Part 3 (1/2)

I am forced to this conclusion by its presence among phallic symbols in almost every race that practiced or practices a wors.h.i.+p of the generative principles. The Pueblo Indians, whom I have mentioned elsewhere in this treatise, regard the snake symbol with reverence; the Moqui Indians have their sacred snake dance, in which they wors.h.i.+p the reptiles, handling the most vicious and poisonous rattlesnakes with seeming impunity; the Apaches hold that every rattlesnake is an emissary of the devil;[49] ”the Piutes of Nevada have a demon deity in the form of a serpent still supposed to exist in the waters of Pyramid Lake;”[50]

on the wall of an ancient Aztec ruin at Palenque there is a tablet, on which there is a cross standing on the head of a serpent, and surmounted by a bird. ”The cross is the symbol of the four winds; the bird and serpent the rebus of the rain-G.o.d, their ruler.”[51] The Quiche G.o.d, Hurakan, was called the ”Strong Serpent,” and the sign of Tlaloc, the Aztec rain-G.o.d, was a golden snake.[R] All of these tribes are or were wors.h.i.+pers of the generative principles, though, in most of them, phallic wors.h.i.+p has or had lost much of its original significance.[52]

In Yucatan and elsewhere in South and Central America, notably among the ruins of Chichen Itza, the serpent symbol is frequently in evidence.[53]

The Indians of the Tocantins in Brazil, as well as the Muras, Mundurucus and Cucamas, are mixed nature and devil wors.h.i.+pers;[S] as a sequence, certain phallic rites are to be observed in their religious ceremonies.

[49] Bancroft: _Native Races, etc._, p. 135.

[50] _Ibid._

[51] Bancroft (Brinton): _Native Races, etc._, p. 135.

[R] In the celebrated calendar stone of the Aztecs, there have been found certain hieroglyphics pointing to sun wors.h.i.+p, coincidently, to phallicism.

[52] _Ibid._, p. 134.

[53] Stephens: _Yucatan_.

[S] Consult Frantz Keller: _The Amazon and Madeira Rivers_.

Many of the native tribes of North America perform phallic rites at p.u.b.erty. James Owen Dorsey, who has made a study of the Siouan cults, writes as follows:

”Every male Dakota sixteen years old and upward is a soldier, and is formally and mysteriously enlisted into the service of the war prophet.

From him he receives the implements of war, carefully constructed after models furnished from the armory of the G.o.ds, painted after a divine prescription, and charged with a missive virtue--the tonwan--of the divinities. To obtain these necessary articles the proud applicant is required for a time to abuse himself and serve him, while he goes through a series of painful and exhausting performances, which are necessary on his part to enlist favorable notice of the G.o.ds. These performances consist chiefly of vapor baths, fastings, chants, prayers, and nightly vigils. The spear and the tomahawk being prepared and consecrated, the person who is to receive them approaches the wakan man (priest), and presents a pipe to him. He asks a favor, in substance as follows: 'Pity thou me, poor and helpless, a _woman_, and confer on me the ability to perform _manly_ deeds.'”[54] According to Miss Fletcher, when an Oglala girl arrives at p.u.b.erty, a great feast is prepared, and favored guests invited thereto. ”A prominent feature in the feast is the feeding of these privileged persons and the girl in whose honor the feast is given, with choke cherries, as the choicest rarity to be had in the winter.... In the ceremony, a few of the cherries are taken in a spoon and held over the sacred smoke and then fed to the girl.”[55] This is considered one of the most sacred of their feasts.

[54] Dorsey: _Siouan Cults, An. Rep. Bur. Eth._, 1889-90, p. 444.

[55] Fletcher: _Peabody Museum Report_, vol. iii, p. 260.

While discussing the phallic observances of the North American races, I will introduce the subject of tattooing, though it properly belongs elsewhere in this treatise.

At p.u.b.erty, the Hudson Bay Eskimos invariably tattoo their boys and girls. Lucien M. Turner writing of the latter, says:

”When a girl arrives at p.u.b.erty she is taken to a secluded locality by some old woman versed in the art of tattooing, and stripped of her clothing. A small quant.i.ty of half-charred lamp wick of moss is mixed with oil from the lamp. A needle is used to p.r.i.c.k the skin, and the pasty substance is smeared over the wound. The blood mixes with it, and in a few days a dark-bluish spot is left. The operation continues four days. When the girl returns to the tent it is known that she has begun to menstruate.”[56] Both Eastern and Western Inoits celebrate p.u.b.erty with certain rites. It is rather difficult, however, to get them to say much about this matter, so I will not present the evidence, meager as it is, which has been gleaned from the works of various explorers. One can readily see that much of it is conjecture, therefore of little scientific value.

[56] Turner: _An. Rep. Bur. Eth._, 1889-90, p. 208.

Not far from the Place of Gold, the magnificent temple in which the ancient Peruvians wors.h.i.+ped the Life Giver, was another great edifice, styled the ”House of the Virgins of the Sun.” This was the domicile of the pallacides or hetarae of the Chief Priest, the Inca. ”No one but the Inca and the Coya, or queen, might enter the consecrated precincts....

Woe to the unhappy maiden who was detected in an intrigue! By the stern laws of the Incas she was buried alive, her lover strangled, and the town or village to which he belonged was razed to the ground and sowed with stones as if to efface every memorial of his existence. One is astonished to find so close a resemblance between the inst.i.tutions of the American Indian, the ancient Roman, and the modern Catholic.

Chast.i.ty and purity of life are virtues in woman that would seem to be of equal estimation with the barbarian and with the civilized--yet the ultimate destination of the inmates of these religious houses (there were hundreds of them), was materially different.... Though Virgins of the Sun, they were the brides of the Inca.”[57] The monarch had thousands of these hetarae in his various palaces. When he wished to lessen the number in his seraglios, he sent some of them to their own homes, where they lived ever after respected and revered as holy beings.[58] The religion of the Peruvians had reached a high degree of development, and many of the crudities of simple phallic wors.h.i.+p had either been entirely abandoned or so idealized that they had been lost in the mists of ritual and ceremony. For ”the ritual of the Incas involved a routine of observances as complex and elaborate as ever distinguished that of any nation, whether pagan or Christian.”[59]

[57] Prescott: _Conquest of Peru_, vol. i, p. 110 _et seq._

[58] _Ibid._, p. 112.

[59] _Ibid._, p. 103.

Notwithstanding the fact that the descendants of the Incas have been under the guardians.h.i.+p of the priests of the Catholic church for hundreds of years, a close, careful, painstaking, and accurate observer informs me that he has repeatedly noticed unmistakable phallic rites interwoven with their Christian ceremonials and beliefs. The same can be said of a kindred race and a kindred religion. Biart, writing of the descendants of the Aztecs, says: ”In grottoes unexpectedly discovered, I have frequently found myself in the presence of Mictlanteuctli, at the foot of which a recent offering of food had been placed.”[60] How exceedingly basic and fundamental the wors.h.i.+p of the generative principle must be in Psychos itself, is indicated by these facts!

[60] Biart: _The Aztecs_, p. 139.