Part 18 (1/2)

And when was that to be?

We are not left in doubt on this point. It was to be when Viracocha should return to earth in his bodily form. Then he would restore the dead to life, and they should enjoy the good things of a land far more glorious than this work-a-day world of ours.[1]

[Footnote 1: ”Dijeron quellos oyeron decir a sus padres y pasados que un Viracocha habia de revolver la tierra, y habia de resucitar esos muertos, y que estos habian de bibir en esta tierra.”. _Information de las Idolatras de los Incas e Indios_, in the _Coll. de Docs. ineditos del Archivo de Indias_, vol. xxi, p. 152.]

As at the first meeting between the races the name of the hero-G.o.d was applied to the conquering strangers, so to this day the custom has continued. A recent traveler tells us, ”Among _Los Indios del Campo_, or Indians of the fields, the llama herdsmen of the _punas_, and the fishermen of the lakes, the common salutation to strangers of a fair skin and blue eyes is '_Tai-tai Viracocha_.'”[1] Even if this is used now, as M. Wiener seems to think,[2] merely as a servile flattery, there is no doubt but that at the beginning it was applied because the white strangers were identified with the white and bearded hero and his followers of their culture myth, whose return had been foretold by their priests.

[Footnote 1: E.G. Squier, _Travels in Peru_, p. 414.]

[Footnote 2: C. Wiener, _Perou et Bolivie_, p. 717.]

Are we obliged to explain these similarities to the Mexican tradition by supposing some ancient intercourse between these peoples, the arrival, for instance, and settlement on the highlands around Lake t.i.ticaca, of some ”Toltec” colony, as has been maintained by such able writers on Peruvian antiquities as Leonce Angrand and J.J. von Tschudi?[1] I think not. The great events of nature, day and night, storm and suns.h.i.+ne, are everywhere the same, and the impressions they produced on the minds of this race were the same, whether the scene was in the forests of the north temperate zone, amid the palms of the tropics, or on the lofty and barren plateaux of the Andes. These impressions found utterance in similar myths, and were represented in art under similar forms. It is, therefore, to the oneness of cause and of racial psychology, not to ancient migrations, that we must look to explain the ident.i.ties of myth and representation that we find between such widely sundered nations.

[Footnote 1: L. Angrand, _Lettre sur les Antiquites de Tiaguanaco et l'Origine presumable de la plus ancienne civilisation du Haut-Perou_.

Extrait du 24eme vol. de la _Revue Generale d'Architecture_, 1866. Von Tschudi, _Das Ollantadrama_, p. 177-9. The latter says: ”Der von dem Plateau von Anahuac ausgewanderte Stamm verpflanzte seine Gesittung und die Hauptzuge seiner Religion durch das westliche Sudamerica, etc.”]

CHAPTER VI.

THE EXTENSION AND INFLUENCE OF 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 RICHES OF GUATEMALA--THE VOTAN MYTH OF THE TZENDALS OF CHIAPAS--A FRAGMENT OF A MIXE MYTH--THE HERO-G.o.d OF THE MUYSCAS OF NEW GRANADA--OF THE TUPI-GUARANAY STEM OF PARAGUAY AND BRAZIL--MYTHS OF THE DeNe OF BRITISH AMERICA.

SUN WORs.h.i.+P IN AMERICA--GERMS OF PROGRESS IN AMERICAN RELIGIONS--RELATION OF RELIGION AND MORALITY--THE LIGHT-G.o.d A MORAL AND BENEFICENT CREATION--HIS WORs.h.i.+P WAS ELEVATING--MORAL CONDITION OF NATIVE SOCIETIES BEFORE THE CONQUEST--PROGRESS IN THE DEFINITION OF THE IDEA OF G.o.d IN PERU, MEXICO, AND YUCATAN--ERRONEOUS STATEMENTS ABOUT THE MORALS OF THE NATIVES--EVOLUTION OF THEIR ETHICAL PRINCIPLES.

In the foregoing chapters I have pa.s.sed in review the hero-myths of five nations widely asunder in location, in culture and in language. I have shown the strange similarity in their accounts of their mysterious early benefactor and teacher, and their still more strange, because true, presentiments of the arrival of pale-faced conquerors from the East.

I have selected these nations because their myths have been most fully recorded, not that they alone possessed this striking legend. It is, I repeat, the fundamental myth in the religious lore of American nations.

Not, indeed, that it can be discovered in all tribes, especially in the amplitude of incident which it possesses among some. But there are comparatively few of the native mythologies that do not betray some of its elements, some fragments of it, and, often enough to justify us in the supposition that had we the complete body of their sacred stories, we should find this one in quite as defined a form as I have given it.

The student of American mythology, unfortunately, labors under peculiar disadvantages. When he seeks for his material, he finds an extraordinary dearth of it. The missionaries usually refused to preserve the native myths, because they believed them harmful, or at least foolish; while men of science, who have had such opportunities, rejected all those that seemed the least like a Biblical story, as they suspected them to be modern and valueless compositions, and thus lost the very life of the genuine ancient faiths.

A further disadvantage is the slight attention which has been paid to the aboriginal American tongues, and the sad deficiency of material for their study. It is now recognized on all hands that the key of a mythology is to be found in the language of its believers. As a German writer remarks, ”the formation of the language and the evolution of the myth go hand in hand.”[1] We must know the language of a tribe, at least we must understand the grammatical construction and have facilities to trace out the meaning and derivation of names, before we can obtain any accurate notion of the foundation in nature of its religious beliefs. No convenient generality will help us.

[Footnote 1: ”In der Sprache herrscht immer und erneut sich stets die sinnliche Anschauung, die vor Jahrtausenden mit dem glaubigen Sinn vermahlt die Mythologien schuf, und gerade durch sie wird es am klarsten, wie Sprachenschopfung und mythologische Entwicklung, der Ausdruck des Denkens und Glaubens, einst Hand in Hand gegangen.” Dr. F.L.W. Schwartz, _Der Ursprung der Mythologie dargelegt an Griechischer und Deutscher Sage_, p. 23 (Berlin, 1860).]

I make these remarks as a sort of apology for the shortcomings of the present study, and especially for the imperfections of the fragments I have still to present. They are, however, sufficiently defined to make it certain that they belonged to cycles of myths closely akin to those already given. They will serve to support my thesis that the seemingly confused and puerile fables of the native Americans are fully as worthy the attention of the student of human nature as the more poetic narratives of the Veda or the Edda. The red man felt out after G.o.d with like childish gropings as his white brother in Central Asia. When his course was interrupted, he was pursuing the same path toward the discovery of truth.

In the words of a thoughtful writer: ”In a world wholly separated from that which it is customary to call the Old World, the religious evolution of man took place precisely in the same manner as in those surroundings which produced the civilization of western Europe.”[1]

[Footnote 1: Girard de Rialle, _La Mythologie Comparee_, vol. I, p. 363 (Paris, 1878).]

But this religious development of the red man was violently broken by the forcible imposition of a creed which he could not understand, and which was not suited to his wants, and by the heavy yoke of a priesthood totally out of sympathy with his line of progress. What has been the result? ”Has Christianity,” asks the writer I have just quoted, ”exerted a progressive action on these peoples? Has it brought them forward, has it aided their natural evolution? We are obliged to answer, No.”[1] This sad reply is repeated by careful observers who have studied dispa.s.sionately the natives in their homes.[2] The only difference in the results of the two great divisions of the Christian world seems to be that on Catholic missions has followed the debas.e.m.e.nt, on Protestant missions the destruction of the race.

[Footnote 1: Girard de Rialle, _ibid_, p. 862.]

[Footnote 2: Those who would convince themselves of this may read the work of Don Francisco Pimentel, _Memoria sobre las Causas que han originado la Situation Actual de la Raza Indigena de Mexico_ (Mexico, 1864), and that of the Licentiate Apolinar Garcia y Garcia, _Historia de la Guerra de Castas de Yucatan_, Prologo (Merida, 1865). That the Indians of the United States have directly and positively degenerated in moral sense as a race, since the introduction of Christianity, was also very decidedly the opinion of the late Prof. Theodor Waitz, a most competent ethnologist. See _Die Indianer Nordamerica's. Eine Studie_, von Theodor Waitz, p. 39, etc.

(Leipzig, 1865). This opinion was also that of the visiting committee of the Society of Friends who reported on the Indian Tribes in 1842; see the _Report of a Visit to Some of the Tribes of Indians West of the Mississippi River_, by John D. Lang and Samuel Taylor, Jr. (New York, 1843). The language of this Report is calm, but positive as to the increased moral degradation of the tribes, as the, direct result of contact with the whites.]