CHAPTER XI.

_DILUVIAN TRADITIONS IN AFRICA AND AMERICA._

Boulanger (1722-59), a freethinker, and the friend and correspondent of Voltaire, was so dominated by his belief in the universal Deluge as a fact, that he made its consequences the foundation of all his theories. Writing in the midst of a scepticism very much resembling that of the present day, he says, "What! you believe in the Deluge?" Such will be the exclamation of a certain school of opinion, and this school a very large one. Nevertheless, this profound writer, by the exigencies of his theory, was irresistibly brought to the recognition of the fact. "We must take," he continues, "a fact in the traditions of mankind, the truth of which shall be universally recognised. What is it? I do not see any, of which the evidence is more generally attested, than those which have transmitted to us that famous physical revolution which, they tell us, has altered the face of our globe, and which has occasioned a total renovation of human society: in a word, the Deluge appears to me the true starting-point (_la veritable epoque_) in the history of nations. Not only is the tradition which has transmitted this fact the most ancient of all, but it is moreover clear and intelligible; it presents a fact which can be justified and confirmed." He proceeds, and the drift and animus of the writer will be sufficiently apparent in the passage--"It is then by the Deluge that the history of the existing nations and societies has commenced. If there have been false and pernicious religions in the world it is to the Deluge that I trace them back as to their source; if doctrines inimical to society have been broached, I see their principles in the consequences of the Deluge; if there have existed vicious legislations and innumerable bad governments, it will be upon the Deluge that I lay the charge." It is, then, only in attestation of the fact that I adduce this author; and in his proof he has accumulated a large mass of indirect evidence, which a certain school of opinion find it convenient altogether to ignore in reference to this subject. In this class are the various institutions among different nations to preserve the memory of the Deluge, as for instance, the "Hydrophories ou la fête du Deluge à Athenes," and at Ægina, the feast of the goddess of Syria at Hierapolis, both having strange resemblances with the Jewish feasts of "Nisue ha Mâim, or the effusion of waters," and the tabernacles, in their traditional aspects, _i.e._ in their observances _not_ commanded by Moses; the "effusion des eaux a Ithome ... et de Siloe;" the feast of the Deluge (of Inachus) at Argos; a feast, the effusion of water, in Persia, anterior to its Mahometanism; similar festivals in Pegu, China, and Japan; in the mysteries of Eleusis; in the "peloria," "anthisteria," and "_Saturnalia_;" and finally in the pilgrimages to rivers in India[201] and other parts of the world; "of the multitude of traditions preserved in the diluvian festivals and commemorative usages of the gulphs, apertures, and abysses which have at one time or another vomited forth or absorbed waters" (i. 84); again, the pilgrimages to the summits of mountains in India, China, Tartary, the Caucasus,[202] Peru, &c. "It is easy to see," he adds (p. 320), "that this veneration is based upon a corrupted tradition, which has taught these people that their fathers formerly took refuge on the top of this mountain at the time of the Deluge, and subsequently descended from it to inhabit the plains."

[201] Dionysius Periegesis says the women of the British Amnitæ celebrated the rites of Dionysos:--

"As the Bistonians on Apsinthus banks Shout to the clamorous Eiraphiates; Or as the Indians on dark-rolling Ganges Hold revels to Dionysos the noisy, So do the British women shout Evoë." (v. 375.) (_Qy_. Enoë.) _Vide_ "The Bhilsa Topes," by Major A. Cunningham, p. 6.

[202] I would specially draw attention to the instances of temples constructed upon the model of ships, concerning which _vide_ Bryant's "Mythology," ii. 221, 226, 227, 240; and compare with Plate XVIII. in Montfauçon, ii.

I shall have occasion to refer again more in detail to some of these customs[203] when drawing attention to the resemblances which I shall presently point out; but I wish previously to give, more _in extenso_, his description of the Hydrophoria at Athens:--

"This name denoted the custom which the Athenians had on the day of this feast of carrying water in ewers and vases with great ceremony; in memory of the Deluge, they proceeded each year to pour this water into an opening or gulf, which was found near the temple of Jupiter Olympus, and on this occasion they recalled the sad memory of their ancestors having been submerged. This ceremony is simple and very suitable to its subject; it was well calculated to perpetuate the memory of the catastrophe caused by the waters of the Deluge. Superstition added some other customs.... They threw into the same gulf cakes of corn and honey; it was an offering to appease the infernal deities.... The Greeks placed it in the rank of their unlucky days (also 'un jour triste et lugubre'); and thus they remarked that Sylla had taken their city of Athens the very day that they had made this commemoration of the Deluge. Superstition observes everything, not to correct itself, but to confirm itself more and more in its errors. It was, according to the fable, by the opening of this gulf that the waters which had covered Attica had disappeared; it was also said that Deucalion had raised near to this place an altar which he had dedicated to Jove the Preserver. 'Tradition also attributed to Deucalion the temple of Jupiter Olympus,' in which these mournful ceremonies were performed. 'This temple was celebrated and respected by the pagan nations as far as we can trace history back.' It was reconstructed on a scale of magnificence by Pisistratus; every town and prince in Greece contributed to its adornment; it was completed by the Emperor Adrian in 126 of our era. The antiquity of this monument, the respect which all nations have shown it, and the character of the traditions which they have of its origin, ought to establish for the festival of the Hydrophoria a great antiquity. The feasts, in general, are more ancient than the temples."--_Boulanger_, i. 38-40.

[203] Compare Bryant.

I will now ask the reader, if he has not read (and seen the illustrations in) Mr Catlin's "O-kee-pa,"[204] to compare the following extract with the preceding:--

"The O-kee-pa, an annual ceremony to the strict observance of which those ignorant and superstitious people attributed not only their enjoyment in life but their very existence; for traditions, their only history, instructed them in the belief that the singular forms of this ceremony produced the buffaloes for their supply of food, and that the omission of this annual ceremony, _with its sacrifices to the waters_, would bring upon them a repetition of _the calamity_ which their traditions say once befell them, destroying _the whole human race_ excepting one man, who landed from his canoe on a high mountain in the west.[205] This tradition, however, was not peculiar to the Mandan tribe, for among one hundred and twenty different tribes that I have visited in North, South, and Central America, not a tribe exists that has not related to me distinct or vague traditions of such a calamity in which one or three or _eight_ persons were saved above the waters on the top of a high mountain. Some of them, at the base of the Rocky Mountains, and in the plains of Venezuela and the Pampa del Sacramento in South America, _make annual pilgrimages_ to the _fancied summits_ where the antediluvian species were saved in canoes or otherwise, and under the mysterious regulations of their medicine (mystery) men tender their prayers and sacrifices to the Great Spirit to ensure their exemption from a similar catastrophe."--P. 2.

[204] "O-kee-pa, a Religious Ceremony, and other Customs of the Mandans," Trübner & Co. London, 1867. Mr Catlin's statements are attested by the certificates of three educated and intelligent men who witnessed the ceremonies with him, and is further corroborated by a letter addressed to Mr Catlin by Prince Maximilian of Neuwied, the celebrated traveller among the North American Indians, who had previously referred to them (he spent a winter among the Mandans).

[205] I read in the _Times_, March 6, 1871, that "The American papers state that workmen in Iowa, excavating for the projected Dubuque and Minnesota railroad, in the limestone at the foot of a bluff, discovered recently _some caves and rock chambers_, and, on raising a foot slab, a vault filled with human skeletons of unusual size, the largest being seven feet eight inches high. A figured sun on the walls is taken as indicating that the skeletons belonged to a people who worshipped that luminary [compare _supra_, p. 152] _and the representation of a man with a dove stepping out of a boat_, as an allusion to a tradition of the Deluge. The fingers of the largest skeleton clasped a pearl ornament, and traces of cloth were found crumbled at the feet of the remains. Many copper implements were found, and it is thought that the Lake Superior mines may have been worked at an early period. The remains were to be removed to the Iowa Institute of Arts and Sciences at Dubuque."

Yet, strange to say, this is _no_ proof to Mr Catlin of the universal Deluge recorded in Scripture. "If," he says, "it were shown that inspired history of the Deluge and of the Creation restricted those events to one continent alone, then it might be that the American races came from the Eastern continent, bringing these traditions with them, for until that is proved, the American traditions of the Deluge are no evidence whatever of an eastern origin. If it were so, and the aborigines of America brought their traditions of the Deluge from the East, why did they not bring inspired history of the Creation?"[206]--P. 3. (_Vide_ pp. 134, 135.)

[206] Compare account of Mandan tradition of the Creation, from "Hist. des Ceremonies Religieuses," _supra_, p. 191.

The "O-kee-pa," Mr Catlin says, "was a strictly religious ceremony, ... with the solemnity of religious worship, with abstinence, with sacrifices, with prayer; whilst there were three other distinct and ostensible objects for which it was held,--1. As an annual celebration of the '_subsiding of the waters_' of the Deluge. 2. For the purpose of dancing what they call the Bull-dance, to the strict performance of which they attributed the coming of buffaloes. 3. For purpose of conducting the young men through _an ordeal of privation and bodily torture_, which, while it was supposed to harden their muscles and prepare them for extreme endurance, enabled their chiefs ... to decide upon their comparative bodily strength, endurance," &c.--P. 9.

The torture no doubt subserved this subsidiary purpose, but it appears to me that the original intention and idea was torture for the purpose of expiation, as in the ceremonies in ancient Greece.[207] Sundry incidents narrated by Catlin seem to establish this. They prepare themselves by fasting (p. 25); after having sunk under the infliction of these horrible tortures (and from every point of view they are truly horrible), "no one was allowed to offer them aid when they lay in this condition. They were here enjoying their inestimable privilege of voluntarily intrusting their lives to the keeping of the Great Spirit, and chose to remain there until the Great Spirit gave them strength to get up and walk away" (p. 28); and when so far recovered, "in each instance" they presented the little finger of the left hand, and some also the forefinger of the same hand and the little finger of the right hand (all tending to make them _pro tanto_ inefficient warriors) "as an offering to the Great Spirit, as a sacrifice for having listened to their prayers, and protected their lives in what they had just gone through" (p. 28).

[207] _Supra_, p. 35. These tortures have their exact counterpart in India, _e.g._ the ceremony of the _Pota_ (compare Sanscrit, "pota" = boat), thus described by Hunter ("Rural Bengal," 1868, p. 463):--"Pota (hook-swinging), now stopped by Government, but still practised (1865) among the Northern Santals [who have the distinct tradition of the Deluge and dispersion referred to, _supra_] in _April or May_. Lasted about one month. Young men used to swing with hooks through their back [as seen in Catlin's illustrations], as in the Charak Puja of the Hindus. The swingers used _to fast_ the day preceding and the day following the operation, and to sleep the intermediate night on thorns."

"On pleuroit et l'on s'attristoit dans les fêtes _les plus gayes et plus dissolues_; les cultes d'Isis et d'Osiris, ainsi que ceux _de Bacchus_, de Céres, d'Adonis, d'Atys, &c., étoient _accompagnés de macérations et de larmes_."--_Boulanger_, iii. 355.

For the description of the _bull_-dance,[208] and for the subsequent history and final extinction of the Mandans, I must refer my readers to Mr Catlin's valuable testimony to the truth of Scripture, and important contributions to ethnological science.

[208] Bryant ("Myth." ii. 432) says, "There were many arkite" (_i.e._ commemorative of ark) "ceremonies in different parts of the world, which were generally styled _Taurica_ sacra" (from taurus = _bull_). These mysteries were of old attended with acts of _great cruelty_. Of these "I have given instances, taken from different parts of the world; from Egypt, Syria, Cyprus, Crete, and Sicily."

I shall now proceed to show analogies in what will be admitted to be most unlikely ground--in the King of Dahome's celebrated "So-sin customs," described by Captain Richard Burton.

Before, however, proceeding further, I must point out the following features in the ceremonies or customs as common to Grecian and antique pagan; to the Mandan (Indian of North America), and to the tropical African.[209] In the first place they are cyclical; they are all of a mournful character; all are interrupted at intervals by processions, dances, and songs of a traditional character; they all close in scenes of rejoicing or rather in Bacchanalian (yet still traditionally [_vide_ page 247, note Boulanger] Bacchanalian) scenes of riot and debauchery. The duration of the festivals varies from three and four to five days; the days have fantastic names, which, although different, still in their very peculiarity, and also in the drift and meaning of the names so far as it can be gathered, are suggestive of a common origin, _e.g_. the first day of the Anthesteria, at Athens was called "[Greek: Pithoigia, apo tou pithous oigein]," "because they tapped their casks." The fourth day of the King of Dahome's customs is named "So (horse) nan-wen (will break) _kan_ (rope) 'gbe (to-day)."--Burton, ii. 8. One part of the Mandan ceremony is called "Mee-ne-ro-ka-Ha-sha," or "the _settling down of the waters_," which name again closely corresponds to the ceremonies at Athens and at Hierapolis in Syria (_ante_), where water was poured into the opening where the waters of the Deluge were supposed to have disappeared. The fifth day of the Dahome customs is named "Minai afunfun khi Uhun-jro men Dadda Gezo"="we go to the small mat tent under which the king sits."--Burton, ii. 27. This approximates to the scene described by Catlin (p. 20) at the close of the bull-dance (fourth day), when "the master of ceremonies (corresponding to the king at Dahome) cried out for all the dancers, musicians," and "the representatives of _animals_ and _birds_," "to gather again around him." He is described as coming out of the mystery lodge and collecting them round "the big canoe."

[209] Let the following points of resemblance be noted also in the "Panathenæa." The lesser, and it is supposed the annual festival, was celebrated on the 20th of Thargelion, corresponding to the 5th May (compare Catlin). Every citizen contributed olive branches and an ox (_vide_ Catlin) at the greater festival. "In the ceremonies without the city there was an engine built _in the form of a ship_, on purpose for this solemnity;" upon this the sacred garment of Minerva "was hung in the manner of a _sail_," "the whole conveyed to the temple of _Ceres Elusinia_." "This procession was led by _old men_, together, as some say, with old women carrying _olive branches_ in their hands." "After them came the men of full age with shields and spears, being attended by the [Greek: Metoikoi], or sojourners, who carried _little boats_ as a token of their being foreigners, and were called on that account _boat-bearers_; then followed the women attended by the sojourner's wives, who were named [Greek: hydriaphoroi], from _bearing water pots_."--Compare Burton, Catlin. Then followed select virgins, covered with millet, "called _basket-bearers_," the baskets containing necessaries for the celebration. "These virgins were attended by the sojourner's daughters, who carried _umbrellas_ (_vide_ Pongol Festival, appendix), _little seats_, whence they were called _seat-carriers_."--Compare Burton (_vide_ Potter's "Antiquities," i. 419.)

Compare also the following in the "Dionysia" or festivals in honour of Bacchus (_ante_, p. 215) with Catlin. "They carried thyrsi, _drums_, pipes, flutes, and _rattles_, and crowned themselves with garlands of _trees_ sacred to Bacchus, ivy, vine, &c. Some imitated Silenus, Pan, and the Satyrs, exposing themselves in _comical dresses_ and antic motions;" and in this manner ran about the hills "invoking Bacchus." "At Athens this frantic rout was followed by persons carrying certain sacred vessels, the first of which was _filled with water_."

Bryant ("Mythology," ii. 219) speaking of Egypt ("the priests of Ammon who at _particular seasons_ used to carry in procession a boat," concerning which refer to page 254), says--"Part of the ceremony in most of the ancient mysteries consisted in carrying about a kind of ship or boat, which custom upon due examination will be found to relate to nothing else but Noah and the Deluge." He adds that the name of "the navicular shrines was _Baris_, which is very remarkable; for it is the very name of the mountain, according to Nicolaus Damascenus, on which the ark of Noah rested, the same as Ararat in Armenia." Herodotus speaks of "_Baris_" as the Egyptian name of a ship, l. 2, 96; Eurip. "Iphig. in Aulis," v. 297; Æschylus, Persæ, 151; Lycophron, v. 747, refer to names of ships in connection with Noah. _Sup._, p. 196. Query--is our word barge a corruption of baris? or perhaps of _baris_ in connection with "_argus_," also a term for the ark. (With reference to this etymology _vide_ my remark, p. 116, and d'Anselme, p. 196, and Bryant, ii. 251.)

But the closest connection is in the nature and order of the ceremonies on the fourth day at Dahome and among the Mandans. Among the latter, interrupting the bull-dance on that day, there is an apparition of "the evil spirit,"[210] graphically described by Mr Catlin (p. 22), and at Dahome (Burton, ii. 18), there intervenes between the fourth and fifth days' ceremonies what is called "the evil night" (there are two "evil nights") which is the night of the horrible massacre. But on this night also, at the close of the fourth day's ceremonies among the Mandans, the infliction of tortures (very horrible, but mild in comparison with the African butchery) commence. Now, I have already ventured the opinion that these tortures were originally of an expiatory character, and this gains confirmation by the assurance made to Captain R. Burton that the victims on "the evil night" were only "criminals" and prisoners of war, the people of Dahome, on all occasions (_vide infra_), preferring a vicarious mode of expiation. Captain R. Burton (ii. 19) says of these massacres:--"The king takes no pleasure in the tortures and death or in the sight of blood, as will presently appear. The 2000 killed in one day, _the canoe_[211] paddled in a pool of gore, and other grisly nursery tales, must be derived from Whydah, where the slave-traders invented them, probably to deter Englishmen from visiting the king. It is useless to go over the ground of human sacrifice from the days of the wild Hindu's Naramadha to the burnings of the Druids, and to the awful massacres of Peru and Mexico. In Europe the extinction of the custom _began_ from the time of the polite Augustus," _i.e._ commenced with the advent of our Lord. [_Vide_ a reference to MS. of Sir J. Acton in Mr Gladstone's address to the University of Edinburgh, 1865, from which it would appear that the final extinction was not until the triumph of Christianity.]

[210] Compare the "Bhain-sasur" or _buffalo_-demon at Usayagiri, carrying a trident. _Vide_ "The Bhilsa Tope," Major Alex. Cunningham, 1854.

[211] It is as well to note, however, that the Dahomans have recently altered their customs. The one Captain Burton witnessed (ii. 34) was a "mixed custom," and elsewhere allusion is made to "the new" ceremony.

Without carrying rashness to the excess of disputing the interpretation of Dahoman words with Captain Burton, I may yet demur to accepting his explanation of the term "So-sin" (the "So-sin customs") _absolute et simpliciter_. He says (i. 315), "The Sogan ('So' = horse, 'gan' captain) opens the customs by taking all the chargers from their owners and by tying them up, whence the word _So-sin_. The animals must be redeemed in a few days with a bag of cowries."[212] This is certainly a very likely definition, and although secondary, is no doubt the explanation current among the present generation of Dahomans. All I shall venture to do is to supplement it. But may not the old and primitive idea still lurk in the name? At i. 242, I perceive Captain Burton says "so" and "sin" mean _water_,[213] and the compound word "amma-sin" means "medicine" = "leaf-water," and again at 244 the same word "Sin" is twice used to signify liquid. If so, in the very name of the feast we find the word _water_, which links it into connection with "the Mandan custom" and the festivals of ancient Greece.

[212] Analogies may perhaps be discovered in the representations of the procession escorting a relic casket on the architraves of the western gate at Sanchi. (_Vide_ "The Bhilsa Tope," by Major Alex. Cunningham, p. 227.)

"Street of a city on the left, houses on each side filled with spectators,... a few horsemen heading a procession, ... immediately outside the gate are four persons bearing either trophies or some peculiar instruments of office. Then follows a _led horse_, ... a soldier with a bell-shaped shield, two fifers, three _drummers_, and two men blowing _conches_. Next comes the king on an elephant, carrying the holy relic casket on his head and supporting it with his right hand. Then follows two peculiarly dressed men on horseback, perhaps prisoners. They wear a kind of cap (now only known in Barmawar, on the upper course of the Ravi) and boots or leggings. The procession is closed by two horsemen (one either the minister or a member of the royal family) and by an elephant with two riders."

It may have had connection with the _As_warnedha or horse sacrifice (Cunningham, p. 363.) Boulanger (i. 109) says, "That after the winter solstice the ancient inhabitants of India descended with their king to the banks of the Indus; they there sacrificed _horses_ and _black bulls_, signs of a funeral ceremony; they then threw a bushel measure into the water without their assigning any reason for it." Compare the throwing the cakes into the gulf at Athens, and the hatchets into the water at the Mandan custom. Could it be that at the Dahoman ceremony the horses were redeemed because the wretched victims were substituted, carrying out the idea of vicarious sacrifice and expiation?

Sir John Lubbock ("Origin of Civilization," p. 199) says, speaking of _water_ worship, "The kelpie or spirit of the _waters assumed_ various forms, those of a man, woman, _horse_, or _bull_ being the most common." Compare _supra_, pp. 196, 202, 204, Manou, Bacchus.

Homer (Hom. Il., Heynii, xxi. 130, Lord Derby, 145), says--

"Shall aught avail ye, though to him (the river Scamander) In sacrifice, the blood of countless _bulls_ you pay, And living _horses_ in his waters sink;"

and (210) Asteropoeus is called "river-born," because the son of Pelegon, who "to broadly flowing Axius owed his birth." Remembering the belief of certain tribes of Indians (supra, p. 137) that they were "created under the water," which I have construed to mean, that they were created on the other side of the Deluge, so we may take in a similar sense the traditions of these Homeric heroes that they were "river-born;" and does the expression, son of Pelegon (compare "son of Prometheus," _supra_, p. 232), imply more than that he was the descendant of Phaleg, or, if not in the line of descent, the descendant of progenitors who had retained the tradition that Phaleg was so called, "because in his days the earth was divided"?--Gen. ch. x. 25. Compare ancient Welsh ballad (Davies' "Mythology of British Druids," p. 100)--

"Truly I was in the ship With Dylan (Deucalion), son of the sea.... When ... the floods came forth From heaven to the great deep."

[213] The name for _river_ in the Chitral or Little Kashghar vocabulary (Vigne, "Travels in Kashmir") is river = _sin_; also in the Dangon, on the Indus, voc. (_id._) river = _sin_; in the Affghan (Kalproth) the sea = _sin_d. _Sind_hu is the Sanscrit name for river (Max Müller, "Science of Lang.," 1st series, 215); and has also its equivalent in ancient Persian. In Danish, river or lake = _so_; in Icelandic, sjor (sjo); in Bultistan, touh; German, see; English, sea; in Kashmir, sar = marse; Icelandic, saus. Compare Rivers Saar, Soane, Seine, Irish Suir; perhaps also Esk and Usk (Vigne, "Trav. in Kashmir"). Horse = shtah, in Bultistan. Has not _so_ analogy with eau, augr (Chittral), _water_? _Sara_ = water in Sanscrit (Max Müller, "Chips," ii. 47); Sanscrit, vari, more generic term for water; Latin, mare; Gothic, marie; Slavonic, more; Irish and Scotch, muir (_id._) Compare Chinese "ma" = horse; Mongol, "mon" = horse; German, machre; English, _mare_. Conclusion, either there is the same word for horse and water in certain languages, which may have occurred in the way of secondary derivation from these "mysteries," or if _so_ means water, then "So-sin" may only be a reduplication, as in the names of some of our rivers--_e.g._ Dwfr-Dwy = water, of Deva = Dee-river (_Archæol. Journal_, xvii. 98). Bryant ("Myth." ii. 408) says "The [Greek: hippos], hippus (horse), alluded to in the early mythology was certainly a _float_ or _ship_, the same as the ceto." There is, moreover, the analogy in the Latin of _aqua_ and _equus_. Another Sanscrit word for water, "ap" (Max Müller, Sc. of L., 103) has analogy with the Greek [Greek: hippos] = horse. It appears (Sc. of L., 2nd series, p. 36), that the Tahitians have substituted the word "pape" for "vai" = water; but both words "pape," to _ap_, "vai," to _vari_, seem to have analogies to Sanscrit as above. Plato ("Cratylus," c. 36, Sc. of L., 1st series, p. 116) mentions that the name for water was the same in Phrygian and Greek. At p. 235, 1st series, Mr Max Müller says that Persian Harôya is the same as Sanscrit Saroya; which latter "is derived from a root 'sar' or 'sri,' to go, to run; from which 'saras,' water, 'sarit,' river, and 'Sarayu,' the proper name of the river near Oude."

Here at any rate in the Sanskrit "sar," to run, we may, if the above conjecture is rejected, start the words "horse" and "water" from a common root.

The word, "So" = horse, will therefore still remain, and may perhaps stand in the same relation to the "water" celebration, that the "bull" does to the Mandan celebration of the Deluge. Captain Burton, for instance, tells us (ii. 15), a "So" was brought up to us (on the fourth day of the So-sin custom, and on the fourth day of the Mandan custom "the bull-dance" was performed sixteen times round "the big canoe"); but I will place the two descriptions side by side.

CAPTAIN BURTON, ii. 15.

"A 'So' was brought up to us, a _bull-face mask_ of natural size, painted black, with glaring eyes and _peep-holes_, the horns were hung with _red_ and _white_ rag _strips_, and beneath was a dress of bamboo fibre covering the feet, and ruddy at the ends. It danced with head on one side and swayed itself about, to the great amusement of the people." _Vide_ also p. 93, "Four tall men singularly dressed, and with bullocks' tails," &c.

MR CATLIN, p. 16.

"The chief actors in these strange scenes (bull-dance) were eight men, with the entire skins of buffaloes thrown over them, enabling them closely to imitate the appearance and motions of those animals, as the bodies were kept in as horizontal a position, the horns and tails of the animals remaining on the skins, and the skins of the animals' heads served as _masks_ through the eyes of which the _dancers were looking_." The legs of the dancers were painted _red_ and _white_" (plate 6.)

If we might (on the strength of so many words of primary necessity being in common) connect "So" = horse, with the Saxon "soc" or plough (as in the soc and service tenure), we could then see a way in which the same word might apply indifferently to ox or horse; and we would, moreover, see through the common relation to Noah how the water ceremony came to be associated with the worship of Ceres in the mysteries of Eleusis. _Vide_ Boulanger, i. 70-107.[214]

[214] Compare (Klaproth, "Mem. Asiat." ii. 12)--Eng. _ox_; Mongol, char; Hebrew, chor; French, charrue (plough.) Klaproth, ii. 405, "Les cheveux en Thou Khin (whom he identifies with the Turks) portaient le nom de _Sogo_ ou _so_ko; cest le même nom que le Turc sâtch ou sadg." Can it have affinity with Chinese _sa_ (Chinese szu = boeuf sauvage); German, säen; Swedish, _sá_; French, semer; English = to _sou_; Peruvian, sara = maize; also French, _cou_dre, to sow with English corn; Sanscrit, go; High German, chus; Sclavonic, _go_ws (Max Müller, "Chips," ii. 27); and Kashmir and Dongan, gau; Icelandic, ku? In Affghan a bull = _sak_hendar and _souk_handar. In the extinct Tartar Coman (_vide_ Klaproth) ox = _ogus_ or _seger_ = Turkish, okus; Sanscrit, oukcha; German, ochse. Plough = Sanscrit, sinam; Irish, serak; Persian, siar. Horse = _as_p, Persian; _ess_, Sclavonic = English _ass_; and in Chittral on Indus (_vide_ horse or bull used in ceremonies on banks of Indus, _infra_) horse = _astor_. (Has not _tor_ here affinity with _taur_eau.) Corn = _As_lek (Kirghish) and Ashlyk (?) Turkish. Max Müller (Science of Language, p. 231), says--"Aspa was the Persian name for horse, and in the Scythian names, Aspabota, Aspakara, and Asparatha, we can hardly fail to recognise the same element." Also, p. 242, "The comparison of ploughing and sowing is of frequent occurrence in ancient language." Eng., plough; Sclav., ploug = Sanscrit, plava, ship = Gk. [Greek: ploion], ship. "In English dialects, plough is used as a waggon or conveyance. In the Vale of Blackmore, a waggon is called a plough, or plow, and _Zull_ (A.-S., syl) is used for aratrum."--Barnes, "Dorset Dialect," p. 369, ap. Max Müller.

The above enumeration does not exhaust the points of resemblance. Compare the following:--

BURTON, ii. 23.

"Conspicuous objects on the left of the pavilion were two Ajalela or fetish pots made by the present king (according to the customs.) _Vide_ note 16. Both are lamp black, shaped like amphoræ (amphoræ, for holding wine) about 4 feet high, and planted on tripods. The larger was solid, the smaller callendered with many small holes, and both were decorated with brass and silver crescents, stars, and similar ornaments. The second, when filled _with water and medicine_ allows none to escape, so great is its fetish power; an army guarded by it can never be defeated, and it will lead the way to Absokuta." Compare Pongol ceremony, p. 275.

CATLIN, p. 8.

"In an open area in the centre of the village stands the ark or 'big canoe,' around which a great proportion of the ceremonies were performed. This rude symbol, of 8 or 10 feet in height, was constructed of planks and hoops, having somewhat the appearance of a large hogshead standing on its end, and containing some mysterious things, which none but the _medicine_ (mystery) men were allowed to examine."

This must be considered in connection with the following.

BURTON.

In the opening procession of the third day's customs, Captain Burton tells us (ii. 2), "First came a procession of eighteen Tansi-no or fetish women, who have charge of the last monarch's grave.... They were preceded by bundles of matting, eight _large stools_, calabashes, pipes, _baskets_ of _water_, grog, and meat with segments of _gourd_ above and below, tobacco bags, and other commissariat articles; and they were followed by a band of horns and _rattles_."[215]

[215] Compare the procession in the Panathenæa and Dionysia, _supra_, p. 248.

In another procession (ii. 47), "The party was brought up by slave girls carrying baskets and calabashes. (Query, of water?) These, preceded by six bellowing horns, stalked in slowly, and with measured gait the _eight_ Tansi-no, who serve and pray for the ghosts of dead kings. (Query, eight dead kings?) In front went _their_ ensign, a copper measuring rod 15 feet long and tapering to a very fine end; behind it were two chauris and seven mysterious pots and calabashes wrapped in _white_ and _red_ checks," and presently "three brass, four copper, and six iron pots, curiosities on account of their great size.... _Eight_ images, of which three were apparently _ship's figureheads_ whitewashed, and the rest very hideous efforts of native art."[216]

[216] "Eight men representing eight buffalo bulls," in Mandan celebration, "took their positions on the four sides of the ark or 'big canoe.'"--Catlin, p. 17. "The _chief actors_ in these strange scenes were _eight_ men with skins of buffaloes," &c. p. 16. Four images were suspended on poles above the mystery lodge, p. 8.

CATLIN.

In Captain Burton's account of the articles paraded in the procession, the pipes (to which great mystery is attached), the _horns_ and _rattles (vide pl.)_, and _the baskets of water_ are common to the Mandan ceremony. May not the eight stools be representative of the eight diluvian survivors. _Vide supra_, 197, Cabiri? Let us, however, confine our attention to the "baskets of water." Compare with the following account in Catlin.

"In the medicine (mystery) lodge ... there were also four articles of _veneration_ and importance lying on the ground, which were _sacks_ containing each some three or four gallons of _water_. These seemed to be objects of great superstitious regard, and had been made with much labour and ingenuity, being constructed of the skins of the _buffaloes'_ neck, and sewed together in the forms of large _tortoises_ lying on their backs (comp. p. 138; also p. 269), each having a sort of tail made of _raven's_ quills and a stick like a drumstick lying on it, with which, as will be seen in a subsequent part of the ceremony, the musicians beat upon the _sacks_ as instruments of music for their _strange dances_. By the sides of these sacks, which they called Ech-tee-ka (drums), there were two other articles of equal importance which they called Ech-na-da (rattles) made of undressed skins shaped into the form of _gourd_ shells," &c. (Note the segments of _gourd_ accompanying the _water_ baskets in the Dahome procession, _supra_.) Catlin adds--"The sacks of water had the appearance of great antiquity, and the Mandans pretended that the water had been contained in them ever since the Deluge."--pp. 15, 16.[217]

[217] In the _Japanese_ (_vide_ p. 269) version of the legend of the _bull_ breaking the mundane egg (_vide_ p. 396), a _gourd_ or pumpkin is also broken which contained the first man.--_Vide_ Bryant's "Mythology," iii. 579. "I have mentioned that _the ark_ was looked upon as the mother of mankind, and styled Da-Mater, and it was on this account figured under the semblance of a _pomegranate_," "as it abounds with seed"--Bryant, ii. 380. _Vide_ also plate (Bryant, ii. 410), where Juno (_vide_, p. 395) holds a _dove_ in one hand and a _pomegranate_ in the other.

BURTON, ii. 35.

It must be remembered that at Dahome, royalty as there represented has absorbed and monopolized the most important parts of the ceremonial: it is natural, therefore, to expect that the conspicuous figures in the original (or in the Mandan), which conflicted or would not consort with royalty, would be thrown into the background. Accordingly I am only able to get a glimpse of the conspicuous figures opposite in the following passage:--"The jesters were followed by a dozen _pursuivants_ armed with gong-gongs, who advanced bending towards the throne, and shouted the 'strong names' or titles. Conspicuous amongst them was an _oldster_ in a crimson sleeveless tunic and yellow shorts: his head was red with dust, he carried a large _bill-hook_,[218] and he went about attended by _four_ drums and one cymbal."

[218] Compare also _sup._, p. 210, with Saturn. "Ipsius autem canities," &c., and "cum falce messis insigne."

It will be remembered (if my readers have read Mr Catlin, p. 11, 12) that the first thing "the aged white man" does on entering the mystery lodge is to call on the chiefs "to furnish him with _four_ men," and the next is to "receive at the door of every Mandan's wigwam _some edged tool_ to be given to the water as a sacrifice, as it was with _such tools_ that the "big canoe" was built.[219]

[219] Compare again these two figures, one figuring in the Dahoman procession, the other in the Mandan bull dance.

CATLIN, p. 10.

The opening scene in the Mandan customs, effectively described by Mr Catlin, begins with "a solitary human figure descending the prairie hills and approaching the village," "in appearance a very _aged_ man," "a centenarian white man," dressed in a robe of four white wolves' skins." He was met by the head chief and the council of chiefs, and addressed by them as "Nu-mohk-muck-a-nah" (the _first_ and only man.) "He then harangued them for a few minutes, reminding them that every human being on the surface of the earth had been destroyed by the water excepting himself, who had landed on a high mountain in the west in his canoe, where he still resided, and from whence he had come to open the medicine (mystery) lodge, that the Mandans might celebrate the _subsiding of the waters_, and make the proper sacrifices to the water, lest the same calamity should again happen to them."

BURTON, ii. 38.

"The ministers ... they were conducted by a 'Lali' or half-head, with right side of his pericranium clean shaven, and the left in a casing of silver that looked like a cast or a half melon."

* * * * *

Burton says (ii. 87), "One of the Dahoman monarch's peculiarities is that he is double, not merely binonymous, nor dual, like the spiritual Mickado and temporal Tycoon of Japan, but two in one. Gelele, for instance, is king of the city and addo-kpon of the 'bush'; _i.e._ of the farmer folk and the country as opposed to the city. This country ruler has his _official_ mother, the Dank-li-ke.... Thus Dahome has two points of interest to the ethnologist--the distinct precedence of women and the double king."--_Vide_ also p. 80.

CATLIN, p. 30.

Compare with the two athletic young men (_vide_ Plate XIII.) assigned to each of the young men who underwent the torture--"their bodies painted _one half red_ and the other blue, and carrying a bunch of willow-boughs in one hand."

Here two or three questions suggest themselves. If this ceremony is primitive, will not dual royalty give a clue to the duality we find so commonly in mythology, assuming the basis of mythology to be historical? 2d, Is there no clue in the name, _official_ name, of Dank-li-ke? What does the reader guess the meaning to be? (p. 58.) Mr Burton tells us it means, "Dank (the rainbow), li (stand), and ke (the world)." Is it a forced paraphrase to construe this to mean--The rainbow is the sign that the world shall stand?

Upon the point of the precedence of woman, to which the Dahoman ceremony testifies, but to which it gives no clue, I shall, as it is so very important in more bearings than one, give at some length the following scene from Catlin:--

"When 'the evil spirit' enters the camp during the ceremony, he proceeds to make various attacks, which are defeated by the intervention of the master of the ceremonies. In several attempts of this kind the evil spirit was thus defeated, after which he came wandering back amongst the dancers, apparently much fatigued and disappointed.... In this distressing dilemma he was approached by an old matron, who came up slyly behind him, with both hands full of yellow dirt, which (by reaching around him) she suddenly dashed in his face, covering him from head to foot, and changing his colour, as the dirt adhered to the undried bear's grease on his skin; ... at length _another_ snatched his _wand_ from his hand and broke it across her knee ... his power was thus gone ... bolting through the crowd, he made his way to the prairies."--P. 24.

We shall not be surprised to learn, then, that when the "Feast of the Buffaloes" (distinct from the bull-dance) commences (p. 33), several old men perambulated the village in various directions, in the character of criers, with rattles in their hands, proclaiming that "the _whole government of the Mandans_ was then in the hands of one woman--she who had disarmed the evil spirit ... that the chiefs that night were old women; that they had nothing to say; that no one was allowed to be out of their wigwams excepting the favoured ones whom 'the governing woman' had invited," &c. Will not this give a clue to the precedence in Dahome, _probandis probatis_, and is not the precedence in Dahome thus interpreted, and the interlude above described evidence of the tradition, that the _woman_ should break the head of the _serpent_? (Gen. iii. 15). It is of great significance, and, if so many points of comparison had not occurred, ought to have been stated at the outset, that at Dahome "the Sin-kwain ("sin," water--"kwain," sprinkling), or water-sprinkling custom follows closely upon the "So-sin or Horse-tie rites."--_Vide_ Burton, ii. 167.

Now, if the reader will turn to Boulanger, i. 90, 91, he will find this identical custom in Persia, Pegu, China, and Japan. But I relinquish the details, as I fear I shall have exhausted the patience of the few readers I shall have carried with me to this point; and because the King of Dahome has a custom perhaps still more demonstrably cognate to not only the ancient Grecian ceremonies on the shores of the ocean and on the banks of rivers, but with widely diffused tradition. I shall here place four writers in juxtaposition, and with this testimony I shall conclude:--

BOULANGER.

The ancient inhabitants of Italy repaired once a year to the Lake Cutilia, where they made sacrifices and celebrated secret mysteries or ceremonies (Dion. Halicarnassus, i. 2).

The pontiffs in ancient Rome also went annually to the banks of the Tiber, "là ils faisoient des sacrifices _expiatoires_ à Saturne, ce Dieu chronique," &c. (Dion. Hal. i. 8.)

In the kingdom of Saka in Africa their greatest solemnity was celebrated on the banks of the rivers; the king himself presides at it (Hist. Gener. des Voy., iii. 639).

The same custom has been already (_supra_, p. 252) noticed on the Indus.

In all these cases human sacrifices were offered, or substitutes.--Boulanger, i. pp. 110-11. Compare _supra_, p. 243, lines from Dionysius Periegesis.

BURTON.

At Whydat the youngest brother of their triad is Hu, the ocean or sea. [Compare with Assyrian Hoa, _supra_, p. 194, and Chinese Yu, p. 68.] "The Hu-no, or ocean priest, is now considered the highest of all.... At times the king sends as an ocean sacrifice from Agborne a man carried in a hammock, with the dress, the stool, and the umbrella of a Caboceer; a canoe takes him out to sea, where he is thrown to the sharks. The custom for this element is made at Whydat, in a place near the greater market, and called Hu-kpa-man. It is a _round_ hut, with thatch and chalked walls: outside is a heap of bones, whilst _skulls_, carapaces of the _tortoise_, and similar materials, cumber the _interior_. The priest is a fetish woman, who _offers water_ and kola nuts to, and expects rum from, white visitors."--ii. p. 141.

Compare also _supra_, in Preface, extract from Davies' "Celtic Researches" on the Celtic god Hu.

CATLIN.

The water ceremonies in Catlin's account have already been sufficiently adverted to. He thus describes the medicine or mystery lodge in which they took place. Exteriorly, with the exception of the four images, it differed only in dimensions from the other wigwams, which are thus described? "They were covered with earth. They were all of one form; the frames or shells constructed of timbers, and covered with a thatching of willow boughs, and over and on that with a foot or two in thickness of a concrete of tough clay and gravel, which became so hard as to admit the whole group of inmates to recline on _their tops_. They varied in size from thirty to sixty feet, and _were perfectly round_." For extract describing _interior_, _vide supra_, p. 257, noting (_vide_ Plate iii. in Catlin) the four human and four ox _skulls_; "the sacks of water in the form of large _tortoises_ lying on their backs."

_N.B._--With reference to the tortoise, _vide ante_ p. 257.

Compare the "Buddhist Topes" in Major Cunningham's "Bhilsa Tope," _vide_ p. 243.

HUNTER.

Hunter ("Annals of Rural Bengal," p. 153) says of the Santals: "The only stream of any consequence in their present country--the Damouda--is regarded with a veneration altogether disproportionate to its size. Thither the superstitious Santal repairs to consult the prophets and diviners, and once a year the tribes make a pilgrimage to its banks in commemoration of their forefathers.... However remote the jungle in which the Santal may die, his nearest kinsman carries a little relic of the deceased to the river, and places it in the current to be conveyed to the far-off eastern land from which his ancestors came."

In connection with the above, it must be remembered (_vide_ Appendix G, p. 480, "Santal Traditions") that they have, although confused with the Creation, an unmistakable tradition of the Deluge, the intoxication of Noah, and the dispersion.

If, then, I have shown that the custom, for the preservation of which from oblivion, so far as the Mandans (now extinct) are concerned, we are indebted to Mr Catlin, and which so plainly tells its own tale, is common to Europe, Asia, and Africa, as well as America, I shall have established it as a tradition, not of a local American, but of an universal Deluge; and if the tradition of the universal Deluge is proved, then, according to Mr Catlin's narrative itself, there is tradition of the Creation also (_vide_ pp. 7, 13, 42).[220]

[220] I allude to the opening of the ceremony by the centenarian _white_ man, "the first and only man." Mr Catlin is of opinion that this incident was introduced and superadded by some missionaries, though he adds it would be still more strange if the (Jesuit) missionaries had instructed them "in the other modes." This, however, is understating the case. It is conceivable that missionaries should have come among them, but in this case we should have expected some trace of Christian practices and dogmas; it is difficult to conjecture what set of missionaries could have indoctrinated them with the recondite pagan mysteries of Eleusis and Hierapolis.

I have replied more fully, in chap. vii., to Mr Catlin's objection--that though they have a tradition of a deluge, it is not the tradition of the Deluge, because they have not also the tradition of the Creation.

Mr Catlin argues upon the view that the American race "were created upon the ground on which they were found" ("Last Rambles," p. 321, 1868); and (p. 319) adds, "I can find nothing in history, sacred or profane, against this."

He takes his stand (in "O-kee-pa") upon this--that there is nothing in the Mandan tradition which can be brought in proof of their migration from another continent. In reply I shall adduce their very name.

The American continent may have been peopled by way of Behring's Straits, or from Europe in the East by way of Greenland, or by the connection of the Pacific Islands from the opposite coasts of Japan, China, and the Corea, or from the Polynesian groups in the south. The population may have poured in by all these routes. It is said (Prescott, "Conquest of Mexico," ii. 473)[221] that MSS. exist at Copenhagen proving that the American coast was visited by the Northmen in the eleventh century. The Polynesian route we may leave out of consideration, as it will not probably have been the one by which the Mandans came. As to the route by Behring's Straits, Mr Catlin admits "it is a possibility, and therefore they say it is probable" (p. 217, "Last Rambles"). But if, as there appears to me reason to think, they came from the opposite coast of the Corea, it might as reasonably be conjectured that the migration took the route of Behring's Straits, or by way of the Sandwich Islands. The possibility of the former is conceded. I will confine my attention, therefore, to the latter, which Mr Catlin pronounces absolutely impossible. In the first place, the distance between the Sandwich Islands and America is not greater than between Otaheite and New Zealand.[222] Now it is admitted that New Zealand was peopled from Otaheite. Moreover (_vide_ Sir J. Lubbock, "Pre-historic Times," p. 390), the inhabitants of the Sandwich Islands, at two thousand miles distance, belong to the same race as those of Tahiti (Otaheite) and New Zealand, and resemble them "in religion, languages, canoes, houses, weapons, food, habits, &c."[223] The canoes of the Pacific islanders generally (_vide_ Captain Cook _passim_) were of considerable size, and of very perfect workmanship. But also Prescott ("Conquest of Mexico," ii. 473, quoting Beechey's "Voyage to Pacific," 1831, p. 2 Appendix, Humboldt's "Examen. Critique de l'Hist. de la Geog." and Nuov. Cont. ii. 55) says, "It would be easy for the inhabitant of Eastern Tartary or Japan to steer his canoe from islet to islet quite across to the American shore, without ever being on the ocean more than two days at a time."[224]

[221] _Vide_ also Giebel, "Tagesfragen," p. 91; _apud_ Reusch, p. 500.

[222] _Vide_ "Cook's Voyages," i. 199; Prescott, ii. 476.

[223] "There have been recent instances of Japanese vessels having been thrown by shipwreck upon the coasts of the Sandwich Islands, and even on the mouth of the Columbia."--Reusch, "La Bible et la Nature," p. 499.

"Since the north-west coast of America and the north-east of Asia have been explored, little difficulty remains on this subject.... Small boats can safely pass the narrow strait. Ten degrees farther south, the _Aleutian_ and Fox islands form a continuous chain between Kamschatka and the peninsula of Alaska in such a manner as to leave the passage across a matter of no difficulty."--Warburton's "Conquest of Canada," i. 194.

Ellis ("Polynesian Researches," ii. 46) says: "There are also _many_ points of _resemblance_ in language, manners, and customs between the South Sea Islanders and the inhabitants of Madagascar in the west; the inhabitants of the _Aleutian_ and _Kurile_ islands in the north, which stretch along the mouth of Behring's Straits, and forms the chain which connects the old and new worlds," &c.

[224] "The Sandwich Islands, with a population of 500,000, are more than two thousand miles from the coast of South America. How did the population of those islands get there? Certainly not in canoes over ocean waves of two thousand miles. But I am told 'the Sandwich islanders are Polynesians;' not a bit of it; they are two thousand miles north of the Polynesian group, with the same impossibility of canoe navigation, and are as different in _physiological traits_ of character and _language_ from the Polynesian, as they are different from the American races.--"Last Rambles" (Catlin), p. 317. 1868.

Captain King, "Transactions on returning to Sandwich Islands," &c., continuation of Cook's voyages, Pinkerton (xi. 730) says on the contrary: "The inhabitants of the Sandwich Islands are undoubtedly of the same race with those of New Zealand, the Society and Friendly Islands, Easter Islands, and the Marquesas. This fact, which, extraordinary as it is, might be thought sufficiently proved by the _striking_ similarity of their _manners_ and _customs_, and the general resemblance of their _persons_ is established beyond all controversy by the _absolute identity_ of their language."

Shortland says that the New Zealanders, "when speaking of any old practice, regarding the origin of which you may inquire, have the expression constantly in their mouths, 'E hara i te mea poka hou mai; no Hawaika mai ano.'--It is not a modern invention; but a practice brought from Hawaiki, Sandwich Islands)."--Shortland's "Traditions of the New Zealanders," p. 61.

We may agree, then, that the Mandans might have come by this route. Is there anything which makes it probable that they came? Well, yes; in the first place their name. Mr Catlin tells us ("O-kee-pa," p. 5), "The Mandans (Nu-mak-ká-kee, _pheasants_, as they call themselves) have been known from the time of the first visits made to them, to the day of their destruction, as one of the most friendly and hospitable tribes on the United States frontier." It transpires, therefore, that they are called _pheasants_. Is the pheasant a native of America?--on the other hand, is it not common on the opposite Asiatic continent, and on the islands adjacent to it from New Guinea to the Corea? I have never heard of the pheasant in the American continent;[225] but in reading the accounts of the missionaries of the Corea (the only foreigners who have penetrated into the country), I read, "that clouds of _pheasants_ and birds of all kinds perch at night in the branches of the trees" ("Life of Henri Dorie," translated by Lady Herbert; Burns & Oates, p. 77); and if the reader will turn to p. 79 in the same Life, and will compare the description of the Coreans, which he will find there, with the description and portraits of the Mandans in Mr Catlin's "O-kee-pa," pp. 4, 5, he will, I think, recognise a sufficient resemblance to warrant and sustain the presumption created by their name.[226]

[225] As far as I can ascertain, the pheasant is not a native of America. Yarrell speaks of it as Asiatic, and that it has been domesticated "in all parts of the _old_ continent." So also Gould. Of the American writers, _neither_ Wilson, Audubon, Bonaparte, Nuttall, Richardson, or Jameson include the pheasant. Mr Catlin, however, says, p. 44: "From the translation of their name, already mentioned (Nu-mah-ká-kee, pheasants), an important inference may be drawn in support of the probability of their having formerly lived much farther to the south, as that bird does not exist on the prairies of the Upper Missouri, and is not to be met with short of the hoary forests of Ohio and Indiana, eighteen hundred miles south of the last residence of the Mandans. In their familiar name of Mandan, which is not an Indian word, there are equally singular and important features. In the first place, that they knew nothing of the name or how they got it; and next, that the word Mandan in the Welsh language [Mr C.'s theory is that they are the survivors of Prince Madoc's expedition from Wales in the fourteenth century] means red dye, of which further mention will be made." On the legend of the Welsh expedition, _vide_ Warburton's "Conquest of Canada," ii., Appendix iv.

[226] "The Indians resemble the people of north-eastern Asia in form and feature more than any other of the human race; their population is most dense along the districts nearest to Asia; and among the Mexicans, whose records of the past deserve credence, there is a constant tradition that their Aztec and Toltec chiefs came from the north-west."--Warburton's "Conquest of Canada," i. 195.

Brace ("Manual of Ethnology," p. 115) says, after noting that whereas the prominence in the head "is anterior in the Chinese rather than lateral, as in the American Indians and the Tangusic tribes," adds, "The peculiar distinguishing characteristics are the smallness of the eyes and the obliquity of the eyelids. The nose is usually small and depressed, though sometimes, in favourable physical conditions, natives are found with a slightly aquiline nose, _giving the face a close resemblance to that of the American Indians or New Zealanders_."

Refer to argument at p. 70, with reference to the Mozca Indians.

To the peculiarity of name, and resemblance of feature, I shall now proceed to add the evidence of some traces of their peculiar customs, or at least of some trace of the tradition out of which they arose.

I am not at present in possession of evidence to show this in the Corea itself (almost totally unknown and unexplored), but in the island of Formosa the same mode of burial is observed, only that among the Formosans other customs are added, which remind one of the commemorative customs of the Mandans.

CATLIN, p. 8.

"Their (Mandan) dead, partially embalmed, are tightly wrapped in buffalo hides softened with glue and water, and placed on slight scaffolds, above the reach of animals or human hands, each body having its separate scaffold."

The Mandan dance was round "_the big canoe_," and a part of their ceremony on the roof of their wigwams.

Among the Opischeschaht _Indians_ (_vide Field_, Oct. 2, 1869) there was a dance which they called "the roof dance." "While the dance and song were going on below, leaped up and down between the roof-board, pushed aside for that purpose, making a noise like thunder.... After the dance was finished an old Seshaaht came forward, and remarked, that as it was a dance peculiar to his tribe it could not be omitted," though "very injurious to the roof."

OGILBY'S JAPAN, p. 52.

"The manner of disposing of their (Formosans') dead and funeral obsequies is thus: When any one dies, the corpse being laid out, after twenty-four hours they elevate it upon a convenient scaffold or stage, four feet high, matted with reeds and rushes, near which they make a fire, so that the corpse may dry by degrees.... They drink intoxicating liquors. One beats on a drum made _like a chest_, but _longer_ and _broader_, and turning _the bottom upwards_; the women get up, and two by two, back to back, move their legs and arms in a dancing time and measure, which pace, or taboring tread, sends a kind of murmuring or doleful sound from the _hollow tree_."

_N.B._--Their boats were constructed by hollowing out a tree (_vide_ Catlin's "Last Rambles," p. 99).[227]

[227] Compare what Ogilby (p. 36) says: "Near Firando (Japan) at an _inlet of the sea_ stands an idol, _being nothing but a chest of wood_, about three feet high, _standing like an altar_ [the big canoe was placed on end among the Mandans], whither women, when they suppose they have conceived, go in pilgrimage, offering on their knees rice or other presents." At p. 136, at Jado, it is said, "somewhat farther stands a temple _dedicated to all sorts of animals with a very high double roof_." (Query, Noah's ark?)

In the _Illustrated London News_, January 13, 1872, its correspondent from Yokohama gives a short account of the Japanese religious festivals, in which among other coincidences I note the following: "The most absurd," he says, "is one in which the foul fiend is simultaneously expelled from every house by dint of pelting him with boiled peas. The devil is chased out of the town with a dance of derision, by young fellows in grotesque costumes, for the public mirth." Compare with the scene in the Mandan ceremonies, described by Catlin, _vide supra_, p. 260.

Now, compare with the above, and also with the extracts from Burton and Catlin, at p. 254, remembering the prominence of the ox or bull (the ox and bull dance) in the Mandan customs, and the connection of the bull with Nin or Ninip, p. 200, 203, and other mythological figures of which I believe Noah to have been the antitype. The following description of the most curious traditional representation in Japan (Ogilby, p. 279):--

"Moreover, besides the ox temple in Meaco, there is also to be seen the stately chapel dedicated to the Creator of all things (the ox in the above-mentioned temple is represented as breaking the mundane egg, _vide supra_, p. 257), who is represented in a very strange manner. In the middle of the temple is a great pot _full of water_ surrounded with a wall, seven feet high from the ground, in the middle of which appears an _exceeding great tortoise_, whose shell, feet, and head stands in the water; out of its back rises the body of a great tree, on the top of which sits a strange and horrible figure" ... [then follows a good deal which has its explanation, but must be curtailed] ... "the image hath four arms" ... in one "the hand grasps a cruse, _from whence water issues continually_; the other hand _holds a sceptre_.... The tree whereon he sits is of brass, ... about the middle of this tree an exceeding great serpent hath wreathed itself _twice_, whose head and body is on the right side held fast by two horrible shapes, the remaining part thereof to the tail, two kings and one of Japan sages stretch forth" [evidently representing the contending influences (as in Mandan dance), one of the kings having the duplicated Janus head, _supra_, p. 220.][228]

[228] Compare p. 448 in "Flint Chips," (E. T. Stevens). "The Omahas possess a _sacred shell_, which is regarded as an object of great sanctity by the whole nation. It has been transmitted from generation to generation, and its origin is unknown. A skin _lodge is appropriated to it_, and in this lodge a man, appointed as a guard to the shell, constantly resides. It is placed upon a stand, and is _never suffered to touch the earth_. It is concealed from sight by a _number of mats_ made of strips of skin plaited. The whole forms a large package, from which _tobacco_" (comp. Stevens' "Flint Chips," p. 315, and Catlin, _supra_) "and the _roots of trees_" (comp. supra, p. 155), "and other objects are suspended," &c. &c.

At pp. 477-78 there is perhaps a still more definite tradition of the Deluge (confused as usual with traditions of the Creation) in connection with the idol Topan. "Not far from Mettogamma (said the interpreter) lies an exceeding _high mountain ... the top of which_ stand several temples which may be seen a great distance off at sea. In these temples the Bonzies worshipped that great God which formerly created the sun, moon, and stars, but also fifteen lesser deities which some ages since conversed upon the earth (compare pp. 63, 97.) Then follows their account of the Creation. "Mankind not only increased in number but also in wickedness, differing more and more from their heavenly extract, growing still worse and worse, mocking at thunder, _rainbows_, and fire; nay, they blasphemed the great God himself (whom when the interpreter named, he bowed his head to the ground), whereupon He called His inferior deities about Him, telling them that He resolved to destroy and ruin all things ... and make a _round_ globe, in which the four elements should be all resolved _into their former mass_; and chiefly He commanded the idol Topan to make thunder balls to shoot through the air and fire all the kingdoms with lightning ... so that none were saved except _one man and his family_, that had entertained and duly worshipped the gods." Of the god Topan it had been previously said "that some years since he saw the temple of the idol Topan, whose image stood on a copper altar, cast like clouds, himself armed as a warrior, a coronet helmet on his head, his hand grasping a mighty club, and seeming to fly through the sky and moving his club to occasion thunder. When it thundered, a Bonzi, whose head was adorned with consecrated leaves [Query, the olive or willow?] which no thunder could harm," offered _several fishes_." (Comp. 197, 203.) _Vide_ also p. 94, representation of the fish-god in the person of their "god Canon" [where we read of their "gods Canon and Camis or Chamis;" if we were to substitute Canaan and Cham, _quid vetat_?][229]

[229] _Vide_ Japanese tradition of the Deluge (Bertrand, "Dict. des Relig.," Gainet, i. 208; also _id._), it is said that the Japanese commemorate this event in their third annual festival, which takes place on the fifth day of the fifth month. Compare with Mandan's, _supra_.

To complete the circle of evidence, as regards the general tradition, I must add the following extracts from Captain Cook's voyages, i. 110 (London, 1846):--"In the island of Huahieine, thirty-one leagues from Otaheite N.-W.," Captain Cook came upon an erection, of which he says--"The general resemblance between this repository and the ark of the Lord among the Jews is remarkable; but it is still more remarkable that upon inquiring of a boy what it was called, he said 'Ewharre no Eatua,' it is the house of God. He could, however, give no account of its signification or use." At p. 111, "Saw (at Uliatea) several Ewharre-no-Eatua or houses of God, to which carriage poles were attached as at Huahieine.... From thence we went to a long house not far distant, where among rolls of cloth and several other things we saw the _model of a canoe_, about three feet long, to which were tied eight human jawbones" [eight the number saved in the ark. Compare p. 197 with Kabiri. Compare with Ogilby (Japan, 177), where the god Canon (Canaan) is represented with seven heads on _his_ breast, eight with himself, he having been substituted for Noah as the head of the race.] Captain Cook adds, however, "We had already learnt that these, like scalps among the Indians of North America, were trophies of war," and suggests that the canoe "may be a symbol of invasion." That I must leave to the reader to decide, but the heads might be "trophies of conquest," and at the same time memorial heads,--the memorial heads having necessarily been replaced many times since the custom was first instituted.[230]

[230] Captain Cook, speaking of their dances (p. 115), says, "Between the dances of the women the men performed a kind of dramatic interlude, in which there was _dialogue_ as well as dancing; but we were not sufficiently acquainted with their language to understand the subject. Some gentlemen saw a much more regular entertainment of the dramatic kind, which was divided into _four acts_."

_Vide_ Abbe Gainet, "La Bible sans la Bible," i. 213, quotes l'Abbe Domenech, who speaks of "the dance of the Deluge among many nations of the north and west of America." Gainet also says that there were two distinct traditions of the Deluge in the east and west groups of the Society Islands (Otaheite).

L'Abbe Gainet (i. 211) gives an account of the _Mandans_ from "Ceremoníes Religieuses," i. 7, which it will be interesting to compare with Catlin, as it was written a century previous to his visit. "The Mandans pretend that the Deluge was formerly raised up against them by the white men to destroy their ancestors.... Then the _first man_, whom they regard as one of their divinities, inspired mankind with the idea of constructing upon an eminence a _town_ and fortress in wood, and promised them that the water should not pass that point. They followed his advice and constructed the ark on the banks of the Heart river. It was of a very large size, so that a part of their nation found safety there whilst the rest perished. In memory of this memorable event they place in each of their villages a small model of this _edifice_ [which may account for the erect position of 'the big canoe'], this model still exists. The waters abated after that, and to this day they celebrate, in memory of this ark, the fête of the '_Okippe_,' which lasts _four days_."

This leads me to the final question, When was this custom instituted? Up to this I have not considered whether the custom was good or bad, demoniac or only corrupted; and as to the time of its institution I have merely assumed from the fact of its universality that it was primeval.

Before expressing my opinion, I must fortify myself with an extract from the Rev. W. Smith's very able work on the Pentateuch.[231]

[231] Longmans, 1868, i. 290.

"Strange, too, though it may appear, there is much in the outward ceremonial of the Levitical worship that indicates an Egyptian type. The fact need startle no one. For it is derogatory neither to the holiness of the Almighty nor to the inspiration of his delegate, that Moses should have borrowed from others rites which were good in themselves, and which became idolatrous only then, when employed in the worship of false gods. The most of external forms are in themselves indifferent and receive their determinate value from the feeling that prompts them, and the object to which they are directed: when given to God they are divine worship--when given to idols, they are idolatry. Nor is inspiration jeopardised because the material details may have come from a human source. Care and study and observation are not dispensed with in the mind that receives the divine communications; and Moses was instructed in all the wisdom and learning of the Egyptians for the very purpose of enabling him to use it to the best advantage ... as the Church consecrated to a higher purpose the temples and the rites and festivals found among the pagan populations at their conversion. We need not then be scandalised if we find the _ark of Jehovah_ to be the counterpart of the shrine of Amun. The resemblance strikes us at once on a glance at the woodcut token from Lepsius' Denkmäler, Ab. iii., Bl. 109."

Let the reader refer to the engravings in Rev. W. Smith's Pentateuch, 291, 292. Dr Smith does not discuss the point further, only he says (p. 294), "In Egypt it is _the canopied boat_ in which the Deity is steered on the heavenly ocean; in Israel it is the covered chest, the form best adapted for holding the stone tables of the law."

But if "the canopied boat" should have corresponded among the Egyptians to "the big canoe" among the Mandans, and the other similar memorials we have come upon, what more appropriate symbol could Moses have incorporated? Was not the ark of the covenant, in which the law was preserved in the widespread inundation of corruption, the counterpart of the ark in which mankind, in the persons of Noah and his family, were saved? and in carrying on and embodying the tradition, we may see a motive why there may have been an intentional alteration of the symbol--viz. in order to wean his people from the corruption into which the whole Egyptian ceremonial had sunk?[232] And why should it not have been so? Is there not a probability and fitness in the conjecture of some such commemorative sacrifices and memorials among mankind when they lived together before the dispersion in the times immediately following the Deluge?

[232] Cardinal Wiseman in his letters to John Poynder, Esq. ("Essays on Various Subjects," i. 257), says, "Dr Spencer, a learned divine of the Established Church, published two folio volumes replete with extraordinary erudition, entitled 'De Legibus Hebræorum ritualibus et eorum ratione,' which has gone through many editions both here and on the Continent. Now, the entire drift and purport of this work is manifestly twofold--first, to prove that the great design of God, in giving rites and ceremonies to the Jews, was to prevent their falling into idolatry; secondly, to demonstrate that almost every practice, rite, ceremony, and act so given was directly borrowed from the Egyptian heathens; ... that whether we speak of the more solemn and especial injunctions, or of the minutest details of the ceremonial law, of circumcision and of sacrifice in all its varieties, and with all its distinctive ceremonies of purification and lustrations and new moons; of the ark of the covenant and the cherubim; of the temple and its oracles; of the Urim and Thummim, and the emissary goat; of them all Spencer has endeavoured to prove, and that to the satisfaction of many learned men, that they pre-existed among the Egyptians and other neighbouring nations."

I have not met with Dr Spencer's work. I may mention, however, the pomegranates in the Levitical robe as an instance. _Vide_ references in this chapter and appendix.

APPENDIX TO CHAPTER XI.

THE PONGOL FESTIVAL.

"The Pongol Festival in Southern India," by Charles E. Govat. "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland," new series, vol. v., part i. (1870.)

"I had seen the Pongol, the touching domestic festival it is now my chief object to describe. It had proved by its simple pathos that the Hindus were akin to the noblest nations of the world, and that in their antiquity they were worthy of the honour that has come to them of being the best and the least altered representatives of the 'Juventus Mundi,' which all nations count to have been the golden age." He contrasts it with the worship in the great temple at Siringham near Trichinopoly, in which there "was ample justification for every epithet employed by Ward, Dubois, or Wilberforce." "Yet the Pongol declared with equal force in favour of domestic love and chastity, of simple thanksgiving and rural contentment.... There is much reason to suppose that the Pongol is one of the most complete and interesting of these remnants of primitive life. That it is primitive is shown by the fact that the old Vedic deities are alone worshipped. Indra is the presiding deity. Agni is the main object of worship. A further proof of this point is given by the efforts that have constantly been made by the Brahmans to corrupt the ritual, and introduce Pauranic deities. Krishna is always declared by the Brahmans to be the Pongol god, but the _tradition itself_ bears witness that the feast is older than the god. The tale is that when the great wave of Krishna worship passed over the Peninsula, the people were so enamoured of him that they ceased to perform the Pongol rites to Indra. This made the latter deity _so angry that he poured down a flood upon the earth_. The affrighted people ran to Krishna, who seized the great mountain Govardhanas, wrenched it from its place, and held it aloft on the tip of his little finger, like some huge umbrella. The people then ran beneath with their flocks and were saved.... The occasion of the festival is also primitive, for the Pongol is another feast of ingathering, the centre of Hebrew festivals, as this is of those of Southern India.... The Pongol is remarkable, as will be seen, for the strange combination of pastoral, hunting, and agricultural life. There are 'harvest homes' in almost every nation, but I do not know of any other example of the combination. The _great_ days of the feast are two--one of these devoted to the new crops, the other to the cattle alone ... while the feast winds up with a grand hunt, first of the cattle themselves and next of a hare." Compare ch. vii.; compare Patagonian.

"Long before the commencement of the feast an unwonted activity pervades native society. The Pongol is _the_ social festival of the year, and must be celebrated with due honour, else an ineffaceable stain will rest on the family name. It is the Christmas and Whitsuntide of England made into one.... So soon as the _rains have finished_, and this may be expected by about the first week in December, the carpenter, the builder, and the artists are in full work repairing the houses.... The sides of the road in the bazaar are heaped with 'chatties' of all sizes and shapes. Presents are bought for children. Distant relatives have no fields of their own from which to get their rice, so a sack of the new grain from the ancestral acres goes off to each. To this is added a pot of ghee, a set of brass pots, or perhaps a jewel; that the Pongol may not lack wherewith to make it joyful." Creditors and debtors are often brought then to a compromise, or the process is postponed "till after Pongol."

"All must be ready by the early part of January, when, according to the Hindu astrologers, the sun enters the tropic of Capricorn. The feast hangs upon this, and it will be seen that the most interesting event of the celebration must exactly coincide with the passage of the sun. The festival commences on the previous day, and lasts for seven days, of which the second marks the sun's passage, and is called Mahâ (or great) Pongol, ... the next day is Bhôgi Pongol, or Pongol of rejoicing, equally well known by the name of Indra, ... bonfires and torches are illuminated (compare Boulanger, lib. i. ch. ii.) The feast is now begun, and all turn from the fire, as it is extinguished by the rising sun, to the _bath_, with which every religious rite must commence. No image is used during the whole course of the celebration, except that of Ganesa.... Indra is represented on ordinary occasions as _a white man_ sitting on an elephant. In his left hand is a bow (compare ch. xv.), and in his right a thunderbolt, while his body is studded with a thousand eyes. [Query, a reference to the peacock? Compare ch. xv.] Agni has also his special image, that of a stout man, red and hairy as Esau, riding on a goat [compare Bacchus, p. 214]. Sûrya is also a red man, sitting on a water lily. He has four arms and three eyes. But none of these (deities) are known at Pongol any more than they were at the time when the hymns of the Rig Veda were composed.... The gifts are laid out on trays,--a vase of sugar, or perhaps an idol, _peacock_ or elephant, round which will be grouped smaller works in sugar for the children.... One thing may not be forgotten, that is a lime [compare 'gourd,' p. 256]. This must be _as large_ as money can buy, and then be carefully encased in gold leaf till it looks like one of the golden apples of antiquity. The next day is Mahâ (or great) Pongol. It is often called Sûrya Pongol. At noon the sun will cross the equator, and bring the culminating glory of the feast. So great a day must commence with appropriate ceremonial, and _in this instance it is bathing_. In country places the women run early in the morning to the _nearest tank_ and _plunge bodily in without undressing_." [This is alluded to by Mr Gover as "an innovation so uncomfortable and possibly dangerous;" but no evidence is adduced of its being an innovation, and its being the custom of the "country parts" would incline us to the contrary belief.] The men also bathe very carefully, as if the occasion _were very solemn_. Reference is made to the Rig Veda, i. 23, 15-24 (Wilson, i. 57); but in these verses occur the words, "waters take away whatever sin has been found in me."

"Dripping wet, the women proceed, without changing their clothes, to prepare the feast, ... new chatties, or earthen vessels had been purchased for the occasion; one of them is now taken and is filled with rice, milk, sugar, dholghee or clarified butter, grain, and other substances, calculated to produce a tasty dish.... The ingathering must be celebrated with things that have just been garnered. Usually Hindoos will not eat new rice, as it is indigestible" (refer to Leviticus xxiii. 10-14). Another incident is that--"The head of the house approaches the image (of Ganesa), and performs pûja. Then follows a procession of the young married couples to propitiate their mothers-in-law.... So a present, the best the house can provide, is carefully put together on a tray. It may be fruit, or brass pots, or ghee, or whatever else may be thought most acceptable. Then a small procession is formed. In front go three or four men, beating on tom-toms and blowing pipes. Then follows the gift, held aloft. Over it, if the family be respectable, is held an umbrella, carried by a servant who walks behind the bearer of the gift.... The nearest relative steps forward and asks that the daughter and her husband may come to the 'boiling,' to fill up the family circle. Then follows the boiling of the pot; 'as the milk boils, so will the coming year be.' The Pongol is one long series of visits, entertainments, and social joys." (Comp. Mandan Festival, _supra_.)

"The third day of the feast is Mâttu Pongol, or the Pongol _of the cattle_. It commences with a general _wash_. They betake themselves to the nearest _sacred_ tank, driving or dragging with them the whole bovine possessions of the village. They are then driven home, and adornment commences; the horns are carefully painted _red_, _blue_, _green_, _or yellow_,--if the owner be rich, gold leaf is employed,--heavy garlands of flowers placed on the horns. Meanwhile the women have prepared another new chatty, filling it with water, steeping within saffron, cotton seeds, and mangora leaves. The master of the ceremonial, usually the head of the house, comes for it, and places himself at the head of a procession of all the men--the women may not see the rite we now describe. In solemn silence they march round each animal four times, while the first man sprinkles the bitter water upon it and the ground as often as they pass the four cardinal points of the compass.... This done, the women and children are again admitted. The patient cattle are led out one by one to receive their final adornment.... Then, at a given signal, every rope is untied, every tom-tom, pipe, and guitar is banged or blown to the extreme of its endurance, and in an instant the herd, hitherto so patient, is careering down the street in an extremity of terror.... Any one may possess himself of whatever is carried by the cattle. No little skill and a vast amount of courage are shown by the 'timid' Hindoos in this dangerous and exciting pell-mell. The next day is Kanen Pongol, or Pongol of the calves.

"On the evening of this day we find the only token of corruption in the ceremonial." ... Then follows a dance, just as is described by Catlin as _closing_ the Mandan ceremonial, in which very similar scenes occur.

Before adverting to the points of contrast between the Pongol and the Mandan and Dahoman ceremonies, I will give an extract from a book recently published, giving an account of a country hitherto unexplored--viz. Northern Patagonia. Traces I think will be recognised of the same primitive custom, though with evidences of corruption.

"Three Years Slavery among the Patagonians," by Guinnard (Bentley, 1871), p. 269.[233]

[233] Much doubt has been expressed as to the veracity of M. Guinnard's narrative, but the scenes and customs referred to are not likely to have been invented; and on the supposition of a fictitious narrative (although I see nothing incredible) they will probably have been imported from true narratives of other tribes. In either case they supply additional evidence.

"At certain periods of the year the Indians keep religious festivals. The first takes place in the summer, and is consecrated to Vita-ouènetrou (the god of goodness) for the purpose of thanking him for all his past favours, and of begging him to continue them in the future. It is generally the grand cacique who fixes the date and duration of the festival.... The preparations are made with all the religious pomp of which they are capable; the Indians grease their hair and paint their faces with greater care than usual.... At the commencement of the ceremony the women move their tents provisionally to the centre of the spot chosen by the cacique. The men do not arrive until these preparations are finished, they ride three times round the place at full gallop, shouting their war cry and shaking their lances. Then, their rides ended, they range themselves in single file, and tilt their lances with such perfect regularity as to make it a striking sight. The women _afterwards take the places of their husbands_" (compare Catlin, _sup._, p. 260), "who, after dismounting and tying up their horses, form a second rank behind them."

"The dance then commences without change of place, except from right to left. The women sing in a plaintive tone [laughter being expressly forbidden during the whole continuance of the ceremonies], accompanying themselves by striking a _wooden drum_." Compare Catlin, _sup._, 257. It is also said (Guinnard, p. 198), "The drum is composed of a sort of wooden bowl, more or less large, over which a wild-cat skin is stretched, or a piece of the paunch of a _horse_. _This instrument_ ... is much used by them, _especially in their religious festivals_ and character dances." The drum is "decorated with colours and designs similar to those on their faces. The men pirouette, limping upon the opposite leg to that of the women." Compare Catlin, 254, 260. "At a signal given by the cacique presiding over the festival, cries of alarm are raised, the men spring into their saddles, abruptly _interrupting the dance_ to take part in a fantastic cavalcade round the site of the festival, all waving their weapons, and raising the sinister cry they utter in their pillages."

"In the intervals of these exciting diversions everybody _goes visiting_ in the hope of tasting a little rotted _milk_ kept in a horse-hide." Compare Pongol Festival, p. 280.

"At a very early hour on the fourth day, to close the ceremony, a young _horse_, an _ox_, and two sheep, given by the richest men amongst them, are sacrificed to their god. The head turned towards the east, and the heart still palpitating is hung upon a lance and inclined towards the rising sun."

"The second festival takes place in the autumn; it is celebrated in honour of Houacouvou (_director of_ the evil spirits). The object of it is to conjure him to preserve them from all enchantment. As in the first festival, the Indians dress themselves in their best, and assemble by tribes only, headed by their cacique. An assemblage of _all the cattle_ takes place _en masse_. The men form a double circle around, galloping unceasingly in opposite directions, so that none of these unruly animals may escape. They invoke Houacouvou aloud, throwing down, drop by drop, fermented _milk_ out of _bull's horns_, handed to them _by their wives_, while they are riding round the cattle. After repeating this ceremony three or _four_ times, they sprinkle the horses and oxen with whatever remains of the milk, with the view, they say, of preserving them from all maladies; this done, each man _separates his own cattle_, and _drives it to some distance_, then returns for the purpose of assembling round the cacique, who, in a long and fervid address, advises them never to forget Houacouvou in their prayers, and to lose no time in preparing themselves to please him, by carrying desolation amongst the Christians, and increasing the number of their own flocks and herds."

This festival, therefore, in its original conception would not appear to be a worship of the evil spirit, but of him who curbs him; the same idea of the subordination of the evil spirit will be seen in Catlin's account of the Mandans.

There is nothing certainly in this account which directly connects these Patagonian ceremonies with the diluvian commemorations, unless, perhaps, the sacred drum; but there is much in common with the Pongol and the Mandan which we have seen to have been commemorative.

The prominence of sun worship will not have escaped observation; but this discovery cannot militate against my position, for I have already shown (p. 160) that such admixture was probable, and also indicated how it was likely to have come about. Any hostile argument which would seek to deprive those ceremonies of their significance must be directed to the extrusion of the diluvian symbols.

Further trace of these diluvian ceremonies might be traced in the Buddhist systems; but it would open out too large a question for discussion here.