The Myths of the North American Indians Part 10

"This is a fair specimen of the supplications of the lowest religions.

Another equally authentic is given by Father Allouez. In 1670 he penetrated to an outlying Algonkin village, never before visited by a white man. The inhabitants, startled by his pale face and long black gown, took him for a divinity. They invited him to the council lodge, a circle of old men gathered round him, and one of them, approaching him with a double handful of tobacco, thus addressed him, the others grunting approval:

"'This indeed is well, Blackrobe, that thou dost visit us. Have mercy upon us. Thou art a Manito. We give thee to smoke.

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"'The Naudowessies and Iroquois are devouring us. Have mercy upon us.

"'We are often sick; our children die; we are hungry. Have mercy upon us. Hear me, O Manito, I give thee to smoke.

"'Let the earth yield us corn; the rivers give us fish; sickness not slay us; nor hunger so torment us. Hear us, O Manito, we give thee to smoke.'

"In this rude but touching pet.i.tion, wrung from the heart of a miserable people, nothing but their wretchedness is visible. Not the faintest trace of an aspiration for spiritual enlightenment cheers the eye of the philanthropist, not the remotest conception that through suffering we are purified can be detected."

The Indian Idea of G.o.d

The mythologies of the several stocks of the Red Race differ widely in conception and detail, and this has led many hasty investigators to form the conclusion that they were therefore of separate origin. But careful study has proved that they accord with all great mythological systems in their fundamental principles, and therefore with each other.

The idea of G.o.d, often strange and grotesque perhaps, was nevertheless powerfully expressed in the Indian mythologies. Each division of the race possessed its own word to signify 'spirit.' Some of these words meant 'that which is above,' 'the higher one,' 'the invisible,' and these attributes accorded to deity show that the original Indian conception of it was practically the same as those which obtained among the primitive peoples of Europe and Asia. The idea of G.o.d was that of a great prevailing force who resided "in the sky." Savage or primitive man observes that all brightness emanates from the firmament above him.

His eyes are dazzled by its splendour. Therefore he {102} concludes that it must be the abode of the source of all life, of all spiritual excellence.

'Good' and 'Bad'

Before man has discovered the uses of that higher machinery of reason, philosophy, and has learned to marshal his theological ideas by its light, such deities as he worships conform very much to his own ethical standard. They mirror his morality, or lack of it. They are, like himself, savage, cruel, insatiable in their appet.i.tes. Very likely, too, the b.e.s.t.i.a.l attributes of the totemic G.o.ds cling to those deities who have been evolved out of that system. Among savage people ideas of good and evil as we conceive them are non-existent. To them 'good'

merely implies everything which is to their advantage, 'evil' that which injures or distresses them. It is only when such a system as totemism, with its intricate taboos and stringent laws bearing on the various relationships of life, comes to be adopted that a 'moral' order arises. Slaughter of the totem animal becomes a 'crime'--sacrilege.

Slaughter of a member of the totem clan, of a blood-brother, must be atoned for because he is of the totem blood. Marriage with a woman of the same totem blood becomes an offence. Neglect to pay fitting homage and sacrifice to the G.o.ds or totem is regarded with severity, especially when the evolution of a priestly caste has been achieved.

As the totem is an ancestor, so all ancestors are looked upon with reverence, and deference to living progenitors becomes a virtue. In such ways a code of 'morality' is slowly but certainly produced.

No 'Good' or 'Bad' G.o.ds

But, oddly enough, the G.o.ds are usually exempt from these laws by which their worshippers are bound. {103} We find them murderous, unfilial, immoral, polygamous, and often irreverent. This may be accounted for by the circ.u.mstance that their general outlines were filled in before totemism had become a fully developed system, or it may mean that the savage did not believe that divine beings could be fettered by such laws as he felt himself bound to obey. However that may be, we find the American G.o.ds neither better nor worse than those of other mythological systems. Some of them are p.r.o.ne to a sort of Puckish trickery and are fond of practical joking: they had not reached the exalted n.o.bility of the pantheon of Olympus. But what is more remarkable--and this applies to the deities of all primitive races--we find that they possess no ideas of good and evil. We find them occasionally worshipping G.o.ds of their own--usually the creative deities--and that may perhaps be accounted unto them for righteousness.

But they are only 'good' to their worshippers inasmuch as they ensure them abundant crops or game, and only 'bad' when they cease to do so.

They are not worshipped because they are the founts of truth and justice, but for the more immediately cogent reason that, unless placated by the steam of sacrifice, they will cease to provide an adequate food-supply to man, and may malevolently send destruction upon their neglectful worshippers. In the relations between G.o.d and man among early peoples a specific contract is implied: "Sacrifice unto us, provide us with those offerings the steam of which is our food, continue to do so, and we will see to it that you do not lack crops and game and the essentials of life. Fail to observe these customs and you perish." Under such a system it will readily be granted that such horrors as human sacrifice were only undertaken because they were thought to be absolutely necessary to the existence {104} of the race as a whole, and were not prompted by any mere wanton delight in bloodshed.

Dealing with this point, the late Professor Brinton says in his _Myths of the New World_:

"The confusion of these distinct ideas [monotheism and polytheism] has led to much misconception of the native creeds. But another and more fatal error was that which distorted them into a dualistic form, ranging on one hand the good spirit with his legion of angels, on the other the evil one with his swarm of fiends, representing the world as the scene of their unending conflict, man as the unlucky football who gets all the blows.

"This notion, which has its historical origin among the Pa.r.s.ees of ancient Iran, is unknown to savage nations. 'The Hidatsa,' says Dr.

Matthews, 'believe neither in a h.e.l.l nor a devil.' 'The idea of the devil,' justly observes Jacob Grimm, 'is foreign to all primitive religions.' Yet Professor Mueller, in his voluminous work on those of America, after approvingly quoting this saying, complacently proceeds to cla.s.sify the deities as good or bad spirits!

"This view, which has obtained without question in earlier works on the native religions of America, has arisen partly from habits of thought difficult to break, partly from mistranslations of native words, partly from the foolish axiom of the early missionaries, 'The G.o.ds of the Gentiles are devils.' Yet their own writings furnish conclusive proof that no such distinction existed out of their own fancies. The same word(_otkon_) which Father Bruyas employs to translate into Iroquois the term 'devil,' in the pa.s.sage 'The devil took upon himself the figure of a serpent,' he is obliged to use for 'spirit' in the phrase, 'At the resurrection we shall be spirits,' which is a rather amusing ill.u.s.tration how {105} impossible it was by any native word to convey the idea of the spirit of evil.

"When, in 1570, Father Rogel commenced his labours among the tribes near the Savannah River, he told them that the deity they adored was a demon who loved all evil things, and they must hate him; whereas his auditors replied, that so far from this being the case, he whom he called a wicked being was the power that sent them all good things, and indignantly left the missionary to preach to the winds.

"A pa.s.sage often quoted in support of this mistaken view is one in Winslow's _Good News from New England_, written in 1622. The author says that the Indians worship a good power called Kiehtan, and another 'who, as farre as wee can conceive, is the Devill,' named Hobbamock, or Hobbamoqui. The former of these names is merely the word 'great,' in their dialect of Algonkin, with a final _N_, and is probably an abbreviation of Kittanitowit, the great Manitou, a vague term mentioned by Roger Williams and other early writers, manufactured probably by them and not the appellation of any personified deity. The latter, so far from corresponding to the power of evil, was, according to Winslow's own statement, the kindly G.o.d who cured diseases, aided them in the chase, and appeared to them in dreams as their protector.

Therefore, with great justice, Dr. Jarvis has explained it to mean 'the _oke_ or tutelary deity which each Indian worships,' as the word itself signifies.

"So in many instances it turns out that what has been reported to be the evil divinity of a nation, to whom they pray to the neglect of a better one, is in reality the highest power they recognize."

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Creation-Myths

The mythologies of the Red Man are infinitely more rich in creative and deluge myths than those of any other race in the two hemispheres.

Tales which deal with the origin of man are exceedingly frequent, and exhibit every phase of the type of creative story. Although many of these are similar to European and Asiatic myths of the same cla.s.s, others show great originality, and strikingly present to our minds the characteristics of American aboriginal thought.

The creation-myths of the various Indian tribes differ as much from one another as do those of Europe and Asia. In some we find the great G.o.ds moulding the universe, in others we find them merely discovering it.

Still others lead their people from subterranean depths to the upper earth. In many Indian myths we find the world produced by the All-Father sun, who thickens the clouds into water, which becomes the sea. In the Zuni record of creation Awonawilona, the creator, fecundates the sea with his own flesh, and hatches it with his own heat. From this green sc.u.ms are formed, which become the fourfold mother Earth and the all-covering father Sky, from whom sprang all creatures. "Then from the nethermost of the four caves of the world the seed of men and the creatures took form and grew; even as with eggs in warm places worms quickly form and appear, and, growing, soon burst their sh.e.l.ls and there emerge, as may happen, birds, tadpoles, or serpents: so man and all creatures grew manifoldly and multiplied in many kinds. Thus did the lowermost world-cave become overfilled with living things, full of unfinished creatures, crawling like reptiles over one another in black darkness, thickly crowding together and treading one on another, one {107} spitting on another and doing other indecency, in such manner that the murmurings and lamentations became loud, and many amidst the growing confusion sought to escape, growing wiser and more manlike. Then Po-shai-an-K'ia, the foremost and the wisest of men, arising from the nethermost sea, came among men and the living things, and pitying them, obtained egress from that first world-cave through such a dark and narrow path that some seeing somewhat, crowding after, could not follow him, so eager mightily did they strive one with another. Alone then did Po-shai-an-K'ia come from one cave to another into this world, then island-like, lying amidst the world-waters, vast, wet, and unstable. He sought and found the Sun-Father, and besought him to deliver the men and the creatures from that nethermost world."[4]

[4] Cushing, _13th Report_, Bureau of American Ethnology.

Algonquian Creation-Myth

In many other Indian mythologies we find the wind brooding over the primeval ocean in the form of a bird. In some creation-myths amphibious animals dive into the waters and bring up sufficient mud with them to form a beginning of the new earth. In a number of these tales no actual act of creation is recorded, but a reconstruction of matter only. The Algonquins relate that their great G.o.d Michabo, when hunting one day with wolves for dogs, was surprised to see the animals enter a great lake and disappear. He followed them into the waters with the object of rescuing them, but as he did so the lake suddenly overflowed and submerged the entire earth. Michabo despatched a raven with directions to find a piece of earth which might serve as a nucleus for a new world, but the bird returned from its quest unsuccessful.

Then the G.o.d sent an {108} otter on a like errand, but it too failed to bring back the needful terrestrial germ. At last a musk-rat was sent on the same mission, and it returned with sufficient earth to enable Michabo to recreate the solid land. The trees had become denuded of their branches, so the G.o.d discharged arrows at them, which provided them with new boughs. After this Michabo married the musk-rat, and from their union sprang the human race.

The Muskhogean Creation-Story

The Muskhogean Indians believe that in the beginning the primeval waste of waters alone was visible. Over the dreary expanse two pigeons or doves flew hither and thither, and in course of time observed a single blade of gra.s.s spring above the surface. The solid earth followed gradually, and the terrestrial sphere took its present shape. A great hill, Nunne Chaha, rose in the midst, and in the centre of this was the house of the deity Esaugetuh Emissee, the 'Master of Breath.' He took the clay which surrounded his abode, and from it moulded the first men, and as the waters still covered the earth he was compelled to build a great wall upon which to dry the folk he had made. Gradually the soft mud became transformed into bone and flesh, and Esaugetuh was successful in directing the waters into their proper channels, reserving the dry land for the men he had created.

This myth closely resembles the story in the Book of Genesis. The pigeons appear a.n.a.logous to the brooding creative Spirit, and the manufacture of the men out of mud is also striking. So far is the resemblance carried that we are almost forced to conclude that this is one of the instances in which Gospel conceptions have been engrafted on a native legend.

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Siouan Cosmology

The Mandan tribes of the Sioux possess a type of creation-myth which is common to several American peoples. They suppose that their nation lived in a subterranean village near a vast lake. Hard by the roots of a great grape-vine penetrated from the earth above, and, clambering up these, several of them got a sight of the upper world, which they found to be rich and well stocked with both animal and vegetable food. Those of them who had seen the new-found world above returned to their home bringing such glowing accounts of its wealth and pleasantness that the others resolved to forsake their dreary underground dwelling for the delights of the sunny sphere above. The entire population set out, and started to climb up the roots of the vine, but no more than half the tribe had ascended when the plant broke owing to the weight of a corpulent woman. The Mandans imagine that after death they will return to the underground world in which they originally dwelt, the worthy reaching the village by way of the lake, the bad having to abandon the pa.s.sage by reason of the weight of their sins.

The Minnetarees believed that their original ancestor emerged from the waters of a lake bearing in his hand an ear of corn, and the Mandans possessed a myth very similar to that of the Muskhogees concerning the origin of the world.

Bird- and Serpent-Worship and Symbols