In these respects, in its feeble grasp on the notion of life and its fail ing conception of the unity of deity, we see how inferior were the Aryan mythologies.
American ilfythology.—Most writers have spoken of American myth ology as a mass of confused and childish fables without coherence and with no leading principles. Researches, however, carried out in accord ance with the methods of comparative mythology above laid down, have conclusively shown that, so far from this being the case, the myths of most of the nations of the red race thus far examined have a striking family character and indicate a well-marked growth of the religious sen timent.
The typical American myth, which is at the centre of all the developed religions of the continent, selected for its symbol of the highest divinity, not the sun, as did the Egyptians, nor the sky or day, as did the Proto Aryans, but Light. This was personified under strictly human form as the early guide and teacher of their nation, often as their first ancestor and as the creator of the animate world. With striking uniformity the story of this culture-hero was told in many tribes—how he brought the cultivated food-plants and pointed out the herbs salutary as medicines ; how he framed their social laws and established their religions rites ; how lie conquered the enemies which arose against them ; and how under his mild sway their ancestors enjoyed peace and prosperity. When the time came for his work to close he did not die like ordinary mortals, but went forth, going on a distant journey, and leaving with them the promise that he should return at some future day and restore the happiness of that primeval time.
Often the myth represents him as born of a virgin, as being one of twins or of four brothers born at a birth, with whom lie has long contests, and his birthplace is usually in the far east ; and thither he journeyed when he forsook his chosen people under the pressure of some mighty motive which admitted no choice.
Like all primary myths, this was originally a plain narrative of natural occurrences. The culture-hero was the light which comes from the east— that is, from one of the two principal or four cardinal points of the horizon. So long as the light lasts man sees and learns; he can exercise his powers, and prospers. But the light born of the early dawn—in many mythologies spoken of as a virgin—is transitory. It is dimmed in the fading day as the sun sinks toward the west. The Egyptians represented the sun-god as attacked by Set, the midday, and by Apep, the darkening west, and finally slain. Not so the American mind. It did not acknowledge the triumph of death. At night the light has, indeed, gone, but it will re turn; its rays will again shine forth from the eastern sky, and man shall rejoice in his strength and knowledge. When, in the course of time, the natural basis of the myth was lost in its personifications, when the story of the light was regarded as the narrative of an actual occurrence in remote history, the hope of a return of the happy days took a concrete form, and the nations expected a restoration to some condition of supposed pristine joy. As among the brown men of Egypt and among the dark
haired, swarthy Greeks the god of light was represented of fair complex ion and with flowing golden locks, so among the Red Indians of America, who had never seen a member of the white race, these culture-heroes were usually spoken of as fair in hue and with abundant flowing hair and beard. These were the types of the white light and its widespreading rays.
If we put to the American religions the same inquiries that we did to the Aryan and Egyptian myths as to what they teach of Life and God, they have an answer different from either of the others. The full acceptance of death as the portal to renewed life, which the worship of Osiris expresses so plainly, or the recognition of death as the inevitable end of all, gods and nature and man as well, which is the dark background of Aryan mythology, was alike alien to the native American mind. It did not allow the existence of death at all. What we call death they taught is but a change of the sphere of activity. The soul lives and passes on to the " happy hunting-grounds," to the land of the sun, thence to return to earth in human or other form, or it may pass directly into another being. The early missionaries and travellers noted all over the continent the prominence of this vitalistic faith. "The belief the best established among our Americans," wrote the Jesuit mis sionary Charlevoix early in the last century, "is that of the immortality of the soul." It was understood in a direct and material sense. La Hontan tells us that among the Abnakis, when some distinguished chief was dying, the women of the village gathered around that his spirit might pass directly to their wombs and be born again in their offspring. Among the Kolushes of the north-west coast, when an aged native is suffering from the infirmities of years, lie will ask to be slain, in order that his soul may enter some unborn child and enjoy youth again. Gag-ern relates that the Zacatecas and other tribes of Mexico hoard and conceal every piece of silver they can earn, nor can the threats of the priest nor the tears of their families induce them, even in their dying moments, to disclose its where abouts: they are so certain of a return to life on earth after a short period that they resolutely determine to save their treasure for their wants at that time. Scores of such examples prove that the idea of death in the sense of the total cessation or extinction of life scarcely existed in America.