Part 20 (1/2)
In his form as Bochica, he is represented as the supreme male divinity, whose female a.s.sociate is the Rainbow, Cuchaviva, G.o.ddess of rains and waters, of the fertility of the fields, of medicine, and of child-bearing in women, a relations.h.i.+p which I have already explained.[1]
[Footnote 1: The princ.i.p.al authority for the mythology of the Mayscas, or Chibchas, is Padre Pedro Simon, _Noticias Historiales de las Conquistas de Tierra Firme en el Nuevo Reyno de Granada_, Pt. iv, caps. ii, iii, iv, printed in Kingsborough, _Mexican Antiquities_, vol. viii, and Piedrahita as above quoted.]
Wherever the widespread Tupi-Guaranay race extended--from the mouth of the Rio de la Plata and the boundless plains of the Pampas, north to the northernmost islands of the West Indian Archipelago--the early explorers found the natives piously attributing their knowledge of the arts of life to a venerable and benevolent old man whom they called ”Our Ancestor,”
_Tamu_, or _Tume_, or _Zume_.
The early Jesuit missionaries to the Guaranis and affiliated tribes of Paraguay and southern Brazil, have much to say of this personage, and some of them were convinced that he could have been no other than the Apostle St. Thomas on his proselytizing journey around the world.
The legend was that Pay Zume, as he was called in Paraguay (_Pay_ = magician, diviner, priest), came from the East, from the Sun-rising, in years long gone by. He instructed the people in the arts of hunting and agriculture, especially in the culture and preparation of the manioca plant, their chief source of vegetable food. Near the city of a.s.sumption is situated a lofty rock, around which, says the myth, he was accustomed to gather the people, while he stood above them on its summit, and delivered his instructions and his laws, just as did Quetzalcoatl from the top of the mountain Tzatzitepec, the Hill of Shouting. The spot where he stood is still marked by the impress of his feet, which the pious natives of a later day took pride in pointing out as a convincing proof that their ancestors received and remembered the preachings of St. Thomas.[1] This was not a suggestion of their later learning, but merely a christianized term given to their authentic ancient legend. As early as 1552, when Father Emanuel n.o.brega was visiting the missions of Brazil, he heard the legend, and learned of a locality where not only the marks of the feet, but also of the hands of the hero-G.o.d had been indelibly impressed upon the hard rock. Not satisfied with the mere report, he visited the spot and saw them with his own eyes, but indulged in some skepticism as to their origin.[2]
[Footnote 1: ”Juxta Paraquariae metropolim rupes utc.u.mque cuspidata, sed in modicam planitiem desinens cernitur, in cujus summitate vestigia pedum humanorum saxo impressa adhuc manent, affirmantibus constanter indigenis, ex eo loco Apostolum Thomam mult.i.tudini undequaque ad eum audiendum confluenti solitum fuisse legem divinam tradere: et addunt mandiocae, ex qua farinam suam ligneam conficiunt, plantandae rationem ab eodem accep.i.s.se.” P. Nicolao del Techo, _Historia Provincial Paraquariae Societatis Jesu_, Lib. vi, cap. iv (folio, Leodii, 1673).]
[Footnote 2: ”Ipse abii,” he writes in his well known Letter, ”et propriis oculis inspexi, quatuor pedum et digitorum satis alte impressa vestigia, quae nonnunquam aqua excrescens cooperit.” The reader will remember the similar event in the history of Quetzalcoatl (see above, chapter iii, --3)]
The story was that wherever this hero-G.o.d walked, he left behind him a well-marked path, which was permanent, and as the Muyscas of New Granada pointed out the path of Bochica, so did the Guaranays that of Zume, which the missionaries regarded ”not without astonishment.”[1] He lived a certain length of time with his people and then left them, going back over the ocean toward the East, according to some accounts. But according to others, he was driven away by his stiff-necked and unwilling auditors, who had become tired of his advice. They pursued him to the bank of a river, and there, thinking that the quickest riddance of him was to kill him, they discharged their arrows at him. But he caught the arrows in his hand and hurled them back, and dividing the waters of the river by his divine power he walked between them to the other bank, dry-shod, and disappeared from their view in the distance.
[Footnote 1: ”E Brasilia in Guairaniam euntibus spectabilis adhuc semita viditur, quam ab Sancto Thoma ideo incolae vocant, quod per eam Apostolus iter fecisse credatur; quae semita quovis anni tempore eumdem statum conservat, modice in ea crescendibus herbis, ab adjacenti campo multum herbescenti prorsus dissimilibus, praebetque speciem viae artificiose ductae; quam Socii nostri Guairaniam excolentes persaepe non sine stupore perspexisse se testantur.” Nicolao del Techo, _ubi supra_, Lib. vi, cap.
iv.
The connection of this myth with the course of the sun in the sky, ”the path of the bright G.o.d,” as it is called in the Veda, appears obvious. So also in later legend we read of the wonderful slot or trail of the dragon Fafnir across the Glittering Heath, and many cognate instances, which mythologists now explain by the same reference.]
Like all the hero-G.o.ds, he left behind him the well-remembered promise that at some future day he should return to them, and that a race of men should come in time, to gather them into towns and rule them in peace.[1]
These predictions were carefully noted by the missionaries, and regarded as the ”unconscious prophecies of heathendom” of the advent of Christianity; but to me they bear too unmistakably the stamp of the light-myth I have been following up in so many localities of the New World for me to entertain a doubt about their origin and meaning.
[Footnote 1: ”Ilium quoque pollicitum fuisse, se aliquando has regiones revisurum.” Father n.o.brega, _ubi supra_. For the other particulars I have given see Nicolao del Techo, _Historia Provinciae Paraquariae_, Lib. vi, cap. iv, ”De D. Thomae Apostoli itineribus;” and P. Antonio Ruiz, _Conquista Espiritual hecha por los Religiosos de la Compania de Jesus en las Provincias del Paraguay, Parana, Uruguay y Tape_, fol. 29, 30 (4to., Madrid, 1639). The remarkable ident.i.ty of the words relating to their religious beliefs and observances throughout this widespread group of tribes has been demonstrated and forcibly commented on by Alcide D'Orbigny, _L'Homme Americain_, vol. ii, p. 277. The Vicomte de Porto Seguro identifies Zume with the _Cemi_ of the Antilles, and this etymology is at any rate not so fanciful as most of those he gives in his imaginative work, _L'Origine Touranienne des Americaines Tupis-Caribes_, p. 62 (Vienna, 1876).]
I have not yet exhausted the sources from which I could bring evidence of the widespread presence of the elements of this mythical creation in America. But probably I have said enough to satisfy the reader on this point. At any rate it will be sufficient if I close the list with some manifest fragments of the myth, picked out from the confused and generally modern reports we have of the religions of the Athabascan race. This stem is one of the most widely distributed in North America, extending across the whole continent south of the Eskimos, and scattered toward the warmer lat.i.tudes quite into Mexico. It is low down in the intellectual scale, its component tribes are usually migratory savages, and its dialects are extremely synthetic and of difficult phonetics, requiring as many as sixty-five letters for their proper orthography. No wonder, therefore, that we have but limited knowledge of their mental life.
Conspicuous in their myths is the tale of the Two Brothers. These mysterious beings are upon the earth before man appears. Though alone, they do not agree, and the one attacks and slays the other. Another brother appears on the scene, who seems to be the one slain, who has come to life, and the two are given wives by the Being who was the Creator of things. These two women were perfectly beautiful, but invisible to the eyes of mortals. The one was named, The Woman of the Light or The Woman of the Morning; the other was the Woman of Darkness or the Woman of Evening.
The brothers lived together in one tent with these women, who each in turn went out to work. When the Woman of Light was at work, it was daytime; when the Woman of Darkness was at her labors, it was night.
In the course of time one of the brothers disappeared and the other determined to select a wife from one of the two women, as it seems he had not yet chosen. He watched what the Woman of Darkness did in her absence, and discovered that she descended into the waters and enjoyed the embraces of a monster, while the Woman of Light pa.s.sed her time in feeding white birds. In course of time the former brought forth black man-serpents, while the Woman of Light was delivered of beautiful boys with white skins.
The master of the house killed the former with his arrows, but preserved the latter, and marrying the Woman of Light, became the father of the human race, and especially of the Dene Dindjie, who have preserved the memory of him.[1]
[Footnote 1: _Monographie des Dene Dindjie, par_ C.R.P.E. Pet.i.tot, pp.
84-87 (Paris, 1876). Elsewhere the writer says: ”Tout d'abord je dois rappeler mon observation que presque toujours, dans les traditions Dene, le couple primitif se compose de _deux freres_.” Ibid., p. 62.]
In another myth of this stock, clearly a version of the former, this father of the race is represented as a mighty bird, called _Yel_, or _Yale_, or _Orelbale_, from the root _ell_, a term they apply to everything supernatural. He took to wife the daughter of the Sun (the Woman of Light), and by her begat the race of man. He formed the dry land for a place for them to live upon, and stocked the rivers with salmon, that they might have food. When he enters his nest it is day, but when he leaves it it is night; or, according to another myth, he has the two women for wives, the one of whom makes the day, the other the night.
In the beginning Yel was white in plumage, but he had an enemy, by name _Cannook_, with whom he had various contests, and by whose machinations he was turned black. Yel is further represented as the G.o.d of the winds and storms, and of the thunder and lightning.[1]
[Footnote 1: For the extent and particulars of this myth, many of the details of which I omit, see Pet.i.tot, _ubi supra_, pp. 68, 87, note; Matthew Macfie. _Travels in Vancouver Island and British Columbia_, pp.
452-455 (London, 1865); and J.K. Lord, _The Naturalist in Vancouver Island and British Columbia_ (London, 1866). It is referred to by Mackenzie and other early writers.]
Thus we find, even in this extremely low specimen of the native race, the same basis for their mythology as in the most cultivated nations of Central America. Not only this; it is the same basis upon which is built the major part of the sacred stories of all early religions, in both continents; and the excellent Father Pet.i.tot, who is so much impressed by these resemblances that he founds upon them a learned argument to prove that the Dene are of oriental extraction,[1] would have written more to the purpose had his acquaintance with American religions been as extensive as it was with those of Asiatic origin.
[Footnote 1: See his ”Essai sur l'Origine des Dene-Dindjie,” in his _Monographie_, above quoted.]