If the theory that I have advocated is correct, these myths had to do at first with merely natural occurrences, the advent and departure of the daylight, the winds, the storm and the rains. The beneficent and injurious results of these phenomena were attributed to their personifications. Especially was the dispersal of darkness by the light regarded as the transaction of all most favorable to man. The facilities that it gave him were imputed to the goodness of the personified Spirit of Light, and by a natural association of ideas, the benevolent emotions and affections developed by improving social intercourse were also brought into relation to this kindly Being. They came to be regarded as his behests, and, in the national mind, he grew into a teacher of the friendly relations of man to man, and an ideal of those powers which "make for righteousness." Priests and chieftains favored the acceptance of these views, because they felt their intrinsic wisdom, and hence the moral evolution of the nation proceeded steadily from its mythology. That the results achieved were similar to those taught by the best religions of the eastern world should not excite any surprise, for the basic principles of ethics are the same everywhere and in all time.
[[Footnote 1]: "In der Sprache herrscht immer und erneut sich stets die sinnliche Anschauung, die vor Jahrtausenden mit dem gläubigen Sinn vermählt die Mythologien schuf, und gerade durch sie wird es am klarsten, wie Sprachenschöpfung und mythologische Entwicklung, der Ausdruck des Denkens und Glaubens, einst Hand in Hand gegangen." Dr. F.L.W. Schwartz, Der Ursprung der Mythologie dargelegt an Griechischer und Deutscher Sage, p. 23 (Berlin, 1860).]
[[Footnote 2]: Girard de Rialle, La Mythologie Comparée, vol. I, p. 363 (Paris, 1878).]
[[Footnote 3]: Girard de Rialle, ibid, p. 862.]
[[Footnote 4]: Those who would convince themselves of this may read the work of Don Francisco Pimentel, Memoria sobre las Causas que han originado la Situation Actual de la Raza Indigena de Mexico (Mexico, 1864), and that of the Licentiate Apolinar Garcia y Garcia, Historia de la Guerra de Castas de Yucatan, Prologo (Mérida, 1865). That the Indians of the United States have directly and positively degenerated in moral sense as a race, since the introduction of Christianity, was also very decidedly the opinion of the late Prof. Theodor Waitz, a most competent ethnologist. See Die Indianer Nordamerica's. Eine Studie, von Theodor Waitz, p. 39, etc. (Leipzig, 1865). This opinion was also that of the visiting committee of the Society of Friends who reported on the Indian Tribes in 1842; see the Report of a Visit to Some of the Tribes of Indians West of the Mississippi River, by John D. Lang and Samuel Taylor, Jr. (New York, 1843). The language of this Report is calm, but positive as to the increased moral degradation of the tribes, as the, direct result of contact with the whites.]
[[Footnote 5]: P. Francisco Xavier Alegre, Historia de la Compañia de Jesus en la Nueva España, Tomo i, pp. 91, 92 (Mexico, 1841). The authorities whom Alegre quotes are P.P. Alonso de la Rea, Cronica de Mechoacan (Mexico, 1648), and D. Basalenque, Cronica de San Augustin de Mechoacan (Mexico, 1673). I regret that I have been unable to find either of these books in any library in the United States. It is a great pity that the student of American history is so often limited in his investigations in this country, by the lack of material. It is sad to think that such an opulent and intelligent land does not possess a single complete library of its own history.]
[[Footnote 6]: Relacion de las Ceremonias y Ritos, etc., de Mechoacan, in the Coleccion de Documentos para la Historia de España, vol. liii, pp. 13, 19, 20. This account is anonymous, but was written in the sixteenth century, by some one familiar with the subject. A handsome MS. of it, with colored illustrations (these of no great value, however), is in the Library of Congress, obtained from the collection of the late Col. Peter Force.]
[[Footnote 7]: [See above, chapter iv, §1]]
[[Footnote 8]: Popol Vuh, le Livre Sacré des Quichés, p. 9 (Paris, 1861).]
[[Footnote 9]: The Names of the Gods in the Kiche Myths, Central America, by Daniel G. Brinton, M.D., in the Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society for 1881.]