Wind, the fierce Kabibonokka. Viewed in their religious aspect, these mighty beings correspond with four of the great manitus sacrificed to among the Delawares, the West, South, East, and North; while the Iroquois acknowledged a deity of larger grasp, Gäoh, the Spirit of the Winds, who holds them prisoned in the mountains in the Home of the Winds. The Polynesian Wind-gods are thus described by Eilis: "The chief of these were Veromatautoru and Tairibu, brother and sister to the children of Taaroa, their dwelling was near the great rock, which was the foundation of the world. Hurricanes, tempests, and all destructive winds, were supposed to be confined within them, and were employed by them to punish such as neglected the worship of the gods. In stormy weather their compassion was sought by the tempest-driven mariner at sea, or the friends of such on shore. Liberal presents, it was supposed, would at any time purchase a calm. If the first failed, subsequent ones were certain of success. The same means were resorted to for procuring a storm, but with less certainty. Whenever the inhabitants of one island heard of invasion from those of another, they immediately carried large offerings to these deities, and besought them to destroy by tempest the hostile fleet whenever it might put to sea. Some of the most intelligent people still think evil spirits had formerly great power over the winds, as they say there have been no such fearful storms since they abolished idolatry, as there were before." Or, again, the great deity Maui adds a new complication to his enigmatic solar-celestial character by appearing as a Wind-god. In Tahiti he was identified with the East Wind; in New Zealand he holds all the winds but the west in his hands, or he imprisons them with great stones rolled to the mouths of their caves, save the West Wind 1 Schoolcraft, Algic. Res.' vol. i. p. 139, vol. ii. p. 214; Loskiel, part i. p. 43; Waitz, vol. iii. p. 190. Morgan, 'Iroquois,' p. 157; J. G. Müller, p. 56; Further American evidence in Brinton, Myths of New World,' pp. 50, 74; Cranz, Grönland,' 267 (Sillagiksartok, Weather-spirit); De la Borde, 'Caraïbes,' p. 530 (Carib-Star Curumon, makes the billows and upsets canoes). 5 which he cannot catch or prison, so that it almost always blows. To the Kamchadal, it is Billukai the Heaven-god who comes down and drives his sledge on earth, and men see his traces in the wind-drifted snow. To the Finn, while there are traces of subordinate Wind-gods in his mythology, the great ruler of wind and storm is Ukko the Heaven-god; while the Esth looked rather to Tuule-ema, Wind's Mother, and when the gale shricks he will still say "Wind's mother wails, who knows what mothers shall wail next." Such instances from Allophylian mythology show types which are found developed in full vigour by the Aryan races. In the Vedic hymns, the Storm-gods, the Maruts, toss the clouds across the surging sea; Indra the Heavengod, with the swift Maruts who break through the stronghold, finds in their hiding places the bright cows, the days. No effort of the Red Indian's personifying fancy in the tales of the dancing Pauppuk-keewis the Whirlwind, or that fierce and shifty hero, Manabozho the North-West Wind, can more than match the description in the Iliad, of Achilles calling on Boreas and Zephyros with libations and vows of sacrifice, to blow into a blaze the funeral pyre of Patroklos his prayer Swift Iris heard, and bore it to the Winds. Were gathered round the feast; in haste appearing, They saw, and rising all, besought her each To sit beside him; she with their requests Refused compliance, and addressed them thus," &c. Ellis, 'Polyn. Res.' vol. i. p. 329, (compare with the Maori Tempest god Tawhirimatea, Grey, 'Polyn. Myth.' p. 5); Schirren, 'Wandersage der Neuseeländer,' etc. p. 85; Yate, 'New Zealand,' p. 144. See also Mariner, 'Tonga. Is.' vol. ii. p. 115. 2 Steller, Kamschatka,' p. 266. 3 Castrén, Finn. Myth.' pp. 37, 68. 4 Boecler, pp. 106, 147. See also Klemm, 'Cultur-Gesch.' vol. iv. p. 85 (Circassian Water-god and Wind-god). • 'Rig-Veda,' tr. by Max Müller, i. 6. 5, 19. 7. olus with the winds imprisoned in his cave has the office of the Red Indian Spirit of the Winds, and of the Polynesian Maui. With quaint adaptation to nature-myth and even to moral parable, the Harpies, the Storm-gusts that whirl and snatch and dash and smirch with eddying dust-clouds, become the loathsome bird-monsters sent to hover over the table of Phincus to claw and defile his dainty viands. If we are to choose an Aryan Storm-god for ideal grandeur, we must seek him in . . the hall where Runic Odin Howls his war-song to the gale." Jacob Grimm has defined Odin or Woden as "the allpenetrating creative and formative power." But we can hardly ascribe such abstract conceptions to his barbaric worshippers. As little may we seek his real nature among the legends which degrade him to a historical king of Northern men, an "Othinus rex." See the All-father sitting cloud-mantled on his heaven-seat, overlooking the deeds of men, and we must discern in him the attributes of the Heaven-god. Hear the peasant say of the raging tempest, that it is "Odin faring by;" trace the mythological transition from Woden's tempest to the "Wütende Heer," the "Wild Huntsman" of our own grand storm-myth, and we shall recognize the old Teutonic deity in his function of cloud-compeller, of Tempest-god. The "rude Carinthian boor" can show a relic from a yet more primitive stage of mental history, when he sets up a wooden bowl of various meats on a tree before his house, to fodder the wind that it may do no harm. In Swabia, Tyrol, and the Upper Palatinate, when the storm rages, they will fling a spoonful or a handful of meal in the face of the gale, with this formula in the last-named district, "Da Wind, hast du Mehl für dein Kind, aber aufhören musst du! "3 1 Homer, Il. xxiii. 192 (Lord Derby's trans.) Odys. xx. 66, 77; Apollon. Rhod. Argonautica; Apollodor. i. 9. 21; Virg. Æn. i. 56; Welcker, 'Griech. Götterl.' vol. i. p. 707, vol. iii. p. 67. 2 Grimm, 'Deutsche Myth.' pp. 121, 871. 3 Wuttke, 'Deutsche Volksabergl.' p. 86. The Earth-deity takes an important place in polytheistic religion. The Algonquins would sing medicine-songs to Mesukkummik Okwi, the Earth, the Great-Grandmother of all. In her charge (and she must be ever at home in her lodge) are left the animals whose flesh and skins are man's food and clothing, and the roots and medicines of sovereign power to heal sickness and kill game in time of hunger; therefore good Indians never dig up the roots of which their medicines are made, without depositing an offering in the earth for Mesukkummik Okwi. In the list of fetishdeities of Peruvian tribes, the Earth, adored as Mamapacha, Mother Earth, took high subordinate rank below Sun and Moon in the pantheon of the Incas, and at harvest-time ground corn and libations of chicha were offered to her that she might grant a good harvest. Her rank is similar in the Aquapim theology of West Africa; first the Highest God in the firmament, then the Earth as universal mother, then the fetish. The negro, offering his libation before some great undertaking, thus calls upon the triad: "Creator! come drink! Earth, come drink! Bosumbra, come drink!" 3 Among the indigenes of India, the Bygah tribes of Seonee show a well-marked worship of the Earth. They call her "Mother Earth" or Dhurteemah, and before praying or eating their food, which is looked on always as a daily sacrifice, they invariably offer some of it to the earth, before using the name of any other god. Of all religions of the world, perhaps that of the Khonds of Orissa gives the Earth-goddess her most remarkable place and function. Boora Pennu or Bella Pennu, the Light-god or Sun-god, created Tari Pennu the Earth-goddess for his Tanner's 'Narrative,' p. 193; Loskiel, 1. c. See also Rochefort, 'Iles Antilles,' p. 414; J. G. Müller, p. 178 (Antilles). 2 Garcilaso de la Vega, Commentarios Reales,' i. 10; Rivero & Tschudi, p. 161; J. G. Müller, p. 369. 3 Waitz, Anthropologie,' vol. ii. p. 170. Report of Ethnological Committee, Jubbulpore Exhibition,' 1866-7. Nagpore, 1868, part ii. p. 54. eonsort, and from them were born the other great gods. But strife arose between the mighty parents, and it became the wife's work to thwart the good creation of her husband, and to cause all physical and moral ill. Thus to the Sunworshipping sect she stands abhorred on the bad eminence of the Evil Deity. But her own sect, the Earth-worshipping sect, seem to hold ideas of her nature which are more primitive and genuine. The functions which they ascribe to her, and the rites with which they propitiate her, display her as the Earth-mother, raised by an intensely agricultural race to an extreme height of divinity. It was she who with drops of her blood made the soft muddy ground harden into firm earth; thus men learnt to offer human victims, and the whole earth became firm; the pastures and ploughed fields came into use, and there were cattle and sheep and poultry for man's service; hunting began, and there were iron and ploughshares and harrows and axes, and the juice of the palm-tree; and love arose between the sons and daughters of the people, making new households, and society with its relations of father and mother, and wife and child, and the bonds between ruler and subject. It was the Khond Earthgoddess who was propitiated with those hideous sacrifices, the suppression of which is matter of recent Indian history. With dances and drunken orgies, and a mystery play to explain in dramatic dialogue the purpose of the rite, the priest offered Tari Pennu her sacrifice, and prayed for children and cattle and poultry and brazen pots and all wealth; every man and woman wished a wish, and they tore the slave-victim piecemeal, and spread the morsels over the fields they were to fertilize. In Northern Asia, also, among the Tatar races, the office of the Earth-deity is strongly and widely marked. Thus in the nature-worship of the Tunguz and Buraets, Earth stands among the greater divinities. It is especially interesting to notice among the Finns a transition like that just observed from the god 1 Macpherson, 'India,' chap. vi. |
