THE INFLUENCE OF THE NATIVE RELIGIONS ON THE MORAL AND SOCIAL LIFE OF
THE RACE.
Natural religions hitherto considered of Evil rather than of
Good.--Distinctions to be drawn.--Morality not derived from
religion.--The positive side of natural religions in incarnations
of divinity.--Examples.--Prayers as indices of religious
progress.--Religion and social advancement.--Conclusion.
Drawing toward the conclusion of my essay, I I am sensible that the vast
field of American mythology remains for most part untouched--that I have
but proved that it is not an absolute wilderness, pathless as the
tropical jungles which now conceal the temples of the race; but that, go
where we will, certain landmarks and guide-posts are visible, revealing
uniformity of design and purpose, and refuting, by their presence, the
oft-repeated charge of entire incoherence and aimlessness. It remains to
examine the subjective power of the native religions, their influence on
those who held them, and the place they deserve in the history of the
race. What are their merits, if merits they have? what their demerits?
Did they purify the life and enlighten the mind, or the contrary? Are
they in short of evil or of good? The problem is complex--its solution
most difficult. The author who of late years has studied most profoundly
the savage races of the globe, expresses the discouraging conviction:
"Their religions have not acted as levers to raise them to
civilization; they have rather worked, and that powerfully, to impede
every step in advance, in the first place by ascribing everything
unintelligible in nature to spiritual agency, and then by making the
fate of man dependent on mysterious and capricious forces, not on his
own skill and foresight."[288-1]
It would ill accord with the theory of mythology which I have all along
maintained if this verdict were final. But in fact these false doctrines
brought with them their own antidotes, at least to some extent, and
while we give full weight to their evil, let us also acknowledge their
good. By substituting direct divine interference for law, belief for
knowledge, a dogma for a fact, the highest stimulus to mental endeavor
was taken away. Nature, to the heathen, is no harmonious whole swayed by
eternal principles, but a chaos of causeless effects, the meaningless
play of capricious ghosts. He investigates not, because he doubts not.
All events are to him miracles. Therefore his faith knows no bounds, and
those who teach that doubt is sinful must contemplate him with
admiration. The damsels of Nicaragua destined to be thrown into the
seething craters of volcanoes, went to their fate, says Pascual de
Andagoya, "happy as if they were going to be saved,"[288-2] and
doubtless believing so. The subjects of a Central American chieftain,
remarks Oviedo, "look upon it as the crown of favors to be permitted to
die with their cacique, and thus to acquire immortality."[288-3] The
terrible power exerted by the priests rested, as they themselves often
saw, largely on the implicit and literal acceptance of their dicta.
In some respects the contrast here offered to enlightened nations is not
always in favor of the latter. Borrowing the pointed antithesis of the
poet, the mind is often tempted to exclaim--
"This is all
The gain we reap from all the wisdom sown
Through ages: Nothing doubted those first sons
Of Time, while we, the schooled of centuries,
Nothing believe."
But the complaint is unfounded. Faith is dearly bought at the cost of
knowledge; nor in a better sense has it yet gone from among us. Far more
sublime than any known to the barbarian is the faith of the astronomer,
who spends the nights in marking the seemingly wayward motions of the
stars, or of the anatomist, who studies with unwearied zeal the minute
fibres of the organism, each upheld by the unshaken conviction that from
least to greatest throughout this universe, purpose and order everywhere
prevail.
Natural religions rarely offer more than this negative opposition to
reason. They are tolerant to a degree. The savage, void of any clear
conception of a supreme deity, sets up no claim that his is the only
true church. If he is conquered in battle, he imagines that it is owing
to the inferiority of his own gods to those of his victor, and he rarely
therefore requires any other reasons to make him a convert. Acting on
this principle, the Incas, when they overcame a strange province, sent
its most venerated idol for a time to the temple of the Sun at Cuzco,
thus proving its inferiority to their own divinity, but took no more
violent steps to propagate their creeds.[290-1] So in the city of Mexico
there was a temple appropriated to the idols of conquered nations in
which they were shut up, both to prove their weakness and prevent them
from doing mischief. A nation, like an individual, was not inclined to
patronize a deity who had manifested his incompetence by allowing his
charge to be gradually worn away by constant disaster. As far as can now
be seen, in matters intellectual, the religions of ancient Mexico and
Peru were far more liberal than that introduced by the Spanish
conquerors, which, claiming the monopoly of truth, sought to enforce its
claim by inquisitions and censorships.
In this view of the relative powers of deities lay a potent corrective
to the doctrine that the fate of man was dependent on the caprices of
the gods. For no belief was more universal than that which assigned to
each individual a guardian spirit. This invisible monitor was an ever
present help in trouble. He suggested expedients, gave advice and
warning in dreams, protected in danger, and stood ready to foil the
machinations of enemies, divine or human. With unlimited faith in this
protector, attributing to him the devices suggested by his own quick
wits and the fortunate chances of life, the savage escaped the
oppressive thought that he was the slave of demoniac forces, and dared
the dangers of the forest and the war path without anxiety.
By far the darkest side of such a religion is that which it presents to
morality. The religious sense is by no means the voice of conscience.
The Takahli Indian when sick makes a full and free confession of sins,
but a murder, however unnatural and unprovoked, he does not mention, not
counting it crime.[291-1] Scenes of brutal licentiousness were approved
and sustained throughout the continent as acts of worship; maidenhood
was in many parts freely offered up or claimed by the priests as a
right; in Central America twins were slain for religious motives; human
sacrifice was common throughout the tropics, and was not unusual in
higher latitudes; cannibalism was often enjoined; and in Peru, Florida,
and Central America it was not uncommon for parents to slay their own
children at the behest of a priest.[291-2] The philosophical moralist,
contemplating such spectacles, has thought to recognize in them one
consoling trait. All history, it has been said, shows man living under
an irritated God, and seeking to appease him by sacrifice of blood; the
essence of all religion, it has been added, lies in that of which
sacrifice is the symbol, namely, in the offering up of self, in the
rendering up of our will to the will of God.[291-3] But sacrifice, when
not a token of gratitude, cannot be thus explained. It is not a
rendering up, but a _substitution_ of our will for God's will. A deity
is angered by neglect of his dues; he will revenge, certainly, terribly,
we know not how or when. But as punishment is all he desires, if we
punish ourselves he will be satisfied; and far better is such
self-inflicted torture than a fearful looking for of judgment to come.
Craven fear, not without some dim sense of the implacability of nature's
laws, is at its root. Looking only at this side of religion, the ancient
philosopher averred that the gods existed solely in the apprehensions of
their votaries, and the moderns have asserted that "fear is the father
of religion, love her late-born daughter;"[292-1] that "the first form
of religious belief is nothing else but a horror of the unknown," and
that "no natural religion appears to have been able to develop from a
germ within itself anything whatever of real advantage to
civilization."[292-2]
Far be it from me to excuse the enormities thus committed under the garb
of religion, or to ignore their disastrous consequences on human
progress. Yet this question is a fair one--If the natural religious
belief has in it no germ of anything better, whence comes the manifest
and undeniable improvement occasionally witnessed--as, for example,
among the Toltecs, the Peruvians, and the Mayas? The reply is, by the
influence of great men, who cultivated within themselves a purer faith,
lived it in their lives, preached it successfully to their fellows, and,
at their death, still survived in the memory of their nation,
unforgotten models of noble qualities.[293-1] Where, in America, is any
record of such men? We are pointed, in answer, to Quetzalcoatl,
Viracocha, Zamna, and their congeners. But these august figures I have
shown to be wholly mythical, creations of the religious fancy, parts and
parcels of the earliest religion itself. The entire theory falls to
nothing, therefore, and we discover a positive side to natural
religions--one that conceals a germ of endless progress, which
vindicates their lofty origin, and proves that He "is not far from every
one of us."
I have already analyzed these figures under their physical aspect. Let
it be observed in what antithesis they stand to most other mythological
creations. Let it be remembered that they primarily correspond to the
stable, the regular, the cosmical phenomena, that they are always
conceived under human form, not as giants, fairies, or strange beasts;
that they were said at one time to have been visible leaders of their
nations, that they did not suffer death, and that, though absent, they
are ever present, favoring those who remain mindful of their precepts. I
touched but incidentally on their moral aspects. This was likewise in
contrast to the majority of inferior deities. The worship of the latter
was a tribute extorted by fear. The Indian deposits tobacco on the rocks
of a rapid, that the spirit of the swift waters may not swallow his
canoe; in a storm he throws overboard a dog to appease the siren of the
angry waves. He used to tear the hearts from his captives to gain the
favor of the god of war. He provides himself with talismans to bind
hostile deities. He fees[TN-17] the conjurer to exorcise the demon of
disease. He loves none of them, he respects none of them; he only fears
their wayward tempers. They are to him mysterious, invisible, capricious
goblins. But, in his highest divinity, he recognized a Father and a
Preserver, a benign Intelligence, who provided for him the comforts of
life--man, like himself, yet a god--God of All. "Go and do good," was
the parting injunction of his father to Michabo in Algonkin
legend;[294-1] and in their ancient and uncorrupted stories such is ever
his object. "The worship of Tamu," the culture hero of the Guaranis,
says the traveller D'Orbigny, "is one of reverence, not of fear."[294-2]
They were ideals, summing up in themselves the best traits, the most
approved virtues of whole nations, and were adored in a very different
spirit from other divinities.
None of them has more humane and elevated traits than Quetzalcoatl. He
was represented of majestic stature and dignified demeanor. In his train
came skilled artificers and men of learning. He was chaste and temperate
in life, wise in council, generous of gifts, conquering rather by arts
of peace than of war; delighting in music, flowers, and brilliant
colors, and so averse to human sacrifices that he shut his ears with
both hands when they were even mentioned.[295-1] Such was the ideal man
and supreme god of a people who even a Spanish monk of the sixteenth
century felt constrained to confess were "a good people, attached to
virtue, urbane and simple in social intercourse, shunning lies, skilful
in arts, pious toward their gods."[295-2] Is it likely, is it possible,
that with such a model as this before their minds, they received no
benefit from it? Was not this a lever, and a mighty one, lifting the
race toward civilization and a purer faith?
Transfer the field of observation to Yucatan, and we find in Zamna, to
New Granada and in Nemqueteba, to Peru and in Viracocha, or his reflex
Manco Capac, the lineaments of Quetzalcoatl--modified, indeed, by
difference of blood and temperament, but each combining in himself all
the qualities most esteemed by their several nations. Were one or all of
these proved to be historical personages, still the fact remains that
the primitive religious sentiment, investing them with the best
attributes of humanity, dwelling on them as its models, worshipping them
as gods, contained a kernel of truth potent to encourage moral
excellence. But if they were mythical, then this truth was of
spontaneous growth, self-developed by the growing distinctness of the
idea of God, a living witness that the religious sense, like every
other faculty, has within itself a power of endless evolution.
If we inquire the secret of the happier influence of this element in
natural worship, it is all contained in one word--its _humanity_. "The
Ideal of Morality," says the contemplative Novalis, "has no more
dangerous rival than the Ideal of the Greatest Strength, of the most
vigorous life, the Brute Ideal" (_das Thier-Ideal_).[296-1] Culture
advances in proportion as man recognizes what faculties are peculiar to
him _as man_, and devotes himself to their education. The moral value of
religions can be very precisely estimated by the human or the brutal
character of their gods. The worship of Quetzalcoatl in the city of
Mexico was subordinate to that of lower conceptions, and consequently
the more sanguinary and immoral were the rites there practised. The
Algonkins, who knew no other meaning for Michabo than the Great Hare,
had lost, by a false etymology, the best part of their religion.
Looking around for other standards wherewith to measure the progress of
the knowledge of divinity in the New World, _prayer_ suggests itself as
one of the least deceptive. "Prayer," to quote again the words of
Novalis,[296-2] "is in religion what thought is in philosophy. The
religious sense prays, as the reason thinks." Guizot, carrying the
analysis farther, thinks that it is prompted by a painful conviction of
the inability of our will to conform to the dictates of reason.[296-3]
Originally it was connected with the belief that divine caprice, not
divine law, governs the universe, and that material benefits rather than
spiritual gifts are to be desired. The gradual recognition of its
limitations and proper objects marks religious advancement. The Lord's
Prayer contains seven petitions, only one of which is for a temporal
advantage, and it the least that can be asked for. What immeasurable
interval between it and the prayer of the Nootka Indian on preparing for
war!--
"Great Quahootze, let me live, not be sick, find the enemy, not fear
him, find him asleep, and kill a great many of him."[297-1]
Or again, between it and the petition of a Huron to a local god, heard
by Father Brebeuf:--
"Oki, thou who livest in this spot, I offer thee tobacco. Help us, save
us from shipwreck, defend us from our enemies, give us a good trade, and
bring us back safe and sound to our villages."[297-2]
This is a fair specimen of the supplications of the lowest religion.
Another equally authentic is given by Father Allouez.[297-3] In 1670 he
penetrated to an outlying Algonkin village, never before visited by a
white man. The inhabitants, startled by his pale face and long black
gown, took him for a divinity. They invited him to the council lodge, a
circle of old men gathered around him, and one of them, approaching him
with a double handful of tobacco, thus addressed him, the others
grunting approval:--
"This, indeed, is well, Blackrobe, that thou dost visit us. Have mercy
upon us. Thou art a Manito. We give thee to smoke.
"The Naudowessies and Iroquois are devouring us. Have mercy upon us.
"We are often sick; our children die; we are hungry. Have mercy upon us.
Hear me, O Manito, I give thee to smoke.
"Let the earth yield us corn; the rivers give us fish; sickness not slay
us; nor hunger so torment us. Hear us, O Manito, we give thee to smoke."
In this rude but touching petition, wrung from the heart of a miserable
people, nothing but their wretchedness is visible. Not the faintest
trace of an aspiration for spiritual enlightenment cheers the eye of the
philanthropist, not the remotest conception that through suffering we
are purified can be detected.
By the side of these examples we may place the prayers of Peru and
Mexico, forms composed by the priests, written out, committed to memory,
and repeated at certain seasons. They are not less authentic, having
been collected and translated in the first generation after the
conquest. One to Viracocha Pachacamac, was as follows:--
"O Pachacamac, thou who hast existed from the beginning and shalt exist
unto the end, powerful and pitiful; who createdst man by saying, let man
be; who defendest us from evil and preservest our life and health; art
thou in the sky or in the earth, in the clouds or in the depths? Hear
the voice of him who implores thee, and grant him his petitions. Give
us life everlasting, preserve us, and accept this our sacrifice."[299-1]
In the voluminous specimens of Aztec prayers preserved by Sahagun, moral
improvement, the "spiritual gift," is very rarely if at all the object
desired. Health, harvests, propitious rains, release from pain,
preservation from dangers, illness, and defeat, these are the almost
unvarying themes. But here and there we catch a glimpse of something
better, some dim sense of the divine beauty of suffering, some feeble
glimmering of the grand truth so nobly expressed by the poet:--
aus des Busens Tiefe stroemt Gedeihn
Der festen Duldung und entschlossner That.
Nicht Schmerz ist Unglueck, Glueck nicht immer Freude;
Wer sein Geschick erfuellt, dem laecheln beide.
"Is it possible," says one of them, "that this scourge, this affliction,
is sent to us not for our correction and improvement, but for our
destruction and annihilation? O Merciful Lord, let this chastisement
with which thou hast visited us, thy people, be as those which a father
or mother inflicts on their children, not out of anger, but to the end
that they may be free from follies and vices." Another formula, used
when a chief was elected to some important position, reads: "O Lord,
open his eyes and give him light, sharpen his ears and give him
understanding, not that he may use them to his own advantage, but for
the good of the people he rules. Lead him to know and to do thy will,
let him be as a trumpet which sounds thy words. Keep him from the
commission of injustice and oppression."[300-1]
At first, good and evil are identical with pleasure and pain, luck and
ill-luck. "The good are good warriors and hunters," said a Pawnee
chief,[300-2] which would also be the opinion of a wolf, if he could
express it. Gradually the eyes of the mind are opened, and it is
perceived that "whom He loveth, He chastiseth," and physical give[TN-18]
place to moral ideas of good and evil. Finally, as the idea of God rises
more distinctly before the soul, as "the One by whom, in whom, and
through whom all things are," evil is seen to be the negation, not the
opposite of good, and itself "a porch oft opening on the sun."
The influence of these religions on art, science, and social life, must
also be weighed in estimating their value.
Nearly all the remains of American plastic art, sculpture, and painting,
were obviously designed for religious purposes. Idols of stone, wood, or
baked clay, were found in every Indian tribe, without exception, so far
as I can judge; and in only a few directions do these arts seem to have
been applied to secular purposes. The most ambitious attempts of
architecture, it is plain, were inspired by religious fervor. The great
pyramid of Cholula, the enormous mounds of the Mississippi valley, the
elaborate edifices on artificial hills in Yucatan, were miniature
representations of the mountains hallowed by tradition, the "Hill of
Heaven," the peak on which their ancestors escaped in the flood, or that
in the terrestrial paradise from which flow the rains. Their
construction took men away from war and the chase, encouraged
agriculture, peace, and a settled disposition, and fostered the love of
property, of country, and of the gods. The priests were also close
observers of nature, and were the first to discover its simpler laws.
The Aztec sages were as devoted star-gazers as the Chaldeans, and their
calendar bears unmistakable marks of native growth, and of its original
purpose to fix the annual festivals. Writing by means of pictures and
symbols was cultivated chiefly for religious ends, and the word
_hieroglyph_ is a witness that the phonetic alphabet was discovered
under the stimulus of the religious sentiment. Most of the aboriginal
literature was composed and taught by the priests, and most of it refers
to matters connected with their superstitions. As the gifts of votaries
and the erection of temples enriched the sacerdotal order individually
and collectively, the terrors of religion were lent to the secular arm
to enforce the rights of property. Music, poetic, scenic, and historical
recitations, formed parts of the ceremonies of the more civilized
nations, and national unity was strengthened by a common shrine. An
active barter in amulets, lucky stones, and charms, existed all over the
continent, to a much greater extent than we might think. As experience
demonstrates that nothing so efficiently promotes civilization as the
free and peaceful intercourse of man with man, I lay particular stress
on the common custom of making pilgrimages.
The temple on the island of Cozumel in Yucatan was visited every year by
such multitudes from all parts of the peninsula, that roads, paved with
cut stones, had been constructed from the neighboring shore to the
principal cities of the interior.[302-1] Each village of the Muyscas is
said to have had a beaten path to Lake Guatavita, so numerous were the
devotees who journeyed to the shrine there located.[302-2] In Peru the
temples of Pachacama, Rimac, and other famous gods, were repaired to by
countless numbers from all parts of the realm, and from other provinces
within a radius of three hundred leagues around. Houses of entertainment
were established on all the principal roads, and near the temples, for
their accommodation; and when they made known the object of their
journey, they were allowed a safe passage even through an enemy's
territory.[302-3]
* * * * *
The more carefully we study history, the more important in our eyes will
become the religious sense. It is almost the only faculty peculiar to
man. It concerns him nearer than aught else. It is the key to his origin
and destiny. As such it merits in all its developments the most earnest
attention, an attention we shall find well repaid in the clearer
conceptions we thus obtain of the forces which control the actions and
fates of individuals and nations.
FOOTNOTES:
[288-1] Waitz, _Anthropologie der Naturvoelker_, i. p. 459.
[288-2] Navarrete, _Viages_, iii. p. 415.
[288-3] _Relation de Cueba_, p. 140. Ed. Ternaux-Compans.
[290-1] La Vega, _Hist. des Incas_, liv. v. cap. 12.
[291-1] Morse, _Rep. on the Ind. Tribes_, App. p. 345.
[291-2] Ximenes, _Origen de los Indios de Guatemala_, p. 192; Acosta,
_Hist. of the New World_, lib. v. chap. 18.
[291-3] Joseph de Maistre, _Eclaircissement sur les Sacrifices_; Trench,
_Hulsean Lectures_, p. 180. The famed Abbe Lammenaais and Professor Sepp,
of Munich, with these two writers, may be taken as the chief exponents of
a school of mythologists, all of whom start from the theories first laid
down by Count de Maistre in his _Soirees de St. Petersbourg_. To them the
strongest proof of Christianity lies in the traditions and observances of
heathendom. For these show the wants of the religious sense, and
Christianity, they maintain, purifies and satisfies them all. The rites,
symbols, and legends of every natural religion, they say, are true and
not false; all that is required is to assign them their proper places and
their real meaning. Therefore the strange resemblances in heathen myths
to what is revealed in the Scriptures, as well as the ethical
anticipations which have been found in ancient philosophies, all, so far
from proving that Christianity is a natural product of the human mind, in
fact, are confirmations of it, unconscious prophecies, and presentiments
of the truth.
[292-1] Alfred Maury, _La Magie et l'Astrologie dans l'Antiquite et au
Moyen Age_, p. 8: Paris, 1860.
[292-2] Waitz, _Anthropologie_, i. pp. 325, 465.
[293-1] So says Dr. Waitz, _ibid._, p. 465.
[294-1] Schoolcraft, _Algic Researches_, i. p. 143.
[294-2] _L'Homme Americain_, ii. p. 319.
[295-1] Brasseur, _Hist. du Mexique_, liv. iii. chaps. 1 and 2.
[295-2] Sahagun, _Hist. de la Nueva Espana_, lib. x. cap. 29.
[296-1] Novalis, _Schriften_, i. p. 244: Berlin, 1837.
[296-2] Ibid., p. 267.
[296-3] _Hist. de la Civilisation en France_, i. pp. 122, 130.
[297-1] _Narrative of J. R. Jewett among the Savages of Nootka Sound_, p.
121.
[297-2] _Rel. de la Nouv. France_, An 1636, p. 109.
[297-3] Ibid., An 1670, p. 99.
[299-1] Geronimo de Ore, _Symbolo Catholico Indiano_, chap, ix., quoted
by Ternaux-Compans. De Ore was a native of Peru and held the position of
Professor of Theology in Cuzco in the latter half of the sixteenth
century. He was a man of great erudition, and there need be no hesitation
in accepting this extraordinary prayer as genuine. For his life and
writings see Nic. Antonio, _Bib. Hisp. Nova_, tom. ii. p. 43.
[300-1] Sahagun, _Hist. de la Nueva Espana_, lib. vi. caps. 1, 4.
[300-2] Morse, _Rep. on the Ind. Tribes_, App. p. 250.
[302-1] Cogolludo, _Hist. de Yucathan_, lib. iv. cap. 9. Compare
Stephens, _Travs. in Yucatan_, ii. p. 122, who describes the remains of
these roads as they now exist.
[302-2] Rivero and Tschudi, _Antiqs. of Peru_, p. 162.
[302-3] La Vega, _Hist. des Incas_, lib. vi. chap. 30; Xeres, _Rel de la
Conq. du Perou_, p. 151; _Let. sur les Superstit. du Perou_, p. 98, and
others.
INDEX.
Abnakis, 174
Acagchemem, a Californian tribe, 105
Age of man in America, 35-37
Ages of the world, 213 sq.
Akakanet, 61
Akanzas, 238
Akenatzi, 284
Algonkins, location, 26
name of God, 58 n.[TN-19]
mythical ancestors, 77
veneration of birds, 103
of serpents, 108, 109, 113, 116
myths and rites, 133, 136, 144, 147, 151, 161, 174, 198, 209, 220,
224, 236, 240, 244, 248, 277, 297
Aluberi, a name of God, 58 n.[TN-19]
Anahuac, 29, 282
Angont, a mythical serpent, 136
Apalachian tribes, 27, 225
Apocatequil, a Peruvian deity, 153
Ararats, of America, 203
Araucanians, 33
name of God, 48, 61
myths, 204, 248
Arks, 255
Arowacks, 58 n.[TN-19]
Ataensic, an Iroquois deity, 123, 131, 170
Ataguju, or Atachuchu, 152
Atatarho, mythical Iroquois chief, 118
Athapascan tribes, 24
myths, 104, 150, 195, 205, 229, 248, 257
Atl, an Aztec deity, 131
Aurora borealis, 245
Aymaras, 31, 34, 177
Aztecs, their books and characters, 10
divisions, 29
names of God, 48, 50, 58 n.[TN-19]
government, 69
rites, 72, 126, 127, 147
calendar, 74
worship of cross, 95
names of cardinal points, 93
worship of birds, 102, 106, 107
of serpents, 111
myths, 132, 133, 134, 138, 144, 156, 171, 181, 205, 214 sq., 227,
240, 246, 248, 252, 258
priests, 282
prayers, 292
Aztlan, 181
Bacab, Maya gods, 80
Baptism, 125 seq.
Bimini, 87
Bird, symbol of, 101 sq., 195 sq., 229, 254
Blue, symbolic meaning of, 47
Bochica, 183
Boiuca, a mythical isle, 87
Bones, preservation of, 255
soul in the, 257
Botocudos, 123, 201
Brasseur, Abbe, his works, 41
Brazilian tribes, 102, 134, 250
(See _Tupis_, _Botocudos_.)
Busk, a Creek festival, 71, 96
Caddoes, 93, 203
Camaxtli, 158
Cardinal points, adoration of, 67 sq.
names of, 93 sq.
Caribs, 32
theory of lightning, 104, 114
myths and rites, 145, 184, 223, 237, 244, 256
priests, 282
Catequil. (See _Apocatequil_.)
Centeotl, goddess of maize, 22, 134
Chac, Maya gods, 80
Chalchihuitlycue, an Aztec god, 123
Chantico, an Aztec god, 138
Cherokees, location, 25
name of God, 51
serpent myth, 115
baptism, 128
deluge, 205
priests, 281
Chia, goddess of Muyscas, 134
Chichimec, 139 n., 158
Chicomoztoc, the Seven Caves, 227
Chicunoapa, the Aztec Styx, 249
Chipeways, picture-writing, 10
records, 17
magicians, 71
myths, 163, 168
Choctaws, location, 27
name of God, 51
myths, 84 n.,[TN-20] 225, 261
priests, 281
Cholula, 180, 181, 204, 228
Cihuacoatl, the Serpent Woman, 120
Cihuapipilti, 246
Circumcision, 147
Citatli, 131
Clairvoyance, 269
Coatlicue, 118
Colors, symbolism of, 47, 80, 140, 165
Con or Contici, 155, 176
Coxcox, 202
Craniology, American, 35
Creation, myths of, 193 seq.
Creeks, location, 27
name of God, 50
rites, 71, 96
mythical ancestors, 77
serpent myth, 115
other myths, 137, 225, 242, 244
priests, 273, 283
Cross, symbolic meaning of, 95-7, 183, 188
of Palenque, 118
Cupay,[TN-21] the Quichua Pluto, 61, 251
Cusic, his Iroquois legends, 63, 108 n.
Dakotas, location, 28
rites, 71
language, 75
mythical ancestors, 77
myths, 62, 103, 133, 150, 237, 259, 279
Dawn, myths of, 166, 167, 175, 227
Delawares, 140 n., 144
(See _Lenni Lenape_.)
Deluge, myth, origin, etc., 198-212
Devil, idea of unknown to red race, 59, 251
Divination, 278
Dobayba, 123
Dog, as a symbol, 137, 229, 247-9
Dove, as a a[TN-22] symbol, 107
Dualism, moral, not found in America, 59
sexual not found, 146
Eagle, as a symbol, 104
East, myths, concerning, 91, 165, 174, 180
(See _Dawn_.)
Eastman, Mrs., her _Legends of the Sioux_, 103
Eldorado,[TN-23] 87
Enigorio and Enigohahetgea, 63
Epochs of nature, 200 seq.
Esaugetuh Emissee, 50
Eskimos, location, 23
name of chief god, 50, 76
term for south, 94
veneration of birds, 101
myths, 173 n., 193, 226, 229, 241, 245, 261, 280
Fear in religion, 141, 292
Fire-worship, 140 seq.
Flood-myth. (See _Deluge_.)
Florida, 87
Forty, a sacred number, 94
Fountain of youth, 129
Four, the sacred number of red race, 66 sq., 105, 157, 167, 178, 182,
184, 240
Four brothers, the myth of, 76-83, 152, 167, 178, 182
Garhonia, Iroquois deity, 48
Gizhigooke, the day-maker, 169
Guaranis, 32, 84 n.[TN-20]
Guatavita Lake, 124
Gucumatz, the bird-serpent, 118
Gumongo, god of the Monquis, 93
Haitians, myths of, 78, 85, 135, 188
Hand, symbol of the, 183
Haokah, Dakota thunder god, 151
Hawaneu. (See _Neo_.)
Heaven, the, of the red race, 243
Hell, the hidden world, 252
Heno, Iroquois thunder-god, 156
Hiawatha, myth of, 172
Hobbamock, 60
Huemac, the Strong-hand, 181, 183
Huitzilopochtli, the god of war, 118, 282
Hunting, its effect on the mind, 21, 67, 100
Hurakan or hurricane, meaning of, 51
a Maya god, 81, 82, 114, 156, 196
Hurons, 25, 48, 114, 136, 169, 248, 250, 275
Hushtoli, Choctaw name of God, 51
Illatici, Quichua name of God, 55, 155
Incas, secret language, 31
official title, 69
ancestors, 82, 153
arms, 120
sun-worship, 142
myths, 188, 191, 244
Ioskeha, supreme god of Iroquois, 63, 170-2
Iroquois, location, 25
name of God, 48, 53
myths of, 83, 85, 169-72, 196, 227, 236
veneration of serpents, 108, 116, 118
of fire, 148
Isolation of the red race, 20, 34
Itzcuinan, the Bitch-Mother, 138
Jarvis, Dr., his Discourse on American Religions, 39
Juripari, 61
Killistenoes, 270
Kittanitowit, 58, 60
Ku, a name of divinity, 46, 47
Kukulcan, god of air, 118
Languages of America, 7
esoteric of priests, 284
Lenni Lenape, 26, 96, 161, 231
Light, universal symbol of divinity, 173
Lightning, the, 112 seq., 151 seq., 168
Madness, as inspiration, 274 seq.
Magic, natural, 266
Maistre, Joseph de, his theory of mythology, 291, n.[TN-24]
Maize, distribution of, 22, 37
Man, origin of, 222 sq., 258
word for, 223
Mandans, 71, 85, 107, 184, 205, 228
Manibozho. (See _Michabo_.)
Mannacicas, 250
Manoa, 87
Manes, 111
Mayas, alphabet, 13
location, 30
calendar, 74, 80
mythical ancestors, 79, 80, 85
myths and rites, 93, 146, 183, 188, 214, 221
name of cross, 97
Mbocobi, 201
Meda worship, 162 n.
Medicine, 45
lodge, 267
men, 264, 277 seq.
Memory, cultivated by picture-writing, 18
Mesmerism, 272
Messou, 209
(See _Michabo_.)
Metempsychosis, 253
Mexicans, (See _Aztecs_.)
Meztli, 132, 135
Michabo, supreme Algonkin god, 63, 116, 136, 161-9, 198, 220, 294
Mictlan, god of the dead, 92, 252
Migrations, coarse of, 34
Milky-way, 244
Millennium, 261
Minnetarees, 228, 230, 250
Mixcoatl, or Mixcohuatl, 22, 51, 158
Mixtecas, 90, 196
Monan, 211
Monquis, 93, 106
Montezuma, 187, 190
Moon, worship of, 130 seq.
Moxos, 124, 230
Mueller, J. G., his work on American religions, 40, 59, 61
Mummies, 257-60
Muscogees, 195
(See _Creeks_.)
Muyscas, 31
myths, 84 n.,[TN-20] 183-4
Nahuas, 29, 73
myths, 84 n.,[TN-20] 118, 138, 158, 206
(See _Aztecs_.)
Nanahuatl, 135
Natchez, 27, 28 n.[TN-25]
myths, 126, 142, 149, 205, 225, 239
Natural religions, 3
Navajos, 79, 84 n.,[TN-20] 103, 127, 205, 241
Neo, Iroquois corruption of _Dieu_, 53
Nemqueteba, 183
Netelas, 50, 105 n.
Nez Perces[TN-26] 272, 281
Nicaraguans, 145, 158, 201, 245, 288
Nine Rivers, the, 248
Nootka Indians, 297
North, myths concerning, 82
Nottoways, 25, 84
Numbers, sacred, 66, 98
(See _Four_, _Three_, _Seven_.)
Occaniches, 284
Oki, name of God, 46-8
Onniont, a mythical serpent, 114
Onondagas, 171
Oonawleh unggi, 51
Otomis, 6, 158
Ottawas, 93, 145, 161
Ottoes, 84 n.[TN-20]
Pacari Tampu, 82, 179, 227
Pachacamac, 56, 176-7, 298
Panos, 13
Paradise, myth of, 86 seq.
Paria, 87
Passions, worship of, 146, 149
Pawnees, 71 n., 84 n.[TN-20]
Pend d'Oreilles, 233
Peru, 69
rites and myths, 82, 102, 106, 131, 132, 137, 138, 142, 149,
152 sq,[TN-27] 176-9, 188, 213, 219, 227, 240, 251, 260
priests, 278, 282, 284
(See _Aymaras_, _Incas_.)
Phallic worship, 146, 149
Picture writing, 9
Pilgrimages, custom of, 301
Pimos, 185
Prayers, specimens of, 296-300
Priesthood, native, 263 sq.
Puelches, 277
Quetzalcoatl, the supreme Aztec god, 106, 118, 157, 180-3, 188, 294-6
Quiateot, a rain god, 131
Quiches, 30
Sacred Book, 41
names for God, 51, 58 n.[TN-19]
evil deities, 64
myth of first four brothers, 81
of paradise, 89
of creation, 196
of flood, 207
of hell, 251, 258
Quichuas, 31
religion, 55
ancestors, 82, 153
names of cardinal points, 93 n.
myths, 155
(_See_ Peru, Incas.)[TN-28]
Quipus, 14
Rattlesnake, as a symbol, 108 sq.
Raven, as a symbol, 195, 204, 213, 229
Red, symbolic meaning, 80, 88, 140
Sacrifice, its meaning, 291
Sacs, 84, 277
Sanscrit flood-myth, 212
Schwarz, Dr., his views of mythology, 112
Seminoles, 129
Serpent, as a symbol, 107 sq., 136, 158
Seven, a sacred number, 66, 128 n., 202, 204, 273 n., 281, 283
Shawnees, 26, 84 n.,[TN-20] 110, 113, 114, 144, 281
Shoshonees, 28, 138
Sillam Innua, 50, 76
Sioux, 28, 151, 236
Soul, notions concerning, 235 sq., 277
Sua, the Muysca God, 184
Sun-worship, 141 sq., 149, 243-9
Suns, Aztec, 215 sq.
Takahlis, 127, 197, 201, 253, 256
Tamu, 184, 294
Taras, 158
Taronhiawagon, 171
Tawiscara, 170
Teczistecatl, 132
Teatihuacan,[TN-29] 46, 69
Three, a sacred number, 66, 98, 156
Thunder-storm, in myths, 150 sq.
Tici, the vase, 130
Timberlake, Lt., his _Memoirs_, 115
Titicaca, Lake, 124, 178
Tlacatecolotl, supposed Aztec Satan, 106
Tlaloc, god of rain, 75, 88, 156-7
Tlalocan, 88, 246
Tlapallan, 88, 91, 181
Tloque nahuaque, 58 n.[TN-19]
Tohil, 157
Toltecs, 29, 180
Tonacatepec, 88
Toukaways, 231
Trinity, in American religions, 156
Tulan, 88, 89, 181
Tupa, 32, 84, 152, 185
Tupis, 32
myths, 83 n., 152, 185, 210, 258, 274
Twins, sacred to lightning, 153-4
Unktahe, a Dakota god, 133
Vase, symbol of, 130, 155
Viracocha, supreme god in Peru, 124, 155, 177-80
Waitz, Dr., his _Anthropology_, 40, 288
Wampum, 15
Water, myths of, 122 seq., 194
West, myths of, 92, 93, 166
White, as a symbol, 165, 174-6
Whiteman's land, 21 n.
Winds, myths of, 49-52, 74 sq., 96, 103, 166, 182
Winnebagoes, 220
Witchitas, 224
Writing, modes of, 9-13
Xelhua, 228
Xibalba, 64, 251
Xochiquetzal, 137
Xolotl, 258
Yakama language, 50
Yamo and Yama, twin deities, 154 n.
Yoalli-ehecatl, 50
Yohualticitl, 132
Yupanqui, Inca, 55
Yurucares, 201, 224, 259
Zac, empire of, 31, 124
Zamna, culture hero of Mayas, 93, 183, 188
Zapotecs, 183
ERRATA.
Page 31, note, for "_Ureinbewohner_" read "_Ureinwohner_."[TN-30]
" 101, line 10 from bottom, _for_ "clouds" _read_ "clods."
" 145, note 1, _for_ "Gomara" _read_ "Gumilla."
Transcriber's Note
The following typographical errors were noted in the original text.
Page Error
TN-1 57 the Inds. p. should read the Inds., p.
TN-2 89 Orstnamen should read Ortsnamen
TN-3 115 o should read of
TN-4 134 knaws should read gnaws
TN-5 140 extingish should read extinguish
TN-6 144 fn. 2 Reconnoissance was spelled this way in the title of
original publication, quoted correctly
TN-7 158 fn. 3 Hist du Mexique should read Hist. du Mexique
TN-8 162 wizzard should read wizard
TN-9 218 foreboding shave should read forebodings have
TN-10 223 fn. 2 yelk should read yolk
TN-11 226 fn. 2 _above_ should read above
TN-12 234 after.world should read after world
TN-13 248 scimetar should read scimitar
TN-14 251 Xibilha should read Xibalba
TN-15 258 supersitions should read superstitions
TN-16 278 drunkeness should read drunkenness
TN-17 294 fees should read frees or feeds?
TN-18 300 give should read gives
TN-19 303 (and elsewhere) 58 n. refers to footnote 57-3, the
continued text of this footnote was printed on p. 58 in
the original book
TN-20 304 (and elsewhere) 84 n. refers to footnote 83-3, the
continued text of this footnote was printed on p. 84 in
the original book
TN-21 304 Cupay should read Cupay
TN-22 304 a a symbol should read a symbol
TN-23 304 Eldorado should read El Dorado
TN-24 305 291, n. should read 291 n.
TN-25 305 28 n. refers to footnote 27-2, the continued text of this
footnote was printed on p. 28 in the original book
TN-26 306 Nez Perces should read Nez Perces,
TN-27 306 152 sq, should read 152 sq.,
TN-28 306 _See_ Peru, Incas should read See _Peru_, _Incas_
TN-29 306 Teatihuacan should read Teotihuacan
TN-30 307 Ureinbewohner was not found in the text
The following words were inconsistently spelled:
Mannacicas / Mannicicas
Perces / Perces
Quiche / Quiche
role / role
Tamoei / Tamoi
The following words were inconsistently hyphenated:
Aka-kanet / Akakanet
Ama-livaca / Amalivaca
child-birth / childbirth
Teo-tihuacan / Teotihuacan
under-world / underworld
Ur-religionen / Urreligionen
Yoalli-ehecatl / Yoalliehecatl
Other inconsistencies
Titles of works referred to in the footnotes are occasionally not
italicized. Author names of the works referred to in the footnotes are
occasionally italicized.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Myths of the New World, by Daniel G. Brinton