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

[Footnote 11 (#x6_x_6_i111): Yalahau is referred to by Bishop Nuñez de la Vega as venerated in Occhuc and other Tzendal towns of Chiapas. He translates it "Señor de 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, night and blackness, is often one and the same in mythology, and probably had we the myth complete, he would prove to be Votan's brother and antagonist.]

[Footnote 12 (#x6_x_6_i112): Quoted in Emeterio Pineda, Descripcion Geografica de Chiapas y Soconusco, p. 9 (Mexico, 1845).]

[Footnote 13 (#x6_x_6_i113): The title of the Tzendal MSS., is said by Cabrera to be "Proof that I am a Chan." The author writes in the person of Votan himself, and proves his claim that he is a Chan, "because he is a Chivim." Chan has been translated serpent; on chivim the commentators have almost 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 that applied, in the MS., to the country of the Tzendals, or a part of it. The words chi uinic would mean, "men of the shore," and might be a local name applied to a clan on the coast. But in default of the original text we can but surmise as to the precise meaning of the writer.]

[Footnote 14 (#x6_x_6_i116): Modo de Administrar los Sacramentos en Castellano y Tzendal, 1707. 4to MS., p. 13.]

[Footnote 15 (#x6_x_6_i123): Thus we have (Popol Vuh, Part i, p. 2) u qux cho, Heart of the Lakes, and u qux palo, Heart of the Ocean, as names of the highest divinity; later, we find u qux cah, Heart of the Sky (p. 8), u qux uleu, Heart of the Earth, p. 12, 14, etc.]

[Footnote 16 (#x6_x_6_i124): "Mijes, Maya nation," The Native Races of the Pacific States, Vol. v, p. 712.]

[Footnote 17 (#x6_x_6_i124): Apuntes sobre la Lengua Mije, por C.H. Berendt, M.D., MS., in my hands. The comparison is made of 158 words in the two languages, of which 44 have marked affinity, 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 dialects. One of them may possibly be in this name, Votan (uotan), heart, however. In Mixe the word for heart is hot. I note this merely to complete my observations on the Votan myth.]

[Footnote 18 (#x6_x_6_i127): Juan B. Carriedo, Estudios Historicos y Estadisticos del Estado Libre de Oaxaca, p. 3 (Oaxaca, 1847).]

[Footnote 19 (#x6_x_6_i128): Ibid., p. 94, note, quoting from the works of Las Casas and Francisco Burgoa.]

[Footnote 20 (#x6_x_6_i131): "Afirman que fue trasladado al cielo, y que al tiempo de su partida dexó al Cacique de aquella Provincia por heredero de su santidad i poderio." Lucas Fernaudez Piedrahita, Historia General de las Conquistas del Nueoo Reyno de Granada, Lib. i, cap. iii (Amberes, 1688).]

[Footnote 21 (#x6_x_6_i134): Uricoechea says, "al principio del mundo la luz estaba encerrada en una cosa que no podian describir i que llamaban Chiminigague, ó El Criador." Gramatica de la Lengua Chibcha, Introd., p. xix. Chie in this tongue means light, moon, month, honor, and is also the first person plural of the personal pronoun. Ibid., p. 94. Father Simon says gagua is "el nombre del mismo sol," though ordinarily Sun is Sua.]

[Footnote 22 (#x6_x_6_i136): The principal 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.]

[Footnote 23 (#x6_x_6_i139): "Juxta Paraquariae metropolim rupes utcumque 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 multitudini undequaque ad eum audiendum confluenti solitum fuisse legem divinam tradere: et addunt mandiocae, ex qua farinam suam ligneam conficiunt, plantandae rationem ab eodem accepisse." P. Nicolao del Techo, Historia Provincial Paraquariae Societatis Jesu, Lib. vi, cap. iv (folio, Leodii, 1673).]

[Footnote 24 (#x6_x_6_i139): "Ipse abii," he writes in his well known Letter, "et propriis oculis inspexi, quatuor pedum et digitorum satis alté impressa vestigia, quae nonnunquam aqua excrescens cooperit." The reader will remember the similar event in the history of Quetzalcoatl (see above, chapter iii, §3 (#x3_x_3_i95))]

[Footnote 25 (#x6_x_6_i140): "E Brasiliâ 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, modicé in ea crescendibus herbis, ab adjacenti campo multum herbescenti prorsus dissimilibus, praebetque speciem viae artificiosé ductae; quam Socii nostri Guairaniam excolentes persaepe non sine stupore perspexisse se testantur." Nicolao del Techo, ubi suprá, Lib. vi, cap. iv.

The connection of this myth with the course of the sun in the sky, "the path of the bright God," 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.]

[Footnote 26 (#x6_x_6_i141): "Ilium quoque pollicitum fuisse, se aliquando has regiones revisurum." Father Nobrega, ubi suprá. 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 Compañia 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 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).]

[Footnote 27 (#x6_x_6_i144): Monographie des Dènè Dindjié, par C.R.P.E. Petitot, pp. 84-87 (Paris, 1876). Elsewhere the writer says: "Tout d'abord je dois rappeler mon observation que presque toujours, dans les traditions Dènè, le couple primitif se compose de deux frères." Ibid., p. 62.]

[Footnote 28 (#x6_x_6_i146): For the extent and particulars of this myth, many of the details of which I omit, see Petitot, ubi suprá, 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.]

[Footnote 29 (#x6_x_6_i147): See his "Essai sur l'Origine des Dènè-Dindjié," in his Monographie, above quoted.]

[Footnote 30 (#x7_x_7_i6): "Alle Sitten sind sittlich." Lazarus, Ursprung der Sitte, S. 5, quoted by Roskoff. I hardly need mention that our word morality, from mos, 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 at the basis of Robert Browning's definition of a people: "A people is but the attempt of many to rise to the completer life of one" (A Soul's Tragedy).]

[Footnote 31 (#x7_x_7_i12): "Las cosas que el Bochica les enseñaba eran buenas, siendo assi, que tenian por malo lo mismo que nosotros tenemos por tal." Piedrahita, Historia General de las Conquistas del Nuevo Reyno de Granada, Lib. i, Cap. iii.]

[Footnote 32 (#x7_x_7_i16): The reader willing to pursue the argument further can find these collections of ancient American laws in Sahagun, Historia de Nueva España, for Mexico; in 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 Incas, por el licenciado Fernando de Santillan (published at Madrid. 1879); and for the Muyscas, in Piedrahita, Hist. Gen. del Nuevo Reyno de Granada, Lib. ii, cap. v.]

[Footnote 33 (#x7_x_7_i17): P. Joseph de Acosta, Historia Natural y Moral de las Indias, Lib. vi, cap. 31 (Barcelona, 1591).]

[Footnote 34 (#x7_x_7_i18): See Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl, Historica Chichimeca, cap. xlix; and Joseph Joaquin Granados y Galvez, Tardes Americanas, p. 90 (Mexico, 1778).]

[Footnote 35 (#x7_x_7_i21): Roger Williams, A Key Into the Language of America, p. 152.]

[Footnote 36 (#x7_x_7_i22): See especially the Noticias sobre el Nuevo Reino de Granada, in the Colleccion de Documentos ineditos del Archivo de Indias, vol. v, p. 529.]

THE END

INDEXES

I. INDEX OF AUTHORS

Acosta, J. de

Alegre, F.X.

Anales del Museo Nacional de Mejico

Ancona, Eligio

Angrand, L.

Annals of Cuauhtitlan

Antonio, G.

Argoll, Capt

Avila, Francisco de

Bancroft, H.H.

Baraga, Frederick

Basalenque, D.

Becerra

Beltran, de Santa Rosa

Berendt, C.H.

Bernal Diaz

Bertonio, L.

Betanzos, Juan de

Bobadilla, F. de

Boturini, L.