CHAPTER XIII
SUPERSTITION THEIR RELIGION
Superstition was born with the first man, and is about the only thing in the world that remains unchanged today. The more ignorant the people the deeper we find them plunged into the dark maze of the mythical. People of highly civilized nations are not free from this clinging shadow of the forgotten or unknown past, and, although they laugh at the idea as being rank foolishness, they will feel a little shiver if they are the first to cross the track of a funeral, or they will stop and pick up a pin which points toward them on the sidewalk, not because they need it, but because—well, just because they want to. Civilized people call this trait an eccentricity in themselves and superstition in the savage.
Savages the world over are steeped in superstitious myths, traditions and in folk-lore which is peculiar each to its own tribe, or clan, but through it all there are threads which connect one tribe or people with another, though miles of distance may intervene.
The stories vary in detail and in the telling, but the main points are identical, showing conclusively that at some pre-historic time men had a means of inter-communication without telegraph, ships or railroads, and that a myth originated by the medicine men or prophets of one tribe or nation would spread far beyond the boundaries of the tribe which first practiced it.
There are today two remarkable instances of this fact, both semi-religious a and both originating with the medicine men.
The first is the ghost dance, made vaguely familiar by the battle of Wounded Knee some years ago in the Dakota Bad Land. The other is the myth of the Thunderbird, the Skam-son of the Haidas, and known from Cape Flattery to Wisconsin by various tribal names.
The object of this chapter is to show the remarkable hold which a mythical tale can get on the savage mind, and how the Ta-mahn-a-wis sway the people of their tribe by their dark practices; hence the myth of the Thunderbird as believed in by them from the coast to the great lakes.
The tale involving the origin of this strange creature has already been given as it is told among the Twanas, but it is more than probable that each tribe has its own version of the first appearance of it in their horizon, as all Indians believe in a multitude of spirits, both good and bad.