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SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION--BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY.
J. W. POWELL, DIRECTOR.
SKETCH
OF THE
MYTHOLOGY OF THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS.
BY
J. W. POWELL.
SKETCH OF THE MYTHOLOGY
OF THE
NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS.
BY J. W. POWELL.
_THE GENESIS OF PHILOSOPHY._
The wonders of the course of nature have ever challenged attention. In
savagery, in barbarism, and in civilization alike, the mind of man has
sought the explanation of things. The movements of the heavenly bodies,
the change of seasons, the succession of night and day, the powers of
the air, majestic mountains, ever-flowing rivers, perennial springs, the
flight of birds, the gliding of serpents, the growth of trees, the
blooming of flowers, the forms of storm-carved rocks, the mysteries of
life and death, the institutions of society--many are the things to be
explained. The yearning to know is universal. _How_ and _why_ are
everlasting interrogatories profoundly instinct in humanity. In the
evolution of the human mind, the instinct of cosmic interrogation
follows hard upon the instinct of self-preservation.
In all the operations of nature, man's weal and woe are involved. A cold
wave sweeps from the north--rivers and lakes are frozen, forests are
buried under snows, and the fierce winds almost congeal the life-fluids
of man himself, and indeed man's sources of supply are buried under the
rocks of water. At another time the heavens are as brass, and the clouds
come and go with mockery of unfulfilled promises of rain, the fierce
midsummer sun pours its beams upon the sands, and blasts heated in the
furnace of the desert sear the vegetation; and the fruits, which in more
congenial seasons are subsistence and luxury, shrivel before the eyes of
famishing men. A river rages and destroys the adjacent valley with its
flood. A mountain bursts forth with its rivers of fire, the land is
buried and the people are swept away. Lightning shivers a tree and rends
a skull. The silent, unseen powers of nature, too, are at work bringing
pain or joy, health or sickness, life or death, to mankind. In like
manner man's welfare is involved in all the institutions of society. _How_
and _why_ are the questions asked about all these things--questions
springing from the deepest instinct of self-preservation.
In all stages of savage, barbaric, and civilized inquiry, every question
has found an answer, every _how_ has had its _thus_, every _why_ its
_because_. The sum of the answers to the questions raised by any people
constitute its philosophy; hence all peoples have had philosophies
consisting of their accepted explanation of things. Such a philosophy
must necessarily result from the primary instincts developed in man in
the early progress of his differentiation from the beast. This I
postulate: if demonstration is necessary, demonstration is at hand. Not
only has every people a philosophy, but every stage of culture is
characterized by its stage of philosophy. Philosophy has been unfolded
with the evolution of the human understanding. The history of philosophy
is the history of human opinions from the earlier to the later
days--from the lower to the higher culture.
In the production of a philosophy, phenomena must be _discerned_,
_discriminated_, _classified_. Discernment, discrimination, and
classification are the processes by which a philosophy is developed. In
studying the philosophy of a people at any stage of culture, to
understand what such a people entertain as the sum of their knowledge,
it is necessary that we should understand what phenomena they saw,
heard, felt, discerned; what discriminations they made, and what
resemblances they seized upon as a basis for the classification on which
their explanations rested. A philosophy will be higher in the scale,
nearer the truth, as the discernment is wider, the discrimination nicer,
and the classification better.
The sense of the savage is dull compared with the sense of the civilized
man. There is a myth current in civilization to the effect that the
barbarian has highly developed perceptive faculties. It has no more
foundation than the myth of the wisdom of the owl. A savage sees but few
sights, hears but few sounds, tastes but few flavors, smells but few
odors; his whole sensuous life is narrow and blunt, and his facts that
are made up of the combination of sensuous impressions are few. In
comparison, the civilized man has his vision extended away toward the
infinitesimal and away toward the infinite; his perception of sound is
multiplied to the comprehension of rapturous symphonies; his perception
of taste is increased to the enjoyment of delicious viands; his
perception of smell is developed to the appreciation of most exquisite
perfumes; and his facts that are made up of the combination of sensuous
impressions are multiplied beyond enumeration. The stages of discernment
from the lowest savage to the highest civilized man constitute a series
the end of which is far from the beginning.
If the discernment of the savage is little, his discrimination is less.
All his sensuous perceptions are confused; but the confusion of
confusion is that universal habit of savagery--the confusion of the
objective with the subjective--so that the savage sees, hears, tastes,
smells, feels the imaginings of his own mind. Subjectively determined
sensuous processes are diseases in civilization, but normal, functional
methods in savagery.
The savage philosopher classifies by obvious resemblances--analogic
characters. The civilized philosopher classifies by essential
affinitives--homologic characteristics--and the progress of philosophy
is marked by changes from analogic categories to homologic categories.
_TWO GRAND STAGES OF PHILOSOPHY._
There are two grand stages of philosophy--the mythologic and scientific.
In the first, all phenomena are explained by analogies derived from
subjective human experiences; in the latter, phenomena are explained as
orderly successions of events.
In sublime egotism, man first interprets the cosmos as an extension of
himself; he classifies the phenomena of the outer word by their
analogies with subjective phenomena; his measure of distance is his own
pace, his measure of time his own sleep, for he says, "It is a thousand
paces to the great rock," or, "It is a hundred sleeps to the great
feast." Noises are voices, powers are hands, movements are made afoot.
By subjective examination discovering in himself will and design, and by
inductive reason discovering will and design in his fellow men and in
animals, he extends the induction to all the cosmos, and there discovers
in all things will and design. All phenomena are supposed to be the acts
of some one, and that some one having will and purpose. In mythologic
philosophy the phenomena of the outer physical world are supposed to be
the acts of living, willing, designing personages. The simple are
compared with and explained by the complex. In scientific philosophy,
phenomena are supposed to be children of antecedent phenomena, and so
far as science goes with its explanation they are thus interpreted. Man
with the subjective phenomena gathered about him is studied from an
objective point of view, and the phenomena of subjective life are
relegated to the categories established in the classification of the
phenomena of the outer world; thus the complex is studied by resolving
it into its simple constituents.
There is an unknown known, and there is a known unknown. The unknown
known is the philosophy of savagery; the known unknown is the philosophy
of civilization. In those stages of culture that we call savagery and
barbarism, all things are known--supposed to be known; but when at last
something is known, understood, explained, then to those who have that
knowledge in full comprehension all other things become unknown. Then is
ushered in the era of investigation and discovery; then science is born;
then is the beginning of civilization. The philosophy of savagery is
complete; the philosophy of civilization fragmentary. Ye men of science,
ye wise fools, ye have discovered the law of gravity, but ye cannot
tell what gravity is. But savagery has a cause and a method for all
things; nothing is left unexplained.
In the lower stages of savagery the cosmos is bounded by the great plain
of land and sea on which we tread, and the firmament, the azure surface
above, set with brilliants; and beyond is an abyss of--nothing. Within
these bounds all things are known, all things are explained; there are
no mysteries but the whims of the gods. But when the plain on which we
tread becomes a portion of the surface of a great globe, and the domed
firmament becomes the heavens, stretching beyond Alcyone and Sirius,
with this enlargement of the realm of philosophy the verity of
philosophy is questioned. The savage is a positive man; the scientist is
a doubting man.
The opinions of a savage people are childish. Society grows! Some say
society develops; others that society evolves; but, somehow, I like to
say it grows. The history of the discovery of growth is a large part of
the history of human culture. That individuals grow, that the child
grows to be a man, the colt a horse, the scion a tree, is easily
recognized, though with unassisted eye the processes of growth are not
discovered. But that races grow--races of men, races of animals, races
of plants, races or groups of worlds--is a very late discovery, and yet
all of us do not grasp so great a thought. Consider that stage of
culture where the growth of individuals is not fully recognized. That
stage is savagery. To-day the native races of North America are agitated
by discussions over that great philosophic question, "Do the trees grow
or were they created?" That the grass grows they admit, but the orthodox
philosophers stoutly assert that the forest pines and the great
_sequoias_ were created as they are.
Thus in savagery the philosophers dispute over the immediate creation or
development of individuals--in civilization over the immediate creation
or development of races. I know of no single fact that better
illustrates the wide difference between these two stages of culture. But
let us look for other terms of comparison. The scalping scene is no more
the true picture of savagery than the bayonet charge of civilization.
Savagery is sylvan life. Contrast _Ka-ni-ga_ with New York. _Ka-ni-ga_
is an Indian village in the Rocky Mountains. New York is, well--New
York. The home in the forest is a shelter of boughs; the home in New
York is a palace of granite. The dwellers in _Ka-ni-ga_ are clothed in
the skins of animals, rudely tanned, rudely wrought, and colored with
daubs of clay. For the garments of New York, flocks are tended, fields
are cultivated, ships sail on the sea, and men dig in the mountains for
dye-stuffs stored in the rocks. The industries of _Ka-ni-ga_ employ
stone knives, bone awls, and human muscle; the industries of New York
employ the tools of the trades, the machinery of the manufactories, and
the power of the sun--for water-power is but sunshine, and the coal mine
is but a pot of pickeled sunbeams.
Even the nursery rhymes are in contrast; the prattler in New York says:
Daffy down dilly
Has come up to town,
With a green petticoat
And a blue gown;
but in savagery the outer and nether garments are not yet
differentiated; and more: blue and green are not differentiated, for the
Indian has but one name for the two; the green grass and the blue
heavens are of the same hue in the Indian tongue. But the nursery tales
of _Ka-ni-ga_ are of the animals, for the savages associate with the
animals on terms of recognized equality; and this is what the prattler
in _Ka-ni-ga_ says:
The poor little bee
That lives in the tree,
The poor little bee
That lives in the tree,
Has only one arrow
In his quiver.
The arts and industries of savagery and civilization are not in greater
contrast than their philosophy. To fully present to you the condition of
savagery, as illustrated in their philosophy, three obstacles appear.
After all the years I have spent among the Indians in their mountain
villages, I am not certain that I have sufficiently divorced myself from
the thoughts and ways of civilization to properly appreciate their
childish beliefs. The second obstacle subsists in your own knowledge of
the methods and powers of nature, and the ways of civilized society; and
when I attempt to tell you what an Indian thinks, I fear you will never
fully forget what you know, and thus you will be led to give too deep a
meaning to a savage explanation; or, on the other hand, contrasting an
Indian concept with your own, the manifest absurdity will sound to you
as an idle tale too simple to deserve mention, or too false to deserve
credence. The third difficulty lies in the attempt to put savage
thoughts into civilized language; our words are so full of meaning,
carry with them so many great thoughts and collateral ideas.
Some examples of the philosophic methods belonging to widely separated
grades of culture may serve to make the previous statements clearer.
_Wind._--The _Ute_ philosopher discerns that men and animals breathe. He
recognizes vaguely the phenomena of the wind, and discovers its
resemblance to breath, and explains the winds by relegating them to the
class of breathings. He declares that there is a monster beast in the
north that breathes the winter winds, and another in the south, and
another in the east, and another in the west. The facts relating to
winds are but partially discerned; the philosopher has not yet
discovered that there is an earth-surrounding atmosphere. He fails in
making the proper discriminations. His relegation of the winds to the
class of breathings is analogic, but not homologic. The basis of his
philosophy is personality, and hence he has four wind-gods.
The philosopher of the ancient Northland discovered that he could cool
his brow with a fan, or kindle a flame, or sweep away the dust with the
wafted air. The winds also cooled his brow, the winds also swept away
the dust and kindled the fire into a great conflagration, and when the
wind blew he said, "Somebody is fanning the waters of the fiord," or
"Somebody is fanning the evergreen forests," and he relegated the winds
to the class of fannings, and he said, "The god Hraesvelger, clothed
with eagle-plumes, is spreading his wings for flight, and the winds rise
from under them."
The early Greek philosopher discovered that air may be imprisoned in
vessels or move in the ventilation of caves, and he recognized wind as
something more than breath, something more than fanning, something that
can be gathered up and scattered abroad, and so when the winds blew he
said, "The sacks have been untied," or "The caves have been opened."
The philosopher of civilization, has discovered that breath, the
fan-wafted breeze, the air confined in vessels, the air moving in
ventilation, that these are all parts of the great body of air which
surrounds the earth, all in motion, swung by the revolving earth, heated
at the tropics, cooled at the poles, and thus turned into
counter-currents and again deflected by a thousand geographic features,
so that the winds sweep down valleys, eddy among mountain crags, or waft
the spray from the crested billows of the sea, all in obedience to
cosmic laws. The facts discerned are many, the discriminations made are
nice, and the classifications based on true homologies, and we have the
science of meteorology, which exhibits an orderly succession of events
even in the fickle winds.
_Sun and Moon._--The _Ute_ philosopher declares the sun to be a living
personage, and explains his passage across the heavens along an
appointed way by giving an account of a fierce personal conflict between
_Tae-vi_, the sun-god, and _Ta-wats_, one of the supreme gods of his
mythology.
In that long ago, the time to which all mythology refers, the sun roamed
the earth at will. When he came too near with his fierce heat the people
were scorched, and when he hid away in his cave for a long time, too
idle to come forth, the night was long and the earth cold. Once upon a
time _Ta-wats_, the hare-god, was sitting with his family by the
camp-fire in the solemn woods, anxiously waiting for the return of
_Tae-vi_, the wayward sun-god. Wearied with long watching, the hare-god
fell asleep, and the sun-god came so near that he scorched the naked
shoulder of _Ta-wats_. Foreseeing the vengeance which would be thus
provoked, he fled back to his cave beneath the earth. _Ta-wats_ awoke
in great anger, and speedily determined to go and fight the sun-god.
After a long journey of many adventures the hare-god came to the brink
of the earth, and there watched long and patiently, till at last the
sun-god coming out he shot an arrow at his face, but the fierce heat
consumed the arrow ere it had finished its intended course; then another
arrow was sped, but that was also consumed; and another, and still
another, till only one remained in his quiver, but this was the magical
arrow that had never failed its mark. _Ta-wats_, holding it in
his hand, lifted the barb to his eye and baptized it in a divine tear;
then the arrow was sped and struck the sun-god full in the face, and the
sun was shivered into a thousand fragments, which fell to the earth,
causing a general conflagration. Then _Ta-wats_, the hare-god,
fled before the destruction he had wrought, and as he fled the burning
earth consumed his feet, consumed his legs, consumed his body, consumed
his hands and his arms--all were consumed but the head alone, which
bowled across valleys and over mountains, fleeing destruction from the
burning earth until at last, swollen with heat, the eyes of the god
burst and the tears gushed forth in a flood which spread over the earth
and extinguished the fire. The sun-god was now conquered, and he
appeared before a council of the gods to await sentence. In that long
council were established the days and the nights, the seasons and the
years, with the length thereof, and the sun was condemned to travel
across the firmament by the same trail day after day till the end of
time.
In this same philosophy we learn that in that ancient time a council of
the gods was held to consider the propriety of making a moon, and at
last the task was given to Whippoorwill, a god of the night, and a frog
yielded himself a willing sacrifice for this purpose, and the
Whippoorwill, by incantations, and other magical means, transformed the
frog into the new moon. The truth of this origin of the moon is made
evident to our very senses; for do we not see the frog riding the moon
at night, and the moon is cold, because the frog from which it was made
was cold?
The philosopher of _Oraibi_ tells us that when the people ascended by
means of the magical tree which constituted the ladder from the lower
world to this, they found the firmament, the ceiling of this world, low
down upon the earth--the floor of this world, _Matcito_, one of their
gods, raised the firmament on his shoulders to where it is now seen.
Still the world was dark, as there was no sun, no moon, and no stars. So
the people murmured because of the darkness and the cold. _Matcito_
said, "Bring me seven maidens," and they brought him seven maidens; and
he said, "Bring me seven baskets of cotton-bolls," and they brought him
seven baskets of cotton-bolls; and he taught the seven maidens to weave
a magical fabric from the cotton, and when they had finished it he held
it aloft, and the breeze carried it away toward the firmament, and in
the twinkling of an eye it was transformed into a beautiful full-orbed
moon, and the same breeze caught the remnants of flocculent cotton which
the maidens had scattered during their work, and carried them aloft,
and they were transformed into bright stars. But still it was cold and
the people murmured again, and _Matcito_ said, "Bring me seven buffalo
robes," and they brought him seven buffalo robes, and from the densely
matted hair of the robes he wove another wonderful fabric, which the
storm carried away into the sky, and it was transformed into the
full-orbed sun. Then _Matcito_ appointed times and seasons and ways for
the heavenly bodies, and the gods of the firmament have obeyed the
injunctions of _Matcito_ from the day of their creation to the present.
The Norse philosopher tells us that Night and Day, each, has a horse and
a car, and they drive successively one after the other around the world
in twenty-four hours. Night rides first with her steed named Dew-hair,
and every morning as he ends his course he bedews the earth with foam
from his bit. The steed driven by Day is Shining-hair. All the sky and
earth glisten with the light of his mane. Jarnved, the great iron-wood
forest lying to the east of Midgard, is the abode of a race of witches.
One monster witch is the mother of many sons in the form of wolves, two
of which are Skol and Hate. Skol is the wolf that would devour the
maiden Sun, and she daily flies from the maw of the terrible beast, and
the moon-man flies from the wolf Hate.
The philosopher of Samos tells us that the earth is surrounded by hollow
crystalline spheres set one within another, and all revolving at
different rates from east to west about the earth, and that the sun is
set in one of these spheres and the moon in another.
The philosopher of civilization tells us that the sun is an incandescent
globe, one of the millions afloat in space. About this globe the planets
revolve, and the sun and planets and moons were formed from nebulous
matter by the gradual segregation of their particles controlled by the
laws of gravity, motion, and affinity.
The sun, traveling by an appointed way across the heavens with the
never-ending succession of day and night, and the ever-recurring train
of seasons, is one of the subjects of every philosophy. Among all
peoples, in all times, there is an explanation of these phenomena, but
in the lowest stage, way down in savagery, how few the facts discerned,
how vague the discriminations made, how superficial the resemblances by
which the phenomena are classified! In this stage of culture, all the
daily and monthly and yearly phenomena which come as the direct result
of the movements of the heavenly bodies are interpreted as the doings of
some one--some god acts. In civilization the philosopher presents us the
science of astronomy with all its accumulated facts of magnitude, and
weights, and orbits, and distances, and velocities--with all the nice
discriminations of absolute, relative, and apparent motions; and all
these facts he is endeavoring to classify in homologic categories, and
the evolutions and revolutions of the heavenly bodies are explained as
an orderly succession of events.
_Rain._--The _Shoshoni_ philosopher believes the domed firmament to be
ice, and surely it is the very color of ice, and he believes further
that a monster serpent-god coils his huge back to the firmament and with
his scales abrades its face and causes the ice-dust to fall upon the
earth. In the winter-time it falls as snow, but in the summer-time it
melts and falls as rain, and the Shoshoni philosopher actually sees the
serpent of the storm in the rainbow of many colors.
The _Oraibi_ philosopher who lives in a _pueblo_ is acquainted with
architecture, and so his world is seven-storied. There is a world below
and five worlds above this one. _Muinwa_, the rain-god, who lives in
the world immediately above, dips his great brush, made of feathers of
the birds of the heavens, into the lakes of the skies and sprinkles the
earth with refreshing rain for the irrigation of the crops tilled by
these curious Indians who live on the cliffs of Arizona. In winter,
_Muinwa_ crushes the ice of the lakes of the heavens and scatters it
over the earth, and we have a snow-fall.
The Hindoo philosopher says that the lightning-bearded Indra breaks the
vessels that hold the waters of the skies with his thunder-bolts, and
the rains descend to irrigate the earth.
The philosopher of civilization expounds to us the methods by which the
waters are evaporated from the land and the surface of the sea, and
carried away by the winds, and gathered into clouds to be discharged
again upon the earth, keeping up forever that wonderful circulation of
water from the heavens to the earth and from the earth to the
heavens--that orderly succession of events in which the waters travel by
river, by sea, and by cloud.
_Rainbow._--In _Shoshoni_, the rainbow is a beautiful serpent that
abrades the firmament of ice to give us snow and rain. In Norse, the
rainbow is the bridge Bifrost spanning the space between heaven and
earth. In the Iliad, the rainbow is the goddess Iris, the messenger of
the King of Olympus. In Hebrew, the rainbow is the witness to a
covenant. In science, the rainbow is an analysis of white light into its
constituent colors by the refraction of raindrops.
_Falling stars._--In _Ute_, falling stars are the excrements of dirty
little star-gods. In science--well, I do not know what falling stars are
in science. I think they are cinders from the furnace where the worlds
are forged. You may call this mythologic or scientific, as you please.
_Migration of birds._--The _Algonkian_ philosopher explains the
migration of birds by relating the myth of the combat between
_Ka-bi-bo-no-ki_ and _Shingapis_, the prototype or progenitor of the
water-hen, one of their animal gods. A fierce battle raged between
_Ka-bi-bo-no-ki_ and _Shingapis_, but the latter could not be
conquered. All the birds were driven from the land but _Shingapis_; and
then was it established that whenever in the future Winter-maker should
come with his cold winds, fierce snows, and frozen waters, all the birds
should leave for the south except _Shingapis_ and his friends. So the
birds that spend their winters north are called by the _Algonkian_
philosophers "the friends of _Shingapis_."
In contrast to this explanation of the flight of birds may be placed the
explanation of the modern evolutionist, who says that the birds migrate
in quest of abundance of food and a genial climate, guided by an
instinct of migration, which is an accumulation of inherited memories.
_Diversity of languages._--The _Kaibaebit_ philosopher accounts for
the diversity of languages in this manner: _Si-tcom'-pa
Ma-so-its_, the grandmother goddess of the sea, brought up mankind
from beneath the waves in a sack, which she delivered to the
_Cin-au-aev_ brothers, the great wolf-gods of his mythology, and told
them, to carry it from the shores of the sea to the Kaibab Plateau, and
then to open it; but they were by no means to open the package ere their
arrival, lest some great disaster should befall. The curiosity of the
younger _Cin-au-aev_ overcame him, and he untied the sack, and the
people swarmed out; but the elder _Cin-au-aev_, the wiser god, ran
back and closed the sack while yet not all the people had escaped, and
they carried the sack, with its remaining contents, to the plateau, and
there opened it. Those that remained in the sack found a beautiful
land--a great plateau covered with mighty forests, through which elk,
deer, and antelope roamed in abundance, and many mountain-sheep were
found on the bordering crags; _piv_, the nuts of the edible pine, they
found on the foot-hills, and _us_, the fruit of the yucca, in sunny
glades; and _naent_, the meschal crowns, for their feasts; and _tcu-ar_,
the cactus-apple, from which to make their wine; reeds grew about the
lakes for their arrow-shafts; the rocks were full of flints for their
barbs and knives, and away down, in the canon they found a pipe-stone
quarry, and on the hills they found _aer-a-um-piv_, their tobacco.
O, it was a beautiful land that was given to these, the favorites of the
gods! The descendants of these people are the present _Kaibaebits_ of
northern Arizona. Those who escaped by the way, through the wicked
curiosity of the younger _Cin-au-aev_, scattered over the country and
became _Navajos_, _Mokis_, _Sioux_, _Comanches_, Spaniards,
Americans--poor, sorry fragments of people without the original language
of the gods, and only able to talk in imperfect jargons.
The Hebrew philosopher tells us that on the plains of Shinar the people
of the world were gathered to build a city and erect a tower, the summit
of which should reach above the waves of any flood Jehovah might send.
But their tongues were confused as a punishment for their impiety. The
philosopher of science tells us that mankind was widely scattered over
the earth anterior to the development of articulate speech, that the
languages of which we are cognizant sprang from innumerable centers as
each little tribe developed its own language, and that in the study of
any language an orderly succession of events may be discovered in its
evolution from a few simple holophrastic locutions to a complex language
with a multiplicity of words and an elaborate grammatic structure, by
the differentiation of the parts of speech and the integration of the
sentence.
_A cough._--A man coughs. In explanation the _Ute_ philosopher would
tell us that an _u-nu-pits_--a pygmy spirit of evil--had entered the
poor man's stomach, and he would charge the invalid with having whistled
at night; for in their philosophy it is taught that if a man whistles at
night, when the pygmy spirits are abroad, one is sure to go through the
open door into the stomach, and the evidence of this disaster is found
in the cough which the _u-nu-pits_ causes. Then the evil spirit must
be driven out, and the medicine-man stretches his patient on the ground
and scarifies him with the claws of eagles from head to heel, and while
performing the scarification a group of men and women stand about,
forming a chorus, and medicine-man and chorus perform a fugue in gloomy
ululation, for these wicked spirits will depart only by incantations and
scarifications.
In our folk-lore philosophy a cough is caused by a "cold," whatever that
may be--a vague entity--that must be treated first according to the
maxim "Feed a cold and starve a fever," and the "cold" is driven away by
potations of bitter teas.
In our medical philosophy a cough may be the result of a clogging of the
pores of the skin, and is relieved by clearing those flues that carry
away the waste products of vital combustion.
These illustrations are perhaps sufficient to exhibit the principal
characteristics of the two methods of philosophy, and, though they cover
but narrow fields, it should be remembered that every philosophy deals
with the whole cosmos. An explanation of all things is sought--not alone
the great movements of the heavens, or the phenomena that startle even
the unthinking, but every particular which is observed. Abstractly, the
plane of demarkation between the two methods of philosophy can be
sharply drawn, but practically we find them strangely mixed; mythologic
methods prevail in savagery and barbarism, and scientific methods
prevail in civilization. Mythologic philosophies antedate scientific
philosophies. The thaumaturgic phases of mythology are the embryonic
stages of philosophy, science being the fully developed form. Without
mythology there could be no science, as without childhood there could be
no manhood, or without embryonic conditions there could be no ultimate
forms.
_MYTHOLOGIC PHILOSOPHY HAS FOUR STAGES._
Mythologic philosophy is the subject with which we deal. Its method, as
stated in general terms, is this: All phenomena of the outer objective
world are interpreted by comparison with those of the inner subjective
world Whatever happens, some one does it; that some one has a will and
works as he wills. The basis of the philosophy is personality. The
persons who do the things which we observe in the phenomena of the
universe are the gods of mythology--_the cosmos is a pantheon_. Under
this system, whatever may be the phenomenon observed, the philosopher
asks, "Who does it?" and "Why?" and the answer comes, "A god with his
design." The winds blow, and the interrogatory is answered, "AEolus frees
them from the cave to speed the ship of a friend, or destroy the vessel
of a foe." The actors in mythologic philosophy are gods.
In the character of these gods four stages of philosophy may be
discovered. In the lowest and earliest stage everything has life;
everything is endowed with personality, will, and design; animals are
endowed with all the wonderful attributes of mankind; all inanimate
objects are believed to be animate; trees think and speak; stones have
loves and hates; hills and mountains, springs and rivers, and all the
bright stars, have life--everything discovered objectively by the senses
is looked upon subjectively by the philosopher and endowed with all the
attributes supposed to be inherent in himself. In this stage of
philosophy everything is a god. Let us call it _hecastotheism_.
In the second stage men no longer attribute life indiscriminately to
inanimate things; but the same powers and attributes recognized by
subjective vision in man are attributed to the animals by which he is
surrounded. No line of demarkation is drawn between man and beast; all
are great beings endowed with wonderful attributes. Let us call this
stage _zooetheism_, when men worship beasts. All the phenomena of nature
are the doings of these animal gods; all the facts of nature, all the
phenomena of the known universe, all the institutions of humanity known
to the philosophers of this stage, are accounted for in the mythologic
history of these zooemorphic gods.
In the third stage a wide gulf is placed between man and the lower
animals. The animal gods are dethroned, and the powers and phenomena of
nature are personified and deified. Let us call this stage
_physitheism_. The gods are strictly anthropomorphic, having the form as
well as the mental, moral, and social attributes of men. Thus we have a
god of the sun, a god of the moon, a god of the air, a god of dawn, and
a deity of the night.
In the fourth stage, mental, moral, and social characteristics are
personified and deified. Thus we have a god of war, a god of love, a god
of revelry, a god of plenty, and like personages who preside over the
institutions and occupations of mankind. Let us call this
_psychotheism_. With the mental, moral, and social characteristics in
these gods are associated the powers of nature; and they differ from
nature-gods chiefly in that they have more distinct psychic
characteristics.
Psychotheism, by the processes of mental integration, developes in one
direction into monotheism, and in the other into pantheism. When the
powers of nature are held predominant in the minds of the philosophers
through whose cogitations this evolution of theism is carried on,
pantheism, as the highest form of psychotheism, is the final result; but
when the moral qualities are held in highest regard in the minds of the
men in whom this process of evolution is carried on, _monotheism_, or a
god whose essential characteristics are moral qualities, is the final
product. The monotheistic god is not nature, but presides over and
operates through, nature. Psychotheism has long been recognized. All of
the earlier literature of mankind treats largely of these gods, for it
is an interesting fact that in the history of any civilized people, the
evolution of psychotheism is approximately synchronous with the
invention of an alphabet. In the earliest writings of the Egyptians, the
Hindoos, and the Greeks, this stage is discovered, and Osiris, Indra,
and Zeus are characteristic representatives. As psychotheism and written
language appear together in the evolution of culture, this stage of
theism is consciously or unconsciously a part of the theme of all
written history.
The paleontologist, in studying the rocks of the hill and the cliffs of
the mountain, discovers, in inanimate stones, the life-forms of the
ancient earth. The geologist, in the study of the structure of valleys
and mountains, discovers groups of facts that lead him to a knowledge of
more ancient mountains and valleys and seas, of geographic features long
ago buried, and followed by a new land with new mountains and valleys,
and new seas. The philologist, in studying the earliest writings of a
people, not only discovers the thoughts purposely recorded in those
writings, but is able to go back in the history of the people many
generations, and discover with even greater certainty the thoughts of
the more ancient people who made the words. Thus the writings of the
Greeks, the Hindoos, and the Egyptians, that give an account of their
psychic gods, also contain a description of an earlier theism
unconsciously recorded by the writers themselves. Psychotheism prevailed
when the sentences were coined, physitheism when the words were coined.
So the philologist discovers physitheism in all ancient literature. But
the verity of that stage of philosophy does not rest alone upon the
evidence derived from the study of fossil philosophies through the
science of philology. In the folk-lore of every civilized people having
a psychotheistic philosophy, an earlier philosophy with nature-gods is
discovered.
The different stages of philosophy which I have attempted to
characterize have never been found in purity. We always observe
different methods of explanation existing side by side, and the type of
a philosophy is determined by the prevailing characteristics of its
explanation of phenomena. Fragments of the earlier are always found side
by side with, the greater body of the later philosophy. Man has never
clothed himself in new garments of wisdom, but has ever been patching
the old, and the old and the new are blended in the same pattern, and
thus we have atavism in philosophy. So in the study of any philosophy
which has reached the psychotheistic age, patches of the earlier
philosophy are always seen. Ancient nature-gods are found to be living
and associating with the supreme psychic deities. Thus in anthropologic
science there are three ways by which, to go back in the history of any
civilized people and learn of its barbaric physitheism. But of the
verity of this stage we have further evidence. When Christianity was
carried north from Central Europe, the champions of the new philosophy,
and its consequent religion, discovered, among those who dwelt by the
glaciers of the north, a barbaric philosophy which they have preserved
to history in the Eddas and Sagas, and Norse literature is full of a
philosophy in a transition state, from physitheism to psychotheism; and,
mark! the people discovered in this transition state were inventing an
alphabet--they were carving Runes. Then a pure physitheism was
discovered in the Aztec barbarism of Mexico; and elsewhere on the globe
many people were found in that stage of culture to which this philosophy
properly belongs. Thus the existence of physitheism as a stage of
philosophy is abundantly attested. Comparative mythologists are agreed
in recognizing these two stages. They might not agree to throw all of
the higher and later philosophies into one group, as I have done, but
all recognize the plane of demarkation between the higher and the lower
groups as I have drawn it. Scholars, too, have come essentially to an
agreement that physitheism is earlier and older than psychotheism.
Perhaps there may be left a "doubting Thomas" who believes that the
highest stage of psychotheism--that is, monotheism--was the original
basis for the philosophy of the world, and that all other forms are
degeneracies from that primitive and perfect state. If there be such a
man left, to him what I have to say about philosophy is blasphemy.
Again, all students of comparative philosophy, or comparative mythology,
or comparative religion, as you may please to approach this subject from
different points of view, recognize that there is something else; that
there are philosophies, or mythologies, or religions, not included in
the two great groups. All that something else has been vaguely called
fetichism. I have divided it into two parts, _hecastotheism_ and
_zooetheism_. The verity of zooetheism as a stage of philosophy rests on
abundant evidence. In psychotheism it appears as _devilism_ in obedience
to a well-known law of comparative theology, viz, that the gods of a
lower and superseded stage of culture oftentimes become the devils of a
higher stage. So in the very highest stages of psychotheism we find
beast-devils. In Norse mythology, we have Fenris the wolf, and
Jormungandur the serpent. Dragons appear in Greek mythology, the bull is
an Egyptian god, a serpent is found in the Zendavesta; and was there not
a scaly fellow in the garden of Eden? So common are these beast-demons
in the higher mythologies that they are used in every literature as
rhetorical figures. So we find, as a figure of speech, the great red
dragon with seven heads and ten horns, with tail that with one brush
sweeps away a third of the stars of heaven. And where-ever we find
nature-worship we find it accompanied with beast-worship. In the study
of higher philosophies, having learned that lower philosophies often
exist side by side with them, we might legitimately conclude that a
philosophy based upon animal gods had existed previous to the
development of physitheism; and philologic research, leads to the same
conclusion. But we are not left to base this conclusion upon, an
induction only, for in the examination of savage philosophies we
actually discover zooetheism in all its proportions. Many of the Indians
of North America, and many of South America, and many of the tribes of
Africa, are found to be zooetheists. Their supreme gods are
animals--tigers, bears, wolves, serpents, birds. Having discovered this,
with a vast accumulation of evidence, we are enabled to carry philosophy
back one stage beyond physitheism, and we can confidently assert that
all the philosophies of civilization have come up through these three
stages.
And yet, there are fragments of philosophy discovered which are not
zooetheistic, physitheistic, nor psychotheistic. What are they? We find
running through all three stages of higher philosophy that phenomena are
sometimes explained by regarding them as the acts of persons who do not
belong to any of the classes of gods found in the higher stages. We find
fragments of philosophy everywhere which seem to assume that all
inanimate nature is animate; that mountains and hills, and rivers and
springs, that trees and grasses, that stones, and all fragments of
things are endowed with life and with will, and act for a purpose. These
fragments of philosophy lead to the discovery of hecastotheism.
Philology also leads us back to that state when the animate and the
inanimate were confounded, for the holophrastic roots into which words
are finally resolved show us that all inanimate things were represented
in language as actors. Such is the evidence on which we predicate the
existence of hecastotheism as a veritable stage of philosophy. Unlike
the three higher stages, it has no people extant on the face of the
globe, known to be in this stage of culture. The philosophies of many of
the lowest tribes of mankind are yet unknown, and hecastotheism may be
discovered; but at the present time we are not warranted in saying that
any tribe entertains this philosophy as its highest wisdom.
_OUTGROWTH FROM MYTHOLOGIC PHILOSOPHY._
The three stages of mythologic philosophy that are still extant in the
world must be more thoroughly characterized, and the course of their
evolution indicated. But in order to do this clearly, certain outgrowths
from mythologic philosophy must be explained--certain theories and
practices that necessarily result from, this philosophy, and that are
intricately woven into the institutions of mankind.
_Ancientism._--The first I denominate ancientism. Yesterday was better
than to-day. The ancients were wiser that we. This belief in a better
day and a better people in the elder time is almost universal among
mankind. A belief so widely spread, so profoundly entertained, must have
for its origin some important facts in the constitution or history of
mankind. Let us see what they are.
In the history of every individual the sports and joys of childhood are
compared and contrasted with the toils and pains of old age. Greatly
protracted life, in savagery and barbarism, is not a boon to be craved.
In that stage of society where the days and the years go by with little
or no provision for a time other than that which is passing, the old
must go down to the grave through poverty and suffering. In that stage
of culture to-morrow's bread is not certain, and to-day's bread is often
scarce. In civilization plenty and poverty live side by side; the palace
and the hovel are on the same landscape; the rich and poor elbow each
other on the same street; but in savagery plenty and poverty come with
recurring days to the same man, and the tribe is rich to-day and poor
to-morrow, and the days of want come in every man's history; and when
they come the old suffer most, and the burden of old age is oppressive.
In youth activity is joy; in old age activity is pain. So wonder, then,
that old age loves youth, or that to-day loves yesterday, for the
instinct is born of the inherited experiences of mankind.
But there is yet another and more potent reason for ancientism. That
tale is the most wonderful that has been most repeated, for the breath
of speech is the fertilizer of story. Hence, the older the story the
greater its thaumaturgics. Thus, yesterday is greater than to-day by
natural processes of human exaggeration. Again, that is held to be most
certain, and hence most sacred, which has been most often affirmed. A
Brahman was carrying a goat to the altar. Three thieves would steal it.
So they placed themselves at intervals along the way by which the pious
Brahman would travel. When the venerable man came to the first thief he
was accosted: "Brahman, why do you carry a dog?" Now, a dog is an
unclean beast which no Brahman must touch. And the Brahman, after
looking at his goat, said: "You do err; this is a goat." And when the
old man reached the second thief, again he was accosted: "Brahman, why
do you carry a dog?" So the Brahman put his goat on the ground, and
after narrowly scrutinizing it, he said: "Surely this is a goat," and
went on his way. When he came to the third thief he was once more
accosted: "Brahman, why do you carry a dog?" Then the Brahman, having
thrice heard that his goat was a dog, was convinced, and throwing it
down, he fled to the temple for ablution, and the thieves had a feast.
The child learns not for himself, but is taught, and accepts as true
that which is told, and a propensity to believe the affirmed is
implanted in his mind. In every society some are wise and some are
foolish, and the wise are revered, and their affirmations are accepted.
Thus, the few lead the multitude in knowledge, and the propensity to
believe the affirmed started in childhood is increased in manhood in the
great average of persons constituting society, and these propensities
are inherited from generation to generation, until we have a cumulation
of effects.
The propagation of opinions by affirmation, the cultivation of the
propensity to believe that which has been affirmed many times, let us
call _affirmatization_. If the world's opinions were governed only by
the principles of mythologic philosophy, affirmatization would become so
powerful that nothing would be believed but the anciently affirmed. Men
would come to no new knowledge. Society would stand still listening to
the wisdom of the fathers. But the power of affirmatization is steadily
undermined by science.