[Decoration]
The creation myths of America form a complete system; they give a
detailed and circumstantial account of the origin of this world and of
all things and creatures contained in it. In the course of the various
narratives which compose this myth system an earlier world is
described to us, with an order of existence and a method of conduct on
which the life of primitive man in America was patterned.
That earlier world had two periods of duration,--one of complete and
perfect harmony; another of violence, collision, and conflict. The
result and outcome of the second period was the creation of all that
is animated on earth except man. Man, in the American scheme of
creation, stands apart and separate; he is quite alone, peculiar, and
special. Above all, he belongs to this continent. The white man was
unknown to American myth-makers, as were also men of every other race
and of every region outside of the Western Hemisphere.
Described briefly and by an Indian, the American myth system is as
follows: "There was a world before this one in which we are living at
present; that was the world of the first people, who were different
from us altogether. Those people were very numerous, so numerous that
if a count could be made of all the stars in the sky, all the feathers
on birds, all the hairs and fur on animals, all the hairs of our own
heads, they would not be so numerous as the first people."
These people lived very long in peace, in concord, in harmony, in
happiness. No man knows, no man can tell, how long they lived in that
way. At last the minds of all except a very small number were changed;
they fell into conflict,--one offended another consciously or
unconsciously, one injured another with or without intention, one
wanted some special thing, another wanted that very thing also.
Conflict set in, and because of this came a time of activity and
struggle, to which there was no end or stop till the great majority of
the first people--that is, all except a small number--were turned into
the various kinds of living creatures that are on earth now or have
ever been on earth, except man,--that is, all kinds of beasts, birds,
reptiles, fish, worms, and insects, as well as trees, plants, grasses,
rocks, and some mountains; they were turned into everything that we
see on the earth or in the sky.
That small number of the former people who did not quarrel, those
great first people of the old time who remained of one mind and
harmonious, "left the earth, sailed away westward, passed that line
where the sky comes down to the earth and touches it, sailed to places
beyond; stayed there or withdrew to upper regions and lived in them
happily, lived in agreement, live so to-day, and will live in the
same way hereafter."
The American system, as we see, begins with an unknown great,
indefinite number of uncreated beings,--in other words, of
self-existent personages or divinities. Those divinities were
everything at first; there was nothing except them, nothing aside from
them, nothing beyond them. They existed unchanged through untold
periods, or rather through a duration which would be periods were
there a measure by which to divide it. They lived side by side in
perfect concord, in the repose of a primeval chaos of quiescent mind
which presents a most remarkable analogy with the attenuated,
quiescent, undifferentiated matter which, according to the nebular
hypothesis, filled all points of space in the physical universe before
the first impulse of motion was given to it.
At last this long period is ended, there is mental difference among
most of the first people, character is evolved and has become evident;
rivalries, collisions, and conflicts begin.
The American creation myths, as far as we know them, form simply a
series of accounts of the conflicts, happenings, and various methods
by which the first world was changed into the world now existing. This
change was effected in various ways. In the myths of certain tribes or
nations, it is mainly by struggles between hostile personages. One god
of great power and character overcomes a vast number of opponents, and
changes each into some beast, bird, plant, or insect; but always the
resultant beast or other creature corresponds in some power of mind or
in some leading quality of character with the god from whose position
it has fallen. In certain single cases opponents are closely matched,
they are nearly equal in combat; the struggle between them is long,
uncertain, and difficult. At last, when one side is triumphant, the
victor says, "Hereafter you will be nothing but a ----"; and he tells
what the vanquished is to be. But at this point the vanquished turns
on the victor and sends his retort like a Parthian arrow, "You will be
nothing but a ----"; and he declares what his enemy is to be. The
metamorphosis takes place immediately on both sides, and each departs
in the form which the enemy seemed to impose, but which really
belonged to him.
There are cases in which the hero transforms numerous and mighty
enemies indirectly through a special wish which he possesses. For
example, a certain myth hero brings it about that a large company of
the first people are invited to a feast, and while all are eating with
great relish he slips out unnoted, walks around the house, and utters,
as he goes, the magic formula: "I wish the walls of this house to be
flint, the roof also." Next moment the whole house is flint-walled,
the roof is flint also. After that he says, "I wish this house to be
red-hot." It is red-hot immediately. His enemies inside are in a
dreadful predicament; they rush about wildly, they roar, they look for
an opening; there is none, they see no escape, they find no issue.
Their heads burst from heat. Out of one head springs an owl, and flies
away through the smoke-hole; out of another a buzzard, which escapes
through the same place; out of the third comes a hawk, which follows
the other two; out of a fourth some other bird. Thus the action
continues till every head in the flint house bursts open and lets out
its occupant. All fly away, and thus the whole company is
metamorphosed. Each turns into that which his qualities called for,
which his nature demanded; he becomes outwardly and visibly that which
before he had been internally and in secret.
The hero in the above case could not wish his opponents metamorphosed
directly, he could not wish this whenever he pleased or wherever he
met the great company; he had to induce them to enter the house, which
he turned by his wish into flint and then heated. When the moment of
terrible anguish came on them, the true nature of each of those people
grew evident; each head burst open, and out sprang the real person.
All those of the first people whose minds had been modified, who, so
to speak, had grown specialized internally, who were different from
that which they had been to start with, were forced to change also
externally, and could not escape or avoid that great power whose
shadow was approaching; their destiny was on them, and they felt it.
In the Wintu system, one of the two which are set forth in this
volume, nearly all changes were effected by Olelbis; but there are
examples of agents with other means. Tulchuherris turns old Tichelis
into a ground-squirrel at the climax of his perfidy. He changes Hawt,
the porter at the dangerous river, into a lamprey eel, whose children
are to be eaten by Indians in the future. Old Sas, the false and vain
chief in Saskewil, is beaten by his son-in-law, and receives his
present form of sun and moon at the end of a long and bitter struggle,
in which strength, wit, and keenness use the very last of their
resources.
There are cases in which some of the first people are so modified
mentally that they are conscious of what has happened within them.
They are ready for the change, they are willing to undergo it; but
there is no immediate occasion, no impending struggle in which an
opponent could have the chance to transform them. These people
transform themselves by the utterance of a wish, and produce their own
metamorphoses. There are still others who know, as do all, that a new
race is coming, that they will be changed when it comes unless they
are changed some time earlier. They know that they must be changed as
soon as they see the new people or a sign or a mark of their coming.
These unchanged first people, few in number comparatively, attempt to
escape; but their attempts are vain, their efforts are useless. In the
distant east they see smoke from the fires of the advancing new
people, the Indians of America, or hear the barking of the dogs of
this people, and that instant they receive the forms which are due
them. Others escape for a season and hide in dark places; but the
Indians go everywhere, and the metamorphoses continue till the career
of the first people is ended.
I have in mind at this moment a representative picture of this last
group of persons who were unwilling to be metamorphosed and strove to
avoid the new race, the inevitable Indians. They had no desire to see
men, and they fled to all sorts of lonely retreats and remote forest
places. At a certain point on the Klamath is a rough mountain slope
which rises abruptly from the water; far up, well toward the ridge,
about seven-eighths of the way from the river to the summit, is a
bulky high stone which seen from a distance looks much like a statue.
Close behind is another stone, somewhat smaller, which leans forward
in the posture of a person hastening eagerly. Both are white and
shining; they have the appearance of quartz rock. These were two
sisters hastening, rushing away to escape the coming change. When they
reached the points where they are standing at present, the foremost
sister looked toward the east and saw smoke; the second did not look,
but she heard the distant barking of dogs which came from the place
where the smoke was; both were changed into stone that same instant.
With the transformation of the last of the first people or divinities,
which was finished only when the Indians or some sign of them appeared
in every remote nook and corner in which a remnant of the first people
had taken refuge, the present order of things is established
completely. There are now in the world individualities of three
distinct sets and orders. First, that small number of the first people
whose minds had never changed, those gods who withdrew and who live in
their original integrity and harmony, who retired to places outside
the sky or above it; second, the great majority of the gods, who have
become everything in the present world save and except only Indians.
This cycle finished, there is a new point of departure, and we meet a
second group of myths concerning the existent world as it is now with
its happenings,--myths containing accounts of conflicts which are ever
recurrent, which began before all the first people were metamorphosed,
conflicts which are going on at present and which will go on forever;
struggles between light and darkness, heat and cold, summer and
winter, struggles between winds which blow in opposite directions,--in
fact, accounts of various phenomena and processes which attract the
attention of savage men more than others because savage men are living
face to face with them always.
This second group contains a large number of myths, many of them
exceedingly beautiful and, so far as they are known, highly pleasing
to cultivated people. Unfortunately few of these myths have been given
to the world yet, for the sole and simple reason that comparatively
few have been collected from the Indians.
The first cycle of myths--that is, those which refer to creation, in
other words to the metamorphoses of the first people or gods into
everything which is in the world, including the world itself--is
succeeded by another in which are described the various changes,
phenomena, and processes observed throughout nature.
In this second cycle, as I have just stated, light and darkness, heat
and cold, opposing winds, heavenly bodies appear as heroes and leading
actors. For ages the reverence, sympathy, and enthusiasm of primitive
men have been given to those heroes, and are given to them yet, by
every tribe which preserves its ancient beliefs and ideas.
In this cycle is one small group of myths which to the Indian is very
sacred, a group which in many tribes is revered beyond others. This
group associates the earth with the sky and sun considered as one
person, or the sky and sun considered as distinct from each other. To
these are added one, and sometimes two personages born of the earth.
In the simplest version of this myth the earth maiden through being
looked at by the sun becomes a mother, gives birth to a great hero,
the chief benefactor of Indians. This hero gives the race all gifts
that support existence, and it is through him that men live and
prosper. Under whatever name he appears this benefactor is really that
warm light which we see quivering, waving, and dancing above the earth
in fine weather. He is the son of the virgin earth, of that mother who
has never known a consort save the one who looked from the height of
heaven on her.
The lives of the first people are described in creation myths, and
presented as models upon which faithful Indians are to fashion their
lives at all times and places. All institutions of primitive man in
America were patterned upon those of "the first people." Every act of
an Indian in peace or in war, as an individual or as a member of a
tribe, had its only sanction in the world of the first people, the
American divinities.
There was not on this continent one institution, observance, right, or
custom which was not god-given, theoretically. The Indians of America
always acted in a prescribed manner on a given occasion, because the
gods of the world which preceded this had acted in the same manner in
similar conditions and circumstances.
No people could be more religious than those of this continent, for
there was no act of any kind in life during which they were free of
religious direction. The source of this religion is in the myths, and
in the explanations concerning them given by wise men,--in other
words, by sorcerers.
What shall we say of this Indian system, and what is its value?
The first to be said is that it is complete, and for every Indian
believer well-founded and symmetrically developed. In the primitive
religion of America there is no speculation, all is simple statement;
there are no abstractions, qualities are always connected with
persons.
Indians believe that the whole immense body of myths was delivered to
them by the first people in one place or another. Among the Iroquois
there is a detailed account of how myths were told to an ancient chief
and an assembly of the people on a circular open space in a deep
forest. On this space was a large wheel-shaped stone. From beneath
this stone came a voice which told the tale of the former world, told
how the first people had become what they are at present.
Day after day the chief and the people came to the stone, sat, and
listened till the whole cycle of tales was narrated.
On the Lower Klamath is a very old, immense tree, which has given an
account of the first world and people. This tree itself is one of the
first people metamorphosed; no one knows what its age is. Sorcerers go
to it yearly, hold converse, put questions, receive answers. Each year
a small stone is added to a pile in which there are thousands of
pebbles, apparently. This pile stands near the tree; no one is
permitted to count the stones in it. The pile is sacred; once a stone
is placed with the others, it must stay there forever.
This sacred tree has told tales of the first world,--the tales known
to Weitspekan Indians and revered by them.
On the Upper Columbia is a great rock which resembles an elk somewhat.
This rock is also an oracle, one of the first people; like the round
stone of the Iroquois, it has told of the first world, and its tales
all belong to the Shahaptians.
The Indian system has its plain and clear revelation; for believers
it has tangible and undoubted connection with the world which preceded
the present one. Its narratives explain how in one place and another
the first people revealed the tale of the world's transformation.
For the Indian this is all-satisfactory. He has a system which is
perfect, extensive, rich in details, full of interest,--a system which
gives proofs of its origin through testimony delivered by divinities.
It was revealed to the wise men, the worthies, the patriarchs of his
race. What more could he wish for? What more could he ask? Nothing.
The wisdom of his nation is more valid, more reliable than the witness
of his own senses. His eyes and ears might be deceived by tricksters,
but not by the truth delivered to great men among his own people,
preserved by them sacredly and passed down to others.
This is the position of the Indian. He believes in his own system
fully. How are we to relate ourselves to that system and its contents?
What should we think of it? How was it conceived, how developed?
We do not believe in an Indian first world nor a previous people
turned into animals, plants, insects, birds, fish, and reptiles. We
have no ancestors who founded that system; we possess no traditions
that came from it, no beliefs that are based on its teachings, no
faith in its sorcerers, no dread of their workings. Any statement as
to how the Indian system was conceived and how it was developed is
very different in character from a statement of what the Indian system
is externally and on the basis of its own story.
In presenting the system from the purely formal side we are dealing
with simple facts, which we collect and range in order. Once we
possess these ordered facts, we have the externals of everything
Indian,--not only religion, but medicine, politics, social life. We
might stop there and say, This is the system. But from our point of
view we are forced to go further, we must seek explanations. We form
no part of the Indian assembly of believers, we have no faith in their
system except to show us what the Indian mind is; hence we are forced
to ask how the Indian founded his religion and evolved it, we are
forced to look for its origin and meaning. We give no credence to his
tale of revelation; we are certain that he himself--that is, his
race--began the system, that it was developed from insignificant
beginnings, and increased through lengthy periods till it reached its
present form and fulness. We have not the details of how he acted, but
we know where the myth-maker had to begin, and we see what he has
effected.
The physical universe was for myth-makers of the old time in America
the same in principle that it is for us to-day, the visible result and
expression of unseen power and qualities. The difference between us
and them is determined by the things that we see and the way in which
we apprehend them.
What did the ancient myth-makers say of this universe, and what
interest or value has their statement for us at this moment?
The primitive men of America saw before them forests, plains, deserts,
mountains, lakes, and rivers of various sizes, from the smallest to
the greatest; they lived in climates varying from the coldest and most
inclement to the hottest and most difficult of endurance. They saw
around them on all sides a world far more hostile than friendly,--a
world of savage beasts, wild creatures, poisonous reptiles, deadly
insects. Each creature, every plant had its own fixed and settled
character, its own aim and object. Whence came beasts good for food or
clothing; whence others dangerous to life, beasts to be slain or
avoided? Whence came trees and plants of various kinds and uses?
Whence came sweetness in the maple or bitterness and poison in another
tree? What is the origin of corn, and why do poisons grow to kill as
corn does to nourish? Whence came the rattlesnake, and whence the
salmon? Because of these questions myths appeared, and those myths
gave answers which received full faith and credence,--answers on which
was built a theory of how this world arose, and what the true and
proper scheme of life was.
The myth-maker looked at the universe around him, and saw throughout
every part of it individualities having qualities, desires, and
passions in varying degrees. He observed these individualities, and
gave a detailed account and history of how this world arose. He gave
this history by projecting existence into a past which was remote and
passionless. Out of that harmonious past he evolved the present world
and its order by describing in the past world the play of all those
passions, desires, and appetites which he saw at work in life around
him. Such was the method employed in producing the American creation
myths. The task required much time, long observation, careful thought,
and no small constructive power. These creation myths with the next,
which I have mentioned already and called action myths, are the great
result of mental toil and effort in the old time on this continent. In
these two sets of myths the Indian has told what he thinks of the
universe.
When Europeans came to this hemisphere, the American myth system was
unbroken and perfect. There was no second order of thought here. The
continent was untouched by foreign conquest or ideas. The inhabitants
had lived in mental isolation, in absolute freedom from every outside
influence. Human history has no second example of a single system of
thought developed over such a vast area. Inhabited America extended at
least nine thousand miles from north to south, more than one third of
the earth's circumference and considerably more than the earth's
diameter. This territory where broadest was at least three thousand
miles from east to west, both in North and South America. Over this
immense portion of the earth's surface with its endless variety of
soil, climate, scenery, and conditions of existence, a single system
of primitive philosophy was developed with a fulness and a wealth of
illustration which could find no parallel in any other place. The
result of all this is that we have in America a monument of thought
which is absolutely unequalled, altogether unique in human experience.
The special value of this thought lies, moreover, in the fact that it
is primitive, that it is the thought of ages long anterior to those
which we find recorded on the eastern hemisphere, either in sacred
books, histories, or literature, whether preserved on baked brick,
burnt cylinders, or papyrus.
The American system, which gives us a circumstantial account of the
beginning of all things, is as far reaching as the nebular hypothesis,
or as that theory which gives a common origin to man and all sentient
existences.
Primitive man in America stood at every step face to face with
divinity as he knew or understood it. He could never escape from the
presence of those powers which had constituted the first world, and
which composed all that there was in the present one. Man's chief
means of sustenance in most parts were on land or in the water. Game
and fish of all sorts were under direct divine supervision. Invisible
powers might send forth game or withdraw it very quickly. With fish
the case was similar. Connected with fishing and hunting was an
elaborate ceremonial, a variety of observances and prohibitions. Every
man had a great many things to observe as an individual, a great many
also as a member of his tribe or society.
The most important question of all in Indian life was communication
with divinity, intercourse with the spirits of divine personages. No
man could communicate with these unless the man to whom they chose to
manifest themselves. There were certain things which a man had to do
to obtain communication with divinity and receive a promise of
assistance; but it was only the elect, the right person, the fit one,
who obtained the desired favor. For instance, twenty men might go to
the mountain place, and observe every rule carefully, but only one man
be favored with a vision, only one become a seer. Twenty others might
go to the mountain place, and not one be accounted worthy to behold a
spirit; a third twenty might go, and two or three of them be chosen.
No man could tell beforehand what success or failure might await him.
The general method at present is the following, the same as in the old
time:--
Soon after puberty, and in every case before marriage or acquaintance
with woman, the youth or young man who hopes to become a doctor goes
to a sacred mountain pond or spring, where he drinks water and bathes.
After he has bathed and dressed, he speaks to the spirits, he prays
them to come to him, to give him knowledge, to grant their assistance.
The young man takes no food, no nourishment of any sort, fasts, as he
is able, seven days and nights, sometimes longer. All this time he is
allowed no drink except water. He sleeps as little as possible. If
spirits come to him, he has visions, he receives power and favor. A
number of spirits may visit a man one after another, and promise him
aid and co-operation. The eagle spirit may come, the spirit of the elk
or the salmon,--any spirit that likes the man. The spirit says in
substance, "Whenever you call my name I will come, I will give my
power to assist you." After one spirit has gone, another may appear,
and another. A man is not free to refuse the offers of spirits, he
must receive all those who come to him. As there are peculiar
observances connected with each spirit, the doctor who is assisted by
many is hampered much in his method of living. There are spirits which
do not like buckskin; the man to whom they come must never wear
buckskin. If a man eats food repugnant to his spirit, the spirit will
kill him. As each spirit has its favorite food, and there are other
kinds which to it are distasteful, we can understand easily that the
doctor who has ten spirits or twenty (and there are some who have
thirty) to aid him is limited in his manner of living. Greatness has
its price at all times, power must be paid for in every place. Those
for whom the spirits have no regard, and they are the majority, return
home without visions or hope of assistance; the spirits are able to
look through all persons directly, and straightway they see what a man
is. They find most people unsuited to their purposes, unfit to be
assisted.
This preparation to become seers or sorcerers among Indians is of
very deep interest. I have given a considerable number of details on
the subject in notes to "Kol Tibichi." The spirit of any plant, any
star, or other personage in creation may become a man's attendant. In
our popular phraseology, this is called his "medicine."
In a Modoc myth the morning star is the attendant of the sun.
According to this myth the sun is destroyed every day physically, is
consumed into a heap of ashes; but as the sun has an immortal golden
disk in his body, a disk which contains his whole existence, he can
never perish. This disk remains always in the heap of ashes. There is
a condition, however, incident to the sun's resurrection: he must be
called. Every morning some one must rouse him, as a hireling is roused
to his daily labor. The morning star has that duty, and will never be
freed from it. While the sun exists, the morning star must call him.
At the summons of the star the golden disk springs from the pile of
ashes, the sun is renewed completely, and goes forth to run his race
till consumed again in the evening. Here we have the Phoenix rising
from its ashes daily instead of once in five centuries.
The system outlined in the myths contained in this volume is that of
the Wintus and Yanas, two stocks of Indians whom I shall describe
somewhat later.
The Wintu system is remarkable for the peculiar development of the
chief divinity, Olelbis, called also Nomhliëstawa.
The word "Olelbis" is formed of three etymological elements: ol, up;
el, in; bis, dwelling or sitting,--dwelling on high. Nomhliëstawa is
formed also of three elements: nom, west; hliës, to hurl; and tawa,
left-handed. Both names are epithets, and the Wintus have forgotten
who or what their chief divinity is; at least I have not been able to
find a man among them who could give information on this subject.
Olelbis lives in the highest part of the sky; with him are the best of
the first people. From his beautiful house, Olelpanti Hlut, he sees
everything on earth, and seems more real and familiar than any
divinity connected with other tribes. He is certainly more effective
in management, more active than any divinity of other Indian stocks,
so far as I know.
Olelbis disposes of the first people, except in a few cases, and he
retains with himself whomsoever he likes. He sends to the earth and
transforms those whom he thinks more useful below than above, and
gives the example of a single ruling divinity which, without being
all-powerful or all-wise, is able, through the knowledge and services
of others, to bear rule over the world in all places and everywhere.
The two old women, the grandmothers, are interesting persons,
counsellors of the chief divinity, rainmakers, wise with a knowledge
of people of whom Olelbis is ignorant, at least professedly. These old
women have been turned into a stone which has a spongy appearance and
looks like the inside or porous portion of bones which are without
marrow.
The great majority of Wintu metamorphoses are effected by Olelbis.
The only exceptions are those of Sas, Hawt, and Tichelis, transformed
by Tulchuherris, and certain changes such as those of color produced
at the great musical contest given by Waida Dikit. When each played on
a flute at that contest till he had done his best, till he had lost
breath, then he changed color. Though the Wintu system differs much in
detail from others, it agrees perfectly with all bodies of mythology
on the great point, the main principle, metamorphosis. Through
metamorphosis, all things have become what they are; through
revelation it was learned that the metamorphoses took place, and in
what way they took place. We must not consider the final act as the
whole; the change had been in process for a long period, and the final
words from opponents in conflict, the commands of Olelbis, the
decisions of personages who changed themselves at the approach of
Indians, or at signs of their coming, are but the very last act, the
final incident, the official ending, so to speak, of an immensely long
career in each case.
Of course there is no true information in the American ethnic religion
as to the real changes which affected the world around us; but there
is in it, as in all systems like it, true information regarding the
history of the human mind. Every ethnic religion gives us documentary
evidence. It gives us positive facts which, in their own sphere, are
as true as are facts of geology in the history of the earth's crust
and surface. They do not tell us what took place in the world without,
in the physical universe, they had no means of doing so; but they do
tell us what took place at certain periods in the world of mind, in
the interior of man.
The term "ethnic religion" needs some explanation, perhaps, before we
go further. An ethnic or primitive religion is one which belongs to
people of one blood and language, people who increased and developed
together with the beliefs of every sort which belong to them. Such a
religion includes every species of knowledge, every kind of custom,
institution, and art. Every aboriginal nation or human brood has its
gods. All people of one blood and origin are under the immediate care
and supervision of their gods, and preserve continual communication
and converse with them. According to their own beliefs, such people
received from their gods all that they have, all that they practise,
all that they know. Such people, while their blood is unmixed and
their society unconquered, adhere to their gods with the utmost
fidelity.
The bonds which connect a nation with its gods, bonds of faith, and
those which connect the individuals of that nation with one another,
bonds of blood, are the strongest known to primitive man, and are the
only social bonds in prehistoric ages. This early stage was the one in
which even the most advanced group of Indians in America found
themselves when the continent was discovered.
On the Eastern hemisphere, where there were so many races quite
distinct and different from one another, the conquest of one race by
another, or the conquest of a number of races by one, was frequent and
had a great influence on thought and on religion. The influence of one
religion or system of thought on another was sometimes considerable,
as the intellectual influence of Egypt on Greece, and sometimes great,
as that of Greece on Rome.
The influence of the physical conquest of many by one was immense
politically and socially, as in the case of Rome, which subdued Greece
and, together with Greece, all that Alexander had conquered in Asia
and Egypt. With the ruin of Carthage, Rome destroyed the ancient
thought of Phoenicia, which was closely akin to the earliest Hebrew,
and one of the most important among Semitic nations. With the conquest
and assimilation of Transalpine and Cisalpine Gaul, the whole ancient
fabric of Keltic thought on the continent gave way, and its chief
elements were lost soon after.
The last of the ethnic religions of Europe, and one of the most
valuable, that of the Lithuanians, continued in perfect condition till
the fifteenth century, when it was ended through bloodshed and
violence. This last of the systems of primitive Aryan thought in
Europe passed away leaving slight traces. We know the names of some of
its divinities; we know that it resembled the Slav, but was more
developed, that it had sacred serpents and priestesses who guarded the
holy, unquenchable fire; but, to the great regret of men of science,
we have only small fragments of the system, brief and meagre accounts
of it.
If we look closely into the religious history of the Eastern
hemisphere, we shall find the position to be approximately as
follows,--
In the oldest of the inscriptional versions of the "Book of the Dead"
on the walls of pyramids, we find the religion of Egypt advanced far
beyond the first stages of development. Though animals, birds,
reptiles, and insects occupy a prominent position in Egyptian
religion, it is not evident why they occupy that position. There is no
inscription or book to inform us. The earliest stage of Egyptian
religion is lost to us. Egyptian priests, when reproached for the
national worship rendered various animals, birds, reptiles, and
insects, creatures that were vile, useful, clean, or unclean, as the
case might be, were unable to give a cause for the worship. They were
unable for the reason that the mythologic account was unknown to them,
or had been lost or was unconsidered; whatever the reason, neither
papyrus nor inscription explains it.
The chief gods of priestly Egypt answered exactly to the Indian
divinities of the second class of myths in America, those which I have
called action myths. Among these the sun and the earth were very
prominent. Of the earliest gods of Egypt, those which answered to the
"first people," or divinities in American creation myths, we find no
account thus far. If we had that account, it would explain why there
are animals, reptiles, and insects in Egyptian religion.
In Greece those portions of the earliest mythology which were not lost
were obscured. The ancient creation myths were either misunderstood,
or were unknown to the educated at the period from which the first
literary monuments have come down to us. Hesiod arranged and shaped
Greek mythology to suit himself and his audience, so that it is quite
impossible to learn from that author what the primitive myths of
Greece were. If brought before him, he would doubtless have looked on
them much as a certain French Algonkin and Iroquois scholar of Canada
looked on the myths of America. The man had an extensive knowledge of
Algonkin and Iroquois words, but an utter contempt for Indian thought,
and no real knowledge of it whatever. When I mentioned Indian
mythology, he exclaimed: "Mais, Monsieur, c'est quelque chose
d'absurde."
No doubt the earliest creation myths were well known throughout rural
Greece among the illiterate, but there was no philosopher of that day
who knew their value. There was no man to consider them.
Roman mythology, as well as Greek, suffered from literary treatment,
and it is only by collecting detached fragments and facts of primitive
thought throughout the whole field of classic literature that we are
able to get at something beyond the official religion of polished
society in Greece and Rome.
From the wreck of ancient Keltic and Teutonic thought much has been
saved on the two islands of Ireland and Iceland. With this, together
with the American system and the mythologic inheritance of the Slav
world in Eastern Europe, we shall be able perhaps to obtain materials
with which to explain the earliest epoch of Aryan thought, the epoch
which corresponds in development with the world of American creation
myths. In that case we shall gain a connected view of Aryan
speculation and its methods from those early beginnings when there was
no passion or quality apart from a person, when symbols, metaphors,
and personifications were in the distant future. The whole problem is
to connect the thought of this continent with that of the rest of
mankind, but especially and above all with the Aryan and Semitic
divisions of it.
It is to be regretted that Semitic beliefs of the primitive period
have not come down to us more numerously; for example, those of the
Phoenicians, the earliest Hebrews, and other kindred nations.
Fortunately the Arabs, the most poetic of the race, the knightly
members of it, have given us in their history one fact of great value.
Just before the establishment of the new religion by Mohammed there
were in Mecca more than three hundred Arabic divinities, animal,
vegetable, and mineral. We can hardly doubt that the pre-Mohammedan
Arabic system of religion was the one which on a time belonged to the
whole Semitic race, different among some divisions of it in details,
of course, but substantially the same everywhere. This statement of
the Arabic condition contains a fact of immense significance. It
points to a system exactly like the American. The pre-Mohammedan
Arabic was the most splendid and important survival of primitive
religion in any historic race on the Eastern Hemisphere.
It is proper here to explain the position of spirits in the Indian
systems. All the first people are conceived as having bodies as well
as spirits. When we speak of a spirit appearing to a sorcerer or
"doctor," it is understood that that spirit has left its body
temporarily and will return to it. There are no spirits without bodies
save an exceptional few who at the time of the metamorphosis of the
first people lost the bodies which had belonged to them in their
primal condition and received no new bodies at their fall. This loss
of bodies was inflicted as a punishment. These desolate disembodied
spirits wander about now in mountains and lonely weird places. Uncanny
in character, they are seen rarely, and then only by sorcerers.
A good deal has been given to the world of late on mythology by able
writers who with good materials would attain good results; but as the
materials at their disposal are faulty, much of their work with all
its cleverness is mainly a persistent pouring of the empty into the
void.
We have seen attempts made to show that real gods have been developed
by savage men from their own dead savage chiefs. Such a thing has
never been done since the human race began, and it could never have
been imagined by any man who knew the ideas of primitive races from
actual experience or from competent testimony. The most striking thing
in all savage belief is the low estimate put on man when unaided by
divine, uncreated power. In Indian belief every object in the universe
is divine except man. Divinities have an immense range of power, there
is an incalculable difference between the greatest and the smallest of
them,--some have inconceivable strength and knowledge, while others
are measurably weak and of limited intelligence,--but all belong to
one category, all are divine, all are extra-human.
Vegetable gods, so called, have been scoffed at by writers on
mythology. The scoff is baseless, for the first people were turned, or
turned themselves, into trees and various plants as frequently as into
beasts and other creatures. Maize or Indian corn is a transformed god
who gave himself to be eaten to save man from hunger and death. When
Spanish priests saw little cakes of meal eaten ceremonially by
Indians, and when the latter informed them that they were eating their
god, the good priests thought this a diabolical mockery of the Holy
Sacrament, and a blasphemous trick of Satan to ruin poor ignorant
Indians.
I have a myth in which the main character is a violent and cruel old
personage who is merciless and faith-breaking, who does no end of
damage till he is cornered at last by a good hero and turned into the
wild parsnip. Before transformation this old parsnip could travel
swiftly, but now he must stay in one place, and of course kills
people only when they eat him.
The treasure saved to science by the primitive race of America is
unique in value and high significance. The first result from it is to
carry us back through untold centuries to that epoch when man made the
earliest collective and consistent explanation of this universe and
its origin.
Occupying this vantage-ground, we can now throw a flood of light on
all those mythologies and ethnic religions or systems of thought from
which are lost in part, great or small, the materials needed to prove
the foundation and beginnings of each of them. In this condition are
all ancient recorded religions, whether of Greece, Rome, Egypt,
Chaldea, Persia, or India.
Through amazing ability of primitive man on this continent to retain,
or perhaps through his inability to change or go forward, he has
preserved a system of thought already old at the time of the first
cuneiform letters and of the earliest statements on stone or papyrus.
And the discovery of this system of ours coincides almost with the
moment when America after a century and a quarter of free political
activity, and of intellectual labor unexampled in fruitfulness, takes
her due place as a World Power, and enters into intimate and searching
relations, not with Europe alone, or one section of mankind, but with
the whole human race wherever fixed or resident.