CHAPTER X

THE PAMPAS TO THE LAND OF FIRE

I. THE FAR SOUTH[203]

The Rio de la Plata is the third of the great river systems which drain

the South American continent. It combines the waters of the Uruguay,

draining the hilly region of southern Brazil, with those of the Paraná,

which through its numerous tributaries taps the heart of the south

central portion of the continent. The Paraná and its continuation, the

Paraguay, flowing almost due south from the centre of the continent,

form a kind of axis, dividing the hilly lands on the east from the

great woodland plains known as the Chaco, stretching westward to

the Andes, from whose age-worn detritus they were doubtless formed.

The northern boundary of the Chaco is in the neighbourhood of the

Tropic of Capricorn; southward the plains extend far into Argentina,

narrowing with the encroaching mountains, and finally giving way to

the grassy pampas, in the latitude of Buenos Aires. These, in turn,

extend southward to the Patagonian plains--geologically one of earth's

youngest regions,--of which the terminus is the mountain region meeting

the southern straits. Parallel with this stretch of open country, which

diminishes in width as the southern latitudes are approached, is the

Andean ridge, almost due north and south in sense, scarcely varying the

width of the western coastal region which it marks off, but eastward

extending in heavier lines of ridges and broader plateaus as the centre

of the continent is approached. South of latitude 40º the western

coastal region, with the sinking of the Andean range, merges in a long

archipelago leading on to Tierra del Fuego and its satellite islands,

beyond the Straits of Magellan,--an archipelago which is the far

southern counterpart of that reaching along North America from Puget

Sound to the Aleutian Isles.

The aboriginal peoples of the region thus described fall into a number

of groups of exceptional interest to the ethnologist. In the Chaco, to

the north, are to be found, to this day, tribes practically untouched

by the influence of civilization--tribes in the state which for untold

centuries must have been that of the peoples of central South America.

Some of them show signs of having been under the influence of the

cultured peoples of the Andean regions, preserving in their fabrics,

for example, figured designs strikingly like those of Incaic Peru. It

has even been suggested that the region is in no small part peopled by

descendants of Indians who in former times fled from the west, first

before the armies of the Incas, later before the advance of Spanish

power.

This constant pressure, which can in a measure be followed in historic

times, has had its effect in pushing southward peoples whose origin

must be sought in the central region. Such a people are the Abipone--a

group of tribes which owe their especial fame among South American

Indians perhaps more to the fact that they were so faithfully pictured

by Father Dobrizhoffer, during the period in which they were gathered

in missions, than to their own qualities, striking as these are. In

any case, the Abipone, who in the eighteenth century had become an

equestrian people of the open country, had, according to their own

tradition, moved southward out of the forests, bearing with them many

of the traits still to be found among the tribes of the Chaco.

The Calchaqui civilization, of the Andean region just north of latitude

30º was one of the latest conquests of the Inca power, and represents

its southerly extension. The actual dividing line, as recorded by

Garcilasso, was the river Rapel, latitude 34º, where, according to the

historian, the Inca Tupac Yupanqui was held in his southward advance by

the Araucanian (or Aucanian) tribes who formed the population of Chile

and west central Argentina. The Araucanians enjoy the proud distinction

of being to this day an unconquered people; for they held their own

in long and bloody wars with the Spaniards, as before they had held

against the aggressive Incas. Further, in their general culture, and in

intellectual vigor, they stand at the head of the peoples of southerly

South America.

Scarcely less in romantic interest is the group of peoples--the Puelche

and Tehuelche tribal stocks--forming the Patagonian race, whose tall

stature, exaggerated in the imagination of early discoverers, made

of them a race of giants. Like the Pampean tribes they early become

horsemen, expert with the bolas; and with no permanent villages and

no agriculture, they remain equestrian nomads of the southern plains.

The Ona of Tierra del Fuego represent a non-equestrian as they are

also a non-canoe-using branch of the Patagonian race. Altogether

different are the canoe peoples of the southern archipelago, the

Alakaluf and the Yahgan. These have shared with the Australian Blacks,

with the Botocudo, and with one or two other groups of human beings,

the reputation of representing the lowest grade of human intelligence

and attainment. They were long thought to be hopelessly imbruted,

though this judgement is being somewhat revised in the face of the

achievements of missionary workers among them. Still there are few

more striking contrasts in the field of ethnology than is that between

the culture of the peoples of the Pacific archipelago of the northern

America, with their elaborate society, art, and mythology, and the

mentally deficient and culturally destitute savages of the island

region of austral America.

II. EL CHACO AND THE PAMPEANS

In d'Orbigny's classification the Pampean race is divided into three

groups. Of these the most northerly is the Moxean, comprising tribes

about the headwaters of the Madeira. Next southward is the Chiquitean

branch, with their centre on the divide between the headwaters of the

Madeira and those of the southward flowing Paraguay and Pilcomayo

rivers; hence marking the division of the Amazonian and La Plata

systems. Still south of these is the main Pampean branch, its northerly

reach being represented by the Toba, Lengua, and other Chaco stocks;

its centre by the Mocobi, Abipone, and the Charrua of Uruguay (whom

other authorities ally with the Brazilian stocks); its southerly

division comprising the Puelche and the Tehuelche, or Patagonians

proper. So far as the Pampean branch is concerned, this grouping

corresponds with ideas still received.

D'Orbigny gives scant materials as to the mythic beliefs of the Indians

of the Pampean tribes, yet some are of more than ordinary interest.

Thus, of the Mataguaya, he says[204] that they regard eclipses as due

to a great bird, with spread wings, assailing the star eclipsed,--which

is in harmony with widespread South American notions; so, for example,

in the Chiquitean idea, recorded by Father Fernandez, the eclipsed

moon is darkened by its own blood drawn by savage dogs. Still more

interesting is the statement, drawn from Guevara's _Historia del

Paraguay_, that the Mocobi regard the Southern Cross as the image of a

rhea pursued by dogs. This is the very form in which the Great Wain is

interpreted in North America; as far as north Greenland it is regarded

as a bear or deer pursued by dogs or by hunters. Fragments of a Mocobi

cosmic myth are also given: The Sun is a man, the Moon is a woman.

Once, long ago, the Sun fell from the sky. The Mocobi raised it and

placed it again in the sky, but it fell a second time and burned all

the forests. The Mocobi saved themselves by changing themselves into

caymans and other amphibians. A man and a woman climbed a tree to save

themselves, a flame singed their faces, and they were changed into

apes.... This tale is obviously related to the hero cycle of which the

Bakairi and Yuracare stories are versions.

But among the Indians of this region it is of the Abipone, neighbours

of the Mocobi, that our knowledge is fullest, owing to the classical

narrative of Martin Dobrizhoffer[205] who, in the eighteenth century,

was for eighteen years a Jesuit missionary in Paraguay. In general

Dobrizhoffer's account of the Abipone corresponds so closely with

what is now familiar knowledge of Indian ideas--animism, shamanism,

necromancy, and in their own region belief in were-jaguars and the

like,--that it is valuable rather for verification than interpretation.

In the field of religion, the Father is interested in superstitions

rather than in myth, of which he gives little. His comments, however,

have a quality of personality that imparts an entirely dramatic verve

to his narrative of the encounter of the two minds--Jesuit and savage.

"_Haec est summa delicti, nolle recognoscere quem ignorare non possit,_

are the words of Tertullian, in his Apology for the Christians.

Theologians agree in denying that any man in possession of his reason

can, without a crime, remain ignorant of God for any length of time.

This opinion I warmly defended in the University of Cordoba, where I

finished the four years' course of theology begun at Gratz in Styria.

But what was my astonishment, when on removing from thence to a colony

of Abipones, I found that the whole language of these savages does not

contain a single word which expresses God or a divinity. To instruct

them in religion, it was necessary to borrow the Spanish word for God,

and insert into the catechism _Dios ecnam coagarik,_ God the creator

of things." He goes on to tell how, camped in the open with a party of

Indians, the serene sky delighting the eyes with its twinkling stars,

he began a conversation with the Cacique Ychoalay: "Do you behold the

splendour of the Heaven, with its magnificent arrangement of stars?

Who can suppose that all this is produced by chance?... Who can be mad

enough to imagine that all these beauties of the Heavens are the effect

of chance, and that the revolutions and vicissitudes of the celestial

bodies are regulated without the direction of an omniscient mind?

Whom do you believe to be their creator and governor?" "My father,"

replied Ychoalay, "our grandfathers and great-grandfathers were wont

to contemplate the earth alone, solicitous only to see whether the

plain afforded grass and water for their horses. They never troubled

themselves about what went on in the Heavens, and who was the creator

and governor of the stars."

Such incomprehension of things theological seemed to the missionaries

to argue a sub-human nature in the Indians, and Dobrizhoffer, after

remarking that Paul III was obliged to issue a bull in which he

pronounced Indians to be really men, capable of understanding the

Catholic faith and of receiving its sacraments, goes on himself to

argue that they are in fact intelligent human beings in spite of this

incredible density. And then he continues: "I said that the Abipones

were commendable for their wit and strength of mind; but ashamed of

my too hasty praise, I retract my words and pronounce them fools,

idiots, and madmen. Lo! this is the proof of their insanity! They

are unacquainted with God, and with the very name of God, yet they

affectionately salute the evil spirit, whom they call _Aharaigichi_,

or _Queevèt_, with the title of grandfather, _Groaperikie_. Him they

declare to be their grandfather, and that of the Spaniards, but with

this difference, that to the latter he gives gold and silver and fine

clothes, but to them he transmits valour." Here the lips of the reader

begin to flicker with amusement,--it is easy to see the devil under

the mask of strange gods! Father Dobrizhoffer continues: "The Abipones

think the Pleiades to be the representation of their grandfather; and

as that constellation disappears at certain periods from the sky of

South America, upon such occasions, they suppose that their grandfather

is sick, and are under a yearly apprehension that he is going to

die: but as soon as those seven stars are again visible in the month

of May, they welcome their grandfather, as if returned and restored

from sickness, with joyful shouts, and the festive sound of pipes and

trumpets, congratulating him on the recovery of his health. 'What

thanks do we owe thee! and art thou returned at last? Ah! thou hast

happily recovered!' With such exclamations, expressive of their joy and

folly, do they fill the air."

Dobrizhoffer devotes a learned and amusing chapter to "Conjectures

why the Abipones take the Evil Spirit for their Grandfather and

the Pleiades for the representation of him"; in which, finding no

Scriptural explanation, he concludes that the cult came ultimately

from Peru (the Peruvian's knowledge of God did not come along with

it because "vice is more easily learnt than virtue"). As a matter

of fact the Pleiades cult extends throughout Brazil, its seasonal

reappearance being the occasion, as Dobrizhoffer narrates, of a great

feast of intoxication and joy, a veritable Dionysia. And it is hardly

to be doubted that the Abipone, as their own traditions indicate,

came from the north, probably from the Chaco. It is to a contemporary

missionary, Barbrooke Grubb, who has spent an even longer time in the

Chaco than did the Jesuit among the Abipone, that we owe the completer

interpretation of the ideas which Dobrizhoffer sketched. The Chaco

Indians are as near untouched savages as any people on the globe, so

that their beliefs are essentially uncontaminated.

The mythology of the Chaco tribes, says Grubb,[206] is founded on

the idea of a Creator, symbolized by the beetle. First, the material

universe was made; then the Beetle-Creator sent forth from its hole in

the earth a race of First Beings, who for a time ruled all. Afterward

the Beetle formed a man and a woman from the clay which it threw up

from its hole, the two being joined like the Siamese twins. They were

persecuted by the beings who preceded them, whereupon the Beetle

separated them and endowed them with the power of reproduction, whence

the world was peopled and came to its present state.

Whether or no the First Beings, hostile to man, are to be identified

with the Kilyikhama, a class of nature daemones, Grubb does not

make clear. He does, however, describe numerous of these daemonic

forms,--the white Kilyikhama, heard whistling in his little craft on

the swampy waters; the boy Kilyikhama with lights on each side of his

head, the thieving Kilyikhama; and most dreaded of all the daemon,

immensely tall and extremely thin, with eyes like balls of fire, whose

appearance presages instant death. In addition to these daemones,

Aphangak, ghosts of men, are intensely feared, and there are ghosts

of animals, too, to be dreaded,--though, curiously, none of fish or

serpents. The Milky Way is supposed to be the path of the Kilyikhama,

some of whom, in the form of large white birds, are believed there

to await their opportunity to descend into the bodies of men. A very

curious burial custom is also associated with the Galaxy: when a

person is laid out (sometimes even before the dying has breathed his

last) an incision is made in the side of the body and heated stones

are inserted; these stones are supposed to ascend into the Milky Way

whence they await their opportunity to fall upon the person (wizard or

other) who has caused the death. "Consequently the Indians are very

frightened when they see a falling star." Whirlwinds are believed to be

the passing of spirits, and the whole realm of the meteorological is

full of portents,--the rainbow, oddly enough, conceived as a serpentine

monster, being a sign of calamity rather than an arc of hope.

Of the Pleiades Grubb says that they are known by two

names--Mounting-in-the-South and Holders-Together. "Their rising is

connected with the beginning of spring, and feasts are held at this

time, generally of a markedly immoral character." That they call

the constellation Aksak, Grandfather, is not, in the missionary's

opinion, due to the fact that it is the image or embodiment of the

devil (as Dobrizhoffer supposed of the similar Abiponean custom).

Aksak is rather a term applied to any person or thing whose nature is

not quite understood or with whom power and authority rest: "what is

most important of all, they term the creator beetle _aksak_." Grubb

concludes: "In my opinion, the statement of Dobrizhoffer that the

Abipones looked upon themselves as descendants, or, it may be, the

creation of their 'grandfather the devil,' is nothing more nor less

than the widespread tradition that man was created by the beetle, and,

therefore, their originator, instead of being a devil, was rather a

creating god." Perhaps, after all, Tertullian is right.

The missionary also speaks of "a remarkable theory" held by the

Indians, that among the stars there are countries similar to their own,

with forests and lakes, which he would explain either as tales of the

mirage or as due to "a childlike notion that the sky is solid." The

"childlike notion" is, of course, but another instance of a conception

that prevails among the native tribes of the two Americas, as far as

north Greenland; and along with this notion is that of an underworld

to which ghosts descend, which he elsewhere mentions as characteristic

of the Chaco,--though his account of their varying ideas as to the

habitations of the dead shows well enough that these savage theorists

are as uncertain in their location of the abode of shades as was Homer

himself.

III. THE ARAUCANIANS

The Araucanian, or Auca, tribes--of which the Mapuche, Pehuenche, and

Huiliche are the more important divisions, while the southerly Chono

and Chiloe are remote branches--are the aborigines of the southern

Andean region, inhabiting both slopes of the mountains, extending to

the sea on the Pacific side and out into the Patagonian plains on the

Atlantic side. Of all the extreme austral Indians they represent from

pre-Columbian times the highest culture, though it is evident that the

process of acculturation was recent when the whites first appeared,

resulting from contact with Inca and Calchaqui civilizations. The whole

group of Araucanians proper was organized into a confederacy, with

four principal divisions, uniting for common defence,--an organization

very similar to that of the Iroquois Confederacy in North America,

and equally effective; for the Araucanians not only put a stop to

the southerly aggressions of the Incas, but they also successfully

resisted the Spaniards, establishing for themselves a unique place in

the history of American aborigines in contact with the white race. In

manner of life the Araucanians were originally little if any in advance

of their Patagonian neighbours; but as a result of their contact with

the northerly Andean peoples, their own northern branches had acquired,

when the Spaniards first came, a rudimentary agriculture, the potter's

and the weaver's arts, some skill with gold and silver, and the habit

of domesticating the guanaco,--and this culture was gradually extending

to the south. As a whole, however, Araucanian culture represents a

sharp descent, marked by the boundaries of the Incaic empire.

The romantic history of the Araucanians, and especially their heroic

wars with the Spaniards, have naturally attracted to them an unusual

measure of historical and anthropological investigation, so the

literature is copious. Molina's _History_, written in the middle of

the eighteenth century, is the best-known work in the field, and is,

in a sense, the classic exposition of Araucanian institutions, though

both for extent and accuracy it has been superseded by later works,

pre-eminently those of José Medina and Tomás Guevara.[207] The first

volume of the latter's great _Historia de la Civilización de Araucania_

is devoted to "Antropolojía Araucana," and in it is given a summary of

the native pantheon.

First of the gods is Pillan, often regarded as the Araucanian

equivalent of the Tupan of the forest regions of Brazil, god of thunder

and spirit of fire. "This conception represents a survival of the

prehistoric idea which considers fire as the life-principle, carried

to the point of adoring it as an invisible and personal power ...

forces of nature, such as this, being personified in the mind of the

barbarian." Pillan, however, while a personal, is also a collective

power: caciques at their death and warriors who fall in battle pass

into the category of Pilli, some being converted into volcanic forces,

others ascending to the clouds. "From this source," says Guevara,

"is due the belief, conserved almost to this time, that a tempest is

a battle between their ancestors and their enemies, and the custom

of encouraging their own and imprecating the others according to

the turn of the battle: if the clouds move toward the south victory

pertains to those of their race; if to the north--the country of the

Spaniards--they suppose the latter to be victorious."... Inevitably

one recalls the bodeful thunder-storm in _Julius Caesar_,--

"Fierce fiery warriors fought upon the clouds,

In ranks and squadrons and right form of war,

Which drizzled blood upon the Capitol;

The noise of battle hurtled in the air,

Horses did neigh, and dying men did groan,

And ghosts did shriek and squeal about the streets."

Pillan, as the supreme god of a warlike people, was naturally regarded

as the god of war. "They made his habitation," says our author, "in all

those parts whence breaks the thunder: on the crest of high mountains,

in the clouds, and in the volcanoes, whose eruptions are so often

accompanied by electrical phenomena." The deity's name is, as a matter

of fact, preserved in the names of various peaks.

Molina[208] states that the word Pillan is derived from _pilli_,

meaning "soul," and that the god has various attributive designations,

such as Spirit-of-Heaven (Guenu-pillan), the Great Being, the

Thunderer; and along with these, suspiciously European, such epithets

as the Creator, the Omnipotent, the Eternal. On the whole, it is not

unreasonable to assume that the true aboriginal meaning of the word is

"mysterious power" and that the idea itself belongs with the group of

conceptions of a semi-pantheistic nature power, of which Wakanda and

Manito are the best-known names.

That Pillan stands at the head of a hierarchy of nature powers is the

unanimous testimony of authorities. Molina believes that the government

of Pillan is modelled on that of the Araucanian confederacy. He is the

great chief of the invisible world, having under him his high-chiefs

and under-chiefs to conduct cosmic affairs. As with most primitive

folk, the great majority of these lesser deities are considered as

malignant, or at least as dangerous, rather than as beneficent powers.

The Huecuvu (Guecubu, in Molina) are a group of daemones capable

of assuming animal and human forms. The Indians "attribute natural

phenomena to the implacable hatred of these agents of Pillan. They sow

the fields with caterpillars, weaken animals with disease, quake the

earth, and devour the fish in rivers and lakes. The Huecuvu corresponds

with great exactness to the idea of demon." Evil also is Epunamun (whom

Molina regarded as a war-god, apparently on the strength of the Padre

Olivares's statement that he presided at councils of war, where "though

they have no confidence in his councils, they frequently follow them,

rather than offend through disobedience"). Epunamun is represented as

having deformed legs, and he probably belongs to that extraordinary

group of South American monster-bogeys having feet reversed or

knees that bend backward. The Cherruve are the spirits or senders

of shooting-stars and comets, figured (quite to the taste of the

Mediaeval European) as man-headed serpents. Similar is the Ihuaivilu, a

seven-headed fire-monster, inhabiting volcanic neighbourhoods. Meulen

appears to be anything but the benevolent deity that Molina deemed it;

he is the spirit of the whirlwind, disappearing in the ground in the

form of a lizard when the whirlwind is dissipated; in modern folklore

he appears as El Destolanado, devouring all children who cross his path.

The category of demonic beings is by no means exhausted with these wind

and fire powers. The old Chilean mythic lore is filled with composite

and metamorphosing beast-bogeys and witch-beings, many of which have

been handed on to the modern peasantry; so that it is now often

impossible to tell what elements are native and what communicated. Many

still bear native names. Perimontum is a phantom appearing from the

other world to announce some extraordinary event. The Am is the ghost

of a murdered man; the Alhue is a mischievous sprite whose sport is to

frighten men. Colocolo is a small, invisible or subterranean animal

or bird, whose cry, _colo colo!_ is sometimes heard; anyone drinking

its saliva will die. Negúruvilu, or Guirivilo, is a cat-like monster

armed with a claw-pointed tail; it lives in the depths of the waters,

whence it sallies forth to kill men and animals, assuming a serpentine

form as it envelops them. There are numerous other water-monsters,

some marine, some amphibians, their most various forms being naturally

found among the Chiletes of the southern archipelago. El Caleuche, the

witch-boat, is interesting for the fact that here, in the far Pacific

south, it represents what might almost be called an outcropping of the

similar conceptions found among the Eskimo and the pelagic tribes of

the North-West Coast. The witch-boat is seen at night, illuminated, and

it carries fishermen down to the treasure-houses at the bottom of the

sea. Another monster of this region is Camahueto, capable of wrecking

large boats; while Cuero, known to the Araucanians as Trelquehuecuve,

is a sort of huge octopus, whose arms end in claws and whose ears are

covered with eyes; it has great powers of dilation and contraction, and

seizes and slays all that fall within its reach; when it goes ashore to

sun itself and wishes to return to its element, it raises a gale which

pushes it into the water. Huaillepeñ, or Guallipén, is in the form of

a calf-headed sheep, with deformed legs; it issues from streams and

pools on misty mornings and frightens pregnant women, causing their

children to be born deformed. The Imbunche are monsters into which

babes stolen by witches have been transformed; the Trauco is an old

witch appearing in the form of a child and having the habits of an

incubus; the Pihuicheñ, or Piguchén, is a vampire-like serpent that can

transform itself into a frog, a blood-sucker and death-bringer, while

the Chonchoñ, a vampire having the form of a human head whose huge

ears serve as wings for its nocturnal flights, is reminiscent of the

travelling heads which form so important a group of bogeys on the North

American continent.

With such an array of demons surrounding them, it is small marvel that

for the Chilean peasant of today the devil is not an interesting person

in popular mythology, as Señor Vicuña Cifuentes tells us,[209] playing

a rôle altogether inferior to those of the local demons. Beneficent

powers are rare in the Araucanian pantheon. Pillan may be regarded

in this light, as also Ngúnemapun, a higher power recognized by the

Araucans of today, says Guevara, although not mentioned in the older

chronicles. He seems to be a doublet of Pillan, and may represent an

epithet of this god, or even a still higher power to whom invocations

were formerly addressed which the Spaniards supposed to be addressed to

Pillan. Like the latter, Ngúnemapun dwells on high mountains, has the

power of rendering himself invisible, and is given the customary form

of a warrior. Beneficent also is Huitranalhue, friend of strangers and

the protector of herds from thieves.

A curious feature of Araucanian religion is the absence of any cult of

the sun. Possibly this is due to the fact that the sun was the great

deity of their enemies, the Incas; so that even if it had been adored

in the primitive period, it might have been degraded after the Incaic

defeat on the same principle that caused a Florida tribe to establish a

cult of the Devil, because he was the enemy of the Spaniard. The fact

that the Araucanians had measured the solar year, which they divided

into twelve months of thirty days each, adding five intercalary days

or epagomenae, argues a sun-cult. Molina tells us that they began

their year immediately after the December solstice, which they called

the Head-and-Tail-of-the-Year, while the June solstice was called the

Divider-of-the-Year. Dobrizhoffer says that the Picunche, or Moluche

(Araucanians), like the Puelche, had no name for God.[210] "These

ascribe all the good things they either possess or desire to the sun,

and to the sun they pray for them"; and one of their priests, he says,

when told of God, said: "Till this hour we never knew nor acknowledged

anything greater or better than the sun." This certainly points to the

probability that in primitive times the sun was an Araucanian god,

though it appears that the moon has assumed the place of celestial

importance in the later pantheon. Her ancient name, Anchimalguen,

signifies, says Guevara, Woman (i. e., wife)-of-the-Sun; Anchimallen

is the contemporary form. She is implored in adversity and praised in

prosperity, say the chroniclers. Sometimes Anchimallen is of ill omen,

appearing at night in the form of a stray guanaco and luring travellers

to vain pursuit; but she also serves to give warning of enemies and to

frighten away evil spirits. Molina gives a very interesting suggestion,

namely, that all the female powers of the invisible world form a class

of beneficent nymphs called Amchi-malghen. "There is not an Araucanian

but imagines he has one of these in his service. _Nien cai gni

Amchi-malghen_, 'I keep my nymph still,' is a common expression when

they succeed in any undertaking."

The mythic tales of the Araucanians are (judging from somewhat meagre

materials) of a class with those prevalent in neighbouring regions,--a

cosmogony in which volcanic forces destroy the world by fire, while a

deluge causes all to perish save a few who flee to the three-peaked

mountain Thegtheg, the Mount of Levin, which moves upon the waters;

a hero cycle in which two brothers, Konkel and Pediu, figure as

transformers; and there are stories of a Sky-World above, and of

seaward Islands of the Dead.[211] One of the most interesting elements

of their mythology is their version of the oft-recurring conception of

a Way Perilous to the abode of the departed. An old woman, in the form

of a whale, bears the soul out to sea; but before his arrival in the

Araucanian Hades he is obliged to pay toll for passing a narrow strait,

where sits another malignant hag who exacts an eye from any poor

wretch who has nothing better to pay.

IV. THE PATAGONIANS

Few peoples have had fame thrust upon them with so little reason as

have the Patagonian Indians, and few myths have been more widely

credited than that Patagonia was the home of a race of giants. The

Tehuelche are, as a matter of fact, men of large size, probably

averaging above six feet; and they are noted for the large development,

especially of the upper parts of their body. Keane states that they

are second in size among South American peoples, being exceeded by the

Bororo. Possibly it was due to the fact that the first navigators of

this region were men of south Europe, themselves short, which gave rise

to the myth of Patagonian giants. Pigafetta,[212] the chief chronicler

of Magellan's voyage, says of one of these "giants" that he was "so

tall that our heads scarcely came up to his waist," and the anonymous

"Genoese pilot" who has left an account of the same navigation reports

that where they wintered, in 1520, "there were people like savages, and

the men are from nine to ten spans in height, very well made." It is,

indeed, possible that the stature of the modern Tehuelche is modified

slightly from that of the _Patagon_, or "Big-Foot" ("the captain named

this kind of people Pataghom," wrote Pigafetta); for since the middle

of the eighteenth century the Tehuelche have been an equestrian people,

living on horseback, one might say; and a recent observer says of them

that "the lower limbs are sometimes disappointing, being, in fact,

the lower limbs of a race of riders." Such an influence may well have

produced a small diminution of the average stature over that at the

time of the first observations.

In no other respect is the Patagonian remarkable. The race is divided

into two great divisions, the northerly Puelche and the Tehuelche,

of Patagonia proper, now both equestrian peoples. Across the Strait

of Magellan, in eastern Tierra del Fuego, dwell the Ona, still a

pedestrian branch of the Patagonian race.

The Patagonians are a sluggish and peaceable people, quite

self-sufficient when left to themselves, and in the south little

influenced by the arts of civilization. Except for the changes which

the introduction of horses has brought into their life, the description

of the Genoese pilot is essentially true to this day:[213] "They have

not got houses; they only go about from one place to another ... and

eat meat nearly raw: they are all archers and kill many animals with

arrows, and with the skins they make clothes.... Wherever night finds

them, there they sleep; they carry their wives along with them with all

the chattels they possess."

Accounts of Patagonian religion are all meagre; perhaps because the

ideational content of their belief is itself meagre, for authorities

agree that they are slow and unimaginative. The little information

given by Pigafetta, chronicler of Magellan's voyage, has, to be

sure, a moving background. Two of the "giants," he says, were lured

on shipboard, and there, while being entertained with gauds, were

clamped with irons, the intention being to take them for a show to the

Castilian king. "When they saw the trick which had been played them,

they began to be enraged, and to foam like bulls, crying out very loud

_Setebos_, that is to say, the great devil, that he should help them."

It is from this passage that Shakespeare derived his conception of the

god of Caliban. Pigafetta adds that the lesser devils, under Setebos,

are called Cheleule. "This one who was in the ship with us, told us

by signs that he had seen devils with two horns on their heads, and

long hair down to their feet, who threw out fire from their mouths and

rumps,"--but we can hardly doubt that the navigators' imaginations

were here potent interpreters of the signs. Dobrizhoffer's eighteenth

century description of Patagonian beliefs is essentially the same as

that of Prichard in the twentieth century.[214] "They are all

acquainted with the devil, whom they call Balichù [_Valichu, Gualichu,_

are variants found in other sources]. They believe that there is an

innumerable crowd of demons, the chief of whom they name El El, and

all the inferior ones Quezubû [probably a form of the Araucanian

_Huecuvu_]. They think, however, every kind of demon hostile and

mischievous to the human race, and the origin of all evil, regarding

them in consequence with dread and abhorrence." Dobrizhoffer goes on

to state that the Puelche and the Araucanian Picunche alike revere the

Sun, indicating the affinity of the beliefs of the two groups, which

are probably at least remotely related. He continues: "The Patagonians

call God Soychù [_Soucha_ is Pennant's variant], to-wit, that which

cannot be seen, which is worthy of all veneration, which does not live

in the world; hence they call the dead _Soychuhèt_, men that dwell with

God beyond the world. They seem to hold two principles in common with

the Gnostics and Manichaeans, for they say that God created both good

and evil demons. The latter they greatly fear, but never worship. They

believe every sick person to be possessed of an evil demon; hence their

physicians always carry a drum with figures of devils painted on it,

which they strike at the beds of sick persons, to drive the evil demon,

which causes the disorder, from the body."

Prichard's description adds nothing to this.[215] The religion of the

Indians consists "in the old simple beliefs in good spirits and devils,

but chiefly devils.... The dominant Spirit of Evil is called Gualicho.

And he abides as an ever-present terror behind their strange, free,

and superstitious lives. They spend no small portion of their time in

either fleeing from his wrath or in propitiating it. You may wake in

the dawn to see a band of Indians suddenly rise and leap upon their

horses, and gallop away across the pampa, howling and gesticulating.

They are merely scaring the Gualicho away from their tents back to

his haunts in the Cordillera--the wild and unpenetrated mountains,

where he and his subordinate demons groan in chosen spots the long

nights through." The Good Spirit of the Tehuelche, says Prichard, is

far more quiescent. Long ago he made one effort to benefit mankind,

when he created the animals in the caves of "God's Hill" and gave them

to his people for food, but since then he has shown little interest

in earthly matters. Of the practices of the Tehuelche shaman--perhaps

an innovation since the day of Dobrizhoffer--Prichard gives an odd

instance, narrated by another white observer: "In the middle of the

level white pampa two figures upon galloping horses were visible. As

we came nearer we saw that one was a man clothed in a _chiripa_ and a

_capa_ in which brown was the predominating colour. He was mounted on

a heavy-necked powerful _cebruno_ horse, his stirrups were of silver,

and his gear of raw-hide seemed smart and good. As he rode he yelled

with all his strength, producing a series of the most horrible and

piercing shrieks. But strange as was this wild figure, his companion,

victim or quarry, was stranger and more striking still. For on an

ancient _zaino_ sat perched a little brown maiden, whose aspect was

forlorn and pathetic to the last degree. She rode absolutely naked in

the teeth of the bitter cold, her breast, face and limbs blotched and

smeared with the rash of some eruptive disease, and her heavy-lidded

eyes, strained and open, staring ahead across the leagues of empty

snow-patched plain. Presently the man redoubled his howls, and bearing

down upon the _zaino_ flogged and frightened it into yet greater speed.

The whole scene might have been mistaken for some ancient barbaric and

revolting form of punishment; whereas, in real truth, it was an anxious

Indian father trying, according to his lights, to cure his daughter of

measles!" Devils are known to dislike noise and cold, says Prichard;

hence, the unlucky patient without a shred to protect her and "the

almost incredible uproar made by the old gentleman upon the dark brown

horse."

D'Orbigny says[216] of the Tehuelche, "they fear rather than revere

their Achekanet-kanet, turn by turn genius of ill and genius of

good," and of the Puelche that, like the Patagonians, they believe

in a genius of ill, named Gualichu, or Arraken, who sometimes becomes

beneficent, without need of prayer. Falkner (cited by King in _The

Voyage of the Beagle_, vol. ii, p. 161) mentions "at the head of their

good deities," Guayarakunny, lord of the dead. "They think," he says,

"that the good deities have habitations in vast caverns under the

earth, and that when an Indian dies his soul goes to live with the

deity who presides over his particular family. They believe that their

good deities made the world, and that they first created the Indians

in the subterranean caverns above mentioned; gave them the lance, bow

and arrows, and the balls [_bolas_], to fight and hunt with, and then

turned them out to shift for themselves. They imagine that the deities

of the Spaniards created them in a similar manner, but that, instead of

lances, bows, etc., they gave them guns and swords. They say that when

the beasts, birds, and lesser animals were created, those of the more

nimble kind came immediately out of the caverns; but that the bulls and

cows being the last, the Indians were so frightened at the sight of

their horns, that they stopped the entrances of their caves with great

stones. This is the grave reason why they had no black cattle in their

country, till the Spaniards brought them over; who, more wisely, had

let them out of their caves."

A more recent account of what is a kindred, if not the same myth is

given by Ramon Lista.[217] The creator-hero, in this version, is named

El-lal. "El-lal came into the world in a strange way. His father

Nosjthej (a kind of Saturn), wishing to devour him, had snatched him

from his mother's womb. He owed his rescue to the intervention of the

_terguerr_ (a rodent) which carried him away to its cave; this his

father tried in vain to enter. After having learned from the famous

rodent the properties of different plants and the directions of the

mountain-paths, El-lal himself invented the bow and arrow, and with

these weapons began the struggle against the wild animals--puma, fox,

condor,--and conquered them all. But the father returned. Forgetting

the past El-lal taught him how to manipulate the bow and the sling,

and joyfully showed him the trophies of the chase--tortoise shells,

condor's wings, etc. Nosjthej took up his abode in the cave and soon

acted as master of it. Faithful to his fierce instincts, he wanted

to kill his son; he followed him across the Andes, but, when on the

point of reaching him, he saw a dense forest arise between him and his

son. El-lal was saved; he descended to the plain, which meanwhile had

become peopled with men. Among them was a giant, Goshy-e, who devoured

children; El-lal tried to fight him, but he was invulnerable; the

arrows broke against his body. Then El-lal transformed himself into a

gadfly, entered the giant's stomach, and wounded him fatally with this

sting. It was not until he had accomplished all these feats, and had

proved himself a clever huntsman, that El-lal thought of marrying. He

asked the hand of the daughter of the Sun, but she did not think him

worthy of her and escaped him by a subterfuge. Disenchanted, El-lal

decided to leave the earth, where, he considered, his mission was at an

end, since man, who had in the meantime appeared in the plain and in

the mountain valleys, had learned from him the use of fire, weapons,

etc. Borne on the wings of a swan across the ocean towards the east, he

found eternal rest in the verdant island which rose among the waves at

the places where the arrows shot by him had fallen on the surface of

the water."

This cosmogony is of the familiar primitive Indian type. Falkner, in

the passage cited, goes on to describe Patagonian beliefs in regard to

the fates of human souls: "Some say that the stars are old Indians;

that the Milky Way is the field where the old Indians hunt ostriches

[more likely, this myth attaches to the Southern Cross, as Guevara

says it does with the Indians of Paraguay; and as, in North America,

it attaches to the Ursa Major], and that the Magellan clouds are the

feathers of the ostriches which they kill. They have an opinion that

the creation is not yet exhausted; nor is all of it yet come out to

the daylight of this upper world. The wizards, beating their drums,

and rattling their hide bags full of shells or stones, pretend to see

into other regions under the earth. Each wizard is supposed to have

familiar spirits in attendance, who give supernatural information,

and execute the conjurer's will. They believe that the souls of their

wizards, after death, are of the number of these demons, called

Valichu, to whom every evil, or unpleasant event is attributed."

_Mutatis mutandis_ this description would apply perfectly to the

shamanistic beliefs and practices of the Polar North, and it is not

without significance that Prichard is drawn to point the essential

analogy between the austral and boreal aborigines of America.

Substitute the kayak for the horse, the seal for the guanaco, with such

differences in habit as these imply, and the differences of the two

peoples (psychologically, for it must be owned that in stature they are

antipodes) become slight. Certainly their beliefs are almost identical:

a beneficent, but precarious food-giver; a host of spiteful and

dangerous powers of wind and weather; a sky-world and an underworld,

with hunter-souls pursuing their earthly vocation; fey-sighted wizards

and medicine-men with drums. To be sure this represents the foundation

stratum of Indian ideas throughout the two Americas, the simplest form

of American religious myth; but there is surely a dramatic propriety

in finding this simplest form, almost in its first purity, at the wide

extremes of the two continents.

Have the conceptions travelled, from pole almost to pole? or are they

separate inspirations to a universal human nature from a never vastly

varying environmental nature? This is a riddle not easy to solve;

for while it is not difficult to imagine unrelated peoples severally

framing the notion that men and animals are born out of the womb of

Earth or that the image of their own hunting parties is written in

the constellations--for, as Molina remarks, more than one people have

"regulated the things of heaven by those of the earth,"--still it is

odd to find such particular agreements constant from latitude to

latitude throughout a hemisphere.

V. THE FUEGIANS

The Yahgan and Alakaluf tribes of Tierra del Fuego and the adjacent

archipelago enjoy the unenviable distinction of being rated as among

the lowest of human beings both as to actual culture and possible

development. The earlier navigators regarded them as little more than

animals--and often, unfortunately, treated them no better. Even Darwin,

viewing them with the naturalist's eye, saw little but annoyance in

their presence and formed a dismal estimate of their powers. "We were

always much surprised at the little notice, or rather none whatever,

which was evinced respecting many things, even such as boats, the use

of which must have been evident. Simple circumstances,--such as the

whiteness of our skins, the beauty of scarlet cloth or blue beads,

the absence of women, our care in washing ourselves,--excited their

admiration far more than a grand or complicated object, such as the

ship."[218] Darwin, however, noted that the Indians had a sense of

fairness in trade, and when missionaries settled among them other

good qualities appeared. Thomas Bridges, who lived with the Yahgan as

missionary for years, wrote of them, in 1891: "We find the natives work

well and happily when assured of adequate reward. They shear our sheep,

make fences, saw out boards and planks of all kinds, work well with the

pick and spade, are good boatmen and pleasant companions." With such a

tribute from one who had lived long with them it can hardly be doubted

that the Yahgan are better than the common report of them,--indeed,

quite the children of nature which the not unaffecting anecdotes of

York Minster and Jemmy Button, among the voyages of the _Beagle_,

should lead us to expect.

"Jemmy Button," says Captain Fitzroy,[219] "was very superstitious and

a great believer in omens and dreams. He would not talk of a dead

person, saying, with a grave shake of the head, 'no good, no good

talk; my country never talk of dead man.' While at sea, on board the

_Beagle_, about the middle of the year 1832, he said one morning to Mr.

Bynoe, that in the night some man came to the side of his hammock, and

whispered in his ear that his father was dead. Mr. Bynoe tried to laugh

him out of the idea, but ineffectually. He fully believed that such

was the case, and maintained his opinion up to the time of finding his

relations in the Beagle Channel, when, I regret to say, he found that

his father had died some months previously. He did not forget to remind

Mr. Bynoe (his most confidential friend) of their former conversation,

and, with a significant shake of the head said, it was 'bad--very bad.'

Yet these simple words seemed to express the extent of his sorrow."...

Here is surely as good a case of the "veridical" apparition as any

Researcher could desire.

"Ideas of a spiritual existence--of beneficent and evil powers,"

describes the nearest notion Captain Fitzroy could get of Fuegian

religion. The powers of evil are especially the powers of wind and

weather--naturally enough in a part of the globe world-famous for its

bitter gales and treacherous waters. "If anything was said or done that

was wrong, in their opinion it was certain to cause bad weather. Even

the shooting of young birds, before they were able to fly, was thought

a heinous offence. I remember York Minster saying one day to Mr.

Bynoe, when he had shot some young ducks with the old bird--'Oh, Mr.

Bynoe, very bad to shoot little duck--come wind--come rain--blow--very

much blow.'" Primitive as they are, here are moral ideas---whether

one explain, reconditely, the sparing of the young of game as an

instinctive conservation of the food supply, or, simply, as due to a

natural and chivalrous pity for the helpless young.

Our information in regard to the spirit-beings believed in by the

Fuegians is at best nebulous. Captain Fitzroy tells of "a great black

man ... supposed to be always wandering about the woods and mountains,

who is certain of knowing every word and action, who cannot be escaped,

and who influences the weather according to men's conduct," and again

of thin wild men, "who have no belly," (surely, the "skeleton men" of

the Eskimo and of other North American tribes). Dr. Hyades,[220] in

his report of the gleanings of the French Mission to Cape Horn, half a

century after the famous expeditions of the _Adventure_ and _Beagle_,

gives a fuller, though still meagre description of these wild folk

of Yahgan fancy,--irresistibly reminiscent of the Fog People and the

Inland Dwellers of the Eskimo at the other extreme of the hemisphere.

The Oualapatou, Wild Men from the West, are ever-present terrors. They

are heard in the noises of the night, and hearing them, the Yahgan

incontinently flee. These Wild Men, they say, enter their huts at

night, cut the throats of the occupants and devour their limbs. From

their confused accounts, says Dr. Hyades, it would appear that the

Oualapatou are the dead returned to earth to eat the living; they are

invisible, except at the moment of seizing their victims, but they

are heard imitating the cries of birds and animals. Another class of

wild beings are the Kachpikh, fantastic beings that live in desert

caves or in thick forests. These, too, are invisible, but they hate

man and cause disease and death. Still another class (reported by the

Missionary Bridges) are called Hannouch. Some of these are supposed

to have an eye in the back of their heads; others are hairless and

sleep standing up supported by a tree; they hold in hand a white stone

which they hurl with inevitable aim at any object soever, and they

sometimes attack and wound men. One man, said to have been stolen

away as a child by the Hannouch, was named _Hannouchmachaaïnan_,

"stolen-by-the-Hannouch." Any man who goes off to live by himself is

called a Hannouch, while a demented person is regarded as tormented by

one of these beings.

The Fuegian's equivalent for the Eskimo's Angakok is the Yakamouch.

Bridges' account is quoted by Hyades: "Nearly every old man of the

people is a Yakamouch, for it is very easy to become one; they are

recognizable at a glance from the gray colour of their hair, a colour

produced by the daily application of a whitish clay. They make frequent

incantations in which they appear to address a mysterious being named

Aïapakal; they claim to possess, from a spirit called Hoakils, a

supernatural power of life and death; they recount their dreams, and

when they have eaten in dream any person, this signifies that that

person will die. It is believed that they can draw from the bodies of

the sick the cause of their ill, called _aïkouch_, visible in the form

of an arrow or a harpoon point of flint, which they cause, moreover,

to issue from their own stomachs at will.... They seem to believe that

these sorcerers can influence the weather for good or bad; they throw

shells into the wind to cause it to cease and they give themselves over

to incantations and contortions." Women also may be Yakamouch, and

there is even a report that formerly none but women professed the art.

The Fuegians are a vanishing people,--even in a vanishing race.

They have long and often been cited as a people without religion.

After recounting what is here narrated of their beliefs, Dr. Hyades

concludes: "In all these legends, we see no reason seriously to admit a

_belief_ in supernatural beings or in a future life, and consequently

a religious sentiment, among the Fuegians." This judgement, however,

is not wholly supported by the observations of others. According to

the fathers of the Salesian mission[221] the Alakaluf believe in "an

invisible being called Taquatú, whom they imagine to be a giant who

travels by day and night in a big canoe, over the sea and rivers,

and who glides as well through the air over the tops of the trees

without bending their branches; if he finds any men or women idle or

not on the alert he takes them without more ado into his great boat

and carries them far away from home." Captain Low, of the Fitzroy

expedition, asserted that there was not only a belief in "an immense

black man" (Yaccy-ma) responsible for all sorts of evil, among the

west Patagonian channel natives, but also that they believed in "a good

spirit whom they called Yerri Yuppon," invoked in time of distress

and danger. On the other point, of belief in a future life, there

is no doubt but that the Fuegians recognize some form of ghost, or

breath-spirit, which haunts the walks of men. One missionary says of

the Yahgan that he thinks that "when a man dies, his breath goes up to

heaven"; nothing similar occurs in the case of animals.

Of myth in the legendary form only meagre fragments have been gathered

from the Fuegians, and of these the greater part come from the Ona, who

are akin to the Tehuelche.[222] According to Ona lore there formerly

"lived on earth bearded white men; the sun and moon were then husband

and wife; when men began to war, the sun and moon returned to the sky

and sent down a red star, the planet Mars, which turned into a giant on

the way; the giant killed all men, then made two mountains or clods of

clay, from one of which rose the first Ona man and from the other the

first Ona woman." The same tribe have a tradition of a cataclysm which

separated the island on which they dwell from the mainland. Both the

Ona and the Yahgan have traditions of a flood and tales of earth-born

men; and each of these peoples has also a mythic hero (Kuanip is the

Ona, Oumoara the Yahgan name) concerning whom tales are told. Some

of their stories appear to relate to historical transformations in

the mode of tribal life, as the tradition (maintained by both tribes)

that in former times the women were the tribal rulers, that the

men rebelled, and invented initiation rites and the ruse of masked

spirits in order to keep the women in subjection--a type of myth

which, however, is rather more plausibly of an aetiological than of

an historical character. In the main, nature is the theme of mythic

thought, and there is perhaps no more unique a group of ideas among

these peoples of the Far South than the Yahgan conception of the

relations of the celestial beings: the moon, they say, is the wife of

the rainbow, while the sun is elder brother to the moon and to shining

Venus.

* * * * *

There is much in the culture and fancies of these peoples of austral

America to recall the culture and fancies of their remote kinsmen of

the Polar North. The two Americas measure, as it were, the longitude

of human habitation, marked off zone by zone into every variety

of climate and terrain to which men's lives can be accommodated.

Moreover, the native peoples of this New World show a oneness of race

nowhere else to be found over so great an area; so that, in spite

of differences in culture almost as great as those which mark the

heights and depths of human condition in the more anciently peopled

hemisphere, there is a recognizable unity binding together Eskimo and

Aztec, Inca and Yahgan. Now what is surely most impressive is that this

unity is best represented neither by physical appearance nor material

achievement (where, indeed, the differences are most magnified),

but by a conservation of ideas and of the symbolic language of myth

which is at bottom one. Not that there is any single level of thought

common to all, for there is surely a world of intelligence between

the imaginative splendour of Mayan art and science and tradition

and the dimly haunted soul of the Fuegian who "supposes the sun and

moon, male and female, to be very old indeed, and that some old man,

who knew their maker, had died without leaving information on this

subject";[223] but that no matter what the failure to build or the

erosion of superstructure, or indeed no matter what the variety of

superstructures as, for example, made apparent in the characteristic

colours of North American and South American mythologies, there is

still _au fond_ a single racial complexion of mind, with a recognizable

kinship of the spiritual life. Through vast geographical distances,

among peoples long mutually forgotten if ever mutually known, in every

variety of natural garb, polar and tropical, forest and sea, this

kinship persists, not favoured by, but in spite of, environments

the most changing. It is not necessary here invariably to assume

migrations of ideas, passed externally from tribe to tribe, although

evidence of these, recent and remote, is frequent enough; it is not

sufficient to postulate merely the psychical unity of our common human

nature, although this, too, is a factor which we should not neglect;

but along with these we may reasonably conceive that the American

race, through its long isolation, even in its most tenuously connected

branches retains a certain deep communion of thought and feeling, a

lasting participation in its own mode of insight and its own quest of

inspiration, which unites it across the stretches of time and space.

The arctic tern is said to summer in the two polar zones, arctic and

antarctic, trued to its enormous flight by the most mystifying of all

animal instincts. Perhaps it is some human instinct as profound and as

mystifying which joins in one thought the scattered peoples of the two

continents, charting in modes more subtle than their obvious forms can

suggest the impulses which lead men to see their environmental world

not as their physical eyes perceive it, but, belied by their eyes, as

inner and whispering voices proclaim it to be.

NOTES

[1] That there is an ultimate community of culture and thought between

the Andean and Mexican regions can hardly be doubted. Furthermore, it

is not merely primitive, but belongs to an era of some advancement

in the arts. Spinden (_Ancient Civilizations of Mexico and Central

America_ [New York, 1917], and elsewhere) has termed the early

stage the "archaic period," and he plausibly argues for its Mexican

origination and southward migration. But at any rate since near the

beginning of the Christian Era the civilizations of the two regions

have developed in virtual independence.

[2] The most admirable general introduction to the whole subject of

American ethnography is Wissler, _The American Indian_ (New York, 1917).

[3] The transition from the Antilles to Guiana is, however, rather

more marked than is that from the Orinoco to the Amazonian regions.

Virtually the whole South American region bounded by the Andes, the

Caribbean Sea, and the Argentinian Pampas is one ethnographically; so

that, in the present work, Chapters VIII and IX are descriptive of

a single region. However, the great rivers have always been natural

routes of exploration, and this has given to the river systems an

ethnographically factitious, but bibliographically real differentiation.

[4] Wm. Henry Brett, _Legends and Myths of the Aboriginal Indians of

British Guiana_ (London, no date).

[5] For a history of this interesting movement in certain phases of

European culture see Gilbert Chinard, _L'Exotisme américain_ (Paris,

1911).

[6] Among early writers on Antillean religion the most important

are Christopher Columbus, Ramon Pane, and Peter Martyr d'Anghiera.

Columbus left Fray Ramon Pane in Haiti with instructions to report

on the religious beliefs of the natives; and in Fernando Columbus's

_Historie_, ch. lxii, Pane's narrative is incorporated, introduced by a

brief quotation from Christopher Columbus, describing Zemiism. After

Pane, the account of Haitian religion in Peter Martyr's "First Decade"

is the most important source, although Benzoni, Gómara, Herrera, Las

Casas, and Oviedo give additional or corroborative information. Of

recent writings those of J. W. Fewkes, embodying the results of careful

archaeological studies, form the most important contribution. Part

ii of Joyce's _Central American and West Indian Archaeology_ gives a

general survey of the field, which is more briefly treated in livre ii,

3e partie, of Beuchat's _Manuel_, and in its comparative aspects by

Wissler, _The American Indian_.

[7] Beuchat, Joyce [a], and Fewkes [b] describe the condition of the

Antilleans at the time of the discovery as reconstructed from early

accounts and archaeological investigations. Of the early writings,

the descriptions of Las Casas are the most detailed. The use of

_Taïno_ to designate the island Arawakan tribes follows Fewkes [b],

p. 26: "Among the first words heard by the comrades of Columbus when

they landed in Guadeloupe were '_Taïno! taïno!_'--'Peace! peace!' or

'We are friends.' The designation '_taïno_' has been used by several

writers as a characteristic name for the Antillean race. Since it is

both significant and euphonious, it may be adopted as a convenient

substitute for the adjective 'Antillean' to designate a cultural type.

The author applies the term to the original sedentary people of the

West Indies, as distinguished from the Carib." The incident to which

reference is made is described in _Select Letters of Columbus (HS)_, p.

28. It is perhaps worth while to note that Peter Martyr (tr. MacNutt,

i. 66, 81) says that _taïno_ signifies "a virtuous man." The word

_carib, caniba,_ is the source of our _cannibal_. It is possible that

it means "man-eater" and is of Taïno origin. Columbus, in the _Journal_

of the first voyage (tr. Bourne, p. 223), is authority for the

statement that "Carib" is the Hispaniolan form of the name. Im Thurn

(p. 163) says that the Guiana Carib call themselves _Carinya_, which

would seem to show that the word is an autonym, in which case it may

mean, as Herrera says (III. v), "valiant." It is rather curious, if the

insular Carib were the inveterate cannibals the earlier writers make

them to be, that those of the mainland should have held the practice in

abhorrence, for which we have Humboldt's statement, _Voyage_ (tr. Ross,

ii. 413).

[8] A term of some interest is _cacique_, which is generally regarded

as Haitian in origin, being, says Peter Martyr (tr. MacNutt, i. 82)

their word for "king." Bastian, however, affirms that it is Arabic (ii.

293, note): "Das Wort Cazique ist nicht amerikanisch, sino arabigo,

usado entre los alarabes de Africa en el Reyno de Mazagan, con el qual

nombran al principal y cabeças de los aduares, como tambien le nombran

Xeque (meint Simon)."

[9] The literature of the discovery is summarized by Beuchat,

"Bibliographie," ch. iv. Christopher Columbus's _Letters_ and

_Journal_, tr. Major, Markham, and Bourne, are here quoted.

[10] The question of Amazons (cf. _infra_, Ch. IX, i), is a curious

commingling of Old and New World myth, with, perhaps, some foundation

in primitive custom, especially linguistic. Thus Beuchat, p. 509

(citing Raymond Breton and Lucien Adam; cf. also Ballet, citing du

Tertre, pp. 398-99), states that the Caribs of the Isles had separate

vocabularies, in part at least, for men and women, and that the women's

speech contained a majority of Arawak words. This argument should not

be pushed too far, however, for there are a number of South American

languages with well-differentiated man-tongue and woman-tongue, where

a similar origin of the difference is not shown. On his first voyage

Columbus (letters to de Santangel and Sanchez), though he did not meet

them, heard of "ferocious men, eaters of human flesh, wearing their

hair long like women." On the second voyage--as described by Chanca in

his "Letter to the Chapter of Seville" (_Select Letters_)--the Caribs

were encountered and found to be holding in slavery many Taïno women:

"In their attacks upon the neighbouring islands, these people capture

as many of the women as they can, especially those who are young and

beautiful, and keep them as concubines; and so great a number do they

carry off, that in fifty houses no men were to be seen" (p. 31). It is

added that the Caribs ate the children born of these captive women (a

custom ascribed also to some South American cannibalistic tribes); but

as it is said in the same connexion that captive boys were not devoured

until they grew up, "for they say that the flesh of boys and women is

not good to eat," the story is scarcely plausible. Herrera repeats that

the Caribs ate no women, but kept them as slaves, in association with

the statement that the natives of Dominica ate a friar, and dying of a

flux caused by his flesh, gave over their cannibalism. These stories

seem to point to a ritualistic element in the cannibalism, for to the

Carib the flesh of warriors was the only man's meat. Of course, in the

notion of Amazons there was an element of myth as well as of custom,

and the myth was certainly known to Columbus, if we may trust the

authenticity (and there is small reason to doubt it) of the paragraph

with which Ramon Pane's narrative is introduced. For the myth in

question see _supra_, pp. 31-32, and cf. Pane, chh. iii-v.

[11] The story of the search for the Fountain of Youth and of the

colony of Antillean Indians in Florida is to be found in Fontaneda, pp.

17-19. The influence of Antillean culture has been traced well to the

north of Florida, where it may have been extended by the pre-Muskhogean

population; see also Herrera, III. v.

[12] The story of Hathvey, or Hatuey, is given by Fewkes [b], pp.

211-12, and by Joyce [a], p. 244; its source is Las Casas [a], III. xxv.

[13] West Indian idolatry, called Zemiism, is earliest described in

the passage attributed to Christopher Columbus (Fernando Columbus,

ch. lxi); other authorities here quoted are Benzoni, pp. 78-80; Peter

Martyr, "First Decade," ix (tr. MacNutt, i. 167-78); Ramon Pane,

ch. xix-xxiv (tr. Pinkerton, xii. 87-89); and Las Casas [b], chh.

clxvi-vii; cf. also Fewkes, especially [b], [e], Joyce [a], and Beuchat.

[14] The most interesting artifacts from the Antilles are the stone

rings, triangles, and elbows, which must be regarded as certainly

ritualistic in character, and probably as used in fertility rites. This

is not only indicated by Columbus and Ramon Pane, but is supported by

numerous analogies. Ramon Pane (ch. xix) says: "The stone _cemis_ are

of several sorts: some there are which, they say, the physicians take

out of the body of the sick, and those they look upon as best to help

women in labour. Others there are that speak, which are shaped like a

long turnip, with the leaves long and extended, like the shrub-bearing

capers. Those leaves, for the most part, are like those of the elm.

Others have three points, and they think they cause the yucca to

thrive." It is perhaps not far-fetched to see in the triangular stones

analogues of the mountain-man images of the Tlaloque in Mexico, or of

the similar images from South America, certainly used in connexion

with rain ceremonies. Very likely separate forms were employed for

different plants, as maize or yucca. The stone rings, again, could

very reasonably be those which were supposed to help women in labour,

as seems to have been the case with the analogous rings and yokes from

Yucatan (see Fewkes, _25 ARBE_, pp. 259-61). Even if the two types of

stones were combined, as seems altogether likely, at least for magic

and divination, there is congruity in the relationship of both types

to fertility, animal and vegetable respectively. Señor J. J. Acosta

has suggested that the Antillean stone rings represent the bodies, and

the triangular stones the heads, of serpents; and this is not without

plausibility in view of the frequency with which serpents are regarded

as fertility emblems. It may be worth recalling, too, that an Antillean

name for doctor, or medicine-man, signified "serpent."

[15] There is no reason to assume any essential difference in character

in the shamans or medicine-men of the North and South American Indians.

In general, the lower the tribe in the scale of political organization,

the more important is the shaman or doctor, and the more distinctly

individual and the less tribal are the offices which he performs; as

organization grows in social complexity, the function of priest emerges

as distinct from that of doctor, the priest becoming the depository of

ritual, and the doctor or shaman, on a somewhat lower level, attending

the sick or practising magic and prophecy. Apparently in the Antilles

the two offices were on the way to differentiation, if, indeed, they

were not already distinct. The _bohutis, buhuitihus, boii,_ or, as

Peter Martyr latinizes, _bovites_ of this region were evidently both

doctors and priests. Certainly both Ramon Pane's and Peter Martyr's

descriptions imply this; though there are some hints which would seem

to point to a special class of ritual priests, who may or may not

have been doctors, as when priests are said to act as mouthpieces of

the cacique in giving oracles from hollow statues, or as when Martyr

(following Pane) says that "only the sons of chiefs" are allowed to

learn the traditional chants of the great ceremonials (p. 172). The

term _peaiman_, applied to the shamans of the Guiana tribes, is, says

im Thurn (p. 328), an Anglicized form of the Carib word _puyai_ or

_peartzan_. The _peaiman_, im Thurn states, "is not simply the doctor,

but also, in some sense, the priest or magician." As matter of fact,

the priestly element is slight among the continental Caribs, their

practice being pure shamanism; and Fewkes ([b], p. 54) says that they

"still speak of their priests as _ceci-semi_"--a term clearly related

to _zemi_. "The prehistoric Porto Ricans," he says again (ib. p. 59),

"had a well-developed priesthood, called _boii_ (serpents), _mabouya_,

and _buhiti_, which are apparently dialect or other forms of the same

word." It was in Porto Rico, of course, that Carib and Taïno elements

were most mixed. Brett [a], p. 363, in a note, derives the word _piai_

from Carib _puiai_, which, he says, is in Ackawoi _piatsan_; while

the Arawak use _semecihi_, and the Warau _wisidaa_, for the same

functionary. Certainly the resemblance of _boye_ and _puiai_, and of

_zemi_ and _semecihi_, or _ceci-semi_, indicates identities of origin,

though the particular meanings are not altogether the same.

[16] Little is preserved of Antillean myth, and that little is

contained almost wholly in the narrative of Ramon Pane. The authorities

here quoted are Ramon Pane, chh. i, ix-xi, ii-vii (tr. Pinkerton, xii);

Peter Martyr (tr. MacNutt, i. 167-70); Benzoni; and Ling Roth, in _JAI_

xvi. 264-65. Stoddard gives free versions of several of the tales.

[17] Peter Martyr, _loc. cit._ (quoting pp. 166-67, 172-76).

[18] Gómara [a], ch. xxvii, p. 173, ed. Vedia (tr. Fewkes [b], pp.

66-67); cf. Benzoni, pp. 79-82; Las Casas [b], ch. clxvii. The plate

representing the Earth Spirit ceremony is taken from (cf. Fewkes [b],

Plate IX) Picart, _The Religious Ceremonies and Customs of the Several

Nations of the known World_, London, 1731-37, Plate No. 78.

[19] Im Thurn, pp. 335-38; cf. Fewkes [e], p. 355.

[20] Ramon Pane, chh. xiv, xxv; Gómara [a], ch. xxxiii, pp. 175-76, ed.

Vedia, gives supplementary information.

[21] Authorities cited for Carib lore are Columbus, _Select Letters_,

pp. 29-37; im Thurn, pp. 192, 217, 222; Fewkes [b], pp. 27, 217-20,

68; Ballet, citing du Tertre and others, pp. 421-22, 433-38, 400-01;

Davies, cited by Fewkes [b], pp. 60, 65; Currier, citing la Borde, pp.

508-09.

[22] Holmes, "Areas of American Culture" (in _AA_, new series, xvi,

1914) gives a chart of North America showing five culture areas

for Mexico and Central America, in general corresponding to the

grouping here made. The _American Indian_ of Wissler, the _Ancient

Civilizations_ of Spinden, the _Manuel_ of Beuchat and the _Mexican

Archaeology_ of Joyce follow approximately the same lines. E. G.

Tarayre's "Report" in _Archives de la commission scientifique du

Mexique_, iii (Paris, 1867) contains "Notes ethnographiques sur les

régions mexicaines." For linguistic divisions the standard works

are Orozco y Berra [b], Nicolás León [a], and especially Thomas and

Swanton, _Indian Languages of Mexico and Central America (44 BBE)_; cf.

Mechling [b]. Contemporary ethnography is described in Lumholtz [a],

[b], [c], in McGee, and in Starr [a], [b].

[23] Doubtless it should be stated at the outset that there is serious

and reasonable question on the part of not a few students of aboriginal

Mexico as to whether Aztec institutions merit the name "empire" in

any sense analogous to those of the imperial states of the Old World.

"A loose confederacy of democratic Indians" is the phrase employed by

Waterman [a], p. 250, in describing the form of the Mexican state as

it is pictured by Morgan, Bandelier, Fiske, and others (see Waterman,

_loc. cit._, for sources); and it is altogether reasonable to expect

that Americanist studies will eventually show that the great Middle

American nations were developed from, and retained characteristics

of, communities resembling the Pueblos of our own Southwest rather

than the European states which the Spaniards had in the eye when they

made their first observations. It is to be expected, too, that a

changed complexion put upon the interpretation of Mexican society will

eventually modify the interpretation of Mexican ritual and mythology,

giving it, for example, something less of the uranian significance upon

which scholars of the school of Förstermann and Seler put so great

weight, and something more, if not of the Euhemerism of Brasseur de

Bourbourg, at least of reliance upon social motives and historical

traditions.

[24] Of all regions of primitive America, ancient Mexico is represented

by the most extensive literature; and here, too, more has been

transmitted directly from native sources than is the case elsewhere.

The hieroglyphic codices, the anonymous _Historia de los Mexicanos por

sus pinturas_ and _Historia de los Reynos de Colhuacan y de Mexico_

(better known and commonly cited as _The Annals of Quauhtitlan_), and

the writings of men of native blood in the Spanish period, notably

Ixtlilxochitl, Tezozomoc, and Chimalpahin, are the most important

of these sources; unless, as is doubtless proper, the works of

Sahagun, originally written in Nahuatl from native sources, be here

included--undoubtedly the single source of greatest importance. Among

Spanish writers of the early period, after Sahagun, the most important

are Cristobal del Castillo, Diego Durán, Gómara, Herrera, Mendieta,

Motolinia, Tobar, and Torquemada. Boturini, Clavigero, Veytia,

Kingsborough, Prescott, and Brasseur de Bourbourg are important names

of the intermediate period; while recent scholarship is represented by

Brinton, Bancroft, Hamy, García Icazbalceta, Orozco y Berra, Peñafiel,

Ramirez, Rosny, and most conspicuously by Seler. The most convenient

recent introductions to the subject are afforded by Beuchat, _Manuel_;

Joyce, _Mexican Archaeology_; Spinden, _Ancient Civilizations of

Mexico_; while the best guide to the whole literature is Lehmann's

"Ergebnisse und Aufgaben der mexikanistischen Forschung," in _Archiv

für Anthropologie_, new series, vi, 1907 (translated as _Methods and

Results in Mexican Research_, Paris, 1909). But while the material is

relatively abundant, it is so only for the dominant race represented by

the Aztec. For the non-Nahuatlan civilizations of Mexico the literature

is sparse, especially upon the side of mythology. Sahagun gives certain

details, mainly incidental, except in X. xxix, which is devoted to

a brief description of the peoples of Mexico. Gómara, Herrera, and

Torquemada afford added materials, touching several regions. For the

Totonac-Huastec region the sources are particularly scanty, except for

such descriptions of externals as naturally appear in the chronicles

of Cortez, Bernal Diaz, and other _conquistadores_ who here made their

first intimate acquaintance with the mainland natives. Fewkes [g] deals

with the monuments of the Totonac region, and expresses the opinion

(p. 241, note) that the Codex Tro-Cortesianus, commonly said to be

Maya, was obtained in this region, near Cempoalan; Holmes [b], and

Seler, in numerous places, are also material sources for interpretation

of the monuments. For the Tarascans of Michoacan the most important

source is an anonymous _Relacion de las ceremonias, rictos, poblacion

y gobernacion de los Indios de Michuacan hecha al illmo. Sr. D. Ant.

de Mendoza_ (Madrid, 1875; Morelia, 1903), while of recent studies

Nicolás León's _Los Tarascos_ (see León [c]) is the most comprehensive.

The Mixtec-Zapotec area fares better, both as to number of sources and

later studies. Burgoa, Juan de Córdoba, Gregorio García, Balsalobre,

Herrera, Las Casas, and Torquemada are the primary authorities; while

the most significant later studies are doubtless those of Seler, "The

Mexican Chronology with Special Reference to the Zapotec Calendar,"

and "Wall Paintings of Mitla," both in _28 BBE_. Brasseur de Bourbourg

[a], bk. ix, deals with the Mixtec-Zapotec and Tarascan peoples, and

is still a good introduction to the literature. Cf. also Alvarez;

Castellanos (himself a Zapotec); Génin; León [d]; Mechling; Portillo;

Radin.

[25] The works of Clavigero, Helps, Prescott, Orozco y Berra [b], and

Veytia are the best-known histories narrating the Spanish conquest

of Mexico. Of the earlier writers Bernal Diaz, who took part in the

expeditions of Cordova and Grijalva, as well as in that of Cortez, is

the most important (of his work there are several English translations

besides that of Maudsley in _HS_--by Maurice Keatinge, London, 1800,

by John G. Lockhart, London, 1844, and a condensed version by Kate

Stephens, _The Mastering of Mexico_, New York, 1915).

[26] Bernal Diaz, ch. xcii (quoted), describes the ascent of the temple

overlooking Tlatelolco. Seler [a], ii. 769-70, says that on the upper

platform were two shrines, one to Tlaloc, the other to the three idols

described by Bernal Diaz, of which the principal was not "Huichilobos"

(Huitzilopochtli), but Coatlicue, the earth goddess. The "page" Seler

regards as the tutelary of Tlatelolco, called Tlacauepan. The great

temple of Huitzilopochtli was in the centre of the city, on the site of

the present Cathedral. See León y Gama; Seler [a], _loc. cit._; and cf.

Zelia Nuttall, "L'Évèque Zumárraga et les principales idoles du Templo

Mayor de Mexico," in _SocAA_ xxx (1911).

[27] General descriptions of the Aztec pantheon are given by Beuchat,

livre ii, Ie partie, chh. v, vi, and by Joyce [b], ch. ii. The most

important early source is Sahagun, bk. i; other primary sources are

Mendieta, bk. ii (derived from de Olmos), León y Gama (in part from

Cristobal del Castillo), Ruiz de Alarcón, Jacinto de la Serna, the

_Tratado de los ritos y ceremonias y dioses_ of the _Códice Ramirez_

(see Tobar, in Bibliography), and the explanations of the Codices

Vaticanus A and Telleriano-Remensis (Kingsborough, v, vi). Of recent

works the most significant are Seler [a] (collected essays), and [b],

[c], [d], [e] (analyses of divinatory or astrological codices).

[28] For data concerning the use of these numbers by American peoples

north of Mexico, see _Mythology of All Races_, Boston, 1916, x, Ch.

IX, iv, and Notes 11, 31, 42, 50, with references there given. Further

allusions to the nine and thirteen of Mexican cosmology will be found

_infra_, Ch. III, i, iii. The origin of the peculiar uses of the number

thirteen is a puzzle without satisfactory solution. In the explanation

of Vaticanus A (Kingsborough, vi. 198, note), it is said--referring

to the statement that "Tonacatecotle" presides over the "thirteen

causes"--that "the causes are really only nine, corresponding in

number with the heavens. But since four of them are reckoned twice in

every series of thirteen days, in order that each day might be placed

under some peculiar influence, they are said to be thirteen." This,

however, is probably assuming effect for cause (cf. Ch. III, iii).

[29] Sahagun, VI. xxxii. Other references to Sahagun are, III, Appendix

i; X. xxi.

[30] Seler [b], p. 31; [c], pp. 5, 10, 14.

[31] Seler [c], pp. 5-31, where he discusses the whole problem of

cruciform and caryatid figures; as also in [e], ii., 107, 126-34; [d],

pp. 76-93.

[32] Seler [a], index, _s. w_., is a guide to the manifold attributes

of the Aztec gods. The most important myths concerning them are related

by Sahagun, bk. iii, and by the authorities cited with respect to

cosmogonies, _infra_, Ch. III, i, ii.

[33] See especially Seler [a], ii, "Die Ausgrabungen am Orte des

Haupttempels in Mexico"; [c], p. 112; Sahagun, III. i; _Tratado de los

Ritos_, etc. (see Tobar, in Bibliography); Robelo [a], _s. v._; and

Charency, _L'Origine de la légende d'Huitzilopochtli_ (Paris, 1897);

cf. also _infra_, Ch. III, v. The story of Tlahuicol is given by

Clavigero, V. vi.

[34] See Seler [b], p. 60; [c], pp. 33, 205; [d], pp. 77, 95-96; [e],

index. The prayers quoted are in Sahagun, VI. i, iv, v, vi; while the

famous sacrifice is described in II. v, xxiv (also by Torquemada, VII.

xix and X. xiv; and picturesquely by Prescott, I. iii). The myths are

in Sahagun, III. iv ff.; a version with a different list of magicians

(Ihuimecatl and Toltecatl are the companions of Tezcatlipoca) is given

by Ramirez, _Anales de Cuauhtitlan_, pp. 17-18.

[35] See Seler, indexes, and the picturesque and romantic treatment by

Brasseur de Bourbourg [a], iii. The more striking early sources are

Sahagun, III. iii-xv; VI. vii, xxv (quoted), xxxiv (quoted); IX. xxix;

X. iii, iv; Ixtlilxochitl, _Historia Chichimeca_, I. i, ii; _Anales de

Cuauhtitlan_, pp. 17-23; Mendieta, II. v; and _Explicación del Codex

Telleriano-Remensis_ (Kingsborough, v). For later discussions see Léon

de Rosny, "Le Mythe de Quetzalcoatl," in _Archives de la société des

américanistes de France_ (Paris, 1878); Seler [a], iii, "Ueber die

natürlichen Grundlagen mexikanischer Mythen"; [b], pp. 41-48 (p. 45

here quoted); and Joyce [b], pp. 46-51. Duplicates or analogues of

Quetzalcoatl are described in _Mythology of All Races_, Boston, 1916,

x, Ch. IX, iii, v; Ch. XI, ii (p. 243); and _infra_, Ch. IV, ii; Ch. V,

iv; Ch. VI, iv; Ch. VII, iv; Ch. VIII, ii.

[36] For Tlaloc see especially Seler [a], iii. 100-03; [b], pp. 62-67;

Sahagun, I. iv, xxi; II. i, iii, xx (quoted), and Appendix, where is

given the description of the curious octennial festival in which the

rain-gods were honoured with a dance at which live frogs and snakes

were eaten; the feast was accompanied by a fast viewed as a means of

permitting the deities to resuscitate their food-creating energies,

which were regarded as overworked or exhausted by their eight years'

labour. See also _Historia de los Mexicanos for sus Pinturas_, chh.

ii, vi; and Hamy [b]. References to Chalchiuhtlicue will be found in

Seler [a], index; [b], pp. 56-58; etc. The ritual prayer is recorded by

Sahagun, VI. xxxii.

[37] Sahagun, bk. i; Seler [a], index; and Robelo [a], are guides to

the analysis and grouping of the Aztec deities.

[38] See Seler [d], pp. 130-131.

[39] Seler [a], ii. 1071-78, and _CA_ xiii. 171-74 (hymn to Xipe Totec,

here freely rendered). See, also, Seler [b], pp. 100-104, and [a], ii,

"Die religiösen Gesänge der alten Mexikaner" (cf. Brinton [d], [e]),

where a number of deities are characterized by translations and studies

of hymns preserved in a Sahagun MS. A description of the Pawnee form of

the arrow sacrifice will be found in _Mythology of All Races_, Boston,

1916, x. 76 (with plate), and Note 58. The Aztec form is pictured in

Codex Nuttall, No. 83, as is also the famous _sacrificio gladiatorio_

(as the Spaniards called it), of which Durán, _Album_, gives several

drawings. The _sacrificio gladiatorio_ was apparently in some rites a

first stage leading to the arrow sacrifice (see Seler [e], i. 170-73,

where several figures are reproduced).

[40] Tonacatecutli is treated by Seler [d], pp. 130 ff. See also,

_supra_, Ch. II, iii; _infra_, Ch. III, i.

[41] Seler [d], p. 133; and for discussion of Xochiquetzal, Seler [b],

pp. 118-24.

[42] Sahagun, I. vi, xii. Seler [b], pp. 92-100, discusses Tlazolteotl,

on p. 93 giving the story of the sacrifice of the Huastec, taken from

Ramirez, _Anales_, pp. 25-26.

[43] The conception of sacrifice as instituted to keep the world

vivified, and especially to preserve the life of the Sun, appears in

a number of documents, particularly in connexion with cosmogony (see

Ch. III, i, ii), as Sahagun, III, Appendix, iv; VI. iii; VII. ii;

_Explicacion del Codex Telleriano-Remensis_ (Kingsborough, v. 135); and

especially in the _Historia de los Mexicanos por sus Pinturas_; see

also Payne, i. 577-82; Seler [a], iii. 285; [b], pp. 37-41; "Die Sage

von Quetzalcouatl," in _CA_ xvi (Vienna, 1910).

[44] Sahagun, III, Appendix, i (quoted); cf. Seler [b], pp. 82-86. See

also Sahagun, _loc. cit._, ch. ii, for a description of Tlalocan, and

ch. iii. for a description of the celestial paradise (cf. I. x and VI.

xxix).

[45] The meaning of _Tamoanchan_ is discussed by Preuss, "Feuergötter,"

who regards it as an underworld region; by Beyer, in _Anthropos_, iii,

who explains it as the Milky Way; and by Seler [a], ii, "Die religiösen

Gesänge der alten Mexikaner," and [e] (see index), who identifies

it with the western region, the house of the evening sun. Xolotl is

discussed, in the same connexions, by Seler; see especially [b], pp.

108-12. The myth from Sahagun is in VII. ii; those from Mendieta in II.

i, ii.

[46] The limbo of children's souls is described in the _Spiegazione

dette tavole del Códice Mexicano_ (here quoting Kingsborough, vi. 171).

[47] Mexican cosmogonies are discussed by Robelo [a], art.

"Cosmogonia," in _AnMM_, 2a época, iii; Bancroft, III. ii (full

bibliographical notes); R. H. Lowie, art. "Cosmogony and Cosmology

(Mexican and South American)," in _ERE_; Brühl, pp. 398-401; Brinton

[a], vii; Charency [a]; Müller, pp. 510-12; Spence [b], iii. A literary

version of some of the old cosmogonic stories is given by Castellanos

[b].

[48] Herrera, III. iii. 10 (quoted by León, in _AnMM_, 2a época, i.

395).

[49] Mixtec and Zapotec myth are studied by Seler, _28 BBE_, pp.

285-305 (pp. 289, 286 are here quoted); the source cited for the Mixtec

myth is Gregorio García, _Origen de los Indios_, V. iv; for Zapotec,

Juan de Córdoba, _Arte del Idioma Zapoteca_.

[50] Sahagun, VI. vii, with reference to the Chichimec (elsewhere he

speaks of Mixcoatl as an Otomian god); X. xxix. I, with reference to

the Toltec; III. i, ii, and VII. ii, with reference to the origin of

the sun, etc.

[51] Seler [b], p. 38.

[52] Mendieta (after Fray Andrés de Olmos), II. i-iv.

[53] The fullest versions of the Mexican cosmic ages, or "Suns," are:

(a) Ixtlilxochitl (_Historia Chichimeca_, I. i; _Relaciones_, ed.

Kingsborough, ix. 321 ff., 459); (b) _Historia de los Mexicanos por

sus Pinturas_, i-viii--the narrative which most resembles a primitive

myth; (c) _Anales de Cuauhtitlan_ (ed. Ramirez, pp. 9-11), partly

translated into French by Brasseur de Bourbourg [a], i. Appendice, pp.

425-27, where the version of the deluge myth is given; (d) _Spiegazione

dette tavole del Codice Mexicano_ (i.e. Codex Vaticanus A), where

Plates VII-X are described as symbols of the Suns; though a discordant

explanation is given in connexion with Plate V. Other authorities are

Gómara [b], p. 431; Muñoz Camargo, p. 132; Humboldt [a], ii, Plate

XXVI; and especially Charency [a], who makes a comparative study of

the myth. Monumental evidences are discussed by Seler [a], ii, "Die

Ausgrabungen am Orte des Haupttempels in Mexico," and by MacCurdy [a].

Maya forms of the myth are sketched _infra_, pp. 153-55; cf. pp. 159

ff.

[54] The _Spiegazione_ contains the description of the deluge

(Kingsborough, vi. 195-96), chiefly in connexion with Plate XVI.

Similar material, briefly treated, is in the _Explicación del Codex

Telleriano-Remensis_.

[55] The literature dealing with the Mexican calendar is voluminous.

Summary treatments of the subject, based on recent studies, are to be

found in Beuchat, II. i. 5; Joyce [b], iii.; Preuss, art. "Calendar

(Mexican and Mayan)," in _ERE_. The primary sources for knowledge of

the calendar are three: (1) writings of the early chroniclers, among

whom the most noteworthy are Sahagun, books ii, iv, vii, and León y

Gama, who derives in part from Cristobal del Castillo; (2) calendric

codices, the more important being Codex Borgia, studied by Fábrega, in

_AnMM_ v, and by Seler [a], i, and [e]; Codex Borbonicus, studied by

Hamy [a], and de Jonghe; Codex Vaticanus B (3773), studied by Seler

[d]; Codex Ferjérváry-Mayer, studied by Seler [c]; Codex Bologna

(or Cospianus), studied by Seler [a], i; Codex Nuttall, studied by

Nuttall; and the _Tonalamatl of the Aubin Collection_, studied by

Seler [b]; (3) monuments, especially calendar stones: León y Gama,

_Dos Piedras_; Chavero [a]; MacCurdy [a]; and Róbelo [b] are studies

of such monuments. Recent investigations of importance, in addition to

papers by Seler ([a] and elsewhere), are Z. Nuttall, "The Periodical

Adjustments of the Ancient Mexican Calendar," in _AA_, new series, vi

(1904), and Preuss, "Kosmische Hieroglyphen der Mexikaner," in _ZE_

xxxiii (1901). Studies of the Maya calendar (especially the important

contributions of Förstemann, in _28 BBE_) and of that of the Zapotec

(Seler, "The Mexican Chronology, with Special Reference to the Zapotec

Calendar," ib.) are, of course, intimately related to the Aztec system.

For statement of current problems, see Lehmann [a], pp. 164-66.

[56] For Mexican astronomy, in addition to the studies of the codices,

see Sahagun, bk. vii; Tezozomoc, lxxxii; Seler, _28 BBE_, "The Venus

Period in the Picture Writings of the Borgian Codex Group" (tr. from

art. in _Berliner Gesellschaft für Anthropologie, Ethnologie und

Urgeschichte_, 1898); Hagar [a], [b]; Chavero [b]; and Nuttall [a],

especially pp. 245-59. On the question of the zodiac, advocated by

Hagar, see H. J. Spinden, "The Question of the Zodiac in America," in

_AA_, new series, xviii (1916), and the bibliography there given.

[57] Accounts of the archaeology of Tollan, or Tula, are to be found

in Charnay [a], iv-vi, and in Joyce [b], especially in the Appendix.

Sahagun's description of the Toltec is in X. xxix. 1. The _Spiegazione_

of Codex Vaticanus A, Plate X, gives interesting additions (here

quoted from Kingsborough, vi. 178). The chief authority, however, is

Ixtlilxochitl, whose accounts of the Toltec, Chichimec, and especially

Tezcucan powers have frequently been regarded with suspicion, as

coloured by too free a fancy. Nevertheless, as Lehmann points out ([a],

p. 121), it is certain that Ixtlilxochitl had at his command sources

now lost. Much of his material is clearly in a native vein, and there

is no impossibility that it is a version of history which is only

slightly exalted.

[58] Spanish and French versions of the elegy of Nezahualcoyotl (here

rather freely adapted) are in _TC_ xiv. 368-73.

[59] The Aztec migration is a conspicuous feature of native tradition,

and is, therefore, prominent in the histories, being figured by several

of the codices, as well as in Durán's _Album_. An early narration of

the Aztec myth forms chh. ix ff. of the _Historia de los Mexicanos

por sus Pinturas_, while the _Historia de los Reynos de Colhuacan y

de México_, the narrative of the "Anónimo Mexicano," and Tezozomoc,

i-iii, give other native versions. Mendieta, Sahagun, and Durán, are

other sources for the myth. Seler [a], ii, "Wo lag Aztlan, die Heimat

der Azteken?" gives a careful study of the mythical elements in the

migration-story as displayed in the Codex Boturini and elsewhere.

Orozco y Berra [a], iv, presents a comparative study of the Aztec

rulers, drawn from the various accounts. Buelna's _Peregrinación_ is

generally regarded as the completest study of the migration from both

legendary and archaeological evidence. Brasseur de Bourbourg [a], VI.

iv, contains an account of the Aztlan myth, while VII sketches the

development of Nahuatlan power in Tezcuco and Mexico; in ii. 598-602,

the Abbé gives his chronological restoration of the history of Anahuac.

Motezuma's _Corona Mexicana_ should be mentioned as a partly native

source for the records of the Aztec monarchs; while Chimalpahin

represents not only a native record, but one composed in the native

tongue.

[60] Mendieta, II. xxxiii-xxxiv.

[61] Sahagun, X. xxix. 12.

[62] Best known is the Codex Boturini (reproduced in Kingsborough, i;

see also García Cubas [b], where Codex Boturini is compared with a

supplementary historical painting; interesting reproductions of related

Acolhua paintings, the "Mappe Tlotzin" and the "Mappe Quinatzin," are

in Aubin [a]).

[63] Durán, xxvii.

[64] Accounts of the portents that preceded the coming of Cortez are

conspicuous in nearly all the early narratives; among them Acosta, VI.

xxii; Clavigero, V. xii, etc.; Chimalpahin, "Septième relation"; Durán,

lxi, lxiii, etc.; Ixtlilxochitl, _Historia Chichimeca_, II. lxxii;

Sahagun, XII. i; Tezozomoc, xcvii; Torquemada, III. xci.

[65] The Papago myth is given by Bancroft, III. ii (after Davidson,

_Report on Indian Affairs_ [Washington, 1865], pp. 131-33); cf.

Lumholtz [c], p. 42.

[66] For identification of the Nicaraguan divinities (originally

described by Oviedo) see Seler [a], ii. 1029-30. Phases of contemporary

pagan myth in Mexico are treated by Lumholtz (_passim_), Preuss,

Mechling [a], Mason, and Radin. Interesting ritualistic analogies are

suggested by Fewkes, Evans, Génin, Nuttall, and Preuss.

[67] Preuss [a], [b], and Lumholtz [b], I. xxix.

[68] Preuss, "Die magische Denkweise der Cora-Indianer," in _CA_ xviii

(London, 1913), pp. 129-34.

[69] Seler [a], iii. 376, regards the Huichol Tamats as the Morning

Star, which is certainly plausible in view of his similarity to

Chuvalete of the Cora. Huichol myth and deities are described by

Lumholtz [a], ii (p. 12 here quoted); [b], II. ix; cf., also, Preuss.

[70] Lumholtz [b], i. 356.

[71] The physiography and ethnography of the Maya region are summarized

in Spinden [a]; Beuchat, II, ii; and in Joyce [b], ch. viii. Wissler,

_The American Indian_ in this, as in other fields, most effectively

presents the relations--ethnical, cultural, historical--to the other

American groups. Recent special studies of importance are Tozzer [a];

Starr, _In Indian Mexico_, etc.; Sapper [b]; and the more distinctively

archaeological studies of Holmes, Morley, Spinden, and others.

[72] It is unfortunate that the region of Maya culture was the subject

of no such full reports, dating from the immediate post-Conquest

period, as we possess from Mexico. The more important of the Spanish

writers who deal with the Yucatec centres are Aguilar, Cogolludo,

Las Casas, Landa, Lizana, Nuñez de la Vega, Ordoñez y Aguiar, Pio

Pérez, Pedro Ponce, and Villagutierre, with Landa easily first in

significance. The histories of Eligio Ancona and of Carrillo y Ancona

are the leading Spanish works of later date. Native writings are

represented by three hieroglyphic pre-Cortezian codices, namely, Codex

Dresdensis, Codex Tro-Cortesianus, and Codex Peresianus, as well as by

the important _Books of Chilam Balam_ and the _Chronicle_ of Nakuk Pech

from the early Spanish period (for description of thirteen manuscripts

and bibliography of published works relating to their interpretation,

see Tozzer, "The Chilam Balam Books," in _CA_ xix [Washington, 1917]).

Yet what Mayan civilization lacks in the way of literary monuments

is more than compensated by the remains of its art and architecture,

to which an immense amount of shrewd study has been devoted. The

more conspicuous names of those who have advanced this study are

mentioned in connexion with the literature of the Maya calendar,

Note 92, _infra_. The region has been explored archaeologically

with great care, the magnificent reports of Maudsley (in _Biologia

Centrali-Americana_) and of the Peabody Museum expeditions (_Memoirs_),

prepared by Gordon, Maler, Thompson, and others, being the collections

of eminence. Brasseur de Bourbourg can scarcely be mentioned too often

in connexion with this field. His fault is that of Euhemerus, but he

is neither the first nor the last of the tribe of this sage; while for

his virtues, he shows more constructive imagination than any other

Americanist: probably the picture which he presents would be less

criticized were it less vivid.

[73] Landa, chh. v-xi (vi, ix, being here quoted).

[74] The sources for the history of the Maya are primarily the native

chronicles (the _Books of Chilam Balam_), the _Relaciones de Yucatán_,

and the histories of Cogolludo, Landa, Lizana, and Villagutierre.

The deciphering of the monumental dates of the southern centres has

furnished an additional group of facts, the correlation of which to

the history of the north has become a special problem, with its own

literature. The most important attempts to synchronize Maya dates with

the years of our era are by Pio Pérez (reproduced both by Stephens

[b] and by Brasseur de Bourbourg [b]); Seler [a], i, "Bedeutung des

Maya-Kalenders für die historische Chronologie"; Goodman [a], [b];

Bowditch [a]; Spinden [a], pp. 130-35; [b] (with chart); Joyce [b],

Appendix iii (with chart); and Morley [a], [b], [c] and [d]. Bowditch,

Spinden, Joyce, and Morley are not radically divergent and may be

regarded as representing the conservative view--here accepted as

obviously the plausible one. Carrillo y Ancona, ch. ii, analyzes some

of the earlier opinions; while the first part of Ancona's _Historia de

Yucatán_ is devoted to ancient Yucatec history and is doubtless the

best general work on the subject.

[75] Brinton [f], p. 100 ("Introduction" to the _Book of Chilan Balam

of Mani_).

[76] Spinden [b]; Joyce [b], ch. viii. But cf. Morley's chronological

scheme, _infra_; and Spinden [a], pp. 130-35.

[77] Morley [c], ch. i.

[78] Morley [b], p. 140. In this connection (p. 144) Morley summarizes

the various speculations as to the causes which led to the abandonment

of the southern centres, as reduction of the land by primitive

agricultural methods (Cook), climatic changes (Huntington), physical,

moral and political decadence (Spinden). He adds: "Probably the decline

of civilization in the south was not due to any one of these factors

operating singly, but to a combination of adverse influences, before

which the Maya finally gave way."

[79] The culture heroes of Maya myth have taken possession of the

imaginations of the Spanish chroniclers, and indeed of not a few later

commentators, rather as clues to native history than to mythology.

Bancroft, iii. 450-55, 461-67, summarizes the materials from Spanish

sources; which is treated also, from the point of view of possible

historical elucidation, by Ancona, I. iii; Carrillo y Ancona, ii, iii;

Comte de Charency [b]; García Cubas, in _SocAA_ xxx, nos. 3-6; and

Santibáñez, in _CA_ xvii. 2.

[80] The primary sources for the Votan stories are Cogolludo, Ordoñez y

Aguiar, and Nuñez de la Vega, whose narratives are liberally summarized

by Brasseur de Bourbourg [a], I. i, ii (pp. 68-72 containing the

passages from Ordoñez here quoted).

[81] For Zamna (or Itzamna) the sources are Cogolludo, Landa, and

Lizana, summarized by Brasseur de Bourbourg [a], I. pp. 76-80.

Quotations are here made from Cogolludo, IV. iii, vi; Brasseur de

Bourbourg [f], ii, "Vocabulaire générale"; and Lizana (ed. Brasseur de

Bourbourg), pp. 356-59; cf. also Seler [a], index; Landa, chh. xxxv,

xxxvi.

[82] Identifications of images of Itzamna and Kukulcan are discussed by

Dieseldorff, in _ZE_ xxvii. 770-83; Spinden [a], pp. 60-70; Joyce [b],

ch. ix, and Morley [c], pp. 16-19.

[83] Cogolludo, Landa, and Lizana are the chief sources for the

Kukulcan stories,--especially Landa, chh. vi, xl, being here quoted.

Tozzer [a], p. 96, is quoted; cf., for Yucatec survival, p. 157.

[84] Citations from Landa in this section are from chh. xxvii, xl

(which records the new year's festivals), xxxiii (describing the future

world), and xxxiv. Landa is our chief source for knowledge of the

Yucatec rites and of the deities associated with them; additional or

corroborative details being furnished by Aguilar, Cogolludo, Lizana,

Las Casas, Ponce, and Pio Pérez.

[85] Interpretations of the names of the Maya deities, as here given,

are from Brasseur de Bourbourg [f], ii, "Vocabulaire"; and Seler [a],

index.

[86] Lizana (ed. Brasseur de Bourbourg), pp. 360-61.

[87] Schellhas [b] gives his identifications and descriptions of the

gods of the codices; additional materials are contained in Fewkes [i];

Förstemann [b]; Joyce [b], ch. ix; Morley [c], pp. 16-19; Spinden [b],

pp. 60-70; and Bancroft, iii, ch. xi.

[88] Tozzer [a], pp. 150 ff.; also, for the Lacandones, pp. 93-99. The

names of the deities, Maya and Lacandone, are here in several cases

altered slightly from the form in which Tozzer gives them, for the sake

of avoiding the use of unfamiliar phonetic symbols; the result is, of

course, phonetic approximation only.

[89] Landa, chh. xxvi, xxvii.

[90] Las Casas [b], ch. cxxiii.

[91] Landa, ch. xxxiv. In chh. iii, xxxii, he gives information in

regard to the goddess Ixchel.

[92] The literature of the Maya calendar system is, of course,

intimately connected with that of the Mexican (see Note 55). The native

sources for its study are the Codices and the monumental inscriptions,

while of early Spanish expositions the most important are those of

Landa and Pio Pérez. In recent times a considerable body of scholars

have devoted special attention to the Maya inscriptions and to the

elucidation of the calendar, foremost among them being, in America,

Ancona, Bowditch, Chavero, Goodman, Morley, Spinden, Cyrus Thomas,

and in Europe, Brasseur de Bourbourg, Förstermann, Rosny, and Seler.

The foundation of the elucidation of Maya astronomical knowledge is

Förstermann's studies of the Dresden Codex, while the study of mythic

elements associated with the calendar is represented by Charency,

especially "Des ages ou soleils d'après la mythologie des peuples de la

Nouvelle Espagne," section ii, in _CA_ iv. 2; and by J. H. Martínez,

"Los Grandes Ciclos de la historia Maya," in _CA_ xvii. 2. Summary

accounts of the Maya calendar are to be found in Spinden [a], Beuchat,

Joyce [b], Arnold, and Frost, while Bowditch [b] and Morley [c] are in

the nature of text-book introductions to the subject.

[93] Morley [d], "The Hotun," in _CA_ xix (Washington, 1917).

[94] Morley [c], p. 32.

[95] Tozzer [a], pp. 153-54.

[96] J. Martínez Hernández, "La Creación del Mundo según los Mayas," in

_CA_ xviii (London, 1913), pp. 164-71. Señor Hernández notes that the

tense of the verb in the first sentence of the myth is for the sake of

literal translation.

[97] For ethnic analysis Thomas and Swanton is followed here and

throughout the chapter. Of the earlier Spanish authors Las Casas

(especially [b], chh. cxxii-cxxv, clxxx, ccxxxiv ff.) is the most

weighty. See also Morley [e], "The Rise and Fall of the Maya

Civilizations," in _CA_ xix (Washington, 1917).

[98] Brinton [h], p. 69.

[99] ib. p. 149.

[100] Brasseur de Bourbourg [a], pp. lxxx-lxxxiii.

[101] The _Popul Vuh_, described by Brasseur de Bourbourg in

his _Histoire du Mexique_ under the title _Manuscrit Quiché de

Chichicastenango_ ([a], i. pp. lxxx ff.), is a Quiché document, part

myth and part legendary history, supposed to have been put in writing

in the seventeenth century, when it was copied and translated into

Spanish by Francisco Ximenes, of the Order of Predicadores. The

manuscript was found by C. Scherzer in 1855 in the library of the

university of San Carlos, Guatemala. The Spanish text of Ximenes

was published at Vienna in 1856, and again, with French translation

and notes, by Brasseur de Bourbourg, Paris, 1861; a second Spanish

version, by Barberena, appeared in San Salvador, 1905. None of these

translations is regarded as accurate, or indeed as other than filled

with error and misinterpretation; but pending the appearance of a

scholarly rendering from the native text they are our only sources for

a document of profound interest. The edition of Brasseur de Bourbourg

is that here employed, translations being from parts i, ii, and iii,

while interpretations of names are drawn chiefly from Brasseur's

footnotes. Las Casas [b], ch. cxxiv, contains some account of the gods

and heroes mentioned in the _Popul Vuh_.

[102] For discussion of the bat-god, Zotz, see Seler, _28 BBE_, pp. 231

ff., "The Bat God of the Maya Race"; also, Dieseldorff, ib., p. 665, "A

Clay Vessel with a Picture of a Vampire-headed Deity"; cf. Giglioli,

_CA_ xvi (Vienna and Leipzig, 1910).

[103] The _Manuscrit Cakchiquel_, or _Mémorial de Tecpan-Atitlan_, as

he calls it, was given to Brasseur de Bourbourg by Juan Gavarrete, of

the Convent of Franciscans of Guatemala. Its author, says the Abbé

([a], i. p. lxxxiii) was Don Francisco Ernandez Arana Xahila, of the

Princes Ahpotzotziles of Guatemala, grandson of King Hunyg, who died of

the plague, five years before the Spaniards set foot in this country,

in 1519. The manuscript was brought down to 1582 by this author, and

thence carried forward to 1597 by Don Francisco Diaz Gebuta Queh, of

the same family. Brinton published his translation under the title,

_The Annals of the Cakchiquels_, in Philadelphia, 1885, and the work

now commonly is referred to under this name. It is Brinton's version

which is here followed, with some inconsequential alterations of

phraseology. In his introduction Brinton gives (pp. 39-48) interesting

comments on the "Religious Notions."

[104] Brinton [h], pp. 25-26.

[105] ib. p. 14.

[106] Of works dealing with the religious beliefs of the natives

of Honduras and Nicaragua, the writings of Oviedo and of Las Casas

(especially [b], ch. clxxx) are the most important of early date. Among

works of later date Squier's books are of the first significance.

Bancroft, iii, ch. xi, gives a summary of most that is known of the

myths of this region; Brasseur de Bourbourg [a], livre v, ch. iii,

livre viii, ch. iv, contains additional materials. The archaeology is

described by Squier [a], [b], [c], _passim_; Joyce [a], part i; Brinton

[h], introduction; and, with ethnological analysis, Lehmann [c].

[107] Brasseur de Bourbourg [a], ii. p. 556. The Mictlan myth is given,

ib. p. 105.

[108] Oviedo, _TC_ xiv, p. 133.

[109] Lehmann [c], p. 717.

[110] See Lehmann [c], pp. 715-16.

[111] The ethnology of the Andean region is treated by Joyce [c],

Wissler, _The American Indian_, and Beuchat, II. iv. Bastian,

_Culturländer_, and Payne, _History_, give more extended views;

while tribal distribution in its cultural relations is probably

best presented by Schmidt, in _ZE_ xlv. Spinden, "The Origin and

Distribution of Agriculture in America," and Means, "An Outline of the

Culture-Sequence in the Andean Area," both in _CA_ xix (Washington,

1917), are significant contributions to the problem of origins and

history; with these should be placed, "Orígenes Etnográficos de

Colombia," by Carlos Cuervo Márquez, in the _Proceedings of the Second

Pan American Scientific Congress_, i (Washington, 1917). Spinden

conceives an archaic American culture, probably originating in Mexico

and thence spreading north and south, which was based upon agriculture

and characterized by the use of pottery, textiles, etc., and which, in

the course of time, made its influence felt from the mouth of the St.

Lawrence to that of La Plata. This hypothesis admirably accounts for

the obvious affinities of the civilizations of the two continents.

[112] The linguistic and cultural affinities of the Isthmian tribes are

described by Wissler, Beuchat, Joyce [c], and Thomas and Swanton; and

on the archaeological side especially by Hartman [a], [b], and Holmes

[c], [d]. For the broader analogies of the Central American, North

Andean, and Antillean regions see also Saville, Cuervo Márquez, and

Spinden's article mentioned in Note 111, _supra_. Spinden, _Maya Art

(MPM)_, argues against the conception of extensive borrowing. Of the

earlier authorities for this region, the important are Peter Martyr,

Benzoni, Oviedo, Herrera, and Las Casas. Among writers of later times,

Humboldt holds first place.

[113] Oviedo (_TC_), pp. 211-22. Other references in this paragraph

are: Benzoni (_HS_), ii; Andagoya (_HS_), pp. 14-15; Cieza de León

(_HS_),1864, ch. viii.

[114] Peter Martyr, 1912, ii (pp. 319, 326 quoted).

[115] Gabb, pp. 503-06; Pittier de Fábrega [b], pp. 1-9; Las Casas [b],

ch. cxxv.

[116] The most recent work, summarizing the legend of El Dorado, is

Zahm [b]; and the earliest versions of the tale are those of Simon,

Fresle, Piedrahíta, Cavarjal, and Castellanos, the latter of whom

incorporated the story in his poetical _Elejias de Varones Ilustres de

Indias_, which was printed at Madrid, in 1850. Critical accounts, in

addition to Zahm, are Bollaert's "Introduction" to Simon's _Expedition

of Pedro de Ursua_ (Spanish in Serrano y Sanz, _Historiadores de

Indias_, ii) and in Bandelier's _The Gilded Man_. On the historical

side, especially as regards the period of the Conquest, Andagoya,

Castellanos, Carvajal, Fresle, Simon, give unforgettable pictures of

the adventurous extravagance and _bizarrerie_ of a time scarcely to be

paralleled in human annals. Father Zahm's _Quest of El Dorado_ is an

inviting introduction to this literature.

[117] For Chibchan ethnology and archaeology, see Joyce [c], Acosta de

Samper, and Cuervo Marquez.

[118] Cieza de León (_HS_), 1864, pp. 59, 88, 101.

[119] The primary sources for the mythology of the Chibchan tribes at

the time of the Conquest are Pedro Simon, Lucas Fernandez Piedrahíta

(especially I, iii, iv), and Cieza de León. Simon's "Cuarta Noticia,"

in eighteen chapters, is the fullest exposition of Chibcha beliefs

and history; along with the "Tercera Noticia" it is printed in

Kingsborough, viii, which is here cited (pp. 244, 263-64 quoted). Other

authorities include Humboldt, Joyce [c], chh. i, ii; Acosta de Samper,

ch. viii; Sir Clements Markham, art. "Andeans," in _ERE_; and Beuchat,

pp. 549-50. On the deluge myth see also Bandelier [c].

[120] The story of the giants is given by Cieza de León [a], ch. lii;

see also Velasco, p. 12; Bandelier [b], where the literature of the

subject is assembled; and Saville, 1907, p. 9. The archaeology of the

region, with numerous plates, is presented in Saville's reports; ii.

88-123 (1910) contains a description and discussion of the stone seats;

while brief accounts are to be found in Beuchat and in Joyce [c].

[121] Velasco is the chief authority for the career of the people of

Cara. The discoveries of Dorsey on the island of La Plata give an added

significance to these tales of men from the sea.

[122] Balboa (_TC_), ch. vii; cf. Joyce [c], ch. iii.

[123] The history and archaeology of aboriginal Peru is summarized

by Markham, _The Incas of Peru_ (1910), to which his notes and

introductions to his many translations of Spanish works, published

by the Hakluyt Society, form a varied supplementation. Among earlier

authorities E. G. Squier, _Travel and Exploration in the Land of

the Incas_ (1877), and Castelnau, _Expédition_ (1850-52), are

eminent; while of later authorities the more conspicuous are: for

Inca monuments, Bingham, of the Yale Expedition, and Baessler; for

Tiahuanaco, Créqui-Montfort, of the Mission scientifique française

à Tiahuanaco, Bandelier, Gonzalez de la Rosa, Posnansky, Uhle and

Stübel; for the coastal regions, Baessler, Reiss and Stübel, Uhle,

Tello; and for the Calchaqui territories, Ambrosetti, Boman, and

Lafone Quevado. General and comparative studies are presented in

Wissler, _The American Indian_; Beuchat, _Manuel_; Joyce, _South

American Archeology_; Spinden, _Handbook_; while a careful effort to

restore the sequences of cultures in Peru is Means, "Outline of the

Culture-Sequence in the Andean Area," in _CA_ xix (Washington, 1917).

[124] Cieza de León [a], ch. xxxvi.

[125] The origin of agriculture in America is regarded by Spinden,

"The Origin and Distribution of Agriculture in America," _CA_ xix

(Washington, 1917), as probably Mexican. From Mexico it passed north

and south, reaching its limiting areas in the neighbourhoods of the St.

Lawrence and of La Plata. Cf. Wissler, _The American Indian_.

[126] Montesinos's lists are analyzed by Markham [a]. See, also, Means;

cf. Pietschmann.

[127] Uhle, especially [a], [c], and art., _CA_ xviii (London, 1913),

"Die Muschelhügel von Ancon, Peru"; Bingham [b], [c].

[128] Means, _CA_ xix (Washington, 1917), p. 237, gives as the general

chronological background of Peruvian culture:

?-_circa_ 200 B. C. Preliminary migrations.

_circa_ 200 B. C.-600 A. D. Megalithic Empire.

_circa_ 600-1100 A. D. Tampu-Tocco Period, decadence.

_circa_ 1100-1530 A. D. Inca Empire.

He also gives in the same article, p. 241, a most interesting

comparative restoration of the chronologies of the sequence of culture

in the several Peruvian and Mexican centres, namely:

[Illustration: TABLE DESIGNED TO SHOW THE SEQUENCE OF ABORIGINAL

AMERICAN CULTURES AND THEIR CHRONOLOGIC RELATIONS]

[129] For the myths and religion of the coastal peoples of Peru the

important early authorities are Arriaga, Avila, Balboa, Cieza de León,

and Garcilasso de la Vega. Markham [a], especially chh. xiv, xv, is

the primary authority here followed. For archaeological details the

authorities are Baessler; Bastian; Joyce [c], ch. viii; Squier [e];

Tello; Putnam; and Uhle. It is from this coastal region that the

most striking Peruvian pottery comes, the Truxillo and Nasca styles

respectively typifying the Chimu and Chincha groups.

[130] Tello, "Los antiguos cementerios del valle de Nasca," p. 287,

suggests three criteria by means of which the mythological nature

of such figures is to be inferred: When symbolical attributes are

indicated by the animal's carrying mystical or thaumaturgical objects;

when the figure retains, through a variety of representations, certain

constant, individualizing traits; and when the same image is used

repeatedly on the more notable types of cultural and artistic objects.

Señor Tello believes Nasca religion to have been totemic in character.

[131] It is reproduced by Joyce [c], p. 155.

[132] Garcilasso's accounts of the coastal religion are scattered

through his inchoate work, the more important passages being bk. ii,

ch. iv; bk. vi, chh. xvii, xviii.

[133] Summarized by Markham [a], p. 216.

[134] Summarized by Markham [a], pp. 235-36.

[135] Avila [b].

[136] Avila's _Narrative_ in _Rites and Laws of the Yncas (HS)_,

1883, pp. 121-47, is the authority for the myths given in the text;

but several of the stories appear also in Molina, Salcamayhua, and

Sarmiento, showing that the mythic cycle was widespread, extending into

the highlands as well as along the coast. The people from whom Avila

received his tales were of a tribe that had migrated from the coast to

higher valleys.

[137] The Tiahuanaco monolith is interpreted by Squier [e], ch. xv;

Markham [a], ch. ii; Gonzalez de la Rosa, "Les deux Tiahuanaco,"

_CA_ xvi (1910); and by Posnansky, "El signo escalonado," _CA_ xviii

(1913). The latter regards the meander design, or its element, the

stair-design in its various forms, as a symbol of the earth; and he

believes Tiahuanaco to be the place of origin of this symbol, whence

it spread northward into Mexico. It is, of course, among the Pueblo

Indians of the United States an earth-symbol. If this be the correct

interpretation, the central figure is the sun, rising or standing above

the earth. Bandelier [e] gives ancient and modern myths in regard to

Titicaca and its environs.

[138] Representations of pottery and other designs from the Diaguité

region showing the influence of Tiahuanaco and possibly Nasca

influence are to be found in the publications of Ambrosetti, Boman,

Lafone Quevado and others. Perhaps the most interesting is the potsherd

showing the figure of a deity (?) bearing an axe with a trident-like

handle, while near him is what seems clearly to be a representation of

a thunderbolt; a trophy head is at his girdle.

[Illustration]

[139] Markham [a], pp. 41-42. Caparó y Pérez, _Proceedings of the

Second Pan American Scientific Congress_, section i, pp. 121-22,

interprets the name "Uirakocha" as composed of _uira_, "grease," and

_kocha_ "sea"; and, since grease is a symbol for richness and the sea

for greatness, it "signified that which was great and rich."

[140] Molina (Markham, _Rites and Laws_), p. 33.

[141] Markham [a], ch. viii; another version is given by Markham [c];

while the text and Spanish translation are in Lafone Quevado [a]. Cf.

the fragments from Huaman Poma given by Pietschmann [b], especially the

prayer, p. 512: "Supreme utmost Huiracocha, wherever thou mayest be,

whether in heaven, whether in this world, whether in the world beneath,

whether in the utmost world, Creator of this world, where thou mayest

be, oh, hear me!"

[142] Salcamayhua (Markham, _Rites and Laws_), pp. 70-72.

[143] Bandelier [d], [e], especially pp. 291-329.

[144] Molina, _op. cit._; Cieza de León [b], ch. v, pp. 5-10;

Sarmiento, pp. 27-39; and for summary of the narrative of Huaman Poma,

Pietschmann, _CA_ xviii (London, 1913), pp. 511-12.

[145] Viracocha and Tonapa obviously belong to the group, or chain, of

hero-deities of a like character, extending from Peru to Mexico, and,

in modified forms, far to the north and far to the south of each of

these centres. This personage, as a hero, is a man, bearded, white,

aided by a magic wand or staff, who brings some essential element of

culture and departs; as a god, he is a creator, who appeared after

the barbaric ages of the world and introduced a new age (there are

exceptions to this, as the narrative of Huaman Poma); further, he is

a deity of the heavens, the plumed- or the double-headed serpent is

his emblem, perhaps his incarnation, and he is closely associated with

the sun, which seems to be his servant. Is it not entirely possible

that this interesting mythic complex is historically associated, in

its spread, with the spread of the cultivation of maize at some early

period? In the Navaho representations of Hastsheyalti, the white god of

the east, bearded with pollen, and himself creator and maize-god, with

the Yei as his servants, and his two sons (in the tale of "The Stricken

Twins") genii respectively of rain (vegetation) and of animals (see

_Mythology of All Races_, Boston, 1916, x, ch. viii, sections ii, iv)

we have the essential attributes of this deity and at the same time an

image of his probable function, as sky-god associated especially with

the whiteness of dawn, with rain-giving, and hence with growing corn.

The staff, which is the conspicuous attribute of Tonapa and Bochica in

particular, may well bear a double significance: in the hands of the

hero, as the dibble of the maize-planter; in the hands of the god, as

the lightning. In any case, there are a multitude of analogies, not

only in the myths, but also in the art-motives and symbolisms of the

group of tribes which extends from the Diaguité to the North American

Pueblo regions that powerfully suggest a common origin of the ideas

which centre about the cult of heaven and earth, of descending rain

and upspringing maize. Many partial parallels for the same group of

ideas are to be found among the less advanced tribes of the plains and

forest regions of both South and North America. Possibly, the myth, or

at least the rites upon which it rests, accompanied the knowledge of

agriculture into these regions.

[146] Lafone Quevado [a], p. 378.

[147] Garcilasso de la Vega, bk. i, chh. xv, xvi. The myth is also

given by Acosta, bk. i, ch. xxv; bk. vi, ch. xx; by Sarmiento, chh.

xi-xiv; and by Salcamayhua (Markham, _Rites and Laws_), pp. 74-75.

[148] Garcilasso de la Vega, bk. ii, ch. xviii; bk. viii, ch. viii; cf.

bk. ix, ch. x.

[149] Molina, pp. 11-12.

[150] The Inca pantheon is described by Markham [a], chh. viii, ix, and

by Joyce [c], ch. vii. The primary sources are Garcilasso de la Vega,

Cieza de León, Molina, Salcamayhua, and Sarmiento, and perhaps most

important of all Blas Valera, the "Anonymous Jesuit" whose writings

were utilized by various early narrators. Salcamayhua's chart is

published by Markham, in a corrected form, in _Rites and Laws of the

Yncas_, p. 84. The literal reproduction accompanies Hagar's discussion

of it, _CA_ xii, and it has been several times reproduced. Its

interpretation is discussed by Hagar, _loc. cit._; Spinden, _AA_, new

series, xviii (1916); Lafone Quevado [b], and "Los Ojos de Imaymana,"

with a reproduction of the chart which he characterizes as "the key

to Peruvian symbolism"; cf., also, Ambrosetti, _CA_ xix (Washington,

1913).

[151] The myth of the Ayars is recorded by Sarmiento, x-xiii; it is

discussed by Markham [a], ch. iv, where are the interpretations of the

names adopted in this text.

[152] Cieza de León [b], chh. vi-viii (pp. 13, 16, quoted).

[153] Garcilasso de la Vega, bk. i, ch. xviii.

[154] The argument for the antiquity of man in South America rests

mainly upon the discoveries and theories of Ameghino, especially,

_La Antigüedad del hombre en la Plata_ (2 vols., Buenos Aires and

Paris, 1880) and artt. in _AnMB_, who is followed by other Argentinian

savants. Ales Hrdlicka, _Early Man in South America (52 BBE_,

Washington, 1912), examines the claims made for the several discoveries

and uniformly rejects the assumption of their great age, in which

opinion he is generally followed by North American anthropologists; as

cf. Wissler, _The American Indian_ (New York, 1917). The theory favored

by Hrdlicka and others is of the peopling of the Americas by successive

waves of immigrants from north-eastern Asia, with possible minor

intrusions of Oceanic peoples along the Pacific coasts of the southern

continent.

[155] The sketch of South American ethnography in d'Orbigny's _L'Homme

américain_ is, of course, now superseded in a multitude of details;

it appears, however, to conform, in broad lines, to the deductions of

later students. In addition to d'Orbigny and Schmidt (_ZE_ xlv, 1913),

Brinton, _The American Race_, Beuchat, _Manuel_, and Wissler, _The

American Indian_, present the most available ethnographic analyses.

[156] "Linguistic Stocks of South American Indians," in _AA_, new

series, xv (1913); also, Wissler, _The American Indian_, pp. 381-85,

listing eighty-four stocks. It must be borne in mind, however, that

the tendency of minute study is eventually to diminish the number of

linguistic stocks having no detectable relationships, and that, in any

case, classifications based upon cultural grade are more important for

the student of mythology than are those based upon language alone.

[157] Brett [a], p. 36; other quotations from this work are from pp.

374, 401, 403.

[158] King Blanco, pp. 63-64. The lack of significant early authorities

for the mythologies of the region of Guiana and the Orinoco (Gumilla

is as important as any) is compensated by the careful work of later

observers of the native tribes, especially of Guiana. Among these,

Humboldt, Sir Richard and Robert H. Schomburgk, and Brett, in the

early and middle years of the nineteenth century, and im Thurn, at a

later period, hold first place, while the contributions of van Coll,

in Anthropos ii, iii (1907, 1908), are no less noteworthy. Latest of

all is Walter Roth's "Inquiry into the Animism and Folk-Lore of the

Guiana Indians," in 30 _ARBE_ (1915), which, as a careful study of the

myth-literature of a South American group, stands in a class by itself;

it is furnished with a careful bibliography. The reader will understand

that the intimate relation between the Antillean and Continental Carib

(and, to a less extent, Arawakan) ideas brings the subject-matter of

this chapter into direct connexion with that of Chapter I; while it

should also be obvious that the Orinoco region is only separated from

the Amazonian for convenience, and that Chapter X is virtually but a

further study of the same level and type of thought. The bibliographies

of Chh. I, VI, and X are supplementary, for this same region, to that

given for Chapter VIII.

[159] Humboldt [b] (Ross), iii. 69; im Thurn, pp. 365-66.

[160] Surely one may indulge a wry smile when told that "heavenly

father" and "creator" are no attributes of God, and may be reasonably

justified in preferring Sir Richard Schomburgk's judgment, where

he says (i. 170): "Almost all stocks of British Guiana are one in

their religious convictions, at least in the main; the Creator of

the world and of mankind is an infinitely exalted being, but his

energy is so occupied in ruling and maintaining the earth that he can

give no special care to individual men." This unusual reason for the

indifference of the Supreme Being toward the affairs of ordinary men

is probably an inference of the author's. Roth commences his study of

Guiana Indian beliefs with a chapter entitled, "No Evidence of Belief

in a Supreme Being," and begins his discussion with the statement:

"Careful investigation forces one to the conclusion that, on the

evidence, the native tribes of Guiana had no idea of a Supreme Being in

the modern conception of the term," quoting evidence, from Gumilla and

others, which to the present writer seems to point in just the opposite

direction. Of course, the phrase "in the modern conception of the term"

is the key to much difference in judgement. If it means that savages

have no conception of a Divine Ens, Esse, Actus Purus, or the like,

definable by highly abstract attributes, _ça va sans dire_; but if the

intention is to say that there is no primitive belief in a luminous Sky

Father, creator and ruler, good on the whole, though not preoccupied

with the small details of earthly and human affairs, such a conclusion

is directly opposed to all evidence, early and late, North American

and South American, missionary and anthropological. Cf. _Mythology of

All Races_, x, Note 6, and references there given; and, in the present

volume, not only Ch. I, iii (Ramon Pane is surely among the earliest),

but also--passing over the numerous allusions in descriptions of the

pantheons of the more advanced tribes (Chh. II-VII)--Ch. IX, iii (early

and late for the low Brazilian tribes); Ch. X, ii, iii, iv.

[161] Sir Richard Schomburgk, ii. 319-20; i. 170-72. Roth gives legends

from many sources touching these deities and others of a similar

character.

[162] Humboldt [b] (Ross), ii. 362.

[163] See above, note 157.

[164] This tale is translated and abridged from van Coll, in

_Anthropos_, ii, 682-89; Roth, chh. vii, xviii, affords an excellent

commentary.

[165] Brett [a], ch. x, pp. 377-78.

[166] Humboldt [b] (Ross), ii. 182-83, 473-75. Descriptions of the

petroglyphs are to be found in Sir Richard Schomburgk, i. 319-21, and

im Thurn, ch. xix.

[167] Boddam-Whetham, _Folk-Lore_, v. 317 (im Thurn, p. 376, misquoting

Brett, calls this an Arawakan tale); for other creation legends, see

Roth, ch. iv.

[168] Van Coll, _Anthropos_, iii. 482-86.

[169] Humboldt [b] (Ross), iii. 362-63; other citations from Humboldt

in this section are, _id. op._, iii. 70; ii. 321; iii. 293, 305; ii.

259-60, in order.

[170] Boddam-Whetham, _Folk-Lore_, v. 317-21.

[171] Sir Richard Schomburgk, i. 239-41; im Thurn, p. 384. Other

quotations are from Ruiz Blanco, pp. 66-67; Brett [a], pp. 278, 107,

356.

[172] For contemporary beliefs about Lope de Aguirre, see Mozans (J. A.

Zahm), [a], pp. 264-67.

[173] The myth of the Amazons is not only the earliest European legend

to become acclimated in America (cf. Ch. I, ii [with Note 5], iv;

Ch. VIII, iii), it is also one of the most obstinate and recurrent,

and a perennial subject of the interest of commentators. For general

discussions of the question, see Chamberlain, "Recent Literature on

the South American Amazons," in _JAFL_ xxiv. 16-20 (1911), and Rothery,

_The Amazons in Antiquity and Modern Times_ (London, 1910), which

reviews the world-wide scope and forms of the myth, chh. viii, ix,

being devoted to the South American instances. Still more recent is

Whiffen, _The Northwest Amazons_ (New York, 1916), pp. 239-402.

[174] Markham [e], p. 122. Carvajal is cited in the same work, pp. 34,

26.

[175] Magalhães de Gandavo, ch. x (_TC_, pp. 116-17); Schmidel

(Hulsius), ch. xxxiii; Raleigh (in _Hakluyt's Voyages_, vol. x), pp.

366-68.

[176] Humboldt [b] (Ross), ii. 395 ff.; iii. 79. Lore pertaining to

the Amazon stone is hardly second to that dealing with the Amazons

themselves. Authorities here cited are La Condamine, pp. 102-113;

Spruce, ii, ch. xxvi (p. 458 quoted); Ehrenreich [b], especially pp.

64, 65, with references to Barbosa Rodrígues and to Brett [b]. Others

to consult are Rothery, ch. ix; T. Wilson, "Jade in America," in _CA_

xii (Paris, 1902); J. E. Pogue, "Aboriginal Use of Turquoise in North

America," in _AA_, new series, xiv (1912); and I. B. Moura, "Sur le

progrès de l'Amazonie," in _CA_ xvi (Vienna, 1910).

[177] See _Mythology of All Nations_, x. 160, 203, 205, 210, and Note

64.

[178] Netto, _CA_ vii (Berlin, 1890), pp. 201 ff.

[179] Acuña (Markham [e]), p. 83. The literature of a region so vast

as that of the basin of the Amazon and the coasts of Brazil is itself

naturally great and scattered. The earlier narratives--such as those

of Acuña, Cardim, Carvajal, Orellana, Ortiguerra, de Léry, Ulrich

Schmidel, and Hans Staden--are valuable chiefly for the hints which

they give of the aboriginal prevalence of ideas studied with more

understanding by later investigators. Among the more important later

writers are d'Orbigny, Couto de Magalhães, Ehrenreich, Koch-Grünberg,

von den Steinen, Whiffen, and Miller; while Teschauer's contributions

to _Anthropos_, i, furnish the best collection for the Brazilian region

as a whole.

[180] Kunike, "Der Fisch als Fruchtbarkeitssymbol," in _Anthropos_

vii (1912), especially section vi; Teschauer [a], part i, texts

(mainly derived from Couto de Magalhães); Tastevin, sections iii, vi;

Garcilasso de la Vega, bk. i, chh. ix, x (quoted).

[181] Cook, p. 385; cf. Whiffen, chh. xv, xvi, xviii; and von den

Steinen [b], pp. 239-41.

[182] Whiffen, pp. 385-86. The myths of manioc and other vegetation are

from Teschauer [a], p. 743; Couto de Magalhães, ii. 134-35; Whiffen,

_loc. cit._; and Koch-Grünberg [a], ii. 292-93.

[183] The legends of St. Thomas are discussed by Granada, ch. xv,

especially pp. 210-15 (cf. also, ch. xx, "Origen mítico y excelencias

del urutaú," with accounts of the vegetation-spirit Ñeambiú). The

suggested relationship of Brazilian and Peruvian myth is considered

by Lafone Quevado in _RevMP_ iii. 332-36; cf., also, Wissler, _The

American Indian_, pp. 198-99. It may be worth noting that there is

a group of South American names of mythic heroes or deities which

might, in one form or another, suggest or be confounded with _Tomás_,

among them the Guarani _Tamoi_ (same as Tupan, and perhaps related to

Tonapa), the Tupi _Zume_. The legend has been discussed in the present

work in Ch. VII, iv.

[184] Koch-Grünberg [a], ii. 173-34; for details regarding the use of

masks and mask-dances, see also Whiffen; Tastevin; M. Schmidt, ch. xiv;

Cook, ch. xxiii; Spruce, ch. xxv; von den Steinen [b]; and Stradelli.

[185] Cardim (Purchas, xvi), pp. 419-20; Thevet [b], pp. 136-39; Keane,

p. 209; Ehrenreich [c], p. 34; Hans Staden [b], ch. xxii.

[186] Frič and Radin, p. 391; Ignace, pp. 952-53; von Rosen, pp.

656-67; Pierini, pp. 703 ff.

[187] D'Orbigny, vii, ch. xxxi, pp. 12-24; iv, 109-15; cf. also pp.

265, 296-99, 337, 502-10.

[188] Whiffen, ch. xvii (p. 218 quoted); Church, p. 235. The subject

here is a continuation of that discussed in Ch. VIII, ii (with Note

160); in connexion with which, with reference to Brazil, the comment

of Couto de Magalhães is significant (part ii, p. 122): "Como quer que

seja, a idéa de un Deus todo poderoso, e único, não foi possuida pelos

nossos selvagens ao tempo da descoberta da America; e pois não era

possival que sua lingua tivesse uma palvra que a podesse expressar. Ha

no entretanto um principio superior qualificado com o nome de Tupan a

quem parece que attribuiam maior poder do que aos outras." The real

question to be resolved is what are the necessary attributes of a

"supreme being." Cf. _Mythology of All Nations_, x, Note 6.

[189] On wood-demons and the like, in addition to Cardim, see Teschauer

[a], pp. 24-34; Koch-Grünberg, [a], i. 190; ii. 157; and Granada, ch.

xxxi, "Demonios, apariciones, fantasmas, etc."

[190] On ghosts and metamorphoses, see Ignace, pp. 952-53; Frič and

Radin; Frič [a]; von Rosen, p. 657; and Cook, p. 122.

[191] On were-beasts, see Ambrosetti [b]; cf. Garcilasso de la Vega,

bk. i, ch. ix.

[192] _Loci citati_ touching cannibalism are Haseman, pp. 345-46;

Staden [a], ch. xliii; [b], chh. xxv, xxviii; Cardim (Purchas), ii.

431-40; and Whiffen, pp. 118-24.

[193] Von den Steinen [b], p. 323.

[194] Couto de Magalhães, part i, texts.

[195] Steere, "Narrative of a Visit to the Indian tribes on the Purus

River," in _Report of the U. S. National Museum, 1901_ (Washington,

1903).

[196] _Loci citati_ are Ehrenreich [b], pp. 34-40; [c], p. 34; Markham

[d], p. 119; von den Steinen [a], p. 283; [b], pp. 322 ff.; Teschauer

[a], pp. 731 ff. (citing Barbosa Rodrígues and others); Koch-Grünberg

[b], no. 1.

[197] Feliciano de Oliveira, _CA_ xviii (London, 1913), pp. 394-96.

[198] Teschauer [a], p. 731. The Kaduveo genesis is given by Frič, in

_CA_ xviii, 397 ff. Stories of both types are widespread throughout the

two Americas.

[199] Couto de Magalhães, part i, texts. This is among the most

interesting of all American myths; it is clearly cosmogonic in

character, yet it reverses the customary procedure of cosmogonies,

beginning with an illuminated world rather than a chaotic gloom.

Possibly this is an indication of primitiveness, for the conception of

night and chaos as the antecedent of cosmic order would seem to call

for a certain degree of imaginative austerity; it is not simple nor

childlike.

[200] Cardim (Purchas), p. 418.

[201] Adam [b], p. 319. Other sources for tales of the deluge are Borba

[b], pp. 223-25; Kissenberth, in _ZE_ xl. 49; Ehrenreich [b], pp.

30-31; Teschauer; and von Martius.

[202] D'Orbigny, iii. 209-14; von den Steinen [a], pp. 282-85; [b], pp.

322-27; and cf. the Kapoi legends in Koch-Grünberg [a]. The Yuracara

tale narrated by d'Orbigny is one of the best and most fully reported

of South American myths.

[203] On the physical and ethnological conditions of the Chaco and

the Abiponean districts the important authorities are Dobrizhoffer;

Grubb [a], [b]; Koch, "Zur Ethnographie der Paraguay-Gebiete," in

_MitAGW_ xxxiii (1903); for the southern region important are,

_Voyages of the Adventure and the Beagle_; the publications of the

_Mission scientifique du Cap Horn_; Cooper, _Analytical and Critical

Bibliography of the Tribes of Tierra del Fuego and Adjacent Territory

(63 BBE)_, with map; and _El Norte de la Patagonia_, with map,

published by the Argentine Ministry of Public Works, Buenos Aires, 1914.

[204] D'Orbigny, _L'Homme américain_, p. 233; J. Guevara, _Historia_,

pp. 32, 265 (citing Fernandez, _Relación historial_, p. 39).

[205] Dobrizhoffer, ii, ch. viii (pp. 57-59, 64-65 quoted); ch. x (p.

94 quoted).

[206] Grubb [b], chh. xi, xii, xiv (pp. 139-41 quoted), xvi (p. 163

quoted); cf. Karsten, sections i, iii.