The Myths of the New World

279

Journal of Capt. Johnson, in Emory, Reconnoissance of New Mexico, p. 601.

280

M. De Charency, in the Revue Américaine, ii. p. 317. Tupa it may be observed means in Quichua, lord, or royal. Father Holguin gives as an example â tupa Dios, O Lord God (Vocabulario Quichua, p. 348: Ciudad de los Reyes, 1608). In the Quiché dialects tepeu is one of the common appellations of divinity and is also translated lord or ruler. We are not yet sufficiently advanced in the study of American philology to draw any inference from these resemblances, but they should not be overlooked.

281

Cortes, Carta Primera, pp. 113, 114.

282

Sahagun, Hist. de la Nueva España, lib. xii. caps. 2, 3.

283

La Vega, Hist. des Incas, lib. ix. cap. 15.

284

Peter Martyr, De Reb. Oceanicis, Dec. iii. lib. vii.

285

Lizana, Hist. de Nuestra Señora de Itzamal, lib. ii. cap. i. in Brasseur, Hist. du Mexique, ii. p. 605. The prophecies are of the priest who bore the title—not name—chilan balam, and whose offices were those of divination and astrology. The verse claims to date from about 1450, and was very well known throughout Yucatan, so it is said. The number thirteen which in many of these prophecies is the supposed limit of the present order of things, is doubtless derived from the observation that thirteen moons complete one solar year.

286

Squier, Travels in Nicaragua, ii. p. 35.

287

Whipple, Report on the Ind. Tribes, p. 36. Emory, Recon. of New Mexico, p. 64. The latter adds that among the Pueblo Indians, the Apaches, and Navajos, the name of Montezuma is “as familiar as Washington to us.” This is the more curious, as neither the Pueblo Indians nor either of the other tribes are in any way related to the Aztec race by language, as has been shown by Dr. Buschman, Die Voelker und Sprachen Neu Mexico’s, p. 262.

288

Humboldt, Essay on New Spain, bk. ii. chap. vi, Eng. trans.; Ansichten der Natur, ii. pp. 357, 386.

289

So far as this applies to the Eskimos, it might be questioned on the authority of Paul Egede, whose valuable Nachrichten von Grönland contains several flood-myths, &c. But these Eskimos had had for generations intercourse with European missionaries and sailors, and as the other tribes of their stock were singularly devoid of corresponding traditions, it is likely that in Greenland they were of foreign origin.

290

Pictet, Origines Indo-Européennes in Michelet, La Mer. The latter has many eloquent and striking remarks on the impressions left by the great ocean.

291

“Spiritus Dei incubuit superficei aquarum” is the translation of one writer. The word for spirit in Hebrew, as in Latin, originally meant wind, as I have before remarked.

292

Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, i. p. 266.

293

Mackenzie, Hist. of the Fur Trade, p. 83; Richardson, Arctic Expedition, p. 239.

294

Ximenes, Or. de los Ind. de Guat., pp. 5-7. I translate freely, following Ximenes rather than Brasseur.

295

Garcia, Or. de los Indios, lib. v. cap. 4.

296

Doc. Hist. of New York, iv. p. 130 (circ. 1650).

297

Rel. de la Nouv. France, An 1636, p. 101.

298

Rel. de la Nouv. France, An 1634, p. 13.

299

Conquest of Mexico, i. p. 61.

300

For instance, Epictetus favors the opinion that at the solstices of the great year not only all human beings, but even the gods, are annihilated; and speculates whether at such times Jove feels lonely (Discourses, bk. iii. chap. 13). Macrobius, so far from coinciding with him, explains the great antiquity of Egyptian civilization by the hypothesis that that country is so happily situated between the pole and equator, as to escape both the deluge and conflagration of the great cycle (Somnium Scipionis, lib. ii. cap. 10).

301

Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, iii. p. 263, iv. p. 230.

302

Oviedo, Hist. du Nicaragua, pp. 22, 27.

303

Müller, Amer. Urrelig., p. 254, from Max and Denis.