THE ABORIGINES OF AMERICA.
Darin besteht eben die Bedeutung der Amerikanishen Religionen,
dass sie mehr als andere, wenigstens mehrals andere Religionen
von Kulturvölkern, das primitive und unabgeschwächte Heidenthum
darstellen.--DR. J. G. MÜLLER.
The religion of the American Indians and Alaskans partakes of the
character of their national life; yet there are traces of the original
ideas of God, the creation and early history of man and the world,
which we find in the religions of the far Eastern nations. As we have
before said, we believe the early inhabitants of America to have come
from the eastern shores of Asia, having been washed along in their
fishing vessels by the current of the Kuro Shiwo (or black stream),
flowing by the western coasts of America, or perhaps crossing on the
islands of the North Pacific, where Asia and America almost come
together. They differ from the peoples of Eastern Asia, but, perhaps,
only in such points as a different climate and different habits of life
would produce.
All the people of the continent of America appear to have come from
one stock. The squalid Esquimaux at one extremity of the chain, the
polished Aztec or Inca at the other; agriculturists, and hunters, and
canoe-men; tribes frequenting the shores of the great northern lakes,
or scattered in the dense savannahs of the South; all their languages
grow out of a few flexible tongues. They bear a resemblance to the
Turanian languages--the Malaysian, the Japanese and others. We can
divide the American peoples into two classes--the civilized and the
savage. To the first class belong the Mexicans and Peruvians; to the
latter, the savages of North America, including the Red Indians, the
Alaskans and the inhabitants of the West Indies, and wild tribes of
South America--the Patagonians, Guianians, etc.
THE INDIANS OF NORTH AMERICA.
[Illustration: INDIAN MEDICINE MAN.]
These nations have the virtues of savage life--a sense of honor,
according to their perceptions of duty, mutual fidelity among
individuals, a fortitude which mocks at the most cruel torments, and
a devotedness to their own tribe which makes self-immolation in its
defense easy. On the other hand, they treat their wives brutally, and
their children with indifference. The apathy under the good and ill
of life which the Stoic affected is the grand element of the Indian’s
character. Gloomy, stern and severe, he is, it would seem, a stranger
to mirth and laughter; yet, in their legends, frequent reference is
made to laughter. All outward expressions of pain or pleasure he
regards as a weakness; and the only feeling to which he ever yields
is the boisterous joy which he manifests in the moment of victory, or
under the excitement of intoxication. He is capable of great exertions
in war or the chase, but has an unconquerable aversion to regular
labor. He is extremely improvident; eats enormously while he has an
abundance of food, without thinking of the famine which may follow;
and, when liquors are supplied to him, will continue drunk for days.
Corresponding to the priests among other peoples, the Indians have
“Medicine Men;” they believe that these possess great power, and they
trust implicitly in all their directions.
THE GREAT SPIRIT.
Most of the Indians of North America believe in the existence of a
supreme being, whom they call the Great Spirit; and of a subordinate
one, whose nature is evil and hostile to man. To the latter their
worship is principally addressed; the Good Spirit, in their opinion,
needing no prayers to induce him to aid and protect His creatures.
They generally believe in a future state, in which the souls of brave
warriors and chaste wives enjoy a tranquil and happy existence with
their ancestors and friends, spending their time in those exercises in
which they delighted when on earth. The Dakotas believe that the road
to these “villages of the dead” leads over a rock with an edge as sharp
as a knife, on which only the good are able to keep their footing. The
wicked fall off and descend to the region of the Evil Spirit, where
they are hard-worked, and often flogged by their relentless master.
[Illustration: INDIAN MEDICINE MEN.]
Showing the hideous costumes and decorations they sometimes assume in
their incantations.]
WORSHIP OF ANCESTORS.
As we shall find among the Chinese, the Indians worshiped the spirits
of their dead ancestors. As among the Chinese, the periodical
offering of cakes, libations, flesh or viands at the grave to
ancestors, is seen to be an idea incorporated into the practice of
the American, at least the Algonic Indians. These Indians, believing
in the twofold nature of the soul, and that the soul sensorial abides
for a time with the body in the grave, requiring food for its ghostly
existence and journeyings, deposit meat and other food at and after
the time of interment. _This custom is universal_, and was one of
their earliest traits.
Few things in savage life are of more singular interest than the
ceremonies of a burial. Some of the tribes, for instance, take the body
of their dead, and having clothed it in the best robes and ornaments,
furnish it with many articles which are supposed most desirable, and,
wrapping the whole carefully in soft, wet hides, place the precious
burden on a scaffold several feet high. In the course of time, the
scaffold falls; then the relatives assemble and bury the remains,
except the skull; this they place on the ground, where there are
perhaps a hundred skulls in a circle, all looking inward. About this
place of skulls the women are often seen, sitting with their work for
hours at a time, holding in their laps the skull of a dead child; and
not unfrequently they are seen to clasp these skulls in their arms and
lie down, talking as if to a living child, until they fall asleep.
The Sioux Indians wrap their dead in skins, and lodge them in the
branches of trees, never forgetting to place a wooden dish near the
head, that the friend may quench his thirst in the long journey he is
supposed to have begun.
Among the Patagonians the dead are frequently reduced to skeleton
before burial, and are washed and arrayed in new clothing once a year.
The bodies, while being prepared, are laid on platforms and guarded
by the relatives, who, dressed in long robes, strike the ground
continually with spears or staves, and keep up a mournful song to drive
away the spirits, who they fear are unfriendly to the dead.
[Illustration: INDIAN BURIAL PLACE.]
The Indians, like the Africans, worship fetiches or material objects in
which either the gods personally or some supernatural power is supposed
to dwell. It not infrequently happens that if an Indian dreams of an
idol or fetich of a certain form, when he wakes he proceeds to make it
according to the pattern of his vision, and this is the secret history
of many of the grotesque forms which are favorite symbols with them in
their sacred rites. These they designate Manitos.
[Illustration: INDIAN IMAGE.
Seen in a dream and made by a Medicine Man.]
INDIAN LEGENDS.
The Indians’ hopes, fears, worships, and whole faith and life are found
in their legends and myths. These are preserved by oral tradition, by
being handed down by word of mouth from generation to generation. In
the leisure from hunting or war, they gather in the lodge or about the
camp-fire and rehearse these stories. As Longfellow has sung:
“Should you ask me, whence these stories?
Whence these legends and traditions,
With the odors of the forest,
With the dew and damp of meadows,
With the curling smoke of wigwams,
With the rushing of great rivers,
With their frequent repetitions,
And their wild reverberations,
As of thunder in the mountains?
I should answer, I should tell you,
I repeat them as I heard them
From the lips of Nawadaha.
“Ye whose hearts are fresh and simple,
Who have faith in God and Nature,
Who believe, that in all ages
Every human heart is human,
That in even savage bosoms
There are longings, yearnings, strivings
For the good they comprehend not,
That the feeble hands and helpless,
Groping blindly in the darkness,
Touch God’s right hand in that darkness
And are lifted up and strengthened.”
THE “SONG OF HIAWATHA.”
Hiawatha is a personage of miraculous birth, whom the Indians believed
to have been sent among them to clear their rivers, forests and
fishing-grounds, and to teach them the arts of peace. To the patient,
toilsome investigations of Dr. H. R. Schoolcraft, our knowledge of
Indian legends is due. The poet, Longfellow, has gracefully woven many
of these legends together in his “Song of Hiawatha.”
Hiawatha is regarded as the messenger of the Great Spirit, sent down
to them in the character of a wise man, and a prophet. But he comes
clothed with all the attributes of humanity, as well as the power of
performing miraculous deeds. He adapts himself perfectly to their
manners, customs and ideas. He is brought up from a child among them.
He is made to learn their mode of life. He takes a wife, builds a
lodge, hunts and fishes like the rest of them, sings his war songs
and medicine songs, goes to war, has his triumphs, has his friends
and foes, suffers, wants, hungers, is in dread or joy; and, in fine,
undergoes all the vicissitudes of his fellows. His miraculous gifts and
powers are always adapted to his situation. When he is swallowed by a
great fish, with his canoe, he escapes by the exertion of these powers,
but always, as much as possible, in accordance with Indian maxims and
means. He is provided with a magic canoe, which goes where it is bid;
yet, in his fight with the great Wampura prince, he is counseled by a
woodpecker to know where the vulnerable point of his antagonist lies.
He rids the earth of monsters and giants, and clears away windfalls and
obstructions to the navigation of streams. But he does not do these
feats by miracles; he employs strong men to help him. When he means
to destroy the great serpents, he changes himself into an old tree,
and stands on the beach till they come out of the water to bask in the
sun. Whatever man could do in strength or wisdom he could do. But he
never does things above the comprehension or belief of his people; and
whatever else he is, he is always true to the character of an Indian.
He leaps over extensive regions of country, like an _ignis-fatuus_,
the false light caused by the vapors of the swamp which misleads the
traveler. He appears suddenly like an incarnation of a god, or saunters
over weary wastes a poor and starving hunter. His voice is at one
moment deep and sonorous as a thunder-clap, and at another clothed with
the softness of feminine supplication. Such is the character of whom
Longfellow has sung.
INDIAN ALLEGORY OF WINTER AND SPRING.
An old man was sitting in his lodge, by the side of a frozen stream.
It was the close of winter, and his fire was almost out. He appeared
very old and very desolate. His locks were white with age, and he
trembled in every joint. Day after day he passed in solitude, and he
heard nothing but the sounds of the tempest, sweeping before it the
new-fallen snow.
One day, as his fire was just dying, a handsome young man approached
and entered his dwelling. His cheeks were red with the blood of youth,
his eyes sparkled with animation, and a smile played upon his lips.
He walked with a light and quick step. His forehead was bound with a
wreath of sweet grass, in place of a warrior’s frontlet, and he carried
a bunch of flowers in his hand.
“I blow my breath,” said the old man, “and the streams stand still. The
water becomes stiff and hard as clear stone.”
“I breathe,” said the young man, “and flowers spring up all over the
plains.”
“I shake my locks,” retorted the old man, “and snow covers the land.
The leaves fall from the trees at my command, and my breath blows them
away. The birds get up from the water and fly to a distant land. The
animals hide themselves from my breath, and the very ground becomes as
hard as flint.”
“I shake my ringlets,” rejoined the young man, “and warm showers of
soft rain fall upon the earth. The plants lift up their heads out of
the earth, like the eyes of children glistening with delight. My voice
recalls the birds. The warmth of my breath unlocks the streams. Music
fills the groves wherever I walk, and all nature rejoices.”
At length the sun began to rise. A gentle warmth came over the place.
The tongue of the old man became silent. The robin and bluebird began
to sing on the top of the lodge. The stream began to murmur by the
door, and the fragrance of growing herbs and flowers came softly on the
vernal breeze.
Daylight fully revealed to the young man the character of his
entertainer. When he looked upon him, he had the icy visage of Peboan.
Streams began to flow from his eyes. As the sun increased, he grew less
and less in stature, and anon had melted completely away. Nothing
remained on the place of his lodge-fire but the miskodeed, a small
white flower, with a pink border, which is one of the earliest species
of northern plants.
ALASKA.
The Thlinkets, an Alaskan tribe, will illustrate the worship of the
Alaskans generally. Their religion is a feeble Polytheism. Yehl is
the maker of wood and waters. He put the sun, moon and stars in their
places. He lives in the east, near the head-waters of the Naass River.
He makes himself known in the east wind “Ssankheth,” and his abode is
“Nass-shak-yehl.”
At that time the sun, moon and stars were kept by a rich chief in
separate boxes, which he allowed no one to touch. Yehl, by strategy,
secured and opened these boxes, so that the moon and stars shone in
the sky. When the sun-box was opened, the people, astonished at the
unwonted glare, ran off into the mountains, woods, and even into the
water, becoming animals or fish. He also provided fire and water.
Having arranged everything for the comfort of the Thlinkets, he
disappeared where neither man nor spirit can penetrate.
As the good spirits, from the very nature of the case, will not harm
them, the Alaskans pay but little attention to them. They give their
chief attention to propitiating the evil spirits, so that their
religion practically resolves itself into devil-worship or demonolatry.
This is called Shamanism, or the giving of offerings to evil spirits
to prevent them from doing mischief to the offerer. It is said to have
been the old religion of the Tartar race before the introduction of
Buddhism, and is still that of the Siberians. Indeed, Paul long ago
declared, “the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to
_devils_ and not to God.” The one whose office it is to perform
these rites is called a shaman, and is the sorcerer or medicine-man
of the tribes. The shaman has control, not only of the spirits, but,
through the spirits, of disease, of the elements, and of nature; he
holds in his power success or misfortune, blessing or cursing. “The
honor,” says Dali, “with which a shaman is regarded depends on the
number of spirits under his control, who, properly employed contribute
largely to his wealth.”
INDIAN SUN-WORSHIP.
We are informed that the worship of the sun lies at the foundation
of all the ancient mythologies, deeply enveloped as they are, when
followed over Asia Minor and Europe, in symbolic and linguistic
subtleties and refinements. The symbolic fires erected on temples and
altars to Baal, Chemash and Moloch, burned brightly in the valley
of the Euphrates long before the pyramids of Egypt were erected,
or its priestly-hoarded hieroglyphic wisdom resulted in a phonetic
alphabet. In Persia these altars were guarded and religiously fed by a
consecrated body of magical priesthood, who recognized a Deity in the
essence of an eternal fire and a world-pervading light.
[Illustration: AMAZONIAN INDIANS WORSHIPING THE SUN.]
The same dogma, derived apparently from the east and not from the west,
through Europe, was fully installed at Atacama and Cuzco, in Peru, at
Cholulu, on the magnificent and volcano-lighted peaks of Mexico, and
along the fertile deltas of the Mississippi valley. Altar-beds for
a sacred fire, lit to the Great Spirit, under the name and symbolic
form of Cuzis, or the sun, where the frankincense of the nicotiana
was offered, with hymns and genuflections, have been discovered, in
many instances, under the earth-heaps and artificial mounds and places
of sepulture of the ancient inhabitants. Intelligent Indians yet
living among the North American tribes, point out the symbol of the
sun, in their ancient muzzinabikons or rock-inscriptions, and also amid
the ideographic tracery and bark-scrolls of the hieratic, or priestly
inscriptions, and of the magical medicine-songs.
AMAZON SUN-WORSHIP.
We turn away to the savage tribes of South America and find many of
the forms of faith and worship which we have seen among the Northern
Indians and among the nations of the Eastern world at about the time
of the dispersion of the nations. Thus among the Amazon Indians of
Western Brazil, we find the same worship of the sun that we have seen
in Egypt, in Assyria, in Japan, and among the Indians of North America.
A traveler among them says: “A sound fell upon our ears that seemed to
issue from the depths of a distant cavern. We could tell it to be a
chorus of voices, chanting some sad or solemn refrain. As we listened
it grew louder, as if the chanters were drawing nearer; and in the same
degree, it was becoming more joyful. All at once a procession appeared
approaching the spot, men marching two and two, with files of women
intermingled.
“As its head emerged from among the thick-standing tree-trunks, we
recognized our old Zummate friends, dressed in all the gala of a grand
holiday, with plumed circlets upon their heads, feather armlets, and
garters of the same, girt just below the knee.
“On reaching the malocca, they broke ranks, at the same time bursting
into peals of joyous laughter. Then surrounding they embraced us, the
chief in a speech again making us welcome to their village.
“We soon discovered the cause of their absence from home with all these
mysterious proceedings. The day was a grand festival--a religious
ceremony annually observed by the tribe, when every man, woman and
child go forth into the woods, to worship the sun.
“There, near the mouth of the Amazon, and amid the mountains of Guiana,
is found the same _culte_, observed by the ancient Peruvians in the
days of Pizarro and the Mexicans before Cortez Christianized them.”
THE ARAUCANIANS.
The Araucanians, in the north-western part of South America, believe
in a supreme being, and in many subordinate spirits, good and bad.
They believe also in omens and divinations, but they have neither
temples nor idols, nor religious rites; and discover upon the whole so
little aptitude for the reception of religious ideas that the Catholic
missionaries that have settled among them have had very little success
in imbuing their minds with a knowledge of Christianity. They believe
in a future state, and have a confused tradition respecting a deluge
from which some persons were saved on a high mountain; but in other
respects religious knowledge is lacking.
PATAGONIA.
The religion of the Patagonian is a Polytheism, the natives believing
that there are great numbers of deities, some good and some evil. Each
family is under the guardianship of one of the good deities, and all
the members of that family join him when they die. Beside these gods
there are subordinate demons, good to their own friends, but bad toward
all others; so that, on the whole, the bad predominates in them. They
are called by the name of Valichu.
Yet, among some of the Patagonian tribes, there is a considerable
approach to personal religion. It has been thought with some reason
that they are totally destitute of religion. This, however, is
certainly not the case, as even our limited knowledge of these people,
their language and their habits show that, even though they may not
possess any definite system of worship, they are still impressed with
the idea of some Being infinitely greater than themselves, who knows
everything that they do. Thus they believe in an omniscient Being; and
such a belief as this, limited and imperfect though it may be, is yet a
step in the right direction.
To this unknown Being they return thanks for a supply of food after a
long famine; so that we find them acknowledging that the great Being,
who knows all their deeds, watches over them and is the giver of all
good things. When, for example, they have procured a seal, after having
been half starved for months, they assemble round a fire, and the
oldest man present cuts for each person a piece of the seal, uttering
over each portion a sort of prayer, and looking upward in devotion to
the unseen God who had sent them meat in their need. Undisciplined as
are the Patagonians, totally unaccustomed to self-denial and mad with
hunger, not one of them will touch the food until this invocation has
been repeated. Thus they show a devout spirit.
THE AZTECS.
The religion of the Mexicans breathed a savage spirit, which degraded
them, in a moral point of view, far below the hordes of wandering
Indians. Their deities, represented by misshapen images of serpents and
other hideous animals, were the creation of the darkest passions of the
human breast--of terror, hatred, cruelty and revenge. They delighted in
blood, and thousands of human sacrifices were annually offered at their
shrines.
The places of worship, called Teocallis, were pyramids composed of
terraces placed one above another, like the temple of Belus at Babylon.
These were built of clay, or of alternate layers of clay and unburnt
bricks, but, in some cases, faced with slabs of polished stone, on
which figures of animals were sculptured in relief. One or two small
chapels stood upon the summit, inclosing images of the deity. The
largest known Teocalli contains four stories or terraces, and has
a breadth of 480 yards at the base and a height of 55 yards. These
structures served as temples, tombs and observatories.
[Illustration: ANCIENT AZTEC IDOL.]
The Aztecs believed in one supreme, invisible creator of all things,
the ruler of the universe, named Taotl--a belief, it is conjectured,
not native to them, but derived from their predecessors, the Taoltecs.
Under this supreme being stood thirteen chief and two hundred inferior
deities, each of whom had his sacred day and festival. At their head
was the patron god of the Aztecs, the frightful Huitzilopochtli, the
Mexican _Mars_. His temples were the most splendid and imposing.
In every city of the empire his altars were drenched with the blood of
human sacrifice. Cortez and his companions were permitted by Montezuma
to enter his temple in the city of Mexico, and to behold the god
himself. He had a broad face, wide mouth and terrible eyes. He was
covered with gold, pearls and precious stones, and was girt about with
golden serpents. On his neck, a fitting ornament, were the faces of men
wrought in silver, and their hearts in gold. Close by were braziers
with incense, and on the braziers three real hearts of men who had that
day been sacrificed. The smell of the place, we are told, was like that
of a slaughter-house.
To supply victims for the sacrifices, the emperors made war on all
the neighboring and subsidiary States, or in case of revolt, in any
city of their dominions, and levied a certain number of men, women
and children by way of indemnity. The victims were borne in triumphal
processions and to the sound of music, to the summit of the great
temples, where the priests, in sight of assembled crowds, bound them to
the sacrificial stone, and opening the breast tore from it the bleeding
heart which was either laid before the image of the gods, or eaten
by the worshipers, after having been carefully cut up and mixed with
maize. In the years immediately preceding the Spanish conquest, not
less than 20,000 victims were annually immolated.
These atrocities were sometimes, though incongruously, blended with
milder forms of worship, in which fruits, flowers and perfumes were
offered up amid joyous outbursts of song and dance. According to their
mythology, Taotl, who delighted in these purer sacrifices, had once
reigned in Anahuac (a name which at first probably applied only to the
country in the immediate vicinity of the capital, though afterward it
was applied to the whole Aztec empire) in the golden age of the world
but being obliged, from some unexplained cause, to retire from earth,
he departed by way of the Mexican Gulf, promising to return.
This wide-spread tradition accelerated the success of the Spaniards,
whose light skins and long dark hair and beards were regarded as
evidences of their affinity with the long-looked-for divinity. The
Mexican priesthood formed a rich and powerful order of the State and
were so numerous that Cortez found as many as 5,000 attached to the
temple of Mexico. The education of the young of both sexes remained,
till the age of puberty, in the hands of the priests and priestesses,
and the sacerdotal class were thus able to exercise a widely-diffused
influence, which, under the later rulers, was almost equal to that
of the emperor himself. The women shared in all the occupations of
the men, and were taught, like them, the arts of reading, writing,
ciphering, singing in chorus, dancing, etc., and they were even
initiated into the secrets of astronomy and astrology. These facts
indicate a civilization far above that of many other nations and
tribes.
[Illustration: SUN-WORSHIP AMONG THE PERUVIANS.]
THE INCAS.
The government of Peru was a theocracy. The Inca was at once the
temporal sovereign and the supreme pontiff. He was regarded as the
descendant and representative of the great deity, the sun, who was
supposed to inspire his counsels, and speak through his orders and
decrees. Hence even slight offenses were punished with death, because
they were regarded as insults offered to the divinity. The race of
the Incas was held sacred. To support its pretensions, it was very
desirable that it should be kept pure and distinct from the people;
but human passions are often too strong for the dictates of policy;
and though the marriages of the family were confined to their own
race, the emperor, as well as the other males of the blood royal, kept
large harems stocked with beauties drawn from all parts of the empire,
and multiplied a spurious progeny, in whom the blood of the “children
of the sun” was blended with that of the “children of the earth.”
Among a simple-minded and credulous people the claims of the Incas to
a celestial origin seem to have been implicitly believed. They were
blindly obeyed, and treated with a respect bordering on adoration, by
the nobles and the common people.
The Peruvians worshiped the sun, moon, the evening star, the spirit
of thunder and the rainbow, and had erected temples in Cuzco to all
these deities. That of the sun, which was the most magnificent, had its
walls covered with plates of pure gold. The sacrifices consisted of the
objects most prized by the people--of grain, and of fruits, of a few
animals, and of the productions of their own industry. Sun-worship, as
it is the most rational of all forms of idolatry, is also generally the
most mild; and doubtless this results from the tendency which it has
to fix the thoughts on the marks of beneficence and wisdom which are
displayed in the works of nature. The Peruvian temples were accordingly
never polluted, like those of Mexico, with the blood of human victims;
and the Incas even went farther, and signalized their zeal against such
horrid rites, by suppressing them in all the countries they conquered.
[Illustration: ANCIENT PERUVIAN TEMPLE OF THE SUN.]
The temple of the Sun at Cuzco, called _Coricancha_ or “Place of
Gold,” was the most magnificent edifice in the empire. On the western
wall, and opposite the eastern portal, was a splendid representation of
the sun, the god of the nation. It consisted of a human face in gold,
with innumerable golden rays emanating from it in every direction; and
when the early beams of the morning sun fell upon this brilliant golden
disc, they were reflected from it as from a mirror, and again reflected
throughout the whole temple by the numberless plates, cornices, bands
and images of gold, until the temple seemed to glow with a sunshine
more intense and glorious than that of nature.