"Ad penetrale Numæ, Capitolinumque Tonantem.” 1 Thus, also, it was in accurate language that the old Slavonic nations were described as adoring Jupiter Tonans as their highest god. He was the cloud-dwelling Heaven-god, his weapon the thunder-bolt, the lightning-flash, his name Perun the Smiter (Perkun, Perkunas). In the Lithuanian district, the thunder itself is Perkun; in past times the peasant would cry when he heard the thunder peal "Dewe Perkune apsaugog mus!-God Perkun spare us!" and to this day he says, "Perkunas gravja !-Perkun is thundering!" or "Wezzajs barrahs !-the Old One growls!" The old German and Scandinavian theology made Thunder, Donar, Thor, a special deity to rule the clouds and rain, and hurl his crushing hammer through the air. He reigned high in the Saxon heaven, till the days came when the Christian convert had to renounce him in solemn form, "ec forsacho Thunare!-I forsake Thunder!" Now, his survival is for the most part in mere verbal form, in the etymology of such names as Donnersberg, Thorwaldsen, Thursday." In the polytheism of the lower as of the higher races, the Wind-gods are no unknown figures. The Winds themselves, and especially the Four Winds in their four regions, take name and shape as personal divinities, while some deity of wider range, a Wind-god, Storm-god, Air-god, or the mighty Heaven-god himself, may stand as compeller or controller of breeze and gale and tempest. We have already taken as examples from the Algonquin mythology of North America the four winds whose native legends have been versified in " Hiawatha; " Mudjekeewis the West Wind, Father of the Winds of Heaven, and his children, Wabun the East Wind, the morning-bringer, the lazy Shawondasee the South Wind, the wild and cruel North 1 Homer, Il. viii. 170, xvii. 595. Ovid. Fast. ii. 69. See Max Müller, "Lectures,' 1. c. ; Welcker, 'Griech. Götterl.' vol. ii. p. 194. 2 Hanusch, 'Slaw. Myth.' p. 257. 3 Grimm, 'Deutsche Myth.' ch. viii. Edda; Gylfaginning, 21, 44. 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 Ellis: "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). 4 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 shrieks he will still say "Wind's mother wails, who knows what mothers shall wail next." Such instances from Allophylian mythology 5 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 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. 1 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. 5 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. Eolus 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 Phineus 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! "s 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.1 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 1 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. 4 'Report of Ethnological Committee, Jubbulpore Exhibition,' 1866-7. Nagpore, 1868, part ii. p. 54. |
