The Myths of the New World Part 13

[179-1] The name is derived from _tampu_, corrupted by the Spaniards to _tambo_, an inn, and _paccari_ morning, or _paccarin_, it dawns, which also has the figurative signification, it is born. It may therefore mean either Lodgings of the Dawn, or as the Spaniards usually translated it, House of Birth, or Production, _Casa de Producimiento_.

[179-2] The names given by Balboa (_Hist. du Perou_, p. 4) and Montesinos (_Ancien Perou_, p. 5) are Manco, Cacha, Auca, Uchu. The meaning of Manco is unknown. The others signify, in their order, messenger, enemy or traitor, and the little one. The myth of Viracocha is given in its most antique form by Juan de Betanzos, in the _Historia de los Ingas_, compiled in the first years of the conquest from the original songs and legends. It is quoted in Garcia, _Origen de los Indios_, lib. v. cap. 7.

Balboa, Montesinos, Acosta, and others have also furnished me some incidents. Whether Atachuchu mentioned in the last chapter was not another name of Viracocha may well be questioned. It is every way probable.

[179-3] _Hist. des Incas_, liv. iii. chap. 25.

[180-1] It is compounded of _vira_, fat, foam (which perhaps is akin to _yurac_, _white_), and _cocha_, a pond or lake.

[180-2] See Desjardins, _Le Perou avant la Conq. Espagnole_, p. 67.

[180-3] Gomara, _Hist. de las Indias_, cap. 119, in Muller.

[181-1] Bra.s.seur, _Hist. du Mexique_, i. p. 302.

[181-2] There is no reason to lay any stress upon this feature. Beard was nothing uncommon among the Aztecs and many other nations of the New World. It was held to add dignity to the appearance, and therefore Sahagun, in his description of the Mexican idols, repeatedly alludes to their beards, and Muller quotes various authorities to show that the priests wore them long and full (_Amer. Urreligionen_, p. 429). Not only was Quetzalcoatl himself reported to have been of fair complexion--white indeed--but the Creole historian Ixtlilxochitl says the old legends a.s.serted that all the Toltecs, natives of Tollan, or Tula, as their name signifies, were so likewise. Still more, Aztlan, the traditional home of the Nahuas, or Aztecs proper, means literally the white land, according to one of our best authorities (Buschmann, _Ueber die Aztekischen Ortsnamen_, 612: Berlin, 1852).

[182-1] Kingsborough, _Antiquities of Mexico_, v. p. 109.

[183-1] The myth of Quetzalcoatl I have taken chiefly from Sahagun, _Hist. de la Nueva Espana_, lib. i. cap. 5; lib. iii. caps. 3, 13, 14; lib. x. cap. 29; and Torquemada, _Monarquia Indiana_, lib. vi. cap. 24.

It must be remembered that the Quiche legends identify him positively with the Tohil of Central America (_Le Livre Sacre_, p. 247).

[183-2] Padilla Davila, _Hist. de la Prov. de Santiago de Mexico_, lib.

ii. cap. 89.

[183-3] Cogolludo, _Hist. de Yucathan_, lib. iv. cap. 8.

[184-1] He is also called Idacanzas and Nemterequetaba. Some have maintained a distinction between Bochica and Sua, which, however, has not been shown. The best authorities on the mythology of the Muyscas are Piedrahita, _Hist. de las Conq. del Nuevo Reyno de Granada_, 1668 (who is copied by Humboldt, _Vues des Cordilleres_, pp. 246 sqq.), and Simon, _Noticias de Tierra Firme_, Parte ii., in Kingsborough's _Mexico_.

[184-2] D'Orbigny, _L'Homme Americain_, ii. p. 319, and Rochefort, _Hist. des Isles Antilles_, p. 482 (Waitz). The name has various orthographies, Tamu, Tamoi, Tamou, Itamoulou, etc. Perhaps the Ama-livaca of the Orinoko Indians is another form. This personage corresponds even minutely in many points with the Tamu of the island Caribs.

[185-1] Catlin, _Letters and Notes_, Letter 22.

[185-2] Journal of Capt. Johnson, in Emory, _Reconnoissance of New Mexico_, p. 601.

[185-3] M. De Charency, in the _Revue Americaine_, ii. p. 317. _Tupa_ it may be observed means in Quichua, lord, or royal. Father Holguin gives as an example _a tupa Dios_, O Lord G.o.d (_Vocabulario Quichua_, p. 348: Ciudad de los Reyes, 1608). In the Quiche dialects _tepeu_ is one of the common appellations of divinity and is also translated lord or ruler. We are not yet sufficiently advanced in the study of American philology to draw any inference from these resemblances, but they should not be overlooked.

[187-1] Cortes, _Carta Primera_, pp. 113, 114.

[188-1] Sahagun, _Hist. de la Nueva Espana_, lib. xii. caps. 2, 3.

[188-2] La Vega, _Hist. des Incas_, lib. ix. cap. 15.

[188-3] Peter Martyr, _De Reb. Oceanicis_, Dec. iii. lib. vii.

[189-1] Lizana, _Hist. de Nuestra Senora de Itzamal_, lib. ii. cap. i. in Bra.s.seur, _Hist. du Mexique_, ii. p. 605. The prophecies are of the priest who bore the t.i.tle--not name--_chilan balam_, and whose offices were those of divination and astrology. The verse claims to date from about 1450, and was very well known throughout Yucatan, so it is said.

The number thirteen which in many of these prophecies is the supposed limit of the present order of things, is doubtless derived from the observation that thirteen moons complete one solar year.

[190-1] Squier, _Travels in Nicaragua_, ii. p. 35.

[191-1] Whipple, _Report on the Ind. Tribes_, p. 36. Emory, _Recon. of New Mexico_, p. 64. The latter adds that among the Pueblo Indians, the Apaches, and Navajos, the name of Montezuma is "as familiar as Was.h.i.+ngton to us." This is the more curious, as neither the Pueblo Indians nor either of the other tribes are in any way related to the Aztec race by language, as has been shown by Dr. Buschman, _Die Voelker und Sprachen Neu Mexico's_, p. 262.

[191-2] Humboldt, _Essay on New Spain_, bk. ii. chap. vi, Eng. trans.; _Ansichten der Natur_, ii. pp. 357, 386.

CHAPTER VII.

THE MYTHS OF THE CREATION, THE DELUGE, THE EPOCHS OF NATURE, AND THE LAST DAY.

Cosmogonies usually portray the action of the SPIRIT on the WATERS.--Those of the Muscogees, Athapascas, Quiches, Mixtecs, Iroquois, Algonkins, and others.--The Flood-Myth an unconscious attempt to reconcile a creation in time with the eternity of matter.--Proof of this from American mythology.--Characteristics of American Flood-Myths.--The person saved usually the first man.--The number seven.--Their Ararats.--The role of birds.--The confusion of tongues.--The Aztec, Quiche, Algonkin, Tupi, and earliest Sanscrit flood-myths.--The belief in Epochs of Nature a further result of this attempt at reconciliation.--Its forms among Peruvians, Mayas, and Aztecs.--The expectation of the End of the World a corollary of this belief.--Views of various nations.

Could the reason rest content with the belief that the universe always was as it now is, it would save much beating of brains. Such is the comfortable condition of the Eskimos, the Rootdiggers of California, the most brutish specimens of humanity everywhere. Vain to inquire their story of creation, for, like the knife-grinder of anti-Jacobin renown, they have no story to tell. It never occurred to them that the earth had a beginning, or underwent any greater changes than those of the seasons.[193-1] But no sooner does the mind begin to reflect, the intellect to employ itself on higher themes than the needs of the body, than the law of causality exerts its power, and the man, out of such materials as he has at hand, manufactures for himself a Theory of Things.

What these materials were has been shown in the last few chapters. A simple primitive substance, a divinity to mould it--these are the requirements of every cosmogony. Concerning the first no nation ever hesitated. All agree that before time began _water_ held all else in solution, covered and concealed everything. The reasons for this a.s.sumed priority of water have been already touched upon. Did a tribe dwell near some great sea others can be imagined. The land is limited, peopled, stable; the ocean fluctuating, waste, boundless. It insatiably swallows all rains and rivers, quenches sun and moon in its dark chambers, and raves against its bounds as a beast of prey. Awe and fear are the sentiments it inspires; in Aryan tongues its synonyms are the _desert_ and the _night_.[194-1] It produces an impression of immensity, infinity, formlessness, and barren changeableness, well suited to a notion of chaos. It is sterile, receiving all things, producing nothing.

Hence the necessity of a creative power to act upon it, as it were to impregnate its barren germs. Some cosmogonies find this in one, some in another personification of divinity. Commonest of all is that of the wind, or its emblem the bird, types of the breath of life.

Thus the venerable record in Genesis, translated in the authorized version "and the Spirit of G.o.d moved on the face of the waters," may with equal correctness be rendered "and a mighty wind brooded on the surface of the waters," presenting the picture of a primeval ocean fecundated by the wind as a bird.[195-1] The eagle that in the Finnish epic of Kalewala floated over the waves and hatched the land, the egg that in Chinese legend swam hither and thither until it grew to a continent, the giant Ymir, the rustler (as wind in trees), from whose flesh, says the Edda, our globe was made and set to float like a speck in the vast sea between Muspel and Niflheim, all are the same tale repeated by different nations in different ages. But why take ill.u.s.trations from the old world when they are so plenty in the new?

Before the creation, said the Muscogees, a great body of water was alone visible. Two pigeons flew to and fro over its waves, and at last spied a blade of gra.s.s rising above the surface. Dry land gradually followed, and the islands and continents took their present shapes.[195-2] Whether this is an authentic aboriginal myth, is not beyond question. No such doubt attaches to that of the Athapascas. With singular unanimity, most of the northwest branches of this stock trace their descent from a raven, "a mighty bird, whose eyes were fire, whose glances were lightning, and the clapping of whose wings was thunder. On his descent to the ocean, the earth instantly rose, and remained on the surface of the water. This omnipotent bird then called forth all the variety of animals."[196-1]

Very similar, but with more of poetic finish, is the legend of the Quiches:--

"This is the first word and the first speech. There were neither men nor brutes; neither birds, fish, nor crabs, stick nor stone, valley nor mountain, stubble nor forest, nothing but the sky. The face of the land was hidden. There was naught but the silent sea and the sky. There was nothing joined, nor any sound, nor thing that stirred; neither any to do evil, nor to rumble in the heavens, nor a walker on foot; only the silent waters, only the pacified ocean, only it in its calm. Nothing was but stillness, and rest, and darkness, and the night; nothing but the Maker and Moulder, the Hurler, the Bird-Serpent. In the waters, in a limpid twilight, covered with green feathers, slept the mothers and the fathers."[196-2]

Over this pa.s.sed Hurakan, the mighty wind, and called out Earth! and straightway the solid land was there.

The picture writings of the Mixtecs preserved a similar cosmogony: "In the year and in the day of clouds, before ever were either years or days, the world lay in darkness; all things were orderless, and a water covered the slime and the ooze that the earth then was." By the efforts of two winds, called, from astrological a.s.sociations, that of Nine Serpents and that of Nine Caverns, personified one as a bird and one as a winged serpent, the waters subsided and the land dried.[197-1]

In the birds that here play such conspicuous parts, we cannot fail to recognize the winds and the clouds; but more especially the dark thunder cloud, soaring in s.p.a.ce at the beginning of things, most forcible emblem of the aerial powers. They are the symbols of that divinity which acted on the pa.s.sive and sterile waters, the fitting result being the production of a universe. Other symbols of the divine could also be employed, and the meaning remain the same. Or were the fancy too helpless to suggest any, they could be dispensed with, and purely natural agencies take their place. Thus the unimaginative Iroquois narrated that when their primitive female ancestor was kicked from the sky by her irate spouse, there was as yet no land to receive her, but that it "suddenly bubbled up under her feet, and waxed bigger, so that ere long a whole country was perceptible."[197-2] Or that certain amphibious animals, the beaver, the otter, and the muskrat, seeing her descent, hastened to dive and bring up sufficient mud to construct an island for her residence.[197-3] The muskrat is also the simple machinery in the cosmogony of the Takahlis of the northwest coast, the Osages and some Algonkin tribes.

These latter were, indeed, keen enough to perceive that there was really no _creation_ in such an account. Dry land was wanting, but earth was there, though hidden by boundless waters. Consequently, they spoke distinctly of the action of the muskrat in bringing it to the surface as a formation only. Michabo directed him, and from the mud formed islands and main land. But when the subject of creation was pressed, they replied they knew nothing of that, or roundly answered the questioner that he was talking nonsense.[198-1] Their myth, almost identical with that of their neighbors, was recognized by them to be not of a construction, but a reconstruction only; a very judicious distinction, but one which has a most important corollary. A reconstruction supposes a previous existence. This they felt, and had something to say about an earth anterior to this of ours, but one without light or human inhabitants. A lake burst its bounds and submerged it wholly. This is obviously nothing but a mere and meagre fiction, invented to explain the origin of the primeval ocean. But mark it well, for this is the germ of those marvellous myths of the Epochs of Nature, the catastrophes of the universe, the deluges of water and of fire, which have laid such strong hold on the human fancy in every land and in every age.

The purpose for which this addition was made to the simpler legend is clear enough. It was to avoid the dilemma of a creation from nothing on the one hand, and the eternity of matter on the other. _Ex nihilo nihil_ is an apothegm indorsed alike by the profoundest metaphysicians and the rudest savages. But the other horn was no easier. To escape accepting the theory that the world had ever been as it now is, was the only object of a legend of its formation. As either lemma conflicts with fundamental laws of thought, this escape was eagerly adopted, and in the suggestive words of Prescott, men "sought relief from the oppressive idea of eternity by breaking it up into distinct cycles or periods of time."[199-1] Vain but characteristic attempt of the ambitious mind of man! The Hindoo philosopher reconciles to his mind the suspension of the world in s.p.a.ce by imagining it supported by an elephant, the elephant by a tortoise, and the tortoise by a serpent. We laugh at the Hindoo, and fancy we diminish the difficulty by explaining that it revolves around the sun, and the sun around some far-off star. Just so the general mind of humanity finds some satisfaction in supposing a world or a series of worlds anterior to the present, thus escaping the insoluble enigma of creation by removing it indefinitely in time.

The support lent to these views by the presence of marine sh.e.l.ls on high lands, or by faint reminiscences of local geologic convulsions, I estimate very low. Savages are not inductive philosophers, and by nothing short of a miracle could they preserve the remembrance of even the most terrible catastrophe beyond a few generations. Nor has any such occurred within the ken of history of sufficient magnitude to make a very permanent or wide-spread impression. Not physics, but metaphysics, is the exciting cause of these beliefs in periodical convulsions of the globe. The idea of matter cannot be separated from that of time, and time and eternity are contradictory terms. Common words show this connection. World, for example, in the old language _waereld_, from the root to wear, by derivation means an age or cycle (Grimm).

In effect a myth of creation is nowhere found among primitive nations.

It seems repugnant to their reason. Dry land and animate life had a beginning, but not matter. A series of constructions and demolitions may conveniently be supposed for these. The a.n.a.logy of nature, as seen in the vernal flowers springing up after the desolation of winter, of the sapling sprouting from the fallen trunk, of life everywhere rising from death, suggests such a view. Hence arose the belief in Epochs of Nature, elaborated by ancient philosophers into the Cycles of the Stoics, the Great Days of Brahm, long periods of time rounded off by sweeping destructions, the Cataclysms and Ekpyrauses of the universe. Some thought in these all beings perished; others that a few survived.[200-1]

This latter and more common view is the origin of the myth of the deluge. How familiar such speculations were to the aborigines of America there is abundant evidence to show.

The early Algonkin legends do not speak of an antediluvian race, nor of any family who escaped the waters. Michabo, the spirit of the dawn, their supreme deity, alone existed, and by his power formed and peopled it. Nor did their neighbors, the Dakotas, though firm in the belief that the globe had once been destroyed by the waters, suppose that any had escaped.[201-1] The same view was entertained by the Nicaraguans[201-2]

and the Botocudos of Brazil. The latter attributed its destruction to the moon falling to the earth from time to time.[201-3]

Much the most general opinion, however, was that some few escaped the desolating element by one of those means most familiar to the narrator, by ascending some mountain, on a raft or canoe, in a cave, or even by climbing a tree. No doubt some of these legends have been modified by Christian teachings; but many of them are so connected with local peculiarities and ancient religious ceremonies, that no unbiased student can a.s.sign them wholly to that source, as Professor Vater has done, even if the authorities for many of them were less trustworthy than they are.

There are no more common heirlooms in the traditional lore of the red race. Nearly every old author quotes one or more of them. They present great uniformity of outline, and rather than engage in repet.i.tions of little interest, they can be more profitably studied in the aggregate than in detail.

By far the greater number represent the last destruction of the world to have been by water. A few, however, the Takahlis of the North Pacific coast, the Yurucares of the Bolivian Cordilleras, and the Mbocobi of Paraguay, attribute it to a general conflagration which swept over the earth, consuming every living thing except a few who took refuge in a deep cave.[202-1] The more common opinion of a submersion gave rise to those traditions of a universal flood so frequently recorded by travellers, and supposed by many to be reminiscences of that of Noah.