Mr Y T 
489 
M Y T 
Waztajs Tchu'Sy the Old Father; his refidence was in 
heaven, from whence he infpedted the earth, and ob- 
ferved the qdtions of men. 
Weizgaut, the god of lovers. 
Welli, feafts in honour of the dead : they generally were 
held in Odtober for a week. 
Wei -?, the god of the dead. 
Wilkttls were lunatics, the lycanthropi of the ancients. 
Winjcheiti, pHefts employed in the offerings made to 
Pergruhb. 
The Greenlanders believe in a Superior Being, and the 
immortality of the foul. This Being, whom they call 
Torngarfuk, is, according to their defeription, rather evil 
than good. He cannot be eternal, as he is faid to have a 
great grandmother, a terrible woman, who rules over the 
fea-animals, often fummons them to her, and thus de¬ 
prives the inhabitants of their fupport. Neither is he 
confidered as the creator of the world ; for the world, they 
think, acofe of itfelf, and the firft Greenlanders grew out 
of the ground. Some make Torngarfuk a fpirit; others 
fay, he is like a bead; others, that he refembles a man. 
Some affirm that he is immortal , others, that a certain 
noife can kill him. His abode is very deep in the earth, 
where living is agreeable, and provilions abundant. So 
different are their ideas of this being ; but they neither 
love nor fear him ; nor do they adore him. When they 
are in health, their fifhery fuccefsful, and they have no¬ 
thing to trouble them in other refpedls, Torngarfuk is 
quite indifferent to them. Only when they are ill or un¬ 
happy, or the fea-animals leave the coaft, they have re- 
courfe, not to Torngarfuk, but to their Angekok, who is 
in connexion with hint. The Angekok then afks his ad¬ 
vice, and brings the anfwer. 
They believe in the immortality of the foul, and that 
its ftate, after death, is better than the prefent, and hap¬ 
pier for them all; for, according to their ideas, they will 
he all happy then, without diftin&ion. They indeed 
believe that there are two places of abode after death, one 
in heaven, the other under the earth, but both happy ; 
they, however, confider the fubterranean abode as the 
happieff, where only thofe come who have fuffered much 
diffrefs in this w r orld, or have done great fervices to their 
fellow-creatures: the fouls of all the others come into 
heayen. The foul is, indeed, of the nature of a fpirit; 
but it has fomething material about it; fomething deli¬ 
cate and foft, which may be felt. It may become fick ; 
and,, in this cafe, the Angekok can takeaway the fick 
part, and put fomething healthy in its room; it may be 
loft, and then he can give a new one. The northern lights 
are the fouls of the deceafed, playing at ball in heaven. 
The Sun and Moon were Greenlanders, and brother 
and filter. The lifter, the Sun, was extremely beautiful; 
and her brother, who had an illicit paffion for her, pur- 
fued her every-where. In order to efcape from him, the 
fled to heaven, where he ftill follows her. He is, befides, 
a great rogue ; and women cannot be too much on their 
guard againft him. When the full moon Ihines upon the 
water, the girls dare not drink of it, for fear of becoming 
pregnant. 
Air, earth, water, and fire, have each their fpirits, who 
exercife a certain fway, each in his own fphere. Care 
mult be taken not to make them angry. Apparitions and 
ghofts are believed in here, as they are every-where. For 
this reafon, they bind the legs of the dead, while they are 
Hill pliable, up to the hams, and carry them, in winter, 
out of a window, or, in fummer, out of the back part of 
the tent, that their ghofts may not return. They tear 
out and devour the hearts of thofe whom they kill as for- 
cerers : the fear that the fpirit of the perfon killed ftiould 
haunt them, is the true caufe of this. Greenlanders are 
often drowned in the chafe of feals ; and then their fpirits 
appear after death. The rocks, alfo, have their fpirits, 
•which are very dangerous, as they even come down into 
the houfes by night and (teal provilions. If it is true, as 
they relate, that individual Greenlanders now and then, 
Vot. XVI. No. 1129. 
from defpair’,' leave fociety for ever and dwell among the 
rocks, it is no wonder if they vifit the houfes, efpecially 
in winter-nights, to find there fomething to prolong their 
wretched exiftence. Even fome Greenlanders do not 
look on thefe as fpirits, but as unfortunate perfons, who, 
by being infulated from mankind, have become lavage 
and formidable. Journal of Hans Egedc Saahje. 
In America, the only mythological countries mull be 
Mexico and Peru. The other parts of that large conti¬ 
nent were originally inhabited by favages, moil of thenvas 
remote from religion as from civilization. The two vail 
empires of Mexico and Peru had exifted about four hun¬ 
dred years oniy before the Spanilh invafion. In neither of 
them was the ufe of letters underftood ; and of courfe the 
ancient opinions of the natives relating to the origin of 
the univerfe, the changes which fucceeded, and every 
other monument of antiquity, were obliterated and loft. 
Clavigero has indeed enumerated a vaft canaille of fan- 
guinary gods worfnipped by the Mexicans ; but produces 
nothing either entertaining or interefting with refpedl to 
their mythology. The information to be derived from 
any otherquarter is little to be depended upon. It palfes 
through the hands of bigotted miflionaries or other eccle- 
fiaftics, who were fo deeply tinftured with fanaticifm, that 
they viewed every aftion, every fentiment, every cuftom, 
every religious opinion and ceremony, of thofe half- 
civilized people, through a falfe medium. They often 
imagined they dilcovered refemblances and analogies be¬ 
tween the rites of thofe favages and the dogmas of Chrif- 
tianity, which no-where exilted but in their own heated 
imaginations. 
The only remarkable piece of mythology in the annals 
of the Peruvians, is the pretended extraction of Manco 
Capec, the firft inca of Peru, and of Mama Ocolla, his 
confort. Thefe two illuftrious perfonages appeared firft 
on the banks of the Lake Titiaca. They were perfons of 
a majeftic ftature, and clothed in decent garments. They 
declared themfelves to be the children of the Sun, fent 
by their beneficent parent, who beheld with pity the mi- 
feries of the human race, to inftrudt and reclaim them. 
Thus we find thefe two legiflators availed themfelves of a 
pretence which had often been employed in more civilized 
regions to the very fame purpofes. The idolatry of Peru 
was gentle and beneficent, that of Mexico gloomy and 
fanguinary. Hence we may fee, that every inode of fu- 
perltition, where a divine revelation is not concerned, 
borrows its complexion from the charafters of its pro- 
feffors. 
MY'THOPLASM, f [from the Gr. ^vGo?, a fable, and 
vImo-o-cj, to frame.] A narration or fable. 
MY'THRAS. See Mithras. 
MYTILE'NE. See Metelen, vol. xv. 
MYT'ILUS, f. the Muscle, or Mussel, in helmin¬ 
thology, a genus of teftaceous worms. Generic Charac¬ 
ters—Animal allied to an afeidia: (hell bivalve, rough, 
generally fixed by a byffus or beard of filky filaments; 
hinge moftly without teeth, with generally a tubulate ex¬ 
cavated longitudinal line. There are fixty-five fpecies; 
fome of which are valuable as producing the true mother- 
of-pearl, others as food. They are feparated into three 
diftinft families or divifions. 
I. Parafitical; affixed as it were by claws. 
1. Mytilus crilta-galli, or cock’s-comb mufcle : (hell 
plaited, fpinous ; both lips rough. It inhabits the In¬ 
dian Ocean and the Red Sea ; and is affixed to the Gor- 
gonia. The (hell is of a purple-violet, pale cinnamon, 
or bay, rough with railed dots ; within of a honey-co¬ 
lour; nearly equivalve, and clofed with from five to ten 
oblique or ftraight acute plaits ; at the hinge it is trian¬ 
gular. A reprefentation of this fpecies has been given 
under the article Conchqlogy, on Plate XVI. fig. 3. 
z. Mytilus hyotis : (hell plaited and imbricate, with 
broad com prefled l’cales ; both lips fmooth. This fpecies 
inhabits the ocean ; on beds of coral; the lliell is of a 
61 diyty- 
