American Hero-Myths

LTIES IN TRACING IT--RELIGIOUS EVOLUTION IN AMERICA SIMILAR TO

H OF THE TZENDALS OF CHIAPAS--A FRAGMENT OF A MIXE MYTH--THE HERO-GOD OF THE MUYSCAS OF NEW G

ENT CREATION--HIS WORSHIP WAS ELEVATING--MORAL CONDITION OF NATIVE SOCIETIES BEFORE THE CONQUEST--PROGRESS IN THE DEFINITION OF THE I

re and in language. I have shown the strange similarity in their accounts of their mysterious early benefactor and te

. 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

es 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

e 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 gr

hesis 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 God with like childish gropings as his white brother in Central Asia. When his course was interrupted, he

as 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."[3] This sad reply is repeated by careful observe

wrought the degradation of the native race. Be it so. Then I merely modify my assertion, by saying that Christianity has shown itself incapable of controlling its inevitable adjuncts, and that i

to the native beliefs, and desire to vindicate for them a dignified position among the faiths which have

the extension of the myth I have set forth, and then proc

r that their boast was that they had never been defeated, and yet their religious rites were almost bloodless, and their preference was for peace. The hardy Aztecs had been driven back at every

gue, I am not able to analyze. He dwelt in the town Cromuscuaro, which name means the Watch-tower or Look-out, and the hour in which he gave his instructions was always at sunrise, just as the orb of light appeared on the eastern horizon. One of the feasts which he appointed to be celebrated in his honor was called Zitacuarencuaro, w

cegerent of the absent hero-god, and ready to lay dow

Four was more distinctly sacred. The kingdom was divided into four parts (as also among the Itzas, Qquichuas and numerous other tribes), the four ruler

r attendant goddesses, the personifications of the rains from the four cardinal points. At the sacred dances, which were also dramatizations of her supposed action, these attendants were represented by four priests clad respectively in white, yellow, red and black, to represent the four colors of the clouds.[6] In other words, she doubtless

script of their national book, the Popol Vuh. Evidently they had borrowed something from Aztec sources, and a flavor of Christia

of light. In other words, as in so many mythologies, the history of the wor

ow the Heart of Heaven exists, he

the Lord, to Gucumatz, and it sp

ted and planned; they understood;

s they held counsel about the growth of trees and vines, about life and mankind, in the darkness,

n, the central province of the Kiches, to have been the guide and protector of their nation, and in its interest to have made a journey to the Underworld, in order to revenge himself on his powerful enemies, its rulers. He was successful, and having overcome them, he set free the Sun, which they had seized, and restored to life four hundred youths whom they had slain, and who, in fact, were the stars of heaven. On his return, he emerged

so as I have treated them at length in a monograph readily accessible to the reader who would push

d of darkness and sets free the sun, moon and stars to perform their daily and nightly journeys through the heavens, presents in these and other traits such numerous resemblances to the Divinity of Light, the Day-maker of

at his name might be a form of Odin or Buddha! As for more imaginative writers, they have made not the least difficulty in discovering that it is identical with the Odon of the Tarascos, the Oton of the Othomis, the Poudan of the East Indi

ive. His manuscript of five or six folios, in the Tzendal tongue, came into the possession of Nu?ez de la Vega, Bishop of Chiapas, about 1690, an

d are most unsatisfactory, and disfigured by ignorance and prejudice. None of them, probably, was fa

out and assign to the different races of men the earth on which they dwell, and to give to eac

tations. He collected them into villages, taught them how to cultivate the maize and cotton, and invented the hieroglyphi

monials of religious worship. For this reason he was also called "Master of the Sac

ood third in the week of twenty days, and was the first Dominical sign, accor

gotten. Near the last mentioned locality, Huehuetlan in Soconusco, he was reported to have constructed an underground temple by merely blowing wit

ates, called in the myth tzequil, petticoated, from the long and flowing robes they wore. These aided him in the work of civilization. On four occ

s must all mortals, but he penetrated through a cave into the under-earth, and found his way to "t

a rival in their religious observances, the feared Yalahau Lord of Blackness, or Lord of the Water

was one of four brothers, the common ancestors of

re to make of Votan. Like the rest of them, he and his long-robed attendants are personifications of the eastern light and its rays. Though but uncritical ep

Tarasco roots, still less to the Norse Wodan or the Indian Buddha, but is derived from a radical

derivation has been questioned, because the word for the heart in the other Maya dialects is different, and it has been suggested that thi

e body; with the possessive prefix it becomes utan. In Tzendal this word means both breast and heart. This is well illustrated by an ancient manuscript,

tu corazón

chos, di,

auotan,

hoyoc, ala

uotan is used both for heart and breast. Thus the de

he earth," "the heart of the sky," is common in these dialects, and occurs

ue. It stands for all the psychical powers, the memory, will and reasoning faculties, the life, the spirit, the soul. It would be more correct to render these names the 'Spirit' or 'Soul' of the lake, etc., than the 'Heart.' They indicate a dimly understood sense

ose inhabitants are reported as drunken and worthless, but the time was when they were a powerful and warlike nation. They are in nowise akin to the Maya stock, although they are so classed in Mr. H.H. Bancroft's excellent work.[16] They have, however, a

they preserved some legends which show that they also partook of the

ings and streams, peopled them with fish and the woods with game and birds, and taught the tribe how to catch them. They did not believe that he had died, but that after a certain length of time, he, with his ser

factor was Condoy, the meaning of which my

same class as the other hero-myths I have collected in this volume. Historians of authority assure us that the Mixes, Zoques and Zapotecs united in the expectation, founded o

stream a Pactolus, and every hill a mine of gold. The natives were peaceful in disposition, skilled in smelting and beating the precious metal that was everywhere at hand, lovers of agriculture, and versed in the arts of spinni

pointed out long after the Conquest. His hair was abundant, his beard fell to his waist, and he dressed in long and flowing robes. He went among the nations of the plateaux, addressing each in its own dialect, taught them to live in villages and to observe just laws. Near the village of Coto was a high hill held in special veneration, for from its prominent summit he was wont to address the people who gathered round its base. Therefore it was estee

ack to the East whence he came, said some authorities, but others averred that he rose up to heaven. At any rate, b

the undoubted fact that they found the symbol of the cross already a religious emblem among this people. It appeared in t

to accept these statements as quite true, and

nigagua." In the cosmogonical myths of the Muyscas this was the home or source of Light, and was a name applied to the demiurgic force. In that mysterious dwelling, so their account ran, light was shut up, and the world lay in primeval gloom. At a certain time the light manifested itself, and the dawn of the first morning a

word for the Sun. He was reported to have been of light complexion, and when the Spaniards first arrived they were supposed to b

te is the Rainbow, Cuchaviva, goddess of rains and waters, of the fertility of the fields, o

s, north to the northernmost islands of the West Indian Archipelago--the early explorers found the natives piously attributing t

Brazil, have much to say of this personage, and some of them were convinced that he could h

od 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.[23] This was not a suggestion of their later learning, but merely

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 th

towns and rule them in peace.[26] These predictions were carefully noted by the missionaries, and regarded as the "unconscious prophecies of heathendom" of the advent of Christianity; b

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 latitudes quite into Mexico. It i

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 oth

ded into the waters and enjoyed the embraces of a monster, while the Woman of Light passed 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 wi

upernatural. 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

hom he had various contests, and by whose machinations he was turned black. Yêl is furt

is built the major part of the sacred stories of all early religions, in both continents; and the excellent Father Petitot, who is so much impressed by these resemblances that he founds upon them a learne

e distinction which is everywhere drawn between the God of Light and the Sun. Unless

he American Indians were nearly all sun-worshipers, that I take pains formally to

two, which I have been at no pains to avoid. But the identity is superficial only; it entirely disappears in other parts of the myth, and the conceptions, as fundamentally distinct, must be studied se

their religious life since the introduction of Christianity. Their own faiths, though lower in form, had in them the germs of a religious and moral

y one religion, than it is for them to thrive under one form of government, or to adopt with advantage one uniform plan of building houses. The moral and religious life is a growth, and the brash wood of ancient date cannot be g

ost unlimited exercise of all the powers. The basis of all morality is self-sacrifice, the willingness to give up our wishes to the will of another. The criterion of the power of a religion is its abili

s of a religion. It will rise in the scale just in proportion as its behests, were

giving, that to secure any end we must sacrifice something. This, too, is taught by all social intercourse, and, therefore, an acute German psychologist has set up the formula," Al

ries to futile and abhorrent rites, is at least training its adherents i

discovered in them so much that was good, so much that approximated to the purer doctrines that they themselves came to teach, that they have left on record many an attempt to prove that there must, in some remote and unknown epoch, have come Christian teachers to the New World, St. Tho

ed moral conceptions must not be refused to the red race. They are

racocha or Tamu, he is always the giver of laws, the instructor in the arts of social life, the founder of commonwealths, the patron of agriculture. He casts his in

e lusts and appetites. I have but to refer to what I have already said of the Maya Kukulcan and the Aztec

nicler Piedrahita, "were certainly excellent, inasmuch as these natives hold as right to do just the same that we do." "The priests of these Muyscas," he goes on to say, "lived most chastely and with great purity of

rd in Christian lands. Change the names, and some of the formulas preserved by Christobal d

ghest divinities, but rather as propitiations to the demons of the darkness, or the s

sts were devoted to their worship, at least in the nations of higher civilization. These votaries were engaged in keeping alive the myth, in impressing the supposed commands of the deity on the people, and in imitating him in exam

been preserved, as they were in vogue in Anahuac, Utatlan, Peru and other localities.[32] Any one who peruses these will see that the great moral principles, the radical doctrines of individual virtue, were clearly recognized and deliberatel

rd of the world, and creator of all things; that he had made the heavens, the sun, and man; and that it was not right that these, his works, should receive equal homage with himself. Therefore, the Inca decreed that the image of Viracocha should thereafter be assigned supremacy to those of all other divinities, and that no tribute nor sacrifice should be paid to him, for He was mast

of which are still preserved, breathe a spirit of emancipation from the idolatrous superstition of his day. He announced that there was one only god, who sustained and created all things, and who dwe

thoughts were above the level of the red race. But the proper names and titles, unquestionab

aped destruction, and although they are open to some suspicion of having been colored for proselytizing purposes, there is direct evidence from natives who were adults at the time of the Conquest that some of their priests had predicted the time s

and the cruelties of their worship; and even such a liberal thinker as Roger Williams tells us that he would not be present at their ceremonies, "Lest I should have been partaker of Satan's Inventions and Worships."[35] This s

e purity of the teaching attributed to Bochica. The effect of such doctrines could not be lost on a people who looked upon him at once as an exemplar and a deity. Nor

n remains, whence did these secluded tribes obtain the sentiments of justice and morality whi

its answer I may fitly close this

t it gave him were imputed to the goodness of the personified Spirit of Light, and by a natural association of ideas, the benevolent emotions and affections developed by improving social intercourse were also brought into relation to this kindly Being. They came to be regarded as his behests, and, in the national mind, he grew into a teacher of the friendly relations of man to man, and an ideal of those powers which

Mythologien schuf, und gerade durch sie wird es am klarsten, wie Sprachensch?pfung und mythologische Entwicklung, der Ausdruck des Denkens und Glauben

e, La Mythologie Comparée, v

rard de Rialle,

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 t

1648), and D. Basalenque, Cronica de San Augustin de Mechoacan (Mexico, 1673). I regret that I have been unable to find either of these books in any library in the United States. It is a great pity that the student of Ame

19, 20. This account is anonymous, but was written in the sixteenth century, by some one familiar with the subject. A handsome MS. of it, with co

See above, ch

le Livre Sacré des Quich

Central America, by Daniel G. Brinton, M.D., in the Pro

pp. 114, et seq., who discusses the former; Dr. Paul Felix Cabrera, Teatro Critico Americano, translated, London, 1822; Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. des Nations Civilisées de Mexique, v

e los Negros." The terminal ahau is pure Maya, meaning king, ruler, lord; Yal is also Maya, and means water. The god of the waters, of darkness, nig

eda, Descripcion Geografica de Chiap

ost given up. Supposing that the serpent was a totem of one of the Tzendal clans, then the effort would be to show that their hero-god was of that totem; but how this is shown by his being proved a chivim is not obvious. The term ualum chivim, the land of the chivim. appears to be

r los Sacramentos en Castellano

and u qux palo, Heart of the Ocean, as names of the highest divinity; later, we find

ion," The Native Races of the

besides the numerals, eight out of ten of which are the same. Many of the remaining words are related to the Zapotec, and there are very few and faint resemblances to Maya dialec

os Historicos y Estadisticos del Estad

te, quoting from the works of

que de aquella Provincia por heredero de su santidad i poderio." Lucas Fernaudez Piedrahita, H

ue, ó El Criador." Gramatica de la Lengua Chibcha, Introd., p. xix. Chie in this tongue means light, moon, month, honor, and is also the fir

mon, Noticias Historiales de las Conquistas de Tierra Firme en el Nuevo Reyno de Granada, Pt. iv, caps

, affirmantibus constanter indigenis, ex eo loco Apostolum Thomam multitudini undequaque ad eum audiendum confluenti solitum fuisse legem divinam tradere: et addunt mandiocae, ex qua f

r pedum et digitorum satis alté impressa vestigia, quae nonnunquam aqua excrescens cooperit." The

r; quae semita quovis anni tempore eumdem statum conservat, modicé in ea crescendibus herbis, ab adjacenti campo multum herbescenti prorsus dissimilibus, praebetque spe

in the Veda, appears obvious. So also in later legend we read of the wonderful slot or trail of the dragon Fafn

or los Religiosos de la Compa?ia de Jesus en las Provincias del Paraguay, Parana, Uruguay y Tape, fol. 29, 30 (4to., Madrid, 1639). The remarkable identity of the words relating to their religious beliefs and observances throughout this widespread group of tribes has been demonstrated and forcibly commented o

Elsewhere the writer says: "Tout d'abord je dois rappeler mon observation que presque toujo

8, 87, note; Matthew Macfie. Travels in Vancouver Island and British Columbia, pp. 452-455 (London, 1865); and J.K. Lord, The

l'Origine des Dènè-Dindjié," in

means by etymology, simply what is customary and of current usage. The moral man is he who conforms himself to the opinions of the majority. This is also

, que tenian por malo lo mismo que nosotros tenemos por tal." Piedrahita, His

n Geronimo Roman, Republica de las Indias Occidentales, for Utatlan and other nations; for Peru in the Relacion del Origen, Descendencia, Politica, y Gobierno de los I

storia Natural y Moral de las Indias,

orica Chichimeca, cap. xlix; and Joseph Joaquin Granad

iams, A Key Into the Lan

Nuevo Reino de Granada, in the Colleccion de Docume

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