American Hero-Myths: A Study in the Native Religions of the Western Continent

[Footnote 17 (#x5_x_5_i89): Informacion, etc., p. 209.]

[Footnote 18 (#x5_x_5_i93): Garcilasso de la Vega, Comentarios Reales, Lib. i, cap. xviii.]

[Footnote 19 (#x5_x_5_i94): "Parece por los cantares de los Indios; * * * afirmaron los Orejones que quedaron de los tiempos de Guascar i de Atahualpa; * * * cuentan los Indios del Cuzco mas viejos, etc.," repeats the historian Herrera, Historia de las Indias Occidentals, Dec. v, Lib. iii, cap. vii, viii.]

[Footnote 20 (#x5_x_5_i95): "Cachini; dar el ser y hazer que sea; cachi chiuachic, el autor y causa de algo." Holguin, Vocabvlario de la Lengva Qquichua, sub voce, cachipuni. The names differ little in Herrera (who, however, omits Uchu), Montesinos, Balboa, Oliva, La Vega and Pachacuti; I have followed the orthography of the two latter, as both were native Qquichuas.]

[Footnote 21 (#x5_x_5_i95): Holguin (ubi suprá,) gives paccarin, the morning, paccarini, to dawn; tampu, venta ó meson.]

[Footnote 22 (#x5_x_5_i96): Tahuantin, all four, from tahua, four; suyu, division, section; kapac, king.]

[Footnote 23 (#x5_x_5_i101): Christoval de Molina, Fables and Rites of the Incas, p. 6.]

[Footnote 24 (#x5_x_5_i102): Relacion de Antiguedades deste Reyno del Piru, por Don Joan de Santacruz Pachacuti Yamqui, passim. Pachacuti relates the story of Tunapa as being distinctly the hero-myth of the Qquichuas. He was also the hero-god of the Aymaras, and about him, says Father Ludovico Bertonio, "they to this day relate many fables and follies." Vocabulario de la Lengua Aymara, s.v. Another name he bore in Aymara was Ecaco, which in that language means, as a common noun, an ingenious, shifty man of many plans (Bertonio, Vocabulario, s.v.). "Thunnupa," as Bertonio spells it, does not lend itself to any obvious etymology in Aymara, which is further evidence that the name was introduced from the Qquichua. This is by no means a singular example of the identity of religious thought and terms between these nations. In comparing the two tongues, M. Alcide D'Orbigny long since observed: "On retrouve même à peu prés un vingtième des mots qui ont evidemment la même origine, surtout ceux qui expriment les idées religieuses." L'Homme Américain, considéré sous ses Rapports Physiologiques et Moraux, Tome i, p. 322 (Paris, 1839). This author endeavors to prove that the Qquichua religion was mainly borrowed from the Aymaras, and of the two he regards the latter as the senior in civilization. But so far as I have been able to study the mythology of the Aymaras, which is but very superficially, on account of the lack of sources, it does not seem to be entitled to this credit.]

[Footnote 25 (#x5_x_5_i108): "Tupa yauri; El cetro real, vara insignia real del Inca." Holguin, Vocabvlario de la Lengva Qquichua o del Inca, s.v.]

[Footnote 26 (#x5_x_5_i109): Don Gavino Pacheco Zegarra derives Huanacauri from huanaya, to rest oneself, and cayri, here; "c'est ici qu'il faut se reposer." Ollantai, Introd., p. xxv. It was distinctly the huzca, or sacred fetish of the Incas, and they were figuratively said to have descended from it. Its worship was very prominent in ancient Peru. See the Information de las Idolatras de los Incas y Indios, 1671, previously quoted.]

[Footnote 27 (#x5_x_5_i110): The identification of Manco Capac with the planet Jupiter is mentioned in the Relacion Anonima, on the authority of Melchior Hernandez.]

[Footnote 28 (#x5_x_5_i113): Garcia, Origen de los Indios, Lib. v, Cap. vii.]

[Footnote 29 (#x5_x_5_i114): Speaking of certain "grandes y muy antiquissimos edificios" on the river Vinaque, Cieza de Leon says: "Preguntando a los Indios comarcanos quien hizo aquella antigualla, responden que otras gentes barbadas y blancas como nosotros: los cuales, muchos tiempos antes que los Ingas reinasen, dicen que vinieron a estas partes y hicieron alli su morada." La Crónica del Peru, cap. lxxxvi.]

[Footnote 30 (#x5_x_5_i117): This incident is also related by Pachacuti and Betanzos. All three locate the scene of the event at Carcha, eighteen leagues from Cuzco, where the Canas tribe lived at the Conquest. Pachacuti states that the cause of the anger of Viracocha was that upon the Sierra there was the statue of a woman to whom human victims were sacrificed. If this was the tradition, it would offer another point of identity with that of Quetzalcoatl, who was also said to have forbidden human sacrifices.]

[Footnote 31 (#x5_x_5_i117): Herrera, Historia de las Indias Occidentales, Dec. v, Lib. iii, cap. vi.]

[Footnote 32 (#x5_x_5_i118): "Donde consta claro no ser nombre compuesto, sino proprio de aquella fantasma que dijó llamarse Viracocha y que era hijo del Sol." Com, Reales, Lib. v, cap. xxi.]

[Footnote 33 (#x5_x_5_i118): Introduction to Narratives of the Rites and Laws of the Incas, p. xi.]

[Footnote 34 (#x5_x_5_i118): "Le nom de Viracocha dont la physionomie sanskrite est si frappante," etc. Desjardins, Le Perou avant la Conquéte Espagnole, p. 180 (Paris 1858).]

[Footnote 35 (#x5_x_5_i118): Viracocha "is the Il or Ra of the Babylonian monuments, and thus the Ra of Egypt," etc. Professor John Campbell, Compte-Rendu du Congrés International des Américanistes, Vol. i, p. 362 (1875).]

[Footnote 36 (#x5_x_5_i119): Ollantai, Drame en vers Quechuas, Introd., p. xxxvi (Paris, 1878). There was a class of diviners in Peru who foretold the future by inspecting the fat of animals; they were called Vira-piricuc. Molina, Fables and Rites, p. 13.]

[Footnote 37 (#x5_x_5_i122): Christoval de Molina, ubi supra, p. 29.]

[Footnote 38 (#x5_x_5_i122): Garcilasso de la Vega, Comentarios Reales, Lib. iv, cap. xxi.]

[Footnote 39 (#x6_x_6_i0): Relacion anonima, p. 148.]

[Footnote 40 (#x6_x_6_i1): "La principal de estas Deidades historicas era Viracocha. * * * Dos siglos contaba el culto de Viracocha á la llegada de los Españoles." J. Diego de Tschudi, Antiguedades Peruanas, pp. 159, 160 (Vienna, 1851).]

[Footnote 41 (#x6_x_6_i1): Compare the account in Garcilasso de la Vega, Comentarios Reales, Lib. ii, cap. iv; Lib. iv, cap. xxi, xxiii, with that in Acosta, Historia Natural y Moral de las Indias, Lib. vi, cap. xxi.]

[Footnote 42 (#x6_x_6_i2): Comentarios Reales, Pt. i, Lib. viii, cap. viii.]

[Footnote 43 (#x6_x_6_i5): Francisco Lopez de Gomara, Historia de las Indias, p. 233 (Ed. Paris, 1852).]

[Footnote 44 (#x6_x_6_i7): A whirlwind with rain was paria conchuy (paria, rain), one with clouds of dust, allpa conchuy (allpa, earth, dust); Holguin, Vocabulario Qquichua, s.v. Antay conchuy.]

[Footnote 45 (#x6_x_6_i7): Le Perou et Bolivie, p. 694. (Paris, 1880.)]

[Footnote 46 (#x6_x_6_i8): These remains are carefully described by Charles Wiener, Perou et Bolivie, p. 282, seq; from the notes of M. Angrand, by Desjardins, Le Perou avant la Conquête Espagnole, p. 132; and in a superficial manner by Squier, Peru, p. 555.]

[Footnote 47 (#x6_x_6_i9): Historia Natural y Moral de las Indias, Lib. v, cap. iii.]

[Footnote 48 (#x6_x_6_i9): Comentarios Reales, Lib. ii, cap. xxviii.]

[Footnote 49 (#x6_x_6_i10): Von Tschudi, who in one part of his work maintains that sun-worship was the prevalent religion of Peru, modifies the assertion considerably in the following passage: "El culto de Pachacamac se hallaba mucho mas extendido de lo que suponen los historiadores; y se puede sin error aventurar la opinion de que era la Deidad popular y acatada por las masas peruanas; mientras que la religion del Sol era la de la corte, culto que, por mas adoptado que fuese entre los Indios, nunca llegó á desarraigar la fe y la devocion al Numen primitivo. En effecto, en todas las relaciones de la vida de los Indios, resalta la profunda veneracion que tributavan á Pachacamac." Antiguedades Peruanas, p. 149. Inasmuch as elsewhere this author takes pains to show that the Incas discarded the worship of the Sun, and instituted in place of it that of Viracocha, the above would seem to diminish the sphere of Sun-worship very much.]

[Footnote 50 (#x6_x_6_i12): Garcilasso de La Vega, Comentarios Reales, Lib. ix, caps. xiv, xv; Cieza de Leon, Relacion, MS. in Prescott, Conquest of Peru, Vol. i, p. 329. The latter is the second part of Cieza de Leon.]

[Footnote 51 (#x6_x_6_i16): "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 é Indios, in the Coll. de Docs. ineditos del Archivo de Indias, vol. xxi, p. 152.]

[Footnote 52 (#x6_x_6_i17): E.G. Squier, Travels in Peru, p. 414.]

[Footnote 53 (#x6_x_6_i17): C. Wiener, Perou et Bolivie, p. 717.]

[Footnote 54 (#x6_x_6_i18): L. Angrand, Lettre sur les Antiquités de Tiaguanaco et l'Origine présumable 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 Hauptzüge seiner Religion durch das westliche Südamerica, 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-GOD OF THE MUYSCAS OF NEW GRANADA–OF THE TUPI-GUARANAY STEM OF PARAGUAY AND BRAZIL–MYTHS OF THE DÈNÈ OF BRITISH AMERICA.

SUN WORSHIP IN AMERICA–GERMS OF PROGRESS IN AMERICAN RELIGIONS–RELATION OF RELIGION AND MORALITY–THE LIGHT-GOD A MORAL AND BENEFICENT CREATION–HIS WORSHIP WAS ELEVATING–MORAL CONDITION OF NATIVE SOCIETIES BEFORE THE CONQUEST–PROGRESS IN THE DEFINITION OF THE IDEA OF GOD IN PERU, MEXICO, AND YUCATAN–ERRONEOUS STATEMENTS ABOUT THE MORALS OF THE NATIVES–EVOLUTION OF THEIR ETHICAL PRINCIPLES.

In the foregoing chapters I have passed 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] (#x7_x_7_i26) 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.

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 God 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."[2] (#x7_x_7_i27)

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."[3] (#x7_x_7_i28) This sad reply is repeated by careful observers who have studied dispassionately the natives in their homes.[4] (#x7_x_7_i29) 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 debasement, on Protestant missions the destruction of the race.

It may be objected to this that it was not Christianity, but its accompaniments, the greedy horde of adventurers, the profligate traders, the selfish priests, and the unscrupulous officials, that 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 it would have been better, morally and socially, for the American race never to have known Christianity at all, than to have received it on the only terms on which it has been possible to offer it.