3 66 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



mysteries, was dedicated the nocturnal and crafty coyote. Among 

 the central Mexicans the animal was held in so high honor that it had 

 a temple of its own, a congregation of priests devoted to its services, 

 statues carved in stone, and an elaborate tomb at death. Religious 

 significance attached to dogs and wolves in many ways throughout all 

 tropical America, generally through some connection with the moon. 

 On this side of the Mexican line (that is, in the United States) we find 

 the coyote personified in the mythology of the red men as the Creator 

 himself, or as his foremost agent ; while here and there it is identified 

 with the sun (which was the visible incarnation of the Creator to the 

 minds of many), or associating with it and representing its demiurgic 

 force. 



This was the ancient coyote — the agile-brained and fleet-footed hill- 

 dog of that old mythologic time, and in that wonderful " land of lost 

 gods and godlike men." The wolf of to-day is a howling pest, but 

 that wolf's ancestor — the first of the line — was divine ! 



Among the Indians of the Great Basin speaking Shoshonee in any 

 of its many dialects, the belief in animal-gods — a long list of them in 

 varied relations and ranks — as the creators of the world, is at the 

 foundation of religious belief. " By these animal-gods," says Major 

 Powell, " 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 insti- 

 tutions also were established by the ancient animal-gods." In this 

 theism the ancient rattlesnake, To-go-av, is the chief of the council, 

 but Cin-axi-av, the coyote (or perhaps, there are two brothers of them 

 as happens in so many myths the world over *), comes next in rank, 

 and arranges mundane affairs. In one story the two discuss the mat- 

 ter of food, and decide that it is better that the Uinkareets shall work 

 for a living than that they should be given a self-renewing store of 

 fruits and roots, with honey-dew falling as the snow. In another 

 the elder decided, against the younger brother's wish, that the dead 

 could not return again ; whereupon the younger Cin-ati-au killed the 

 son of his brother, and long after taunted him with being the first to 

 suffer by this cruel law. " Then the elder knew that the younger had 

 killed his child ; . . . and, as his wrath increased, the earth rocked, 

 subterraneous groanings were heard, darkness came on, fierce storms 

 raged, lightnings flashed, thunder reverberated through the heavens, 

 and the younger brother fled in great terror to his father, Ta-vicots, 

 for protection." 



An almost exact parallel to this story is to be found among the 

 once powerful Nishinam Indians of Central California ; but there the 

 two brothers are represented by the coyote and the moon. The moon 

 was good, but the coyote was bad. In making men the moon wished 

 to fashion their souls so that when they died they should return to 

 * See Brinton's " Hero Myths," and many other authorities in comparative mythology. 



