it was thought advisable to consult on the feasibility of procuring seed and flesh to eat instead of the clay which had up to this time been the sole food of the human family. And while they yet talked together, there appeared to them, coming they knew not whence, one called Attajen, 'which name implies man, or rational being.' And Attajen, understanding their desires, chose out certain of the elders among them, and to these gave he power; one that he might cause rain to fall, to another that he might cause game to abound, and so with the rest, to each his power and gift, and to the successors of each for ever. These were the first medicine-men."
Many years having elapsed since the death of Ouiot, there appeared in the same place one called Ouiamot, reputed son of Tacu and Auzar—people unknown, but natives, it is thought by Boscana, of "some distant land." This Ouiamot is better known by his great name Chinigchinich, which means Almighty. He first manifested his powers to the people on a day when they had met in congregation for some purpose or other; he appeared dancing before them crowned with a kind of high crown made of tall feathers stuck into a circlet of some kind, girt with a kind of petticoat of feathers, and having his flesh painted black and red. Thus decorated he was called the tobet. Having danced some time, Chinigchinich called out the medicine-men, or puplems, as they were called, among whom it would appear the chiefs are always numbered, and confirmed their power; telling them that he had come from the stars to instruct them in dancing and all other things, and commanding that in all their necessities they should array themselves in the tobet, and so dance as he had danced, supplicating him by his great name, that thus they might be granted their petitions. He taught them how to worship him, how to build vanquechs, or places of worship, and how to direct their conduct in various affairs of life. Then he prepared to die, and the people asked him if they should bury him; but he warned them against attempting such a thing. "If ye buried me," he said, "ye would tread upon my grave, and for that my hand would be heavy upon you; look to it, and to all your ways, for lo, I go up where the high stars are, where mine eyes shall see all the ways of men; and whosoever will not keep my commandments nor observe the things I have taught, behold, disease shall plague all his body, and no food shall come near his lips, the bear shall rend his flesh, and the crooked tooth of the serpent shall sting him."
In Lower California the Pericues were divided into two gentes, each of which worshipped a divinity which was hostile to the other. The tradition explains that there was a great lord in heaven, called Niparaya, who made earth and sea, and was almighty and invisible. His wife was Anayicoyondi, a goddess who, though possessing no body, bore him in a divinely mysterious manner three children, one of whom, Quaayayp, was a real man and born on earth, on the Acaragui mountains. Very powerful this young god was, and for a long time he lived with the ancestors of the Pericues, whom it is almost to be inferred that he created; at any rate we are told that he was able to make men, drawing them up out of the earth. The men at last killed their great hero and teacher, and put a crown of thorns upon his head. Somewhere or other he remains lying dead to this day; and he remains constantly beautiful, neither does his body know corruption. Blood drips constantly from his wounds; and though he can speak no more, being dead, yet there is an owl that speaks to him.
The other god was called Wac, or Tuparan. According to the Niparaya sect, this Wac had made war on their favourite god, and had been by him defeated and cast forth from heaven into a cave under the earth, of which cave the whales of the sea were the guardians. With a perverse, though not unnatural, obstinacy, the sect that took Wac or Tuparan for their great god persisted in holding ideas peculiar to themselves with regard to the truth of the foregoing story, and their account of the great war in heaven and its results differed from the other as differ the creeds of heterodox and orthodox everywhere; they ascribe, for example, part of the creation to other gods besides Niparaya.
Myths of the Athapascans
The great Athapascan family, who inhabit a vast extent of territory stretching north from the fifty-fifth parallel nearly to the Arctic Ocean, and westward to the Pacific, with cognate ramifications to the far south, are weak in mythological conceptions. Regarding them Bancroft says:4
"They do not seem in any of their various tribes to have a single expressed idea with regard to a supreme power. The Loucheux branch recognize a certain personage, resident in the moon, whom they supplicate for success in starting on a hunting expedition. This being once lived among them as a poor ragged boy that an old woman had found and was bringing up; and who made himself ridiculous to his fellows by making a pair of very large snow-shoes; for the people could not see what a starveling like him should want with shoes of such unusual size. Times of great scarcity troubled the hunters, and they would often have fared badly had they not invariably on such occasions come across a new broad trail that led to a head or two of freshly killed game. They were glad enough to get the game and without scruples as to its appropriation; still they felt curious as to whence it came and how. Suspicion at last pointing to the boy and his great shoes as being in some way implicated in the affair, he was watched. It soon became evident that he was indeed the benefactor of the Loucheux, and the secret hunter whose quarry had so often replenished their empty pots; yet the people were far from being adequately grateful, and continued to treat him with little kindness or respect. On one occasion they refused him a certain piece of fat—him who had so often saved their lives by his timely bounty! That night the lad disappeared, leaving only his clothes behind, hanging on a tree. He returned to them in a month, however, appearing as a man, and dressed as a man. He told them that he had taken up his home in the moon; that he would always look down with a kindly eye to their success in hunting; but he added that as a punishment for their shameless greed and ingratitude in refusing him the piece of fat, all animals should be lean the long winter through, and fat only in summer; as has since been the case.
"According to Hearne, the Tinneh believe in a kind of spirits, or fairies, called nantena, which people the earth, the sea, and the air, and are instrumental for both good and evil. Some of them believe in a good spirit called Tihugun, 'my old friend,' supposed to reside in the sun and in the moon; they have also a bad spirit, Chutsain, apparently only a personification of death, and for this reason called bad.
"They have no regular order of shamans; any one when the spirit moves him may take upon himself their duties and pretensions, though some by happy chances, or peculiar cunning, are much more highly esteemed in this regard than others, and are supported by voluntary contributions. The conjurer often shuts himself in his tent and abstains from food for days till his earthly grossness thins away, and the spirits and things unseen are constrained to appear at his behest. The young Tinneh care for none of these things; the strong limb and the keen eye, holding their own well in the jostle of life, mock at the terrors of the invisible; but as the pulses dwindle with disease or age, and the knees strike together in the shadow of impending death, the shaman is hired to expel the evil things of which a patient is possessed. Among the Tacullies a confession is often resorted to at this stage, on the truth and accuracy of which depend the chances of a recovery."
Conclusion
In concluding this survey of representative myths of the Red Race of North America, the reader will probably be chiefly impressed with the circumstance that although many of these tales exhibit a striking resemblance to the myths of European and Asiatic peoples they have yet an atmosphere of their own which strongly differentiates them from the folk-tales of all other races. It is a truism in mythology that although the tales and mythological systems of peoples dwelling widely apart may show much likeness to one another, such a resemblance cannot be advanced as a proof that the divergent races at some distant period possessed a common mythology. Certain tribes in Borneo live in huts built on piles driven into lake-beds and use blow-pipes; so do some Indians of Guiana and contiguous countries; yet no scientist of experience would be so rash as to advance the theory that these races possessed a common origin. It is the same with mythological processes, which may have been evolved separately at great distances, but yet exhibit a marked likeness. These resemblances arise from the circumstance that the mind of man, whether he be situated in China or Peru, works on surprisingly similar lines. But, as has been indicated, the best proof that the myths of North America have not been sophisticated by those of Europe