American Hero-Myths: A Study in the Native Religions of the Western Continent. Daniel G. Brinton

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СКАЧАТЬ but grew again to some likeness of the older Dyâus, so Odhinn came to absorb almost all the qualities which belong of right to a higher god. Yet he did this without putting off his proper nature. He was the heaven as well as the wind; he was the All-father, embracing all the earth and looking down upon mankind."]

      [Footnote 12: H.R. Schoolcraft, Algic Researches, Vol. i, p. 216. Indian Tribes, Vol. v, p. 420.]

      [Footnote 13: "Michabou, le Dieu des Eaux," etc. Charlevoix, Journal Historique, p. 281 (Paris, 1721).]

      [Footnote 14: John Tanner, Narrative of Captivity and Adventure, p. 351. Schoolcraft, Indian Tribes, Vol. v, p. 420, etc.]

[Footnote 15: Thomas Campanius (Holm), Description of the Province of New Sweden, book iii, ch. xi. Campanius does not give the name of the hero-god, but there can be no doubt that it was the "Great Hare."]

[Footnote 16: The sources from which I draw the elements of the Iroquois hero-myth of Ioskeha are mainly the following: Relations de la Nouvelle France, 1636, 1640, 1671, etc. Sagard, Histoire du Canada, pp. 451, 452 (Paris, 1636); David Cusick, Ancient History of the Six Nations, and manuscript material kindly furnished me by Horatio Hale, Esq., who has made a thorough study of the Iroquois history and dialects.]

[Footnote 17: Such epithets were common, in the Egyptian religion, to most of the gods of fertility. Amun, called in some of the inscriptions "the soul of Osiris," derives his name from the root men, to impregnate, to beget. In the Karnak inscriptions he is also termed "the husband of his mother." This, too, was the favorite appellation of Chem, who was a form of Horos. See Dr. C.P. Tiele, History of the Egyptian Religion, pp. 124, 146. 149, 150, etc.]

[Footnote 18: I have analyzed these words in a note to another work, and need not repeat the matter here, the less so, as I am not aware that the etymology has been questioned. See Myths of the New World, 2d Ed., p. 183, note.]

[Footnote 19: A careful analysis of this name is given by Father J.A. Cuoq, probably the best living authority on the Iroquois, in his Lexique de la Langue Iroquoise, p. 180 (Montreal, 1882). Here also the Iroquois followed precisely the line of thought of the ancient Egyptians. Shu, in the religion of Heliopolis, represented the cosmic light and warmth, the quickening, creative principle. It is he who, as it is stated in the inscriptions, "holds up the heavens," and he is depicted on the monuments as a man with uplifted arms who supports the vault of heaven, because it is the intermediate light that separates the earth from the sky. Shu was also god of the winds; in a passage of the Book of the Dead, he is made to say: "I am Shu, who drives the winds onward to the confines of heaven, to the confines of the earth, even to the confines of space." Again, like Ioskeha, Shu is said to have begotten himself in the womb of his mother, Nu or Nun, who was, like Ataensic, the goddess of water, the heavenly ocean, the primal sea. Tiele, History of the Egyptian Religion, pp. 84–86.]

[Footnote 20: Cuoq, Lexique de la Langue Iroquoise, p. 180, who gives a full analysis of the name.]

      CHAPTER III.

      THE HERO-GOD OF THE AZTEC TRIBES.

       §1. The Two Antagonists.

      THE CONTEST OF QUETZALCOATL AND TEZCATLIPOCA--QUETZALCOATL THE LIGHT-GOD--DERIVATION OF HIS NAME--TITLES OF TEZCATLIPOCA--IDENTIFIED WITH DARKNESS, NIGHT AND GLOOM.

       §2. Quetzalcoatl the God.

      MYTH OF THE FOUR BROTHERS--THE FOUR SUNS AND THE ELEMENTAL CONFLICT--NAMES OF THE FOUR BROTHERS.

       §3. Quetzalcoatl the Hero of Tula.

      TULA THE CITY OF THE SUN--WHO WERE THE TOLTECS?--TLAPALLAN AND XALAC--THE BIRTH OF THE HERO-GOD--HIS VIRGIN MOTHER, CHIMALMATL--HIS MIRACULOUS CONCEPTION--AZTLAN, THE LAND OF SEVEN CAVES, AND COLHUACAN, THE BENDED MOUNT--THE MAID XOCHITL AND THE ROSE GARDEN OF THE GODS--QUETZALCOATL AS THE WHITE AND BEARDED STRANGER.

      THE GLORY OF THE LORD OF TULA--THE SUBTLETY OF THE SORCERER, TEZCATLIPOCA--THE MAGIC MIRROR AND THE MYSTIC DRAUGHT--THE MYTH EXPLAINED--THE PROMISE OF REJUVENATION--THE TOVEYO AND THE MAIDEN--THE JUGGLERIES OF TEZCATLIPOCA--DEPARTURE OF QUETZALCOATL FROM TULA--QUETZALCOATL AT CHOLULA--HIS DEATH OR DEPARTURE--THE CELESTIAL GAME OF BALL AND TIGER SKIN--QUETZALCOATL AS THE PLANET VENUS.

       §4. Quetzalcoatl as Lord of the Winds.

      THE LORD OF THE FOUR WINDS--HIS SYMBOLS THE WHEEL OF THE WINDS, THE PENTAGON AND THE CROSS--CLOSE RELATION TO THE GODS OF RAIN AND WATERS--INVENTOR OF THE CALENDAR--GOD OF FERTILITY AND CONCEPTION--RECOMMENDS SEXUAL AUSTERITY--PHALLIC SYMBOLS--GOD OF MERCHANTS--THE PATRON OF THIEVES--HIS PICTOGRAPHIC REPRESENTATIONS.

       §5. The Return of Quetzalcoatl.

      HIS EXPECTED RE-APPEARANCE--THE ANXIETY OF MONTEZUMA--HIS ADDRESS TO CORTES--THE GENERAL EXPECTATION--EXPLANATION OF HIS PREDICTED RETURN.

      I now turn from the wild hunting tribes who peopled the shores of the Great Lakes and the fastnesses of the northern forests to that cultivated race whose capital city was in the Valley of Mexico, and whose scattered colonies were found on the shores of both oceans from the mouths of the Rio Grande and the Gila, south, almost to the Isthmus of Panama. They are familiarly known as Aztecs or Mexicans, and the language common to them all was the Nahuatl, a word of their own, meaning "the pleasant sounding."

      Their mythology has been preserved in greater fullness than that of any other American people, and for this reason I am enabled to set forth in ampler detail the elements of their hero-myth, which, indeed, may be taken as the most perfect type of those I have collected in this volume.

§1. The Two Antagonists.

      The culture hero of the Aztecs was Quetzalcoatl, and the leading drama, the central myth, in all the extensive and intricate theology of the Nahuatl speaking tribes was his long contest with Tezcatlipoca, "a contest," observes an eminent Mexican antiquary, "which came to be the main element in the Nahuatl religion and the cause of its modifications, and which materially influenced the destinies of that race from its earliest epochs to the time of its destruction."[1]

      The explanations which have been offered of this struggle have varied with the theories of the writers propounding them. It has been regarded as a simple historical fact; as a figure of speech to represent the struggle for supremacy between two races; as an astronomical statement referring to the relative positions of the planet Venus and the Moon; as a conflict between Christianity, introduced by Saint Thomas, and the native heathenism; and as having other meanings not less unsatisfactory or absurd.

      Placing it side by side with other American hero-myths, we shall see that it presents essentially the same traits, and undoubtedly must be explained in the same manner. All of them are the transparent stories of a simple people, to express in intelligible terms the daily struggle that is ever going on between Day and Night, between Light and Darkness, between Storm and Sunshine.

      Like all the heroes of light, СКАЧАТЬ