658 THE GHOST-DANCE RELIGION [eth.ann.U 



Probably every Indian tribe, north and south, had its early hero god, 

 the great doer or teacher of all first things, from the Iuskeha and 

 Manabozho of the rude Iroquoian and Algonquian to the Quetzalcoatl, 

 the Bochica, and the Viracocha of the more cultivated Aztecs, Muyscas, 

 and Quichuas of the milder southland. Among the roving tribes of 

 tin' north this hero is hardly more than an expert magician, frequently 

 degraded to the level of a common trickster, who, after ridding the 

 world of giants and monsters, and teaching his people a few simple 

 arts, retires to the upper world to rest and smoke until some urgent 

 necessity again requires his presence below. Under softer southern 

 skies the myth takes more poetic form and the hero becomes a person 

 of dignified presence, a father and teacher of his children, a very 

 Christ, worthy of all love and reverence, who gathers together the 

 wandering nomads and leads them to their destined country, where he 

 instructs them in agriculture, house building, ami the art of govern- 

 ment, regulates authority, and inculcates peaceful modes of life. 

 "Under him, the earth teemed with fruits and flowers without the 

 pains of culture. An ear of Indian corn was as much as a single man 

 could carry. The cotton, as it grew, took of its own accord the rich dyes 

 of human ait. The air was filled with intoxicating perfumes and the 

 sweet melody of birds. In short, these were the halcyon days, which 

 liml a place in the mythic systems of so many nations in the. Old World. 

 It was the golden age of Anahuac." [Prescott, ./.')' When at last his 

 work is well accomplished, lie bids farewell to his sorrowing subjects, 

 whom he consoles with the sacred promise that he will one day return 

 and resume his kingdom, steps into his magic boat by the seashore, 

 and sails away out of their sight to the distant land of sunrise. 



Such was Quetzalcoatl of the Aztecs, and such in all essential 

 respects was the culture god of the more southern semicivilized races. 

 Curiously enough, this god, at once a Moses and a messiah, is usually 

 described as a white man with flowing beard. From this and other 

 circumstances it has been argued that tin' whole story is only another 

 form of the dawn myth, but whether the Indian god be an ancient 

 deified lawgiver of their own race, or some nameless missionary who 

 found his way across the Trackless ocean in the early ages of Chris- 

 tianity, or whether we have here only a veiled parable of the morning 

 light bringing life and joy to the world and then vanishing to return 

 again from the east with the dawn, it is sufficient to our purpose that 

 the belief in the coming of a messiah, who should restore them to their 

 original happy condition, was well nigh universal among the American 

 tribes. 



This faith in the return of a white deliverer from the east opened the 

 gate to the Spaniards at their first coming alike in Haiti, Mexico, 

 Yucatan, and Peru. {Brinton, I.) The simple native welcomed the 

 white Strangers as the children or kindred of their long-lost benefactor, 



1 Parentbetii references throughout the memoir are t<> bibliographic Dotes following The Songs. 



