Fig. 639.—Mexican names.
The same authority and volume, p. 135 (illustration in Vol. I, Pt. 4, Pl. V), gives the name and illustration (reproduced in the same Fig., b) of Ytzcohuatl, the signification of which name is a serpent armed with knives. The knives refer to the Itzli stone.
In the same volume, p. 137, is the name Face of Water, with the corresponding illustration in Vol. I, Pt. 4, Pl. 12 (here Pl. XII c). The drops of water are falling profusely from the face.
CHAPTER XIV.
RELIGION.
The most surprising fact relating to the North American Indians, which until lately had not been realized, is that they habitually lived in and by religion to a degree comparable with the old Israelites under the theocracy. This was sometimes ignored, and sometimes denied in terms, by many of the early missionaries and explorers. The aboriginal religion was not their religion, and therefore was not recognized to have an existence or was pronounced to be satanic. Many pictorial representations are given in this chapter of concepts of the supernatural, as operative in this world, which is popularly styled religion when it is not condemned as superstition. The pictographic examples presented from the Siouan stock are generally explained as they appear. Those from the Ojibwa and other tribes are not so fully discussed. It is therefore proper to mention explicitly that, in the several localities where the tribes are now found which have been the least affected by civilization, they in a marked degree live a life of religious practices, and their shamans have a profound influence over their social character. A careful study of these people has already given indication of facts corresponding in interest with those which have recently surprised the world as reported by Mr. Cushing from among the Zuñi and Dr. Matthews from among the Navajo.
The most extensive and important publications on the subject have been made by Maj. J. W. Powell (a), Director of the Bureau of Ethnology. These have been made at many times and in various shapes, from the Outlines of the Philosophy of the North American Indians, read in 1876, to the present year.
A considerable amount of detail respecting religion appears in Chap. IX, Sections [4] and [5], in the present work.
The discussion of the religions and religious practices of the tribes of America is not germane to the present work, except so far as it elucidates their pictographs. In that connection it may be mentioned that the tribes of Indians in the territory of the United States, which have been converted to Christianity, seem not to have spontaneously turned their pictographic skill to the representation of objects connected with the religion to which they have been converted. This might be explained by the statement, often true, that the converts have been taught to read and write the languages of their teachers in religion, and therefore ceased to be pictographers. But where they have not been so instructed, indeed have been encouraged to retain their own language and to write it in a special manner supposed to be adapted to their ancient methods, the same result is observed. The Micmacs still with delight draw on bark their stories of Glooscap and Lox, and scenes from the myths of their old faith, but unless paid as for a piece of work, do not produce Christian pictures. This assertion does not conflict with the account of the “Micmac hieroglyphs” in Chap. XIX, Sec. [2]. All the existing specimens of these were made by Europeans, and the action of the first Indian converts, which was imitated by Europeans, was the simple use of their old scheme of mnemotechny to assist in memorizing the lessons required of them by missionaries. It is also to be noted that some tribes for convenience have adopted Christian emblems into their own ceremonial pictographs (see Fig. [159]).
It has been found convenient to divide this chapter into the following sections: (1) Symbols of the supernatural. (2) Myths and mythic animals. (3) Shamanism. (4) Charms and amulets. (5) Religious ceremonies. (6) Mortuary practices.