68 SENECA FICTION, LEGENDS, AND MYTHS Ietii avn. 32 



iii^siiined by the menihers, " hunch-backed,'- and the second, '' mask," 

 from the wooden mask worn by the members of the society when in 

 session. So the expression of the evil side of the manifestations of 

 the l*()wer of the Wind or Air, Pestilence, Disease, and Deatii may 

 safel}' be predicated of this member of the " first people." 



A got! or deity exerts or maintains its influence over the uiind and 

 heart of man because it is somethinji more tlian a mere creature of 

 the human brain. The god exercises certain attributes, peculiarities 

 and forces which place him outside the sphere of iiuman knowledge 

 and experience and competence into a class by himself; he embodies 

 in himself, according to belief, the power to function as a process or 

 force of the universe plus the attributed human faculties and aspect. 



Some of the French writers among the early explorers in North 

 America refer to a native belief in "the ancients of animals," whicli, 

 it was stated, were, regarded as the type and the pi-ogenitors of each 

 particular species of animal. But this statement gives only a glimpse 

 of a larger faith. These so-called '" ancients of animals " were indeed 

 only a part of the great company of " the ancients." " the ancestors.'' 

 or " the first people," each being a i)ersonified element or process of 

 life or of outside nature, who became by fated metamorphosis the 

 reputed prcgenitors of all faunal and floral life on the earth. 



But an interpretative understanding of the Genesis myth of the 

 American Indians shows that these " ancients." these primal " an- 

 cestors," were regarded as " human beings," as belonging to that class 

 of animate beings to which the Indian himself belonged. Yet, these 

 " ancients " were the '' gods," " the beings," or "the existences," of 

 anthropic form, character, and volition, whose metamorphosis later 

 jHoduced, according to the Indian i)hilosophy, the present order of 

 things on earth. So, the " first beings," conceived as " human beings," 

 were indeed the gods — the personified agents of the powers, processes, 

 jind phenomena of nature. 



It is this principle of transformation, or metaniorphosis. that in 

 part explains whv there are represented largely "anthropic gods" 

 Avith "animal masks" in Central America. Mexico. India, China. 

 Egypt, Babylonia, and Assyria, and not many true "animal gods" 

 with " human nuisks." 



But in some places there arose confusion between these poetic cre- 

 ations of a childlike faith and the lineal ancestors of men. When 

 pride of birth and of position dominated the minds of aristocratic 

 men they sought to trace their pedigree to the gods, and so they 

 blindly claimed descent from these primal gods, who, in their an- 

 thropic aspect, were mere fictions of the mind, and so in time and in 

 some lands this process restdted in what is usually called " ancestor 

 worship." This is, therefore, never a primitive faith, but only a 

 decadent culture. 



