American Hero-Myths: A Study in the Native Religions of the Western Continent

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Brinton Daniel Garrison. American Hero-Myths: A Study in the Native Religions of the Western Continent

PREFACE

CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY

CHAPTER II. THE HERO-GODS OF THE ALGONKINS AND IROQUOIS

CHAPTER III. THE HERO-GOD OF THE AZTEC TRIBES

CHAPTER IV. THE HERO-GODS OF THE MAYAS

CHAPTER V. THE QQUICHUA HERO-GOD VIRACOCHA

CHAPTER VI. THE EXTENSION AND INFLUENCE OF THE TYPICAL HERO-MYTH

INDEXES

I. INDEX OF AUTHORS

II. INDEX OF SUBJECTS

Отрывок из книги

SOME KIND OF RELIGION FOUND AMONG ALL MEN–CLASSIFICATIONS OF RELIGIONS–THE PURPOSE OF RELIGIONS–RELIGIONS OF RITE AND OF CREED–THE MYTH GROWS IN THE FIRST OF THESE–INTENT AND MEANING OF THE MYTH.

PROCESSES OF MYTH-BUILDING IN AMERICA–PERSONIFICATION. PARONYMS AND HOMONYMS–OTOSIS–POLYONOMY–HENOTHEISM–BORROWING–RHETORICAL FIGURES–ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONS. ESOTERIC TEACHINGS.

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The most important of all things to life is Light. This the primitive savage felt, and, personifying it, he made Light his chief god. The beginning of the day served, by analogy, for the beginning of the world. Light comes before the sun, brings it forth, creates it, as it were. Hence the Light-God is not the Sun-God, but his Antecedent and Creator.

The light appears in the East, and thus defines that cardinal point, and by it the others are located. These points, as indispensable guides to the wandering hordes, became, from earliest times, personified as important deities, and were identified with the winds that blew from them, as wind and rain gods. This explains the four brothers, who were nothing else than the four cardinal points, and their mother, who dies in producing them, is the eastern light, which is soon lost in the growing day. The East, as their leader, was also the supposed ruler of the winds, and thus god of the air and rain. As more immediately connected with the advent and departure of light, the East and West are twins, the one of which sends forth the glorious day-orb, which the other lies in wait to conquer. Yet the light-god is not slain. The sun shall rise again in undiminished glory, and he lives, though absent.

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