The Mythology of All Races, Vol. 11: Latin-American

by Hartley Burr Alexander

A curious feature of Araucanian religion is the absence of any cult of the sun. Possibly this is due to the fact that the sun was the great deity of their enemies, the Incas; so that even if it had been adored in the primitive period, it might have been degraded after the Incaic defeat on the same principle that caused a Florida tribe to establish a cult of the Devil, because he was the enemy of the Spaniard. The fact that the Araucanians had measured the solar year, which they divided into twelve months of thirty days each, adding five intercalary days or epagomenae, argues a sun-cult. Molina tells us that they began their year immediately after the December solstice, which they called the Head-and-Tail-of-the-Year, while the June solstice was called the Divider-of-the-Year. Dobrizhoffer says that the Picunche, or Moluche (Araucanians), like the Puelche, had no name for God.[210] "These ascribe all the good things they either possess or desire to the sun, and to the sun they pray for them"; and one of their priests, he says, when told of God, said: "Till this hour we never knew nor acknowledged anything greater or better than the sun." This certainly points to the probability that in primitive times the sun was an Araucanian god, though it appears that the moon has assumed the place of celestial importance in the later pantheon. Her ancient name, Anchimalguen, signifies, says Guevara, Woman (i. e., wife)-of-the-Sun; Anchimallen is the contemporary form. She is implored in adversity and praised in prosperity, say the chroniclers. Sometimes Anchimallen is of ill omen, appearing at night in the form of a stray guanaco and luring travellers to vain pursuit; but she also serves to give warning of enemies and to frighten away evil spirits. Molina gives a very interesting suggestion, namely, that all the female powers of the invisible world form a class of beneficent nymphs called Amchi-malghen. "There is not an Araucanian but imagines he has one of these in his service. Nien cai gni Amchi-malghen, 'I keep my nymph still,' is a common expression when they succeed in any undertaking."

The mythic tales of the Araucanians are (judging from somewhat meagre materials) of a class with those prevalent in neighbouring regions,—a cosmogony in which volcanic forces destroy the world by fire, while a deluge causes all to perish save a few who flee to the three-peaked mountain Thegtheg, the Mount of Levin, which moves upon the waters; a hero cycle in which two brothers, Konkel and Pediu, figure as transformers; and there are stories of a Sky-World above, and of seaward Islands of the Dead.[211] One of the most interesting elements of their mythology is their version of the oft-recurring conception of a Way Perilous to the abode of the departed. An old woman, in the form of a whale, bears the soul out to sea; but before his arrival in the Araucanian Hades he is obliged to pay toll for passing a narrow strait, where sits another malignant hag who exacts an eye from any poor wretch who has nothing better to pay.

IV. THE PATAGONIANS

Few peoples have had fame thrust upon them with so little reason as have the Patagonian Indians, and few myths have been more widely credited than that Patagonia was the home of a race of giants. The Tehuelche are, as a matter of fact, men of large size, probably averaging above six feet; and they are noted for the large development, especially of the upper parts of their body. Keane states that they are second in size among South American peoples, being exceeded by the Bororo. Possibly it was due to the fact that the first navigators of this region were men of south Europe, themselves short, which gave rise to the myth of Patagonian giants. Pigafetta,[212] the chief chronicler of Magellan's voyage, says of one of these "giants" that he was "so tall that our heads scarcely came up to his waist," and the anonymous "Genoese pilot" who has left an account of the same navigation reports that where they wintered, in 1520, "there were people like savages, and the men are from nine to ten spans in height, very well made." It is, indeed, possible that the stature of the modern Tehuelche is modified slightly from that of the Patagon, or "Big-Foot" ("the captain named this kind of people Pataghom," wrote Pigafetta); for since the middle of the eighteenth century the Tehuelche have been an equestrian people, living on horseback, one might say; and a recent observer says of them that "the lower limbs are sometimes disappointing, being, in fact, the lower limbs of a race of riders." Such an influence may well have produced a small diminution of the average stature over that at the time of the first observations.

In no other respect is the Patagonian remarkable. The race is divided into two great divisions, the northerly Puelche and the Tehuelche, of Patagonia proper, now both equestrian peoples. Across the Strait of Magellan, in eastern Tierra del Fuego, dwell the Ona, still a pedestrian branch of the Patagonian race.

The Patagonians are a sluggish and peaceable people, quite self-sufficient when left to themselves, and in the south little influenced by the arts of civilization. Except for the changes which the introduction of horses has brought into their life, the description of the Genoese pilot is essentially true to this day:[213] "They have not got houses; they only go about from one place to another ... and eat meat nearly raw: they are all archers and kill many animals with arrows, and with the skins they make clothes.... Wherever night finds them, there they sleep; they carry their wives along with them with all the chattels they possess."

Accounts of Patagonian religion are all meagre; perhaps because the ideational content of their belief is itself meagre, for authorities agree that they are slow and unimaginative. The little information given by Pigafetta, chronicler of Magellan's voyage, has, to be sure, a moving background. Two of the "giants," he says, were lured on shipboard, and there, while being entertained with gauds, were clamped with irons, the intention being to take them for a show to the Castilian king. "When they saw the trick which had been played them, they began to be enraged, and to foam like bulls, crying out very loud Setebos, that is to say, the great devil, that he should help them." It is from this passage that Shakespeare derived his conception of the god of Caliban. Pigafetta adds that the lesser devils, under Setebos, are called Cheleule. "This one who was in the ship with us, told us by signs that he had seen devils with two horns on their heads, and long hair down to their feet, who threw out fire from their mouths and rumps,"—but we can hardly doubt that the navigators' imaginations were here potent interpreters of the signs. Dobrizhoffer's eighteenth century description of Patagonian beliefs is essentially the same as that of Prichard in the twentieth century.[214] "They are all acquainted with the devil, whom they call Balichù [Valichu, Gualichu, are variants found in other sources]. They believe that there is an innumerable crowd of demons, the chief of whom they name El El, and all the inferior ones Quezubû [probably a form of the Araucanian Huecuvu]. They think, however, every kind of demon hostile and mischievous to the human race, and the origin of all evil, regarding them in consequence with dread and abhorrence." Dobrizhoffer goes on to state that the Puelche and the Araucanian Picunche alike revere the Sun, indicating the affinity of the beliefs of the two groups, which are probably at least remotely related. He continues: "The Patagonians call God Soychù [Soucha is Pennant's variant], to-wit, that which cannot be seen, which is worthy of all veneration, which does not live in the world; hence they call the dead Soychuhèt, men that dwell with God beyond the world. They seem to hold two principles in common with the Gnostics and Manichaeans, for they say that God created both good and evil demons. The latter they greatly fear, but never worship. They believe every sick person to be possessed of an evil demon; hence their physicians always carry a drum with figures of devils painted on it, which they strike at the beds of sick persons, to drive the evil demon, which causes the disorder, from the body."

Prichard's description adds nothing to this.[215] The religion of the Indians consists "in the old simple beliefs in good spirits and devils, but chiefly devils.... The dominant Spirit of Evil is called Gualicho. And he abides as an ever-present terror behind their strange, free, and superstitious lives. They spend no small portion of their time in either fleeing from his wrath or in propitiating it. You may wake in the dawn to see a band of Indians suddenly rise and leap upon their horses, and gallop away across the pampa, howling and gesticulating. They are merely scaring the Gualicho away from their tents back to his haunts in the Cordillera—the wild and unpenetrated mountains, where he and his subordinate demons groan in chosen spots the long nights through." The Good Spirit of the Tehuelche, says Prichard, is far more quiescent. Long ago he made one effort to benefit mankind, when he created the animals in the caves of "God's Hill" and gave them to his people for food, but since then he has shown little interest in earthly matters. Of the practices of the Tehuelche shaman—perhaps an innovation since the day of Dobrizhoffer—Prichard gives an odd instance, narrated by another white observer: "In the middle of the level white pampa two figures upon galloping horses were visible. As we came nearer we saw that one was a man clothed in a chiripa and a capa in which brown was the predominating colour. He was mounted on a heavy-necked powerful cebruno horse, his stirrups were of silver, and his gear of raw-hide seemed smart and good. As he rode he yelled with all his strength, producing a series of the most horrible and piercing shrieks. But strange as was this wild figure, his companion, victim or quarry, was stranger and more striking still. For on an ancient zaino sat perched a little brown maiden, whose aspect was forlorn and pathetic to the last degree. She rode absolutely naked in the teeth of the bitter cold, her breast, face and limbs blotched and smeared with the rash of some eruptive disease, and her heavy-lidded eyes, strained and open, staring ahead across the leagues of empty snow-patched plain. Presently the man redoubled his howls, and bearing down upon the zaino flogged and frightened it into yet greater speed. The whole scene might have been mistaken for some ancient barbaric and revolting form of punishment; whereas, in real truth, it was an anxious Indian father trying, according to his lights, to cure his daughter of measles!" Devils are known to dislike noise and cold, says Prichard; hence, the unlucky patient without a shred to protect her and "the almost incredible uproar made by the old gentleman upon the dark brown horse."

D'Orbigny says[216] of the Tehuelche, "they fear rather than revere their Achekanet-kanet, turn by turn genius of ill and genius of good," and of the Puelche that, like the Patagonians, they believe in a genius of ill, named Gualichu, or Arraken, who sometimes becomes beneficent, without need of prayer. Falkner (cited by King in The Voyage of the Beagle, vol. ii, p. 161) mentions "at the head of their good deities," Guayarakunny, lord of the dead. "They think," he says, "that the good deities have habitations in vast caverns under the earth, and that when an Indian dies his soul goes to live with the deity who presides over his particular family. They believe that their good deities made the world, and that they first created the Indians in the subterranean caverns above mentioned; gave them the lance, bow and arrows, and the balls [bolas], to fight and hunt with, and then turned them out to shift for themselves. They imagine that the deities of the Spaniards created them in a similar manner, but that, instead of lances, bows, etc., they gave them guns and swords. They say that when the beasts, birds, and lesser animals were created, those of the more nimble kind came immediately out of the caverns; but that the bulls and cows being the last, the Indians were so frightened at the sight of their horns, that they stopped the entrances of their caves with great stones. This is the grave reason why they had no black cattle in their country, till the Spaniards brought them over; who, more wisely, had let them out of their caves."

A more recent account of what is a kindred, if not the same myth is given by Ramon Lista.[216] The creator-hero, in this version, is named El-lal. "El-lal came into the world in a strange way. His father Nosjthej (a kind of Saturn), wishing to devour him, had snatched him from his mother's womb. He owed his rescue to the intervention of the terguerr (a rodent) which carried him away to its cave; this his father tried in vain to enter. After having learned from the famous rodent the properties of different plants and the directions of the mountain-paths, El-lal himself invented the bow and arrow, and with these weapons began the struggle against the wild animals—puma, fox, condor,—and conquered them all. But the father returned. Forgetting the past El-lal taught him how to manipulate the bow and the sling, and joyfully showed him the trophies of the chase—tortoise shells, condor's wings, etc. Nosjthej took up his abode in the cave and soon acted as master of it. Faithful to his fierce instincts, he wanted to kill his son; he followed him across the Andes, but, when on the point of reaching him, he saw a dense forest arise between him and his son. El-lal was saved; he descended to the plain, which meanwhile had become peopled with men. Among them was a giant, Goshy-e, who devoured children; El-lal tried to fight him, but he was invulnerable; the arrows broke against his body. Then El-lal transformed himself into a gadfly, entered the giant's stomach, and wounded him fatally with this sting. It was not until he had accomplished all these feats, and had proved himself a clever huntsman, that El-lal thought of marrying. He asked the hand of the daughter of the Sun, but she did not think him worthy of her and escaped him by a subterfuge. Disenchanted, El-lal decided to leave the earth, where, he considered, his mission was at an end, since man, who had in the meantime appeared in the plain and in the mountain valleys, had learned from him the use of fire, weapons, etc. Borne on the wings of a swan across the ocean towards the east, he found eternal rest in the verdant island which rose among the waves at the places where the arrows shot by him had fallen on the surface of the water."