Preface
This little volume is a contribution to the comparative study of religions. It is an endeavor to present in a critically correct light some of the fundamental conceptions which are found in the native beliefs of the tribes of America.
So little has heretofore been done in this field that it has yielded a very scanty harvest for purposes of general study. It has not yet even passed the stage where the distinction between myth and tradition has been recognized. Nearly all historians continue to write about some of the American hero-gods as if they had been chiefs of tribes at some undetermined epoch, and the effort to trace the migrations and affiliations of nations by similarities in such stories is of almost daily occurrence. How baseless and misleading all such arguments must be, it is one of my objects to set forth.
At the same time I have endeavored to be temperate in applying the interpretations of mythologists. I am aware of the risk one runs in looking at every legend as a light or storm myth. My guiding principle has been that when the same, and that a very extraordinary, story is told by several tribes wholly apart in language and location, then the probabilities are enormous that it is not a legend but a myth, and must be explained as such. It is a spontaneous production of the mind, not a reminiscence of an historic event.
The importance of the study of myths has been abundantly shown of recent years, and the methods of analyzing them have been established with satisfactory clearness.
The time has long since passed, at least among thinking men, when the religious legends of the lower races were looked upon as trivial fables, or as the inventions of the Father of Lies. They are neither the one nor the other. They express, in image and incident, the opinions of these races on the mightiest topics of human thought, on the origin and destiny of man, his motives for duty and his grounds of hope, and the source, history and fate of all external nature. Certainly the sincere expressions on these subjects of even humble members of the human race deserve our most respectful heed, and it may be that we shall discover in their crude or coarse narrations gleams of a mental light which their proud Aryan brothers have been long in coming to, or have not yet reached.
The prejudice against all the lower faiths inspired by the claim of Christianity to a monopoly of religious truth—a claim nowise set up by its founder—has led to extreme injustice toward the so-called heathen religions. Little effort has been made to distinguish between their good and evil tendencies, or even to understand them. I do not know of a single instance on this continent of a thorough and intelligent study of a native religion made by a Protestant missionary.
So little real work has been done in American mythology that very diverse opinions as to its interpretation prevail among writers. Too many of them apply to it facile generalizations, such as “heliolatry,” “animism,” “ancestral worship,” “primitive philosophizing,” and think that such a sesame will unloose all its mysteries. The result has been that while each satisfies himself, he convinces no one else.
I have tried to avoid any such bias, and have sought to discover the source of the myths I have selected, by close attention to two points: first, that I should obtain the precise original form of the myth by a rigid scrutiny of authorities; and, secondly, that I should bring to bear upon it modern methods of mythological and linguistic analysis.
The first of these requirements has given me no small trouble. The sources of American history not only differ vastly in merit, but many of them are almost inaccessible. I still have by me a list of books of the first order of importance for these studies, which I have not been able to find in any public or private library in the United States.
I have been free in giving references for the statements in the text. The growing custom among historians of omitting to do this must be deplored in the interests of sound learning. It is better to risk the charge of pedantry than to leave at fault those who wish to test an author’s accuracy or follow up the line of investigation he indicates.
On the other hand, I have exercised moderation in drawing comparisons with Aryan, Semitic, Egyptian and other Old World mythologies. It would have been easy to have noted apparent similarities to a much greater extent. But I have preferred to leave this for those who write upon general comparative mythology. Such parallelisms, to reach satisfactory results, should be attempted only by those who have studied the Oriental religions in their original sources, and thus are not to be deceived by superficial resemblances.
The term “comparative mythology” reaches hardly far enough to cover all that I have aimed at. The professional mythologist thinks he has completed his task when he has traced a myth through its transformations in story and language back to the natural phenomena of which it was the expression. This external history is essential. But deeper than that lies the study of the influence of the myth on the individual and national mind, on the progress and destiny of those who believed it, in other words, its true religious import. I have endeavored, also, to take some account of this.
The usual statement is that tribes in the intellectual condition of those I am dealing with rest their religion on a worship of external phenomena. In contradiction to this, I advance various arguments to show that their chief god was not identified with any objective natural process, but was human in nature, benignant in character, loved rather than feared, and that his worship carried with it the germs of the development of benevolent emotions and sound ethical principles.
Media, Pa., Oct., 1882.
Introductory
Some Kind of Religion Found among all Men—Classifications of Religions—The Purpose of Religions—Religions of Rite and of Creed—The Myth Grows in the First of these—Intent and Meaning of the Myth.
Processes of Myth Building in America—Personification, Paronyms and Homonyms—Otosis—Polyonomy—Henotheism—Borrowing—Rhetorical Figures—Abstract Expressions—Esoteric Teachings.
Outlines of the Fundamental American Myth—The White Culture-hero and the Four Brothers—Interpretation of the Myth—Comparison with the Aryan Hermes Myth—With the Aryo-Semitic Cadmus Myth—With Osirian Myths—The Myth of the Virgin Mother—The Interpretation thus Supported.
THE HERO-GODS OF THE ALGONKINS AND IROQUOIS.
§1. The Algonkin Myth of Michabo.
The Myth of the Giant Rabbit—The Rabbit Creates the World—He Marries the Muskrat—Becomes the All-Father—Derivation of Michabo—of Wajashk, the Musk-rat—The Myth Explained—The Light-God as God of the East—The Four Divine Brothers—Myth of the Huarochiris—The Day-Makers—Michabo’s Contests with His Father and Brother—Explanation of These—The Symbolic Flint Stone—Michabo Destroys the Serpent King—Meaning of this Myth—Relations of the Light-God and Wind-God—Michabo as God of Waters and Fertility—Represented as a Bearded Man.
§2. The Iroquois Myth of Ioskeha.
The Creation of the Earth—The Miraculous Birth of Ioskeha—He Overcomes his Brother Tawiscara—Creates and Teaches Mankind—Visits his People—His Grandmother Ataensic—Ioskeha as Father of his Mother—Similar Conceptions in Egyptian Myths—Derivation of Ioskeha and Ataensic—Ioskeha as Tharonhiawakon, the Sky Supporter—His Brother Tawiscara or Tehotennhiaron Identified—Similarity to Algonkin Myths.
THE HERO-GOD OP THE AZTEC TRIBES.
The Contest of Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca—Quetzalcoatl the Light-God—Derivation of His Name—Titles of Tezcatlipoca—Identified with Darkness, Night and Gloom.
Myth of the Four Brothers—The Four Suns and the Elemental Conflict—Names of the Four Brothers.
§3. Quetzalcoatl the Hero of Tula.
Tula, the City of the Sun—Who were the Toltecs?—Tlapallan and Xalac—The Birth of the Hero God—His Virgin Mother Chimalmatl—His Miraculous Conception—Aztlan, the Land of Seven Caves, and Colhuacan, the Bended Mount—The Maid Xochitl and the Rose Garden of the Gods—Quetzalcoatl as the White and Bearded Stranger.
The Glory of the Lord of Tula—The Subtlety of the Sorcerer Tezcatlipoca—The Magic Mirror and the Mystic Draught—The Myth Explained—The Promise of Rejuvenation—The Toveyo and the Maiden—The Juggleries of Tezcatlipoca—Departure of Quetzalcoatl from Tula—Quetzalcoatl at Cholula—His Death or Departure—The Celestial Game of Ball and Tiger Skin—Quetzalcoatl as the Planet Venus.
§4. Quetzalcoatl as Lord of the Winds.
The Lord of the Four Winds—His Symbols, the Wheel of the Winds, the Pentagon and the Cross—Close Relation to the Gods of Rain and Waters—Inventor of the Calendar—God of Fertility and Conception—Recommends Sexual Austerity—Phallic Symbols—God of Merchants—The Patron of Thieves—His Pictographic Representations.
§5. The Return of Quetzalcoatl.
His Expected Re-appearance—The Anxiety of Montezuma—His Address to Cortes—The General Expectation—Explanation of his Predicted Return.
THE HERO-GODS OF THE MAYAS.
Civilization of the Mayas—Whence it Originated—Duplicate Traditions
Itzamna as Ruler, Priest and Teacher—As Chief God and Creator of the World—Las Casas’ Supposed Christ Myth—The Four Bacabs—Itzamna as Lord of the Winds and Rains—The Symbol of the Cross—As Lord of the Light and Day—Derivation of his Various Names.
§2. The Culture Hero Kukulcan.
Kukulcan as Connected with the Calendar—Meaning of the Name—The Myth of the Four Brothers—Kukulcan’s Happy Rule and Miraculous Disappearance—Relation to Quetzalcoatl—Aztec and Maya Mythology—Kukulcan a Maya Divinity—The Expected Return of the Hero-god—The Maya Prophecies—Their Explanation.
THE QQICHUA HERO-GOD VIRACOCHA.
Viracocha as the First Cause—His name Illa Ticci—Qquichua Prayers—Other Names and Titles of Viracocha—His Worship a True Monotheism—The Myth of the Four Brothers—Myth of the Twin Brothers.
Viracocha as Tunapa, He who Perfects—Various Incidents in His Life—Relation to Manco Capac—He Disappears in the West.
Viracocha Rises from Lake Titicaca and Journeys to the West—Derivation of His Name—He was Represented as White and Bearded—The Myth of Con and Pachacamac—Contice Viracocha—Prophecies of the Peruvian Seers The White Men Called Viracochas—Similarities to Aztec Myths.
THE EXTENSION AND INFLUENCE OP THE TYPICAL HERO-MYTH.
The Typical Myth found in many parts of the Continent—Difficulties in Tracing it—Religious Evolution in America Similar to that in the Old World—Failure of Christianity in the Red Race.
The Culture Myth of the Tarascos of Mechoacan—That of the Kiches of Guatemala.—The Votan Myth of the Tzendals of Chiapas—A Fragment of a Mixe Myth—The Hero-God of the Muyscas of New Granada—Of the Tupi-Guaranay Stem of Paraguay and Brazil—Myths of the Dènè of British America.
Sun Worship in America—Germs of Progress in American Religions—Relation of Religion and Morality—The Light-God A Moral and Beneficent Creation—His Worship was Elevating—Moral Condition of Native Societies before the Conquest—Progress in the Definition of the Idea of God in Peru, Mexico and Yucatan—Erroneous Statements about the Morals of the Natives—Evolution of their Ethical Principles.
AMERICAN HERO-MYTHS.