Sketch of the Mythology of the North American Indians | Page 7

gods! The descendants of these people are the present Kaib?bits of northern Arizona. Those who escaped by the way, through the wicked curiosity of the younger Cin-aú-?v, scattered over the country and became Navajos, Mokis, Sioux, Comanches, Spaniards, Americans--poor, sorry fragments of people without the original language of the gods, and only able to talk in imperfect jargons.
The Hebrew philosopher tells us that on the plains of Shinar the people of the world were gathered to build a city and erect a tower, the summit of which should reach above the waves of any flood Jehovah might send. But their tongues were confused as a punishment for their impiety. The philosopher of science tells us that mankind was widely scattered over the earth anterior to the development of articulate speech, that the languages of which we are cognizant sprang from innumerable centers as each little tribe developed its own language, and that in the study of any language an orderly succession of events may be discovered in its evolution from a few simple holophrastic locutions to a complex language with a multiplicity of words and an elaborate grammatic structure, by the differentiation of the parts of speech and the integration of the sentence.
A cough.--A man coughs. In explanation the Ute philosopher would tell us that an u-nú-pits--a pygmy spirit of evil--had entered the poor man's stomach, and he would charge the invalid with having whistled at night; for in their philosophy it is taught that if a man whistles at night, when the pygmy spirits are abroad, one is sure to go through the open door into the stomach, and the evidence of this disaster is found in the cough which the u-nú-pits causes. Then the evil spirit must be driven out, and the medicine-man stretches his patient on the ground and scarifies him with the claws of eagles from head to heel, and while performing the scarification a group of men and women stand about, forming a chorus, and medicine-man and chorus perform a fugue in gloomy ululation, for these wicked spirits will depart only by incantations and scarifications.
In our folk-lore philosophy a cough is caused by a "cold," whatever that may be--a vague entity--that must be treated first according to the maxim "Feed a cold and starve a fever," and the "cold" is driven away by potations of bitter teas.
In our medical philosophy a cough may be the result of a clogging of the pores of the skin, and is relieved by clearing those flues that carry away the waste products of vital combustion.
These illustrations are perhaps sufficient to exhibit the principal characteristics of the two methods of philosophy, and, though they cover but narrow fields, it should be remembered that every philosophy deals with the whole cosmos. An explanation of all things is sought--not alone the great movements of the heavens, or the phenomena that startle even the unthinking, but every particular which is observed. Abstractly, the plane of demarkation between the two methods of philosophy can be sharply drawn, but practically we find them strangely mixed; mythologic methods prevail in savagery and barbarism, and scientific methods prevail in civilization. Mythologic philosophies antedate scientific philosophies. The thaumaturgic phases of mythology are the embryonic stages of philosophy, science being the fully developed form. Without mythology there could be no science, as without childhood there could be no manhood, or without embryonic conditions there could be no ultimate forms.
MYTHOLOGIC PHILOSOPHY HAS FOUR STAGES.
Mythologic philosophy is the subject with which we deal. Its method, as stated in general terms, is this: All phenomena of the outer objective world are interpreted by comparison with those of the inner subjective world Whatever happens, some one does it; that some one has a will and works as he wills. The basis of the philosophy is personality. The persons who do the things which we observe in the phenomena of the universe are the gods of mythology--the cosmos is a pantheon. Under this system, whatever may be the phenomenon observed, the philosopher asks, "Who does it?" and "Why?" and the answer comes, "A god with his design." The winds blow, and the interrogatory is answered, "?olus frees them from the cave to speed the ship of a friend, or destroy the vessel of a foe." The actors in mythologic philosophy are gods.
In the character of these gods four stages of philosophy may be discovered. In the lowest and earliest stage everything has life; everything is endowed with personality, will, and design; animals are endowed with all the wonderful attributes of mankind; all inanimate objects are believed to be animate; trees think and speak; stones have loves and hates; hills and mountains, springs and rivers, and all the bright stars, have life--everything discovered objectively by the senses is looked upon subjectively by the philosopher and