SANCTUARIES OF REFUGE.
The vanquech, or place of worship, seems to have been an unroofed inclosure of stakes, within which, on a hurdle, was placed the image of the god Chinigchinich. This image was the skin of a coyote or that of a mountain-cat stuffed with the feathers of certain birds, and with various other things, so that it looked like a live animal; a bow and some arrows were attached to it on the outside, and other arrows were thrust down its throat so that the feathers of them appeared at the mouth as out of a quiver. The whole place of the inclosure was sacred, and not to be approached without reverence; it does not seem that sacrifices formed any part of the worship there offered, but only prayer, and sometimes a kind of pantomime connected with the undertaking desired to be furthered—thus, desiring success in hunting one mimicked the actions of the chase, leaping and twanging one's bow. Each vanquech was a city of refuge, with rights of sanctuary exceeding any ever granted in Jewish or Christian countries. Not only was every criminal safe there whatever his crime, but the crime was as it were blotted out from that moment, and the offender was at liberty to leave the sanctuary and walk about as before; it was not lawful even to mention his crime; all that the avenger could do was to point at him and deride him, saying: Lo, a coward, who has been forced to flee to Chinigchinich! This flight was rendered so much a meaner thing in that it only turned the punishment from the head of him that fled upon that of some of his relatives; life went for life, eye for eye, and tooth for tooth, even to the third and fourth generation, for justice' sake.
Besides Chinigchinich they worshiped, or at any rate feared, a god called Touch; who inhabited the mountains and the bowels of the earth, appearing, however, from time to time in the form of various animals of a terrifying kind. Every child at the age of six or seven received, sent to him from this god, some animal as a protector. To find out what this animal or spirit in the shape of animal was, narcotic drinks were swallowed, or the subject fasted and watched in the vanquech for a given time, generally three days. He whose rank entitled him to wait for his guardian apparition in the sacred inclosure, was set there by the side of the god's image, and on the ground before him was sketched by one of the wise men an uncouth figure of some animal. The child was then left to complete his vigil, being warned at the same time to endure its hardships with patience, in that any attempt to infringe upon its rules, by eating or drinking or otherwise, would be reported to the god by the sprawling figure the enchanter had drawn in the clay, and that in such a case the punishment of Chinigchinich would be terrible. After all this was over, a scar was made on the child's right arm, and sometimes on the thick part of the leg also, by covering the part, "according to the figure required," with a peculiar herb dried and powdered, and setting fire to it. This was a brand or seal required by Chinigchinich, and was besides supposed to strengthen the nerves and give "a better pulse for the management of the bow."[V-23]
The Acagchemems, like many other Californian tribes,[V-24] regard the great buzzard with sentiments of veneration, while they seem to have had connected with it several rites and ideas peculiar to themselves. They called this bird the panes, and once every year they had a festival of the same name, in which the principal ceremony was the killing of a buzzard without losing a drop of its blood. It was next skinned, all possible care being taken to preserve the feathers entire, as these were used in making the feathered petticoat and diadem, already described as part of the tobet. Last of all the body was buried within the sacred inclosure amid great apparent grief from the old women, they mourning as over the loss of relative or friend. Tradition explained this: the panes had indeed been once a woman, whom, wandering in the mountain ways, the great god Chinigchinich had come suddenly upon and changed into a bird. How this was connected with the killing of her anew every year by the people, and with certain extraordinary ideas held relative to that killing is, however, by no means clear; for it was believed that as often as the bird was killed it was made alive again, and more, and faith to move mountains—that the birds killed in one same yearly feast in many separate villages were one and the same bird. How these things were or why, none knew, it was enough that they were a commandment and ordinance of Chinigchinich, whose ways were not as the ways of men.[V-25]
AND THERE WAS WAR IN HEAVEN.
The Pericues of Lower California were divided into two sects, worshiping two hostile divinities who made a war of extermination upon each other. The tradition explains that there was a great lord in heaven, called Niparaya, who made earth and sea, and was almighty and invisible. His wife was Anayicoyondi, a goddess who, though possessing no body, bore him in a divinely mysterious manner three children; one of whom, Quaayayp, was a real man and born on earth, on the Acaragui mountains. Very powerful this young god was, and a long time he lived with the ancestors of the Pericues, whom it is almost to be inferred that he created; at any rate we are told that he was able to make men, drawing them up out of the earth. The men at last killed this their great hero and teacher, and put a crown of thorns upon his head.[V-26] Somewhere or other he remains lying dead to this day, and he remains constantly beautiful, neither does his body know corruption. Blood drips constantly from his wounds, and he can speak no more, being dead; yet there is an owl that speaks to him. And besides the before-spoken-of god Niparaya in heaven, there was another and hostile god called Wac or Tuparan. According to the Niparaya sect, this Wac had made war on their favorite god, and been by him defeated and cast forth of heaven into a cave under the earth, of which cave the whales of the sea were the guardians. With a perverse, though not unnatural obstinacy, the sect that held Wac or Tuparan to be their great god persisted in holding ideas peculiar to themselves with regard to the truth of the foregoing story; and their account of the great war in heaven and its results differed from the other, as differ the creeds of heterodox and orthodox everywhere; they ascribe, for example, part of the creation to other gods besides Niparaya.[V-27] The Cochimis and remaining natives of the Californian peninsula seem to have held in the main much the same ideas with regard to the gods and powers above them as the Pericues held, and the sorcerers of all had the common blowings, leapings, fastings, and other mummeries that make these professors of the sinister art so much alike everywhere in our territory.[V-28]
The natives of Nevada have ideas respecting a great kind Spirit of some kind, as well as a myth concerning an evil one; but they have no special class set apart as medicine-men.[V-29] The Utah belief seems to be as nearly as possible identical with that of Nevada.[V-30]
The Comanches acknowledge more or less vaguely a Supreme Spirit, but seem to use the Sun and the Earth as mediators with and, in some sort, as embodiments of him. They have a recognized body of sorcerers called puyacantes, and various religious ceremonies and chants; for the most part of a simple kind, and directed to the Sun as the great source of life, and to the Earth as the producer and receptacle of all that sustains life. According to the Abbé Domenech, every Comanche wears a little figure of the sun attached to his neck, or has a picture of it painted on his shield; from the ears of each hang also two crescents, which may possibly represent the moon.[V-31]
The Apaches recognize a supreme power in heaven under the name Yaxtaxitaxitanne, the creator and master of all things; but they render him no open service nor worship. To any taciturn cunning man they are accustomed to credit intercourse with a preternatural power of some kind, and to look to him as a sort of oracle in various emergencies. This is, in fact, their medicine-man, and in cases of illness he pretends to perform cures by the aid of herbs and ceremonies of various kinds.[V-32]
The Navajos, having the usual class of sorcerers, call their good deity Whaillahay, and their evil one Chinday; the principal use of their good god seems to be to protect them from their evil one. In smoking they sometimes puff their tobacco-smoke toward heaven with great formality; this is said to bring rain; to the same end certain long round stones, thought to be cast down by the clouds in a thunderstorm, are used with various ceremonies.