Chapter I: Speech and Speculation (2)

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.

[Sidenote: 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.

[Sidenote: 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.

[Sidenote: 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.

[Sidenote: 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.

[Sidenote: 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."

[Sidenote: 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.

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[Sidenote: 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.