The Mythologies of Ancient Mexico and Peru Part 3

As I pointed out at the beginning of the first chapter, the question of the origins of the American religions was almost identical with that of the origins of the American race itself.

That the Red Man was not the aboriginal inhabitant of the American continent, but supplanted a race with Eskimo affinities, is extremely probable. At all events, the 'Skraelings,' with whom the early Norse discoverers of America had dealings, were not described by them as in any way resembling the North American Indian of later times. If this be granted--and Indian folklore would seem to strengthen the hypothesis--we must then find some other home for the Red Man than the prairies of North-east America for the five centuries between the Norse and Columbian discoveries. He may, of course, have dwelt in the north-west of the continent, a solution of the problem which appears to me highly feasible. That his affinities are Mongolian it would be absurd to dispute; but--and this is of supreme importance--these affinities are of so archaic an origin as to preclude all likelihood of any important or numerous Asiatic immigration occurring for many centuries before either the Norse or Columbian discovery.

Coming to a period within the ken of history, there is just the possibility that Mexico, or some adjacent country of Central America, was visited by Asiatic Buddhist priests in the fifth century. The story is told in the Chinese annals of the wanderings of five Buddhist priests, natives of Cabul, who journeyed to America (which they designate Fusang) _via_ the Aleutian Islands and Kamchatka, a region then well known to the Chinese. Their description of the country, however, is no more convincing than are the arguments of their protagonist, Professor Fryer of San Francisco, who sees Asiatic influence in various elephant-headed G.o.ds and Buddha-esque statuary in the National Mexican Museum. It cannot be too strongly insisted upon that any foreign influence arriving in the American continent in pre-Columbian times was not sufficiently powerful to have more than a merely transitory influence upon the customs or religious beliefs of the inhabitants.

This leads us to the conclusion that the religions of Mexico and Peru were of indigenous origin. Any attempt to prove them offshoots of Chinese or other Asiatic religion on the basis of a similarity of art or custom is doomed to failure.

But however satisfactory it may be to brush aside unsubstantial theories which aspire to the honour of facthood, it would be a thousand pities to ignore the numerous intensely interesting myths which have grown up round the idea of foreign contact with the American races in pre-Columbian times. Let us briefly examine these, and attempt to discover any point of contact between them and similar American myths.

I have previously alluded to the myth of Quetzalcoatl. Quetzalcoatl was a Mexican deity, but in reality he was one of the older pre-Aztecan G.o.ds of Anahuac. He is sometimes represented as a being of white complexion and fair-bearded, with blue eyes, and altogether of European appearance.

It will be remembered that on the entrance into Anahuac of Tezcatlipoca he waged a war with that G.o.d in which he was worsted, and eventually forced to depart for 'Tlapallan' in a canoe, promising to return at some future date. It will also be recollected how the legend of Quetzalcoatl's return influenced the whole of Montezuma's policy towards the Spanish conquistadores, and how the fear of his vengeance was ever before the Aztec priesthood. Quetzalcoatl, strangely enough, was reputed to have sailed for 'Tlapallan' from almost the identical spot first set foot upon by Cortes on his arrival on the Mexican coast.

The Max Muller school of mythologists see nothing in Quetzalcoatl but a G.o.d of the wind. With them Minos was a myth. So was his palace with its labyrinth until its recent discovery at Knossos. I am fain to see in Quetzalcoatl a real personality--a culture-hero; but I will suggest nothing concerning his non-American nationality. At the same time it will be interesting to examine, firstly, those European myths which speak of men who set out for America; and, secondly, those American myths which speak of the existence of 'white men,' or 'white tribes,'

dwelling upon the American continent.

Pa.s.sing over the sagas of the Norse discovery of America, which are by no means mythical, we come to the Celtic story of the finding of the great continent. When the Nors.e.m.e.n drove the Irish Celts from Iceland, these fugitives sought refuge in 'Great Ireland,' by which, it is supposed, is intended America. The Irish _Book of Lismore_ tells of the voyage of St. Brendan, abbot of Cluainfert in Ireland, to an island in the ocean destined for the abode of saints, and of his numerous discoveries during a seven years' cruise. The Norse sagas which tell of this 'Great Ireland' speak of the language of its inhabitants as 'resembling Irish,' but as the Irish were the nation with which the Nors.e.m.e.n were best acquainted, this 'resemblance' appears to smack of the linguistic cla.s.sification of the British sailorman who applies the term 'Portugee' to all languages not his own. The people of this country were attired in white dresses, 'and had poles borne before them on which were fastened lappets, and who shouted with a loud voice.'

But another Celtic people claimed the honour of first setting foot upon American soil. The Welsh Prince Madoc in the year 1170 sailed westwards with a fleet of several ships, and coming to a large and fertile country, landed one hundred and twenty men. Returning to Wales he once more set out with ten vessels, but concerning his further adventures Powell and Hakluyt are silent. Nor does the authority of the bard Meredith ap Rees concerning him rest upon any more substantial basis.[8]

Stories of Welsh-speaking Indians, too, are not uncommon. Two slaves whom the Nors.e.m.e.n of 1007 sent on a foraging expedition into the interior of Ma.s.sachusetts were Scots, although their names--Haki and Hakia--hardly sound Celtic.[9]

Innumerable are the legends of 'white Indians'--the 'white Panis,'[10]

dwelling south of the Missouri, the 'Blanco Barbus, or white Indians with beards,' the Boroanes, the Guatosos of Costa Rica, the Malapoques in Brazil, the Guaranies in Paraguay, the Guiacas of Guiana, the Scheries of La Plata--but modern anthropology scarcely bears out the stories of the 'whiteness' of these tribes. On a similar footing are the travellers' tales concerning the existence of Indian Jews--to prove which Lord Kingsborough squandered a fortune and compiled a work on Mexican antiquities the parallel of which has not been known in the entire history of bibliography.[11]

More convincing are the Mexican and Peruvian legends concerning the appearance of white and bearded culture-bringers. These legends are, it must be admitted, shadowy enough, but are so persistent and resemble each other so closely as to give some grounds for the supposition that at some period in the history of Mexico or Peru a member or members of the 'Caucasian' race may have stumbled into these civilisations through the accidents of shipwreck. But it is exceedingly dangerous to premise anything of the sort; and, as has been said before, the influence of such wanderers could only have been infinitesimal.

Enough, then, has been said to show that the origins of the religions of Mexico and Peru could not have been of any other than an indigenous nature. Their evolution took place wholly upon American soil, and if resemblances appear in their systems to the mythologies or religions of Asia, they are explicable by that law now so well known to anthropologists and students of comparative religion, that, given similar circ.u.mstances, and similar environments, the evolution of the religious beliefs of widely separated peoples will proceed upon similar lines.

SHORT BIBLIOGRAPHY

MEXICAN MYTHOLOGY

(_Those authorities marked with an asterisk are also applicable to the subject of Peruvian Mythology_).

SAHAGUN, _Historia General de las Cosas de Nueva Espana_. (English translation edited for the Hakluyt Society by Clements R. Markham in 1880.)

TORQUEMADA, _Los veynte y un libros Rituales y Monarchia Yndiana_.

IXTLILXOCHITL, _'Historia Chichimeca' and 'Relaciones' in_ Lord Kingsborough's _Mexican Antiquities_, vol. ix.

PRESCOTT, _Conquest of Mexico_.

*HUMBOLDT, _Vues des Cordilleres et Monuments des Peuples de l'Amerique_.

CLAVIGERO, _Storia antica del Messico_. (English translation by Charles Cullen. London, 1787.)

BRa.s.sEUR DE BOURBOURG, _Histoires des Nations civilisees du Mexique et de l'Amerique-centrale_, and _Quatre Lettres sur le Mexique_.

BANCROFT, _Native Races of the Pacific States of North America_.

KINGSBOROUGH, _Antiquities of Mexico_.

*ReVILLE, _The Hibbert Lectures_, 1884.

*PAYNE, _History of the New World_, vols. i. and ii.

TYLOR, _Anahuac_.

BRINTON, _The Myths of the New World_.

WINSOR, _Narrative and Critical History of America_.

PERUVIAN MYTHOLOGY

MONTESINOS, _Memoires historiques sur l'Ancien Perou_. (Translated from the Spanish MS. in Ternaux-Compans, vol. xvii.)

GARCILa.s.sO DE LA VEGA, _Comentarios reales_. (English translation for the Hakluyt Society by Clements R. Markham. London, 1869, 1871.)

LACROIX, '_Perou_,' in vol. iv. of _L'Amerique_ in _L'Univers Pittoresque_.

HUTCHINSON, _Two Years in Peru, with Explorations of its Antiquities_. London, 1873.

PRESCOTT, _Conquest of Peru_, 1848 (or better, Sonnenschein's new edition, or that in Everyman's Library).

MARKHAM, _A History of Peru_, 1892; and _Rites and Laws of the Incas_.

LORENTE, _Historia Antigua del Peru_, 1860-3.

The works of Prescott upon Mexico and Peru (which are perhaps the most popular and accessible upon the antiquities of these countries) are nevertheless sadly meagre in their accounts of the respective mythologies of the Nahuatlaca and the Incas. Indeed in each of them but a few pages is given to the faith of the aborigines. In some later editions, however (notably in the recent popular editions of Mr. Sonnenschein), excellent variorum notes have been added by the editors. A great deal of Prescott's work is now quite obsolete and misleading. The works of Mr. Brinton have superseded them; but it is doubtful if Prescott will ever be surpa.s.sed in narrative charm. The best English work on the subject is Mr. Payne's _History of the New World called America_, cited above, a work which is a veritable storehouse of knowledge upon aboriginal America. These works are, however, rather too erudite in tone for the general reader, and by no means easy to come by. A most excellent catalogue of American historical and mythological literature is published by Mr. Karl Hiersemann of Leipsic.

Printed by T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to His Majesty at the Edinburgh University Press

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The fact of the rapid approximation of the European colonists to the American type might, however, be quoted against this view.

[2] It must be borne in mind that the science and arts of the Aztecs were almost immediately lost in consequence of the intolerance of the Spanish Conquistadores.

[3] An absolutely erroneous one.