Although it is possible to regard the current beliefs of the Indian concerning his origin, his migrations, and his religion, as largely mythical, all such events are of a grandiose and serious character. Besides these major beliefs, there exists a vast number of lesser myths and superstitions, as well as familiar folk-tales, which are not to be overlooked, since they have almost as much power over the primitive mind as the more essential matters in his history and his faith. Careful inquiry has proved that a myth is rarely or never confined to a single tribe, and that certain myths can be traced from the Atlantic to the Pacific. It is common knowledge also that as a myth travels its poetic factor tends to predominate. We should expect to find, as we do, that myth forms are most nearly alike in contiguous tribes, and most unlike in those separated by great distances. Hence the myths of Ácoma are part of the general lore of the Southwest. One group of scholars considers that myths should be restricted to such tales as have an explanatory tendency (which is easily overestimated), and would differentiate between mythical tales on the one hand, and mythical ideas or concepts on the other, for they say we can gain much information about the first of these but very little about the second. Of “explanatory myths,” moreover, there are two forms,—inclusive and particularistic. The first is well exemplified by a culture-hero who “taught the people all the arts,” and the second by a culture-hero who taught the people merely one art, hitherto unknown, such as basket making. Another illustration is the myth of the Thunder Bird, so widely believed in that it is used by some authorities as a typical mythical concept. The conventionalized figure is found in many silver ornaments, upon the pottery, and upon scores of baskets. At Ácoma the best of her potters make a fine design of it upon plaques and vessels of various sorts. Apparently the underlying idea of this myth is of a bird flying through the heavens, so huge that he darkens the skies. The flapping of his wings is the thunder, the winking of his eyes causes the lightning, and so forth.

If, then, the “tawny patch on the shoulder of a rabbit,” the antlers of a deer, the crest of a bird, are full of meaning to the Indian mind, we can understand that there must be an inexhaustible store of tales, varying from tribe to tribe with the living creatures and the local conditions that obtain in each. Though we to-day after the long sophistication of the years may regard this phase as childish, ignorant, and superstitious, and resent its tyrannous fettering of the human mind, we must remember that it was the only view of life possible at the period of its sway—a life of Nature, speaking with many voices, sensitive to every changing facet of the created world—and that from such rude beginnings all primitive religion and poetry have arisen. We cannot afford to ignore or lose the only contribution thereto made on the western continent.

Myths represent incidents long past and not to be repeated, those which occurred in the morning of the world when man had few or none of his present customs and arts. Folk-tales, on the other hand, are busied with more recent events and may even be woven about present-day occurrences. The myth therefore appeals especially to the imagination and the emotions, and to that deep-seated belief of the Indian that the world of sense and the world of spirit are so intimately linked that the former is ruled in minutest detail by the latter.[175]

The “ritualization of myths”[176] takes place when an attempt is made to weave together these far-away happenings into a consistent tribal, clan, or fraternity story, the telling of which is frequently accompanied by ceremonies. Since there is usually a desire shown to arrange these chronologically, they may become an historical record of the tribe’s beginnings. At the same time, it must never be forgotten that these myths are handed down verbally by the older men of the tribe through successive generations, and must suffer certain alterations and embellishments as time passes.

Strong resemblances exist between the origin-legends of all the different Pueblo tribes, though each has its own variants. There is almost total absence of intimate studies of the Ácoma tradition, such as have been made with elaborate care and detail for both the Hopi and the Zuñi. It is not possible to set forth any origin or religious myths as positively or exclusively those of the Ácomas, yet since they, like the people of Sía, only seventy miles away, both belong to the Keresan nation, we feel something like assurance in assuming that the Ácoma legends must be closely similar[177] to those described in the distinguished researches of Sía.

To all Pueblo Indians the world was flat and round, like a great disk. Before there was any life, the All-Father existed alone in the Somewhere, and immemorial darkness covered all space. This primal All-Father “thought outward into space” until mists finally penetrated the thick and universal blackness, and the Middle Place appeared, guarded by Six Warriors. In some legends, a god named Po-shai-an-ki-a is identical with the All-Father, whereas in others he is only an early culture hero, giver of domestic animals and of wealth. In the larger number of legends the Spider—Sussistinnaka[178]—is the All-Father, sometimes spoken of as a male, and in other tribes as a female, deity. In Sía myths, however, the spider is the first living creature of the underworld, dominating the actions of all other beings.

The creation of light follows that of the Middle Place, and the sun becomes not only an emanation from the All-Father, but the Supreme Being himself,[179] and Mother Earth is his complement. The Pueblo world is divided into six regions, each having its centre in a spring somewhere in the heart of a great mountain, on whose summit is a gigantic tree. I combine the phrasing of the myths of two Keresan pueblos to make more clear these six “points of the compass,” as we call them.[180] Each of them has its especial color-symbol, which, however, is not uniformly assigned by all tribes.

In Sía legends, those presumably most closely akin to Ácoma, the creation was performed by the Spider, who drew two lines of meal upon the lighted ground, which, by crossing each other, made four equal squares. He then seated himself close to two parcels placed in the two upper spaces, and chanted a low, sweet song, to which the parcels “rattled” an accompaniment, and presently out of each walked a woman. One, named Utset, was the mother of all Indians; the other, Nowutset, the progenitress of all other people upon earth. Two male heroes called The Twins, with names varying in different tribes, are universally described as Dark and Light, having been born of a mother sometimes called The Dawn, who died in giving them birth. These mythical heroes live in the east, and the Twin called Light is always white—the “fixed emblem of peace, friendship, happiness, propriety, purity, and holiness.”[181] Light and Life, Darkness and Death, have been synonymous in all systems of religion.

At first the earth was very hot, so that it melted, but later the people lacked fire. In all the tribes we find a universal folk-tale of the Theft of Fire, and generally it is Coyote who is commissioned to bring it from beyond the Kingdom of Sussistinnako—a difficult and delicate task, for there were three doors to pass, guarded first by the Snake, then by the Cougar, and lastly by the Bear. When, finally, human beings began to people the earth and had to disperse, their place of egress from the underworld, in which all men and animals were born, was Si-pa-pu, and it is to Si-pa-pu again that the spirits of those who die must return. The road to and from Si-pa-pu is always spoken of as crowded by the two lines of spirits passing each other, the ghostly forms of the dead crossing those who are yet to be born into life.[182]

We find also the idea of death in life associated with the dying day, and perhaps this is the origin of the expression of the soldier lads in the World War who spoke of their comrades as “going west.” Rest from labor with the setting sun led naturally to the search for some place of repose for the weary soul in that region where the sun had sunk from sight of mortal eyes.

One myth that Pueblo Indians possess in common with each other and with almost all primitive peoples is that of a culture-hero, regarded as the ancestor of a tribe, sometimes even as the creator of the universe.[184] This half-divine being appeared on earth while all was still chaos, taught the people their arts, and, having established their social and religious order, vanished, not by death but in some mysterious manner, promising to return to earth when the appointed time should arrive.[185]

Among the Pueblos, this many-sided culture-hero is known as Montezuma,[186] and “is the centre of some of the most poetic myths found in ancient American mythology.” Many places in New Mexico claim to be his birthplace, and the variety of aspects under which Montezuma is presented is due to the fact that each tribe jealously guards its individual legends concerning his achievements. Emory wrote in 1847:

An old tradition given as common to all Pueblo Indians is to the effect that they had no kinship with nomad tribes but were “a people seated on the soil,” and that they were “Children of Montezuma;[188] when he and his subjects were hard pressed by the Spaniards, they were summoned south to help in the succor of the City of Mexico, from whence none of them ever returned.” There is no foundation in fact for this legend, but a reasonable explanation for the picturesque tale is given by Bandelier, who says: “The Mexican Nahautl language has left positive traces, through the Indians from Central Mexico and the Spaniards themselves, who brought them to New Mexico as their servants.”[189]

One is surprised and impressed by so often coming across analogies, in the tales of these so-called barbarians, with those which have all the charm and authority of classic antiquity. For example, there are everywhere among the Indians legends of a great flood and of mountains of refuge which correspond to Ararat, though the actual locality varies with the different tribes, just as is true of Si-pa-pu, their place of emergence from the underworld. This was in truth so continuously heard by the Spanish padres when first they came upon North American soil that they were wont to affirm the Indian religion to be a pervert from their own sacred theology.

In some of the tribes we find the belief that when the waters covered the earth, all living things perished save Montezuma and his friend Coyote. They had built a boat and moored it high on the summit of Santa Rosa (their Ararat) in case of need. Montezuma in some of the tales thus became the founder of the Indian pueblos, of which Ácoma was the first and Pecos the second.

A variation of the deluge myth was told me at Isleta. The people there believe that this continent was never overtaken by the great flood, and that consequently the American Indian is in descent from the oldest race that has had a continuous existence upon earth. In the summer of 1922 some fragments of this myth were told me by my host at the Rito de los Frijoles, who had been shown “a very ancient manuscript by an aged Indian, who had spent two days” in relating to him the Montezuma legend, which the Indian affirmed had no connection with the Aztec king of the same name.

We also meet among these American aborigines a world-wide myth which is probably most familiar in the Minotaur, or in the legend of St. George, who rescued the Libyan princess when she was chosen by lot to feed the terrible dragon outside her father’s city, and who remained to convert that heathen people to Christianity.

Professor Espinosa[191] found among the Pueblos a myth of the Monster Viper which he is inclined to believe is purely Indian in origin—probably derived from the Aztec. He says that the Indians were very vague about it, or wished to deny it; but the legend is that in each pueblo is hidden a monster viper to which several children are fed every year.

In New Mexico the belief is said to be widespread that the gradual extinction of the Pueblo tribes there is due to the fact that child-sacrifice no longer exists. Professor Espinosa has reason to believe that it was at some time a common practice.[192] Mrs. Stevenson no later than 1886 believed that she discovered that in at least two Tewa pueblos the rattlesnake was propitiated by human sacrifice, either of the youngest female, or failing this, of an adult woman who had neither husband nor children—if such could be found.

We have very little to contribute about myths peculiar to Ácoma, but Dr. Parsons[193] has discovered much concerning those that relate to maternity-beliefs and practices there and at Laguna, and to her articles the interested reader is referred. It must suffice here to mention only a bare outline of the birth myth about which undoubtedly clusters, as is true at Sía, much that is especially sacred and secret. All Ácoma clans are maternal and exogamous, and many are the “beliefs of sympathetic magic in connection with conception, pregnancy, and growth.” At Ácoma the ritual for the increase of children is especially associated with the Santu cult,[194] which, contrary to the case in most tribes, is both at Ácoma and Laguna a male deity. “The Santu is regarded as a source of light, in the same sense of life, and also a specific for rain,” and therefore a power directly able to further fertility, whether in plants or in animals. As such his favor is besought at the winter solstice ceremonial by particular offerings at his altar. To it women desiring children bring clay figures of a baby (wiha), and other prenatal practices are arranged. The Santu then is supposed to lie in for four days after the winter solstice, and all about him are placed images of domestic animals, rings, bracelets, and so forth. When the birth is close at hand, the human mother is carefully watched by her grandmother, and for four days after the child has come into the world she also lies in, with an ear of corn close beside her baby. “On the fourth morning the ‘Medicine Man’ and his wife arrive sometime before dawn. He prays and sings four or five songs, after which he takes the child out to the east side of the mesa to show it at sunrise to the Sun God. The child’s mother goes along, and during the ceremonial sprinkles sacred meal.” The child’s forehead, body, and legs are anointed with ashes in the form of a cross, “because witches do not like ashes.”

The christening does not take place for seven or eight months because, if the baby does not live, it is better not to have to remember it with a name. When the time for this ceremony is decided upon, it is held in the church, in the presence of its godparents, who make the child a gift and then carry it to their own house, where its head is washed, “an interesting instance of the way the Catholic rite may be combined with native practice.” Presents must be exchanged between godparents and the child on every following Christmas. What Indian name is given we may never know; for more common is the nickname, given later to describe some characteristic trait, or act, when a child’s personality becomes apparent. A happy little girl may be called “Laughs in the Morning,” or a fleet-footed boy who has shot his coyote will thereafter be known as “Flying Wolf.”[195] Then, usually, the Roman priest administers Christian baptism and bestows a Spanish name. If the child goes to an American school, he or she is sure to receive an American name, and by the last, to us as visitors from the outside, is most likely to be introduced. Thus we have another complex to add to all the others, none of which appears to confuse or disturb the serenity of the Indian.

Many writers about Indian life in the pueblos emphasize the obedience of the children and speak of punishment by parents as being so little merited that it is an almost unheard-of event. The fact appears to be that parents terrify their children at a very early age with tales of supernatural beings and their evil powers, so that to utter a single talismanic word, like el coco, or d’agüelo, suffices to subdue the naughtiest infant. They obey from fear, not of their parents, but of the unseen powers. The Agüelo (Spanish abuelo, for grandfather)[196] is a very old man who goes about the pueblos during Christmas week to see if all the children have learned their prayers properly. He is feared more than anything else, and the children always give him sweets and cakes to put in the bag he carries, but it is quite large enough to hold naughty children also. At each home he makes himself known by a loud knock on the door, and by the cry, El Agüelo, El Agüelo! Aquí viene el Agüelo![197] The children must at once appear and recite their prayers, after which he forms a circle with them and they dance from right to left, and then from left to right, singing at the same time some verses. Children who are frightened into good behavior all the year through by a mythical bugaboo cannot be expected to differentiate him from the one they actually see and propitiate at Christmas time.[198]

The deeper our study of Indian inheritances, the stronger grows the conviction that, while the white conqueror has imposed upon the race the outward observance of conventions in daily conduct, in morals and religion, the mental attitude toward most of these things has not changed in the slightest degree.

The conclusion of the whole matter is therefore that all Indians divide the phenomena of nature, including man, into human and superhuman, and to him almost every natural phenomenon is a mystery. As the Reverend J. Owen Dorsey, a first authority on the subject, puts it: “Even man himself may become mysterious by fasting, prayer, and vision,” and this was indeed the chief function of the cacique, who by acts such as these expiated vicariously the sins of his clan.

If the dictum of a wise man be justified, that “every man is to a greater or less extent a dual personality,” the American Indian should rank as the most evenly developed of all human creatures, since duality is the essence of his being.