THE EXTENSION AND INFLUENCE OF THE TYPICAL HERO-MYTH.
THE TYPICAL MYTH FOUND IN MANY PARTS OF THE CONTINENT--DIFFICULTIES IN
TRACING IT--RELIGIOUS EVOLUTION IN AMERICA SIMILAR TO THAT IN THE OLD
WORLD--FAILURE OF CHRISTIANITY IN THE RED RACE.
THE CULTURE MYTH OF THE TARASCOS OF MECHOACAN--THAT OF THE RICHES OF
GUATEMALA--THE VOTAN MYTH OF THE TZENDALS OF CHIAPAS--A FRAGMENT OF A MIXE
MYTH--THE HERO-GOD OF THE MUYSCAS OF NEW GRANADA--OF THE TUPI-GUARANAY
STEM OF PARAGUAY AND BRAZIL--MYTHS OF THE DÈNÈ OF BRITISH AMERICA.
SUN WORSHIP IN AMERICA--GERMS OF PROGRESS IN AMERICAN RELIGIONS--RELATION
OF RELIGION AND MORALITY--THE LIGHT-GOD A MORAL AND BENEFICENT
CREATION--HIS WORSHIP WAS ELEVATING--MORAL CONDITION OF NATIVE SOCIETIES
BEFORE THE CONQUEST--PROGRESS IN THE DEFINITION OF THE IDEA OF GOD IN
PERU, MEXICO, AND YUCATAN--ERRONEOUS STATEMENTS ABOUT THE MORALS OF THE
NATIVES--EVOLUTION OF THEIR ETHICAL PRINCIPLES.
In the foregoing chapters I have passed in review the hero-myths of five
nations widely asunder in location, in culture and in language. I have
shown the strange similarity in their accounts of their mysterious early
benefactor and teacher, and their still more strange, because true,
presentiments of the arrival of pale-faced conquerors from the East.
I have selected these nations because their myths have been most fully
recorded, not that they alone possessed this striking legend. It is, I
repeat, the fundamental myth in the religious lore of American nations.
Not, indeed, that it can be discovered in all tribes, especially in the
amplitude of incident which it possesses among some. But there are
comparatively few of the native mythologies that do not betray some of its
elements, some fragments of it, and, often enough to justify us in the
supposition that had we the complete body of their sacred stories, we
should find this one in quite as defined a form as I have given it.
The student of American mythology, unfortunately, labors under peculiar
disadvantages. When he seeks for his material, he finds an extraordinary
dearth of it. The missionaries usually refused to preserve the native
myths, because they believed them harmful, or at least foolish; while men
of science, who have had such opportunities, rejected all those that
seemed the least like a Biblical story, as they suspected them to be
modern and valueless compositions, and thus lost the very life of the
genuine ancient faiths.
A further disadvantage is the slight attention which has been paid to the
aboriginal American tongues, and the sad deficiency of material for their
study. It is now recognized on all hands that the key of a mythology is to
be found in the language of its believers. As a German writer remarks,
"the formation of the language and the evolution of the myth go hand in
hand."[1] We must know the language of a tribe, at least we must
understand the grammatical construction and have facilities to trace out
the meaning and derivation of names, before we can obtain any accurate
notion of the foundation in nature of its religious beliefs. No convenient
generality will help us.
[Footnote 1: "In der Sprache herrscht immer und erneut sich stets die
sinnliche Anschauung, die vor Jahrtausenden mit dem gläubigen Sinn
vermählt die Mythologien schuf, und gerade durch sie wird es am klarsten,
wie Sprachenschöpfung und mythologische Entwicklung, der Ausdruck des
Denkens und Glaubens, einst Hand in Hand gegangen." Dr. F.L.W. Schwartz,
_Der Ursprung der Mythologie dargelegt an Griechischer und Deutscher
Sage_, p. 23 (Berlin, 1860).]
I make these remarks as a sort of apology for the shortcomings of the
present study, and especially for the imperfections of the fragments I
have still to present. They are, however, sufficiently defined to make it
certain that they belonged to cycles of myths closely akin to those
already given. They will serve to support my thesis that the seemingly
confused and puerile fables of the native Americans are fully as worthy
the attention of the student of human nature as the more poetic narratives
of the Veda or the Edda. The red man felt out after God with like childish
gropings as his white brother in Central Asia. When his course was
interrupted, he was pursuing the same path toward the discovery of truth.
In the words of a thoughtful writer: "In a world wholly separated from
that which it is customary to call the Old World, the religious evolution
of man took place precisely in the same manner as in those surroundings
which produced the civilization of western Europe."[1]
[Footnote 1: Girard de Rialle, _La Mythologie Comparée_, vol. I, p. 363
(Paris, 1878).]
But this religious development of the red man was violently broken by the
forcible imposition of a creed which he could not understand, and which
was not suited to his wants, and by the heavy yoke of a priesthood totally
out of sympathy with his line of progress. What has been the result? "Has
Christianity," asks the writer I have just quoted, "exerted a progressive
action on these peoples? Has it brought them forward, has it aided their
natural evolution? We are obliged to answer, No."[1] This sad reply is
repeated by careful observers who have studied dispassionately the natives
in their homes.[2] The only difference in the results of the two great
divisions of the Christian world seems to be that on Catholic missions has
followed the debasement, on Protestant missions the destruction of the
race.
[Footnote 1: Girard de Rialle, _ibid_, p. 862.]
[Footnote 2: Those who would convince themselves of this may read the work
of Don Francisco Pimentel, _Memoria sobre las Causas que han originado la
Situation Actual de la Raza Indigena de Mexico_ (Mexico, 1864), and that
of the Licentiate Apolinar Garcia y Garcia, _Historia de la Guerra de
Castas de Yucatan_, Prologo (Mérida, 1865). That the Indians of the United
States have directly and positively degenerated in moral sense as a race,
since the introduction of Christianity, was also very decidedly the
opinion of the late Prof. Theodor Waitz, a most competent ethnologist. See
_Die Indianer Nordamerica's. Eine Studie_, von Theodor Waitz, p. 39, etc.
(Leipzig, 1865). This opinion was also that of the visiting committee of
the Society of Friends who reported on the Indian Tribes in 1842; see the
_Report of a Visit to Some of the Tribes of Indians West of the
Mississippi River_, by John D. Lang and Samuel Taylor, Jr. (New York,
1843). The language of this Report is calm, but positive as to the
increased moral degradation of the tribes, as the, direct result of
contact with the whites.]
It may be objected to this that it was not Christianity, but its
accompaniments, the greedy horde of adventurers, the profligate traders,
the selfish priests, and the unscrupulous officials, that wrought the
degradation of the native race. Be it so. Then I merely modify my
assertion, by saying that Christianity has shown itself incapable of
controlling its inevitable adjuncts, and that it would have been better,
morally and socially, for the American race never to have known
Christianity at all, than to have received it on the only terms on which
it has been possible to offer it.
With the more earnestness, therefore, in view of this acknowledged failure
of Christian effort, do I turn to the native beliefs, and desire to
vindicate for them a dignified position among the faiths which have helped
to raise man above the level of the brute, and inspired him with hope and
ambition for betterment.
For this purpose I shall offer some additional evidence of the extension
of the myth I have set forth, and then proceed to discuss its influence on
the minds of its believers.
The Tarascos were an interesting nation who lived in the province of
Michoacan, due west of the valley of Mexico. They were a polished race,
speaking a sonorous, vocalic language, so bold in war that their boast was
that they had never been defeated, and yet their religious rites were
almost bloodless, and their preference was for peace. The hardy Aztecs had
been driven back at every attempt they made to conquer Michoacan, but its
ruler submitted himself without a murmur to Cortes, recognizing in him an
opponent of the common enemy, and a warrior of more than human powers.
Among these Tarascos we find the same legend of a hero-god who brought
them out of barbarism, gave them laws, arranged their calendar, which, in
principles, was the same as that of the Aztecs and Mayas, and decided on
the form of their government. His name was _Surites_ or _Curicaberis_,
words which, from my limited resources in that tongue, I am not able to
analyze. He dwelt in the town Cromuscuaro, which name means the
Watch-tower or Look-out, and the hour in which he gave his instructions
was always at sunrise, just as the orb of light appeared on the eastern
horizon. One of the feasts which he appointed to be celebrated in his
honor was called _Zitacuarencuaro_, which melodious word is said by the
Spanish missionaries to mean "the resurrection from death." When to this
it is added that he distinctly predicted that a white race of men should
arrive in the country, and that he himself should return,[1] his identity
with the light-gods of similar American myths is too manifest to require
argument.
[Footnote 1: P. Francisco Xavier Alegre, _Historia de la Compañia de Jesus
en la Nueva España_, Tomo i, pp. 91, 92 (Mexico, 1841). The authorities
whom Alegre quotes are P.P. Alonso de la Rea, _Cronica de Mechoacan_
(Mexico, 1648), and D. Basalenque, _Cronica de San Augustin de Mechoacan_
(Mexico, 1673). I regret that I have been unable to find either of these
books in any library in the United States. It is a great pity that the
student of American history is so often limited in his investigations in
this country, by the lack of material. It is sad to think that such an
opulent and intelligent land does not possess a single complete library of
its own history.]
The king of the Tarascos was considered merely the vicegerent of the
absent hero-god, and ready to lay down the sceptre when Curicaberis should
return to earth.
We do not know whether the myth of the Four Brothers prevailed among the
Tarascos; but there is hardly a nation on the continent among whom the
number Four was more distinctly sacred. The kingdom was divided into four
parts (as also among the Itzas, Qquichuas and numerous other tribes), the
four rulers of which constituted, with the king, the sacred council of
five, in imitation, I can hardly doubt, of the hero-god, and the four
deities of the winds.
The goddess of water and the rains, the female counterpart of Curicaberis,
was the goddess _Cueravaperi_. "She is named," says the authority I quote,
"in all their fables and speeches. They say that she is the mother of all
the gods of the earth, and that it is she who bestows the harvests and the
germination of seeds." With her ever went four attendant goddesses, the
personifications of the rains from the four cardinal points. At the sacred
dances, which were also dramatizations of her supposed action, these
attendants were represented by four priests clad respectively in white,
yellow, red and black, to represent the four colors of the clouds.[1] In
other words, she doubtless bore the same relation to Curicaberis that
Ixchel did to Itzamna in the mythology of the Mayas, or the rainbow
goddess to Arama in the religious legends of the Moxos.[2] She was the
divinity that presided over the rains, and hence over fertility and the
harvests, standing in intimate relation to the god of the sun's rays and
the four winds.
[Footnote 1: _Relacion de las Ceremonias y Ritos, etc., de Mechoacan_, in
the _Coleccion de Documentos para la Historia de España_, vol. liii, pp.
13, 19, 20. This account is anonymous, but was written in the sixteenth
century, by some one familiar with the subject. A handsome MS. of it, with
colored illustrations (these of no great value, however), is in the
Library of Congress, obtained from the collection of the late Col. Peter
Force.]
[Footnote 2: See above, chapter iv, §1]
The Kiches of Guatemala were not distant relatives of the Mayas of
Yucatan, and their mythology has been preserved to us in a rescript of
their national book, the _Popol Vuh_. Evidently they had borrowed
something from Aztec sources, and a flavor of Christian teaching is
occasionally noticeable in this record; but for all that it is one of the
most valuable we possess on the subject.
It begins by connecting the creation of men and things with the appearance
of light. In other words, as in so many mythologies, the history of the
world is that of the day; each begins with a dawn. Thus the _Popol Vuh_
reads:--
"This is how the heaven exists, how the Heart of Heaven exists, he, the
god, whose name is Qabauil."
"His word came in the darkness to the Lord, to Gucumatz, and it spoke with
the Lord, with Gucumatz."
"They spoke together; they consulted and planned; they understood; they
united in words and plans."
"As they consulted, the day appeared, the white light came forth, mankind
was produced, while thus they held counsel about the growth of trees and
vines, about life and mankind, in the darkness, in the night (the creation
was brought about), by the Heart of Heaven, whose name is Hurakan."[1]
[Footnote 1: _Popol Vuh, le Livre Sacré des Quichés_, p. 9 (Paris, 1861).]
But the national culture-hero of the Kiches seems to have been
_Xbalanque_, a name which has the literal meaning, "Little Tiger Deer,"
and is a symbolical appellation referring to days in their calendar.
Although many of his deeds are recounted in the _Popol Vuh_, that work
does not furnish us his complete mythical history. From it and other
sources we learn that he was one of the twins supposed to have been born
of a virgin mother in Utatlan, the central province of the Kiches, to have
been the guide and protector of their nation, and in its interest to have
made a journey to the Underworld, in order to revenge himself on his
powerful enemies, its rulers. He was successful, and having overcome them,
he set free the Sun, which they had seized, and restored to life four
hundred youths whom they had slain, and who, in fact, were the stars of
heaven. On his return, he emerged from the bowels of the earth and the
place of darkness, at a point far to the east of Utatlan, at some place
located by the Kiches near Coban, in Vera Paz, and came again to his
people, looking to be received with fitting honors. But like Viracocha,
Quetzalcoatl, and others of these worthies, the story goes that they
treated him with scant courtesy, and in anger at their ingratitude, he
left them forever, in order to seek a nobler people.
I need not enter into a detailed discussion of this myth, many points in
which are obscure, the less so as I have treated them at length in a
monograph readily accessible to the reader who would push his inquiries
further. Enough if I quote the conclusion to which I there arrive. It is
as follows:--
"Suffice it to say that the hero-god, whose name is thus compounded of two
signs in the calendar, who is one of twins born of a virgin, who performs
many surprising feats of prowess on the earth, who descends into the world
of darkness and sets free the sun, moon and stars to perform their daily
and nightly journeys through the heavens, presents in these and other
traits such numerous resemblances to the Divinity of Light, the Day-maker
of the northern hunting tribes, reappearing in so many American legends,
that I do not hesitate to identify the narrative of Xbalanque and his
deeds as but another version of this wide-spread, this well-nigh universal
myth."[1]
[Footnote 1: _The Names of the Gods in the Kiche Myths, Central America_,
by Daniel G. Brinton, M.D., in the _Proceedings of the American
Philosophical Society_ for 1881.]
Few of our hero-myths have given occasion for wilder speculation than that
of Votan. He was the culture hero of the Tzendals, a branch of the Maya
race, whose home was in Chiapas and Tabasco. Even the usually cautious
Humboldt suggested that his name might be a form of Odin or Buddha! As for
more imaginative writers, they have made not the least difficulty in
discovering that it is identical with the Odon of the Tarascos, the Oton
of the Othomis, the Poudan of the East Indian Tamuls, the Vaudoux of the
Louisiana negroes, etc. All this has been done without any attempt having
been made to ascertain the precise meaning and derivation of the name
Votan. Superficial phonetic similarities have been the only guide.
We are not well acquainted with the Votan myth. It appears to have been
written down some time in the seventeenth century, by a Christianized
native. His manuscript of five or six folios, in the Tzendal tongue, came
into the possession of Nuñez de la Vega, Bishop of Chiapas, about 1690,
and later into the hands of Don Ramon Ondonez y Aguiar, where it was seen
by Dr. Paul Felix Cabrera, about 1790. What has become of it is not known.
No complete translation of it was made; and the extracts or abstracts
given by the authors just named are most unsatisfactory, and disfigured by
ignorance and prejudice. None of them, probably, was familiar with the
Tzendal tongue, especially in its ancient form. What they tell us runs as
follows:--
At some indefinitely remote epoch, Votan came from the far East. He was
sent by God to divide out and assign to the different races of men the
earth on which they dwell, and to give to each its own language. The land
whence he came was vaguely called _ualum uotan_, the land of Votan.
His message was especially to the Tzendals. Previous to his arrival they
were ignorant, barbarous, and without fixed habitations. He collected them
into villages, taught them how to cultivate the maize and cotton, and
invented the hieroglyphic signs, which they learned to carve on the walls
of their temples. It is even said that he wrote his own history in them.
He instituted civil laws for their government, and imparted to them the
proper ceremonials of religious worship. For this reason he was also
called "Master of the Sacred Drum," the instrument with which they
summoned the votaries to the ritual dances.
They especially remembered him as the inventor of their calendar. His name
stood third in the week of twenty days, and was the first Dominical sign,
according to which they counted their year, corresponding to the _Kan_ of
the Mayas.
As a city-builder, he was spoken of as the founder of Palenque, Nachan,
Huehuetlan--in fact, of any ancient place the origin of which had been
forgotten. Near the last mentioned locality, Huehuetlan in Soconusco, he
was reported to have constructed an underground temple by merely blowing
with his breath. In this gloomy mansion he deposited his treasures, and
appointed a priestess to guard it, for whose assistance he created the
tapirs.
Votan brought with him, according to one statement, or, according to
another, was followed from his native land by, certain attendants or
subordinates, called in the myth _tzequil_, petticoated, from the long and
flowing robes they wore. These aided him in the work of civilization. On
four occasions he returned to his former home, dividing the country, when
he was about to leave, into four districts, over which he placed these
attendants.
When at last the time came for his final departure, he did not pass
through the valley of death, as must all mortals, but he penetrated
through a cave into the under-earth, and found his way to "the root of
heaven." With this mysterious expression, the native myth closes its
account of him.[1]
[Footnote 1: The references to the Votan myth are Nuñez de la Vega,
_Constituciones Diocesanas, Prologo_ (Romae, 1702); Boturini, _Idea de una
Nueva Historia de la America septentrional_, pp. 114, et seq., who
discusses the former; Dr. Paul Felix Cabrera, _Teatro Critico Americano_,
translated, London, 1822; Brasseur de Bourbourg, _Hist. des Nations
Civilisées de Mexique_, vol. i, chap, ii, who gives some additional points
from Ordoñez; and H. de Charencey, _Le Mythe de Votan; Etude sur les
Origines Asiatiques de la Civilization Américaine_. (Alencon, 1871).]
He was worshiped by the Tzendals as their principal deity and their
beneficent patron. But he had a rival in their religious observances, the
feared _Yalahau_ Lord of Blackness, or Lord of the Waters. He was
represented as a terrible warrior, cruel to the people, and one of the
first of men.[1]
[Footnote 1: _Yalahau_ is referred to by Bishop Nuñez de la Vega as
venerated in Occhuc and other Tzendal towns of Chiapas. He translates it
"Señor de los Negros." The terminal _ahau_ is pure Maya, meaning king,
ruler, lord; _Yal_ is also Maya, and means water. The god of the waters,
of darkness, night and blackness, is often one and the same in mythology,
and probably had we the myth complete, he would prove to be Votan's
brother and antagonist.]
According to an unpublished work by Fuentes, Votan was one of four
brothers, the common ancestors of the southwestern branches of the Maya
family.[1]
[Footnote 1: Quoted in Emeterio Pineda, _Descripcion Geografica de Chiapas
y Soconusco_, p. 9 (Mexico, 1845).]
All these traits of this popular hero are too exactly similar to those of
the other representatives of this myth, for them to leave any doubt as to
what we are to make of Votan. Like the rest of them, he and his long-robed
attendants are personifications of the eastern light and its rays. Though
but uncritical epitomes of a fragmentary myth about him remain, they are
enough to stamp it as that which meets us so constantly, no matter where
we turn in the New World.[1]
[Footnote 1: The title of the Tzendal MSS., is said by Cabrera to be
"Proof that I am a Chan." The author writes in the person of Votan
himself, and proves his claim that he is a Chan, "because he is a Chivim."
Chan has been translated _serpent_; on _chivim_ the commentators have
almost given up. Supposing that the serpent was a totem of one of the
Tzendal clans, then the effort would be to show that their hero-god was of
that totem; but how this is shown by his being proved a _chivim_ is not
obvious. The term _ualum chivim_, the land of the _chivim_. appears to be
that applied, in the MS., to the country of the Tzendals, or a part of it.
The words _chi uinic_ would mean, "men of the shore," and might be a local
name applied to a clan on the coast. But in default of the original text
we can but surmise as to the precise meaning of the writer.]
It scarcely seems necessary for me to point out that his name Votan is in
no way akin to Othomi or Tarasco roots, still less to the Norse Wodan or
the Indian Buddha, but is derived from a radical in pure Maya. Yet I will
do so, in order, if possible, to put a stop to such visionary etymologies.
As we are informed by Bishop Nuñez de la Vega, _uotan_ in Tzendal means
_heart_. Votan was spoken of as "the heart or soul of his people." This
derivation has been questioned, because the word for the heart in the
other Maya dialects is different, and it has been suggested that this was
but an example of "otosis," where a foreign proper name was turned into a
familiar common noun. But these objections do not hold good.
In regard to derivation, _uotan_ is from the pure Maya root-word _tan_,
which means primarily "the breast," or that which is in front or in the
middle of the body; with the possessive prefix it becomes _utan_. In
Tzendal this word means both _breast_ and _heart_. This is well
illustrated by an ancient manuscript, dating from 1707, in my possession.
It is a guide to priests for administering the sacraments in Spanish and
Tzendal. I quote the passage in point[1]:--
[Footnote 1: _Modo de Administrar los Sacramentos en Castellano y
Tzendal_, 1707. 4to MS., p. 13.]
"Con todo tu corazón, hiriendote
en los pechos, di, conmigo."
_Ta zpizil auotan, xatigh zny
auotan, zghoyoc, alagh ghoyoc_.--
Here, _a_ is the possessive of the second person, and _uotan_ is used both
for heart and breast. Thus the derivation of the word from the Maya
radical is clear.
The figure of speech by which the chief divinity is called "the heart of
the earth," "the heart of the sky," is common in these dialects, and
occurs repeatedly in the _Popol Vuh_, the sacred legend of the Kiches of
Guatemala.[2]
[Footnote 2: Thus we have (_Popol Vuh_, Part i, p. 2) _u qux cho_, Heart
of the Lakes, and _u qux palo_, Heart of the Ocean, as names of the
highest divinity; later, we find _u qux cah_, Heart of the Sky (p. 8), _u
qux uleu_, Heart of the Earth, p. 12, 14, etc.
I may here repeat what I have elsewhere written on this figurative
expression in the Maya languages: "The literal or physical sense of the
word heart is not that which is here intended. In these dialects this word
has a richer metaphorical meaning than in our tongue. It stands for all
the psychical powers, the memory, will and reasoning faculties, the life,
the spirit, the soul. It would be more correct to render these names the
'Spirit' or 'Soul' of the lake, etc., than the 'Heart.' They indicate a
dimly understood sense of the unity of spirit or energy in all the various
manifestations of organic and inorganic existence." _The Names of the Gods
in the Kiche Myths, Central America_, by Daniel G. Brinton, in
_Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society_, vol. xix, 1881, p.
623.]
The immediate neighbors of the Tzendals were the Mixes and Zoques, the
former resident in the central mountains of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec,
the latter rather in the lowlands and toward the eastern coast. The Mixes
nowadays number but a few villages, whose inhabitants are reported as
drunken and worthless, but the time was when they were a powerful and
warlike nation. They are in nowise akin to the Maya stock, although they
are so classed in Mr. H.H. Bancroft's excellent work.[1] They have,
however, a distinct relationship with the Zoques, about thirty per cent of
the words in the two languages being similar.[2] The Zoques, whose
mythology we unfortunately know little or nothing about, adjoined the
Tzendals, and were in constant intercourse with them.
[Footnote 1: "Mijes, Maya nation," _The Native Races of the Pacific
States_, Vol. v, p. 712.]
[Footnote 2: _Apuntes sobre la Lengua Mije_, por C.H. Berendt, M.D., MS.,
in my hands. The comparison is made of 158 words in the two languages, of
which 44 have marked affinity, besides the numerals, eight out of ten of
which are the same. Many of the remaining words are related to the
Zapotec, and there are very few and faint resemblances to Maya dialects.
One of them may possibly be in this name, Votan (_uotan_), heart, however.
In Mixe the word for heart is _hot_. I note this merely to complete my
observations on the Votan myth.]
We have but faint traces of the early mythology of these tribes; but they
preserved some legends which show that they also partook of the belief, so
general among their neighbors, of a beneficent culture-god.
This myth relates that their first father, who was also their Supreme God,
came forth from a cave in a lofty mountain in their country, to govern and
direct them. He covered the soil with forests, located the springs and
streams, peopled them with fish and the woods with game and birds, and
taught the tribe how to catch them. They did not believe that he had died,
but that after a certain length of time, he, with his servants and
captives, all laden with bright gleaming gold, retired into the cave and
closed its mouth, not to remain there, but to reappear at some other part
of the world and confer similar favors on other nations.
The name, or one of the names, of this benefactor was Condoy, the meaning
of which my facilities do not enable me to ascertain.[1]
[Footnote 1: Juan B. Carriedo, _Estudios Historicos y Estadisticos del
Estado Libre de Oaxaca_, p. 3 (Oaxaca, 1847).]
There is scarcely enough of this to reveal the exact lineaments of their
hero; but if we may judge from these fragments as given by Carriedo, it
appears to be of precisely the same class as the other hero-myths I have
collected in this volume. Historians of authority assure us that the
Mixes, Zoques and Zapotecs united in the expectation, founded on their
ancient myths and prophecies, of the arrival, some time, of men from the
East, fair of hue and mighty in power, masters of the lightning, who would
occupy the land.[1]
[Footnote 1: Ibid., p. 94, _note_, quoting from the works of Las Casas and
Francisco Burgoa.]
On the lofty plateau of the Andes, in New Granada, where, though nearly
under the equator, the temperature is that of a perpetual spring, was the
fortunate home of the Muyscas. It is the true El Dorado of America; every
mountain stream a Pactolus, and every hill a mine of gold. The natives
were peaceful in disposition, skilled in smelting and beating the precious
metal that was everywhere at hand, lovers of agriculture, and versed in
the arts of spinning, weaving and dying cotton. Their remaining sculptures
prove them to have been of no mean ability in designing, and it is
asserted that they had a form of writing, of which their signs for the
numerals have alone been preserved.
The knowledge of these various arts they attributed to the instructions of
a wise stranger who dwelt among them many cycles before the arrival of the
Spaniards. He came from the East, from the llanos of Venezuela or beyond
them, and it was said that the path he made was broad and long, a hundred
leagues in length, and led directly to the holy temple at his shrine at
Sogamoso. In the province of Ubaque his footprints on the solid rock were
reverently pointed out long after the Conquest. His hair was abundant, his
beard fell to his waist, and he dressed in long and flowing robes. He went
among the nations of the plateaux, addressing each in its own dialect,
taught them to live in villages and to observe just laws. Near the village
of Coto was a high hill held in special veneration, for from its prominent
summit he was wont to address the people who gathered round its base.
Therefore it was esteemed a sanctuary, holy to the living and the dead.
Princely families from a distance carried their dead there to be interred,
because this teacher had said that man does not perish when he dies, but
shall rise again. It was held that this would be more certain to occur in
the very spot where he announced this doctrine. Every sunset, when he had
finished his discourse, he retired into a cave in the mountain, not to
reappear again until the next morning.
For many years, some said for two thousand years, did he rule the people
with equity, and then he departed, going back to the East whence he came,
said some authorities, but others averred that he rose up to heaven. At
any rate, before he left, he appointed a successor in the sovereignty, and
recommended him to pursue the paths of justice.[1]
[Footnote 1: "Afirman que fue trasladado al cielo, y que al tiempo de su
partida dexó al Cacique de aquella Provincia por heredero de su santidad i
poderio." Lucas Fernaudez Piedrahita, _Historia General de las Conquistas
del Nueoo Reyno de Granada_, Lib. i, cap. iii (Amberes, 1688).]
What led the Spanish missionaries to suspect that this was one of the
twelve apostles, was not only these doctrines, but the undoubted fact that
they found the symbol of the cross already a religious emblem among this
people. It appeared in their sacred paintings, and especially, they
erected one over the grave of a person who had died from the bite of a
serpent.
A little careful investigation will permit us to accept these statements
as quite true, and yet give them a very different interpretation.
That this culture-hero arrives from the East and returns to the East are
points that at once excite the suspicion that he was the personification
of the Light. But when we come to his names, no doubt can remain. These
were various, but one of the most usual was _Chimizapagua_, which, we are
told, means "a messenger from _Chiminigagua_." In the cosmogonical myths
of the Muyscas this was the home or source of Light, and was a name
applied to the demiurgic force. In that mysterious dwelling, so their
account ran, light was shut up, and the world lay in primeval gloom. At a
certain time the light manifested itself, and the dawn of the first
morning appeared, the light being carried to the four quarters of the
earth by great black birds, who blew the air and winds from their beaks.
Modern grammarians profess themselves unable to explain the exact meaning
of the name _Chiminigagua_, but it is a compound, in which, evidently,
appear the words _chie_, light, and _gagua_, Sun.[1]
[Footnote 1: Uricoechea says, "al principio del mundo la luz estaba
encerrada en una cosa que no podian describir i que llamaban
_Chiminigague_, ó El Criador." _Gramatica de la Lengua Chibcha_, Introd.,
p. xix. _Chie_ in this tongue means light, moon, month, honor, and is also
the first person plural of the personal pronoun. _Ibid_., p. 94. Father
Simon says _gagua_ is "el nombre del mismo sol," though ordinarily Sun is
_Sua_.]
Other names applied to this hero-god were Nemterequeteba, Bóchica, and
Zuhe, or Sua, the last mentioned being also the ordinary word for the Sun.
He was reported to have been of light complexion, and when the Spaniards
first arrived they were supposed to be his envoys, and were called _sua_
or _gagua_, just as from the memory of a similar myth in Peru they were
addressed as Viracochas.
In his form as Bóchica, he is represented as the supreme male divinity,
whose female associate is the Rainbow, Cuchaviva, goddess of rains and
waters, of the fertility of the fields, of medicine, and of child-bearing
in women, a relationship which I have already explained.[1]
[Footnote 1: The principal authority for the mythology of the Mayscas, or
Chibchas, is Padre Pedro Simon, _Noticias Historiales de las Conquistas de
Tierra Firme en el Nuevo Reyno de Granada_, Pt. iv, caps. ii, iii, iv,
printed in Kingsborough, _Mexican Antiquities_, vol. viii, and Piedrahita
as above quoted.]
Wherever the widespread Tupi-Guaranay race extended--from the mouth of the
Rio de la Plata and the boundless plains of the Pampas, north to the
northernmost islands of the West Indian Archipelago--the early explorers
found the natives piously attributing their knowledge of the arts of life
to a venerable and benevolent old man whom they called "Our Ancestor,"
_Tamu_, or _Tume_, or _Zume_.
The early Jesuit missionaries to the Guaranis and affiliated tribes of
Paraguay and southern Brazil, have much to say of this personage, and some
of them were convinced that he could have been no other than the Apostle
St. Thomas on his proselytizing journey around the world.
The legend was that Pay Zume, as he was called in Paraguay (_Pay_ =
magician, diviner, priest), came from the East, from the Sun-rising, in
years long gone by. He instructed the people in the arts of hunting and
agriculture, especially in the culture and preparation of the manioca
plant, their chief source of vegetable food. Near the city of Assumption
is situated a lofty rock, around which, says the myth, he was accustomed
to gather the people, while he stood above them on its summit, and
delivered his instructions and his laws, just as did Quetzalcoatl from the
top of the mountain Tzatzitepec, the Hill of Shouting. The spot where he
stood is still marked by the impress of his feet, which the pious natives
of a later day took pride in pointing out as a convincing proof that their
ancestors received and remembered the preachings of St. Thomas.[1] This
was not a suggestion of their later learning, but merely a christianized
term given to their authentic ancient legend. As early as 1552, when
Father Emanuel Nobrega was visiting the missions of Brazil, he heard the
legend, and learned of a locality where not only the marks of the feet,
but also of the hands of the hero-god had been indelibly impressed upon
the hard rock. Not satisfied with the mere report, he visited the spot and
saw them with his own eyes, but indulged in some skepticism as to their
origin.[2]
[Footnote 1: "Juxta Paraquariae metropolim rupes utcumque cuspidata, sed
in modicam planitiem desinens cernitur, in cujus summitate vestigia pedum
humanorum saxo impressa adhuc manent, affirmantibus constanter indigenis,
ex eo loco Apostolum Thomam multitudini undequaque ad eum audiendum
confluenti solitum fuisse legem divinam tradere: et addunt mandiocae, ex
qua farinam suam ligneam conficiunt, plantandae rationem ab eodem
accepisse." P. Nicolao del Techo, _Historia Provincial Paraquariae
Societatis Jesu_, Lib. vi, cap. iv (folio, Leodii, 1673).]
[Footnote 2: "Ipse abii," he writes in his well known Letter, "et propriis
oculis inspexi, quatuor pedum et digitorum satis alté impressa vestigia,
quae nonnunquam aqua excrescens cooperit." The reader will remember the
similar event in the history of Quetzalcoatl (see above, chapter iii, §3)]
The story was that wherever this hero-god walked, he left behind him a
well-marked path, which was permanent, and as the Muyscas of New Granada
pointed out the path of Bochica, so did the Guaranays that of Zume, which
the missionaries regarded "not without astonishment."[1] He lived a
certain length of time with his people and then left them, going back over
the ocean toward the East, according to some accounts. But according to
others, he was driven away by his stiff-necked and unwilling auditors, who
had become tired of his advice. They pursued him to the bank of a river,
and there, thinking that the quickest riddance of him was to kill him,
they discharged their arrows at him. But he caught the arrows in his hand
and hurled them back, and dividing the waters of the river by his divine
power he walked between them to the other bank, dry-shod, and disappeared
from their view in the distance.
[Footnote 1: "E Brasiliâ in Guairaniam euntibus spectabilis adhuc semita
viditur, quam ab Sancto Thoma ideo incolae vocant, quod per eam Apostolus
iter fecisse credatur; quae semita quovis anni tempore eumdem statum
conservat, modicé in ea crescendibus herbis, ab adjacenti campo multum
herbescenti prorsus dissimilibus, praebetque speciem viae artificiosé
ductae; quam Socii nostri Guairaniam excolentes persaepe non sine stupore
perspexisse se testantur." Nicolao del Techo, _ubi suprá_, Lib. vi, cap.
iv.
The connection of this myth with the course of the sun in the sky, "the
path of the bright God," as it is called in the Veda, appears obvious. So
also in later legend we read of the wonderful slot or trail of the dragon
Fafnir across the Glittering Heath, and many cognate instances, which
mythologists now explain by the same reference.]
Like all the hero-gods, he left behind him the well-remembered promise
that at some future day he should return to them, and that a race of men
should come in time, to gather them into towns and rule them in peace.[1]
These predictions were carefully noted by the missionaries, and regarded
as the "unconscious prophecies of heathendom" of the advent of
Christianity; but to me they bear too unmistakably the stamp of the
light-myth I have been following up in so many localities of the New World
for me to entertain a doubt about their origin and meaning.
[Footnote 1: "Ilium quoque pollicitum fuisse, se aliquando has regiones
revisurum." Father Nobrega, _ubi suprá_. For the other particulars I have
given see Nicolao del Techo, _Historia Provinciae Paraquariae_, Lib. vi,
cap. iv, "De D. Thomae Apostoli itineribus;" and P. Antonio Ruiz,
_Conquista Espiritual hecha por los Religiosos de la Compañia de Jesus en
las Provincias del Paraguay, Parana, Uruguay y Tape_, fol. 29, 30 (4to.,
Madrid, 1639). The remarkable identity of the words relating to their
religious beliefs and observances throughout this widespread group of
tribes has been demonstrated and forcibly commented on by Alcide
D'Orbigny, _L'Homme Americain_, vol. ii, p. 277. The Vicomte de Porto
Seguro identifies Zume with the _Cemi_ of the Antilles, and this etymology
is at any rate not so fanciful as most of those he gives in his
imaginative work, _L'Origine Touranienne des Americaines Tupis-Caribes_,
p. 62 (Vienna, 1876).]
I have not yet exhausted the sources from which I could bring evidence of
the widespread presence of the elements of this mythical creation in
America. But probably I have said enough to satisfy the reader on this
point. At any rate it will be sufficient if I close the list with some
manifest fragments of the myth, picked out from the confused and generally
modern reports we have of the religions of the Athabascan race. This stem
is one of the most widely distributed in North America, extending across
the whole continent south of the Eskimos, and scattered toward the warmer
latitudes quite into Mexico. It is low down in the intellectual scale, its
component tribes are usually migratory savages, and its dialects are
extremely synthetic and of difficult phonetics, requiring as many as
sixty-five letters for their proper orthography. No wonder, therefore,
that we have but limited knowledge of their mental life.
Conspicuous in their myths is the tale of the Two Brothers. These
mysterious beings are upon the earth before man appears. Though alone,
they do not agree, and the one attacks and slays the other. Another
brother appears on the scene, who seems to be the one slain, who has come
to life, and the two are given wives by the Being who was the Creator of
things. These two women were perfectly beautiful, but invisible to the
eyes of mortals. The one was named, The Woman of the Light or The Woman of
the Morning; the other was the Woman of Darkness or the Woman of Evening.
The brothers lived together in one tent with these women, who each in turn
went out to work. When the Woman of Light was at work, it was daytime;
when the Woman of Darkness was at her labors, it was night.
In the course of time one of the brothers disappeared and the other
determined to select a wife from one of the two women, as it seems he had
not yet chosen. He watched what the Woman of Darkness did in her absence,
and discovered that she descended into the waters and enjoyed the embraces
of a monster, while the Woman of Light passed her time in feeding white
birds. In course of time the former brought forth black man-serpents,
while the Woman of Light was delivered of beautiful boys with white skins.
The master of the house killed the former with his arrows, but preserved
the latter, and marrying the Woman of Light, became the father of the
human race, and especially of the Dènè Dindjié, who have preserved the
memory of him.[1]
[Footnote 1: _Monographie des Dènè Dindjié, par_ C.R.P.E. Petitot, pp.
84-87 (Paris, 1876). Elsewhere the writer says: "Tout d'abord je dois
rappeler mon observation que presque toujours, dans les traditions Dènè,
le couple primitif se compose de _deux frères_." Ibid., p. 62.]
In another myth of this stock, clearly a version of the former, this
father of the race is represented as a mighty bird, called _Yêl_, or
_Yale_, or _Orelbale_, from the root _ell_, a term they apply to
everything supernatural. He took to wife the daughter of the Sun (the
Woman of Light), and by her begat the race of man. He formed the dry land
for a place for them to live upon, and stocked the rivers with salmon,
that they might have food. When he enters his nest it is day, but when he
leaves it it is night; or, according to another myth, he has the two women
for wives, the one of whom makes the day, the other the night.
In the beginning Yêl was white in plumage, but he had an enemy, by name
_Cannook_, with whom he had various contests, and by whose machinations he
was turned black. Yêl is further represented as the god of the winds and
storms, and of the thunder and lightning.[1]
[Footnote 1: For the extent and particulars of this myth, many of the
details of which I omit, see Petitot, _ubi suprá_, pp. 68, 87, note;
Matthew Macfie. _Travels in Vancouver Island and British Columbia_, pp.
452-455 (London, 1865); and J.K. Lord, _The Naturalist in Vancouver Island
and British Columbia_ (London, 1866). It is referred to by Mackenzie and
other early writers.]
Thus we find, even in this extremely low specimen of the native race, the
same basis for their mythology as in the most cultivated nations of
Central America. Not only this; it is the same basis upon which is built
the major part of the sacred stories of all early religions, in both
continents; and the excellent Father Petitot, who is so much impressed by
these resemblances that he founds upon them a learned argument to prove
that the Dènè are of oriental extraction,[1] would have written more to
the purpose had his acquaintance with American religions been as extensive
as it was with those of Asiatic origin.
[Footnote 1: See his "Essai sur l'Origine des Dènè-Dindjié," in his
_Monographie_, above quoted.]
There is one point in all these myths which I wish to bring out forcibly.
That is, the distinction which is everywhere drawn between the God of
Light and the Sun. Unless this distinction is fully comprehended, American
mythology loses most of its meaning.
The assertion has been so often repeated, even down to the latest writers,
that the American Indians were nearly all sun-worshipers, that I take
pains formally to contradict it. Neither the Sun nor the Spirit of the Sun
was their chief divinity.
Of course, the daily history of the appearance and disappearance of light
is intimately connected with the apparent motion of the sun. Hence, in the
myths there is often a seeming identification of the two, which I have
been at no pains to avoid. But the identity is superficial only; it
entirely disappears in other parts of the myth, and the conceptions, as
fundamentally distinct, must be studied separately, to reach accurate
results. It is an easy, but by no means a profound method of treating
these religions, to dismiss them all by the facile explanations of
"animism," and "sun and moon worship."
I have said, and quoted strong authority to confirm the opinion, that the
native tribes of America have lost ground in morals and have retrograded
in their religious life since the introduction of Christianity. Their own
faiths, though lower in form, had in them the germs of a religious and
moral evolution, more likely, with proper regulation, to lead these people
to a higher plane of thought than the Aryan doctrines which were forced
upon them.
This may seem a daring, even a heterodox assertion, but I think that most
modern ethnologists will agree that it is no more possible for races in
all stages of culture and of widely different faculties to receive with
benefit any one religion, than it is for them to thrive under one form of
government, or to adopt with advantage one uniform plan of building
houses. The moral and religious life is a growth, and the brash wood of
ancient date cannot be grafted on the green stem. It is well to remember
that the heathendoms of America were very far from wanting living seeds of
sound morality and healthy mental education. I shall endeavor to point
this out in a few brief paragraphs.
In their origin in the human mind, religion and morality have nothing in
common. They are even antagonistic. At the root of all religions is the
passionate desire for the widest possible life, for the most unlimited
exercise of all the powers. The basis of all morality is self-sacrifice,
the willingness to give up our wishes to the will of another. The
criterion of the power of a religion is its ability to command this
sacrifice; the criterion of the excellence of a religion is the extent to
which its commands coincide with the good of the race, with the lofty
standard of the "categorical imperative."
With these axioms well in mind, we can advance with confidence to examine
the claims of a religion. It will rise in the scale just in proportion as
its behests, were they universally adopted, would permanently increase the
happiness of the human race.
In their origin, as I have said, morality and religion are opposites; but
they are opposites which inevitably attract and unite. The first lesson of
all religions is that we gain by giving, that to secure any end we must
sacrifice something. This, too, is taught by all social intercourse, and,
therefore, an acute German psychologist has set up the formula," All
manners are moral,"[1] because they all imply a subjection of the personal
will of the individual to the general will of those who surround him, as
expressed in usage and custom.
[Footnote 1: "Alle Sitten sind sittlich." Lazarus, _Ursprung der Sitte_,
S. 5, quoted by Roskoff. I hardly need mention that our word _morality_,
from _mos_, means by etymology, simply what is customary and of current
usage. The moral man is he who conforms himself to the opinions of the
majority. This is also at the basis of Robert Browning's definition of a
people: "A people is but the attempt of many to rise to the completer life
of one" (_A Soul's Tragedy_).]
Even the religion which demands bloody sacrifices, which forces its
votaries to futile and abhorrent rites, is at least training its adherents
in the virtues of obedience and renunciation, in endurance and confidence.
But concerning American religions I need not have recourse to such a
questionable vindication. They held in them far nobler elements, as is
proved beyond cavil by the words of many of the earliest missionaries
themselves. Bigoted and bitter haters of the native faiths, as they were,
they discovered in them so much that was good, so much that approximated
to the purer doctrines that they themselves came to teach, that they have
left on record many an attempt to prove that there must, in some remote
and unknown epoch, have come Christian teachers to the New World, St.
Thomas, St. Bartholomew, monks from Ireland, or Asiatic disciples, to
acquaint the natives with such salutary doctrines. It is precisely in
connection with the myths which I have been relating in this volume that
these theories were put forth, and I have referred to them in various
passages.
The facts are as stated, but the credit of developing these elevated moral
conceptions must not be refused to the red race. They are its own
property, the legitimate growth of its own religious sense.
The hero-god, the embodiment of the Light of Day, is essentially a moral
and beneficent creation. Whether his name be Michabo, Ioskeha, or
Quetzalcoatl, Itzamna, Viracocha or Tamu, he is always the giver of laws,
the instructor in the arts of social life, the founder of commonwealths,
the patron of agriculture. He casts his influence in favor of peace, and
against wars and deeds of violence. He punishes those who pursue iniquity,
and he favors those who work for the good of the community.
In many instances he sets an example of chaste living, of strict
temperance, of complete subjection of the lusts and appetites. I have but
to refer to what I have already said of the Maya Kukulcan and the Aztec
Quetzalcoatl, to show this. Both are particularly noted as characters free
from the taint of indulgence.
Thus it occurred that the early monks often express surprise that these,
whom they chose to call savages and heathens, had developed a moral law of
undeniable purity. "The matters that Bochica taught," says the chronicler
Piedrahita, "were certainly excellent, inasmuch as these natives hold as
right to do just the same that we do." "The priests of these Muyscas," he
goes on to say, "lived most chastely and with great purity of life,
insomuch that even in eating, their food was simple and of small quantity,
and they refrained altogether from women and marriage. Did one transgress
in this respect, he was dismissed from the priesthood."[1]
[Footnote 1: "Las cosas que el Bochica les enseñaba eran buenas, siendo
assi, que tenian por malo lo mismo que nosotros tenemos por tal."
Piedrahita, _Historia General de las Conquistas del Nuevo Reyno de
Granada_, Lib. i, Cap. iii.]
The prayers addressed to these deities breathe as pure a spirit of
devotion as many now heard in Christian lands. Change the names, and some
of the formulas preserved by Christobal de Molina and Sahagun would not
jar on the ears of a congregation in one of our own churches.
Although sanguinary rites were common, they were not usual in the worship
of these highest divinities, but rather as propitiations to the demons of
the darkness, or the spirits of the terrible phenomena of nature. The mild
god of light did not demand them.
To appreciate the effect of all this on the mind of the race, let it be
remembered that these culture-heroes were also the creators, the primal
and most potent of divinities, and that usually many temples and a large
corps of priests were devoted to their worship, at least in the nations of
higher civilization. These votaries were engaged in keeping alive the
myth, in impressing the supposed commands of the deity on the people, and
in imitating him in example and precept. Thus they had formed a lofty
ideal of man, and were publishing this ideal to their fellows. Certainly
this could not fail of working to the good of the nation, and of elevating
and purifying its moral conceptions.
That it did so we have ample evidence in the authentic accounts of the
ancient society as it existed before the Europeans destroyed and corrupted
it, and in the collections of laws, all distinctly stamped with the seal
of religion, which have been preserved, as they were in vogue in Anahuac,
Utatlan, Peru and other localities.[1] Any one who peruses these will see
that the great moral principles, the radical doctrines of individual
virtue, were clearly recognized and deliberately enforced as divine and
civil precepts in these communities. Moreover, they were generally and
cheerfully obeyed, and the people of many of these lands were industrious,
peaceable, moral, and happy, far more so than they have ever been since.
[Footnote 1: The reader willing to pursue the argument further can find
these collections of ancient American laws in Sahagun, _Historia de Nueva
España_, for Mexico; in Geronimo Roman, _Republica de las Indias
Occidentales_, for Utatlan and other nations; for Peru in the _Relacion
del Origen, Descendencia, Politica, y Gobierno de los Incas, por el
licenciado Fernando de Santillan_ (published at Madrid. 1879); and for the
Muyscas, in Piedrahita, _Hist. Gen. del Nuevo Reyno de Granada_, Lib. ii,
cap. v.]
There was also a manifest progress in the definition of the idea of God,
that is, of a single infinite intelligence as the source and controlling
power of phenomena. We have it on record that in Peru this was the direct
fruit of the myth of Viracocha. It is related that the Inca Yupangui
published to his people that to him had appeared Viracocha, with
admonition that he alone was lord of the world, and creator of all things;
that he had made the heavens, the sun, and man; and that it was not right
that these, his works, should receive equal homage with himself.
Therefore, the Inca decreed that the image of Viracocha should thereafter
be assigned supremacy to those of all other divinities, and that no
tribute nor sacrifice should be paid to him, for He was master of all the
earth, and could take from it as he chose.[1] This was evidently a direct
attempt on the part of an enlightened ruler to lift his people from a
lower to a higher form of religion, from idolatry to theism. The Inca even
went so far as to banish all images of Viracocha from his temples, so that
this, the greatest of gods, should be worshiped as an immaterial spirit
only.
[Footnote 1: P. Joseph de Acosta, _Historia Natural y Moral de las
Indias_, Lib. vi, cap. 31 (Barcelona, 1591).]
A parallel instance is presented in Aztec annals. Nezahualcoyotzin, an
enlightened ruler of Tezcuco, about 1450, was both a philosopher and a
poet, and the songs which he left, seventy in number, some of which are
still preserved, breathe a spirit of emancipation from the idolatrous
superstition of his day. He announced that there was one only god, who
sustained and created all things, and who dwelt above the ninth heaven,
out of sight of man. No image was fitting for this divinity, nor did he
ever appear bodily to the eyes of men. But he listened to their prayers
and received their souls.[1]
[Footnote 1: See Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl, _Historica Chichimeca_,
cap. xlix; and Joseph Joaquin Granados y Galvez, _Tardes Americanas_, p.
90 (Mexico, 1778).]
These traditions have been doubted, for no other reason than because it
was assumed that such thoughts were above the level of the red race. But
the proper names and titles, unquestionably ancient and genuine, which I
have analyzed in the preceding pages refute this supposition.
We may safely affirm that other and stronger instances of the kind could
be quoted, had the early missionaries preserved more extensively the
sacred chants and prayers of the natives. In the Maya tongue of Yucatan a
certain number of them have escaped destruction, and although they are
open to some suspicion of having been colored for proselytizing purposes,
there is direct evidence from natives who were adults at the time of the
Conquest that some of their priests had predicted the time should come
when the worship of one only God should prevail. This was nothing more
than another instance of the monotheistic idea finding its expression, and
its apparition is not more extraordinary in Yucatan or Peru than in
ancient Egypt or Greece.
The actual religious and moral progress of the natives was designedly
ignored and belittled by the early missionaries and conquerors. Bishop Las
Casas directly charges those of his day with magnifying the vices of the
Indians and the cruelties of their worship; and even such a liberal
thinker as Roger Williams tells us that he would not be present at their
ceremonies, "Lest I should have been partaker of Satan's Inventions and
Worships."[1] This same prejudice completely blinded the first visitors to
the New World, and it was only the extravagant notion that Christianity
had at some former time been preached here that saved us most of the
little that we have on record.
[Footnote 1: Roger Williams, _A Key Into the Language of America_, p.
152.]
Yet now and then the truth breaks through even this dense veil of
prejudice. For instance, I have quoted in this chapter the evidence of the
Spanish chroniclers to the purity of the teaching attributed to Bochica.
The effect of such doctrines could not be lost on a people who looked upon
him at once as an exemplar and a deity. Nor was it. The Spaniards have
left strong testimony to the pacific and virtuous character of that
nation, and its freedom from the vices so prevalent in lower races.[1]
[Footnote 1: See especially the _Noticias sobre el Nuevo Reino de
Granada_, in the _Colleccion de Documentos ineditos del Archivo de
Indias_, vol. v, p. 529.]
Now, as I dismiss from the domain of actual fact all these legendary
instructors, the question remains, whence did these secluded tribes obtain
the sentiments of justice and morality which they loved to attribute to
their divine founders, and, in a measure, to practice themselves?
The question is pertinent, and with its answer I may fitly close this
study in American native religions.
If the theory that I have advocated is correct, these myths had to do at
first with merely natural occurrences, the advent and departure of the
daylight, the winds, the storm and the rains. The beneficent and injurious
results of these phenomena were attributed to their personifications.
Especially was the dispersal of darkness by the light regarded as the
transaction of all most favorable to man. The facilities that it gave him
were imputed to the goodness of the personified Spirit of Light, and by a
natural association of ideas, the benevolent emotions and affections
developed by improving social intercourse were also brought into relation
to this kindly Being. They came to be regarded as his behests, and, in the
national mind, he grew into a teacher of the friendly relations of man to
man, and an ideal of those powers which "make for righteousness." Priests
and chieftains favored the acceptance of these views, because they felt
their intrinsic wisdom, and hence the moral evolution of the nation
proceeded steadily from its mythology. That the results achieved were
similar to those taught by the best religions of the eastern world should
not excite any surprise, for the basic principles of ethics are the same
everywhere and in all time.
THE END.
INDEXES.
I. INDEX OF AUTHORS.
Acosta, J. de
Alegre, F.X.
Anales del Museo Nacional de Mejico
Ancona, Eligio
Angrand, L.
Annals of Cuauhtitlan
Antonio, G.
Argoll, Capt
Avila, Francisco de
Bancroft, H.H.
Baraga, Frederick
Basalenque, D.
Becerra
Beltran, de Santa Rosa
Berendt, C.H.
Bernal Diaz
Bertonio, L.
Betanzos, Juan de
Bobadilla, F. de
Boturini, L.
Bourbourg, Brasseur de, see Brasseur.
Brasseur (de Bourbourg), C.
Buschmann, J.C.E.
Buteux, Father
Cabrera, P.F.
Campanius, Thomas
Campbell, John
Carriedo, J.B.
Carrillo, Crescencio
Charency, H. de
Charlevoix, Pére
Chavero, Alfredo
Chaves, Gabriel de
Chilan Balam, Books of
Clavigero, Francesco S.
Codex Borgianus
Codex Telleriano-Remensis
Codex Troano
Codex Vaticanus
Cogolludo, D.L. de
Comte, Auguste
Cortes, Hernan
Cox, Sir George W.
Cuoq, J.A.
Cusic, David
Desjardins, E.
D'Orbigny, A.
Duran, Diego
Elder, F.X.
Fischer, Heinrich
Franco, P.
Fuen-Leal, Ramirez de
Gabriel de San Buenaventura
Garcia, G.
Garcia y Garcia, A.
Gatschet, A.S.
Gomara, F.L.
Granados y Galvez, J.J.
Hale, Horatio
Haupt, Paul
Hernandez, Francisco
Hernandez, M.
Herrera, Antonio de
Holguin, D.G.
Humbolt, A.V.
Ixtlilxochitl, F.A. de
Jourdanet, M.
Keary, Charles F.
Kingsborough, Lord
Lalemant, Father
Landa, D. de
Lang, J.D.
Las Casas, B. de
Lazarus, Prof.
Leon, Cieza de
Le Plongeon, Dr.
Lizana, B.
Lord, J.K.
Lubbock, Sir John
Macfie, M.
Mangan, Clarence
Markham, C.R.
Melgar, J.M.
Mendieta, Geronimo de
Mendoza, G.
Molina, Alonso de
Molina, C. de
Montejo, Francisco de
Motolinia, Padre
Motul, Diccionario de
Müller, Max
Nieremberg, E. de
Nobrega, E.
Ollanta, drama of
Olmos, Andre de
Orozco y Berra, Señor
Oviedo, G.F. de
Pachacuti, J. de
Pech, Nakuk
Perrot, Nicholas
Petitot, P.E.
Piedrahita, L.T.
Pimentel, F.
Pinart, A.L.
Pineda, E.
Pio Perez, J.
Popol Vuh, the
Porto Seguro, V. de
Prescott, W.H.
Rau, Charles
Rea, A. de la
Rialle, G. de
Roman, H.
Roskoff, Gustav
Ruiz, A.
Sagard Pére
Sahagun, B. de
Sanchez, Jesus
Santillan, F. de
Schoolcraft, H. R.
Schultz-Sellack, Dr. C.
Schwartz, F.L.W.
Short, J.T.
Simeon, Remi
Simon, P.
Sotomayor, J. de V.
Squier, B. G.
Stephens, J.L.
Strachey, William
Tanner, John
Taylor, S.
Techo, N. de
Ternaux-Compans, M
Tezozomoc, A.
Tiele, C.P.
Tobar, Juan de
Toledo, F. de
Torquemada, Juan de
Trumbull, J.H.
Tschudi, J.J. von
Uricoechea, E.
Valera, Blas
Vega, Garcillaso, de la
Vega, Nuñez de la
Veitia
Waitz, Th.
Wiener, C.
Williams, Roger
Xahila, F.E.A.
Zegarra, G.P.
II. INDEX OF SUBJECTS.
Abancay, in Peru
Abstract expressions
Acan, Maya god of wine
Acantun, Maya deities
Ages of the world
Ah-kiuic, deity of the Mayas
Ah-puchah, deity of the Mayas
Air, gods of; see Wind
Algonkins, their location
" their hero-myth
Amun, Egyptian deity
Anahuac
Animiki, the thunder god
Arawack language
Ares, the Greek
Arnava, name of Viracocha
Apotampo
Arama, deity of the Moxos
Arrival, the Great and Less
Ataensic, an Iroquois deity
Atahualpa Inca
Atecpanamochco, the bath of Quetzalcoatl
Athabascan myths and languages
Aticsi, epithet of Viracocha
Aurora, myths of; see Dawn
Ayar, Ancca
Ayar Cachi, a name of Viracocha
Ayar Manco
Ayar Uchu
Aymaras, myths of
" language of
Aztecs, location of
Aztecs in Yucatan
Aztlan, meaning of
Bacabs, the four
Baldur, the Norse
Ball, the game of
Bearded hero-god
Belly, the, in symbolism
Bird, symbol of
Bisexual deities
Bochica, hero-god of the Muyscas
Borrowing in myths
Butterfly, the, as a symbol of the wind
Cadmus, the myth of
Cakchiquels, myths of
Camaxtli, a name of Tezcatlipoca
Canas tribe
Canil, a name of Itzamna
Cannook, deity of Dènè
Carapaco, lake of
Carcha, town of
Cardinal points, worship of
Caylla, epithet of Viracocha
Ce Acatl, One Reed, a name of Quetzalcoatl
Ce Acatl Inacuil
Cemi, deity of Arawacks
Chac, deity of the Mayas
Chacamarca, river of
Chac Mool, supposed idol
Chalchihuitl
Chalchiuitlicue, Aztec goddess
Chalchihuitzli, Aztec deity
Chalchiuhapan, the bath of Quetzalcoatl
Chasca, Qquichua deity
Chem, Egyptian deity
Chibchas, see Muyscas
Chibilias, a Maya goddess
Chichen Itza
Chichimees, the
Chickaban, a festival
Chicomecoatl, an Aztec deity
Chicomoztoc
Chimalman
Chimalmatl
Chimizapagua, name of Bochica
Chivim, land of
Chnum, Egyptian deity
Choctaws, myth of
Cholula
Christianity, effects of
Cincalco, Cave of
Cipactli, in Aztec myth
Cipactonal, in Aztec myth
Citlatonac, an Aztec deity
Citlallicue, an Aztec deity
Citlaltlachtli
Coatl, in Nahuatl
Coatecalli, the Aztec Pantheon
Coatlicue, Aztec goddess
Cocoms, the
Colhuacan
Colla, a Peruvian deity
Colors, symbolism of
Con, Peruvian deity
Concacha
Conchuy
Condorcoto, the mountain
Condoy, hero-god of Mixes
Coto, village
Coyote, sacred to Tezcatlipoca
Cozcapan, fountain of
Cozumel, cross of
Cross, the, symbol of
Cuchaviva, goddess of Muyscas
Cueravaperi, goddess of Tarascos
Cuernava, cave of
Cum-ahau, a Maya deity
Curicaberis, deity of Tarascos
Cuzco, founding of
" temple of
Darkness, powers of
Dawn, the mansion of the
" myths of
Dènè, myths of
Drum, the sacred
Dyaus, the Aryan god
Dyonisiac worship, the
East, sacredness of
Echuac, a Maya deity
Egyptian mythology
Europe, carried off by Zeus
Fafnir, the dragon
Fatal children, the myth of
Fire, origin of
Five eggs, the
Flint stone, myths of
Flood myth, the
Four brothers, the myths of
" sacred numbers
" roads to the underworld
Freya, Norse goddess
Frog, as symbol of water
Genesiac principle, worship of
Gijigonai, the day makers
Glittering heath, the
Golden locks of the hero-god
Great Bear, constellation of
Guanacaure, mountain of
Guaranis tribe
Guaymis, tribe of Darien
Guazacoalco
Gucumatz, god of Kiches
Hachaccuna
Hanmachis, the sun-god
Heart, symbol of
Henotheism in religions
Hermaphrodite deities
Hermes, Greek myth of
Hill of Heaven, the
Hobnel, deity of the Mayas
Homonomy
Huanacauri
Huastecs, the
Huarachiri Indians, myth of
Huayna Capac, Inca
Huehuetlan, town of
Huemac, a name of Quetzalcoatl
Hueytecpatl, an Aztec deity
Hue Tlapallan
Hueytonantzin, an Aztec deity
Huitzilopochtli, Aztec deity
birth of
Huitznahna, Aztec deity
Hunchbacks, attendant on Quetzalcoatl
Hunhunahpu, a Kiche deity
Hunpictok, a Maya deity
Hurons, myth of
Hurukan, god of Kiches
Idea of God, evolution of
Illa, name of Viracocha
Incas, empire of
Indra
Ioskeha, the myth of
" derivation of
Iroquois, their location
" hero myth of
Itzamal, city of
Itzamna, the Maya hero god
" his names
Itzas, a Maya tribe
Itztlacoliuhqui, Aztec deity
Ix-chebel-yax, Maya goddess
Ixchel, the rainbow goddess
Ixcuin, an Aztec deity
Izona, error for Itzamna
Iztac Mixcoatl
Jupiter, the planet
Kabironokka, the North
Kabil, a name of Itzamna
Kabun, the West
Kiches, myths of
Kinich ahau, a name of Itzamna
Kinich ahau haban
Kinich kakmo, a name of Itzamna
Kukulcan, myth of
" meaning of name
Languages, sacred, of priests
" American
Laws, native American
Lif, the Teutonic
Light, its place in mythology
Light-god, the
" color of
Light, woman of
Lucifer, worshiped by Mayas
Maize, origin of
Manco Capac
Mani, province of
Marriage ceremonies
Master of life, the
Mat, the virgin goddess
Ma Tlapallan
Mayapan, destruction of
" foundation of
Mayas, myths of
" language
" ancestors of
" prophecies of
Meconetzin, a name of Quetzalcoatl
Meztitlan, province of
Michabo, myth of
" derivation of
Michoacan
Mictlancalco
Mirror, the magic
Mirrors, of Aztecs
Mixcoatl, a name of Tezcatlipoca
Mixes, tribe
Monenequi, a name of Tezcatlipoca
Monotheism in Peru
Moon, in Algonkin myths
" in Aztec myths
Moquequeloa, a name of Tezcatlipoca
Morals and religion
Morning, house of the
Moxos, myths of
Moyocoyatzin, a name of Tezcatlipoca
Muskrat, in Algonkin mythology
Muyscas, myths of
" laws of
Nahuatl, the language
Nanacatltzatzi, an Aztec deity
Nanih Wayeh
Nanihehecatle, name of Quetzalcoatl
Narcissus, the myth of
Nemterequeteba, name of Bochica
Nezahualcoyotzin, Aztec ruler
Nezaualpilli, a name of Tezcatlipoca
Nicaraguans, myths of
Nonoalco
Nuns, houses of
Oaxaca, province of
Occhuc, town
Ocelotl, the
Odin, the Norse
Ojibway dialect, the
" myth
Ometochtli, an Aztec deity
Orelbale, Athabascan, deity
Osiris, the myth of
Otomies
Otosis, in myth building
Ottawas, an Algonkin tribe
Owl, as a symbol of the wind
Oxomuco, in Aztec myth
Pacarina, the, in Peru
Pacari tampu
Pachacamac
Pachayachachi, epithet of Viracocha
Palenque, the cross of
" building of
Pantecatl, Aztec deity
Panuco, province of
Papachtic, a name of Quetzalcoatl
Pariacaca, a Peruvian deity
Paronyms
Parturition, symbol of
Paths of the gods
Pay zume, a hero-god
Perseus
Personification
Peten, lake
Phallic emblems
Phoebus
Pinahua, a Peruvian deity
Pirhua
Pirua
Pochotl son of Quetzalcoatl
Polyonomy in myth building
Prayers, purpose of
" to Quetzalcoatl
" to Viraoocha
Proper names in American languages
Prophecies of Mayas
Prosopopeia
Pulque, myths concerning
QABAUIL, god of Kiches
Qquichua language
Qquonn, Peruvian deity
Quateczizque, priests so-called
Quauhtitlan
Quetzalcoatl
identified with the East
meaning of the name
as god
contest with Tezcatlipoca
the hero of Tula
worshiped in Cholula
born of a virgin
his bath
as the planet Venus
as lord of the winds
god of thieves
representations
Quetzalpetlatl
Ra, the Sun-god
Rabbit, the giant
" in Algonkin myths
" in Aztec myths
Rainbow, as a deity
Rains, gods of
Red Land, the, see Tlapallan
Religions, classifications of
" the essence of
" and morals
Repose, the place of
Reproduction, myths concerning
Resurrection, belief in
Romulus and Remus
Sand, place of
Sarama and Sarameyas, a Sanscrit myth
Serpent symbol, the
Serpents, the king of
Seven brothers, the
" caves or tribes, the
Shawano, the south
Shu, Egyptian deity
Skunk, sacred to Tezcatlipoca
Snailshell symbol
Sogamoso, town
Soma, the intoxicating
Sons of the clouds
Sterility, relief from
Sua, name of Bochica
Sun worship in Peru
" in America
Sun, the city of
Suns, the Aztec
Surites, deity of Tarascos
Tahuantin Suyu kapac
Tampuquiru
Tamu, a hero-god
Tapirs
Tarascos
Taripaca, epithet of Viracocha
Tawiscara, in Iroquois myth
Tecpancaltzin, a Toltec king
Tecpatl, an Aztec deity
Tehotennhiaron, Iroquois deity
Tehunatepec tribes
Teimatini, a name of Tezcatlipoca
Telephassa, mother of Cadmus
Telpochtli, a name of Tezctlipoca
Tentetemic, an Aztec deity
Teocolhuacan
Teometl, the
Texcalapan
Texcaltlauhco
Teyocoyani, a name of Tezcatlipoca
Tezcatlachco
Tezcatlipoca, Aztec deity
his names
derivation of name
as twins
contests with Quetzalcoatl
slays Ometochli
dressed in the tiger skin
Tezcatlipoca-Camaxtli
Tezcuco
Tharonhiawakon, in Iroquois
Thomas, Saint, in America
Thunder, myth of
Tiahuanaco, myth concerning
Ticci, name of Viracocha
Tiger, as a symbol
Titicaca lake
Titlacauan, a name of Tezcatlipoca
Tizapan, the White Land
Tlacauepan
Tlaloc, Aztec deity
Tlalocan
Tlamatzincatl, a name of Tezcatlipoca
Tlanqua-cemilhuique, a name of the Toltecs
Tlapallan
Tlatlallan, the fire land
Tlillan, the dark land
Thllapa, the murky land
Thlpotonqui, a name of Quetzalcoatl
Tocapo, epithet of Viracocha
Toh, a Kiche deity
Tokay, epithet of Viracocha
Tollan, see Tula
Tollan-Cholollan
Tollan Tlapallan
Tollantzinco
Toltecs, the
Tonalan
Tonatlan
Tonaca cihuatl, an Aztec deity
Tonaca tecutli, Aztec deity
Topiltzin, a name of Quetzalcoatl
Toltec, an Aztec deity
Totems, origin of
Toveyo, the
Tree of life, the
Tree of the Mirror
Tualati, myth of
Tukupay, epithet of Viracocha
Tula, the mythical city of
Tum, Egyptian deity
Tume, a hero-god
Tunapa, name of Viracocha
Tupac Yupanqui, Inca
Tupi-Guaranay tribes
Twins, in mythology
Two brothers, myths of
Tzatzitepec, the hill of shouting
Tzendals, hero-myth of
Tzinteotl, Aztec deity
Ttzitzimime, Aztec deities
Uac metun ahau, a name of Itzamna
Ualum chivim
Ualum uotan
Urcos, temple of
Usapu, epithet of Viracocha
Utatlan, province of
Vase, lord of the
Venus, the planet, in myths
Viracocha, myth of
" meaning of
" statues of
" worship of
Virgin cow, the, in Egypt
Virgin-mother, myth of
Virgins of the sun, in Peru
Votan, hero-god of Tzendals
Wabawang, the morning star
Wabun, or the East
Water, in mythology
" gods of
West, in mythology
West wind, the
Wheel of the months
" of the winds
White hero-god, the
" land
" serpent
Winds, gods of
World-stream, the
Xalac
Xbalanque, hero-god of Kiches
Xicapoyan, the bath of Quetzalcoatl
Xilotzin, son of Quetzalcoatl
Xiu, Maya family of
Xmukane, in Kiche myth
Xochitl, the maiden
Xochitlycacan, the rose garden
Xochiquetzal, an Aztec deity
Yacacoliuhqui, Aztec deity
Yacatecutli, Aztec deity
Yahualli ehecatl, a name of Quetzalcoatl
Yalahau, deity of Tzendals
Yale, deity of the Dènè
Yamquesupa, lake of
Yaotlnecoc, a name of Tezcatlipoca
Yaotzin, a name of Tezcatlipoca
Yaqui, derivation of
Yax-coc-ahmut, a name of Itzamna
Yêl, deity of Dènè
Ymamana Viracocha
Yoalli ehecatl, a name of Tezcatlipoca
Yoamaxtli, a name of Tezcatlipoca
Yoel of the winds
Yolcuat Quetzalcoat
Yucatan
Yunca language
Yupanqui, Inca
Zacuan
Zapala, epithet of Viracocha
Zapotecs, tribe
Zeus, the Greek
Zipacna, a Kiche diety
Zitacuarencuaro, a festival
Zivena vitzcatl
Zoques, tribe
Zuhe, name of Bochica
Zume, a hero-god
Zuyva, Tollan in
End of Project Gutenberg's American Hero-Myths, by Daniel G. Brinton