CHAPTER I.

Transcriber's Note:

Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have

been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

Italics in the footnote citations were inconsistently applied by the

typesetter.

Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.

^a represents a superscripted character (a for example).

{_v} represents a subscripted v.

[_c_] represents a backwards c.

Footnote II-11: "Reads" should possibly be "Reade."

Footnote VI-43: "por bien de abirle los ojos, y darle luz, y

abridle ... " should possibly be "por bien de abrirle los ojos,

y darle luz, y abrirle ..."

Footnote IX-7 is missing a starting quote.

Footnote X-65: "rook" should possibly be "rock."

Footnote XI-5 is missing a starting quote.

Footnote II'-29: "queer" should possibly be "quer."

Footnote II'-60 is missing a starting quote.

Footnote III'-2: "îsles" should possibly be "îles."

Footnote III'-7: "Kaigáni" or "Kaigani" may be spelled incorrectly.

Footnote IV'-16: "Entferten" should possibly be "Entfernten."

Footnote V'-7: "Schlusstein" should possibly be "Schlussstein."

Footnote XII-75: The ending page should possibly be 302.

Page 569: "Irritilia" should possibly be "Irritila."

Page 634: The periods after "from us", and "masahchie" are possibly

typos.

Page 703: "kiokame" is a possible typo for "hiokame."

_Erman_, _Archiv_ is variously numbered with Roman and Arabic numbers.

THE WORKS

OF

HUBERT HOWE BANCROFT.

VOLUME III.

THE NATIVE RACES.

VOL. III. MYTHS AND LANGUAGES.

SAN FRANCISCO:

A. L. BANCROFT & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS.

1883.

Entered according to Act of Congress in the Year 1882, by

HUBERT H. BANCROFT,

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

_All Rights Reserved._

CONTENTS OF THIS VOLUME.

MYTHOLOGY.

CHAPTER I.

SPEECH AND SPECULATION.

PAGE.

Difference between Man and Brutes -- Mind-Language and

Soul-Language -- Origin of Language: A Gift of the Creator, a

Human Invention, or an Evolution -- Nature and Value of Myth --

Origin of Myth: The Divine Idea, a Fiction of Sorcery, the

Creation of a Designing Priesthood -- Origin of Worship, of

Prayer, of Sacrifice -- Fetichism and the Origin of

Animal-Worship -- Religion and Mythology 1

CHAPTER II.

ORIGIN AND END OF THINGS.

Quiché Creation-Myth -- Aztec Origin-Myths -- The Papagos --

Montezuma and the Coyote -- The Moquis -- The Great Spider's

Web of the Pimas -- Navajo and Pueblo Creations -- Origin of

Clear Lake and Lake Tahoe -- Chareya of the Cahrocs -- Mount

Shasta, the Wigwam of the Great Spirit -- Idaho Springs and

Water Falls -- How Differences in Language Occurred -- Yehl,

the Creator of the Thlinkeets -- The Raven and the Dog 42

CHAPTER III.

PHYSICAL MYTHS.

Sun, Moon, and Stars -- Eclipses -- The Moon Personified in the

Land of the Crescent -- Fire -- How the Coyote Stole Fire for

the Cahrocs -- How the Frog Lost His Tail -- How the Coyote

Stole Fire for the Navajos -- Wind and Thunder -- The Four

Winds and the Cross -- Water, the First of Elemental Things --

Its Sacred and Cleansing Power -- Earth and Sky -- Earthquakes

and Volcanoes -- Mountains -- How the Hawk and Crow Built the

Coast Range -- The Mountains of Yosemite 108

CHAPTER IV.

ANIMAL MYTHOLOGY.

Rôles Assigned to Animals -- Auguries from their Movements --

The Ill-omened Owl -- Tutelary Animals -- Metamorphosed Men --

The Ogress-Squirrel of Vancouver Island -- Monkeys and Beavers

-- Fallen Men -- The Sacred Animals -- Prominence of the Bird

-- An Emblem of the Wind -- The Serpent, an Emblem of the

Lightning -- Not Specially connected with Evil -- The Serpent

of the Pueblos -- The Water-Snake -- Ophiolatry -- Prominence

of the Dog, or the Coyote -- Generally though not always a

Benevolent Power -- How the Coyote let Salmon up the Klamath --

Danse Macabre and Sad Death of the Coyote 127

CHAPTER V.

GODS, SUPERNATURAL BEINGS, AND WORSHIP.

Eskimo Witchcraft -- The Tinneh and the Koniagas -- Kugans of

the Aleuts -- The Thlinkeets, the Haidahs, and the Nootkas --

Paradise Lost of the Okanagans -- The Salish, the Clallams, the

Chinooks, the Cayuses, the Walla Wallas, and the Nez Percés --

Shoshone Ghouls -- Northern California -- The Sun at Monterey

-- Ouiot and Chinigchinich -- Antagonistic Gods of Lower

California -- Comanches, Apaches, and Navajos -- Montezuma of

the Pueblos -- Moquis and Mojaves -- Primeval Race of Northern

California 140

CHAPTER VI.

GODS, SUPERNATURAL BEINGS, AND WORSHIP.

Gods and Religious Rites of Chihuahua, Sonora, Durango, and

Sinaloa -- The Mexican Religion, received with different

degrees of credulity by different classes of the people --

Opinions of different Writers as to its Nature -- Monotheism

of Nezahualcoyotl -- Present condition of the Study of Mexican

Mythology -- Tezcatlipoca -- Prayers to Him in the time of

Pestilence, of War, for those in Authority -- Prayer used by

an Absolving Priest -- Genuineness of the foregoing Prayers --

Character and Works of Sahagun 178

CHAPTER VII.

GODS, SUPERNATURAL BEINGS, AND WORSHIP.

Image of Tezcatlipoca -- His Seats at the Street-corners --

Various Legends about his Life on Earth -- Quetzalcoatl -- His

Dexterity in the Mechanical Arts -- His Religious Observances --

The Wealth and Nimbleness of his Adherents -- Expulsion from

Tula of Quetzalcoatl by Tezcatlipoca and Huitzilopochtli -- The

Magic Draught -- Huemac, or Vemac, King of the Toltecs, and the

Misfortunes brought upon him and his people by Tezcatlipoca in

various disguises -- Quetzalcoatl in Cholula -- Differing

Accounts of the Birth and Life of Quetzalcoatl -- His Gentle

Character -- He drew up the Mexican Calender -- Incidents of his

Exile and of his Journey to Tlapalla, as related and commented

upon by various writers -- Brasseur's ideas about the

Quetzalcoatl Myths -- Quetzalcoatl considered a Sun-God by

Tylor, and as a Dawn-Hero by Brinton -- Helps -- Domenech -- The

Codices -- Long Discussion of the Quetzalcoatl Myths by J. G.

Müller 237

CHAPTER VIII.

GODS, SUPERNATURAL BEINGS, AND WORSHIP.

Various accounts of the Birth, Origin, and Derivation of the

name of the Mexican War God, Huitzilopochtli, of his Temple,

Image, Ceremonial, Festivals, and his Deputy, or Page, Paynal --

Clavigero -- Boturini -- Acosta -- Solis -- Sahagun -- Herrera

-- Torquemada -- J. G. Müller's Summary of the Huitzilopochtli

Myths, their Origin, Relation, and Signification -- Tylor --

Codex Vaticanus -- Tlaloc, God of Water, especially of Rain, and

of Mountains -- Clavigero, Gama, and Ixtlilxochitl -- Prayer in

time of Drought -- Camargo, Motolinia, Mendieta, and the Vatican

Codex on the Sacrifices to Tlaloc -- The Decorations of his

Victims and the places of their Execution -- Gathering Rushes

for the Service of the Water God -- Highway Robberies by the

Priests at this time -- Decorations and Implements of the

Priests -- Punishments for Ceremonial Offences -- The Whirlpool

of Pantitlan -- Images of the Mountains in honor of the Tlaloc

Festival -- Of the coming Rain and Mutilation of the Images of

the Mountains -- General Prominence in the cult of Tlaloc, of

the Number Four, the Cross, and the Snake 288

CHAPTER IX.

GODS, SUPERNATURAL BEINGS, AND WORSHIP.

The Mother or all-nourishing Goddess under various names and in

various aspects -- Her Feast in the Eleventh Aztec month

Ochpaniztli -- Festivals of the Eighth month, Hueytecuilhuitl,

and of the Fourth, Hueytozoztli -- The deification of women that

died in child-birth -- The Goddess of Water under various Names

and in various aspects -- Ceremonies of the Baptism or

Lustration of children -- The Goddess of Love, her various names

and aspects -- Rites of confession and absolution -- The God of

fire and his various names -- His festivals in the tenth month

Xocotlveti and in the eighteenth month Yzcali; also his

quadriennial festival in the latter month -- The great festival

of every fifty-two years; lighting the new fire -- The God of

Hades, and Teoyaomique, collector of the souls of the fallen

brave -- Deification of dead rulers and heroes -- Mixcoatl, God

of hunting, and his feast in the fourteenth month, Quecholli --

Various other Mexican deities -- Festival in the second month,

Tlacaxipehualiztli, with notice of the gladiatorial sacrifices

-- Complete Synopsis of the festivals of the Mexican Calendar,

fixed and movable -- Temples and Priests 349

CHAPTER X.

GODS, SUPERNATURAL BEINGS, AND WORSHIP.

Revenues of the Mexican Temples -- Vast number of the Priests --

Mexican Sacerdotal System -- Priestesses -- The Orders of

Tlamaxcacayotl and Telpochtiliztli -- Religious Devotees --

Baptism -- Circumcision -- Communion -- Fasts and Penance --

Blood-drawing -- Human Sacrifices -- The Gods of the Tarascos --

Priests and Temple Service of Michoacan -- Worship in Jalisco --

Oajaca -- Votan and Quetzalcoatl -- Travels of Votan -- The

Apostle Wixepecocha -- Cave near Xustlahuaca -- The Princess

Pinopiaa -- Worship of Costahuntox -- Tree Worship 430

CHAPTER XI.

GODS, SUPERNATURAL BEINGS, AND WORSHIP.

Maya Pantheon -- Zamná -- Cukulcan -- The Gods of Yucatan -- The

Symbol of the Cross in America -- Human Sacrifices in Yucatan --

Priests of Yucatan -- Guatemalan Pantheon -- Tepeu and Hurakan

-- Avilix and Hacavitz -- The Heroes of the Sacred Book --

Quiché Gods -- Worship of the Choles, Manches, Itzas,

Lacandones, and others -- Tradition of Comizahual -- Fasts --

Priests of Guatemala -- Gods, Worship, and Priests of Nicaragua

-- Worship on the Mosquito Coast -- Gods and Worship of the

Isthmians -- Phallic Worship in America 461

CHAPTER XII.

FUTURE STATE.

Aboriginal Ideas of Future -- General Conceptions of Souls --

Future State of the Aleuts, Chepewyans, Natives at Milbank

Sound, and Okanagans -- Happy Land of the Salish and Chinooks --

Conceptions of Heaven and Hell of the Nez Percés, Flatheads, and

Haidahs -- The Realms of Quawteaht and Chayher -- Beliefs of the

Songhies, Clallams, and Pend d'Oreilles -- The Future State of

the Californian and Nevada Tribes, Comanches, Pueblos, Navajos,

Apaches, Moquis, Maricopas, Yumas, and others -- The Sun House

of the Mexicans -- Tlalocan and Mictlan -- Condition of the Dead

-- Journey of the Dead -- Future of the Tlascaltecs and other

Nations 510

LANGUAGES.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTION TO LANGUAGES.

Native Languages in Advance of Social Customs -- Characteristic

Individuality of American Tongues -- Frequent Occurrence of Long

Words -- Reduplications, Frequentatives, and Duals --

Intertribal Languages -- Gesture-Language -- Slavé and Chinook

Jargons -- Pacific States Languages -- The Tinneh, Aztec, and

Maya Tongues -- The Larger Families Inland -- Language as a Test

of Origin -- Similarities in Unrelated Languages -- Plan of this

Investigation 551

CHAPTER II.

HYPERBOREAN LANGUAGES.

Distinction between Eskimo and American -- Eskimo Pronunciation

and Declension -- Dialects of the Koniagas and Aleuts --

Language of the Thlinkeets -- Hypothetical Affinities -- The

Tinneh Family and its Dialects -- Eastern, Western, Central, and

Southern Divisions -- Chepewyan Declension -- Oratorical Display

in the Speech of the Kutchins -- Dialects of the Atnahs and

Ugalenzes Compared -- Specimen of the Koltshane Tongue --

Tacully Gutturals -- Hoopah Vocabulary -- Apache Dialects --

Lipan Lord's Prayer -- Navajo Words -- Comparative Vocabulary of

the Tinneh Family 574

CHAPTER III.

COLUMBIAN LANGUAGES.

The Haidah, its Construction and Conjugation -- The Nass

Language and its Dialects -- Bellacoola and Chimsyan Comparisons

-- The Nootka Languages of Vancouver Island -- Nanaimo Ten

Commandments and Lord's Prayer -- Aztec Analogies -- Fraser and

Thompson River Languages -- The Neetlakapamuck Grammar and

Lord's Prayer -- Sound Languages -- The Salish Family --

Flathead Grammar and Lord's Prayer -- The Kootenai -- The

Sahaptin Family -- Nez Percé Grammar -- Yakima Lord's Prayer --

Sahaptin State and Slave Languages -- The Chinook Family --

Grammar of the Chinook Language -- Aztec Affinities -- The

Chinook Jargon 604

CHAPTER IV.

CALIFORNIAN LANGUAGES.

Multiplicity of Tongues -- Yakon, Klamath, and Palaik

Comparisons -- Pitt River and Wintoon Vocabularies -- Weeyot,

Wishosk, Weitspek, and Ehnek Comparisons -- Languages of

Humboldt Bay -- Potter Valley, Russian and Eel River Languages

-- Pomo Languages -- Gallinomero Grammar -- Trans-Pacific

Comparisons -- Chocuyem Lord's Prayer -- Languages of the

Sacramento, San Joaquin, Napa, and Sonoma Valleys -- The Olhone

and other Languages of San Francisco Bay -- Runsien and Eslene

of Monterey -- Santa Clara Lord's Prayer -- Mutsun Grammar --

Languages of the Missions Santa Cruz, San Antonio de Padua,

Soledad, and San Miguel -- Tatché Grammar -- The Dialects of

Santa Cruz and other Islands 635

CHAPTER V.

SHOSHONE LANGUAGES.

Aztec-Sonora Connections with the Shoshone Family -- The Utah,

Comanche, Moqui, Kizh, Netela, Kechi, Cahuillo, and Chemehuevi

-- Eastern and Western Shoshone, or Wihinasht -- The Bannack and

Digger, or Shoshokee -- The Utah and its Dialects -- The Goshute,

Washoe, Paiulee, Piute, Sampitche, and Mono -- Popular Belief

as to the Aztec Element in the North -- Grimm's Law -- Shoshone,

Comanche, and Moqui Comparative Table -- Netela Stanza -- Kizh

Grammar -- The Lord's Prayer in two Dialects of the Kizh --

Chemehuevi and Cahuillo Grammar -- Comparative Vocabulary 660

CHAPTER VI.

THE PUEBLO, COLORADO RIVER, AND LOWER CALIFORNIA LANGUAGES.

Traces of the Aztec not found among the Pueblos of New Mexico

and Arizona -- The Five Languages of the Pueblos, the Queres,

the Tegua, the Picoris, Jemez, and Zuñi -- Pueblo Comparative

Vocabulary -- The Yuma and its Dialects, the Maricopa, Cuchan,

Mojave, Diegueño, Yampais, and Yavipais -- The Cochimí and

Pericú, with their Dialects of Lower California -- Guaicuri

Grammar -- Pater Noster in Three Cochimí Dialects -- The

Languages of Lower California wholly Isolated 680

CHAPTER VII.

THE PIMA, ÓPATA, AND CERI LANGUAGES.

Pima Alto and Bajo -- Pápago -- Pima Grammar -- Formation of

Plurals -- Personal Pronoun -- Conjugation -- Classification of

Verbs -- Adverbs -- Prepositions, Conjunctions, and

Interjections -- Syntax of the Pima -- Prayers in different

dialects -- The Ópata and Eudeve -- Eudeve Grammar --

Conjugation of Active and Passive Verbs -- Lord's Prayer --

Ópata Grammar -- Declension -- Possessive Pronoun -- Conjugation

-- Ceri Language with its Dialects, Guaymi and Tepoca -- Ceri

Vocabulary 694

CHAPTER VIII.

NEW MEXICAN LANGUAGES.

The Cahita and its Dialects -- Cahita Grammar -- Dialectic

Differences of the Mayo, Yaqui, and Tehueco -- Comparative

Vocabulary -- Cahita Lord's Prayer -- The Tarahumara and its

Dialects -- The Tarahumara Grammar -- Tarahumara Lord's Prayer

in two Dialects -- The Concho, the Toboso, the Julime, the Piro,

the Suma, the Chinarra, the Tubar, the Irritila -- Tejano --

Tejano Grammar -- Specimen of the Tejano -- The Tepehuana --

Tepehuana Grammar and Lord's Prayer -- Acaxée and its Dialects,

the Topia, Sabaibo and Xixime -- The Zacatec, Cazcane, Mazapile,

Huitcole, Guachichile, Colotlan, Tlaxomultec, Tecuexe, and

Tepecano -- The Cora and its Dialects, the Muutzicat,

Teacuaeitzca, and Ateacari -- Cora Grammar 706

CHAPTER IX.

THE AZTEC AND OTOMÍ LANGUAGES.

Nahua or Aztec, Chichimec, and Toltec languages identical --

Anáhuac the aboriginal seat of the Aztec Tongue -- The Aztec the

oldest language in Anáhuac -- Beauty and Richness of the Aztec

-- Testimony of the Missionaries and early writers in its favor

-- Specimen from Paredes' Manual -- Grammar of the Aztec

Language -- Aztec Lord's Prayer -- The Otomí a Monosyllabic

Language of Anáhuac -- Relationship claimed with the Chinese and

Cherokee -- Otomí Grammar -- Otomí Lord's Prayer in Different

Dialects 723

CHAPTER X.

LANGUAGES OF CENTRAL AND SOUTHERN MEXICO.

The Pame and its Dialects -- The Meco of Guanajuato and the

Sierra Gordo -- The Tarasco of Michoacan and its Grammar -- The

Matlaltzinca and its Grammar -- The Ocuiltec -- The Miztec and

its Dialects -- Miztec Grammar -- The Amusgo, Chocho, Mazatec,

Cuicatec, Chatino, Tlapanec, Chinantec, and Popoluca -- The

Zapotec and its Grammar -- The Mije -- Mije Grammar and Lord's

Prayer -- The Huave of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec -- Huave

Numerals 742

CHAPTER XI.

THE MAYA-QUICHÉ LANGUAGES.

The Maya-Quiché, the Languages of the Civilized Nations of

Central America -- Enumeration of the Members of this Family --

Hypothetical Analogies with Languages of the Old World -- Lord's

Prayers in the Chañabal, Chiapanec, Chol, Tzendal, Zoque, and

Zotzil -- Pokonchi Grammar -- The Mame or Zaklopahkap -- Quiché

Grammar -- Cakchiquel Lord's Prayer -- Maya Grammar -- Totonac

Grammar -- Totonac Dialects -- Huastec Grammar 759

CHAPTER XII.

LANGUAGES OF HONDURAS, NICARAGUA, COSTA RICA, AND THE ISTHMUS OF

DARIEN.

The Carib an Imported Language -- The Mosquito Language -- The

Poya, Towka, Seco, Valiente, Rama, Cookra, Woolwa, and other

Languages in Honduras -- The Chontal -- Mosquito Grammar -- Love

Song in the Mosquito Language -- Comparative Vocabulary of

Honduras Tongues -- The Coribici, Chorotega, Chontal, and

Orotiña in Nicaragua -- Grammar of the Orotiña or Nagrandan --

Comparison between the Orotiña and Chorotega -- The Chiriquí,

Guatuso, Tiribi, and others in Costa Rica -- Talamanca

Vocabulary -- Diversity of Speech on the Isthmus of Darien --

Enumeration of Languages -- Comparative Vocabulary 782

THE NATIVE RACES

OF THE

PACIFIC STATES.

MYTHOLOGY, LANGUAGES.

CHAPTER I.

SPEECH AND SPECULATION.

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MAN AND BRUTES -- MIND LANGUAGE AND

SOUL-LANGUAGE -- ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE: A GIFT OF THE CREATOR, A

HUMAN INVENTION, OR AN EVOLUTION -- NATURE AND VALUE OF MYTH --

ORIGIN OF MYTH: THE DIVINE IDEA, A FICTION OF SORCERY, THE

CREATION OF A DESIGNING PRIESTHOOD -- ORIGIN OF WORSHIP, OF

PRAYER, OF SACRIFICE -- FETICHISM AND THE ORIGIN OF

ANIMAL-WORSHIP -- RELIGION AND MYTHOLOGY.

Hitherto we have beheld Man only in his material organism; as a wild

though intellectual animal. We have watched the intercourse of

uncultured mind with its environment. We have seen how, to clothe

himself, the savage robs the beast; how, like animals, primitive man

constructs his habitation, provides food, rears a family, exercises

authority, holds property, wages war, indulges in amusements,

gratifies social instincts; and that in all this, the savage is but

one remove from the brute. Ascending the scale, we have examined the

first stages of human progress and analyzed an incipient civilization.

We will now pass the frontier which separates mankind from

animal-kind, and enter the domain of the immaterial and supernatural;

phenomena which philosophy purely positive cannot explain.

The primary indication of an absolute superiority in man over other

animals is the faculty of speech; not those mute or vocal symbols,

expressive of passion and emotion, displayed alike in brutes and men;

but the power to separate ideas, to generate in the mind and embody in

words, sequences of thought. True, upon the threshold of this inquiry,

as in whatever relates to primitive man, we find the brute creation

hotly pursuing, and disputing for a share in this progressional power.

In common with man, animals possess all the organs of sensation. They

see, hear, feel, taste, and smell. They have even the organs of

speech; but they have not speech. The source of this wonderful faculty

lies further back, obscured by the mists which ever settle round the

immaterial. Whether brutes have souls, according to the Aristotelean

theory of soul, or whether brute-soul is immortal, or of quality and

destiny unlike and inferior to that of man-soul, we see in them

unmistakable evidence of mental faculties. The higher order of animals

possess the lower order of intellectual perceptions. Thus pride is

manifested by the caparisoned horse, shame by the beaten dog, will by

the stubborn mule. Brutes have memory; they manifest love and hate,

joy and sorrow, gratitude and revenge. They are courageous or

cowardly, subtle or simple, not merely up to the measure of what we

commonly term instinct, but with evident exercise of judgment; and, to

a certain point, we might even claim for them foresight, as in laying

in a store of food for winter. But with all this there seems to be a

lack of true or connected thought, and of the faculty of abstraction,

whereby conceptions are analyzed and impressions defined.

[Sidenote: THOUGHT AND EXPRESSION.]

They have also a language, such as it is; indeed, all the varieties of

language common to man. What gesture-language can be more expressive

than that employed by the horse with its ears and by the dog with its

tail, wherein are manifestations of every shade of joy, sorrow,

courage, fear, shame, and anger? In their brutish physiognomy, also,

one may read the language of the emotions, which, if not so

delicately pictured as in the face of man, is none the less

distinctive. Nor are they without their vocal language. Every fowl and

every quadruped possesses the power of communicating intelligence by

means of the voice. They have their noise of gladness, their signal

cry of danger, their notes of anger and of woe. Thus we see in brutes

not only intelligence but the power of communicating intelligence. But

intelligence is not thought, neither is expression speech. The

language of brutes, like themselves, is soulless.

The next indication of man's superiority over brutes, is the faculty

of worship. The wild beast, to escape the storm, flies howling to its

den; the savage, awe-stricken, turns and prays. The lowest man

perceives a hand behind the lightning, hears a voice abroad upon the

storm, for which the highest brute has neither eye nor ear. This

essential of humanity we see primordially displayed in mythic

phenomena; in the first struggle of spiritual manhood to find

expression. Language is symbol significant of thought, mythology is

symbol significant of soul. The one is the first distinctive sound

that separates the ideal from the material, the other the first

respiration of the soul which distinguishes the immortal from the

animal. Language is thought incarnate; mythology, soul incarnate. The

one is the instrument of thought, as the other is the essence of

thought. Neither is thought; both are closely akin to thought;

separated from either, in some form, perfect intellectual manhood

cannot develop. I do not mean to say with some, that thought without

speech cannot exist; unless by speech is meant any form of expression

symbolical, emotional, or vocal, or unless by thought is meant

something more than mere self-consciousness without sequence and

without abstraction. There can be no doubt that speech is the living

breath of thought, and that the exercise of speech reacts upon the

mental and emotional faculties. In brutes is found neither speech nor

myth; in the deaf and dumb, thought and belief are shadowy and

undefined; in infants, thought is but as a fleeting cloud passing

over the brain. Yet for all this, deaf mutes and children who have no

adequate form of expression cannot be placed in the category of

brutes. The invention of the finger-alphabet opened a way to the

understanding of the deaf and dumb; but long before this is learned,

in every instance, these unfortunates invent a gesture-language of

their own, in which they think as well as speak. And could we but see

the strangely contorted imagery which takes possession of a

gesture-thinker's brain, we should better appreciate the value of

words. So, into the mouth of children words are put, round which

thoughts coalesce; but evidences of ideas are discovered some time

before they can be fully expressed by signs or sounds. Kant held the

opinion that the mind of a deaf mute is incapable of development, but

the wonderful success of our modern institutions has dissipated

forever that idea.

The soul of man is a half-conscious inspiration from which perception

and expression are inseparable. Nature speaks to it in that subtle

sympathy by which the immaterial within holds converse with the

immaterial without, in the soft whisperings of the breeze, in the

fearful bellowings of the tempest. Between the soul and body there is

the closest sympathy, an interaction in every relation. Therefore

these voices of nature speaking to nature's offspring, are answered

back in various ways according to the various organisms addressed. The

animal, the intellectual, the spiritual, whatsoever the entity

consists of, responds, and responding expands and unfolds. Once give

an animal the power to speak and mental development ensues; for speech

cannot continue without ideas, and ideas cannot spring up without

intellectual evolution. A dim, half-conscious, brutish thought there

may be; but the faculty of abstraction, sequences of thought, without

words either spoken or unspoken, cannot exist.

[Sidenote: ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE.]

It is not at all probable that a system of gesture-language was ever

employed by any primitive people, prior or in preference to vocal

language. To communicate by signs requires no little skill and

implies a degree of artifice and forethought far beyond that required

in vocal or emotional language. Long before a child arrives at the

point of intelligence necessary for conveying thought by signs, it is

well advanced in a vocal language of its own.

In mythology, language assumes personality and independence. Often the

significance of the word becomes the essential idea. Zeus, from

meaning simply sky, becomes god of the sky; Eos, originally the dawn,

is made the goddess of the opening day. Not the idea but the

expression of the idea becomes the deity. And so, by these creations

of fancy, the imagination expands; in the embodiment of the idea, the

mind enlarges with its own creation. Then yet bolder metaphors are

thrown off like soap-bubbles, which no sooner take form in words than

they are also deified. Thus soul and thought and speech act and react

on one another, all the evolutions of conception seeking vent in sound

or speculation; and thus language, the expression of mind, and

mythology, the expression of soul, become the exponents of divine

humanity.

But what then is Language, what is Myth, and whence are they? Broadly,

the term language may be applied to whatever social beings employ to

communicate passion or sentiment, or to influence one another;

whatever is made a vehicle of intelligence, ideographic or phonetic,

is language. In this category may be placed, as we have seen,

gestures, both instinctive and artificial; emotional expression,

displayed in form or feature; vocal sounds, such as the cries of

birds, the howling of beasts. Indeed, language is everywhere, in

everything. While listening to the rippling brook, the roaring sea,

the murmuring forest, as well as to the still small voice within, we

are but reading from the vocabulary of nature.

Thus construed, the principle assumes a variety of shapes, and may be

followed through successive stages of development. In fact, neither

form nor feature can be set in motion, or even left in a state of

repose, without conveying intelligence to the observer. The

countenance of man, whether it will or not, perpetually speaks, and

speaks in most exquisite shades of significance, and with expression

far more delicate than that employed by tongue or pen. The face is the

reflex of the soul; a transparency which glows with light, divine or

devilish, thrown upon it from within. It is a portrait of individual

intelligence, a photograph of the inner being, a measure of innate

intelligence. And in all pertaining to the actions and passions of

mankind, what can be more expressive than the language of the

emotions? There are the soft, silent wooings of love, the frantic fury

of hate, the dancing delirium of joy, the hungry cravings of desire,

the settled melancholy of dead hopes. But more definitely, language is

articulate human speech or symbolic expression of ideas.

How man first learned to speak, and whence the power of speech was

originally derived, are questions concerning which tradition is

uncommunicative. Even mythology, which attempts the solution of

supernatural mysteries, the explanation of all phenomena not otherwise

accounted for, has little to say as to the genesis of this most

potential of all human powers.

Many theories have been advanced concerning the origin of language.

Some of them are exploded; others in various stages of modification

remain, no two philologists thinking exactly alike. The main

hypotheses are three; the subordinate ones are legion. Obviously,

speech must be either a direct, completed gift of the Creator, with

one or more independent beginnings; or a human invention; or an

evolution from a natural germ.

Schleicher conceives primordial language to be a simple organism of

vocal gestures; Gould Brown believes language to be partly natural and

partly artificial; Adam Smith and Dugald Stewart give to man the

creation and development of speech by his own artificial invention.

According to Herodotus, the Phrygians and the Egyptians disputed over

the question of the antiquity of their languages. Psammetichus

thereupon confided two babes to the care of goats, apart from every

human sound. At the end of two years they were heard to pronounce the

word _bekos_, the Phrygian for bread. The Phrygians therefore claimed

for their language the seniority.

[Sidenote: SCIENCE OF PHILOLOGY.]

In ancient times it was thought that there was some one primeval

tongue, a central language from which all the languages of the earth

radiated. The Sythic, Ethiopic, Chinese, Greek, Latin, and other

languages advanced claims for this seniority. Plato believed language

to be an invention of the gods, and by them given to man. Orthodox

religionists did not hesitate to affirm that Hebrew, the language of

Paradise, was not only given in a perfected state to man, but was

miraculously preserved in a state of purity for the chosen Israel.

After the dispersion from Babel, such nations as relapsed into

barbarism became barbaric in speech. And in the roots of every dialect

of both the old world and the new, the Fathers were able to discern

Hebrew analogies sufficient to confirm them in their dogma. Indeed

other belief was heresy.

There were others who held that, when gesture-language and the

language of the emotions were found insufficient for the growing

necessities of man, by common consent, it was agreed that certain

objects should be represented by certain sounds, and that so, when a

word had been invented for every object, language was made.

Another doctrine, called by Mr. Wedgwood, its enthusiastic advocate,

'onomatopœia,' and by Professor Max Müller the 'bow-wow' theory,

explains the origin of language in the effort of man to imitate the

cries of nature. Thus, for dog the primitive languageless man would

say bow-wow; to the rivulet, the wind, the birds and beasts, names

were applied which as far as possible were but reproductions of the

sounds made by these elements or animals.

Thus philology up to a comparatively late period was a speculation

rather than a science. Philosophers sought to know whence language

came rather than what language is. But when the great discovery

concerning the Arian and Semitic families was made, comparative

philologists went to work after the manner of practical investigators

in other branches of study, by collecting, classifying and comparing

vocabularies, and therefrom striking out a path backward to original

trunks. Catalogues of languages were published, one in 1800 by Hervas,

a Spanish Jesuit, containing three hundred dialects, followed by

Adelung and Vater's Mithridates, from 1806-17. But not until Sanscrit

was made a subject of European study did it become apparent that

affinities of tongues are subject to the laws that govern affinities

of blood. Then it was that a similarity was discovered, not only

between the Sanscrit and the Greek and Latin tongues, but between

these languages and the Teutonic, Celtic, Iranic, and Indic, all of

which became united in the great Arian family. At the same time, the

ancient language of the Jews, the Arabic, and the Aramaic--which

constitute the Semitic family--were found to be totally different from

the Arian in their radical structure. From these investigations,

philologists were no less convinced that the Indo-European languages

were all of the same stock, than that the Semitic idioms did not

belong to it. The doctrine of the Fathers therefore would not stand;

for it was found that all languages were not derivations from the

Hebrew, nor from any other known central tongue.

Then too, the subordination of tongues to the laws of evolution became

apparent. It was discovered that language was in a state of constant

change; that, with all its variations, human speech could be grouped

into families, and degrees of relationship ascertained; and that, by

the comparison of vocabularies, a classification at once morphological

and genealogical could be made. Varieties of tongues, as numberless as

the phases of humanity, could be traced back towards their beginnings

and resolved into earlier forms. It was discovered that in the first

order of linguistic development, words are monosyllabic. In this

rudimentary stage, to which the Chinese, Tibetan, and perhaps the

Japanese belong, roots, or sounds expressive only of the material or

substantial parts of things, are used. In the second stage, called the

polysynthetic, aggregative, or agglutinate, a modifying termination,

significant of the relations of ideas or things to each other, is

affixed or glued to the root. To the agglutinate languages belong the

American and Turanian families. In the third, called the inflectional

stage, which comprises only the Arian and Semitic families, the two

elements are more perfectly developed, and it is only in this stage

that language can attain the highest degree of richness and

refinement.

[Sidenote: VARIATIONS OF LANGUAGE.]

While these stages or conditions are recognized by all, it is claimed

on one side that although settled languages retain their grammatical

character, every agglutinate language must once have been

monosyllabic, or radical, and every inflectional language once

agglutinate; and on the other side it is averred that the assertion is

incapable of proof, for no historical evidence exists of any one type

ever having passed from one of these stages to another. Now if speech

is a perfected gift of the Creator, how happens it that we find

language in every stage of development or relapse, from the cluckings

of Thlinkeets to the classic lines of Homer and of Shakspeare? In his

physiological structure, so far as is known, Man is neither more nor

less perfect now than in the days of Adam. How then if language is an

organism, is it, unlike other organisms, subject to extreme and sudden

change? In animated nature there are two principles; one fixed and

finished as an organism, subject to perpetual birth and decay, but

incapable of advancing or retrograding; the other, elemental life, the

germ or centre of a future development. The one grows, the other

unfolds. We have no evidence that instincts and organic functions were

more or less perfect in the beginning than now. If therefore language

is an instinct or an organism, a perfect gift of the Creator, how can

it exist otherwise than in a concrete and perfect state like other

instincts and organisms?

The absurdity that human speech is the invention of primitive

man--that upon some grassy knoll a company of half-clad barbarians

met, and without words invented words, without significant sounds

produced sounds significant of every object, therein by mutual consent

originating a language--may be set aside. Of all conjectures

concerning the origin of language, the hypothesis that words are an

artificial invention is the least tenable. And what is most surprising

to us, at the present day, is that such men as Locke and Adam Smith

and Dugald Stewart could for a moment have entertained the idea.

Obviously, without language there could be no culture, and without

culture, words never could have been invented. Words are the symbols

of objects and ideas. Certain words may be arbitrarily selected, and,

by the tacit agreement or general concurrence of society, may be made

to signify certain things. And in this sense words may originate

conventionally. But though words may have been conventionally

selected, they were never selected by conventions. We then have the

discoveries of modern philologists, not only to positively deny the

infallibility of the common-origin theory, but to bring forward a

number of other claimants for the greatest antiquity, as well entitled

to a hearing as the Hebrew.

[Sidenote: UNIVERSALITY OF SPEECH.]

Diversity in the origin of speech does not of necessity imply

diversity in the origin of race. Thus with a unity of race,

circumstances may be conceived in which independent tongues may have

arisen in different localities; whereas with a diversity of race, but

one language hypothetically may have been given to all. A common

origin is probable, a diversity of origin is possible; neither can be

proved or disproved. The radical differences in the structure of the

three great types, the monosyllabic, the agglutinate, and the

inflectional; and the inherent heterogeneities of the several families

of the same type, as of the Chinese and Siamese, of the American and

Turanian, or even of the Arian and Semitic, would seem to present

insurmountable obstacles to the theory of a common origin; while on

the other hand the wonderful mutations of types and trunks, the known

transformations of language, and the identifications by some

philologists, of the same stock in each of the three progressional

stages, render the theory of a unity of origin in language equally

probable. Therefore the question of unity or diversity of tongues, as

we speak of unity or diversity of race, can be of but little moment to

us. Language shows the connection between nations widely separated,

leads us back beyond tradition into the obscure past, follows the

sinuosities of migrations, indicates epochs in human development,

points towards the origin of peoples, serves as a guide in following

the radiation of races from common centres. Yet a similarity in the

sound, or even in the construction of two words, does not necessarily

imply relationship. Two totally distinct languages may have borrowed

the same word from a third language; which fact would never establish

relationship between the borrowers. When like forms are found in

different languages, in order to establish a relationship, historical

evidence must be applied as a test, and the words followed up to their

roots.

Stripped of technicalities, the question before us is reduced to a few

simple propositions. All men speak; there never yet was found a nation

without articulate language. Aside from individual and abnormal

exceptions, no primitive tribe has ever been discovered, where part of

the people spoke, and part were speechless. Language is as much a part

of man, as any physical constituent; yet unlike physical organs, as

the eye, the ear, the hand, language is not born with the individual.

It is not in the blood. The Caucasian infant stolen by Apaches, cannot

converse with its own mother when restored to her a few years after.

Therefore speech is not an independent, perfected gift of the Creator,

but an incidental acquirement. Furthermore language is an attribute of

society. It belongs to the people and not to the individual. The child

before mentioned, if dropped by the Apaches among the bears and by

them nurtured and reared, is doomed to mutism or bear-language. Man

was made a social being; speech was made as a means of communicating

intelligence between social beings; one individual alone never could

originate, or even preserve a language.

But how then happens it, if man did not make it, and God did not give

it him, that human speech is universal? With the organism of man the

Creator implants the organs of speech. With the elemental and

progressional life of man the Creator implants the germ of speech. In

common with the element of progress and civilization, innate from the

beginning, speech has developed by slow degrees through thousands of

cycles and by various stages, marching steadily forward with the

forward march of the intellect. Comparative philology, in common with

all other sciences, accords to man a remote antiquity. Bunsen

estimates that at least twenty thousand years are required for a

language to pass from one rudimentary stage to another.

The mind receives impressions and the soul intuitions, and to throw

them off in some form is an absolute necessity. Painful impressions

tend to produce bodily contortions and dolorous sounds; pleasant

impressions to illumine the features and to make musical the voice.

And not only is this compressed emotion destined to find expression,

but to impress itself upon others. Emotion is essentially sympathetic.

Why certain objects are represented by certain sounds we can never

know. Some think that between every word and the object or idea which

it represents, there was in the first instance an intimate

relationship. By degrees certain natural articulations became

associated with certain ideas; then new names were suggested by some

fancied analogy to objects already named. Everything else being equal,

similar conditions and causations produce similar impressions and are

expressed by similar sounds. Hence a certain uniformity between all

human tongues; and a tendency in man to imitate the sounds in nature,

the cries of animals, the melodies of winds and waters, accounts for

the origin of many words.

From giving expression in some outward form to our inward emotion

there is no escape. Let us now apply to the expression of feeling and

emotion the same law of evolution which governs all social and

intellectual phenomena, and from a language of exclamations, we have

first the monosyllabic noun and verb, then auxilliaries--adverbs,

adjectives, prepositions and pronouns--and finally inflections of

parts of speech by which the finer shades of meaning may be expressed.

The spontaneous outbursts of feeling, or the metaphorical expressions

of emotion, arising instinctively and acting almost simultaneously

with the conception or impression made upon the mind, develop with

time into settled forms of speech. Man speaks as birds fly or fishes

swim. The Creator supplies the organs and implants the instinct.

Speech, though intuitive, is more than intuition; for, as we have

seen, speech is a social rather than an individual attribute. Darwin

perceives in language not only a spontaneous generation, but a natural

selection of grammatical forms; the best words, the clearest and

shortest expressions, continually displacing the weaker. So words are

made to fit occasions, and dropped as soon as better ones can be

found.

Languages are not inherited, yet language is an inheritance. Language

is not artificially invented, yet languages are but conventional

agreements. Languages are not a concrete perfected gift of the

Creator, yet the germ of language is ineradicably implanted in man,

and was there implanted by none but man's Creator. This then is

Language: it is an acquisition, but an acquisition from necessity; it

is a gift, but, when given, an undeveloped germ; it is an artifice, in

so far as it is developed by the application of individual agencies.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: MYTHOLOGY.]

Here, for a while, we will leave Language and turn to Mythology, the

_mythos_ 'fable' and _logos_ 'speech' of the Grecians.

Under analysis mythology is open to broad yet significant

interpretations. As made up of legendary accounts of places and

personages, it is history; as relating to the genesis of the gods, the

nature and adventures of divinities, it is religion; placed in the

category of science, it is the science of fable; of philosophy, the

philosophy of intuitive beliefs. A mass of fragmentary truth and

fiction not open to rationalistic criticism; a system of tradition,

genealogical and political, confounding the subjective with the

objective; a partition wall of allegories, built of dead facts

cemented with wild fancies--it looms ever between the immeasurable

and the measurable past.

Thick black clouds, portentous of evil, hang threateningly over the

savage during his entire life. Genii murmur in the flowing river, in

the rustling branches are felt the breathings of the gods, goblins

dance in vapory twilight, and demons howl in the darkness.

In the myths of wild, untutored man, is displayed that inherent desire

to account for the origin of things, which, even at the present time,

commands the profoundest attention of philosophy; and, as we look back

upon the absurd conceptions of our savage ancestry with feelings akin

to pity and disgust, so may the speculations of our own times appear

to those who shall come after us. Those weird tales which to us are

puerility or poetry, according as we please to regard them, were to

their believers history, science, and religion. Yet this effort, which

continues from the beginning to the end, is not valueless; in it is

embodied the soul of human progress. Without mythology, the only door

at once to the ideal and inner life of primitive peoples and to their

heroic and historic past would be forever closed to us. Nothing so

reflects their heart-secrets, exposes to our view their springs of

action, shadows forth the sources of their hopes and fears, exhibits

the models after which they moulded their lives.

Within crude poetic imagery are enrolled their religious beliefs, are

laid the foundations of their systems of worship, are portrayed their

thoughts concerning causations and the destinies of mankind. Under

symbolic veils is shrouded their ancient national spirit, all that can

be known of their early history and popular ideas. Thus are explained

the fundamental laws of nature; thus we are told how earth sprang from

chaos, how men and beasts and plants were made, how heaven was

peopled, and earth, and what were the relative powers and successive

dynasties of the gods. Heroes are made gods; gods are materialized and

brought down to men.

[Sidenote: ALL MYTHS FOUNDED ON FACT.]

Of the value of mythology it is unnecessary here to speak. Never was

there a time in the history of philosophy when the character, customs,

and beliefs of aboriginal man, and everything appertaining to him,

were held in such high esteem by scholars as at present. As the

ultimate of human knowledge is approached, the inquirer is thrown back

upon the past; and more and more the fact becomes apparent, that what

is, is but a reproduction of what has been; that in the earlier stages

of human development may be found the counterpart of every phase of

modern social life. Higher and more heterogeneous as are our present

systems of politics and philosophy, every principle, when tracked to

its beginning, proves to have been evolved, not originated.

As there never yet was found a people without a language, so every

nation has its mythology, some popular and attractive form for

preserving historical tradition and presenting ethical maxims; and as

by the range of their vocabularies we may follow men through all the

stages of their progress in government, domestic affairs and

mechanical arts, so, by beliefs expressed, we may determine at any

given epoch in the history of a race their ideal and intellectual

condition. Without the substance there can be no shadow, without the

object there can be no name for it; therefore when we find a language

without a word to denote property or chastity, we may be sure that the

wealth and women of the tribe are held in common; and when in a system

of mythology certain important metaphysical or æsthetic ideas and

attributes are wanting, it is evident that the intellect of its

composers has not yet reached beyond a certain low point of

conception.

Moreover, as in things evil may be found a spirit of good, so in fable

we find an element of truth. It is now a recognized principle of

philosophy, that no religious belief, however crude, nor any

historical tradition, however absurd, can be held by the majority of a

people for any considerable time as true, without having in the

beginning some foundation in fact. More especially is the truth of

this principle apparent when we consider that in all the multitudinous

beliefs of all ages, held by peoples savage and civilized, there exist

a concurrence of ideas and a coincidence of opinion. Human conceptions

of supernatural affairs spring from like intuitions. As human nature

is essentially the same throughout the world and throughout time, so

the religious instincts which form a part of that universal humanity

generate and develop in like manner under like conditions. The desire

to penetrate hidden surroundings and the method of attempting it are

to a certain extent common to all. All wonder at the mysterious; all

attempt the solution of mysteries; all primarily possess equal

facilities for arriving at correct conclusions. The genesis of belief

is uniform, and the results under like conditions analogous.

We may conclude that the purposes for which these fictitious

narratives were so carefully preserved and handed down to posterity

were two-fold--to keep alive certain facts and to inculcate certain

doctrines.

[Sidenote: VALUE OF MYTHOLOGY.]

Something there must have been in every legend, in every tradition, in

every belief, which has ever been entertained by the majority of a

people, to recommend it to the minds of men in the first instance.

Error absolute cannot exist; false doctrine without an amalgam of

verity speedily crumbles, and the more monstrous the falsity the more

rapid its decomposition. Myths were the oracles of our savage

ancestors; their creed, the rule of their life, prized by them as men

now prize their faith; and, by whatever savage philosophy these

strange conceits were eliminated, their effect upon the popular mind

was vital. Anaxagoras, Socrates, Protagoras, and Epicurus well knew

and boldly proclaimed that the gods of the Grecians were disreputable

characters, not the kind of deities to make or govern worlds; yet so

deep rooted in the hearts of the people were the maxims of the past,

that for these expressions one heretic was cast into prison, another

expelled from Athens, and another forced to drink the hemlock. And the

less a fable presents the appearance of probability, the more

grotesque and extravagant it is, the less the likelihood of its having

originated in pure invention; for no extravagantly absurd invention

without a particle of truth could by any possibility have been palmed

off upon a people, and by them accepted, revered, recited, preserved

as veritable incident or solution of mystery, and handed down to those

most dear to them, to be in like manner held as sacred.

Therefore we may be sure that there never was a myth without a

meaning; that mythology is not a bundle of ridiculous fancies invented

for vulgar amusement; that there is not one of these stories, no

matter how silly or absurd, which was not founded in fact, which did

not once hold a significance. "And though I have well weighed and

considered all this," concluded Lord Bacon, nearly three hundred years

ago, "and thoroughly seen into the levity which the mind indulges for

allegories and illusions, yet I cannot but retain a high value for the

ancient mythology." Indeed, to ancient myths has been attributed the

preservation of shattered fragments of lost sciences, even as some

have alleged that we are indebted to the writings of Democritus and

Aristotle for modern geographical discoveries.

That these ductile narratives have suffered in their transmission to

us, that through the magnifying and refracting influences of time, and

the ignorance and fanaticism of those to whom they were first recited,

we receive them mutilated and distorted, there can be no doubt. Not

one in a thousand of those aboriginal beliefs which were held by the

people of the Pacific Coast at the time of its first occupation by

foreigners, has been preserved. And for the originality and purity of

such as we have, in many instances, no one can vouch. Certain writers

who saw in the native fable probable evidence of the presence of an

apostle, or a miraculous interposition in the affairs of benighted

heathendom, could but render the narrative in accordance with their

prepossessions. The desire of some to prove a certain origin for the

Indians, and the contempt of others for native character, also led to

imperfect or colored narrations. But happily, enough has been

preserved in authentic picture-writings, and by narrators whose

integrity and intelligence are above suspicion, to give us a fair

insight into the native psychological structure and belief; and if the

knowledge we have is but infinitesimal in comparison with what has

been lost, we may thereby learn to prize more highly such as we have.

Again we come to the ever-recurring question--Whence is it? Whence

arise belief, worship, superstition? Whence the striking likeness in

all supernatural conceptions between nations and ages the most

diverse? Why is it that so many peoples, during the successive stages

of their progress, have their creation myth, their origin myth, their

flood myth, their animal, and plant, and planet myths? This

coincidence of evolution can scarcely be the result of accident.

Mythologies, then, being like languages common to mankind, uniform in

substance yet varying in detail, what follows with regard to the

essential system of their supernatural conceptions? Is it a perfected

gift of the Creator, the invention of a designing priesthood, or a

spontaneous generation and natural development? So broad a question,

involving as it does the weightiest matters connected with man, may

scarcely expect exactly the same answer from any two persons. Origin

of life, origin of mind, origin of belief, are as much problems to the

profoundest philosopher of to-day, as they were to the first

wondering, bewildered savage who wandered through primeval forests.

[Sidenote: ORIGIN OF BELIEF.]

Life is defined by Herbert Spencer as "the coördination of actions, or

their continuous adjustment;" by Lewes as "a series of definite and

successive changes, both of structure and composition, which take

place within an individual without destroying its identity;" by

Schelling as "the tendency to individuation;" by Richeraud as "a

collection of phenomena which succeed each other during a limited time

in an organized body;" and by De Blainville as "the two-fold internal

movement of composition and decomposition, at once general and

continuous." According to Hume, Mind is but a bundle of ideas and

impressions which are the sum of all knowledge, and consequently, "the

only things known to exist." In the positive philosophy of Auguste

Comte, intellectual development is divided into three phases; namely,

the Supernatural, in which the mind seeks for supernatural causes; the

Metaphysical, wherein abstract forces are set up in place of

supernatural agencies; and the Positive, which inquires into the laws

which engender phenomena. Martineau, commenting upon intuition and the

mind's place in nature, charges the current doctrine of evolution with

excluding the element of life from developing organisms. Until the

origin of mind, and the relation of mind to its environment is

determined, the origin of the supernatural must remain unaccounted

for. Yet we may follow the principle of worship back to very near its

source, if we are unable entirely to account for it.

We have seen how the inability of brutes to form in the mind long

sequences of thought, prevents speech; so, in primitive societies,

when successions of unrecorded events are forgotten before any

conception of general laws can be formed therefrom, polytheism in its

grossest form is sure to prevail. Not until the earlier stages of

progress are passed, and, from a multitude of correlative and

oft-repeated experiences, general deductions made, can there be any

higher religious conceptions than that of an independent cause for

every consequence.

By some it is alleged that the religious sentiment is a divine idea

perfected by the Creator and implanted in man as part of his nature,

before his divergence from a primitive centre. Singularly enough, the

Fathers of the Church referred the origin of fable as well as the

origin of fact to the Hebrew Scriptures. Supported by the soundest

sophistry, they saw in every myth, Grecian or barbarian, a biblical

character. Thus the Greek Hercules was none other than the Hebrew

Sampson; Arion was Jonah, and Deucalion Noah. Other mythological

characters were supposed by them to have been incarnated fiends, who

disappeared after working for a time their evil upon men.

There have been those who held myths to be the fictions of sorcery, as

there are now those who believe that forms of worship were invented by

a designing priesthood, or that mythology is but a collection of

tales, physical, ethical and historical, invented by the sages and

ancient wise men of the nation, for the purpose of overawing the

wicked and encouraging the good. Some declare that religion is a

factitious or accidental social phenomenon; others that it is an

aggregation of organized human experiences; others that it is a bundle

of sentiments which were originally projected by the imagination, and

ultimately adopted as entities; others that it is a feeling or

emotion, the genesis of which is due to surrounding circumstances.

Many believe all mythological personages to have been once real human

heroes, the foundations of whose histories were laid in truth, while

the structure was reared by fancy. The Egyptians informed Herodotus

that their deities--the last of whom was Orus son of Osiris, the

Apollo of the Grecians--were originally their kings. Others affirm

that myths are but symbolic ideas deified; that they are but the

embodiment of a maxim in the form of an allegory, and that under these

allegorical forms were taught history, religion, law and morality.

Intermingled with all these hypotheses are elements of truth, and yet

none of them appear to be satisfying explanations. All imply that

religion, in some form, is an essential constituent of humanity, and

that whatever its origin and functions, it has exercised from the

earliest ages and does yet exercise the most powerful influence upon

man; working like leaven in the lump, keeping the world in a ferment,

stirring up men to action, banding and disrupting nations, uniting and

dividing communities, and forming the nucleus of numberless societies

and institutions.

[Sidenote: RISE OF THE PRIMITIVE PRIESTHOOD.]

In every society, small and great, there are undoubtedly certain

intellects of quicker than ordinary perception, which seize upon

occasions, and by a skillful use of means obtain a mastery over

inferior minds. It is thus that political and social, as well as

ecclesiastical power arises. Not that the leader creates a want--he is

but the mouth-piece or agent of pent-up human instincts. One of these

instincts is dependence. That we are created subordinate, not absolute

nor unrestrained, is a fact from which none can escape. Thraldom,

constant and insurmountable, we feel we have inherited. Most

naturally, therefore, the masses of mankind seek from among their

fellows some embodiment of power, and ranging themselves under the

banner of leaders, follow blindly whithersoever they are led.

Perceiving the power thus placed in their hands, these born leaders of

men are not slow to invent means for retaining and increasing it. To

the inquiry of the child or unsophisticated savage, who, startled by a

peal of distant thunder, cries, "What is that?" the explanation is

given; "That is the storm-god speaking." "I am afraid, protect me!"

implores the supplicant. "I will, only obey," is the reply. The answer

is sufficient, curiosity is satisfied, and terror allayed; the

barbarian teacher gains a devotee. In this manner, the superstructure

of creeds, witchcrafts, priestcrafts, may have arisen; some gods may

thus have been made, forms of worship invented, and intercourse opened

with beings supernal and infernal. Then devotion advances and becomes

an art; professors by practice become experts. Meanwhile, craft is

economized; the wary Shamán rain-doctor--like the worthy clergyman of

civilized orthodoxy, who refused to pray for rain "while the wind was

in that quarter"--watches well the gathering ripeness of the cloud

before he attempts to burst it with an arrow. And in the end, a more

than ordinary skill in the exercise of this power, deifies or

demonizes the possessor.

But whence arises the necessity for craft and whence the craft? The

faculty of invention implies skill. Skill successfully to play upon

the instincts of humanity can only be acquired through the medium of

like instincts, and although the skill be empirical, the play must be

natural. Craft alone will not suffice to satisfy the desire; the hook

must be baited with some small element of truth before the most

credulous will seize it. If religious beliefs are the fruits of

invention, how shall we account for the strange coincidences of

thought and worship which prevail throughout all myths and cults? Why

is it that all men of every age, in conditions diverse, and in

countries widely sundered, are found searching out the same essential

facts? All worship; nearly all have their creation-myth, their

flood-myth, their theory of origin, of distribution from primitive

centres, and of a future state. In this regard as in many another,

civilization is but an evolution of savagism; for almost every

principle of modern philosophy there may be found in primitive times

its parallel.

The nature and order of supernatural conceptions are essentially as

follows: The first and rudest form of belief is Fetichism, which

invests every phenomenon with an independent personality. In the

sunshine, fire, and water, in the wind and rock and stream, in every

animal, bird, and plant, there is a separate deity; for every effect

there is a cause. Even Kepler, whose intellect could track the planets

in their orbits, must needs assume a guiding spirit for every world.

It is impossible for the mind to conceive of self-creative or

self-existent forces.

In time the personalities of the fetich-worshiper become to some

extent generalized. Homogeneous appearances are grouped into classes,

and each class referred to a separate deity, and hence Polytheism.

Pantheism then comes in and makes all created substance one with the

creator; nature and the universe are God. From the impersonating of

the forces of nature to the creation of imaginary deities there is but

a step. Every virtue and vice, every good and evil becomes a

personality, under the direct governance of which lie certain passions

and events; and thus in place of one god for many individuals, each

individual may have a multitude of his own personal gods. The theogony

of Hesiod was but a system of materialized love and hate; while, on

the other hand, the gods of Homer, although personating human

passions, were likewise endowed with moral perceptions. In them the

blind forces of nature are lighted up into a human-divine

intelligence.

In Monotheism the distinct personalities, which to the savage underlie

every appearance, become wholly generalized, and the origin of all

phenomena is referred to one First Cause. The subtle and philosophic

Greeks well knew that God to be God must be omnipotent, and

omnipotency is indivisible. That the Aztecs could believe and practice

the absurdities they did is less an object of wonder, than that the

intellectual philosophers of Athens could have tolerated the gods of

Homer. Indeed, the religion of the more cultivated Greeks appears to

us monstrous, in proportion as they were superior to other men in

poetry, art, and philosophy.

[Sidenote: THEORIES CONCERNING THE ORIGIN OF WORSHIP.]

Comparative mythologists explain the origin of worship by two

apparently oppugnant theories. The first is that whatever is seen in

nature strange and wonderful, is deemed by primitive man an object

worthy of worship. The other is, that upon certain noted individuals

are fastened metaphorical names, symbolic of some quality alike in

them and in the natural object after which they are called; that this

name, which at the first was but the surname of an individual, after

its possessor is dead and forgotten, lives, reverts to the plant or

animal whence it came, becomes impersonal, and is worshiped by a

conservative posterity. In other words, one theory fastens upon

natural phenomena, human attributes, and worships nature under

covering of those attributes, while the other worships in the natural

object only the memory of a dead and forgotten man. I have no doubt

that in both of these hypotheses are elements of truth.

In the earlier acts of worship the tendency is to assimilate the

object worshiped and the character of the worshiper, and also to

assign habitations to deities, behind man's immediate environment.

Every people has its heaven and hell; the former most generally

located beyond the blue sky, and the latter in the dark interior caves

of the earth. Man in nature reproduces himself; invests appearances

with attributes analogous to his own. This likeness of the

supernatural to the natural, of gods to man, is the first advance from

fetichism, but as the intellect advances anthropomorphism declines. As

one by one the nearest mysteries are solved by science, the emptiness

of superstition becomes apparent, and the wonderless wonder is

referred by the waking mind to general laws of causation; but still

clinging to its first conceptions it places them on objects more

remote. Man fixes his eyes upon the planets, discovers their

movements, and fancies their controlling spirit also controls his

destiny; and when released by reason from star-worship, as formerly

from fetichism, again an advance is made, always nearing the doctrine

of universal law.

In one tersely comprehensive sentence Clarke gives the old view of

what were called natural religions: "They considered them, in their

source, the work of fraud; in their essence, corrupt superstitions; in

their doctrines, wholly false; in their moral tendency, absolutely

injurious; and in their result, degenerating more and more into

greater evil."

[Sidenote: PRIESTCRAFT AND PROPITIATION.]

And this view seems to him alike uncharitable and unreasonable: "To

assume that they are wholly evil is disrespectful to human nature. It

supposes man to be the easy and universal dupe of fraud. But these

religions do not rest on such a sandy foundation, but on the feeling

of dependence, the sense of accountability, the recognition of

spiritual realities very near to this world of matter, and the need of

looking up and worshiping some unseen power higher and better than

ourselves. We shall find them always feeling after God, often finding

him. We shall see that in their origin they are not the work of

priestcraft, but of human nature; in their essence not superstitions,

but religions; in their doctrines true more frequently than false; in

their moral tendency good rather than evil. And instead of

degenerating toward something worse, they come to prepare the way for

something better."

The nearest case to deliberate invention of deities was, perhaps, the

promulgation as objects of worship in primitive times of such

abstractions as Hope (Spes), Fear (Pallor), Concord (Concordia),

Courage (Virtus), etc. How far these gods were gods, however, in even

the ordinary heathen sense of the word, is doubtful. In any case, they

were but the extension of an old and existent principle--the

personification of divine aspects or qualities; they added no more to

what went before than a new Saint or Virgin of Loretto does to the

Catholic Church.

"It was a favorite opinion with the Christian apologists, Eusebius and

others," says Gladstone, "that the pagan deities represented deified

men. Others consider them to signify the powers of external nature

personified. For others they are, in many cases, impersonations of

human passions and propensities, reflected back from the mind of man.

A fourth mode of interpretation would treat them as copies, distorted

and depraved, of a primitive system of religion given by God to man.

The Apostle St. Paul speaks of them as devils; by which he may perhaps

intend to convey that, under the names and in connection with the

worship of those deities, the worst influences of the Evil One were at

work. This would rather be a subjective than an objective

description; and would rather convey an account of the practical

working of a corrupted religion, than an explanation of its origin or

its early course. As between the other four, it seems probable that

they all, in various degrees and manners, entered into the composition

of the later paganism, and also of the Homeric or Olympian system.

That system, however, was profoundly adverse to mere Nature-worship;

while the care of departments or provinces of external nature were

assigned to its leading personages. Such worship of natural objects or

elemental powers, as prevailed in connection with it, was in general

local or secondary. And the deification of heroes in the age of Homer

was rare and merely titular. We do not find that any cult or system of

devotion was attached to it."

So humanly divine, so impotently great are the gods of Homer; so

thoroughly invested with the passions of men, clothed in distinctive

shades of human character; such mingled virtue and vice, love and

hate, courage and cowardice; animal passions uniting with noble

sentiments; base and vulgar thoughts with lofty and sublime ideas; and

all so wrought up by his inimitable fancy into divine and supernatural

beings, as to work most powerfully upon the nature of the people.

These concrete conceptions of his deities have ever been a source of

consolation to the savage; for, by thus bringing down the gods to a

nearer level with himself, they could be more materially propitiated,

and their protection purchased with gifts and sacrifices. Thus the

Greeks could obtain advice through oracles, the Hindoo could pass at

once into eternal joys by throwing himself under the car of

Juggernaut, while the latter-day offender seeks in the assistance of

the departed to buy forgiveness with charities, and to compound crime

by building churches.

[Sidenote: UNRECORDED FACTS SOON BECOME MYTHOLOGICAL.]

The difficulty is, that in attempting to establish any theory

concerning the origin of things, the soundest logic is little else

than wild speculation. Mankind progress unconsciously. We know not

what problems we ourselves are working out for those who come after

us; we know not by what process we arrive at many of our conclusions;

much of that which is clear to ourselves is never understood by our

neighbor, and never will be even known by our posterity. Events the

most material are soon forgotten, or else are made spiritual and

preserved as myths. Blot out the process by which science arrived at

results, and in every achievement of science, in the steam engine, the

electric telegraph, we should soon have a heaven-descended agency, a

god for every machine. Where mythology ceases and history begins, is

in the annals of every nation a matter of dispute. What at first

appears to be wholly fabulous may contain some truth, whereas much of

what is held to be true is mere fable, and herein excessive skepticism

is as unwise as excessive credulity.

Historical facts, if unrecorded, are soon lost. Thus when Juan de

Oñate penetrated New Mexico in 1596, Fray Marco de Niza, and the

expedition of Coronado in 1540, appear to have been entirely forgotten

by the Cibolans. Fathers Crespi and Junípero Serra, in their overland

explorations of 1769, preparatory to the establishment of a line of

Missions along the Californian seaboard, could find no traces, in the

minds of the natives, of Cabrillo's voyage in 1542, or of the landing

of Sir Francis Drake in 1579; although, so impressed were the savages

in the latter instance, that, according to the worthy chaplain of the

expedition, they desired "with submission and fear to worship us as

gods." Nor can we think civilized memories--which ascribe the plays of

Shakespeare to Bacon, and parcel out the Iliad of Homer among

numberless unrecorded verse-makers--more tenacious. Frederick Augustus

Wolf denies that a Homer ever existed; or, if he did, that he ever

wrote his poem, as writing was at that time not generally known; but

he claims that snatches of history, descending orally from one

generation to another, in the end coalesced into the matchless Iliad

and Odyssey. The event which so strongly impressed the father,

becomes vague in the mind of the son, and in the third generation is

either lost or becomes legendary. Incidents of recent occurrence,

contemporary perhaps with the narration, are sometimes so

misinterpreted by ignorance or distorted by prejudice, as to place the

fact strangely at variance with the recital. Yet no incident nor

action falls purposeless to the ground. Unrecorded it may be,

unwitnessed, unheard by beings material; a thought-wave even, lost in

space invisible, acting, for aught we know, only upon the author; yet

so acting, it casts an influence, stamps on fleeting time its record,

thereby fulfilling its destiny. Thus linger vapory conceits long after

the action which created them has sunk into oblivion; undefined

shadows of substance departed; none the less impressive because

mingled with immortal imagery.

Turn now from outward events to inner life; from events grown shadowy

with time, to life ever dim and mysterious alike to savage and sage.

Everywhere man beholds much that is incomprehensible; within, around,

the past, the future. Invisible forces are at work, invisible agencies

play upon his destiny. And in the creations of fancy, which of

necessity grow out of the influence of nature upon the imagination, it

is not strange that mysteries darken, facts and fancies blend; the

past and the future uniting in a supernatural present.

We are never content with positive knowledge. From the earliest

workings of the mind, creations of fancy play as important a part in

ethical economy as positive perceptions. Nor does culture in any wise

lessen these fanciful creations of the intellect. In the political

arena of civilized nations, wars and revolutions for the enforcement

of opinion concerning matters beyond the reach of positive knowledge,

have equaled if they have not exceeded wars for empire or ascendancy.

In the social and individual affairs of life we are governed more by

the ideal than by the real. On reaching the limits of positive

knowledge, reason pauses, but fancy overleaps the boundary, and

wanders forward in an endless waste of speculation.

[Sidenote: RELIGIOUS AND SCIENTIFIC ULTIMATES.]

The tendency of intellectual progress, according to the philosophy of

Herbert Spencer, is from the concrete to the abstract, from the

homogeneous to the heterogeneous, from the knowable to the unknowable.

Primordially nothing was known; as superstitions and priestcraft grew

rank, everything became known; there was not a problem in the natural

or in the supernatural world unsolvable by religion. Now, when some

elements of absolute knowledge are beginning to appear, we discover,

not only that little is positively known, but that much of what has

been hitherto deemed past controverting, is, under the present régime

of thought, absolutely unknowable. Formerly ultimate religious

knowledge was attained by the very novices of religion, and ultimate

scientific knowledge was explained through their fanatical

conceptions. Not only were all the mysteries of the material universe

easily solved by the Fathers, but heaven was measured and the

phenomena of hell minutely described. Now we are just beginning to

comprehend that ultimate facts will probably ever remain unknowable

facts, for when the present ultimate is attained, an eternity of

undiscovered truth will still lay stretched out before the searcher.

Until the finite becomes infinite, and time lapses into eternity, the

realm of thought will remain unfilled. At present, and until the scope

of the intellect is materially enlarged, such theories as the origin

of the universe--held by atheists to be self-existent, by pantheists

to have been self-created, and by theists to have been originated by

an external agency--must remain, as they are now admitted to be,

questions beyond even the comprehension of the intellect. Likewise

scientific ultimates--such as the qualities of time and space, the

divisibility of matter, the co-ordination of motion and rest, the

correlation of forces, the mysteries of gravitation, light and

heat--are found to be not only not solvable, but not conceivable. And,

as with the external, so with the inward life; we cannot conceive the

nature, nor explain the origin and duration, of consciousness. The

endless speculations of biology and psychology only leave impressions

at once of the strength and weakness of the mind of man; strong in

empirical knowledge, impotent in every attempt rationally to penetrate

the unfathomable. Nowhere in mythology do we find the world

self-created or self-existent. Some external agency is ever brought in

to perform the work, and in the end the structure of the universe is

resolved into its original elements.

Primordial man finds himself surrounded by natural phenomena, the

operations of which his intelligence is capable of grasping but

partially. Certain appetites sharpen, at once, certain instincts.

Hunger makes him acquainted with the fruits of the earth; cold with

the skins of beasts. Accident supplies him with rude implements, and

imparts to him a knowledge of his power over animals. But as instinct

merges into intellect, strange powers in nature are felt; invisible

agents wielding invisible weapons; realities which exist unheard and

move unseen; outward manifestations of hidden strength. Humanity,

divine, but wild and wondering, half-fed, half-clad, ranges woods

primeval, hears the roar of battling elements, sees the ancient

forest-tree shivered into fragments by heaven's artillery, feels the

solid earth rise up in rumbling waves beneath his feet. He receives,

as it were, a blow from within the darkness, and flinging himself upon

the ground he begs protection; from what he knows not, of whom he

knows not. "Bury me not, O tumultuous heavens," he cries, "under the

clouds of your displeasure!" "Strike me not down in wrath, O fierce

flaming fire!" "Earth, be firm!" Here, then, is the origin of prayer.

And to render more effectual his entreaties, a gift is offered.

Seizing upon whatever he prizes most, his food, his raiment, he rushes

forth and hurls his propitiatory offering heavenward, earthward,

whithersoever his frenzied fancy dictates. Or, if this is not enough,

the still more dearly valued gift of human blood or human life is

offered. His own flesh he freely lacerates; to save his own life he

gives that of his enemy, his slave, or even his child. Hence arises

sacrifice.

[Sidenote: ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OF PRIESTCRAFT.]

And here also conjurings commence. The necessity is felt of opening up

some intercourse with these mysterious powers; relations commercial

and social; calamities and casualties, personal and public, must be

traced to causes, and the tormenting demon bought off. But it is

clearly evident that these elemental forces are not all of them

inimical to the happiness of mankind. Sunshine, air and water, the

benign influences in nature, are as powerful to create, as the adverse

elements are to destroy. And as these forces appear conflicting, part

productive of life and enjoyment, and part of destruction, decay, and

death, a separation is made. Hence principles of good and evil are

discovered; and to all these unaccountable forces in nature, names and

properties are given, and causations invented. For every act there is

an actor--for every deed a doer; for every power and passion there is

made a god.

Thus we see that worship in some form is a human necessity, or, at

least, a constant accompaniment of humanity. Until perfect wisdom and

limitless power are the attributes of humanity, adoration will

continue; for men will never cease to reverence what they do not

understand, nor will they cease to fear such elements of strength as

are beyond their control. The form of this conciliatory homage appears

to arise from common human instincts; for, throughout the world and in

all ages, a similarity in primitive religious forms has existed. It is

a giving of something; the barter of a valuable something for a

something more valuable. As in his civil polity all crimes may be

compounded or avenged, so in his worship, the savage gives his pride,

his property, or his blood.

At first, this spirit power is seen in everything; in the storm and in

the soft evening air; in clouds and cataracts, in mountains, rocks,

and rivers; in trees, in reptiles, beasts, and fishes. But when

progressive man obtains a more perfect mastery over the brute

creation, brute worship ceases; as he becomes familiar with the causes

of some of the forces in nature, and is better able to protect himself

from them, the fear of natural objects is lessened. Leaving the level

of the brute creation he mounts upward, and selecting from his own

species some living or dead hero, he endows a king or comrade with

superhuman attributes, and worships his dead fellow as a divine being.

Still he tunes his thoughts to subtler creations, and carves with

skillful fingers material images of supernatural forms. Then comes

idolatry. The great principles of causation being determined and

embodied in perceptible forms, adorations ensue. Cravings, however,

increase. As the intellect expands, one idol after another is thrown

down. Mind assumes the mastery over matter. From gods of wood and

stone, made by men's fingers, and from suns and planets, carved by the

fingers of omnipotence, the creature now turns to the Creator. A form

of ideal worship supplants the material form; gods known and tangible

are thrown aside for the unknown God. And well were it for the

intellect could it stop here. But, as the actions of countless

material gods were clear to the primitive priest, and by him

satisfactorily explained to the savage masses; so, in this more

advanced state men are not wanting who receive from their ideal god

revelations of his actions and motives. To its new, unknown, ideal

god, the partially awakened human mind attaches the positive

attributes of the old, material deities, or invents new ones, and

starts anew to tread the endless mythologic circle; until in yet a

higher state it discovers that both god and attributes are wholly

beyond its grasp, and that with all its progress, it has advanced but

slightly beyond the first savage conception;--a power altogether

mysterious, inexplicable to science, controlling phenomena of mind and

matter.

Barbarians are the most religious of mortals. While the busy,

overworked brain of the scholar or man of business is occupied with

more practical affairs, the listless mind of the savage, thrown as he

is upon the very bosom of nature, is filled with innumerable

conjectures and interrogatories. His curiosity, like that of a child,

is proverbial, and as superstition is ever the resource of ignorance,

queer fancies and fantasms concerning life and death, and gods and

devils float continually through his unenlightened imagination.

Ill-protected from the elements, his comfort and his uncertain

food-supply depending upon them, primitive man regards nature with

eager interest. Like the beasts, his forest companions, he places

himself as far as possible in harmony with his environment. He

migrates with the seasons; feasts when food is plenty, fasts in

famine-time; basks and gambols in the sunshine, cowers beneath the

fury of the storm, crawls from the cold into his den, and there

quasi-torpidly remains until nature releases him. Is it therefore

strange that savage intellect peoples the elements with supernatural

powers; that God is everywhere, in everything; in the most trifling

accident and incident, as well as in the sun, the sea, the grove; that

when evil comes God is angry, when fortune smiles God is favorable;

and that he speaks to his wild, untutored people in signs and dreams,

in the tempest and in the sunshine. Nor does he withhold the still,

small voice, which breathes upon minds most darkened, and into breasts

the most savage, a spirit of progress, which, if a people be left to

the free fulfillment of their destiny, is sure, sooner or later, to

ripen into full development.

[Sidenote: ORIGIN OF FETICHISM.]

We will now glance at the origin of fetichism, which indeed may be

called the origin of ideal religion, from the other standpoint; that

which arises from the respect men feel for the memory of their

departed ancestors.

The first conception of a dualty in man's nature has been attributed

to various causes; it may be the result of a combination of causes.

There is the shadow upon the ground, separate, yet inseparable; the

reflection of the form upon the water; the echo of the voice, the

adventures of fancy portrayed by dreams. Self is divisible from and

inseparably connected with this other self. Herefrom arise innumerable

superstitions; it was portentous of misfortune for one's clothes to be

stepped on; no food must be left uneaten; nail clippings and locks of

hair must not fall into the hands of an enemy. Catlin, in sketching

his portraits, often narrowly escaped with his life, the Indians

believing that in their likenesses he carried away their other self.

And when death comes, and this other self departs, whither has it

gone? The lifeless body remains, but where is the life? The mind

cannot conceive of the total extinguishment of an entity, and so the

imagination rears a local habitation for every departed spirit. Every

phenomenon and every event is analyzed under this hypothesis. For

every event there is not only a cause, but a personal cause, an

independent agent behind every consequence. Every animal, every fish

and bird, every rock and stream and plant, the ripening fruit, the

falling rain, the uncertain wind, the sun and stars, are all

personified. There is no disease without its god or devil, no fish

entangled in the net, no beast or bird that falls before the hunter,

without its special sender.

Savages are more afraid of a dead man than a live one. They are

overwhelmed with terror at the thought of this unseen power over them.

The spirit of the departed is omnipotent and omnipresent. At any cost

or hazard it must be propitiated. So food is placed in the grave;

wives and slaves, and horses and dogs, are slain, and in spirit sent

to serve the ghost of the departed; phantom messengers are sent to the

region of shadows from time to time; the messengers sometimes even

volunteering to go. So boats and weapons and all the property of the

deceased are burned or deposited with him. In the hand of the dead

child is placed a toy; in that of the departed warrior, the symbolic

pipe of peace, which is to open a tranquil entrance into his new

abode; clothes, and ornaments, and paint, are conveniently placed, and

thus a proper personal appearance guaranteed. Not that the things

themselves are to be used, but the souls of things. The body of the

chief rots, as does the material substance of the articles buried with

it; but the soul of every article follows the soul of its owner, to

serve its own peculiar end in the land of phantoms.

[Sidenote: THE WORSHIP OF DEAD ANCESTORS.]

The Chinese, grown cunning with the great antiquity of their burial

customs, which require money and food to be deposited for the benefit

of the deceased, spiritualize the money, by making an imitation coin

of pasteboard, while the food, untouched by the dead, is finally eaten

by themselves.

But whence arises the strange propensity of all primitive nations to

worship animals, and plants, and stones, things animate and inanimate,

natural and supernatural? Why is it that all nations or tribes select

from nature some object which they hold to be sacred, and which they

venerate as deity? It is the opinion of Herbert Spencer that "the

rudimentary form of all religion is the propitiation of dead

ancestors, who are supposed to be still existing, and to be capable of

working good or evil to their descendants." It is the universal custom

with savage tribes, as the character of their members becomes

developed, to drop the real name of individuals and to fix upon them

the attribute of some external object, by whose name only they are

afterwards known. Thus a swift runner is called the 'antelope,' the

slow of foot, the 'tortoise,' a merciless warrior, the 'wolf,' a

dark-eyed maid may be likened to the 'raven,' a majestic matron to the

'cypress.' And so the rivulet, the rock, the dawn, the sun, and even

elements invisible, are seized upon as metaphors and fastened upon

individuals, according to a real or fancied resemblance between the

qualities of nature and the character of the men. Inferiority and

baseness, alike with nobleness and wise conduct, perpetuate a name.

Even in civilized societies, a nickname often takes the place of the

real name. Schoolboys are quick to distinguish peculiarities in their

fellows, and fasten upon them significant names. A dull scholar is

called 'cabbage-head,' the girl with red ringlets, 'carrots.' In the

family there is the greedy 'pig,' the darling 'duck,' the little

'lamb.' In new countries, and abnormal communities, where strangers

from all parts are promiscuously thrown together, not unfrequently men

live on terms of intimacy for years without ever knowing each other's

real name. Among miners, such appellations as 'Muley Bill,' 'Sandy,'

'Shorty,' 'Sassafras Jack,' often serve all the purposes of a name. In

more refined circles, there is the hypocritical 'crocodile,' the sly

'fox,' the gruff 'bear.' We say of the horse, 'he is as fleet as the

wind,' of a rapid accountant, 'he is as quick as lightning.' These

names, which are used by us but for the moment, or to fit occasions,

are among rude nations permanent--in many instances the only name a

person ever receives.

Sometimes the nickname of the individual becomes first a family name

and then a tribal name; as when the chief, 'Coyote,' becomes renowned,

his children love to call themselves 'Coyotes.' The chieftainship

descending to the son and grandson of Coyote, the name becomes famous,

the Coyote family the dominant family of the tribe; members of the

tribe, in their intercourse with other tribes, call themselves

'coyotes,' to distinguish themselves from other tribes; the head, or

tail, or claws, or skin, of the coyote ornaments the dress or adorns

the body; the name becomes tribal, and the animal the symbol or totem

of the tribe. After a few generations have passed, the great

chieftain, Coyote, and his immediate progeny are forgotten; meanwhile

the beast becomes a favorite with the people; he begins to be regarded

as privileged; is not hunted down like other beasts; the virtues and

exploits of the whole Coyote clan become identified with the brute;

the affections of the people are centered in the animal, and finally,

all else being lost and forgotten, the descendants of the chieftain,

Coyote, are the offspring of the veritable beast, coyote.

[Sidenote: ABSTRACT CONCEPTIONS, MONSTERS, AND METAPHORS.]

Concerning image-worship and the material representation of ideal

beings, Mr. Tylor believes that "when man has got some way in

developing the religious element in him, he begins to catch at the

device of setting up a puppet, or a stone, as the symbol and

representative of the notions of a higher being which are floating in

his mind."

Primitive languages cannot express abstract qualities. For every kind

of animal or bird or plant there may be a name, but for animals,

plants, and birds in general, they have no name or conception.

Therefore, the abstract quality becomes the concrete idea of a god,

and the descendants of a man whose symbolic name was 'dog,' from being

the children of the man become the children of the dog.

Hence also arise monsters, beings compounded of beast, bird, and fish,

sphinxes, mermaids, human-headed brutes, winged animals; as when the

descendant of the 'hawk' carries off a wife from the 'salmon' tribe, a

totem representing a fish with a hawk's head for a time keeps alive

the occurrence and finally becomes the deity.

Thus realities become metaphors and metaphors realities; the fact

dwindles into shadowy nothingness and the fancy springs into actual

being. The historical incident becomes first indistinct and then is

forgotten; the metaphorical name of the dead ancestor is first

respected in the animal or plant, then worshiped in the animal or

plant, and finally the nickname and the ancestor both are forgotten

and the idea becomes the entity, and the veritable object of worship.

From forgetfulness of primogenitor and metaphor, conceiving the animal

to be the very ancestor, words are put into the animal's mouth, the

sayings of the ancestor become the sayings of the brute; hence

mythological legends of talking beasts, and birds, and wise fishes. To

one animal is attributed a miraculous cure, to another, assistance in

time of trouble; one animal is a deceiver, another a betrayer; and

thus through their myths and metaphors we may look back into the soul

of savagism and into their soul of nature.

That this is the origin of some phases of fetichism there can be no

doubt; that it is the origin of all religions, or even the only

method by which animal and plant worship originates, I do not believe.

While there are undoubtedly general principles underlying all

religious conceptions, it does not necessarily follow, that in every

instance the methods of arriving at those fundamental principles must

be identical. As with us a child weeps over a dead mother's picture,

regarding it with fond devotion, so the dutiful barbarian son, in

order the better to propitiate the favor of his dead ancestor,

sometimes carves his image in wood or stone, which sentiment with time

lapses into idolatry. Any object which strikes the rude fancy as

analogous to the character of an individual may become an object of

worship.

The interpretation of myth can never be absolute and positive; yet we

may in almost every instance discover the general purport. Thus a

superior god, we may be almost sure, refers to some potent hero, some

primitive ruler, whom tradition has made superhuman in origin and in

power; demigods, subordinate or inferior beings in power, must be

regarded as legendary, referring to certain influential persons,

identified with some element or incident in which the deified

personage played a conspicuous part.

Although in mythology religion is the dominant element, yet mythology

is not wholly made up of religion, nor are all primitive religions

mythical. "There are few mistakes" says Professor Max Müller "so

widely spread and so firmly established as that which makes us

confound the religion and the mythology of the ancient nations of the

world. How mythology arises, necessarily and naturally, I tried to

explain in my former lectures, and we saw that, as an affection or

disorder of language, mythology may infect every part of the

intellectual life of man. True it is that no ideas are more liable to

mythological disease than religious ideas, because they transcend

those regions of our experience within which language has its natural

origin, and must therefore, according to their very nature, be

satisfied with metaphorical expressions. Eye hath not seen, nor ear

heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man. Yet even the

religions of the ancient nations are by no means inevitably and

altogether mythological. On the contrary, as a diseased frame

pre-supposes a healthy frame, so a mythological religion pre-supposes,

I believe, a healthy religion."

[Sidenote: FUNDAMENTAL IDEAS OF RELIGION.]

The universal secrets of supernatural beings are wrapped up in

probable or possible fable; the elements of physical nature are

impersonated in allegories, and arrayed in forms perceptible to the

imagination; deities are sometimes introduced into the machinery of

the supernatural in order to gratify that love for the marvelous which

every attempt to explain the mysterious forces of nature creates in

the ignorant mind. Yet it cannot truly be said that any form of

religion, much less any religion was wholly invented. Fanatics

sometimes originate doctrines, and the Church sets forth its dogmas,

but there must be a foundation of truth or the edifice cannot stand.

Inventions there undoubtedly have been and are, but inventions, sooner

or later fall to the ground, while the essential principles underlying

religion and mythology, though momentarily overcome or swept away, are

sure to remain.

Every one of the fundamental ideas of religion is of indigenous

origin, generating spontaneously in the human heart. It is a

characteristic of mythology that the present inhabitants of the world

descended from some nobler race. From the nobler impulses of fancy the

savage derives his origin. His higher instincts teach him that his

dim distant past, and his impenetrable future, are alike of a lighter,

more ethereal nature; that his earthly nature is base, that that which

binds him to earth is the lowest, vilest part of himself.

The tendency of positive knowledge is to overthrow superstition. Hence

as science develops, many tenets of established religions, palpably

erroneous, are dropped, and the more knowledge becomes real, the more

real knowledge is denied. Superstition is not the effect of an active

imagination, but shows rather a lack of imagination, for we see that

the lower the stage of intelligence, and the feebler the imagination,

the greater the superstition. A keen, vivid imagination, although

capable of broader and more complicated conceptions, is able to

explain the cruder marvels, and consequently to dispel the coarser

phases of superstition, while the dull intellect accepts everything

which is put upon it as true. Ultimate religious conceptions are

symbolic rather than actual. Ultimate ideas of the universe are even

beyond the grasp of the profoundest intellect. We can form but an

approximate idea of the sphere on which we live. To form conceptions

of the relative and actual distances and magnitudes of heavenly

bodies, of systems of worlds, and eternities of space, the human mind

is totally inadequate. If, therefore, the mind is unable to grasp

material visible objects, how much less are we able to measure the

invisible and eternal.

When therefore the savage attempts to solve the problem of natural

phenomena, he first reduces broad conceptions to symbolic ideas. He

moulds his deity according to the measure of his mind; and in forming

a skeleton upon which to elaborate his religious instincts, proximate

theories are accepted, and almost any explanation appears to him

plausible. The potential creations of his fancy are brought within the

compass of his comprehension; symbolic gods are moulded from mud, or

carved from wood or stone; and thus by segregating an infinitesimal

part of the vast idea of deity, the worshiper meets the material

requirements of his religious conceptions. And although the lower

forms of worship are abandoned as the intellect unfolds, the same

principle is continued. We set up in the mind symbols of the ultimate

idea which is too great for our grasp, and imagining ourselves in

possession of the actual idea, we fall into numberless errors

concerning what we believe or think. The atheistic hypothesis of

self-existence, the pantheistic hypothesis of self-creation, and the

theistic hypothesis of creation by an external agency are equally

unthinkable, and therefore as postulates equally untenable. Yet

underlying all, however gross or superstitious the dogma, is one

fundamental truth, namely, that there is a problem to be solved, an

existent mysterious universe to be accounted for.

Deep down in every human breast is implanted a religiosity as a

fundamental attribute of man's nature; a consciousness that behind

visible appearances is an invisible power; underlying all conception

is an instinct or intuition from which there is no escape, that beyond

material actualities potential agencies are at work; and throughout

all belief, from the stupidest fetichism to the most exalted

monotheism, as part of these instinctive convictions, it is held that

the beings, or being, who rule man's destiny may be propitiated.

The first cry of nature is hushed. From time immemorial nations and

peoples have come and gone, whence and whither no one knows; entering

existence unannounced they disappear and leave no trace, save perhaps

their impress on the language or the mythology of the world. Thus from

historic fact blended with the religious sentiments springs the Mythic

Idea.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: CLASSIFICATION OF PACIFIC STATES' MYTHS.]

In the following chapters, I have attempted, as far as practicable, to

classify the Myths of the Pacific States under appropriate heads. In

making such a classification there is no difficulty, except where in

one myth occur two or more divisions of the subject, in which case it

becomes necessary, either to break the narrative, or make exceptions

in the general rule of classifying. I have invariably adopted the

latter alternative. The divisions which I make of Mythology are as

follows: I. Origin and End of Things; II. Physical Myths; III. Animal

Myths; IV. Gods, Supernatural Beings, and Worship; V. The Future

State.