Читать книгу The Mythology of Cherokee, Iroquois, Navajo, Siouan and Zuñi - James Mooney - Страница 68

The Zuñi philosophy of the fetish is given in the "Tale of the Two Sun-Children" as follows: "Now that the surface of the earth was hardened even the animals of prey, powerful and like the fathers [gods] themselves, would have devoured the children of men, and the two thought it was not well that they should all be permitted to live, for, said they, 'Alike the children of men and the children of the animals of prey multiply themselves. The animals of prey are provided with talons and teeth; men are but poor, the finished beings of earth, therefore the weaker.' Whenever they came across the pathway of one of these animals, were he a great mountain lion or but a mere mole, they struck him with the fire of lightning which they carried on their magic shields. Thlu! and instantly he was shrivelled and turned into stone. Then said they to the animals that they had changed into stone, 'That ye may not be evil unto man, but that ye may be a great good unto them, have we changed you into rock everlasting. By the magic breath of prey, by the heart that shall endure for ever within you, shall ye be made to serve instead of to devour mankind.' Thus was the surface of the earth hardened and scorched, and many of all kinds of beings changed to stone. Thus, too, it happens that we find here and there throughout the world their forms, sometimes large, like the beings themselves, sometimes shrivelled and distorted, and we often see among the rocks the forms of many beings that live no longer, which shows us that all was different in the 'days of the new.' Of these petrifactions, which are, of course, mere concretions or strangely shaped rock-forms, the Zuñi say: 'Whomsoever of us may be met with the light of such great good-fortune may see them, and should treasure them for the sake of the sacred [magic] power which was given them in the days of the new.'"2