The Myths of the New World: A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America by Daniel G. Brinton

Author:Daniel G. Brinton [Brinton, Daniel G.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780483306967
Amazon: 0483306967
Goodreads: 38175229
Published: 2006-09-22T00:00:00+00:00

C H A P T E R V I .

THE SUPREME GODS OF THE RED RACE.

Analysis of American culture myths.—The Manibozho or Michabo of the Algonkins shown to be an impersonation of LIGHT, a hero of the Dawn, and their highest deity.—The myths of Ioskeha of the Iroquois, Viracocha of the Peruvians, and Quetzalcoatl of the Toltecs essentially the same as that of Michabo.—Other examples.—Ante-Columbian prophecies of the advent of a white race from the east as

conquerors.—Rise of later culture myths under similar forms.

T HE philosopher Machiavelli, commenting on the books of Livy, lays it down

as a general truth that every form and reform has been brought about by a single

individual. Since a remorseless criticism has shorn so many heroes of their

laurels, our faith in the maxim of the great Florentine wavers, and the suspicion

is created that the popular fancy which personifies under one figure every social

revolution is an illusion. It springs from that tendency to hero worship,

ineradicable in the heart of the race, which leads every nation to have an ideal,

the imagined author of its prosperity, the father of his country, and the focus of

its legends. As has been hinted, history is not friendly to their renown, and

dissipates them altogether into phantoms of the brain, or sadly dims the lustre of

their fame. Arthur, bright star of chivalry, dwindles into a Welsh subaltern; the

Cid Campeador, defender of the faith, sells his sword as often to Moslem as to

Christian, and sells it ever; while Siegfried and Feridun vanish into nothings.

As elsewhere the world over, so in America many tribes had to tell of such

a personage, some such august character, who taught them what they knew, the

tillage of the soil, the properties of plants, the art of picture writing, the secrets of

magic; who founded their institutions and established their religions, who

governed them long with glory abroad and peace at home; and finally, did not

die, but like Frederick Barbarossa, Charlemagne, King Arthur, and all great

heroes, vanished mysteriously, and still lives somewhere, ready at the right

moment to return to his beloved people and lead them to victory and happiness.

Such to the Algonkins was Michabo or Manibozho, to the Iroquois Ioskeha,

Wasi to the Cherokees, Tamoi to the Caribs; so the Mayas had Zamna, the

Toltecs Quetzalcoatl, the Muyscas Nemqueteba; such among the Aymaras was

Viracocha, among the Mandans Numock-muckenah, and among the natives of

the Orinoko Amalivaca; and the catalogue could be extended indefinitely.

It is not always easy to pronounce upon these heroes, whether they belong

to history or mythology, their nation’s poetry or its prose. In arriving at a

conclusion we must remember that a fiction built on an idea is infinitely more

tenacious of life than a story founded on fact. Further, that if a striking similarity

in the legends of two such heroes be discovered under circumstances which

forbid the thought that one was derived from the other, then both are probably

mythical. If this is the case in not two but in half a dozen instances, then the

probability amounts to a certainty, and the only task remaining is to explain such

narratives on consistent mythological principles. If after sifting out all foreign

and later traits, it appears that when first known to Europeans, these heroes were

assigned all the attributes of highest divinity, were the imagined creators and

rulers of the world, and mightiest of spiritual powers, then their position must be

set far higher than that of deified men. They must be accepted as the supreme

gods of the red race, the analogues in the western continent of Jupiter, Osiris,

and Odin in the eastern, and whatever opinions contrary to this may have been

advanced by writers and travellers must be set down to the account of that

prevailing ignorance of American mythology which has fathered so many other

blunders. To solve these knotty points I shall choose for analysis the culture

myths of the Algonkins, the Iroquois, the Toltecs of Mexico, and the Aymaras or

Peruvians, guided in my choice by the fact that these four families are the best

known, and, in many points of view, the most important on the continent.

From the remotest wilds of the northwest to the coast of the Atlantic, from

the southern boundaries of Carolina to the cheerless swamps of Hudson’s Bay,

the Algonkins were never tired of gathering around the winter fire and repeating

the story of Manibozho or Michabo, the Great Hare. With entire unanimity their

various branches, the Powhatans of Virginia, the Lenni Lenape of the Delaware,

the warlike hordes of New England, the Ottawas of the far north, and the western

tribes perhaps without exception, spoke of “this chimerical beast,” as one of the

old missionaries calls it, as their common ancestor. The totem or clan which bore

his name was looked up to with peculiar respect. In many of the tales which the

whites have preserved of Michabo he seems half a wizzard, half a simpleton. He

is full of pranks and wiles, but often at a loss for a meal of victuals; ever itching

to try his arts magic on great beasts and often meeting ludicrous failures therein;

envious of the powers of others, and constantly striving to outdo them in what they do best; in short, little more than a malicious buffoon delighting in practical

jokes, and abusing his superhuman powers for selfish and ignoble ends. But this

is a low, modern, and corrupt version of the character of Michabo, bearing no

more resemblance to his real and ancient one than the language and acts of our

Saviour and the apostles in the coarse Mystery Plays of the Middle Ages do to

those recorded by the Evangelists.

What he really was we must seek in the accounts of older travellers, in the

invocations of the jossakeeds or prophets, and in the part assigned to him in the

solemn mysteries of religion. In these we find him portrayed as the patron and

founder of the meda worship,162-1 the inventor of picture writing, the father and

guardian of their nation, the ruler of the winds, even the maker and preserver of

the world and creator of the sun and moon. From a grain of sand brought from

the bottom of the primeval ocean, he fashioned the habitable land and set it

floating on the waters, till it grew to such a size that a strong young wolf,

running constantly, died of old age ere he reached its limits. Under the name

Michabo Ovisaketchak, the Great Hare who created the Earth, he was originally

the highest divinity recognized by them, “powerful and beneficent beyond all

others, maker of the heavens and the world.” He was founder of the medicine

hunt in which after appropriate ceremonies and incantations the Indian sleeps,

and Michabo appears to him in a dream, and tells him where he may readily kill

game. He himself was a mighty hunter of old; one of his footsteps measured

eight leagues, the Great Lakes were the beaver dams he built, and when the

cataracts impeded his progress he tore them away with his hands. Attentively

watching the spider spread its web to trap unwary

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.