Hartley Burr Alexander

“ May it please thee, O goddess, that his heart and his life be purified, that he may dwell in this world in peace and wisdom. May this water take away all ills, for which this babe is put into thy hands, thou who art mother and sister of the gods, and who alone art worthy to possess it and to give it, to wash from him the evils which he beareth from before the beginning of the world. ”

“ The staff, which is the conspicuous attribute of Tonapa and Bochica in particular, may well bear a double significance: in the hands of the hero, as the dibble of the maize-planter; in the hands of the god, as the lightning. In any case, there are a multitude of analogies, not only in the myths, but also in the art-motives and symbolisms of the group of tribes which extends from the Diaguité to the North American Pueblo regions that powerfully suggest a common origin of the ideas which centre about the cult of heaven and earth, of descending rain and upspringing maize. ”

“ Now the god Mictlantecutli, otherwise called Acolnauacatl or Tzontemoc, as also the goddess Mictecaciuatl, hath made thee to share his abode. We shall all follow thee, for it is our destiny, and the abode is broad enough to receive the whole world. Thou wilt be heard of no longer among us. Behold, thou art gone to the domain of darkness, where there is neither light nor window. Never shalt thou come hither again, nor needst thou concern thyself for thy return, for thine absence is eternal. ”

“ Yet certainly it is no mere imagination to find another interpretation of the story—what better image could fancy suggest for the daily course of the sun than that of a bright-faced man, bearded with rays, mantled in light, transforming the world of darkness into a world of beauty and the domain of the concealed into a domain of things known, before his departure across the western waters, promising to return, or to send again his messengers of light, to renew the luminous mission? ”

“ But the seasons, beginning with the diurnal alternation of the rule of light and darkness, and proceeding thence to the changing phases of the moon and the seasonal journeys of the sun, constantly shift the domination of the world from deity to deity and from group to group. Thus the lords of day are not the lords of night, nor are the fates of the mounting morn those of descending eve: the Sun himself changes his disposition with the hours. Similarly, the Moon's phases are tempers rather than forms; and the year, divided among the gods, runs the cycle of their influences. ”

“ The generations of humanity increased, men living together in joy and peace. They had but a single language and they prayed neither to wood nor to stone, but only to the Maker and Former, Heart of the Sky and Heart of the Earth, their prayer being for children and for light, for the sun had not yet risen. ”

“ The legend of the Gilded Man and of his treasure city sprang from the soil of the New World in the very dawn of its discovery—whether wholly in the imaginations of conquistadores dazzled with dreams of gold, or partly from some custom, tale, or myth of the American Indians it is now impossible to say. ”

“ One of the most recent of observers, Thomas Whiffen, says of the northwest Brazilian tribes: [188] "On the whole their religion is a theism, inasmuch as their God has a vague, personal, anthropomorphic existence. His habitat is above the skies, the blue dome of heaven, which they look upon as the roof of the world that descends on all sides in contact with the earth. Yet again it is pantheism, this God being represented in all beneficent nature; for every good thing is imbued with his spirit, or with individual spirits subject to him." ”

“ A second little idol, standing beside the great divinity like a page, carried for him a short spear and a buckler rich in gold and gems. From the neck of Huichilobos hung masks of Indians and hearts in gold or in silver surmounted by blue stones. Near by were to be seen burners with incense of copal; three hearts of Indians sacrificed that very day burned there, continuing with the incense the sacrifice that had just taken place. ”

“ Let the waters retire and cease to obstruct, to the end that earth exist here, that it harden itself and show its surface, to the end that it be sown, and that the light of day shine in the heavens and upon the earth; for we shall receive neither glory nor honour from all that we have created and formed until human beings exist, endowed with sentience.' Thus they spake while the earth was formed by them. It is thus, veritably, that creation took place, and the earth existed. ”

“ A second stage of the myth depicts the journey of the Aztec from Tollan, through many stops, back to Colhuacan, until at last they came to the site of Tenochtitlan. It is said that as the tribes halted by the waters of Tezcuco they beheld a great eagle perched on a cactus growing from a wave-washed rock; and while they gazed the bird ascended to the rising sun with a serpent in his talons. This was regarded as a divine augury, and here Tenochtitlan was founded. Such is the tradition which gives modern Mexico its national emblem. ”

“ A cult of the quarters of space and their tutelaries and of the powers of sky-realms above and of earth-realms below is almost universal among American Indian groups showing any advancement in culture; the gods of the quarters, for example, are bringers of wind and rain, upholders of heaven, animal chiefs; the gods above are storm-deities and rulers of the orbs and dominions of light, on the whole beneficent; the powers below, under the hegemony of the earth goddess, are spirits of vegetation and lords of death and things noxious. ”

“ The belief in an infant paradise, with its Tree of Life whence the souls of babes draw nourishment, biding the day of their rebirth, is a pleasant relief from the nightmarelike quality of most Aztec notions—not less familiarly human than are the pious reflections of the good friar who records it. ”

“ Then the created ones rendered thanks to their Creator, saying: "Truly, thou gavest us every motion and accomplishment! We have received existence, we have received a mouth, a face; we speak, we understand, we think, we walk; we perceive and we know equally well what is far and what is near; we see all things, great and small, in heaven and upon the earth. ”

“ Molina says of that very Inca to whom the vision of the crystal appeared that "he reflected upon the respect and reverence shown by his ancestors to the Sun, who worshipped it as a god; he observed that it never had any rest, and that it daily journeyed round the earth; and he said to those of his council that it was not possible that the Sun could be the God who created all things, for if he was, he would not permit a small cloud to obscure his splendour; and that if he was creator of all things, he would sometimes rest, and light up the whole world from one spot. ”

“ The gods now ranged themselves to await the appearance of the Sun, but not knowing where to expect it, and gazing in various directions, some of them, including Quetzalcoatl, turned their faces toward the east, where the Sun finally manifested himself, close-followed by the Moon. Their light being then equal, was so bright that none might endure it, and the deities accordingly asked one another, "How can this be? Is it good that they should shine with equal light?" ”

“ To be sure, within itself the continent shows a diversity as wide, perhaps, as that of any; and certainly no continent affords a sharper contrast both of environment and of culture than is that of the Andes and the civilized Andeans to the tropical forests with their hordes of unqualified savages. There are, moreover, streams of influence reaching from the southern toward the northern America—the one, by way of the Isthmus, tenuously extending the bond of civilization in the direction of the cultured nations of Central America and Mexico ”

“ Not that there is any single level of thought common to all, for there is surely a world of intelligence between the imaginative splendour of Mayan art and science and tradition and the dimly haunted soul of the Fuegian who "supposes the sun and moon, male and female, to be very old indeed, and that some old man, who knew their maker, had died without leaving information on this subject" ”

“ There are many striking parallels between the Colombian tales and those of the Pueblo tribes of North America—the great underworld-goddess, the serpent and the spider as subaqueous and subterranean powers, the return of the dead to the realm below, the importance of birds in cosmogony, the cult of the rainbow; and along with these there are tales of a culture hero and of a pair of divine brothers such as are common to nearly all American peoples. ”

“ The son of the first pair married a woman formed from a hair of the goddess Xochiquetzal; and the gods, noticing how little was the light given forth by the half-sun, resolved to make another half-sun, whereupon Tezcatlipoca became the sun-bearer—for what we behold traversing the daily heavens is not the sun itself, but only its brightness; the true sun is invisible. The other gods created huge giants, who could uproot trees by brute force, and whose food was acorns. For thirteen times fifty-two years, altogether six hundred and seventy-six, this period lasted—as long as its Sun endured ”

“ Chibchachum, says the friar, was god of commerce and industries—a complex divinity, not a mere hero of myth—and Bochica, the most universally venerated of Chibchan deities, was revered as a law-giver, divinity of caciques and captains; served with sacrifices of gold and tobacco, he was worshipped with fasts and hymns, and his image was that of a man with the golden staff of authority. ”

“ Perhaps it is some human instinct as profound and as mystifying which joins in one thought the scattered peoples of the two continents, charting in modes more subtle than their obvious forms can suggest the impulses which lead men to see their environmental world not as their physical eyes perceive it, but, belied by their eyes, as inner and whispering voices proclaim it to be. ”

“ It grew until it formed the heavens, wherein the sun appeared and began to shine. Rairu, recognizing his father as the heaven-maker, knelt before him; but Karu was angry because the son knew more than did he. Rairu was compelled to hide in the earth. The father found him and was about to strike him, but Rairu said: "Strike me not, for in the hollow of the earth I have found people, who will come forth and labour for us." So the First People were allowed to issue forth, and were separated into their tribes and kinds according to colour and beauty. ”

“ As in the old world, the eagle, so in South America the condor and the falcon are the [Pg 227] especial ministers of this deity; as also are the most powerful of the beasts of prey known in the region—the puma, or mountain lion; and, again, a fish, which we may suppose to typify lordship over the waters, as the condor and lion symbolize dominion over air and earth. Thus, as it were, through their grotesque masks and gorgeous fantasies, the pots and jars of the Yunca peoples mutely attest the universal reverence of mankind for the great powers of Nature. ”

“ But the sea rose up against them, refusing to mingle the Moon's tears with its waters; and hence it comes that the tears still flow, half a year outward, half a year inward. Myths of the Pleiades are known to the Indians throughout Brazil, who regard the first appearance of this constellation in the firmament as the sign of renewing life, after the dry season,—"Mother of the Thirsty" is one interpretation of its name. One myth tells of an earthly hunter who pierced the sky with arrows and climbed to heaven in quest of his beloved. ”

“ All these are beliefs which we need not ascribe to Old World suggestion, for they are found far and wide in America; and equally native must be the Carib notion that each man has three souls—one in his heart, one in his head, and one in his shoulders—though it is only the heart-soul that ascends to paradise at death, while the other two wander abroad as dangerous and evil powers. The islanders possessed also a legend of their origin or migration from among the Galibi, their continental relatives, "Galibi" being, apparently, yet another variant of "Carib." ”

“ Aztec religious art seems, in fact, to move in a more primitively realistic atmosphere than that in which the religious art of other peoples has come to similarly adept expression; it shows little of that tendency—which Yucatan and Peru in America, as well as the ancient and Oriental nations, had all attained—to subordinate the idea to the expressional form, and to soften even the horrible with the suavity of aesthetic charm. The Aztec gods were as grimly business-like in form as the realities of their service were fearful. ”

“ On his second voyage Columbus began to hear of an island inhabited by rich and warlike women, who permitted occasional visits from men, but endured no permanent residence of males among them. The valour of Carib women, who fought resolutely along with their husbands and brothers gave plausibility to this legend; and soon the myth of an island or country of Amazons became accepted truth, a dogma with wonder-tellers and a lure to adventurers. At first the fabulous island seemed near at hand—"Matenino which lies next to Hispañola on the side toward the Indies" ”

“ Beyond the Diaguité lay the domains of savagery, although the Araucanians of the Chilean-Argentine region were not uninfluenced by the northward civilizations and in most respects were superior to the wild tribes that inhabited the great body of the South American continent; but the indomitable love of liberty, which has kept them unconquered through many wars, gave to their territory a boundary-line marked no less by a sharp descent in culture than by its untouched independence. ”