The Myths of the New World

119

Catlin, Letters and Notes, i., Letter 22; La Hontan, Mémoires, ii. p. 151; Gumilla, Hist. del Orinoco, p. 159

120

On the worship of the cross in Mexico and Yucatan and its invariable meaning as representing the gods of rain, consult Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. des Chichimeques, p. 5; Sahagun, Hist. de la Nueva España, lib. i. cap. ii.; Garcia, Or. de los Indios, lib. iii. cap. vi. p. 109; Palacios, Des. de la Prov. de Guatemala, p. 29; Cogolludo, Hist. de Yucathan, lib. iv. cap. ix.; Villagutierre Sotomayor, Hist. de el Itza y de el Lacandon, lib. iii. cap. 8; and many others might be mentioned.

121

Rivero and Tschudi, Peruvian Antiquities, p. 162, after J. Acosta.

122

Loskiel, Ges. der Miss. der evang. Brüder, p. 60.

123

Hawkins, Sketch of the Creek Country, p. 75. Lapham and Pidgeon mention that in the State of Wisconsin many low mounds are found in the form of a cross with the arms directed to the cardinal points. They contain no remains. Were they not altars built to the Four Winds? In the mythology of the Dakotas, who inhabited that region, the winds were always conceived as birds, and for the cross they have a native name literally signifying “the musquito hawk spread out” (Riggs, Dict. of the Dakota, s. v.). Its Maya name is vahom che, the tree erected or set up, the adjective being drawn from the military language and implying as a defence or protection, as the warrior lifts his lance or shield (Landa, Rel. de las Cosas de Yucatan, p. 65).

124

Squier, The Serpent Symbol in America, p. 98.

125

That these were the real views entertained by the Indians in regard to the brute creation, see Heckewelder, Acc. of the Ind. Nations, p. 247; Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, iii. p. 520.

126

Egede, Nachrichten von Grönland, p. 156.

127

Voiages aux Indes Occidentales, pt. ii. p. 203: Amst. 1722.

128

Beverly, Hist. de la Virginie, liv. iii. chap. viii.

129

Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, v. p. 420.

130

Mrs. Eastman, Legends of the Sioux, p. 191: New York, 1849. This is a trustworthy and meritorious book, which can be said of very few collections of Indian traditions. They were collected during a residence of seven years in our northwestern territories, and are usually verbally faithful to the native narrations.

131

Müller, Amer. Urreligionen, p. 222, after De la Borde.

132

Acc. of the Inds. of California, ch. ix. Eng. trans. by Robinson: New York, 1847. The Acagchemem were a branch of the Netela tribe, who dwelt near the mission San Juan Capistrano (see Buschmann, Spuren der Aztek. Sprache, etc., p. 548).

133

Called in the Aztec tongue Tecolotl, night owl; literally, the stone scorpion. The transfer was mythological. The Christians prefixed to this word tlaca, man, and thus formed a name for Satan, which Prescott and others have translated “rational owl.” No such deity existed in ancient Anahuac (see Buschmann, Die Voelker und Sprachen Neu Mexico’s, p. 262).

134

Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, v. p. 420.

135

William Bartram, Travels, p. 504. Columbus found the natives of the Antilles wearing tunics with figures of these birds embroidered upon them. Prescott, Conq. of Mexico, i. p. 58, note.

136

Rel. de la Nouv. France, An 1636, ch. ix. Catlin, Letters and notes, Lett. 22.

137

Rel. de la Nouv. France, An 1648, p. 75; Cusic, Trad. Hist. of the Six Nations, pt. iii. The latter is the work of a native Tuscarora chief. It is republished in Schoolcraft’s Indian Tribes, but is of little value.

138

For example, in Brazil, Müller, Amer. Urrelig., p. 277; in Yucatan, Cogolludo, Hist. de Yucathan, lib. iv. cap. 4; among the western Algonkins, Hennepin, Decouverte dans l’Amer. Septen. chap. 33. Dr. Hammond has expressed the opinion that the North American Indians enjoy the same immunity from the virus of the rattlesnake, that certain African tribes do from some vegetable poisons (Hygiene, p. 73). But his observation must be at fault, for many travellers mention the dread these serpents inspired, and the frequency of death from their bites, e. g. Rel. Nouv. France. 1667, p. 22.

139

Narrative of the Captivity and Adventures of John Tanner, p. 356.

140

See Gallatin’s vocabularies in the second volume of the Trans. Am. Antiq. Soc. under the word Snake. In Arabic dzann is serpent; dzanan a spirit, a soul, or the heart. So in Hebrew nachas, serpent, has many derivatives signifying to hold intercourse with demons, to conjure, a magician, etc. See Noldeke in the Zeitschrift für Voelkerpsychologie und Sprachwissenschaft, i. p. 413.

141

Alexander Henry, Travels, p. 117.

142

Bost. Med. and Surg. Journal, vol. 76, p. 21.

143

Schwarz, Der Ursprung der Mythologie dargelegt an Griechischer und Deutscher Sage: Berlin, 1860, passim.

144

Rel. de la Nouv. France: An 1637, p. 53.

145

Sagen der Nord-Amer. Indianer, p. 21. This is a German translation of part of Jones’s Legends of the N. Am. Inds.: London, 1820. Their value as mythological material is very small.

146

Torquemada, Monarquia Indiana, lib. vi. cap. 37.

147

Müller, Amer. Urrelig., 221, after De la Borde.

148

Le Livre Sacré des Quichés, p. 3.

149

Rel. de la Nouv. France, 1648, p. 75.

150

Memoirs of Lieut. Henry Timberlake, p. 48: London, 1765. This little book gives an account of the Cherokees at an earlier date than is elsewhere found.

151

Hawkins, Sketch of the Creek Country, p. 80.

152

Schoolcraft, Algic Researches, i. p. 179 sq.; compare ii. p. 117.

153

Morgan, League of the Iroquois, p. 159; Cusic, Trad. Hist. of the Six Nations, pt. ii.

154

Mrs. Eastman, Legends of the Sioux, pp. 161, 212. In this explanation I depart from Prof. Schwarz, who has collected various legends almost identical with these of the Indians (with which he was not acquainted), and interpreted the precious crown or horn to be the summer sun, brought forth by the early vernal lightning. Ursprung der Mythologie, p. 27, note.

155

Cusic, u. s., pt. ii.

156

This remarkable relic has been the subject of a long and able article in the Revue Américaine (tom. ii. p. 69), by the venerable traveller De Waldeck. Like myself—and I had not seen his opinion until after the above was written—he explains the cruciform design as indicating the four cardinal points, but offers the explanation merely as a suggestion, and without referring to these symbols as they appear in so many other connections.

157

Schwarz, Ursprung der Mythologie, pp. 62 sqq.

158

“I have examined many Indians in reference to these details,” says the narrator, an Augustin monk writing in 1554, “and they have all confirmed them as eye-witnesses” (Lettre sur les Superstitions du Pérou, p. 106, ed. Ternaux-Compans. This document is very valuable).

159

Narrative of John Tanner, p. 355; Henry, Travels, p. 176.

160

Torquemada, Monarquia Indiana, lib. vi. cap. 31.

161

A. D’Orbigny, L’Homme Américain, i. p. 240.

162

Rivero and Tschudi, Peruvian Antiquities, 162, after J. Acosta.

163

Narrative of Oceola Nikkanoche, Prince of Econchatti, p. 141; Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, iv. p. 650.

164

The term in Maya is caput zihil, corresponding exactly to the Latin renasci, to be re-born, Landa, Rel. de Yucatan, p. 144.

165

Dumont, Mems. Hist. sur la Louisiane, i. p. 233.

166

Acosta, Hist. of the New World, lib. v. cap. 25.

167

Senate Report on Condition of Indian Tribes, p. 358: Washington, 1867.

168

Sahagun, Hist. de la Nueva España, lib. vi. cap. 37.

169

Ternaux-Compans, Pièces rel. à la Conq. du Mexique, p. 233.

170

Velasco, Hist. de la Royaume de Quito, p. 106, and others.

171

Whipple, Rep. on the Indian Tribes, p. 35. I am not sure that this practice was of native growth to the Cherokees. This people have many customs and traditions strangely similar to those of Christians and Jews. Their cosmogony is a paraphrase of that of Genesis (Squier, Serp. Symbol, from Payne’s MSS.); the number seven is as sacred with them as it was with the Chaldeans (Whipple, u. s.); and they have improved and increased by contact with the whites. Significant in this connection is the remark of Bartram, who visited them in 1773, that some of their females were “nearly as fair and blooming as European women,” and generally that their complexion was lighter than their neighbors (Travels, p. 485). Two explanations of these facts may be suggested. They may be descendants in part of the ancient white race near Cape Hatteras, to whom I have referred in a previous note. More probably they derived their peculiarities from the Spaniards of Florida. Mr. Shea is of opinion that missions were established among them as early as 1566 and 1643 (Hist. of Catholic Missions in the U. S., pp. 58, 73). Certainly in the latter half of the seventeenth century the Spaniards were prosecuting mining operations in their territory (See Am. Hist. Mag., x. p. 137).

172

Sprague, Hist. of the Florida War, p. 328.

173

Basanier, Histoire Notable de la Floride, p. 10.

174

Sahagun, Hist. de la Nueva España, lib. iii. app. cap. i.; Meyen, Ueber die Ureinwohner von Peru, p. 29.

175

Gabriel Thomas, Hist. of West New Jersey, p. 6: London, 1698.

176

Gama, Des. de las dos Piedras, etc., i. p. 36.

177

Garcia, Or. de los Indios, p. 109.

178

Oviedo, Rel. de la Prov. de Nicaragua, p. 41. The name is a corruption of the Aztec Quiauhteotl, Rain-God.

179

Gumilla, Hist. del Orinoco, ii. cap. 23.

180

Doc. Hist. of New York, iv. p. 130.

181

Gama, Des. de las dos Piedras, ii. p. 41; Gallatin, Trans. Am. Ethnol. Soc., i. p. 343.

182

Adrian Van Helmont, Workes, p. 142, fol.: London, 1662.

183

The moon is nipa or nipaz; nipa, I sleep; nipawi, night; nip, I die; nepua, dead; nipanoue, cold. This odd relationship was first pointed out by Volney (Duponceau, Langues de l’Amérique du Nord, p. 317). But the kinship of these words to that for water, nip, nipi, nepi, has not before been noticed. This proves the association of ideas on which I lay so much stress in mythology. A somewhat similar relationship exists in the Aztec and cognate languages, miqui, to die, micqui, dead, mictlan, the realm of death, te-miqui, to dream, cec-miqui, to freeze. Would it be going too far to connect these with metzli, moon? (See Buschmann, Spuren der Aztekischen Sprache im Nördlichen Mexico, p. 80.)

184

Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, vol. iii. p. 485.

185

Rel. de la Nouv. France, 1634, p. 16.

186

Humboldt, Vues des Cordillères, p. 21.

187

Spix and Martius, Travels in Brazil, ii. p. 247.

188

Hist. de la Médecine, i. p. 34.

189

Gama, Des. de las dos Piedras, etc., ii. pp. 100-102. Compare Sahagun, Hist. de la Nueva España, lib. i. cap. vi.

190

Codex Chimalpopoca, in Brasseur, Hist. du Mexique, i. p. 183. Gama and others translate Nanahuatl by el buboso, Brasseur by le syphilitique, and the latter founds certain medical speculations on the word. It is entirely unnecessary to say to a surgeon that it could not possibly have had the latter meaning, inasmuch as the diagnosis between secondary or tertiary syphilis and other similar diseases was unknown. That it is so employed now is nothing to the purpose. The same or a similar myth was found in Central America and on the Island of Haiti.

191

Rel. de la Nouv. France, 1648, p. 75.

192

Charlevoix is in error when he identifies Michabo with the Spirit of the Waters, and may be corrected from his own statements elsewhere. Compare his Journal Historique, pp. 281 and 344: ed. Paris, 1740.

193

Bradford, American Antiquities, p. 833; Martius, Von dem Rechtszustande unter den Ureinwohnern Brasiliens, p. 32; Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, i. p. 271.

194

La Vega, Hist. des Incas, liv. vi. cap. 9.

195

Lett. sur les Superstitions du Pérou, p. 111.

196

Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, iv. p. 224.

197

Chantico, according to Gama, means “Wolf’s Head,” though I cannot verify this from the vocabularies within my reach. He is sometimes called Cohuaxolotl Chantico, the snake-servant Chantico, considered by Gama as one, by Torquemada as two deities (see Gama, Des. de las dos Piedras, etc., i. p. 12; ii. p. 66). The English word cantico in the phrase, for instance, “to cut a cantico,” though an Indian word, is not from this, but from the Algonkin Delaware gentkehn, to dance a sacred dance. The Dutch describe it as “a religious custom observed among them before death” (Doc. Hist. of New York, iv. p. 63). William Penn says of the Lenape, “their worship consists of two parts, sacrifice and cantico,” the latter “performed by round dances, sometimes words, sometimes songs, then shouts; their postures very antic and differing.” (Letter to the Free Society of Traders, 1683, sec. 21.)

198

Charlevoix, Hist. Gén. de la Nouv. France, i. p. 394: Paris, 1740. On the different species of dogs indigenous to America, see a note of Alex. von Humboldt, Ansichten der Natur., i. p. 134. It may be noticed that Chichimec, properly Chichimecatl, the name of the Aztec tribe who succeeded the ancient Toltecs in Mexico, means literally “people of the dog,” and was probably derived from some mythological fable connected with that animal.

199

Narr. of the Captiv. of John Tanner, p. 362. From the word for fire in many American tongues is formed the adjective red. Thus, Algonkin, skoda, fire, miskoda, red; Kolosch, kan, fire, kan, red; Ugalentz, takak, fire, takak-uete, red; Tahkali, cūn, fire, tenil-cūn, red; Quiche, cak, fire, cak, red, etc. From the adjective red comes often the word for blood, and in symbolism the color red may refer to either of these ideas. It was the royal color of the Incas, brothers of the sun, and a llama swathed in a red garment was the Peruvian sacrifice to fire (Garcia, Or. de los Indios, lib. iv. caps. 16, 19). On the other hand the war quipus, the war wampum, and the war paint were all of this hue, boding their sanguinary significance. The word for fire in the language of the Delawares, Nanticokes, and neighboring tribes puzzles me. It is taenda or tinda. This is the Swedish word taenda, from whose root comes our tinder. Yet it is found in vocabularies as early as 1650, and is universally current to-day. It has no resemblance to the word for fire in pure Algonkin. Was it adopted from the Swedes? Was it introduced by wandering Vikings in remote centuries? Or is it only a coincidence?

200

Compare D’Orbigny, L’Homme Américain, i. p. 243, Müller, Amer. Urreligionen, p. 51, and Squier, Serpent Symbol in America, p. 111. This is a striking instance of the confusion of ideas introduced by false systems of study, and also of the considerable misapprehension of American mythology which has hitherto prevailed.

201

La Hontan, Voy. dans l’Amér. Sept., p. ii. 127; Rel. Nouv. France, 1637, p. 54.

202

Copway, Trad. Hist. of the Ojibway Nation, p. 165. Kesuch in Algonkin signifies both sky and sun (Duponceau, Langues de l’Amér. du Nord, p. 312). So apparently does kin in the Maya.

203

Payne’s manuscripts quoted by Mr. Squier in his Serpent Symbol in America were compiled within this century, and from the extracts given can be of no great value.

204

The words for fire and sun in American languages are usually from distinct roots, but besides the example of the Natchez I may instance to the contrary the Kolosch of British America, in whose tongue fire is kan, sun, kakan (gake, great), and the Tezuque of New Mexico, who use tah for both sun and fire.

205

Doc. Hist. of New York, ii. p. 634.

206

Emory, Milt’y Reconnoissance of New Mexico, p. 30.

207

Narrative of John Tanner, p. 161.

208

Loskiel, Ges. der Miss. der evang. Brüder, p. 55.

209

Nar. of John Tanner, p. 351.

210

Sahagun, Hist. Nueva España, lib. vi. cap. 4.

211

Letts. Edifiantes et Curieuses, iv. p. 104, Oviedo; Hist. du Nicaragua, p. 49; Gumilla, Hist. del Orinoco, ii. cap. 2.

212

Oviedo, Hist. Gen. de las Indias, p. 16, in Barcia’s Hist. Prim.

213

Presdt’s Message and Docs. for 1851, pt. iii. p. 506.

214

Sahagun, Hist. de la Nueva España, i. cap. 13.

215

Voyage Pittoresque dans le Yucatan, p. 49.

216

Davila Padilla, Hist. de la Prov. de Santiago de Mexico, lib. ii. cap. 88 (Brusselas, 1625); Palacios, Des. de Guatemala, p. 40; Garcia, Or. de los Indios, p. 124. To such an extent did the priests of the Algonkin tribes who lived near Manhattan Island carry their austerity, such uncompromising celibates were they, that it is said on authority as old as 1624, that they never so much as partook of food prepared by a married woman. (Doc. Hist. New York, iv. p. 28.)

217

Martius, Von dem Rechtzustande unter den Ureinwohnern Brasiliens, p. 28, gives many references.

218

Id. ibid., p. 61.

219

Le Livre Sacré des Quichés, Introd., pp. clxi., clxix.

220

Travels in Yucatan, i. p. 434.

221

Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, v. pp. 416, 417.

222

Mrs. Eastman, Legends of the Sioux, p. 161.

223

Rel. de la Nouv. France, 1634, p. 27; Schoolcraft, Algic Researches, ii. p. 116; Ind. Tribes, v. p. 420.

224

De Smet, Western Missions, p. 135; Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, i. p. 319.

225

Mrs. Eastman, Legends of the Sioux, p. 72. By another legend they claimed that their first ancestor obtained his fire from the sparks which a friendly panther struck from the rocks as he scampered up a stony hill (McCoy, Hist. of Baptist Indian Missions, p. 364).

226

Mrs. Eastman, ubi sup., p. 158; Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, iv. p. 645.

227

Waitz, Anthropologie, iii. p. 417; Müller, Am. Urrelig., p. 271.

228

On the myth of Catequil see particularly the Lettre sur les Superstitions du Pérou, p. 95 sqq., and compare Montesinos, Ancien Pérou, chaps. ii., xx. The letters g and j do not exist in Quichua, therefore Ataguju should doubtless read Ata-chuchu, which means lord, or ruler of the twins, from ati root of atini, I am able, I control, and chuchu, twins. The change of the root ati to ata, though uncommon in Quichua, occurs also in ata-hualpa, cock, from ati and hualpa, fowl. Apo-Catequil, or as given by Arriaga, another old writer on Peruvian idolatry, Apocatequilla, I take to be properly apu-ccatec-quilla, which literally means chief of the followers of the moon. Acosta mentions that the native name for various constellations was catachillay or catuchillay, doubtless corruptions of ccatec quilla, literally “following the moon.” Catequil, therefore, the dark spirit of the storm rack, was also appropriately enough, and perhaps primarily, lord of the night and stars. Piguerao, where the g appears again, is probably a compound of piscu, bird, and uira, white. Guachemines seems clearly the word huachi, a ray of light or an arrow, with the negative suffix ymana, thus meaning rayless, as in the text, or ymana may mean an excess as well as a want of anything beyond what is natural, which would give the signification “very bright shining.” (Holguin, Arte de la Lengua Quichua, p. 106: Cuzco, 1607.) Is this sister of theirs the Dawn, who, as in the Rig Veda, brings forth at the cost of her own life the white and dark twins, the Day and the Night, the latter of whom drives from the heavens the far-shooting arrows of light, in order that he may restore his mother again to life? The answer may for the present be deferred. It is a coincidence perhaps worth mentioning that the Augustin monk who is our principal authority for this legend mentions two other twin deities, Yamo and Yama, whose names are almost identical with the twins Yama and Yami of the Veda.

229

Hist. des Incas, liv. ii. cap. 28, and corrected in Markham’s Quichua Grammar.

230

The latter is a compound of tici or ticcu, a vase, and ylla, the root of yllani, to shine, yllapantac, it thunders and lightens. The former is from tici and cun or con, whence by reduplication cun-un-un-an, it thunders. From cun and tura, brother, is probably derived cuntur, the condor, the flying thunder-cloud being looked upon as a great bird also. Dr. Waitz has pointed out that the Araucanians call by the title con, the messenger who summons their chieftains to a general council.