Read Ebook: American Hero-Myths: A Study in the Native Religions of the Western Continent by Brinton Daniel G Daniel Garrison

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Ebook has 502 lines and 54979 words, and 11 pages

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 D?n? 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.

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 time was, and that not so very long ago, when it was contended by some that there are tribes of men without any sort of religion; nowadays the effort is to show that the feeling which prompts to it is common, even among brutes.

This change of opinion has come about partly through an extension of the definition of religion. It is now held to mean any kind of belief in spiritual or extra-natural agencies. Some learned men say that we had better drop the word "religion," lest we be misunderstood. They would rather use "daimonism," or "supernaturalism," or other such new term; but none of these seems to me so wide and so exactly significant of what I mean as "religion."

All now agree that in this very broad sense some kind of religion exists in every human community.

The attempt has often been made to classify these various faiths under some few general headings. The scheme of Auguste Comte still has supporters. He taught that man begins with fetichism, advances to polytheism, and at last rises to monotheism. More in vogue at present is the theory that the simplest and lowest form of religion is individual; above it are the national religions; and at the summit the universal or world religions.

Comte's scheme has not borne examination. It is artificial and sterile. Look at Christianity. It is the highest of all religions, but it is not monotheism. Look at Buddhism. In its pure form it is not even theism. The second classification is more fruitful for historical purposes.

The psychologist, however, inquires as to the essence, the real purpose of religions. This has been differently defined by the two great schools of thought.

All religions, says the idealist, are the efforts, poor or noble, conscious or blind, to develop the Idea of God in the soul of man.

No, replies the rationalist, it is simply the effort of the human mind to frame a Theory of Things; at first, religion is an early system of natural philosophy; later it becomes moral philosophy. Explain the Universe by physical laws, point out that the origin and aim of ethics are the relations of men, and we shall have no more religions, nor need any.

The first answer is too intangible, the second too narrow. The rude savage does not philosophize on phenomena; the enlightened student sees in them but interacting forces: yet both may be profoundly religious. Nor can morality be accepted as a criterion of religions. The bloody scenes in the Mexican teocalli were merciful compared with those in the torture rooms of the Inquisition. Yet the religion of Jesus was far above that of Huitzilopochtli.

This end, these benefits, have been sought by the cults of the world through one of two theories.

Higher religions discern the inefficacy of the mere Act. They rest their claim on Belief. They establish dogmas, the mental acceptance of which is the one thing needful. In them mythology passes into theology; the act is measured by its motive, the formula by the faith back of it. Their life is the Creed.

The Myth finds vigorous and congenial growth only in the first of these forms. There alone the imagination of the votary is free, there alone it is not fettered by a symbol already defined.

To the student of religions the interest of the Myth is not that of an infantile attempt to philosophize, but as it illustrates the intimate and immediate relations which the religion in which it grew bore to the individual life. Thus examined, it reveals the inevitable destinies of men and of nations as bound up with their forms of worship.

These general considerations appear to me to be needed for the proper understanding of the study I am about to make. It concerns itself with some of the religions which were developed on the American continent before its discovery. My object is to present from them a series of myths curiously similar in features, and to see if one simple and general explanation of them can be found.

The processes of myth-building among American tribes were much the same as elsewhere. These are now too generally familiar to need specification here, beyond a few which I have found particularly noticeable.

Some languages favor these forms of personification much more than others, and most of the American languages do so in a marked manner, by the broad grammatical distinctions they draw between animate and inanimate objects, which distinctions must invariably be observed. They cannot say "the boat moves" without specifying whether the boat is an animate object or not, or whether it is to be considered animate, for rhetorical purposes, at the time of speaking.

One difficulty encountered in Aryan mythology is extremely rare in America, and that is, the adoption of foreign names. A proper name without a definite concrete significance in the tongue of the people who used it is almost unexampled in the red race. A word without a meaning was something quite foreign to their mode of thought. One of our most eminent students has justly said: "Every Indian synthesis--names of persons and places not excepted--must preserve the consciousness of its roots, and must not only have a meaning, but be so framed as to convey that meaning with precision, to all who speak the language to which it belongs." Hence, the names of their divinities can nearly always be interpreted, though for the reasons above given the most obvious and current interpretation is not in every case the correct one.

As foreign names were not adopted, so the mythology of one tribe very rarely influenced that of another. As a rule, all the religions were tribal or national, and their votaries had no desire to extend them. There was little of the proselytizing spirit among the red race. Some exceptions can be pointed out to this statement, in the Aztec and Peruvian monarchies. Some borrowing seems to have been done either by or from the Mayas; and the hero-myth of the Iroquois has so many of the lineaments of that of the Algonkins that it is difficult to believe that it was wholly independent of it. But, on the whole, the identities often found in American myths are more justly attributable to a similarity of surroundings and impressions than to any other cause.

The diversity and intricacy of American mythology have been greatly fostered by the delight the more developed nations took in rhetorical figures, in metaphor and simile, and in expressions of amplification and hyperbole. Those who imagine that there was a poverty of resources in these languages, or that their concrete form hemmed in the mind from the study of the abstract, speak without knowledge. One has but to look at the inexhaustible synonymy of the Aztec, as it is set forth by Olmos or Sahagun, or at its power to render correctly the refinements of scholastic theology, to see how wide of the fact is any such opinion. And what is true of the Aztec, is not less so of the Qquichua and other tongues.

I take some pains to impress this fact, for it is an important one in estimating the religious ideas of the race. We must not think we have grounds for skepticism if we occasionally come across some that astonish us by their subtlety. Such are quite in keeping with the psychology and languages of the race we are studying.

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