We have seen how the Californian tribes believe themselves descended from the very earth, how the bodiless ancestor of the Tezcucans came up from the soil, how the Guatemaltecs, Papagos, and Pimas were molded from the clay they tread, and how the Navajos came to light from the bowels of a great mountain near the river San Juan. It seems long ago and often to have come into men's mind that the over-arching heaven or something there and the all-producing earth are, as it were, a father and mother to all living creatures. The Comanches call on the earth as their mother, and on the Great Spirit as their father. The Mexicans used to pray: Be pleased, O our Lord, that the nobles who may die in the war be peacefully and pleasingly received by the sun and the earth, who are the father and mother of all.[III-33] It was probably, again, with some reference to the motherly function of the earth that the same people, when an earthquake came, took their children by the head or hand, and lifted them up saying: The earthquake will make them grow.[III-34] Sometimes they specified a particular part of the earth as closer to them in this relation than other parts. It is said that on the tenth day of the month Quecholli, the citizens of Mexico and those of Tlatelolco were wont to visit a hill called Cacatepec, for they said it was their mother.[III-35]
As to the substance, arrangement, and so on of the earth and sky there remain one or two ideas not already given in connection with the general creation. The Tlascaltecs, and perhaps others of the Anáhuac peoples, believed that the earth was flat, and ending with the sea-shore, was borne up by certain divinities, who when fatigued relieved each other, and that as the burden was shifted from shoulder to shoulder earthquakes occurred. The sea and sky were considered as of one material, the sea being more highly condensed; and the rain was thought to fall not from clouds but from the very substance of heaven itself.[III-36] The Southern Californians believed that when the Creator made the world he fixed it on the back of seven giants, whose movements, as in the preceding myth, caused earthquakes.[III-37] The sky, according to certain of the Yucatecs, was held up by four brothers called each of them Bacab, in addition to their several names, which seem to have been Kan, Muluc, Ix, and Cauac. These four, God had placed at the four corners of the world when he created it, and they had escaped when all else were destroyed by flood.[III-38]
In the interior of the earth, in volcanoes, subterranean gods were often supposed to reside. The Koniagas, for example, held that the craters of Alaska were inhabited by beings mightier then men, and that these sent forth fire and smoke when they heated their sweat-houses or cooked their food.[III-39]
The rugged majesty of hills and mountains has not been without its effect on the reverential mind of the American aborigines. Direct worship was unusual, but several incidents must have already informed the reader that a kind of sanctity is often attached to great elevations in nature. A predilection for hills and mounds as landmarks and fanes of tradition, and as places of worship, was as common among the Americans as among the people of the old world. The Choles of the province of Itza had a hill in their country that they regarded as the god of all the mountains, and on which they burned a perpetual fire.[III-40] The Mexicans, praying for rain, were accustomed to vow that they would make images of the mountains if their petitions were favorably received;[III-41] and, in other points connected with their religion to show, as has appeared and will appear both with them and with other people, their recognition of a divinity abiding on or hedging about the great peaks. What wonder, indeed, that to the rude and awe-struck mind, the everlasting hills seemed nearer and liker heaven than the common-place level of earth? and that the wild man should kneel or go softly there, as in the peculiar presence of the Great Spirit? This is hardly a new feeling, it seems an instinct and custom as old as religion. Where went Abraham in that awful hour, counted to him for righteousness through all the centuries? Where smoked the thunderings and lightnings that heralded the delivery of the Law, when the son of Amram talked with Jehovah face to face, as a man talketh with his friend? Whence saw a greater than Moses the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them? whence, in the all-nights that came after, did the prayers of the Christ ascend? and where stood he when his raiment became as no fuller on earth could white it; Moses and Elias talking with him, and Peter so sore afraid?
HILLS AND MOUNTAIN RANGES.
Where hills were not found conveniently situated for purposes of worship, they seem to have been counterfeited after man's feeble fashion: from high-place and mound, from pyramid and teocalli, since the morning stars sang together, the smoke of the altar and the censer has not ceased to ascend. But the day begins to broaden out, and the mists of the morning flee away; though the hills be not lowered, God is lifted up. Yet they have their glory and their charm still even to us, and to the savage they often appear as the result of a special and several creation. We remember how the Great Spirit made Mount Shasta as his only worthy abiding-place on earth; and I give here another legend of a much more trivial sort than the first, telling how, not Mount Shasta alone, but all the mountains of California were built and put into position:—[III-42] At a time when the world was covered with water there existed a Hawk and a Crow and a very small Duck. The latter, after diving to the bottom and bringing up a beakful of mud, died; whereupon the Crow and the Hawk took each a half of the mud that had been brought up, and set to work to make the mountains. Beginning at a place called Teheechaypah Pass, they built northwards, the Hawk working on the eastern range and the Crow on the western. It was a long and weary toil, but in time the work was finished, and as they laid the last peak the workers met at Mount Shasta. Then the Hawk saw that there had been foul play somewhere, for the western range was bigger than his; and he charged the Crow with stealing some of his mud. But the smart bird laughed a hoarse guffaw in the face of his eastern brother, not even taking the trouble to disown the theft, and chuckled hugely over his own success and western enterprise. The honest Hawk was at his wits' end, and he stood thinking with his head on one side for quite a long time; then in an absent kind of way he picked up a leaf of Indian tobacco and began to chew, and wisdom came with chewing. And he strengthened himself mightily, and fixed his claws in the mountains, and turned the whole chain in the water like a great floating wheel, till the range of his rival had changed places with his, and the Sierra Nevada was on the east and the Coast Range on the west, as they remain to this day.
This legend is not without ingenuity in its way but there is more of human interest in the following pretty story of the Yosemite nations, as to the origin of the names and present appearance of certain peaks and other natural features of their valley:—
TOTOKÓNULA AND TISAYAC OF YOSEMITE.
A certain Totokónula was once chief of the people here: a mighty hunter and a good husbandman, his tribe never wanted food while he attended to their welfare. But a change came; while out hunting one day, the young man met a spirit-maid, the guardian angel of the valley, the beautiful Tisayac. She was not as the dusky beauties of his tribe, but white and fair, with rolling yellow tresses that fell over her shoulders like sunshine, and blue eyes with a light in them like the sky where the sun goes down. White, cloudlike wings were folded behind her shoulders, and her voice was sweeter than the song of birds; no wonder the strong chief loved her with a mad and instant love. He reached toward her, but the snowy wings lifted her above his sight, and he stood again alone upon the dome, where she had been.
No more Totokónula led in the chase or heeded the crops in the valley; he wandered here and there like a man distraught, ever seeking that wonderful shining vision that had made all else on earth stale and unprofitable in his sight. The land began to languish, missing the industrious directing hand that had tended it so long; the pleasant garden became a wilderness where the drought laid waste, and the wild beast spoiled what was left, and taught his cubs to divide the prey. When the fair spirit returned at last to visit her valley, she wept to see the desolation, and she knelt upon the dome, praying to the Great Spirit for succor. God heard, and stooping from his place, he clove the dome upon which she stood, and the granite was riven beneath her feet, and the melted snows of the Nevada rushed through the gorge, bearing fertility upon their cool bosom. A beautiful lake was formed between the cloven walls of the mountain, and a river issued from it to feed the valley for ever. Then sang the birds as of old, laving their bodies in the water, and the odor of flowers rose like a pleasant incense, and the trees put forth their buds, and the corn shot up to meet the sun and rustled when the breeze crept through the tall stalks.