The Myths of the New World

Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, v. p. 420.

130

Mrs. Eastman, Legends of the Sioux, p. 191: New York, 1849. This is a trustworthy and meritorious book, which can be said of very few collections of Indian traditions. They were collected during a residence of seven years in our northwestern territories, and are usually verbally faithful to the native narrations.

131

Müller, Amer. Urreligionen, p. 222, after De la Borde.

132

Acc. of the Inds. of California, ch. ix. Eng. trans. by Robinson: New York, 1847. The Acagchemem were a branch of the Netela tribe, who dwelt near the mission San Juan Capistrano (see Buschmann, Spuren der Aztek. Sprache, etc., p. 548).

133

Called in the Aztec tongue Tecolotl, night owl; literally, the stone scorpion. The transfer was mythological. The Christians prefixed to this word tlaca, man, and thus formed a name for Satan, which Prescott and others have translated “rational owl.” No such deity existed in ancient Anahuac (see Buschmann, Die Voelker und Sprachen Neu Mexico’s, p. 262).

134

Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, v. p. 420.

135

William Bartram, Travels, p. 504. Columbus found the natives of the Antilles wearing tunics with figures of these birds embroidered upon them. Prescott, Conq. of Mexico, i. p. 58, note.

136

Rel. de la Nouv. France, An 1636, ch. ix. Catlin, Letters and notes, Lett. 22.

137

Rel. de la Nouv. France, An 1648, p. 75; Cusic, Trad. Hist. of the Six Nations, pt. iii. The latter is the work of a native Tuscarora chief. It is republished in Schoolcraft’s Indian Tribes, but is of little value.

138

For example, in Brazil, Müller, Amer. Urrelig., p. 277; in Yucatan, Cogolludo, Hist. de Yucathan, lib. iv. cap. 4; among the western Algonkins, Hennepin, Decouverte dans l’Amer. Septen. chap. 33. Dr. Hammond has expressed the opinion that the North American Indians enjoy the same immunity from the virus of the rattlesnake, that certain African tribes do from some vegetable poisons (Hygiene, p. 73). But his observation must be at fault, for many travellers mention the dread these serpents inspired, and the frequency of death from their bites, e. g. Rel. Nouv. France. 1667, p. 22.

139

Narrative of the Captivity and Adventures of John Tanner, p. 356.

140

See Gallatin’s vocabularies in the second volume of the Trans. Am. Antiq. Soc. under the word Snake. In Arabic dzann is serpent; dzanan a spirit, a soul, or the heart. So in Hebrew nachas, serpent, has many derivatives signifying to hold intercourse with demons, to conjure, a magician, etc. See Noldeke in the Zeitschrift für Voelkerpsychologie und Sprachwissenschaft, i. p. 413.

141

Alexander Henry, Travels, p. 117.

142

Bost. Med. and Surg. Journal, vol. 76, p. 21.

143

Schwarz, Der Ursprung der Mythologie dargelegt an Griechischer und Deutscher Sage: Berlin, 1860, passim.

144

Rel. de la Nouv. France: An 1637, p. 53.

145

Sagen der Nord-Amer. Indianer, p. 21. This is a German translation of part of Jones’s Legends of the N. Am. Inds.: London, 1820. Their value as mythological material is very small.

146

Torquemada, Monarquia Indiana, lib. vi. cap. 37.

147

Müller, Amer. Urrelig., 221, after De la Borde.

148

Le Livre Sacré des Quichés, p. 3.

149

Rel. de la Nouv. France, 1648, p. 75.

150

Memoirs of Lieut. Henry Timberlake, p. 48: London, 1765. This little book gives an account of the Cherokees at an earlier date than is elsewhere found.

151

Hawkins, Sketch of the Creek Country, p. 80.

152

Schoolcraft, Algic Researches, i. p. 179 sq.; compare ii. p. 117.

153

Morgan, League of the Iroquois, p. 159; Cusic, Trad. Hist. of the Six Nations, pt. ii.

154