Handbook of American Indians north of Mexico / edited by Frederick Webb Hodge.
- Date:
- 1907-1910
Licence: In copyright
Credit: Handbook of American Indians north of Mexico / edited by Frederick Webb Hodge. Source: Wellcome Collection.
987/1000 (page 969)
![from differences of origin, from differ- ences of history, from differences of edu- cation, and from differences of environ- ment. Hence, to produce the same human nature everywhere, these factors inust everywhere l)e the same. The environ- ments of no two peoples are ever ju’ecisely the same, and so the two differ in their character, in their activities, and in their beliefs. To the primitive inchoate thought ot the North American Indian all the bodies and elements of his subjective and object- ive environment were humanized be- ings—man-beings, or l)eings that were persons, that were man in form and at- tribute's and endowed with immortal life (not souls in the modern acceptation of this term), witli omniscieiu'e, and with potent magic power in their several juris- dictions. These beings were formed in the image of man, because man was the highest type of being known to himself and becau.'se of his subjective method of thouglit, which imputed tooutside things, objective realities, his own form and at- tributes. He could conceive of nature iir no other way. They sometimes, however, had the power of instant change or trans- migration into any desired object through the exercise of peculiar magic power. The world of the savage was indeed of small extent, being confined by his boundless ignorance to the countries bor- dering on his own, a little, if any, beyond his horizon. Beyond this, he knew noth- ing of the world, nothing of its extent or structure. This fact is important and easily verified, and this knowledge aids in fully appreciating the teachings of the phflosophv of savage men. Around and through this limited region traveled the sun, the moon, the stars, the winds, the meteors and the lire dragons of the night, and the fitful auroral cherubim of the north. All these were to him man- beings. All trees and plants—the sturdy oak, the tall ]>ine, and the wild parsnip— were such beings rooted to the earth by the mighty spell of some potent wizanl, and so, unlike the deer, they do not ordi- narily travel from place to place. In like manner, hills and mountains and the waters of the earth may sometimes be thus spellbound by the jiotency of some enchantment. Earthquakes are some- times caused by mountains which, held in pitiless thralldom by the orenda of some mighty sorcerer, struggle in agony to he freed. ” And even the least of these are re{)uted to be potent in the exercise of magic power. Bnt rivers run and rills and brooks leap and bound over the land, yet even these in the ripeness of time inay be gripped to silence by the mighty magic power of the god of winter. Among all peoples in all times and in all planes of culture there were persons whose oi)inions were orthodox, and theie were also persons whose opinif)ns were heterodox, and were therefore a c(mstant protest against the common o])inions, the commonsense of the community, these were the agnostics of the ages, the prophets of change and reformation. Every ethnic body of myths ot tfie North American Indians hn-ms a circum- stantial narration of the origin of the world of the myth-makers and of all things and creatures therein. From these narratives it is learned that a world, earlier than the present, situated usually above the visible sky, existed from the beginning of time, in which dw'elt the fir.st or ])r()t(jtypal personages who, hav- ing the form and the attributes of man, are herein called man-beings. Each of these man-beings posses.sed a magic ])OW'- er ])cculiar to himself or herself, by which he or she was later enabled to j)erform his or her functions after the metamorphosis of allthings. Thelifeand mannerof liv- ingof the Indians to-day is])atterned after that of these man-beings in their lirst estate. They were the i)rototypes of the things which are now' on this earth. This elder world is introduced in a state of peace and harmony. In the ripe- ness of time, unrest and discord aj'ose among these first beings, because the minds of all, excepta very small number, becoming abnormal, were changed, and the former state of tram|uillity was soon succeeded by a complete metamorphosis of all things and beings, or was followed by commotion, collision, and strife. The transfornu'd things, the prototypes, were banished from the sky-land to this world, whereupon itac(|uired its present apj)ear- ance and became people(I by all that is 111)011 it—man, animals, trees, and i)lant.'<, who formerly were man-beings. In some cosmologies'man is brought upon the scene later and in a peculiar manner. Each man-being became transformed into whathisor her attril.mtes required, what his primal and unchangeable nature de- manded, and then he or she became in body what he had bei'ii, in a disguised body, before the transformation. But those man-beings whose minds did not change by becoming abnormal, remained there in the skyland—separate, peculiar, and immortal. Indeed they are but shadowy tigun's passing into theshoreless sea of oblivion. Among the tribes of North American Indians there is a striking similarity in their cycles of genesis myths, in that they treat of several regions or worlds. Sometimes around and above the mid- world, the habitat of the myth, are placed](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b24881739_0987.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
