as we have seen in a
previous chapter.
The myths of creation never represent the sun as anterior to the world,
but as manufactured by the "old people" (Navajos), as kindled and set
going by the first of men (Algonkins), or as freed from some cave by a
kindly deity (Haitians). It is always spoken of as a fire; only in Peru
and Mexico had the precession of the equinoxes been observed, and
without danger of error we can merge the consideration of its worship
almost altogether in that of this element.[143-1]
The institutions of a perpetual fire, of obtaining new fire, and of
burning the dead, prevailed extensively in the New World. In the present
discussion the origin of such practices, rather than the ceremonies with
which they were attended, have an interest. The savage knew that fire
was necessary to his life. Were it lost, he justly foreboded dire
calamities and the ruin of his race. Therefore at stated times with due
solemnity he produced it anew by friction or the flint, or else was
careful to keep one fire constantly alive. These not unwise precautions
soon fell to mere superstitions. If the Aztec priest at the stated time
failed to obtain a spark from his pieces of wood, if the sacred fire by
chance became extinguished, the end of the world or the destruction of
mankind was apprehended. "You know it was a saying among our
ancestors," said an Iroquois chief in 1753, "that when the fire at
Onondaga goes out, we shall no longer be a people."[144-1] So deeply
rooted was this notion, that the Catholic missionaries in New Mexico
were fain to wink at it, and perform the sacrifice of the mass in the
same building where the flames were perpetually burning, that were not
to be allowed to die until Montezuma and the fabled glories of ancient
Anahuac with its heathenism should return.[144-2] Thus fire became the
type of life. "Know that the life in your body and the fire on your
hearth are one and the same thing, and that both proceed from one
source," said a Shawnee prophet.[144-3] Such an expression was wholly in
the spirit of his race. The greatest feast of the Delawares was that to
their "grandfather, the fire."[144-4] "Their fire burns forever," was
the Algonkin figure of speech to express the immortality of their
gods.[144-5] "The ancient God, the Father and Mother of all Gods," says
an Aztec prayer, "is the God of the Fire which is in the centre of the
court with four walls, and which is covered with gleaming feathers like
unto wings;"[144-6] dark sayings of the priests, referring to the
glittering lightning fire borne from the four sides of the earth.
As the path to a higher life hereafter, the burning of the dead was
first instituted. It was a privilege usually confined to a select few.
Among the Algonkin-Ottawas, only, those of the distinguished totem of
the Great Hare, among the Nicaraguans none but the caciques, among the
Caribs exclusively the priestly caste, were entitled to this peculiar
honor.[145-1] The first gave as the reason for such an exceptional
custom, that the members of such an illustrious clan as that of Michabo,
the Great Hare, should not rot in the ground as common folks, but rise
to the heavens on the flames and smoke. Those of Nicaragua seemed to
think it the sole path to immortality, holding that only such as offered
themselves on the pyre of their chieftain would escape annihilation at
death;[145-2] and the tribes of upper California were persuaded that
such as were not burned at death were liable to be transformed into the
lower orders of brutes.[145-3] Strangely, enough, we thus find a sort of
baptism by fire deemed essential to a higher life beyond the grave.
Another analogy strengthened the symbolic force of fire as life. This is
that which exists between the sensation of warmth and those passions
whose physiological end is the perpetuation of the species. We see how
native it is to the mind from such coarse expressions as "hot lust," "to
burn," "to be in heat," "stews," and the like, figures not of the
poetic, but the vulgar tongue. They occur in all languages, and hint how
readily the worship of fire glided into that of the reproductive
principle, into extravagances of chastity and lewdness, into the
shocking orgies of the so-called phallic worship.
Some have supposed that a sexual dualism pervades all natural religions
and this too has been assumed as the solution of all their myths. It has
been said that the action of heat upon moisture, of the sun on the
waters, the mysteries of reproduction, and the satisfaction of the
sexual instincts, are the unvarying themes of primitive mythology. So
far as the red race is concerned, this is a most gratuitous assumption.
The facts that have been eagerly collated by Dulaure and others to
bolster such a detestable theory lend themselves fairly to no such
interpretation.
There existed, indeed, a worship of the passions. Apparently it was
grafted upon or rose out of that of fire by the analogy I have pointed
out. Thus the Mexican god of fire was supposed to govern the generative
proclivities,[146-1] and there is good reason to believe that the sacred
fire watched by unspotted virgins among the Mayas had decidedly such a
signification. Certainly it was so, if we can depend upon the authority
of a ballad translated from the original immediately after the conquest,
cited by the venerable traveller and artist Count de Waldeck. It
purports to be from the lover of one of these vestals, and referring to
her occupation asks with a fine allusion to its mystic meaning--
"O vierge, quand pourrai-je te posseder pour ma compagne cherie?
Combien de temps faut-il encore que tes voeux soient accomplis?
Dis-moi le jour qui doit devancer la belle nuit ou tous deux,
Alimenterons le feu qui nous fit naitre et que nous devons
perpetuer."[147-1]
There is a bright as well as a dark side even to such a worship. In
Mexico, Peru, and Yucatan, the women who watched the flames must be
undoubted virgins; they were usually of noble blood, and must vow
eternal chastity, or at least were free to none but the ruler of the
realm. As long as they were consecrated to the fire, so long any carnal
ardor was degrading to their lofty duties. The sentiment of shame, one
of the first we find developed, led to the belief that to forego fleshly
pleasures was a meritorious sacrifice in the eyes of the gods. In this
persuasion certain of the Aztec priests practised complete abscission or
entire discerption of the virile parts, and a mutilation of females was
not unknown similar to that immemorially a custom in Egypt.[147-2] Such
enforced celibacy was, however, neither common nor popular.
Circumcision, if it can be proven to have existed among the red
race--and though there are plenty of assertions to that effect, they are
not satisfactory to an anatomist--was probably a symbolic renunciation
of the lusts of the flesh. The same cannot be said of the very common
custom with the Aztec race of anointing their idols with blood drawn
from the genitals, the tongue, and the ears. This was simply a form of
those voluntary scarifications, universally employed to mark contrition
or grief by savage tribes, and nowhere more in vogue than with the red
race.
There was an ancient Christian heresy which taught that the true way to
conquer the passions was to satiate them, and therefore preached
unbounded licentiousness. Whether this agreeable doctrine was known to
the Indians I cannot say, but it is certainly the most creditable
explanation that can be suggested for the miscellaneous congress which
very often terminated their dances and ceremonies. Such orgies were of
common occurrence among the Algonkins and Iroquois at a very early date,
and are often mentioned in the Jesuit Relations; Venegas describes them
as frequent among the tribes of Lower California; and Oviedo refers to
certain festivals of the Nicaraguans, during which the women of all rank
extended to whosoever wished just such privileges as the matrons of
ancient Babylon, that mother of harlots and all abominations, used to
grant even to slaves and strangers in the temple of Melitta, as one of
the duties of religion. But in fact there is no ground whatever to
invest these debauches with any recondite meaning. They are simply
indications of the thorough and utter immorality which prevailed
throughout the race. And a still more disgusting proof of it is seen in
the frequent appearance among diverse tribes of men dressed as women and
yielding themselves to indescribable vices.[149-1] There was at first
nothing of a religious nature in such exhibitions. Lascivious priests
chose at times to invest them with some such meaning for their own
sensual gratification, just as in Brazil they still claim the _jus primae
noctis_.[149-2] The pretended phallic worship of the Natchez and of
Culhuacan, cited by the Abbe Brasseur, rests on no good authority, and
if true, is like that of the Huastecas of Panuco, nothing but an
unrestrained and boundless profligacy which it were an absurdity to call
a religion.[149-3] That which Mr. Stephens attempts to show existed once
in Yucatan,[149-4] rests entirely by his own statement on a fancied
resemblance of no value whatever, and the arguments of Lafitau to the
same effect are quite insufficient. There is a decided indecency in the
remains of ancient American art, especially in Peru (Meyen), and great
lubricity in many ceremonies, but the proof is altogether wanting to
bind these with the recognition of a fecundating principle throughout
nature, or, indeed, to suppose for them any other origin than the
promptings of an impure fancy. I even doubt whether they often referred
to fire as the deity of sexual love.
By a flight of fancy inspired by a study of oriental mythology, the
worship of the reciprocal principle in America has been connected with
that of the sun and moon, as the primitive pair from whose fecund union
all creatures proceeded. It is sufficient to say if such a myth exists
among the Indians--which is questionable--it justifies no such
deduction; that the moon is often mentioned in their languages merely as
the "night sun;" and that in such important stocks as the Iroquois,
Athapascas, Cherokees, and Tupis, the sun is said to be a feminine noun;
while the myths represent them more frequently as brother and sister
than as man and wife; nor did at least the northern tribes regard the
sun as the cause of fecundity in nature at all, but solely as giving
light and warmth.[150-1]
In contrast to this, so much the more positive was their association of
the THUNDER-STORM as that which brings both warmth and rain with the
renewed vernal life of vegetation. The impressive phenomena which
characterize it, the prodigious noise, the awful flash, the portentous
gloom, the blast, the rain, have left a profound impression on the myths
of every land. Fire from water, warmth and moisture from the destructive
breath of the tempest, this was the riddle of riddles to the untutored
mind. "Out of the eater came forth meat, out of the strong came forth
sweetness." It was the visible synthesis of all the divine
manifestations, the winds, the waters, and the flames.
The Dakotas conceived it as a struggle between the god of waters and the
thunder bird for the command of their nation,[150-2] and as a bird, one
of those which make a whirring sound with their wings, the turkey, the
pheasant, or the nighthawk, it was very generally depicted by their
neighbors, the Athapascas, Iroquois, and Algonkins.[151-1] As the
herald of the summer it was to them a good omen and a friendly power. It
was the voice of the Great Spirit of the four winds speaking from the
clouds and admonishing them that the time of corn planting was at
hand.[151-2] The flames kindled by the lightning were of a sacred
nature, proper to be employed in lighting the fires of the religious
rites, but on no account to be profaned by the base uses of daily life.
When the flash entered the ground it scattered in all directions those
stones, such as the flint, which betray their supernal origin by a gleam
of fire when struck. These were the thunderbolts, and from such an one,
significantly painted red, the Dakotas averred their race had
proceeded.[151-3] For are we not all in a sense indebted for our lives
to fire? "There is no end to the fancies entertained by the Sioux
concerning thunder," observes Mrs. Eastman. They typified the
paradoxical nature of the storm under the character of the giant Haokah.
To him cold was heat, and heat cold; when sad he laughed, when merry
groaned; the sides of his face and his eyes were of different colors and
expressions; he wore horns or a forked headdress to represent the
lightning, and with his hands he hurled the meteors. His manifestations
were fourfold, and one of the four winds was the drum-stick he used to
produce the thunder.[152-1]
Omitting many others, enough that the sameness of this conception is
illustrated by the myth of Tupa, highest god and first man of the Tupis
of Brazil. During his incarnation, he taught them agriculture, gave them
fire, the cane, and the pisang, and now in the form of a huge bird
sweeps over the heavens, watching his children and watering their crops,
admonishing them of his presence by the mighty sound of his voice, the
rustling of his wings, and the flash of his eye. These are the thunder,
the lightning, and the roar of the tempest. He is depicted with horns;
he was one of four brothers, and only after a desperate struggle did he
drive his fraternal rivals from the field. In his worship, the priests
place pebbles in a dry gourd, deck it with feathers and arrows, and
rattling it vigorously, reproduce in miniature the tremendous drama of
the storm.[152-2]
As nations rose in civilization these fancies put on a more complex form
and a more poetic fulness. Throughout the realm of the Incas the
Peruvians venerated as creator of all things, maker of heaven and earth,
and ruler of the firmament, the god Ataguju. The legend was that from
him proceeded the first of mortals, the man Guamansuri, who descended to
the earth and there seduced the sister of certain Guachemines, rayless
ones, or Darklings, who then possessed it. For this crime they destroyed
him, but their sister proved pregnant, and died in her labor, giving
birth to two eggs. From these emerged the twin brothers, Apocatequil
and Piguerao. The former was the more powerful. By touching the corpse
of his mother he brought her to life, he drove off and slew the
Guachemines, and, directed by Ataguju, released the race of Indians from
the soil by turning it up with a spade of gold. For this reason they
adored him as their maker. He it was, they thought, who produced the
thunder and the lightning by hurling stones with his sling; and the
thunderbolts that fall, said they, are his children. Few villages were
willing to be without one or more of these. They were in appearance
small, round, smooth stones, but had the admirable properties of
securing fertility to the fields, protecting from lightning, and, by a
transition easy to understand, were also adored as gods of the Fire, as
well material as of the passions, and were capable of kindling the
dangerous flames of desire in the most frigid bosom. Therefore they were
in great esteem as love charms.
Apocatequil's statue was erected on the mountains, with that of his
mother on one hand, and his brother on the other. "He was Prince of Evil
and the most respected god of the Peruvians. From Quito to Cuzco not an
Indian but would give all he possessed to conciliate him. Five priests,
two stewards, and a crowd of slaves served his image. And his chief
temple was surrounded by a very considerable village whose inhabitants
had no other occupation than to wait on him." In memory of these
brothers, twins in Peru were deemed always sacred to the lightning, and
when a woman or even a llama brought them forth, a fast was held and
sacrifices offered to the two pristine brothers, with a chant
commencing: _A chuchu cachiqui_, O Thou who causest twins, words
mistaken by the Spaniards for the name of a deity.[154-1]
Garcilasso de la Vega, a descendant of the Incas, has preserved an
ancient indigenous poem of his nation, presenting the storm myth in a
different form, which as undoubtedly authentic and not devoid of poetic
beauty I translate, preserving as much as possible the trochaic
tetrasyllabic verse of the original Quichua:--
"Beauteous princess,
Lo, thy brother
Breaks thy vessel
Now in fragments.
From the blow come
Thunder, lightning,
Strokes of lightning.
And thou, princess,
Tak'st the water,
With it rainest,
And the hail, or
Snow dispensest.
Viracocha,
World constructor,
World enliv'ner,
To this office
Thee appointed,
Thee created."[155-1]
In this pretty waif that has floated down to us from the wreck of a
literature now forever lost, there is more than one point to attract the
notice of the antiquary. He may find in it a hint to decipher those
names of divinities so common in Peruvian legends, Contici and Illatici.
Both mean "the Thunder Vase," and both doubtless refer to the conception
here displayed of the phenomena of the thunder-storm.[155-2]
Again, twice in this poem is the triple nature of the storm adverted to.
This is observable in many of the religions of America. It constitutes a
sort of Trinity, not in any point resembling that of Christianity, nor
yet the Trimurti of India, but the only one in the New World the least
degree authenticated, and which, as half seen by ignorant monks, has
caused its due amount of sterile astonishment. Thus, in the Quiche
legends we read: "The first of Hurakan is the lightning, the second the
track of the lightning, and the third the stroke of the lightning; and
these three are Hurakan, the Heart of the Sky."[156-1] It reappears with
characteristic uniformity of outline in Iroquois mythology. Heno, the
thunder, gathers the clouds and pours out the warm rains. Therefore he
was the patron of husbandry. He was invoked at seed time and harvest;
and as purveyor of nourishment he was addressed as grandfather, and his
worshippers styled themselves his grandchildren. He rode through the
heavens on the clouds, and the thunderbolts which split the forest trees
were the stones he hurled at his enemies. _Three_ assistants were
assigned him, whose names have unfortunately not been recorded, and
whose offices were apparently similar to those of the three companions
of Hurakan.[156-2]
So also the Aztecs supposed that Tlaloc, god of rains and the waters,
ruler of the terrestrial paradise and the season of summer, manifested
himself under the three attributes of the flash, the thunderbolt, and
the thunder.[157-1]
But this conception of three in one was above the comprehension of the
masses, and consequently these deities were also spoken of as fourfold
in nature, three _and_ one. Moreover, as has already been pointed out,
the thunder god was usually ruler of the winds, and thus another reason
for his quadruplicate nature was suggested. Hurakan, Haokah, Tlaloc, and
probably Heno, are plural as well as singular nouns, and are used as
nominatives to verbs in both numbers. Tlaloc was appealed to as
inhabiting each of the cardinal points and every mountain top. His
statue rested on a square stone pedestal, facing the east, and had in
one hand a serpent of gold. Ribbons of silver, crossing to form squares,
covered the robe, and the shield was composed of feathers of four
colors, yellow, green, red, and blue. Before it was a vase containing
all sorts of grain; and the clouds were called his companions, the winds
his messengers.[157-2] As elsewhere, the thunderbolts were believed to
be flints, and thus, as the emblem of fire and the storm, this stone
figures conspicuously in their myths. Tohil, the god who gave the
Quiches fire by shaking his sandals, was represented by a flint-stone.
He is distinctly said to be the same as Quetzalcoatl, one of whose
commonest symbols was a flint (tecpatl). Such a stone, in the beginning
of things, fell from heaven to earth, and broke into 1600 pieces, each
of which sprang up a god;[158-1] an ancient legend, which shadows forth
the subjection of all things to him who gathers the clouds from the four
corners of the earth, who thunders with his voice, who satisfies with
his rain "the desolate and waste ground, and causes the tender herb to
spring forth." This is the germ of the adoration of stones as emblems of
the fecundating rains. This is why, for example, the Navajos use as
their charm for rain certain long round stones, which they think fall
from the cloud when it thunders.[158-2]
Mixcoatl, the Cloud Serpent, or Iztac-Mixcoatl, the White or Gleaming
Cloud Serpent, said to have been the only divinity of the ancient
Chichimecs, held in high honor by the Nahuas, Nicaraguans, and Otomis,
and identical with Taras, supreme god of the Tarascos and Camaxtli, god
of the Teo-Chichimecs, is another personification of the thunder-storm.
To this day this is the familiar name of the tropical tornado in the
Mexican language.[158-3] He was represented, like Jove, with a bundle of
arrows in his hand, the thunderbolts. Both the Nahuas and Tarascos
related legends in which he figured as father of the race of man. Like
other lords of the lightning he was worshipped as the dispenser of
riches and the patron of traffic; and in Nicaragua his image is
described as being "engraved stones,"[158-4] probably the supposed
products of the thunder.
FOOTNOTES:
[124-1] A. D'Orbigny, _L'Homme Americain_, i. p. 240.
[125-1] Rivero and Tschudi, _Peruvian Antiquities_, 162, after J. Acosta.
[125-2] Narrative of _Oceola Nikkanoche, Prince of Econchatti_, p. 141;
Schoolcraft, _Ind. Tribes_, iv. p. 650.
[126-1] The term in Maya is _caput zihil_, corresponding exactly to the
Latin _renasci_, to be re-born, Landa, _Rel. de Yucatan_, p. 144.
[126-2] Dumont, _Mems. Hist. sur la Louisiane_, i. p. 233.
[127-1] Acosta, _Hist. of the New World_, lib. v. cap. 25.
[127-2] _Senate Report on Condition of Indian Tribes_, p. 358:
Washington, 1867.
[128-1] Sahagun, _Hist. de la Nueva Espana_, lib. vi. cap. 37.
[128-2] Ternaux-Compans, _Pieces rel. a la Conq. du Mexique_, p. 233.
[128-3] Velasco, _Hist. de la Royaume de Quito_, p. 106, and others.
[128-4] Whipple, _Rep. on the Indian Tribes_, p. 35. I am not sure that
this practice was of native growth to the Cherokees. This people have
many customs and traditions strangely similar to those of Christians and
Jews. Their cosmogony is a paraphrase of that of Genesis (Squier, _Serp.
Symbol_, from Payne's MSS.); the number seven is as sacred with them as
it was with the Chaldeans (Whipple, u. s.); and they have improved and
increased by contact with the whites. Significant in this connection is
the remark of Bartram, who visited them in 1773, that some of their
females were "nearly as fair and blooming as European women," and
generally that their complexion was lighter than their neighbors
(_Travels_, p. 485). Two explanations of these facts may be suggested.
They may be descendants in part of the ancient white race near Cape
Hatteras, to whom I have referred in a previous note. More probably they
derived their peculiarities from the Spaniards of Florida. Mr. Shea is of
opinion that missions were established among them as early as 1566 and
1643 (_Hist. of Catholic Missions in the U. S._, pp. 58, 73). Certainly
in the latter half of the seventeenth century the Spaniards were
prosecuting mining operations in their territory (See _Am. Hist. Mag._,
x. p. 137).
[129-1] Sprague, _Hist. of the Florida War_, p. 328.
[129-2] Basanier, _Histoire Notable de la Floride_, p. 10.
[130-1] Sahagun, _Hist. de la Nueva Espana_, lib. iii. app. cap. i.;
Meyen, _Ueber die Ureinwohner von Peru_, p. 29.
[130-2] Gabriel Thomas, _Hist. of West New Jersey_, p. 6: London, 1698.
[131-1] Gama, _Des. de las dos Piedras_, etc., i. p. 36.
[131-2] Garcia, _Or. de los Indios_, p. 109.
[131-3] Oviedo, _Rel. de la Prov. de Nicaragua_, p. 41. The name is a
corruption of the Aztec _Quiauhteotl_, Rain-God.
[132-1] Gumilla, _Hist. del Orinoco_, ii. cap. 23.
[132-2] _Doc. Hist. of New York_, iv. p. 130.
[132-3] Gama, _Des. de las dos Piedras_, ii. p. 41; Gallatin, _Trans. Am.
Ethnol. Soc._, i. p. 343.
[133-1] Adrian Van Helmont, _Workes_, p. 142, fol.: London, 1662.
[133-2] The moon is _nipa_ or _nipaz_; _nipa_, I sleep; _nipawi_, night;
_nip_, I die; _nepua_, dead; _nipanoue_, cold. This odd relationship was
first pointed out by Volney (Duponceau, _Langues de l'Amerique du Nord_,
p. 317). But the kinship of these words to that for water, _nip_, _nipi_,
_nepi_, has not before been noticed. This proves the association of ideas
on which I lay so much stress in mythology. A somewhat similar
relationship exists in the Aztec and cognate languages, _miqui_, to die,
_micqui_, dead, _mictlan_, the realm of death, _te-miqui_, to dream,
_cec-miqui_, to freeze. Would it be going too far to connect these with
_metzli_, moon? (See Buschmann, _Spuren der Aztekischen Sprache im
Noerdlichen Mexico_, p. 80.)
[133-3] Schoolcraft, _Ind. Tribes_, vol. iii. p. 485.
[134-1] _Rel. de la Nouv. France_, 1634, p. 16.
[134-2] Humboldt, _Vues des Cordilleres_, p. 21.
[134-3] Spix and Martius, _Travels in Brazil_, ii. p. 247.
[134-4] _Hist. de la Medecine_, i. p. 34.
[134-5] Gama, _Des. de las dos Piedras_, etc., ii. pp. 100-102. Compare
Sahagun, _Hist. de la Nueva Espana_, lib. i. cap. vi.
[135-1] Codex Chimalpopoca, in Brasseur, _Hist. du Mexique_, i. p. 183.
Gama and others translate Nanahuatl by _el buboso_, Brasseur by _le
syphilitique_, and the latter founds certain medical speculations on the
word. It is entirely unnecessary to say to a surgeon that it could not
possibly have had the latter meaning, inasmuch as the diagnosis between
secondary or tertiary syphilis and other similar diseases was unknown.
That it is so employed now is nothing to the purpose. The same or a
similar myth was found in Central America and on the Island of Haiti.
[136-1] _Rel. de la Nouv. France_, 1648, p. 75.
[136-2] Charlevoix is in error when he identifies Michabo with the Spirit
of the Waters, and may be corrected from his own statements elsewhere.
Compare his _Journal Historique_, pp. 281 and 344: ed. Paris, 1740.
[137-1] Bradford, _American Antiquities_, p. 833; Martius, _Von dem
Rechtszustande unter den Ureinwohnern Brasiliens_, p. 32; Schoolcraft,
_Ind. Tribes_, i. p. 271.
[138-1] La Vega, _Hist. des Incas_, liv. vi. cap. 9.
[138-2] _Lett. sur les Superstitions du Perou_, p. 111.
[138-3] Schoolcraft, _Ind. Tribes_, iv. p. 224.
[139-1] Chantico, according to Gama, means "Wolf's Head," though I cannot
verify this from the vocabularies within my reach. He is sometimes called
Cohuaxolotl Chantico, the snake-servant Chantico, considered by Gama as
one, by Torquemada as two deities (see Gama, _Des. de las dos Piedras_,
etc., i. p. 12; ii. p. 66). The English word _cantico_ in the phrase, for
instance, "to cut a cantico," though an Indian word, is not from this,
but from the Algonkin Delaware _gentkehn_, to dance a sacred dance. The
Dutch describe it as "a religious custom observed among them before
death" (_Doc. Hist. of New York_, iv. p. 63). William Penn says of the
Lenape, "their worship consists of two parts, sacrifice and cantico," the
latter "performed by round dances, sometimes words, sometimes songs, then
shouts; their postures very antic and differing." (_Letter to the Free
Society of Traders_, 1683, sec. 21.)
[139-2] Charlevoix, _Hist. Gen. de la Nouv. France_, i. p. 394: Paris,
1740. On the different species of dogs indigenous to America, see a note
of Alex. von Humboldt, _Ansichten der Natur._, i. p. 134. It may be
noticed that Chichimec, properly Chichimecatl, the name of the Aztec
tribe who succeeded the ancient Toltecs in Mexico, means literally
"people of the dog," and was probably derived from some mythological
fable connected with that animal.
[140-1] _Narr. of the Captiv. of John Tanner_, p. 362. From the word for
fire in many American tongues is formed the adjective _red_. Thus,
Algonkin, _skoda_, fire, _miskoda_, red; Kolosch, _kan_, fire, _kan_,
red; Ugalentz, _takak_, fire, _takak-uete_, red; Tahkali, _c[=u]n_, fire,
_tenil-c[=u]n_, red; Quiche, _cak_, fire, _cak_, red, etc. From the
adjective _red_ comes often the word for _blood_, and in symbolism the
color red may refer to either of these ideas. It was the royal color of
the Incas, brothers of the sun, and a llama swathed in a red garment was
the Peruvian sacrifice to fire (Garcia, _Or. de los Indios_, lib. iv.
caps. 16, 19). On the other hand the war quipus, the war wampum, and the
war paint were all of this hue, boding their sanguinary significance. The
word for fire in the language of the Delawares, Nanticokes, and
neighboring tribes puzzles me. It is _taenda_ or _tinda_. This is the
Swedish word _taenda_, from whose root comes our _tinder_. Yet it is
found in vocabularies as early as 1650, and is universally current
to-day. It has no resemblance to the word for fire in pure Algonkin. Was
it adopted from the Swedes? Was it introduced by wandering Vikings in
remote centuries? Or is it only a coincidence?
[141-1] Compare D'Orbigny, _L'Homme Americain_, i. p. 243, Mueller,
_Amer. Urreligionen_, p. 51, and Squier, _Serpent Symbol in America_, p.
111. This is a striking instance of the confusion of ideas introduced by
false systems of study, and also of the considerable misapprehension of
American mythology which has hitherto prevailed.
[142-1] La Hontan, _Voy. dans l'Amer. Sept._, p. ii. 127; _Rel. Nouv.
France_, 1637, p. 54.
[142-2] Copway, _Trad. Hist. of the Ojibway Nation_, p. 165. _Kesuch_ in
Algonkin signifies both sky and sun (Duponceau, _Langues de l'Amer. du
Nord_, p. 312). So apparently does _kin_ in the Maya.
[142-3] Payne's manuscripts quoted by Mr. Squier in his Serpent Symbol in
America were compiled within this century, and from the extracts given
can be of no great value.
[143-1] The words for fire and sun in American languages are usually from
distinct roots, but besides the example of the Natchez I may instance to
the contrary the Kolosch of British America, in whose tongue fire is
_kan_, sun, _kakan_ (_gake_, great), and the Tezuque of New Mexico, who
use _tah_ for both sun and fire.
[144-1] _Doc. Hist. of New York_, ii. p. 634.
[144-2] Emory, _Milt'y Reconnoissance[TN-6] of New Mexico_, p. 30.
[144-3] _Narrative of John Tanner_, p. 161.
[144-4] Loskiel, _Ges. der Miss. der evang. Brueder_, p. 55.
[144-5] _Nar. of John Tanner_, p. 351.
[144-6] Sahagun, _Hist. Nueva Espana_, lib. vi. cap. 4.
[145-1] _Letts. Edifiantes et Curieuses_, iv. p. 104, Oviedo; _Hist. du
Nicaragua_, p. 49; Gomara, _Hist. del Orinoco_, ii. cap. 2.
[145-2] Oviedo, _Hist. Gen. de las Indias_, p. 16, in Barcia's _Hist.
Prim._
[145-3] _Presdt's Message and Docs._ for 1851, pt. iii. p. 506.
[146-1] Sahagun, _Hist. de la Nueva Espana_, i. cap. 13.
[147-1] _Voyage Pittoresque dans le Yucatan_, p. 49.
[147-2] Davila Padilla, _Hist. de la Prov. de Santiago de Mexico_, lib.
ii. cap. 88 (Brusselas, 1625); Palacios, _Des. de Guatemala_, p. 40;
Garcia, _Or. de los Indios_, p. 124. To such an extent did the priests of
the Algonkin tribes who lived near Manhattan Island carry their
austerity, such uncompromising celibates were they, that it is said on
authority as old as 1624, that they never so much as partook of food
prepared by a married woman. (_Doc. Hist. New York_, iv. p. 28.)
[149-1] Martius, _Von dem Rechtzustande unter den Ureinwohnern
Brasiliens_, p. 28, gives many references.
[149-2] Id. _ibid._, p. 61.
[149-3] _Le Livre Sacre des Quiches_, Introd., pp. clxi., clxix.
[149-4] _Travels in Yucatan_, i. p. 434.
[150-1] Schoolcraft, _Ind. Tribes_, v. pp. 416, 417.
[150-2] Mrs. Eastman, _Legends of the Sioux_, p. 161.
[151-1] _Rel. de la Nouv. France_, 1634, p. 27; Schoolcraft, _Algic
Researches_, ii. p. 116; _Ind. Tribes_, v. p. 420.
[151-2] De Smet, _Western Missions_, p. 135; Schoolcraft, _Ind. Tribes_,
i. p. 319.
[151-3] Mrs. Eastman, _Legends of the Sioux_, p. 72. By another legend
they claimed that their first ancestor obtained his fire from the sparks
which a friendly panther struck from the rocks as he scampered up a stony
hill (McCoy, _Hist. of Baptist Indian Missions_, p. 364).
[152-1] Mrs. Eastman, ubi sup., p. 158; Schoolcraft, _Ind. Tribes_, iv.
p. 645.
[152-2] Waitz, _Anthropologie_, iii. p. 417; Mueller, _Am. Urrelig._, p.
271.
[154-1] On the myth of Catequil see particularly the _Lettre sur les
Superstitions du Perou_, p. 95 sqq., and compare Montesinos, _Ancien
Perou_, chaps. ii., xx. The letters g and j do not exist in Quichua,
therefore Ataguju should doubtless read _Ata-chuchu_, which means lord,
or ruler of the twins, from _ati_ root of _atini_, I am able, I control,
and _chuchu_, twins. The change of the root _ati_ to _ata_, though
uncommon in Quichua, occurs also in _ata-hualpa_, cock, from _ati_ and
_hualpa_, fowl. Apo-Catequil, or as given by Arriaga, another old writer
on Peruvian idolatry, Apocatequilla, I take to be properly
_apu-ccatec-quilla_, which literally means _chief of the followers of the
moon_. Acosta mentions that the native name for various constellations
was _catachillay_ or _catuchillay_, doubtless corruptions of _ccatec
quilla_, literally "following the moon." Catequil, therefore, the dark
spirit of the storm rack, was also appropriately enough, and perhaps
primarily, lord of the night and stars. Piguerao, where the g appears
again, is probably a compound of _piscu_, bird, and _uira_, white.
Guachemines seems clearly the word _huachi_, a ray of light or an arrow,
with the negative suffix _ymana_, thus meaning rayless, as in the text,
or _ymana_ may mean an excess as well as a want of anything beyond what
is natural, which would give the signification "very bright shining."
(Holguin, _Arte de la Lengua Quichua_, p. 106: Cuzco, 1607.) Is this
sister of theirs the Dawn, who, as in the Rig Veda, brings forth at the
cost of her own life the white and dark twins, the Day and the Night, the
latter of whom drives from the heavens the far-shooting arrows of light,
in order that he may restore his mother again to life? The answer may for
the present be deferred. It is a coincidence perhaps worth mentioning
that the Augustin monk who is our principal authority for this legend
mentions two other twin deities, Yamo and Yama, whose names are almost
identical with the twins Yama and Yami of the Veda.
[155-1] _Hist. des Incas_, liv. ii. cap. 28, and corrected in Markham's
_Quichua Grammar_.
[155-2] The latter is a compound of _tici_ or _ticcu_, a vase, and
_ylla_, the root of _yllani_, to shine, _yllapantac_, it thunders and
lightens. The former is from _tici_ and _cun_ or _con_, whence by
reduplication _cun-un-un-an_, it thunders. From _cun_ and _tura_,
brother, is probably derived _cuntur_, the condor, the flying
thunder-cloud being looked upon as a great bird also. Dr. Waitz has
pointed out that the Araucanians call by the title _con_, the messenger
who summons their chieftains to a general council.
[156-1] _Le Livre Sacre_, p. 9. The name of the lightning in Quiche is
_cak ul ha_, literally, "fire coming from water."
[156-2] Morgan, _League of the Iroquois_, p. 158.
[157-1] "El rayo, el relampago, y el trueno." Gama, _Des. de las dos
Piedras_, etc., ii. p. 76: Mexico, 1832.
[157-2] Torquemada, _Monarquia Indiana_, lib. vi. cap. 23. Gama, ubi sup.
ii. 76, 77.
[158-1] Torquemada, ibid., lib. vi. cap. 41.
[158-2] _Senate Report on the Indian Tribes_, p. 358: Washington, 1867.
[158-3] Brasseur, _Hist[TN-7] du Mexique_, i. p. 201, and on the extent
of his worship Waitz, _Anthropol._, iv. p. 144.
[158-4] Oviedo, _Hist. du Nicaragua_, p. 47.