Tisayac moved away as she had come, and none knew whither she went; but the people called the dome by her name, as it is indeed known to this day. After her departure the chief returned from his weary quest; and as he heard that the winged one had visited the valley, the old madness crept up into his eyes and entered, seven times worse than at the first, into his empty soul; he turned his back on the lodges of his people. His last act was to cut with his hunting-knife the outline of his face upon a lofty rock, so that if he never returned his memorial at least should remain with them forever. He never did return from that hopeless search, but the graven rock was called Totokónula, after his name, and it may be still seen, three thousand feet high, guarding the entrance of the beautiful valley.[III-43]
Leaving this locality and subject, I may remark that the natives have named the Póhono Fall, in the same valley, after an evil spirit; many persons having been swept over and dashed to pieces there. No native of the vicinity will so much as point at this fall when going through the valley, nor could anything tempt one of them to sleep near it; for the ghosts of the drowned are tossing in its spray, and their wail is heard forever above the hiss of its rushing waters.[III-44]
CHAPTER IV.
ANIMAL MYTHOLOGY.
Rôles Assigned to Animals—Auguries from their Movements—The Ill-omened Owl—Tutelary Animals—Metamorphosed Men—The Ogress-Squirrel of Vancouver Island—Monkeys and Beavers—Fallen Men—The Sacred Animals—Prominence of the Bird—An Emblem of the Wind—The Serpent, an Emblem of the Lightning—Not Specially connected With Evil—The Serpent of the Pueblos—The Water-Snake—Ophiolatry—Prominence of the Dog, or the Coyote—Generally though not always a Benevolent Power—How the Coyote let Salmon up the Klamath—Danse Macabre and Sad Death of the Coyote.
The reader must have already noticed the strange rôles filled by animals in the creeds of the Native Races of the Pacific States. Beasts and birds and fishes fetch and carry, talk and act, in a way that leaves even Æsop's heroes in the shade; while a mysterious and inexplicable influence over human destiny is often accorded to them. It is of course impossible to say precisely how much of all this is metaphorical, and how much is held as soberly and literally true. Probably the proportion varies all the way from one extreme to the other among different nations, and among peoples of different stages of culture in the same nation. They spake only in part, these priests and prophets of barbaric cults, and we can understand only in part; we cannot solve the dark riddle of the past; we can oftenest only repeat it, and even that in a more or less imperfect manner.
The Mexicans had their official augurs and soothsayers, who divined much as did their brethren of classic times. The people also drew omen and presage from many things: from the howling of wild beasts at night; the singing of certain birds; the hooting of the owl; a weasel crossing a traveler's path; a rabbit running into its burrow; from the chance movements of worms, beetles, ants, frogs, and mice; and so on in detail.[IV-1]
The owl seems to have been in many places considered a bird of ill omen. Among all the tribes visited by Mr Lord, from the Fraser River to the Saint Lawrence, this bird was portentously sacred, and was a favorite decoration of the medicine-men. To come on an owl at an unusual time, in daylight for example, and to hear its mystic cry, were things not desirable of any that loved fulness of pleasure and length of days.[IV-2] In California, by the tribes on the Russian River, owls were held to be devils or evil spirits incarnate.[IV-3]
We often find an animal adopted in much the same way as a patron saint was selected by the mediæval knight. The Hyperborean lad, for example, when he reaches manhood, takes some beast or fish or bird to be his patron, and the spirit connected with that animal is supposed to guard him. Unlike most Indians, the Eskimo will have no hesitation in killing an animal of his tutelary species: he is only careful to wear a piece of its skin or bone, which he regards as an amulet, which it were to him a serious misfortune to lose. Prolonged ill luck sometimes leads a man to change his patron beast for another. The spirits connected with the deer, the seal, the salmon, and the beluga are regarded by all with special veneration.[IV-4]
The Mexicans used to allot certain animals to certain parts of the body; perhaps in much the same way as astrologers and alchemists used to connect the stars of heaven with different substances and persons. The following twenty Mexican symbols were supposed to rule over the various members of the human body: The sign of the deer, over the right foot; of the tiger, over the left foot; of the eagle, over the right hand; of the monkey, over the left hand; of death—represented by a skull—over the skull; of water, over the hair; of the house, over the brow; of rain, over the eyes; of the dog, over the nose; of the vulture, over the right ear; of the rabbit, over the left ear; of the earthquake, over the tongue; of flint, over the teeth; of air, over the breath; of the rose, over the breast; of the cane, over the heart; of wind, over the lungs—as appears from the plate in the Codex Vaticanus, the Italian interpreter giving, however, "over the liver;" of the grass, over the intestines; of the lizard, over the loins; and of the serpent, over the genitals.[IV-5]