The Antediluvian World

I >> Ignatius Donnelly >> The Antediluvian World

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Humboldt, whose high authority cannot be questioned, by an elaborate
discussion ("Vues des Cordilleras," p. 148 et. seq., ed. 1870), has
shown the relative likeness of the Nahua calendar to that of Asia. He
cites the fact that the Chinese, Japanese, Calmucks, Mongols, Mantchou,
and other hordes of Tartars have cycles of sixty years' duration,
divided into five brief periods of twelve years each. The method of
citing a date by means of signs and numbers is quite similar with
Asiatics and Mexicans. He further shows satisfactorily that the majority
of the names of the twenty days employed by the Aztecs are those of a
zodiac used since the most remote antiquity among the peoples of Eastern
Asia.

Cabera thinks he finds analogies between the Mexican and Egyptian
calendars. Adopting the view of several writers that the Mexican year
began on the 26th of February, he finds the date to correspond with the
beginning of the Egyptian year.

The American nations believed in four great primeval ages, as the Hindoo
does to this day.

"In the Greeks of Homer," says Volney, "I find the customs, discourse,
and manners of the Iroquois, Delawares, and Miamis. The tragedies of
Sophocles and Euripides paint to me almost literally the sentiments of
the red men respecting necessity, fatality, the miseries of human life,
and the rigor of blind destiny." (Volney's "View of the United States.")

The Mexicans represent an eclipse of the moon as the moon being devoured
by a dragon; and the Hindoos have precisely the same figure; and both
nations continued to use this expression long after they had discovered
the real meaning of an eclipse.

The Tartars believe that if they cut with an axe near a fire, or stick a
knife into a burning stick, or touch the fire with a knife, they will
"cut the top off the fire." The Sioux Indians will not stick an awl or a
needle into a stick of wood on the fire, or chop on it with an axe or a
knife.

Cremation was extensively practised in the New World. The dead were
burnt, and their ashes collected and placed in vases and urns, as in
Europe. Wooden statues of the dead were made.

There is a very curious and apparently inexplicable custom, called the
"Couvade," which extends from China to the Mississippi Valley; it
demands "that, when a child is born, the father must take to his bed,
while the mother attends to all the duties of the household." Marco Polo
found the custom among the Chinese in the thirteenth century.

The widow tells Hudibras--

"Chineses thus are said
To lie-in in their ladies' stead."

The practice remarked by Marco Polo continues to this day among the
hill-tribes of China. "The father of a new-born child, as soon as the
mother has become strong enough to leave her couch, gets into bed
himself, and there receives the congratulations Of his acquaintances."
(Max Mueller's "Chips from a German Workshop," vol. ii., p. 272.) Strabo
(vol. iii., pp. 4, 17) mentions that, among the Iberians of the North of
Spain, the women, after the birth of a child, tend their husbands,
putting them to bed instead of going themselves. The same custom existed
among the Basques only a few years ago. "In Biscay," says M. F. Michel,
"the women rise immediately after childbirth and attend to the duties of
the household, while the husband goes to bed, taking the baby with him,
and thus receives the neighbors' compliments." The same custom was found
in France, and is said to exist to this day in some cantons of Bearn.
Diodorus Siculus tells us that among the Corsicans the wife was
neglected, and the husband put to bed and treated as the patient.
Apollonius Rhodius says that among the Tibereni, at the south of the
Black Sea, "when a child was born the father lay groaning, with his head
tied up, while the mother tended him with food and prepared his baths."
The same absurd custom extends throughout the tribes of North and South
America. Among the Caribs in the West Indies (and the Caribs, Brasseur
de Bourbourg says, were the same as the ancient Carians of the
Mediterranean Sea) the man takes to his bed as soon as a child is born,
and kills no animals. And herein we find an explanation of a custom
otherwise inexplicable. Among the American Indians it is believed that,
if the father kills an animal during the infancy of the child, the
spirit of the animal will revenge itself by inflicting some disease upon
the helpless little one. "For six months the Carib father must not eat
birds or fish, for what ever animals he eats will impress their likeness
on the child, or produce disease by entering its body." (Dorman, "Prim.
Superst.," p. 58.) Among the Abipones the husband goes to bed, fasts a
number of days, "and you would think," says Dobrizboffer, "that it was
he that had had the child." The Brazilian father takes to his hammock
during and after the birth of the child, and for fifteen days eats no
meat and hunts no game. Among the Esquimaux the husbands forbear hunting
during the lying-in of their wives and for some time thereafter.

Here, then, we have a very extraordinary and unnatural custom, existing
to this day on both sides of the Atlantic, reaching back to a vast
antiquity, and finding its explanation only in the superstition of the
American races. A practice so absurd could scarcely have originated
separately in the two continents; its existence is a very strong proof
of unity of origin of the races on the opposite sides of the Atlantic;
and the fact that the custom and the reason for it are both found in
America, while the custom remains in Europe without the reason, would
imply that the American population was the older of the two.

The Indian practice of depositing weapons and food with the dead was
universal in ancient Europe, and in German villages nowadays a needle
and thread is placed in the coffin for the dead to mend their torn
clothes with; "while all over Europe the dead man had a piece of money
put in his hand to pay his way with." ("Anthropology," p. 347.)

The American Indian leaves food with the dead; the Russian peasant puts
crumbs of bread behind the saints' pictures on the little iron shelf,
and believes that the souls of his forefathers creep in and out and eat
them. At the cemetery of Pere-la-Chaise, Paris, on All-souls-day, they
"still put cakes and sweetmeats on the graves; and in Brittany the
peasants that night do not forget to make up the fire and leave the
fragments of the supper on the table for the souls of the dead." (Ibid..
p. 351.)

The Indian prays to the spirits of his forefathers; the Chinese religion
is largely "ancestor-worship;" and the rites paid to the dead ancestors,
or lares, held the Roman family together." ("Anthropology," p. 351.)

We find the Indian practice of burying the dead in a sitting posture in
use among the Nasamonians, tribe of Libyans. Herodotus, speaking of the
wandering tribes of Northern Africa, says, "They bury their dead
according to the fashion of the Greeks. . . . They bury them sitting,
and are right careful, when the sick man is at the point of giving up
the ghost, to make him sit, and not let him die lying down."

The dead bodies of the caciques of Bogota were protected from
desecration by diverting the course of a river and making the grave in
its bed, and then letting the stream return to its natural course.
Alaric, the leader of the Goths, was secretly buried in the same way.
(Dorman, "Prim. Superst.," p. 195.)

Among the American tribes no man is permitted to marry a wife of the
same clan-name or totem as himself. In India a Brahman is not allowed to
marry a wife whose clan-name (her "cow-stall," as they say) is the same
as his own; nor may a Chinaman take a wife of his own surname.
("Anthropology," p. 403.) "Throughout India the hill-tribes are divided
into septs or clans, and a man may not marry a woman belonging to his
own clan. The Calmucks of Tartary are divided into hordes, and a man may
not marry a girl of his own horde. The same custom prevails among the
Circassians and the Samoyeds of Siberia. The Ostyaks and Yakuts regard
it as a crime to marry a woman of the same family, or even of the same
name." (Sir John Lubbock, "Smith. Rep.," p. 347, 1869.)

Sutteeism--the burning of the widow upon the funeral-pile of the
husband--was extensively practised in America (West's "Journal," p.
141); as was also the practice of sacrificing warriors, servants, and
animals at the funeral of a great chief (Dorman, pp. 210-211.) Beautiful
girls were sacrificed to appease the anger of the gods, as among the
Mediterranean races. (Bancroft, vol. iii., p. 471.) Fathers offered up
their children for a like purpose, as among the Carthaginians.

The poisoned arrows of America had their representatives in Europe.
Odysseus went to Ephyra for the man-slaying drug with which to smear his
bronze-tipped arrows. (Tylor's "Anthropology," p. 237.)

"The bark canoe of America was not unknown in Asia and Africa" (Ibid.,
p. 254), while the skin canoes of our Indians and the Esquimaux were
found on the shores of the Thames and the Euphrates. In Peru and on the
Euphrates commerce was carried on upon rafts supported by inflated
skins. They are still used on the Tigris.

The Indian boils his meat by dropping red-hot stones into a water-vessel
made of hide; and Linnaeus found the Both land people brewing beer in
this way--"and to this day the rude Carinthian boor drinks such
stone-beer, as it is called." (Ibid., p. 266.)

In the buffalo dance of the Mandan Indians the dancers covered their
heads with a mask made of the head and horns of the buffalo. To-day in
the temples of India, or among the lamas of Thibet, the priests dance
the demons out, or the new year in, arrayed in animal masks (Ibid., p.
297 ); and the "mummers" at Yule-tide, in England, are a survival of the
same custom. (Ibid., p. 298.) The North American dog and bear dances,
wherein the dancers acted the part of those animals, had their prototype
in the Greek dances at the festivals of Dionysia. (Ibid., p. 298.)

Tattooing was practised in both continents. Among the Indians it was
fetichistic in its origin; "every Indian had the image of an animal
tattooed on his breast or arm, to charm away evil spirits." (Dorman,
"Prim. Superst.," p. 156.) The sailors of Europe and America preserve to
this day a custom which was once universal among the ancient races.
Banners, flags, and armorial bearings are supposed to be survivals of
the old totemic tattooing. The Arab woman still tattoos her face, arms,
and ankles. The war-paint of the American savage reappeared in the woad
with which the ancient Briton stained his body; and Tylor suggests that
the painted stripes on the circus clown are a survival of a custom once
universal. (Tylor's "Anthropology," p. 327.)

In America, as in the Old World, the temples of worship were built over
the dead., (Dorman, "Prim. Superst.," p. 178.) Says Prudentius, the
Roman bard, "there were as many temples of gods as sepulchres."

The Etruscan belief that evil spirits strove for the possession of the
dead was found among the Mosquito Indians. (Bancroft, "Native Races,"
vol. i., p. 744.)

The belief in fairies, which forms so large a part of the folklore of
Western Europe, is found among the American races. The Ojibbeways see
thousands of fairies dancing in a sunbeam; during a rain myriads of them
bide in the flowers. When disturbed they disappear underground. They
have their dances, like the Irish fairies; and, like them, they kill the
domestic animals of those who offend them. The Dakotas also believe in
fairies. The Otoes located the "little people" in a mound at the mouth
of Whitestone River; they were eighteen inches high, with very large
heads; they were armed with bows and arrows, and killed those who
approached their residence. (See Dorman's "Origin of Primitive
Superstitions," p. 23.) "The Shoshone legends people the mountains of
Montana with little imps, called Nirumbees, two feet long, naked, and
with a tail." They stole the children of the Indians, and left in their
stead the young of their own baneful race, who resembled the stolen
children so much that the mothers were deceived and suckled them,
whereupon they died. This greatly resembles the European belief in
"changelings." (Ibid., p. 24.)

In both continents we find tree-worship. In Mexico and Central America
cypresses and palms were planted near the temples, generally in groups
of threes; they were tended with great care, and received offerings of
incense and gifts. The same custom prevailed among the Romans--the
cypress was dedicated to Pluto, and the palm to Victory.

Not only infant baptism by water was found both in the old Babylonian
religion and among the Mexicans, but an offering of cakes, which is
recorded by the prophet Jeremiah as part of the worship of the
Babylonian goddess-mother, "the Queen of Heaven," was also found in the
ritual of the Aztecs. ("Builders of Babel," p. 78.)

In Babylonia, China, and Mexico the caste at the bottom of the social
scale lived upon floating islands of reeds or rafts, covered with earth,
on the lakes and rivers.

In Peru and Babylonia marriages were made but once a year, at a public
festival.

Among the Romans, the Chinese, the Abyssinians, and the Indians of
Canada the singular custom prevails of lifting the bride over the
door-step of her husband's home. (Sir John Lubbock, "Smith. Rep.," 1869,
p. 352.)

"The bride-cake which so invariably accompanies a wedding among
ourselves, and which must always be cut by the bride, may be traced back
to the old Roman form of marriage by 'conferreatio,' or eating together.
So, also, among the Iroquois the bride and bridegroom used to partake
together of a cake of sagamite, which the bride always offered to her
husband." (Ibid.)

Among many American tribes, notably in Brazil, the husband captured the
wife by main force, as the men of Benjamin carried off the daughters of
Shiloh at the feast, and as the Romans captured the Sabine women.
"Within a few generations the same old habit was kept up in Wales, where
the bridegroom and his friends, mounted and armed as for war, carried
off the bride; and in Ireland they used even to hurl spears at the
bride's people, though at such a distance that no one was hurt, except
now and then by accident--as happened when one Lord Hoath lost an eye,
which mischance put an end to this curious relic of antiquity." (Tylor's
"Anthropology," p. 409.)

Marriage in Mexico was performed by the priest. He exhorted them to
maintain peace and harmony, and tied the end of the man's mantle to the
dress of the woman; he perfumed them, and placed on each a shawl on
which was painted a skeleton, "as a symbol that only death could now
separate them from one another." (Dorman, "Prim. Superst.," p. 379.)

The priesthood was thoroughly organized in Mexico and Peru. They were
prophets as well as priests. "They brought the newly-born infant into
the religious society; they directed their training and education; they
determined the entrance of the young men into the service of the state;
they consecrated marriage by their blessing; they comforted the sick and
assisted the dying." (Ibid., p. 374.) There were five thousand priests
in the temples of Mexico. They confessed and absolved the sinners,
arranged the festivals, and managed the choirs in the churches. They
lived in conventual discipline, but were allowed to marry; they
practised flagellation and fasting, and prayed at regular hours. There
were great preachers and exhorters among them. There were also convents
into which females were admitted. The novice had her hair cut off and
took vows of celibacy; they lived holy and pious lives. (Ibid., pp. 375,
376.) The king was the high-priest of the religious orders. A new king
ascended the temple naked, except his girdle; he was sprinkled four
times with water which had been blessed; he was then clothed in a
mantle, and on his knees took an oath to maintain the ancient religion.
The priests then instructed him in his royal duties. (Ibid., p. 378.)
Besides the regular priesthood there were monks who were confined in
cloisters. (Ibid., p. 390.) Cortes says the Mexican priests were very
strict in the practice of honesty and chastity, and any deviation was
punished with death. They wore long white robes and burned incense.
(Dorman, "Prim. Superst.," p. 379.) The first fruits of the earth were
devoted to the support of the priesthood. (Ibid., p. 383.) The priests
of the Isthmus were sworn to perpetual chastity.

The American doctors practised phlebotomy. They bled the sick man
because they believed the evil spirit which afflicted him would come
away with the blood. In Europe phlebotomy only continued to a late
period, but the original superstition out of which it arose, in this
case as in many others, was forgotten.

There is opportunity here for the philosopher to meditate upon the
perversity of human nature and the persistence of hereditary error. The
superstition of one age becomes the science of another; men were first
bled to withdraw the evil spirit, then to cure the disease; and a
practice whose origin is lost in the night of ages is continued into the
midst of civilization, and only overthrown after it has sent millions of
human beings to untimely graves. Dr. Sangrado could have found the
explanation of his profession only among the red men of America.

Folk-lore.--Says Max Mueller: "Not only do we find the same words and
the same terminations in Sanscrit and Gothic; not only do we find the
same name for Zeus in Sanscrit, Latin, and German; not only is the
abstract Dame for God the same in India, Greece, and Italy; but these
very stories, these 'Maehrchen' which nurses still tell, with almost the
same words, in the Thuringian forest and in the Norwegian villages, and
to which crowds of children listen under the Pippal-trees of
India--these stories, too, belonged to the common heirloom of the
Indo-European race, and their origin carries us back to the same distant
past, when no Greek had set foot in Europe, no Hindoo had bathed in the
sacred waters of the Ganges."

And we find that an identity of origin can be established between the
folk-lore or fairy tales of America and those of the Old World,
precisely such as exists between the, legends of Norway and India.

Mr. Tylor tells us the story of the two brothers in Central America who,
starting on their dangerous journey to the land of Xibalba, where their
father had perished, plant each a cane in the middle of their
grandmother's house, that she may know by its flourishing or withering
whether they are alive or dead. Exactly the same conception occurs in
Grimm's "Maehrchen," when the two gold-children wish to see the world
and to leave their father; and when their father is sad, and asks them
how he shall bear news of them, they tell him, "We leave you the two
golden lilies; from these you can see how we fare. If they are fresh, we
are well; if they fade, we are ill; if they fall, we are dead." Grimm
traces the same idea in Hindoo stories. "Now this," says Max Mueller,
"is strange enough, and its occurrence in India, Germany, and Central
America is stranger still."

Compare the following stories, which we print in parallel columns, one
from the Ojibbeway Indians, the other from Ireland:

+----------------------------------+------------------------------------+
| THE OJIBBEWAY STORY. | THE IRISH STORY. |
| | |
| The birds met together one day | The birds all met together one |
| to try which could fly the | day, and settled among themselves |
| highest. Some flew up very | that whichever of them could fly |
| swift, but soon got tired, and | highest was to be the king of |
| were passed by others of | all. Well, just as they were on |
| stronger wing. But the eagle | the hinges of being off, what |
| went up beyond them all, and | does the little rogue of a wren |
| was ready to claim the victory, | do but hop up and perch himself |
| when the gray linnet, a very | unbeknown on the eagle's tail. So |
| small bird, flew from the | they flew and flew ever so high, |
| eagle's back, where it had | till the eagle was miles above |
| perched unperceived, and, being | all the rest, and could not fly |
| fresh and unexhausted, | another stroke, he was so tired. |
| succeeded in going the highest. | "Then," says he, "I'm king of the |
| When the birds came down and | birds." "You lie!" says the wren, |
| met in council to award the | darting up a perch and a half |
| prize it was given to the | above the big fellow. Well, the |
| eagle, because that bird had | eagle was so mad to think how he |
| not only gone up nearer to the | was done, that when the wren was |
| sun than any of the larger | coming down he gave him a stroke |
| birds, but it had carried the | of his wing, and from that day to |
| linnet on its back. | this the wren was never able to |
| | fly farther than a hawthorn-bush. |
| For this reason the eagle's | |
| feathers became the most | |
| honorable marks of distinction | |
| a warrior could bear. | |
+----------------------------------+------------------------------------+

Compare the following stories:

+------------------------------------+----------------------------------+
| THE ASIATIC STORY. | THE AMERICAN STORY. |
| | |
| In Hindoo mythology Urvasi came | Wampee, a great hunter, once |
| down from heaven and became the | came to a strange prairie, |
| wife of the son of Buddha only on | where he heard faint sounds of |
| condition that two pet rams | music, and looking up saw a |
| should never be taken from her | speck in the sky, which proved |
| bedside, and that she should | itself to be a basket |
| never behold her lord undressed. | containing twelve most |
| The immortals, however, wishing | beautiful maidens, who, on |
| Urvasi back in heaven, contrived | reaching the earth, forthwith |
| to steal the rams; and, as the | set themselves to dance. He |
| king pursued the robbers with his | tried to catch the youngest, |
| sword in the dark, the lightning | but in vain; ultimately he |
| revealed his person, the compact | succeeded by assuming the |
| was broken, and Urvasi | disguise of a mouse. He was |
| disappeared. This same story is | very attentive to his new wife, |
| found in different forms among | who was really a daughter of |
| many people of Aryan and Turanian | one of the stars, but she |
| descent, the central idea being | wished to return home, so she |
| that of a man marrying some one | made a wicker basket secretly, |
| of an aerial or aquatic origin, | and, by help of a charm she |
| and living happily with her till | remembered, ascended to her |
| he breaks the condition on which | father. |
| her residence with him depends, | |
| stories exactly parallel to that | |
| of Raymond of Toulouse, who | |
| chances in the hunt upon the | |
| beautiful Melusina at a fountain, | |
| and lives with her happily until | |
| he discovers her fish-nature and | |
| she vanishes. | |
+------------------------------------+----------------------------------+

If the legend of Cadmus recovering Europa, after she has been carried
away by the white bull, the spotless cloud, means that "the sun must
journey westward until he sees again the beautiful tints which greeted
his eyes in the morning," it is curious to find a story current in North
America to the effect that a man once had a beautiful daughter, 'whom he
forbade to leave the lodge lest she should be carried off by the king of
the buffaloes; and that as she sat, notwithstanding, outside the house
combing her hair, "all of a sudden the king of the buffaloes came
dashing on, with his herd of followers, and, taking her between his
horns, away be cantered over plains, plunged into a river which bounded
his land, and carried her safely to his lodge on the other side," whence
she was finally recovered by her father.

Games.--The same games and sports extended from India to the shores of
Lake Superior. The game of the Hindoos, called pachisi, is played upon a
cross-shaped board or cloth; it is a combination of checkers and
draughts, with the throwing of dice, the dice determining the number of
moves; when the Spaniards entered Mexico they found the Aztecs playing a
game called patolli, identical with the Hindoo pachisi, on a similar
cross-shaped board. The game of ball, which the Indians of America were
in the habit of playing at the time of the discovery of the country,
from California to the Atlantic, was identical with the European chueca,
crosse, or hockey.

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