In the earlier acts of worship the tendency is to assimilate the object worshiped and the character of the worshiper, and also to assign habitations to deities, behind man's immediate environment. Every people has its heaven and hell; the former most generally located beyond the blue sky, and the latter in the dark interior caves of the earth. Man in nature reproduces himself; invests appearances with attributes analogous to his own. This likeness of the supernatural to the natural, of gods to man, is the first advance from fetichism, but as the intellect advances anthropomorphism declines. As one by one the nearest mysteries are solved by science, the emptiness of superstition becomes apparent, and the wonderless wonder is referred by the waking mind to general laws of causation; but still clinging to its first conceptions it places them on objects more remote. Man fixes his eyes upon the planets, discovers their movements, and fancies their controlling spirit also controls his destiny; and when released by reason from star-worship, as formerly from fetichism, again an advance is made, always nearing the doctrine of universal law.

In one tersely comprehensive sentence Clarke gives the old view of what were called natural religions: "They considered them, in their source, the work of fraud; in their essence, corrupt superstitions; in their doctrines, wholly false; in their moral tendency, absolutely injurious; and in their result, degenerating more and more into greater evil."

PRIESTCRAFT AND PROPITIATION.

And this view seems to him alike uncharitable and unreasonable: "To assume that they are wholly evil is disrespectful to human nature. It supposes man to be the easy and universal dupe of fraud. But these religions do not rest on such a sandy foundation, but on the feeling of dependence, the sense of accountability, the recognition of spiritual realities very near to this world of matter, and the need of looking up and worshiping some unseen power higher and better than ourselves. We shall find them always feeling after God, often finding him. We shall see that in their origin they are not the work of priestcraft, but of human nature; in their essence not superstitions, but religions; in their doctrines true more frequently than false; in their moral tendency good rather than evil. And instead of degenerating toward something worse, they come to prepare the way for something better."

The nearest case to deliberate invention of deities was, perhaps, the promulgation as objects of worship in primitive times of such abstractions as Hope (Spes), Fear (Pallor), Concord (Concordia), Courage (Virtus), etc. How far these gods were gods, however, in even the ordinary heathen sense of the word, is doubtful. In any case, they were but the extension of an old and existent principle—the personification of divine aspects or qualities; they added no more to what went before than a new Saint or Virgin of Loretto does to the Catholic Church.

"It was a favorite opinion with the Christian apologists, Eusebius and others," says Gladstone, "that the pagan deities represented deified men. Others consider them to signify the powers of external nature personified. For others they are, in many cases, impersonations of human passions and propensities, reflected back from the mind of man. A fourth mode of interpretation would treat them as copies, distorted and depraved, of a primitive system of religion given by God to man. The Apostle St. Paul speaks of them as devils; by which he may perhaps intend to convey that, under the names and in connection with the worship of those deities, the worst influences of the Evil One were at work. This would rather be a subjective than an objective description; and would rather convey an account of the practical working of a corrupted religion, than an explanation of its origin or its early course. As between the other four, it seems probable that they all, in various degrees and manners, entered into the composition of the later paganism, and also of the Homeric or Olympian system. That system, however, was profoundly adverse to mere Nature-worship; while the care of departments or provinces of external nature were assigned to its leading personages. Such worship of natural objects or elemental powers, as prevailed in connection with it, was in general local or secondary. And the deification of heroes in the age of Homer was rare and merely titular. We do not find that any cult or system of devotion was attached to it."

So humanly divine, so impotently great are the gods of Homer; so thoroughly invested with the passions of men, clothed in distinctive shades of human character; such mingled virtue and vice, love and hate, courage and cowardice; animal passions uniting with noble sentiments; base and vulgar thoughts with lofty and sublime ideas; and all so wrought up by his inimitable fancy into divine and supernatural beings, as to work most powerfully upon the nature of the people.

These concrete conceptions of his deities have ever been a source of consolation to the savage; for, by thus bringing down the gods to a nearer level with himself, they could be more materially propitiated, and their protection purchased with gifts and sacrifices. Thus the Greeks could obtain advice through oracles, the Hindoo could pass at once into eternal joys by throwing himself under the car of Juggernaut, while the latter-day offender seeks in the assistance of the departed to buy forgiveness with charities, and to compound crime by building churches.

UNRECORDED FACTS SOON BECOME MYTHOLOGICAL.

The difficulty is, that in attempting to establish any theory concerning the origin of things, the soundest logic is little else than wild speculation. Mankind progress unconsciously. We know not what problems we ourselves are working out for those who come after us; we know not by what process we arrive at many of our conclusions; much of that which is clear to ourselves is never understood by our neighbor, and never will be even known by our posterity. Events the most material are soon forgotten, or else are made spiritual and preserved as myths. Blot out the process by which science arrived at results, and in every achievement of science, in the steam engine, the electric telegraph, we should soon have a heaven-descended agency, a god for every machine. Where mythology ceases and history begins, is in the annals of every nation a matter of dispute. What at first appears to be wholly fabulous may contain some truth, whereas much of what is held to be true is mere fable, and herein excessive skepticism is as unwise as excessive credulity.

Historical facts, if unrecorded, are soon lost. Thus when Juan de Oñate penetrated New Mexico in 1596, Fray Marco de Niza, and the expedition of Coronado in 1540, appear to have been entirely forgotten by the Cibolans. Fathers Crespi and Junípero Serra, in their overland explorations of 1769, preparatory to the establishment of a line of Missions along the Californian seaboard, could find no traces, in the minds of the natives, of Cabrillo's voyage in 1542, or of the landing of Sir Francis Drake in 1579; although, so impressed were the savages in the latter instance, that, according to the worthy chaplain of the expedition, they desired "with submission and fear to worship us as gods." Nor can we think civilized memories—which ascribe the plays of Shakespeare to Bacon, and parcel out the Iliad of Homer among numberless unrecorded verse-makers—more tenacious. Frederick Augustus Wolf denies that a Homer ever existed; or, if he did, that he ever wrote his poem, as writing was at that time not generally known; but he claims that snatches of history, descending orally from one generation to another, in the end coalesced into the matchless Iliad and Odyssey. The event which so strongly impressed the father, becomes vague in the mind of the son, and in the third generation is either lost or becomes legendary. Incidents of recent occurrence, contemporary perhaps with the narration, are sometimes so misinterpreted by ignorance or distorted by prejudice, as to place the fact strangely at variance with the recital. Yet no incident nor action falls purposeless to the ground. Unrecorded it may be, unwitnessed, unheard by beings material; a thought-wave even, lost in space invisible, acting, for aught we know, only upon the author; yet so acting, it casts an influence, stamps on fleeting time its record, thereby fulfilling its destiny. Thus linger vapory conceits long after the action which created them has sunk into oblivion; undefined shadows of substance departed; none the less impressive because mingled with immortal imagery.

Turn now from outward events to inner life; from events grown shadowy with time, to life ever dim and mysterious alike to savage and sage. Everywhere man beholds much that is incomprehensible; within, around, the past, the future. Invisible forces are at work, invisible agencies play upon his destiny. And in the creations of fancy, which of necessity grow out of the influence of nature upon the imagination, it is not strange that mysteries darken, facts and fancies blend; the past and the future uniting in a supernatural present.

We are never content with positive knowledge. From the earliest workings of the mind, creations of fancy play as important a part in ethical economy as positive perceptions. Nor does culture in any wise lessen these fanciful creations of the intellect. In the political arena of civilized nations, wars and revolutions for the enforcement of opinion concerning matters beyond the reach of positive knowledge, have equaled if they have not exceeded wars for empire or ascendancy. In the social and individual affairs of life we are governed more by the ideal than by the real. On reaching the limits of positive knowledge, reason pauses, but fancy overleaps the boundary, and wanders forward in an endless waste of speculation.

RELIGIOUS AND SCIENTIFIC ULTIMATES.

The tendency of intellectual progress, according to the philosophy of Herbert Spencer, is from the concrete to the abstract, from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous, from the knowable to the unknowable. Primordially nothing was known; as superstitions and priestcraft grew rank, everything became known; there was not a problem in the natural or in the supernatural world unsolvable by religion. Now, when some elements of absolute knowledge are beginning to appear, we discover, not only that little is positively known, but that much of what has been hitherto deemed past controverting, is, under the present régime of thought, absolutely unknowable. Formerly ultimate religious knowledge was attained by the very novices of religion, and ultimate scientific knowledge was explained through their fanatical conceptions. Not only were all the mysteries of the material universe easily solved by the Fathers, but heaven was measured and the phenomena of hell minutely described. Now we are just beginning to comprehend that ultimate facts will probably ever remain unknowable facts, for when the present ultimate is attained, an eternity of undiscovered truth will still lay stretched out before the searcher. Until the finite becomes infinite, and time lapses into eternity, the realm of thought will remain unfilled. At present, and until the scope of the intellect is materially enlarged, such theories as the origin of the universe—held by atheists to be self-existent, by pantheists to have been self-created, and by theists to have been originated by an external agency—must remain, as they are now admitted to be, questions beyond even the comprehension of the intellect. Likewise scientific ultimates—such as the qualities of time and space, the divisibility of matter, the co-ordination of motion and rest, the correlation of forces, the mysteries of gravitation, light and heat—are found to be not only not solvable, but not conceivable. And, as with the external, so with the inward life; we cannot conceive the nature, nor explain the origin and duration, of consciousness. The endless speculations of biology and psychology only leave impressions at once of the strength and weakness of the mind of man; strong in empirical knowledge, impotent in every attempt rationally to penetrate the unfathomable. Nowhere in mythology do we find the world self-created or self-existent. Some external agency is ever brought in to perform the work, and in the end the structure of the universe is resolved into its original elements.

Primordial man finds himself surrounded by natural phenomena, the operations of which his intelligence is capable of grasping but partially. Certain appetites sharpen, at once, certain instincts. Hunger makes him acquainted with the fruits of the earth; cold with the skins of beasts. Accident supplies him with rude implements, and imparts to him a knowledge of his power over animals. But as instinct merges into intellect, strange powers in nature are felt; invisible agents wielding invisible weapons; realities which exist unheard and move unseen; outward manifestations of hidden strength. Humanity, divine, but wild and wondering, half-fed, half-clad, ranges woods primeval, hears the roar of battling elements, sees the ancient forest-tree shivered into fragments by heaven's artillery, feels the solid earth rise up in rumbling waves beneath his feet. He receives, as it were, a blow from within the darkness, and flinging himself upon the ground he begs protection; from what he knows not, of whom he knows not. "Bury me not, O tumultuous heavens," he cries, "under the clouds of your displeasure!" "Strike me not down in wrath, O fierce flaming fire!" "Earth, be firm!" Here, then, is the origin of prayer. And to render more effectual his entreaties, a gift is offered. Seizing upon whatever he prizes most, his food, his raiment, he rushes forth and hurls his propitiatory offering heavenward, earthward, whithersoever his frenzied fancy dictates. Or, if this is not enough, the still more dearly valued gift of human blood or human life is offered. His own flesh he freely lacerates; to save his own life he gives that of his enemy, his slave, or even his child. Hence arises sacrifice.

ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OF PRIESTCRAFT.

And here also conjurings commence. The necessity is felt of opening up some intercourse with these mysterious powers; relations commercial and social; calamities and casualties, personal and public, must be traced to causes, and the tormenting demon bought off. But it is clearly evident that these elemental forces are not all of them inimical to the happiness of mankind. Sunshine, air and water, the benign influences in nature, are as powerful to create, as the adverse elements are to destroy. And as these forces appear conflicting, part productive of life and enjoyment, and part of destruction, decay, and death, a separation is made. Hence principles of good and evil are discovered; and to all these unaccountable forces in nature, names and properties are given, and causations invented. For every act there is an actor—for every deed a doer; for every power and passion there is made a god.

Thus we see that worship in some form is a human necessity, or, at least, a constant accompaniment of humanity. Until perfect wisdom and limitless power are the attributes of humanity, adoration will continue; for men will never cease to reverence what they do not understand, nor will they cease to fear such elements of strength as are beyond their control. The form of this conciliatory homage appears to arise from common human instincts; for, throughout the world and in all ages, a similarity in primitive religious forms has existed. It is a giving of something; the barter of a valuable something for a something more valuable. As in his civil polity all crimes may be compounded or avenged, so in his worship, the savage gives his pride, his property, or his blood.

At first, this spirit power is seen in everything; in the storm and in the soft evening air; in clouds and cataracts, in mountains, rocks, and rivers; in trees, in reptiles, beasts, and fishes. But when progressive man obtains a more perfect mastery over the brute creation, brute worship ceases; as he becomes familiar with the causes of some of the forces in nature, and is better able to protect himself from them, the fear of natural objects is lessened. Leaving the level of the brute creation he mounts upward, and selecting from his own species some living or dead hero, he endows a king or comrade with superhuman attributes, and worships his dead fellow as a divine being. Still he tunes his thoughts to subtler creations, and carves with skillful fingers material images of supernatural forms. Then comes idolatry. The great principles of causation being determined and embodied in perceptible forms, adorations ensue. Cravings, however, increase. As the intellect expands, one idol after another is thrown down. Mind assumes the mastery over matter. From gods of wood and stone, made by men's fingers, and from suns and planets, carved by the fingers of omnipotence, the creature now turns to the Creator. A form of ideal worship supplants the material form; gods known and tangible are thrown aside for the unknown God. And well were it for the intellect could it stop here. But, as the actions of countless material gods were clear to the primitive priest, and by him satisfactorily explained to the savage masses; so, in this more advanced state men are not wanting who receive from their ideal god revelations of his actions and motives. To its new, unknown, ideal god, the partially awakened human mind attaches the positive attributes of the old, material deities, or invents new ones, and starts anew to tread the endless mythologic circle; until in yet a higher state it discovers that both god and attributes are wholly beyond its grasp, and that with all its progress, it has advanced but slightly beyond the first savage conception;—a power altogether mysterious, inexplicable to science, controlling phenomena of mind and matter.

Barbarians are the most religious of mortals. While the busy, overworked brain of the scholar or man of business is occupied with more practical affairs, the listless mind of the savage, thrown as he is upon the very bosom of nature, is filled with innumerable conjectures and interrogatories. His curiosity, like that of a child, is proverbial, and as superstition is ever the resource of ignorance, queer fancies and fantasms concerning life and death, and gods and devils float continually through his unenlightened imagination.

Ill-protected from the elements, his comfort and his uncertain food-supply depending upon them, primitive man regards nature with eager interest. Like the beasts, his forest companions, he places himself as far as possible in harmony with his environment. He migrates with the seasons; feasts when food is plenty, fasts in famine-time; basks and gambols in the sunshine, cowers beneath the fury of the storm, crawls from the cold into his den, and there quasi-torpidly remains until nature releases him. Is it therefore strange that savage intellect peoples the elements with supernatural powers; that God is everywhere, in everything; in the most trifling accident and incident, as well as in the sun, the sea, the grove; that when evil comes God is angry, when fortune smiles God is favorable; and that he speaks to his wild, untutored people in signs and dreams, in the tempest and in the sunshine. Nor does he withhold the still, small voice, which breathes upon minds most darkened, and into breasts the most savage, a spirit of progress, which, if a people be left to the free fulfillment of their destiny, is sure, sooner or later, to ripen into full development.

ORIGIN OF FETICHISM.

We will now glance at the origin of fetichism, which indeed may be called the origin of ideal religion, from the other standpoint; that which arises from the respect men feel for the memory of their departed ancestors.

The first conception of a dualty in man's nature has been attributed to various causes; it may be the result of a combination of causes. There is the shadow upon the ground, separate, yet inseparable; the reflection of the form upon the water; the echo of the voice, the adventures of fancy portrayed by dreams. Self is divisible from and inseparably connected with this other self. Herefrom arise innumerable superstitions; it was portentous of misfortune for one's clothes to be stepped on; no food must be left uneaten; nail clippings and locks of hair must not fall into the hands of an enemy. Catlin, in sketching his portraits, often narrowly escaped with his life, the Indians believing that in their likenesses he carried away their other self. And when death comes, and this other self departs, whither has it gone? The lifeless body remains, but where is the life? The mind cannot conceive of the total extinguishment of an entity, and so the imagination rears a local habitation for every departed spirit. Every phenomenon and every event is analyzed under this hypothesis. For every event there is not only a cause, but a personal cause, an independent agent behind every consequence. Every animal, every fish and bird, every rock and stream and plant, the ripening fruit, the falling rain, the uncertain wind, the sun and stars, are all personified. There is no disease without its god or devil, no fish entangled in the net, no beast or bird that falls before the hunter, without its special sender.

Savages are more afraid of a dead man than a live one. They are overwhelmed with terror at the thought of this unseen power over them. The spirit of the departed is omnipotent and omnipresent. At any cost or hazard it must be propitiated. So food is placed in the grave; wives and slaves, and horses and dogs, are slain, and in spirit sent to serve the ghost of the departed; phantom messengers are sent to the region of shadows from time to time; the messengers sometimes even volunteering to go. So boats and weapons and all the property of the deceased are burned or deposited with him. In the hand of the dead child is placed a toy; in that of the departed warrior, the symbolic pipe of peace, which is to open a tranquil entrance into his new abode; clothes, and ornaments, and paint, are conveniently placed, and thus a proper personal appearance guaranteed. Not that the things themselves are to be used, but the souls of things. The body of the chief rots, as does the material substance of the articles buried with it; but the soul of every article follows the soul of its owner, to serve its own peculiar end in the land of phantoms.

THE WORSHIP OF DEAD ANCESTORS.

The Chinese, grown cunning with the great antiquity of their burial customs, which require money and food to be deposited for the benefit of the deceased, spiritualize the money, by making an imitation coin of pasteboard, while the food, untouched by the dead, is finally eaten by themselves.

But whence arises the strange propensity of all primitive nations to worship animals, and plants, and stones, things animate and inanimate, natural and supernatural? Why is it that all nations or tribes select from nature some object which they hold to be sacred, and which they venerate as deity? It is the opinion of Herbert Spencer that "the rudimentary form of all religion is the propitiation of dead ancestors, who are supposed to be still existing, and to be capable of working good or evil to their descendants." It is the universal custom with savage tribes, as the character of their members becomes developed, to drop the real name of individuals and to fix upon them the attribute of some external object, by whose name only they are afterwards known. Thus a swift runner is called the 'antelope,' the slow of foot, the 'tortoise,' a merciless warrior, the 'wolf,' a dark-eyed maid may be likened to the 'raven,' a majestic matron to the 'cypress.' And so the rivulet, the rock, the dawn, the sun, and even elements invisible, are seized upon as metaphors and fastened upon individuals, according to a real or fancied resemblance between the qualities of nature and the character of the men. Inferiority and baseness, alike with nobleness and wise conduct, perpetuate a name. Even in civilized societies, a nickname often takes the place of the real name. Schoolboys are quick to distinguish peculiarities in their fellows, and fasten upon them significant names. A dull scholar is called 'cabbage-head,' the girl with red ringlets, 'carrots.' In the family there is the greedy 'pig,' the darling 'duck,' the little 'lamb.' In new countries, and abnormal communities, where strangers from all parts are promiscuously thrown together, not unfrequently men live on terms of intimacy for years without ever knowing each other's real name. Among miners, such appellations as 'Muley Bill,' 'Sandy,' 'Shorty,' 'Sassafras Jack,' often serve all the purposes of a name. In more refined circles, there is the hypocritical 'crocodile,' the sly 'fox,' the gruff 'bear.' We say of the horse, 'he is as fleet as the wind,' of a rapid accountant, 'he is as quick as lightning.' These names, which are used by us but for the moment, or to fit occasions, are among rude nations permanent—in many instances the only name a person ever receives.

Sometimes the nickname of the individual becomes first a family name and then a tribal name; as when the chief, 'Coyote,' becomes renowned, his children love to call themselves 'Coyotes.' The chieftainship descending to the son and grandson of Coyote, the name becomes famous, the Coyote family the dominant family of the tribe; members of the tribe, in their intercourse with other tribes, call themselves 'coyotes,' to distinguish themselves from other tribes; the head, or tail, or claws, or skin, of the coyote ornaments the dress or adorns the body; the name becomes tribal, and the animal the symbol or totem of the tribe. After a few generations have passed, the great chieftain, Coyote, and his immediate progeny are forgotten; meanwhile the beast becomes a favorite with the people; he begins to be regarded as privileged; is not hunted down like other beasts; the virtues and exploits of the whole Coyote clan become identified with the brute; the affections of the people are centered in the animal, and finally, all else being lost and forgotten, the descendants of the chieftain, Coyote, are the offspring of the veritable beast, coyote.

ABSTRACT CONCEPTIONS, MONSTERS, AND METAPHORS.

Concerning image-worship and the material representation of ideal beings, Mr. Tylor believes that "when man has got some way in developing the religious element in him, he begins to catch at the device of setting up a puppet, or a stone, as the symbol and representative of the notions of a higher being which are floating in his mind."

Primitive languages cannot express abstract qualities. For every kind of animal or bird or plant there may be a name, but for animals, plants, and birds in general, they have no name or conception. Therefore, the abstract quality becomes the concrete idea of a god, and the descendants of a man whose symbolic name was 'dog,' from being the children of the man become the children of the dog.

Hence also arise monsters, beings compounded of beast, bird, and fish, sphinxes, mermaids, human-headed brutes, winged animals; as when the descendant of the 'hawk' carries off a wife from the 'salmon' tribe, a totem representing a fish with a hawk's head for a time keeps alive the occurrence and finally becomes the deity.

Thus realities become metaphors and metaphors realities; the fact dwindles into shadowy nothingness and the fancy springs into actual being. The historical incident becomes first indistinct and then is forgotten; the metaphorical name of the dead ancestor is first respected in the animal or plant, then worshiped in the animal or plant, and finally the nickname and the ancestor both are forgotten and the idea becomes the entity, and the veritable object of worship. From forgetfulness of primogenitor and metaphor, conceiving the animal to be the very ancestor, words are put into the animal's mouth, the sayings of the ancestor become the sayings of the brute; hence mythological legends of talking beasts, and birds, and wise fishes. To one animal is attributed a miraculous cure, to another, assistance in time of trouble; one animal is a deceiver, another a betrayer; and thus through their myths and metaphors we may look back into the soul of savagism and into their soul of nature.

That this is the origin of some phases of fetichism there can be no doubt; that it is the origin of all religions, or even the only method by which animal and plant worship originates, I do not believe. While there are undoubtedly general principles underlying all religious conceptions, it does not necessarily follow, that in every instance the methods of arriving at those fundamental principles must be identical. As with us a child weeps over a dead mother's picture, regarding it with fond devotion, so the dutiful barbarian son, in order the better to propitiate the favor of his dead ancestor, sometimes carves his image in wood or stone, which sentiment with time lapses into idolatry. Any object which strikes the rude fancy as analogous to the character of an individual may become an object of worship.

The interpretation of myth can never be absolute and positive; yet we may in almost every instance discover the general purport. Thus a superior god, we may be almost sure, refers to some potent hero, some primitive ruler, whom tradition has made superhuman in origin and in power; demigods, subordinate or inferior beings in power, must be regarded as legendary, referring to certain influential persons, identified with some element or incident in which the deified personage played a conspicuous part.

Although in mythology religion is the dominant element, yet mythology is not wholly made up of religion, nor are all primitive religions mythical. "There are few mistakes" says Professor Max Müller "so widely spread and so firmly established as that which makes us confound the religion and the mythology of the ancient nations of the world. How mythology arises, necessarily and naturally, I tried to explain in my former lectures, and we saw that, as an affection or disorder of language, mythology may infect every part of the intellectual life of man. True it is that no ideas are more liable to mythological disease than religious ideas, because they transcend those regions of our experience within which language has its natural origin, and must therefore, according to their very nature, be satisfied with metaphorical expressions. Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man. Yet even the religions of the ancient nations are by no means inevitably and altogether mythological. On the contrary, as a diseased frame pre-supposes a healthy frame, so a mythological religion pre-supposes, I believe, a healthy religion."

FUNDAMENTAL IDEAS OF RELIGION.

The universal secrets of supernatural beings are wrapped up in probable or possible fable; the elements of physical nature are impersonated in allegories, and arrayed in forms perceptible to the imagination; deities are sometimes introduced into the machinery of the supernatural in order to gratify that love for the marvelous which every attempt to explain the mysterious forces of nature creates in the ignorant mind. Yet it cannot truly be said that any form of religion, much less any religion was wholly invented. Fanatics sometimes originate doctrines, and the Church sets forth its dogmas, but there must be a foundation of truth or the edifice cannot stand. Inventions there undoubtedly have been and are, but inventions, sooner or later fall to the ground, while the essential principles underlying religion and mythology, though momentarily overcome or swept away, are sure to remain.

Every one of the fundamental ideas of religion is of indigenous origin, generating spontaneously in the human heart. It is a characteristic of mythology that the present inhabitants of the world descended from some nobler race. From the nobler impulses of fancy the savage derives his origin. His higher instincts teach him that his dim distant past, and his impenetrable future, are alike of a lighter, more ethereal nature; that his earthly nature is base, that that which binds him to earth is the lowest, vilest part of himself.

The tendency of positive knowledge is to overthrow superstition. Hence as science develops, many tenets of established religions, palpably erroneous, are dropped, and the more knowledge becomes real, the more real knowledge is denied. Superstition is not the effect of an active imagination, but shows rather a lack of imagination, for we see that the lower the stage of intelligence, and the feebler the imagination, the greater the superstition. A keen, vivid imagination, although capable of broader and more complicated conceptions, is able to explain the cruder marvels, and consequently to dispel the coarser phases of superstition, while the dull intellect accepts everything which is put upon it as true. Ultimate religious conceptions are symbolic rather than actual. Ultimate ideas of the universe are even beyond the grasp of the profoundest intellect. We can form but an approximate idea of the sphere on which we live. To form conceptions of the relative and actual distances and magnitudes of heavenly bodies, of systems of worlds, and eternities of space, the human mind is totally inadequate. If, therefore, the mind is unable to grasp material visible objects, how much less are we able to measure the invisible and eternal.

When therefore the savage attempts to solve the problem of natural phenomena, he first reduces broad conceptions to symbolic ideas. He moulds his deity according to the measure of his mind; and in forming a skeleton upon which to elaborate his religious instincts, proximate theories are accepted, and almost any explanation appears to him plausible. The potential creations of his fancy are brought within the compass of his comprehension; symbolic gods are moulded from mud, or carved from wood or stone; and thus by segregating an infinitesimal part of the vast idea of deity, the worshiper meets the material requirements of his religious conceptions. And although the lower forms of worship are abandoned as the intellect unfolds, the same principle is continued. We set up in the mind symbols of the ultimate idea which is too great for our grasp, and imagining ourselves in possession of the actual idea, we fall into numberless errors concerning what we believe or think. The atheistic hypothesis of self-existence, the pantheistic hypothesis of self-creation, and the theistic hypothesis of creation by an external agency are equally unthinkable, and therefore as postulates equally untenable. Yet underlying all, however gross or superstitious the dogma, is one fundamental truth, namely, that there is a problem to be solved, an existent mysterious universe to be accounted for.

Deep down in every human breast is implanted a religiosity as a fundamental attribute of man's nature; a consciousness that behind visible appearances is an invisible power; underlying all conception is an instinct or intuition from which there is no escape, that beyond material actualities potential agencies are at work; and throughout all belief, from the stupidest fetichism to the most exalted monotheism, as part of these instinctive convictions, it is held that the beings, or being, who rule man's destiny may be propitiated.

The first cry of nature is hushed. From time immemorial nations and peoples have come and gone, whence and whither no one knows; entering existence unannounced they disappear and leave no trace, save perhaps their impress on the language or the mythology of the world. Thus from historic fact blended with the religious sentiments springs the Mythic Idea.

CLASSIFICATION OF PACIFIC STATES' MYTHS.

In the following chapters, I have attempted, as far as practicable, to classify the Myths of the Pacific States under appropriate heads. In making such a classification there is no difficulty, except where in one myth occur two or more divisions of the subject, in which case it becomes necessary, either to break the narrative, or make exceptions in the general rule of classifying. I have invariably adopted the latter alternative. The divisions which I make of Mythology are as follows: I. Origin and End of Things; II. Physical Myths; III. Animal Myths; IV. Gods, Supernatural Beings, and Worship; V. The Future State.

CHAPTER II.
ORIGIN AND END OF THINGS.

Quiché Creation-Myth—Aztec Origin-Myths—The Papagos—Montezuma and the Coyote—The Moquis—The Great Spider's Web of the Pimas—Navajo and Pueblo Creations—Origin of Clear Lake and Lake Tahoe—Chareya of the Cahrocs—Mount Shasta, the Wigwam of the Great Spirit—Idaho Springs and Water Falls—How Differences in Language Occurred—Yehl, the Creator of the Thlinkeets—The Raven and the Dog.

THE POPOL VUH.

Of all American peoples the Quichés, of Guatemala, have left us the richest mythological legacy. Their description of the creation as given in the Popol Vuh, which may be called the national book of the Quichés,[II-1] is, in its rude strange eloquence and poetic originality, one of the rarest relics of aboriginal thought. Although obliged in reproducing it to condense somewhat, I have endeavored to give not only the substance, but also, as far as possible, the peculiar style and phraseology of the original. It is with this primeval picture, whose simple silent sublimity is that of the inscrutable past, that we begin:—

And the heaven was formed, and all the signs thereof set in their angle and alignment, and its boundaries fixed towards the four winds by the Creator and Former, and Mother and Father of life and existence—he by whom all move and breathe, the Father and Cherisher of the peace of nations and of the civilization of his people—he whose wisdom has projected the excellence of all that is on the earth, or in the lakes, or in the sea.

Behold the first word and the first discourse. There was as yet no man, nor any animal, nor bird, nor fish, nor crawfish, nor any pit, nor ravine, nor green herb, nor any tree; nothing was but the firmament. The face of the earth had not yet appeared—only the peaceful sea and all the space of heaven. There was nothing yet joined together, nothing that clung to anything else; nothing that balanced itself, that made the least rustling, that made a sound in the heaven. There was nothing that stood up; nothing but the quiet water, but the sea, calm and alone in its boundaries: nothing existed; nothing but immobility and silence, in the darkness, in the night.[II-2]

THE QUICHÉ IDEA OF CREATION.

Alone also the Creator, the Former, the Dominator, the Feathered Serpent—those that engender, those that give being, they are upon the water, like a growing light. They are enveloped in green and blue; and therefore their name is Gucumatz.[II-3] Lo, now how the heavens exist, how exists also the Heart of Heaven; such is the name of God; it is thus that he is called. And they spake; they consulted together and meditated; they mingled their words and their opinion. And the creation was verily after this wise: Earth, they said, and on the instant it was formed; like a cloud or a fog was its beginning. Then the mountains rose over the water like great lobsters; in an instant the mountains and the plains were visible, and the cypress and the pine appeared. Then was the Gucumatz filled with joy, crying out: Blessed be thy coming, O Heart of Heaven, Hurakan, Thunderbolt. Our work and our labor has accomplished its end.

The earth and its vegetation having thus appeared, it was peopled with the various forms of animal life. And the Makers said to the animals: Speak now our name, honor us, us your mother and father; invoke Hurakan, the Lightning-flash, the Thunderbolt that strikes, the Heart of Heaven, the Heart of the Earth, the Creator and Former, Him who begets, and Him who gives being—speak, call on us, salute us! So was it said to the animals. But the animals could not answer; they could not speak at all after the manner of men; they could only cluck, and croak, each murmuring after his kind in a different manner. This displeased the Creators, and they said to the animals: Inasmuch as ye can not praise us, neither call upon our names, your flesh shall be humiliated; it shall be broken with teeth; ye shall be killed and eaten.

Again the gods took counsel together; they determined to make man. So they made a man of clay; and when they had made him, they saw that it was not good. He was without cohesion, without consistence, motionless, strengthless, inept, watery; he could not move his head, his face looked but one way; his sight was restricted, he could not look behind him; he had been endowed with language, but he had no intelligence, so he was consumed in the water.

Again is there counsel in heaven: Let us make an intelligent being who shall adore and invoke us. It was decided that a man should be made of wood and a woman of a kind of pith. They were made; but the result was in no wise satisfactory. They moved about perfectly well, it is true; they increased and multiplied; they peopled the world with sons and daughters, little wooden mannikins like themselves; but still the heart and the intelligence were wanting; they held no memory of their Maker and Former; they led a useless existence, they lived as the beasts live; they forgot the Heart of Heaven. They were but an essay, an attempt at men; they had neither blood, nor substance, nor moisture, nor fat; their cheeks were shrivelled, their feet and hands dried up; their flesh languished.

DESTRUCTION AND RE-CREATION OF MAN.

Then was the Heart of Heaven wroth; and he sent ruin and destruction upon those ingrates; he rained upon them night and day from heaven with a thick resin; and the earth was darkened. And the men went mad with terror; they tried to mount upon the roofs and the houses fell; they tried to climb the trees and the trees shook them far from their branches; they tried to hide in the caves and dens of the earth, but these closed their holes against them. The bird Xecotcovach came to tear out their eyes; and the Camalotz cut off their head; and the Cotzbalam devoured their flesh; and the Tecumbalam broke and bruised their bones to powder. Thus were they all devoted to chastisement and destruction, save only a few who were preserved as memorials of the wooden men that had been; and these now exist in the woods as little apes.[II-4]

Once more are the gods in counsel; in the darkness, in the night of a desolated universe do they commune together; of what shall we make man? And the Creator and Former made four perfect men; and wholly of yellow and white maize was their flesh composed. These were the names of the four men that were made: the name of the first was Balam-Quitzé; of the second, Balam-Agab; of the third Mahucutah; and of the fourth, Iqi-Balam.[II-5] They had neither father nor mother, neither were they made by the ordinary agents in the work of creation; but their coming into existence was a miracle extraordinary, wrought by the special intervention of him who is preëminently The Creator. Verily, at last, were there found men worthy of their origin and their destiny; verily, at last, did the gods look on beings who could see with their eyes, and handle with their hands, and understand with their hearts. Grand of countenance and broad of limb the four sires of our race stood up under the white rays of the morning star—sole light as yet of the primeval world—stood up and looked. Their great clear eyes swept rapidly over all; they saw the woods and the rocks, the lakes and the sea, the mountains and the valleys, and the heavens that were above all; and they comprehended all and admired exceedingly. Then they returned thanks to those who had made the world and all that therein was: We offer up our thanks, twice—yea verily, thrice! We have received life; we speak, we walk, we taste; we hear and understand; we know both that which is near and that which is far off; we see all things, great and small, in all the heaven and earth. Thanks then, Maker and Former, Father and Mother of our life! we have been created; we are.

But the gods were not wholly pleased with this thing; Heaven they thought had overshot its mark; these men were too perfect; knew, understood, and saw too much. Therefore there was counsel again in heaven: What shall we do with man now? It is not good, this that we see; these are as gods; they would make themselves equal with us; lo, they know all things, great and small. Let us now contract their sight, so that they may see only a little of the surface of the earth and be content. Thereupon the Heart of Heaven breathed a cloud over the pupil of the eyes of men, and a veil came over it as when one breathes on the face of a mirror; thus was the globe of the eye darkened; neither was that which was far off clear to it any more, but only that which was near.

Then the four men slept, and there was counsel in heaven: and four women were made—to Balam-Quitzé was allotted Caha-Paluma to wife; to Balam-Agab, Chomiha; to Mahucutah, Tzununiha; and to Iqi-Balam, Cakixaha.[II-6] Now the women were exceedingly fair to look upon; and when the men awoke, their hearts were glad because of the women.

THE QUICHÉS SET OUT FOR TULAN-ZUIVA.

Next, as I interpret the narrative, there were other men created, the ancestors of other peoples, while the first four were the fathers of all the branches of the Quiché race. The different tribes at first, however, lived together amicably enough, in a primitive state; and increased and multiplied, leading happy lives under their bright and morning star, precursor of the yet unseen sun. They had as yet no worship save the breathing of the instinct of their soul, as yet no altars to the gods; only—and is there not a whole idyl in the simple words?—only they gazed up into heaven, not knowing what they had come so far to do![II-7] They were filled with love, with obedience, and with fear; and lifting their eyes towards heaven, they made their requests:—

Hail! O Creator, O Former! thou that hearest and understandest us! abandon us not, forsake us not! O God, thou that art in heaven and on the earth, O Heart of Heaven, O Heart of Earth! give us descendants and a posterity as long as the light endure. Give us to walk always in an open road, in a path without snares; to lead happy, quiet, and peaceable lives, free of all reproach. It was thus they spake, living tranquilly, invoking the return of the light, waiting the rising of the sun, watching the star of the morning, precursor of the sun. But no sun came, and the four men and their descendants grew uneasy: We have no person to watch over us, they said, nothing to guard our symbols. So the four men and their people set out for Tulan-Zuiva,[II-8] otherwise called the Seven-caves or Seven-ravines, and there they received gods, each man as head of a family, a god; though inasmuch as the fourth man, Iqi-Balam, had no children and founded no family, his god is not usually taken into the account. Balam-Quitzé received the god Tohil; Balam Agab received the god Avilix; and Mahucutah received the god Hacavitz; all very powerful gods, but Tohil seems to have been the chief, and in a general way, god of the whole Quiché nation. Other people received gods at the same time; and it had been for all a long march to Tulan.

Now the Quichés had as yet no fire, and as Tulan was a much colder climate than the happy eastern land they had left, they soon began to feel the want of it. The god Tohil who was the creator of fire had some in his possession; so to him, as was most natural, the Quichés applied, and Tohil in some way supplied them with fire.

But shortly after, there fell a great rain that extinguished all the fires of the land; and much hail also fell on the heads of the people; and because of the rain and the hail, their fires were utterly scattered and put out. Then Tohil created fire again by stamping with his sandal. Several times thus fire failed them, but Tohil always renewed it. Many other trials also they underwent in Tulan, famines and such things, and a general dampness and cold—for the earth was moist, there being as yet no sun.

Here also the language of all the families was confused so that no one of the first four men could any longer understand the speech of another. This also made them very sad. They determined to leave Tulan; and the greater part of them, under the guardianship and direction of Tohil, set out to see where they should take up their abode. They continued on their way amid the most extreme hardships for want of food; sustaining themselves at one time upon the mere smell of their staves, and by imagining that they were eating, when in verity and in truth, they ate nothing. Their heart, indeed, it is again and again said, was almost broken by affliction. Poor wanderers! they had a cruel way to go, many forests to pierce, many stern mountains to overpass and a long passage to make through the sea, along the shingle and pebbles and drifted sand—the sea being, however, parted for their passage.

QUICHÉ ORIGIN OF THE SUN.

At last they came to a mountain that they named Hacavitz, after one of their gods, and here they rested—for here they were by some means given to understand that they should see the sun. Then indeed, was filled with an exceeding joy the heart of Balam-Quitzé, of Balam-Agab, of Mahucutah, and of Iqi-Balam. It seemed to them that even the face of the morning star caught a new and more resplendent brightness. They shook their incense pans and danced for very gladness: sweet were their tears in dancing, very hot their incense—their precious incense. At last the sun commenced to advance: the animals, small and great, were full of delight; they raised themselves to the surface of the water; they fluttered in the ravines; they gathered at the edge of the mountains, turning their heads together toward that part from which the sun came. And the lion and the tiger roared. And the first bird that sang was that called the Queletzu. All the animals were beside themselves at the sight; the eagle and the kite beat their wings, and every bird, both small and great. The men prostrated themselves on the ground, for their hearts were full to the brim.

And the sun, and the moon, and the stars were now all established. Yet was not the sun then in the beginning the same as now; his heat wanted force, and he was but as a reflection in a mirror; verily, say the histories, not at all the same sun as that of to-day. Nevertheless he dried up and warmed the surface of the earth, and answered many good ends.

Another wonder when the sun rose! The three tribal gods, Tohil, Avilix, and Hacavitz, were turned into stone, as were also the gods connected with the lion, the tiger, the viper, and other fierce and dangerous animals. Perhaps we should not be alive at this moment—continues the chronicle—because of the voracity of these fierce animals, of these lions, and tigers, and vipers; perhaps to-day our glory would not be in existence, had not the sun caused this petrification.

And the people multiplied on this Mount Hacavitz, and here they built their city. It is here also that they began to sing that song called Kamucu, 'we see.' They sang it, though it made their hearts ache, for this is what they said in singing: Alas! We ruined ourselves in Tulan, there lost we many of our kith and kin, they still remain there, left behind! We indeed have seen the sun, but they—now that his golden light begins to appear, where are they?

And they worshiped the gods that had become stone, Tohil, Avilix, and Hacavitz; and they offered them the blood of beasts, and of birds, and pierced their own ears and shoulders in honor of these gods, and collected the blood with a sponge, and pressed it out into a cup before them.

Toward the end of their long and eventful life Balam-Quitzé, Balam-Agab, Mahucutah, and Iqi-Balam were impelled, apparently by a supernatural vision, to lay before their gods a more awful offering than the life of senseless beasts. They began to wet their altars with the heart's blood of human victims. From their mountain hold they watched for lonely travelers belonging to the surrounding tribes, seized, overpowered, and slew them for a sacrifice. Man after man was missing in the neighboring villages; and the people said: Lo! the tigers have carried them away—for wherever the blood was of a man slain, were always found the tracks of many tigers. Now this was the craft of the priests, and at last the tribes began to suspect the thing and to follow the tracks of the tigers. But the trails had been made purposely intricate, by steps returning on themselves and by the obliteration of steps; and the mountain region where the altars were was already covered with a thick fog and a small rain, and its paths flowed with mud.

The hearts of the villagers were thus fatigued within them, pursuing unknown enemies. At last, however, it became plain that the gods Tohil, Avilix and Hacavitz, and their worship, were in some way or other the cause of this bereavement: so the people of the villages conspired against them. Many attacks, both openly and by ruses, did they make on the gods, and on the four men, and on the children and people connected with them; but not once did they succeed, so great was the wisdom, and power, and courage of the four men and of their deities. And these three gods petrified, as we have told, could nevertheless resume a movable shape when they pleased; which indeed they often did, as will be seen hereafter.

At last the war was finished. By the miraculous aid of a horde of wasps and hornets, the Quichés utterly defeated and put to the rout in a general battle all their enemies. And the tribes humiliated themselves before the face of Balam-Quitzé, of Balam-Agab, and of Mahucutah: Unfortunates that we are, they said, spare to us at least our lives. Let it be so, it was answered, although you be worthy of death; you shall, however, be our tributaries and serve us, as long as the sun endure, as long as the light shall follow his course. This was the reply of our fathers and mothers, upon Mount Hacavitz; and thereafter they lived in great honor and peace, and their souls had rest, and all the tribes served them there.

THE END OF THE QUICHÉ CREATION.

Now it came to pass that the time of the death of Balam-Quitzé, Balam-Agab, Mahucutah, and Iqi-Balam drew near. No bodily sickness nor suffering came upon them; but they were forewarned that their death and their end was at hand. Then they called their sons and their descendants round them to receive their last counsels.

And the heart of the old men was rent within them. In the anguish of their heart they sang the Kamucu, the old sad song that they had sung when the sun first rose, when the sun rose and they thought of the friends they had left in Tulan, whose face they should see no more forever. Then they took leave of their wives, one by one; and of their sons, one by one; of each in particular they took leave; and they said: We return to our people; already the King of the Stags is ready, he stretches himself through the heaven. Lo, we are about to return; our work is done; the days of our life are complete. Remember us well; let us never pass from your memory. You will see still our houses and our mountains; multiply in them, and then go on upon your way and see again the places whence we are come.

So the old men took leave of their sons and of their wives; and Balam-Quitzé spake again: Behold! he said, I leave you what shall keep me in remembrance. I have taken leave of you—and am filled with sadness, he added. Then instantly the four old men were not; but in their place was a great bundle; and it was never unfolded, neither could any man find seam therein on rolling it over and over. So it was called the Majesty Enveloped; and it became a memorial of these fathers, and was held very dear and precious in the sight of the Quichés; and they burned incense before it.[II-9]

Thus died and disappeared on Mount Hacavitz Balam-Quitzé, Balam-Agab, Mahucutah, and Iqi-Balam, these first men who came from the east, from the other side of the sea. Long time had they been here when they died; and they were very old, and surnamed the Venerated and the Sacrificers.

Such is the Quiché account of the creation of the earth and its inhabitants and of the first years of the existence of mankind. Although we find here described in the plainest and least equivocal terms a supreme, all-powerful Creator of all things, there are joined with him in a somewhat perplexing manner a number of auxiliary deities and makers. It may be that those whose faith the Popol Vuh represents, conceiving and speaking of their supreme god under many aspects and as fulfilling many functions, came at times, either unconsciously or for dramatic effect, to bring this one great Being upon their mythic stage, sustaining at once many of his different parts and characters. Or perhaps, like the Hebrews, they believed that the Creator had made out of nothing or out of his own essence, in some mysterious way, angels and other beings to obey and to assist him in his sovereign designs, and that these 'were called gods.' That these Quiché notions seem foolishness to us, is no argument as to their adaptation to the life and thoughts of those who believed them; for, in the words of Professor Max Müller, "the thoughts of primitive humanity were not only different from our thoughts, but different also from what we think their thoughts ought to have been."[II-10]

MEXICAN COSMOGONY.

Yet whatever be the inconsistencies that obscure the Popol Vuh, we find them multiplied in the Mexican cosmogony, a tangled string of meagre and apparently fragmentary traditions. There appear to have been two principal schools of opinion in Anáhuac, differing as to who was the Creator of the world, as well as on other points—two veins of tradition, perhaps of common origin, which often seem to run into one, and are oftener still considered as one by historians to whom these heathen vanities were matters of little importance. The more advanced school, ascribing its inspiration to Toltec sources, seems to have flourished notably in Tezcuco, especially while the famous Nezahualcoyotl reigned there, and to have had very definite monotheistic ideas. It taught, as is asserted in unmistakable terms, that all things had been made by one God, omnipotent and invisible; and to this school were probably owing the many gentle and beautiful ideas and rites, mingled with the hard, coarse, and prosaic cult of the mass of the people.[II-11]

The other school may be considered as more distinctively national, and as representing more particularly the ordinary Mexican mind. To it is to be ascribed by far the larger part of all we know about the Mexican religion.[II-12] According to the version of this school, Tezcatlipoca, a god whose birth and adventures are set forth hereafter, was the creator of the material heaven and earth, though not of mankind; and sometimes even the honor of this partial creation is disputed by others of the gods.

One Mexican nation, again, according to an ancient writer of their own blood, affirmed that the earth had been created by chance; and as for the heavens, they had always existed.[II-13]

CHIMALPOPOCA MANUSCRIPT.

From the fragments of the Chimalpopoca manuscript given by the Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg we learn that the Creator—whoever he may have been—produced his work in successive epochs. In the sign Tochtli, the earth was created; in the sign Acatl was made the firmament, and in the sign Tecpatl the animals. Man it is added, was made and animated out of ashes or dust by God on the seventh day, Ehecatl, but finished and perfected by that mysterious personage Quetzalcoatl. However this account may be reconciled with itself or with others, it further appears that man was four times made and four times destroyed.[II-14]

This may perhaps be looked upon as proceeding from what I have called for convenience the Toltecan school, though this particular fragment shows traces of Christian influence. What follows seems however to belong to a distinctively Mexican and ruder vein of thought. It is gathered from Mendieta, who was indebted again to Fray Andres de Olmos, one of the earliest missionaries among the Mexicans of whom he treats; and it is decidedly one of the most authentic accounts of such matters extant.

AZTEC CREATION-MYTHS.

The Mexicans in most of the provinces were agreed that there was a god in heaven called Citlalatonac, and a goddess called Citlalicue;[II-15] and that this goddess had given birth to a flint knife, Tecpatl. Now she had many sons living with her in heaven, who seeing this extraordinary thing were alarmed, and flung the flint down to the earth. It fell in a place called Chicomoztoc, that is to say the Seven Caves, and there immediately sprang up from it one thousand six hundred gods. These gods being alone on the earth—though as will hereafter appear, there had been men in the world at a former period—sent up their messenger Tlotli, the Hawk, to pray their mother to empower them to create men, so that they might have servants as became their lineage. Citlalicue seemed to be a little ashamed of these sons of hers, born in so strange a manner, and she twitted them cruelly enough on what they could hardly help: Had you been what you ought to have been, she exclaimed, you would still be in my company. Nevertheless she told them what to do in the matter of obtaining their desire: Go beg of Mictlanteuctli, Lord of Hades, that he may give you a bone or some ashes of the dead that are with him; which having received you shall sacrifice over it, sprinkling blood from your own bodies. And the fallen gods having consulted together, sent one of their number, called Xolotl,[II-16] down to hades as their mother had advised. He succeeded in getting a bone of six feet long from Mictlanteuctli; and then, wary of his grisly host, he took an abrupt departure, running at the top of his speed. Wroth at this, the infernal chief gave chase; not causing to Xolotl, however, any more serious inconvenience than a hasty fall in which the bone was broken in pieces. The messenger gathered up what he could in all haste, and despite his stumble made his escape. Reaching the earth, he put the fragments of bone into a basin, and all the gods drew blood from their bodies and sprinkled it into the vessel. On the fourth day there was a movement among the wetted bones and a boy lay there before all; and in four days more, the blood-letting and sprinkling being still kept up, a girl was lifted from the ghastly dish. The children were given to Xolotl to bring up; and he fed them on the juice of the maguey.[II-17] Increasing in stature, they became man and woman; and from them are the people of the present day descended, who, even as the primordial bone was broken into unequal pieces, vary in size and shape. The name of this first man was Iztacmixcuatl, and the name of his wife Ilancueitl,[II-18] and they had six sons born to them, whose descendants, with their god-masters, in process of time moved eastward from their original home, almost universally described as having been towards Jalisco.

Now there had been no sun in existence for many years; so the gods being assembled in a place called Teotihuacan, six leagues from Mexico, and gathered at the time round a great fire, told their devotees that he of them who should first cast himself into that fire, should have the honor of being transformed into a sun. So one of them called Nanahuatzin—either as most say, out of pure bravery, or as Sahagun relates, because his life had become a burden to him through a syphilitic disease—flung himself into the fire. Then the gods began to peer through the gloom in all directions for the expected light and to make bets as to what part of heaven he should first appear in. And some said Here, and some said There; but when the sun rose they were all proved wrong, for not one of them had fixed upon the east.[II-19] And in that same hour, though they knew it not, the decree went forth that they should all die by sacrifice.

HOW THE SUN WAS PLACED IN THE HEAVENS.

The sun had risen indeed, and with a glory of the cruel fire about him that not even the eyes of the gods could endure; but he moved not. There he lay on the horizon; and when the deities sent Tlotli their messenger to him, with orders that he should go on upon his way, his ominous answer was, that he would never leave that place till he had destroyed and put an end to them all. Then a great fear fell upon some, while others were moved only to anger; and among the latter was one Citli, who immediately strung his bow and advanced against the glittering enemy. By quickly lowering his head the Sun avoided the first arrow shot at him; but the second and third had attained his body in quick succession, when, filled with fury, he seized the last and launched it back upon his assailant. And the brave Citli laid shaft to string nevermore, for the arrow of the sun pierced his forehead.

Then all was dismay in the assembly of the gods, and despair filled their heart, for they saw that they could not prevail against the shining one; and they agreed to die, and to cut themselves open through the breast. Xolotl was appointed minister, and he killed his companions one by one, and last of all he slew himself also.[II-20] So they died like gods; and each left to the sad and wondering men who were his servants, his garments for a memorial. And these servants made up, each party, a bundle of the raiment that had been left to them, binding it about a stick into which they had bedded a small green stone to serve as a heart. These bundles were called tlaquimilloli, and each bore the name of that god whose memorial it was; and these things were more reverenced than the ordinary gods of stone and wood of the country. Fray Andres de Olmos found one of these relics in Tlalmanalco, wrapped up in many cloths, and half rotten with being kept hid so long.[II-21]

Immediately on the death of the gods the sun began his motion in the heavens; and a man called Tecuzistecatl, or Tezcociztecatl, who, when Nanahuatzin leaped into the fire, had retired into a cave, now emerged from his concealment as the moon. Others say that instead of going into a cave, this Tecuzistecatl, had leaped into the fire after Nanahuatzin, but that, the heat of the fire being somewhat abated, he had come out less brilliant than the sun. Still another variation is, that the sun and moon came out equally bright, but this not seeming good to the gods, one of them took a rabbit by the heels and slung it into the face of the moon, dimming its lustre with a blotch whose mark may be seen to this day.

After the gods had died in the way herein related, leaving their garments behind as relics, those servants went about everywhere, bearing these relics like bundles upon their shoulders, very sad and pensive and wondering if ever again they would see their departed gods. Now the name of one of these deceased deities was Tezcatlipoca, and his servant having arrived at the sea coast, was favored with an apparition of his master in three different shapes. And Tezcatlipoca spake to his servant saying: Come hither, thou that lovest me so well, that I may tell thee what thou hast to do. Go now to the House of the Sun and fetch thence singers and instruments so that thou mayest make me a festival; but first call upon the whale, and upon the siren, and upon the tortoise, and they shall make thee a bridge to the sun.

Then was all this done; and the messenger went across the sea upon his living bridge, towards the House of the Sun, singing what he had to say. And the Sun heard the song, and he straitly charged his people and servants, saying: See now that ye make no response to this chant, for whoever replies to it must be taken away by the singer. But the song was so exceeding sweet that some of them could not but answer, and they were lured away, bearing with them the drum, teponaztli, and the kettle-drum, vevetl. Such was the origin of the festivals and the dances to the gods; and the songs sung during these dances they held as prayers, singing them always with great accuracy of intonation and time.

THE TEZCUCAN ACCOUNT OF THE CREATION.

In their oral traditions, the Tezcucans agreed with the usual Mexican account of creation—the falling of the flint from heaven to earth, and so on—but what they afterward showed in a picture, and explained to Fray Andres de Olmos as the manner of the creation of mankind, was this: The event took place in the land of Aculma, on the Tezcucan boundary at a distance of two leagues from Tezcuco and of five from Mexico. It is said that the sun, being at the hour of nine, cast a dart into the earth at the place we have mentioned and made a hole; from this hole a man came out, the first man and somewhat imperfect withal, as there was no more of him than from the arm-pits up, much like the conventional European cherub, only without wings. After that the woman came up out of the hole. The rest of the story was not considered proper for printing by Mendieta; but at any rate from these two are mankind descended. The name of the first man was Aculmaitl—that is to say, aculli, shoulder, and maitl, hand or arm—and from him the town of Aculma is said to take its name.[II-22] And this etymology seems to make it probable that the details of this myth are derived, to some extent, from the name of the place in which it was located; or that the name of the first man belonging to an early phase of the language, has been misunderstood, and that to the false etymology the details of the myth are owing.