The Myths of the New World Part 15

Baron Humboldt suggested that the suns were "fictions of mythological astronomy, modified either by obscure reminiscences of some great revolution suffered by our planet, or by physical hypotheses, suggested by the sight of marine petrifactions and fossil remains,"[216-1] while the Abbe Bra.s.seur, in his late works on ancient Mexico, interprets them as exaggerated references to historical events. As no solution can be accepted not equally applicable to the same myth as it appears in Yucatan, Peru, and the hunting tribes, and to the exactly parallel teachings of the Edda,[216-2] the Stoics, the Celts, and the Brahmans, both of these must be rejected. And although the Hindoo legend is so close to the Aztec, that it, too, defines four ages, each terminating by a general catastrophe, and each catastrophe exactly the same in both,[216-3] yet this is not at all indicative of a derivation from one original, but simply an ill.u.s.tration how the human mind, under the stimulus of the same intellectual cravings, produces like results. What these cravings are has already been shown.

The reason for adopting four ages, thus making the present the fifth, probably arose from the sacredness of that number in general; but directly, because this was the number of secular days in the Mexican week. A parallel is offered by the Hebrew narrative. In it six epochs or days precede the seventh or present cycle, in which the creative power rests. This latter corresponded to the Jewish Sabbath, the day of repose; and in the Mexican calendar each fifth day was also a day of repose, employed in marketing and pleasure.

Doubtless the theory of the Ages of the world was long in vogue among the Aztecs before it received the definite form in which we now have it; and as this was acquired long after the calendar was fixed, it is every way probable that the latter was used as a guide to the former.

Echevarria, a good authority on such matters, says the number of the Suns was agreed upon at a congress of astrologists, within the memory of tradition.[217-1] Now in the calendar, these signs occur in the order, earth, air, water, fire, corresponding to the days distinguished by the symbols house, rabbit, reed, and flint. This sequence, commencing with Tochtli (rabbit, air), is that given as that of the Suns in the Codex Chimalpopoca, translated by Bra.s.seur, though it seems a taint of European teaching, when it is added that on the _seventh_ day of the creation man was formed.[217-2]

Neither Jews nor Aztecs, nor indeed any American nation, appear to have supposed, with some of the old philosophers, that the present was an exact repet.i.tion of previous cycles,[218-1] but rather that each was an improvement on the preceding, a step in endless progress. Nor did either connect these beliefs with astronomical reveries of a great year, defined by the return of the heavenly bodies to one relative position in the heavens. The latter seems characteristic of the realism of Europe, the former of the idealism of the Orient; both inconsistent with the meagre astronomy and more scanty metaphysics of the red race.

The expectation of the end of the world is a natural complement to the belief in periodical destructions of our globe. As at certain times past the equipoise of nature was lost, and the elements breaking the chain of laws that bound them ran riot over the universe, involving all life in one mad havoc and desolation, so in the future we have to expect that day of doom, when the ocean tides shall obey no sh.o.r.e, but overwhelm the continents with their mountainous billows, or the fire, now chafing in volcanic craters and smoking springs, will leap forth on the forests and gra.s.sy meadows, wrapping all things in a winding sheet of flame, and melting the very elements with fervid heat. Then, in the language of the Norse prophetess, "shall the sun grow dark, the land sink in the waters, the bright stars be quenched, and high flames climb heaven itself."[218-2] These fearful foreboding shave[TN-9] cast their dark shadow on every literature. The seeress of the north does but paint in wilder colors the terrible pictures of Seneca,[219-1] and the sibyl of the capitol only re-echoes the inspired predictions of Malachi. Well has the Christian poet said:--

Dies irae, dies illa, Solvet saeclum in favilla, _Testis David c.u.m Sibyla_.

Savage races, isolated in the impenetrable forests of another continent, could not escape this fearful looking for of destruction to come. It oppressed their souls like a weight of lead. On the last night of each cycle of fifty-two years, the Aztecs extinguished every fire, and proceeded, in solemn procession, to some sacred spot. Then the priests, with awe and trembling, sought to kindle a new fire by friction.

Momentous was the endeavor, for did it fail, their fathers had taught them on the morrow no sun would rise, and darkness, death, and the waters would descend forever on this beautiful world.

The same terror inspired the Peruvians at every eclipse, for some day, taught the Amautas, the shadow will veil the sun forever, and land, moon, and stars will be wrapt in the vortex of a devouring conflagration to know no regeneration; or a drought will wither every herb of the field, suck up the waters, and leave the race to perish to the last creature; or the moon will fall from her place in the heavens and involve all things in her own ruin, a figure of speech meaning that the waters would submerge the land.[220-1] In that dreadful day, thought the Algonkins, when in anger Michabo will send a mortal pestilence to destroy the nations, or, stamping his foot on the ground, flames will burst forth to consume the habitable land, only a pair, or only, at most, those who have maintained inviolate the inst.i.tutions he ordained, will he protect and preserve to inhabit the new world he will then fabricate. Therefore they do not speak of this catastrophe as the end of the world, but use one of those nice grammatical distinctions so frequent in American aboriginal languages and which can only be imitated, not interpreted, in ours, signifying "when it will be near its end," "when it will no longer be available for man."[220-2]

An ancient prophecy handed down from their ancestors warns the Winnebagoes that their nation shall be annihilated at the close of the thirteenth generation. Ten have already pa.s.sed, and that now living has appointed ceremonies to propitiate the powers of heaven, and mitigate its stern decree.[220-3] Well may they be about it, for there is a gloomy probability that the warning came from no false prophet. Few tribes were dest.i.tute of such presentiments. The Chikasaw, the Mandans of the Missouri, the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico, the Muyscas of Bogota, the Botocudos of Brazil, the Araucanians of Chili, have been a.s.serted on testimony that leaves no room for scepticism, to have entertained such forebodings from immemorial time. Enough for the purpose if the list is closed with the prediction of a Maya priest, cherished by the inhabitants of Yucatan long before the Spaniard desolated their stately cities. It is one of those preserved by Father Lizana, cure of Itzamal, and of which he gives the original. Other witnesses inform us that this nation "had a tradition that the world would end,"[221-1] and probably, like the Greeks and Aztecs, they supposed the G.o.ds would perish with it.

"At the close of the ages, it hath been decreed, Shall perish and vanish each weak G.o.d of men, And the world shall be purged with a ravening fire.

Happy the man in that terrible day, Who bewails with contrition the sins of his life,[221-2]

And meets without flinching the fiery ordeal."

FOOTNOTES:

[193-1] So far as this applies to the Eskimos, it might be questioned on the authority of Paul Egede, whose valuable _Nachrichten von Gronland_ 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.

[194-1] Pictet, _Origines Indo-Europeennes_ in Michelet, _La Mer_. The latter has many eloquent and striking remarks on the impressions left by the great ocean.

[195-1] "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.

[195-2] Schoolcraft, _Ind. Tribes_, i. p. 266.

[196-1] Mackenzie, _Hist. of the Fur Trade_, p. 83; Richardson, _Arctic Expedition_, p. 239.

[196-2] Ximenes, _Or. de los Ind. de Guat._, pp. 5-7. I translate freely, following Ximenes rather than Bra.s.seur.

[197-1] Garcia, _Or. de los Indios_, lib. v. cap. 4.

[197-2] _Doc. Hist. of New York_, iv. p. 130 (circ. 1650).

[197-3] _Rel. de la Nouv. France_, An 1636, p. 101.

[198-1] _Rel. de la Nouv. France_, An 1634, p. 13.

[199-1] _Conquest of Mexico_, i. p. 61.

[200-1] For instance, Epictetus favors the opinion that at the solstices of the great year not only all human beings, but even the G.o.ds, 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).

[201-1] Schoolcraft, _Ind. Tribes_, iii. p. 263, iv. p. 230.

[201-2] Oviedo, _Hist. du Nicaragua_, pp. 22, 27.

[201-3] Muller, _Amer. Urrelig._, p. 254, from Max and Denis.

[202-1] Morse, _Rep. on the Ind. Tribes_, App. p. 346; D'Orbigny, _Frag.

d'un Voyage dans l'Amer. Merid._, p. 512.

[202-2] When, as in the case of one of the Mexican Noahs, c.o.xc.o.x, this does not seem to hold good, it is probably owing to a loss of the real form of the myth. c.o.xc.o.x is also known by the name of c.i.p.actli, Fish-G.o.d, and Huehue tonaca c.i.p.actli, Old Fish-G.o.d of Our Flesh.

[202-3] My knowledge of the Sanscrit form of the flood-myth is drawn princ.i.p.ally from the dissertation of Professor Felix Neve, ent.i.tled _La Tradition Indienne du Deluge dans sa Forme la plus ancienne_, Paris, 1851. There is in the oldest versions no distinct reference to an antediluvian race, and in India Manu is by common consent the Adam as well as the Noah of their legends.

[203-1] Prescott, _Conquest of Peru_, i. p. 88; _Codex Vatica.n.u.s_, No.

3776, in Kingsborough.

[203-2] And also various peculiarities of style and language lost in translation. The two accounts of the Deluge are given side by side in Dr.

Smith's _Dictionary of the Bible_ under the word Pentateuch.

[203-3] See the dissertation of Prof. Neve referred to above.

[203-4] _American State Papers_, Indian Affairs, i. p. 729. Date of legend, 1801.

[204-1] Molina, _Hist. of Chili_, ii. p. 82.

[205-1] Richardson, _Arctic Expedition_, p. 239.

[205-2] Dumont, _Mems. Hist. sur la Louisiane_, i. p. 163.

[205-3] Schoolcraft, _Ind. Tribes_, v. p. 686.

[206-1] Desjardins, _Le Perou avant la Conq. Espagn._, p. 27.

[207-1] Cod. Chimalpopoca, in Bra.s.seur, _Hist. du Mexique_, Pieces Justificatives.

[207-2] These four birds, whose names have lost their signification, represent doubtless the four winds, or the four rivers, which, as in so many legends, are the active agents in overwhelming the world in its great crises.

[208-1] The word rendered mill-stone, in the original means those large hollowed stones on which the women were accustomed to bruise the maize.

The imitative sounds for which I have subst.i.tuted others in English, are in Quiche, _holi, holi, huqui, huqui_.

[209-1] Bra.s.seur translates "quoique nous ne sentissions rien," but Ximenes, "nos quemasteis, y sentimos el dolor." As far as I can make out the original, it is the negative conditional as I have given it in the text.

[209-2] _Le Livre Sacre_, p. 27; Ximenes, _Or. de los Indios_, p. 13.

[210-1] The American nations among whom a distinct and well-authenticated myth of the deluge was found are as follows: Athapascas, Algonkins, Iroquois, Cherokees, Chikasaws, Caddos, Natchez, Dakotas, Apaches, Navajos, Mandans, Pueblo Indians, Aztecs, Mixtecs, Zapotecs, Tlascalans, Mechoacans, Toltecs, Nahuas, Mayas, Quiches, Haitians, natives of Darien and Popoyan, Muyscas, Quichuas, Tuppinambas, Achaguas, Araucanians, and doubtless others. The article by M. de Charency in the _Revue Americaine, Le Deluge, d'apres les Traditions Indiennes de l'Amerique du Nord_, contains some valuable extracts, but is marred by a lack of criticism of sources, and makes no attempt at a.n.a.lysis, nor offers for their existence a rational explanation.

[211-1] _Une Fete Bresilienne celebre a Rouen en 1550, par M. Ferdinand Denis_, p. 82 (quoted in the _Revue Americaine_, ii. p. 317). The native words in this account guarantee its authenticity. In the Tupi language, _tata_ means fire; _parana_, ocean; Monan, perhaps from _monane_, to mingle, to temper, as the potter the clay (_Dias, Diccionario da Lingua Tupy_: Lipsia, 1858). Irin monge may be an old form from _mongat-iron_, to set in order, to restore, to improve (_Martius, Beitrage zur Ethnographie und Sprachenkunde Amerika's_, ii. p. 70).

[213-1] Professor Neve, _ubi supra_, from the Zatapatha Brahmana.