"^"l^rr] INTRODUCTION 69 



All early men of inchoate nientatioii. of self-centered thinUing, 

 fihared their needs and afflictions, their woes and ambitions, their siif- 

 ferinsrs and aspirations, and their joys and llessings with their fjods. 

 feelinir that their gods who bore their own likeness by the unconscious 

 im]iutation of human nature to them were endowed with tlie attri- 

 butes, whims, virtues, and frailties of human nature. They believed 

 (hat their gods mus-t be men — man-beings, men like them.selves — else 

 these deities could not foresee and imderstand their necessities and 

 so could not sym]iathize with men everywhere. Hence an Iroquois, 

 thinking and speaking of their deities only in terms of human sj^eech 

 and thought, designates a god or other s]jirit of his faith by the word 

 denoting man, human being, or manicind. 



Of the gods and deities of Iroipiois myths the editor has written : 



Like most American Iii(li;in mytholciKii's. the Iroqnui; n denls with thiep si'ent 

 m.vthic cosmical perioils. In the first dwelt a race of gigiintic anthropie lieinss — 

 uian-lieings. let them be called, because though they were reputed to have heen 

 larger, purer, wiser, more ancient, and possessed of more potent oreiida (q. v.). 

 'ban man. and having superior ability to jierform the great elemental functions 

 characterizing definitely the things represented by them, they nevertheless had 

 the form. mien, and mind of man. their creator; for unconsciously did man 

 create the gods, the great |irini;il beings of cosmic time — the controllers or 

 directors, or impersonations, of the bodies and phenomemi of nature — in his 

 own image. To these man-beings, therefore, were imputed tt\e thought, manners, 

 customs, habits, and social organization of their creators; notwithstanding this, 

 man regarded them as uncreated, eternal, and immortal; for liy a curious i)ara- 

 do.x. man. mi-staking his own mental fictions, his metaphors, for realities, ex- 

 plained his own existence, wisdom, and activities as the divine product of the 

 creations of his own inchoate mind. The dwelling-place of the first great primal 

 beings, characterized by flora and fauna respectively identical with the plant 

 and .•inimal life appearing later on the earth, was conceived to have been the 

 upper surface of the visible sky, which was regarded as a solid plain. Here 

 lived the first beings in peace and contentment for a very long period of time: 

 no one knows or ever knew the length of this first cosmic period of tranipiil 

 existence. But there came a time when an event occurred which resulted in 

 a n>etamorphosis ia the state and asjiect of celestial and earthly things; in 

 fact, the seeming had to become or to assume the real, and so came to pass th? 

 cataclysmic change of things of the first period into that now seen on the earth 

 ;:nd in the sky. and the close of this i)eriod was the dawn of the goils of this 

 mythology.' 



So the character and the nature of the deities and spirits of the 

 faith of the Iroquois peoples were a direct reflex of those attributes 

 of the people themselves. It may be inferred in general that the more 

 primitive and cultureless the people are the more crude, the more 

 I'arbaric and savage will be their conceptions of their gods and the 

 nature and functions of these naive creations, but, conversoh', it i« 

 only with the possession of a higher degree of intelligence that come 

 nobler, more refined, grander, and more spiritual ideas of their gods 

 This admits of no e.xception. 



' Handbook of American Indians, pt. 2, p. 720. 



