MYTHOLOGIC PHILOSOPHY. 63 



a progenitor of the race ; and so they have a grizzly-bear-god, an eagle- 

 god, a rattlesnake-god, a trout-god, a spider-god — a god for every 

 species and variety of animal. 



By these animal-gods all things were established. The heavenly 

 bodies were created and their ways appointed, and when the powers 

 and phenomena of nature are personified, the personages are beasts, 

 and all human institutions also were established by the ancient animal- 

 gods. 



The ancient animals of any philosophy of this stage are found to 

 constitute a clan or gens — a body of relatives, or coyisangidnii, with 

 grandfathers, fathers, sons, and brothers. In Ute theism, the ancient 

 Togoav, the first rattlesnake, is the grandfather, and all the animal- 

 gods are assigned to their relationships. Grandfather Togoav, the 

 wise, was the chief of the council, but Shinauav, the ancient wolf, 

 was the chief of the clan. 



There were many other clans and tribes of ancient gods with 

 whom these supreme gods had dealings, of which hereafter ; and, 

 finally, each of these ancient gods became the progenitor of a new 

 tribe, so that we have a tribe of bears, a tribe of eagles, a tribe of rat- 

 tlesnakes, a tribe of spiders, and many other tribes, as we have tribes 

 of Utes, tribes of Sioux, tribes of ISTavajos : and in that philosophy 

 tribes of animals are considered to be coordinate with tribes of men. 

 All of these gods have invisible duplicates — spirits — and they have 

 often visited the earth. All of the wonderful things seen in nature 

 are done by the animal-gods. That elder life was a magic life ; but 

 the descendants of the gods are degenerate. Now and then as a medi- 

 cine-man by practicing sorcery can perform great feats, so now and 

 then there is a medicine-bear, a medicine-wolf, or a medicine-snake 

 that can work magic. 



On winter nights, the Indians gather about the camp-fire, and then 

 the doings of the gods are recounted in many a mythic tale. I have 

 heard the venerable and impassioned orator on the camp-meeting 

 stand rehearse the story of the crucifixion, and have seen the thou- 

 sands gathered there weep in contemplation of the story of divine 

 suffering, and heard their shouts roll down the forest aisles as they 

 gave vent to their joy at the contemplation of redemption. But the 

 scene was not a whit more dramatic than another I have witnessed in 

 an evergreen forest of the Rocky Mountain region, where a tribe was 

 gathered under the great pines, and the temple of light from the blaz- 

 ing fire was walled by the darkness of midnight, and in the midst of 

 the temple stood the wise old man telling in simple savage language 

 the story of Tawats, when he conquered the sun and established the 

 seasons and the days. In that pre-Columbian time, before the advent 

 of white men, all the Indian tribes of North America gathered on 

 winter nights by the shores of the seas whei-e the tides beat in solemn 

 rhythm, by the shores of the great lakes, where the waves dashed 



