THE MYTHS OF THE CREATION, THE DELUGE, THE EPOCHS OF NATURE, AND THE
LAST DAY.
Cosmogonies usually portray the action of the SPIRIT on the
WATERS.--Those of the Muscogees, Athapascas, Quiches, Mixtecs,
Iroquois, Algonkins, and others.--The Flood-Myth an unconscious
attempt to reconcile a creation in time with the eternity of
matter.--Proof of this from American mythology.--Characteristics of
American Flood-Myths.--The person saved usually the first man.--The
number seven.--Their Ararats.--The role of birds.--The confusion of
tongues.--The Aztec, Quiche, Algonkin, Tupi, and earliest Sanscrit
flood-myths.--The belief in Epochs of Nature a further result of
this attempt at reconciliation.--Its forms among Peruvians, Mayas,
and Aztecs.--The expectation of the End of the World a corollary of
this belief.--Views of various nations.
Could the reason rest content with the belief that the universe always
was as it now is, it would save much beating of brains. Such is the
comfortable condition of the Eskimos, the Rootdiggers of California, the
most brutish specimens of humanity everywhere. Vain to inquire their
story of creation, for, like the knife-grinder of anti-Jacobin renown,
they have no story to tell. It never occurred to them that the earth had
a beginning, or underwent any greater changes than those of the
seasons.[193-1] But no sooner does the mind begin to reflect, the
intellect to employ itself on higher themes than the needs of the body,
than the law of causality exerts its power, and the man, out of such
materials as he has at hand, manufactures for himself a Theory of
Things.
What these materials were has been shown in the last few chapters. A
simple primitive substance, a divinity to mould it--these are the
requirements of every cosmogony. Concerning the first no nation ever
hesitated. All agree that before time began _water_ held all else in
solution, covered and concealed everything. The reasons for this assumed
priority of water have been already touched upon. Did a tribe dwell near
some great sea others can be imagined. The land is limited, peopled,
stable; the ocean fluctuating, waste, boundless. It insatiably swallows
all rains and rivers, quenches sun and moon in its dark chambers, and
raves against its bounds as a beast of prey. Awe and fear are the
sentiments it inspires; in Aryan tongues its synonyms are the _desert_
and the _night_.[194-1] It produces an impression of immensity,
infinity, formlessness, and barren changeableness, well suited to a
notion of chaos. It is sterile, receiving all things, producing nothing.
Hence the necessity of a creative power to act upon it, as it were to
impregnate its barren germs. Some cosmogonies find this in one, some in
another personification of divinity. Commonest of all is that of the
wind, or its emblem the bird, types of the breath of life.
Thus the venerable record in Genesis, translated in the authorized
version "and the Spirit of God moved on the face of the waters," may
with equal correctness be rendered "and a mighty wind brooded on the
surface of the waters," presenting the picture of a primeval ocean
fecundated by the wind as a bird.[195-1] The eagle that in the Finnish
epic of Kalewala floated over the waves and hatched the land, the egg
that in Chinese legend swam hither and thither until it grew to a
continent, the giant Ymir, the rustler (as wind in trees), from whose
flesh, says the Edda, our globe was made and set to float like a speck
in the vast sea between Muspel and Niflheim, all are the same tale
repeated by different nations in different ages. But why take
illustrations from the old world when they are so plenty in the new?
Before the creation, said the Muscogees, a great body of water was alone
visible. Two pigeons flew to and fro over its waves, and at last spied a
blade of grass rising above the surface. Dry land gradually followed,
and the islands and continents took their present shapes.[195-2] Whether
this is an authentic aboriginal myth, is not beyond question. No such
doubt attaches to that of the Athapascas. With singular unanimity, most
of the northwest branches of this stock trace their descent from a
raven, "a mighty bird, whose eyes were fire, whose glances were
lightning, and the clapping of whose wings was thunder. On his descent
to the ocean, the earth instantly rose, and remained on the surface of
the water. This omnipotent bird then called forth all the variety of
animals."[196-1]
Very similar, but with more of poetic finish, is the legend of the
Quiches:--
"This is the first word and the first speech. There were neither men nor
brutes; neither birds, fish, nor crabs, stick nor stone, valley nor
mountain, stubble nor forest, nothing but the sky. The face of the land
was hidden. There was naught but the silent sea and the sky. There was
nothing joined, nor any sound, nor thing that stirred; neither any to do
evil, nor to rumble in the heavens, nor a walker on foot; only the
silent waters, only the pacified ocean, only it in its calm. Nothing was
but stillness, and rest, and darkness, and the night; nothing but the
Maker and Moulder, the Hurler, the Bird-Serpent. In the waters, in a
limpid twilight, covered with green feathers, slept the mothers and the
fathers."[196-2]
Over this passed Hurakan, the mighty wind, and called out Earth! and
straightway the solid land was there.
The picture writings of the Mixtecs preserved a similar cosmogony: "In
the year and in the day of clouds, before ever were either years or
days, the world lay in darkness; all things were orderless, and a water
covered the slime and the ooze that the earth then was." By the efforts
of two winds, called, from astrological associations, that of Nine
Serpents and that of Nine Caverns, personified one as a bird and one as
a winged serpent, the waters subsided and the land dried.[197-1]
In the birds that here play such conspicuous parts, we cannot fail to
recognize the winds and the clouds; but more especially the dark thunder
cloud, soaring in space at the beginning of things, most forcible emblem
of the aerial powers. They are the symbols of that divinity which acted
on the passive and sterile waters, the fitting result being the
production of a universe. Other symbols of the divine could also be
employed, and the meaning remain the same. Or were the fancy too
helpless to suggest any, they could be dispensed with, and purely
natural agencies take their place. Thus the unimaginative Iroquois
narrated that when their primitive female ancestor was kicked from the
sky by her irate spouse, there was as yet no land to receive her, but
that it "suddenly bubbled up under her feet, and waxed bigger, so that
ere long a whole country was perceptible."[197-2] Or that certain
amphibious animals, the beaver, the otter, and the muskrat, seeing her
descent, hastened to dive and bring up sufficient mud to construct an
island for her residence.[197-3] The muskrat is also the simple
machinery in the cosmogony of the Takahlis of the northwest coast, the
Osages and some Algonkin tribes.
These latter were, indeed, keen enough to perceive that there was really
no _creation_ in such an account. Dry land was wanting, but earth was
there, though hidden by boundless waters. Consequently, they spoke
distinctly of the action of the muskrat in bringing it to the surface as
a formation only. Michabo directed him, and from the mud formed islands
and main land. But when the subject of creation was pressed, they
replied they knew nothing of that, or roundly answered the questioner
that he was talking nonsense.[198-1] Their myth, almost identical with
that of their neighbors, was recognized by them to be not of a
construction, but a reconstruction only; a very judicious distinction,
but one which has a most important corollary. A reconstruction supposes
a previous existence. This they felt, and had something to say about an
earth anterior to this of ours, but one without light or human
inhabitants. A lake burst its bounds and submerged it wholly. This is
obviously nothing but a mere and meagre fiction, invented to explain the
origin of the primeval ocean. But mark it well, for this is the germ of
those marvellous myths of the Epochs of Nature, the catastrophes of the
universe, the deluges of water and of fire, which have laid such strong
hold on the human fancy in every land and in every age.
The purpose for which this addition was made to the simpler legend is
clear enough. It was to avoid the dilemma of a creation from nothing on
the one hand, and the eternity of matter on the other. _Ex nihilo nihil_
is an apothegm indorsed alike by the profoundest metaphysicians and the
rudest savages. But the other horn was no easier. To escape accepting
the theory that the world had ever been as it now is, was the only
object of a legend of its formation. As either lemma conflicts with
fundamental laws of thought, this escape was eagerly adopted, and in the
suggestive words of Prescott, men "sought relief from the oppressive
idea of eternity by breaking it up into distinct cycles or periods of
time."[199-1] Vain but characteristic attempt of the ambitious mind of
man! The Hindoo philosopher reconciles to his mind the suspension of the
world in space by imagining it supported by an elephant, the elephant by
a tortoise, and the tortoise by a serpent. We laugh at the Hindoo, and
fancy we diminish the difficulty by explaining that it revolves around
the sun, and the sun around some far-off star. Just so the general mind
of humanity finds some satisfaction in supposing a world or a series of
worlds anterior to the present, thus escaping the insoluble enigma of
creation by removing it indefinitely in time.
The support lent to these views by the presence of marine shells on high
lands, or by faint reminiscences of local geologic convulsions, I
estimate very low. Savages are not inductive philosophers, and by
nothing short of a miracle could they preserve the remembrance of even
the most terrible catastrophe beyond a few generations. Nor has any such
occurred within the ken of history of sufficient magnitude to make a
very permanent or wide-spread impression. Not physics, but metaphysics,
is the exciting cause of these beliefs in periodical convulsions of the
globe. The idea of matter cannot be separated from that of time, and
time and eternity are contradictory terms. Common words show this
connection. World, for example, in the old language _waereld_, from the
root to wear, by derivation means an age or cycle (Grimm).
In effect a myth of creation is nowhere found among primitive nations.
It seems repugnant to their reason. Dry land and animate life had a
beginning, but not matter. A series of constructions and demolitions may
conveniently be supposed for these. The analogy of nature, as seen in
the vernal flowers springing up after the desolation of winter, of the
sapling sprouting from the fallen trunk, of life everywhere rising from
death, suggests such a view. Hence arose the belief in Epochs of Nature,
elaborated by ancient philosophers into the Cycles of the Stoics, the
Great Days of Brahm, long periods of time rounded off by sweeping
destructions, the Cataclysms and Ekpyrauses of the universe. Some
thought in these all beings perished; others that a few survived.[200-1]
This latter and more common view is the origin of the myth of the
deluge. How familiar such speculations were to the aborigines of America
there is abundant evidence to show.
The early Algonkin legends do not speak of an antediluvian race, nor of
any family who escaped the waters. Michabo, the spirit of the dawn,
their supreme deity, alone existed, and by his power formed and peopled
it. Nor did their neighbors, the Dakotas, though firm in the belief that
the globe had once been destroyed by the waters, suppose that any had
escaped.[201-1] The same view was entertained by the Nicaraguans[201-2]
and the Botocudos of Brazil. The latter attributed its destruction to
the moon falling to the earth from time to time.[201-3]
Much the most general opinion, however, was that some few escaped the
desolating element by one of those means most familiar to the narrator,
by ascending some mountain, on a raft or canoe, in a cave, or even by
climbing a tree. No doubt some of these legends have been modified by
Christian teachings; but many of them are so connected with local
peculiarities and ancient religious ceremonies, that no unbiased student
can assign them wholly to that source, as Professor Vater has done, even
if the authorities for many of them were less trustworthy than they are.
There are no more common heirlooms in the traditional lore of the red
race. Nearly every old author quotes one or more of them. They present
great uniformity of outline, and rather than engage in repetitions of
little interest, they can be more profitably studied in the aggregate
than in detail.
By far the greater number represent the last destruction of the world to
have been by water. A few, however, the Takahlis of the North Pacific
coast, the Yurucares of the Bolivian Cordilleras, and the Mbocobi of
Paraguay, attribute it to a general conflagration which swept over the
earth, consuming every living thing except a few who took refuge in a
deep cave.[202-1] The more common opinion of a submersion gave rise to
those traditions of a universal flood so frequently recorded by
travellers, and supposed by many to be reminiscences of that of Noah.
There are, indeed, some points of striking similarity between the deluge
myths of Asia and America. It has been called a peculiarity of the
latter that in them the person saved is always the first man. This,
though not without exception, is certainly the general rule. But these
first men were usually the highest deities known to their nations, the
only creators of the world, and the guardians of the race.[202-2]
Moreover, in the oldest Sanscrit legend of the flood in the Zatapatha
Brahmana, Manu is also the first man, and by his own efforts creates
offspring.[202-3]
A later Sanscrit work assigns to Manu the seven Richis or shining ones
as companions. Seven was also the number of persons in the ark of Noah.
Curiously enough one Mexican and one early Peruvian myth give out
exactly seven individuals as saved in their floods.[203-1] This
coincidence arises from the mystic powers attached to the number seven,
derived from its frequent occurrence in astrology. Proof of this appears
by comparing the later and the older versions of this myth, either in
the book of Genesis, where the latter is distinguished by the use of the
word Elohim for Jehovah,[203-2] or the Sanscrit account in the Zatapatha
Brahmana with those in the later Puranas.[203-3] In both instances the
number seven hardly or at all occurs in the oldest version, while it is
constantly repeated in those of later dates.
As the mountain or rather mountain chain of Ararat was regarded with
veneration wherever the Semitic accounts were known, so in America
heights were pointed out with becoming reverence as those on which the
few survivors of the dreadful scenes of the deluge were preserved. On
the Red River near the village of the Caddoes was one of these, a small
natural eminence, "to which all the Indian tribes for a great distance
around pay devout homage," according to Dr. Sibley.[203-4] The Cerro
Naztarny on the Rio Grande, the peak of Old Zuni in New Mexico, that of
Colhuacan on the Pacific Coast, Mount Apoala in Upper Mixteca, and
Mount Neba in the province of Guaymi, are some of many elevations
asserted by the neighboring nations to have been places of refuge for
their ancestors when the fountains of the great deep broke forth.
One of the Mexican traditions related by Torquemada identified this with
the mountain of Tlaloc in the terrestrial paradise, and added that one
of the seven demigods who escaped commenced the pyramid of Cholula in
its memory. He intended that its summit should reach the clouds, but the
gods, angry at his presumption, drove away the builders with lightning.
This has a suspicious resemblance to Bible stories. Equally fabulous was
the retreat of the Araucanians. It was a three-peaked mountain which had
the property of floating on water, called Theg-Theg, the Thunderer. This
they believed would preserve them in the next as it did in the last
cataclysm, and as its only inconvenience was that it approached too near
the sun, they always kept on hand wooden bowls to use as
parasols.[204-1]
The intimate connection that once existed between the myths of the
deluge and those of the creation is illustrated by the part assigned to
birds in so many of them. They fly to and fro over the waves ere any
land appears, though they lose in great measure the significance of
bringing it forth, attached to them in the cosmogonies as emblems of the
divine spirit. The dove in the Hebrew account appears in that of the
Algonkins as a raven, which Michabo sent out to search for land before
the muskrat brought it to him from the bottom. A raven also in the
Athapascan myth saved their ancestors from the general flood, and in
this instance it is distinctly identified with the mighty thunder bird,
who at the beginning ordered the earth from the depths. Prometheus-like,
it brought fire from heaven, and saved them from a second death by
cold.[205-1] Precisely the same beneficent actions were attributed by
the Natchez to the small red cardinal bird,[205-2] and by the Mandans
and Cherokees an active participation in the event was assigned to wild
pigeons. The Navajos and Aztecs thought that instead of being drowned by
the waters the human race were transformed into birds and thus escaped.
In all these and similar legends, the bird is a relic of the cosmogonal
myth which explained the origin of the world from the action of the
winds, under the image of the bird, on the primeval ocean.
The Mexican Codex Vaticanus No. 3738 represents after the picture of the
deluge a bird perched on the summit of a tree, and at its foot men in
the act of marching. This has been interpreted to mean that after the
deluge men were dumb until a dove distributed to them the gift of
speech. The New Mexican tribes related that all except the leader of
those who escaped to the mountains lost the power of utterance by
terror,[205-3] and the Quiches that the antediluvian race were "puppets,
men of wood, without intelligence or language." These stories, so
closely resembling that of the confusion of tongues at the tower of
Babel or Borsippa, are of doubtful authenticity. The first is an
entirely erroneous interpretation, as has been shown by Senor Ramirez,
director of the Museum of Antiquities at Mexico. The name of the bird in
the Aztec tongue was identical with the word _departure_, and this is
its signification in the painting.[206-1]
Stories of giants in the days of old, figures of mighty proportions
looming up through the mist of ages, are common property to every
nation. The Mexicans and Peruvians had them as well as others, but their
connection with the legends of the flood and the creation is incidental
and secondary. Were the case otherwise, it would offer no additional
point of similarity to the Hebrew myth, for the word rendered _giants_
in the phrase, "and there were giants in those days," has no such
meaning in the original. It is a blunder which crept into the
Septuagint, and has been cherished ever since, along with so many others
in the received text.
A few specimens will serve as examples of all these American flood
myths. The Abbe Brasseur has translated one from the Codex Chimalpopoca,
a work in the Nahuatl language of Ancient Mexico, written about half a
century after the conquest. It is as follows:--
"And this year was that of Ce-calli, and on the first day all was lost.
The mountain itself was submerged in the water, and the water remained
tranquil for fifty-two springs.
"Now towards the close of the year, Titlahuan had forewarned the man
named Nata and his wife named Nena, saying, 'Make no more pulque, but
straightway hollow out a large cypress, and enter it when in the month
Tozoztli the water shall approach the sky.' They entered it, and when
Titlacahuan had closed the door he said, 'Thou shalt eat but a single
ear of maize, and thy wife but one also.'
"As soon as they had finished [eating], they went forth and the water
was tranquil; for the log did not move any more; and opening it they saw
many fish.
"Then they built a fire, rubbing together pieces of wood, and they
roasted the fish. The gods Citlallinicue and Citlallatonac looking below
exclaimed, 'Divine Lord, what means that fire below? Why do they thus
smoke the heavens?'
"Straightway descended Titlacahuan Tezcatlipoca, and commenced to scold,
saying, 'What is this fire doing here?' And seizing the fishes he
moulded their hinder parts and changed their heads, and they were at
once transformed into dogs."[207-1]
That found in the oft quoted legends of the Quiches is to this effect:--
"Then by the will of the Heart of Heaven the waters were swollen and a
great flood came upon the mannikins of wood. For they did not think nor
speak of the Creator who had created them, and who had caused their
birth. They were drowned, and a thick resin fell from heaven.
"The bird Xecotcovach tore out their eyes; the bird Camulatz cut off
their heads; the bird Cotzbalam devoured their flesh; the bird
Tecumbalam broke their bones and sinews, and ground them into
powder."[207-2]
"Because they had not thought of their Mother and Father, the Heart of
Heaven, whose name is Hurakan, therefore the face of the earth grew dark
and a pouring rain commenced, raining by day, raining by night.
"Then all sorts of beings, little and great, gathered together to abuse
the men to their faces; and all spoke, their mill-stones, their plates,
their cups, their dogs, their hens.
"Said the dogs and hens, 'Very badly have you treated us, and you have
bitten us. Now we bite you in turn.'
"Said the mill-stones, 'Very much were we tormented by you, and daily,
daily, night and day, it was _squeak, squeak, screech, screech_, for
your sake. Now yourselves shall feel our strength, and we will grind
your flesh, and make meal of your bodies,' said the mill-stones.[208-1]
"And this is what the dogs said, 'Why did you not give us our food? No
sooner did we come near than you drove us away, and the stick was always
within reach when you were eating, because, forsooth, we were not able
to talk. Now we will use our teeth and eat you,' said the dogs, tearing
their faces.
"And the cups and dishes said, 'Pain and misery you gave us, smoking our
tops and sides, cooking us over the fire, burning and hurting us as if
we had no feeling.[209-1] Now it is your turn, and you shall burn,' said
the cups insultingly.
"Then ran the men hither and thither in despair. They climbed to the
roofs of the houses, but the houses crumbled under their feet; they
tried to mount to the tops of the trees, but the trees hurled them far
from them; they sought refuge in the caverns, but the caverns shut
before them.
"Thus was accomplished the ruin of this race, destined to be destroyed
and overthrown; thus were they given over to destruction and contempt.
And it is said that their posterity are those little monkeys who live in
the woods."[209-2]
The Algonkin tradition has often been referred to. Many versions of it
are extant, the oldest and most authentic of which is that translated
from the Montagnais dialect by Father le Jeune, in 1634.
"One day as Messou was hunting, the wolves which he used as dogs entered
a great lake and were detained there.
"Messou looking for them everywhere, a bird said to him, 'I see them in
the middle of this lake.'
"He entered the lake to rescue them, but the lake overflowing its banks
covered the land and destroyed the world.
"Messou, very much astonished at this, sent out the raven to find a
piece of earth wherewith to rebuild the land, but the bird could find
none; then he ordered the otter to dive for some, but the animal
returned empty; at last he sent down the muskrat, who came back with
ever so small a piece, which, however, was enough for Messou to form the
land on which we are.
"The trees having lost their branches, he shot arrows at their naked
trunks which became their limbs, revenged himself on those who had
detained his wolves, and having married the muskrat, by it peopled the
world."
Finally may be given the meagre legend of the Tupis of Brazil, as heard
by Hans Staden, a prisoner among them about 1550, and Coreal, a later
voyager. Their ancient songs relate that a long time ago a certain very
powerful Mair, that is to say, a stranger, who bitterly hated their
ancestors, compassed their destruction by a violent inundation. Only a
very few succeeded in escaping--some by climbing trees, others in caves.
When the waters subsided the remnant came together, and by gradual
increase populated the world.[210-1]
Or, it is given by an equally ancient authority as follows:--
"Monan, without beginning or end, author of all that is, seeing the
ingratitude of men, and their contempt for him who had made them thus
joyous, withdrew from them, and sent upon them _tata_, the divine fire,
which burned all that was on the surface of the earth. He swept about
the fire in such a way that in places he raised mountains, and in others
dug valleys. Of all men one alone, Irin Monge, was saved, whom Monan
carried into the heaven. He, seeing all things destroyed, spoke thus to
Monan: 'Wilt thou also destroy the heavens and their garniture? Alas!
henceforth where will be our home? Why should I live, since there is
none other of my kind?' Then Monan was so filled with pity that he
poured a deluging rain on the earth, which quenched the fire, and,
flowing from all sides, formed the ocean, which we call _parana_, the
bitter waters."[211-1]
In these narratives I have not attempted to soften the asperities nor
conceal the childishness which run through them. But there is no
occasion to be astonished at these peculiarities, nor to found upon them
any disadvantageous opinion of the mental powers of their authors and
believers. We can go back to the cradle of our own race in Central
Asia, and find traditions every whit as infantile. I cannot refrain from
adding the earliest Aryan myth of the same great occurrence, as it is
handed down to us in ancient Sanscrit literature. It will be seen that
it is little, if at all, superior to those just rehearsed.
"Early in the morning they brought to Manu water to wash himself; when
he had well washed, a fish came into his hands.
"It said to him these, words: 'Take care of me; I will save thee.' 'What
wilt thou save me from?' 'A deluge will sweep away all creatures; I wish
thee to escape.' 'But how shall I take care of thee?'
"The fish said: 'While we are small there is more than one danger of
death, for one fish swallows another. Thou must, in the first place, put
me in a vase. Then, when I shall exceed it in size, thou must dig a deep
ditch, and place me in it. When I grow too large for it, throw me in the
sea, for I shall then be beyond the danger of death.'
"Soon it became a great fish; it grew, in fact, astonishingly. Then it
said to Manu, 'In such a year the Deluge will come. Thou must build a
vessel, and then pay me homage. When the waters of the Deluge mount up,
enter the vessel. I will save thee.'
"When Manu had thus taken care of the fish, he put it in the sea. The
same year that the fish had said, in this very year, having built the
vessel, he paid the fish homage. Then the Deluge mounting, he entered
the vessel. The fish swam near him. To its horn Manu fastened the ship's
rope, with which the fish passed the Mountain of the North.
"The fish said, 'See! I have saved thee. Fasten the vessel to a tree, so
that the water does not float thee onward when thou art on the mountain
top. As the water decreases, thou wilt descend little by little.' Thus
Manu descended gradually. Therefore to the mountain of the north remains
the name, Descent of Manu. The Deluge had destroyed all creatures; Manu
survived alone."[213-1]
Hitherto I have spoken only of the last convulsion which swept over the
face of the globe, and of but one cycle which preceded the present. Most
of the more savage tribes contented themselves with this, but it is
instructive to observe how, as they advanced in culture, and the mind
dwelt more intently on the great problems of Life and Time, they were
impelled to remove further and further the dim and mysterious Beginning.
The Peruvians imagined that _two_ destructions had taken place, the
first by a famine, the second by a flood--according to some a few only
escaping--but, after the more widely accepted opinion, accompanied by
the absolute extirpation of the race. Three eggs, which dropped from
heaven, hatched out the present race; one of gold, from which came the
priests; one of silver, which produced the warriors; and the last of
copper, source of the common people.[213-2]
The Mayas of Yucatan increased the previous worlds by one, making the
present the _fourth_. Two cycles had terminated by devastating plagues.
They were called "the sudden deaths," for it was said so swift and
mortal was the pest, that the buzzards and other foul birds dwelt in the
houses of the cities, and ate the bodies of their former owners. The
third closed either by a hurricane, which blew from all four of the
cardinal points at once, or else, as others said, by an inundation,
which swept across the world, swallowing all things in its mountainous
surges.[214-1]
As might be expected, the vigorous intellects of the Aztecs impressed
upon this myth a fixity of outline nowhere else met with on the
continent, and wove it intimately into their astrological reveries and
religious theories. Unaware of its prevalence under more rudimentary
forms throughout the continent, Alexander von Humboldt observed that,
"of all the traits of analogy which can be pointed out between the
monuments, manners, and traditions of Asia and America, the most
striking is that offered by the Mexican mythology in the cosmogonical
fiction of the periodical destructions and regenerations of the
universe."[215-1] Yet it is but the same fiction that existed elsewhere,
somewhat more definitely outlined. There exists great discrepancy
between the different authorities, both as to the number of Aztec ages
or Suns, as they were called, their durations, their terminations, and
their names. The preponderance of testimony is in favor of _four_
antecedent cycles, the present being the _fifth_. The interval from the
first creation to the commencement of the present epoch, owing to the
equivocal meaning of the numeral signs expressing it in the picture
writings, may have been either 15228, 2316, or 1404 solar years. Why
these numbers should have been chosen, no one has guessed. It has been
looked for in combinations of numbers connected with the calendar, but
so far in vain.
While most authorities agree as to the character of the destructions
which terminated the suns, they vary much as to their sequence. Water,
winds, fire, and hunger, are the agencies, and in one Codex (Vaticanus)
occur in this order. Gama gives the sequence, hunger, winds, fire, and
water; Humboldt hunger, fire, winds, and water; Boturini water, hunger,
winds, fire. As the cycle ending by a famine, is called the Age of
Earth, Ternaux-Compans, the distinguished French _Americaniste_, has
imagined that the four Suns correspond mystically to the domination
exercised in turn over the world by its four constituent elements. But
proof is wanting that Aztec philosophers knew the theory on which this
explanation reposes.
Baron Humboldt suggested that the suns were "fictions of mythological
astronomy, modified either by obscure reminiscences of some great
revolution suffered by our planet, or by physical hypotheses, suggested
by the sight of marine petrifactions and fossil remains,"[216-1] while
the Abbe Brasseur, in his late works on ancient Mexico, interprets them
as exaggerated references to historical events. As no solution can be
accepted not equally applicable to the same myth as it appears in
Yucatan, Peru, and the hunting tribes, and to the exactly parallel
teachings of the Edda,[216-2] the Stoics, the Celts, and the Brahmans,
both of these must be rejected. And although the Hindoo legend is so
close to the Aztec, that it, too, defines four ages, each terminating by
a general catastrophe, and each catastrophe exactly the same in
both,[216-3] yet this is not at all indicative of a derivation from one
original, but simply an illustration how the human mind, under the
stimulus of the same intellectual cravings, produces like results. What
these cravings are has already been shown.
The reason for adopting four ages, thus making the present the fifth,
probably arose from the sacredness of that number in general; but
directly, because this was the number of secular days in the Mexican
week. A parallel is offered by the Hebrew narrative. In it six epochs or
days precede the seventh or present cycle, in which the creative power
rests. This latter corresponded to the Jewish Sabbath, the day of
repose; and in the Mexican calendar each fifth day was also a day of
repose, employed in marketing and pleasure.
Doubtless the theory of the Ages of the world was long in vogue among
the Aztecs before it received the definite form in which we now have it;
and as this was acquired long after the calendar was fixed, it is every
way probable that the latter was used as a guide to the former.
Echevarria, a good authority on such matters, says the number of the
Suns was agreed upon at a congress of astrologists, within the memory of
tradition.[217-1] Now in the calendar, these signs occur in the order,
earth, air, water, fire, corresponding to the days distinguished by the
symbols house, rabbit, reed, and flint. This sequence, commencing with
Tochtli (rabbit, air), is that given as that of the Suns in the Codex
Chimalpopoca, translated by Brasseur, though it seems a taint of
European teaching, when it is added that on the _seventh_ day of the
creation man was formed.[217-2]
Neither Jews nor Aztecs, nor indeed any American nation, appear to have
supposed, with some of the old philosophers, that the present was an
exact repetition of previous cycles,[218-1] but rather that each was an
improvement on the preceding, a step in endless progress. Nor did either
connect these beliefs with astronomical reveries of a great year,
defined by the return of the heavenly bodies to one relative position in
the heavens. The latter seems characteristic of the realism of Europe,
the former of the idealism of the Orient; both inconsistent with the
meagre astronomy and more scanty metaphysics of the red race.
The expectation of the end of the world is a natural complement to the
belief in periodical destructions of our globe. As at certain times past
the equipoise of nature was lost, and the elements breaking the chain of
laws that bound them ran riot over the universe, involving all life in
one mad havoc and desolation, so in the future we have to expect that
day of doom, when the ocean tides shall obey no shore, but overwhelm the
continents with their mountainous billows, or the fire, now chafing in
volcanic craters and smoking springs, will leap forth on the forests and
grassy meadows, wrapping all things in a winding sheet of flame, and
melting the very elements with fervid heat. Then, in the language of the
Norse prophetess, "shall the sun grow dark, the land sink in the waters,
the bright stars be quenched, and high flames climb heaven
itself."[218-2] These fearful foreboding shave[TN-9] cast their dark
shadow on every literature. The seeress of the north does but paint in
wilder colors the terrible pictures of Seneca,[219-1] and the sibyl of
the capitol only re-echoes the inspired predictions of Malachi. Well has
the Christian poet said:--
Dies irae, dies illa,
Solvet saeclum in favilla,
_Testis David cum Sibyla_.
Savage races, isolated in the impenetrable forests of another continent,
could not escape this fearful looking for of destruction to come. It
oppressed their souls like a weight of lead. On the last night of each
cycle of fifty-two years, the Aztecs extinguished every fire, and
proceeded, in solemn procession, to some sacred spot. Then the priests,
with awe and trembling, sought to kindle a new fire by friction.
Momentous was the endeavor, for did it fail, their fathers had taught
them on the morrow no sun would rise, and darkness, death, and the
waters would descend forever on this beautiful world.
The same terror inspired the Peruvians at every eclipse, for some day,
taught the Amautas, the shadow will veil the sun forever, and land,
moon, and stars will be wrapt in the vortex of a devouring conflagration
to know no regeneration; or a drought will wither every herb of the
field, suck up the waters, and leave the race to perish to the last
creature; or the moon will fall from her place in the heavens and
involve all things in her own ruin, a figure of speech meaning that the
waters would submerge the land.[220-1] In that dreadful day, thought
the Algonkins, when in anger Michabo will send a mortal pestilence to
destroy the nations, or, stamping his foot on the ground, flames will
burst forth to consume the habitable land, only a pair, or only, at
most, those who have maintained inviolate the institutions he ordained,
will he protect and preserve to inhabit the new world he will then
fabricate. Therefore they do not speak of this catastrophe as the end of
the world, but use one of those nice grammatical distinctions so
frequent in American aboriginal languages and which can only be
imitated, not interpreted, in ours, signifying "when it will be near its
end," "when it will no longer be available for man."[220-2]
An ancient prophecy handed down from their ancestors warns the
Winnebagoes that their nation shall be annihilated at the close of the
thirteenth generation. Ten have already passed, and that now living has
appointed ceremonies to propitiate the powers of heaven, and mitigate
its stern decree.[220-3] Well may they be about it, for there is a
gloomy probability that the warning came from no false prophet. Few
tribes were destitute of such presentiments. The Chikasaw, the Mandans
of the Missouri, the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico, the Muyscas of
Bogota, the Botocudos of Brazil, the Araucanians of Chili, have been
asserted on testimony that leaves no room for scepticism, to have
entertained such forebodings from immemorial time. Enough for the
purpose if the list is closed with the prediction of a Maya priest,
cherished by the inhabitants of Yucatan long before the Spaniard
desolated their stately cities. It is one of those preserved by Father
Lizana, cure of Itzamal, and of which he gives the original. Other
witnesses inform us that this nation "had a tradition that the world
would end,"[221-1] and probably, like the Greeks and Aztecs, they
supposed the gods would perish with it.
"At the close of the ages, it hath been decreed,
Shall perish and vanish each weak god of men,
And the world shall be purged with a ravening fire.
Happy the man in that terrible day,
Who bewails with contrition the sins of his life,[221-2]
And meets without flinching the fiery ordeal."
FOOTNOTES:
[193-1] So far as this applies to the Eskimos, it might be questioned on
the authority of Paul Egede, whose valuable _Nachrichten von Groenland_
contains several flood-myths, &c. But these Eskimos had had for
generations intercourse with European missionaries and sailors, and as
the other tribes of their stock were singularly devoid of corresponding
traditions, it is likely that in Greenland they were of foreign origin.
[194-1] Pictet, _Origines Indo-Europeennes_ in Michelet, _La Mer_. The
latter has many eloquent and striking remarks on the impressions left by
the great ocean.
[195-1] "Spiritus Dei incubuit superficei aquarum" is the translation of
one writer. The word for spirit in Hebrew, as in Latin, originally meant
wind, as I have before remarked.
[195-2] Schoolcraft, _Ind. Tribes_, i. p. 266.
[196-1] Mackenzie, _Hist. of the Fur Trade_, p. 83; Richardson, _Arctic
Expedition_, p. 239.
[196-2] Ximenes, _Or. de los Ind. de Guat._, pp. 5-7. I translate freely,
following Ximenes rather than Brasseur.
[197-1] Garcia, _Or. de los Indios_, lib. v. cap. 4.
[197-2] _Doc. Hist. of New York_, iv. p. 130 (circ. 1650).
[197-3] _Rel. de la Nouv. France_, An 1636, p. 101.
[198-1] _Rel. de la Nouv. France_, An 1634, p. 13.
[199-1] _Conquest of Mexico_, i. p. 61.
[200-1] For instance, Epictetus favors the opinion that at the solstices
of the great year not only all human beings, but even the gods, are
annihilated; and speculates whether at such times Jove feels lonely
(_Discourses_, bk. iii. chap. 13). Macrobius, so far from coinciding with
him, explains the great antiquity of Egyptian civilization by the
hypothesis that that country is so happily situated between the pole and
equator, as to escape both the deluge and conflagration of the great
cycle (_Somnium Scipionis_, lib. ii. cap. 10).
[201-1] Schoolcraft, _Ind. Tribes_, iii. p. 263, iv. p. 230.
[201-2] Oviedo, _Hist. du Nicaragua_, pp. 22, 27.
[201-3] Mueller, _Amer. Urrelig._, p. 254, from Max and Denis.
[202-1] Morse, _Rep. on the Ind. Tribes_, App. p. 346; D'Orbigny, _Frag.
d'un Voyage dans l'Amer. Merid._, p. 512.
[202-2] When, as in the case of one of the Mexican Noahs, Coxcox, this
does not seem to hold good, it is probably owing to a loss of the real
form of the myth. Coxcox is also known by the name of Cipactli, Fish-god,
and Huehue tonaca cipactli, Old Fish-god of Our Flesh.
[202-3] My knowledge of the Sanscrit form of the flood-myth is drawn
principally from the dissertation of Professor Felix Neve, entitled _La
Tradition Indienne du Deluge dans sa Forme la plus ancienne_, Paris,
1851. There is in the oldest versions no distinct reference to an
antediluvian race, and in India Manu is by common consent the Adam as
well as the Noah of their legends.
[203-1] Prescott, _Conquest of Peru_, i. p. 88; _Codex Vaticanus_, No.
3776, in Kingsborough.
[203-2] And also various peculiarities of style and language lost in
translation. The two accounts of the Deluge are given side by side in Dr.
Smith's _Dictionary of the Bible_ under the word Pentateuch.
[203-3] See the dissertation of Prof. Neve referred to above.
[203-4] _American State Papers_, Indian Affairs, i. p. 729. Date of
legend, 1801.
[204-1] Molina, _Hist. of Chili_, ii. p. 82.
[205-1] Richardson, _Arctic Expedition_, p. 239.
[205-2] Dumont, _Mems. Hist. sur la Louisiane_, i. p. 163.
[205-3] Schoolcraft, _Ind. Tribes_, v. p. 686.
[206-1] Desjardins, _Le Perou avant la Conq. Espagn._, p. 27.
[207-1] Cod. Chimalpopoca, in Brasseur, _Hist. du Mexique_, Pieces
Justificatives.
[207-2] These four birds, whose names have lost their signification,
represent doubtless the four winds, or the four rivers, which, as in so
many legends, are the active agents in overwhelming the world in its
great crises.
[208-1] The word rendered mill-stone, in the original means those large
hollowed stones on which the women were accustomed to bruise the maize.
The imitative sounds for which I have substituted others in English, are
in Quiche, _holi, holi, huqui, huqui_.
[209-1] Brasseur translates "quoique nous ne sentissions rien," but
Ximenes, "nos quemasteis, y sentimos el dolor." As far as I can make out
the original, it is the negative conditional as I have given it in the
text.
[209-2] _Le Livre Sacre_, p. 27; Ximenes, _Or. de los Indios_, p. 13.
[210-1] The American nations among whom a distinct and well-authenticated
myth of the deluge was found are as follows: Athapascas, Algonkins,
Iroquois, Cherokees, Chikasaws, Caddos, Natchez, Dakotas, Apaches,
Navajos, Mandans, Pueblo Indians, Aztecs, Mixtecs, Zapotecs, Tlascalans,
Mechoacans, Toltecs, Nahuas, Mayas, Quiches, Haitians, natives of Darien
and Popoyan, Muyscas, Quichuas, Tuppinambas, Achaguas, Araucanians, and
doubtless others. The article by M. de Charency in the _Revue Americaine,
Le Deluge, d'apres les Traditions Indiennes de l'Amerique du Nord_,
contains some valuable extracts, but is marred by a lack of criticism of
sources, and makes no attempt at analysis, nor offers for their existence
a rational explanation.
[211-1] _Une Fete Bresilienne celebre a Rouen en 1550, par M. Ferdinand
Denis_, p. 82 (quoted in the _Revue Americaine_, ii. p. 317). The native
words in this account guarantee its authenticity. In the Tupi language,
_tata_ means fire; _parana_, ocean; Monan, perhaps from _monane_, to
mingle, to temper, as the potter the clay (_Dias, Diccionario da Lingua
Tupy_: Lipsia, 1858). Irin monge may be an old form from _mongat-iron_,
to set in order, to restore, to improve (_Martius, Beitraege zur
Ethnographie und Sprachenkunde Amerika's_, ii. p. 70).
[213-1] Professor Neve, _ubi supra_, from the Zatapatha Brahmana.
[213-2] Avendano, _Sermones_, Lima, 1648, in Rivero and Tschudi, _Peruv.
Antiqs._, p. 114. In the year 1600, Onate found on the coast of
California a tribe whose idol held in one hand a shell containing three
eggs, in the other an ear of maize, while before it was placed a cup of
water. Vizcaino, who visited the same people a few years afterwards,
mentions that they kept in their temples tame ravens, and looked upon
them as sacred birds (Torquemada, _Mon. Ind._, lib. v. cap. 40 in Waitz).
Thus, in all parts of the continent do we find the bird, as a symbol of
the clouds, associated with the rains and the harvests.
[214-1] The deluge was called _hun yecil_, which, according to Cogolludo,
means _the inundation of the trees_, for all the forests were swept away
(_Hist. de Yucathan_, lib. iv. cap. 5). Bishop Landa adds, to
substantiate the legend, that all the woods of the peninsula appear as if
they had been planted at one time, and that to look at them one would say
they had been trimmed with scissors (_Rel. de las Cosas de Yucatan_, 58,
60).
[215-1] _Vues des Cordilleres_, p. 202.
[216-1] Ubi sup., p. 207.
[216-2] The Scandinavians believed the universe had been destroyed nine
times:--
Ni Verdener yeg husker,
Og ni Himle,
says the Voluspa (i. 2, in Klee, _Le Deluge_, p. 220). I observe some
English writers have supposed from these lines that the Northmen believed
in the existence of nine abodes for the blessed. Such is not the sense of
the original.
[216-3] At least this is the doctrine of one of the Shastas. The race, it
teaches, has been destroyed four times; first by water, secondly by
winds, thirdly the earth swallowed them, and lastly fire consumed them
(Sepp., _Heidenthum und Christenthum_, i. p. 191).
[217-1] Echevarria y Veitia, _Hist. de la Nueva Espana_, lib. i. cap. 4,
in Waitz.
[217-2] Brasseur, _Hist. du Mexique_, iii. p. 495.
[218-1] The contrary has indeed been inferred from such expressions of
the writer of the book of Ecclesiastes as, "that which hath been, is now,
and that which is to be, hath already been" (chap. iii. 15), and the
like, but they are susceptible of an application entirely subjective.
[218-2] Voluspa, xiv. 51, in Klee, _Le Deluge_.
[219-1] _Natur. Quaestiones_, iii. cap. 27.
[220-1] Velasco, _Hist. du Royaume du Quito_, p. 105; Navarrete,
_Viages_, iii. p. 444.
[220-2] _Rel. de la Nouv. France_, An 1637, p. 54; Schoolcraft, _Ind.
Tribes_, i. p. 319, iv. p. 420.
[220-3] Schoolcraft, ibid., iv. p. 240.
[221-1] Cogolludo, _Hist. de Yucathan_, lib. iv. cap. 7.
[221-2] The Spanish of Lizana is--
"En la ultima edad, segun esta determinado,
Avra fin el culto de dioses vanos;
Y el mundo sera purificado con fuego.
El que esto viere sera llamado dichoso
Si con dolor llorare sus pecados."
(_Hist. de Nuestra Senora de Itzamal_, in Brasseur, _Hist. du Mexique_,
ii. p. 603). I have attempted to obtain a more literal rendering from the
original Maya, but have not been successful.