Don’t Know Much About® Mythology (62 page)

Is there an “American” mythology?

Vast differences distinguish the many cultures and people once lumped together as “Indians.” The Cherokee farmers of the Southeast were very different from the Great Plains Sioux who followed the buffalo herds that sustained them. The democratic Hodenosaunee (or Iroquois) of the long houses in the Northeast had little in common with the Pueblos in their adobe “apartment buildings” in the Southwest. And none of these native people could be confused with the city dwellers of Mexico and Central America, or the resilient oceangoing fishermen of the Northwest and Arctic. But there are common patterns among the beliefs of many Native Americans, which, some scholars think, may stretch all the way back to shared prehistoric origins in Asia. These characteristics include:

A “Great Spirit.” A supreme god with ultimate power who both has created and oversees the universe is a common feature in Native American mythology. Often male and usually related to the sun, the great spirit goes by many names, as David Leeming and Jake Page point out in
The Mythology of Native North America
. “Usually this supreme god—the Great Spirit, the Great Mystery, Father Sky, Old Man, Earthmaker, or one of several other names—is the prime creator.”
To the Huron of the Northeast woodlands, the Creator god is Airsekui, to whom the tribe offers the first of its fruits and meats each harvest and slaughter time. To the Incas of South America, he was Inti, the godhead who also founded the Inca dynasty. To the Sioux, Osage, and other tribes of the midwestern plains, the Creator god is more of a force than a personalized deity, and is called Wakonda or Wakan Tanka. Wakonda is the force behind all life and creation, wisdom, knowledge, and power. Sometimes envisioned as a large bird, Wakonda sustains the world and gives authority to the medicine men. For Algonquian tribes (who range across North America from the East Coast through the Great Lakes to the Rockies), the high god is Kitchi Manitou or “great mystery,” a divine energy that created the world by thinking of it, exists in all things, and can be sought—in almost Eastern mystical terms—to achieve selfhood.


 


An Earth Mother. Source of all fertility, the Earth Mother is a popular deity in the Americas, who is nearly always a nurturing force. In the myth of the Cherokee—originally from the southeastern United States and forced west to Oklahoma in the notorious “removals” of the 1830s—their Earth Mother is the goddess known as Grandmother Sun. To the Hopi of the Southwest, she is Spider Woman or Kokyanwuuti, the goddess of Creation who teaches the people how to weave and make pottery.
Often these Earth Mothers or great goddesses have twin children or grandchildren—another common Native American theme—who are frequently tricksters. One Earth Mother of twins is the main goddess of the Navajos of the Southwest, who call themselves Diné (“the people”). Born from a piece of turquoise and made pregnant by the sun god, their Earth Mother is known as Changing Woman, or Estsanatlehi. She is a miraculous birth-giver, whose twin children—Monster Slayer and Born for Water—make the world safe for the Navajos. Changing Woman creates people from a mixture of corn dust and skin from her breasts. Growing old and young in a never-ending cycle, Changing Woman lives on an island in the west, from which she sends life-giving rain and fresh winds to keep the people alive. One of the most important rites among the Navajo is the female puberty ritual, a four-day ceremony in which a girl becomes a woman and gains the healing power granted by Changing Woman.


 


“Earth Diver” Creation Stories. Probably the most prevalent and archetypal Native American Creation story, especially in North America, features an animal—typically a beaver, beetle, duck, or turtle—who plunges into the waters covering the earth and returns to the surface with bits of mud or soil, from which the Creator then makes the earth.
To the Yuchi and Creek of Alabama and Georgia, the earth diver is Crawfish, who goes to the bottom of the water where the Mud People live. Angry that Crawfish comes and goes, stealing their mud and constantly stirring up the water, the Mud People try to stop him, but he moves too fast. Buzzard soars over the mud and dries it out with his wings, making the mountains and valleys. Finally, great mother (the Sun) gives light to the world and drips her menstrual blood on earth, giving birth to the first people.
For the Seneca of the Northeast, the earth divers Toad and Turtle work together to create land. They do this after Star Woman, the daughter of the Sky Chief, falls through a hole in the sky. Caught by birds, she rests on Turtle’s back until Toad brings up enough soil from beneath the water to create the earth for her to live on.


 


Tricksters. Like Africa’s mythology, Native American traditions show a special fondness for the malevolent and often aggressively oversexed trickster—animal gods such as Coyote and Hare, or a man-animal like Iktomi, the Spiderman of the Lakota Sioux. The Aztecs of Mexico have a lusty collection of tricksters called Centzon Totochtin, or “Four Hundred Rabbits.” And classic Maya pottery also depicts a rabbit stealing—in true trickster fashion—an unidentified old god’s hat and clothes. Some of these tricksters were the inspiration for two modern American cartoon icons—Wile E. Coyote of
Road Runner
fame and a “wabbit” named Bugs, whose animated antics are far less malicious and X-rated than those of their ancient ancestors.
Sometimes the tricksters are cunning “culture heroes,” like the Mayan twins of the Popol Vuh who confound death with their amazing abilities. Many scholars believe that the now-ubiquitous Kokopelli—the hunchbacked flute player depicted on prehistoric Anasazi rock art in the Southwest—was a combination trickster-fertility god, similar in many respects to the Greek Pan. Kokopelli may have even been based on legends of an actual trader from Central America who made his way to the South and left a lasting impression. Other Native American tricksters are smart, brave, and resourceful—but they can also be vindictive, spiteful, and selfish. In some accounts, tricksters create man, steal fire from heaven, survive floods, and defeat monsters.
Summarizing tricksters, Native American myth expert Richard Erdoes writes, “Always hungry for another meal swiped from someone else’s kitchen, always ready to lure someone else’s wife into bed, always trying to get something for nothing, shifting shapes (and even sex), getting caught in the act, ever scheming, never remorseful.” Tricksters are, he adds, “clever and foolish at the same time, smart-asses who outsmart themselves.”


 


The Shaman. A figure revered in many worldwide traditions, the shaman, or “medicine man,”
*
plays a central role in many tribes throughout the Americas. Widely thought to be a carryover from the ancient Siberian beginnings of Native America, and sometimes related to the trickster, the shaman in Native American tradition is the person considered to have magical powers that come from a direct contact with the supernatural, usually through ecstatic trances or dream visions. Shamans were often healers who used a combination of herbal remedies and “spiritual” healing—traditions that continue today across the Americas.
American tribal names for the shaman vary, and it is not a term used by American tribal people. For the Arctic Inuit, the shaman or medicine man is Angakoq, who is the repository of lore and magic and the actual connection to the spirit world. To the Oglala Sioux, the shaman is a
wichasha wakon
, a holy man like Black Elk, who, at the age of nine, had a powerful spiritual vision. Serving as tribal priests, diviners, and healers, the shamans underwent training that usually included a “vision quest,” in which the initiate sought to communicate with the spirit world. The shaman’s apprenticeship might last anywhere from a few days to many years, as novices had to experience extreme hardships to learn how to control “spirit helpers.” In Peru, centuries after Catholicism was established, the Church continued to “investigate” what it called
idolatrias
(“idolatries”), which involved curers and diviners who persisted in the traditional worship of sacred Incan places in the mountains. Like many Native American tribes and cultures, the Incas regarded many places and things as
huaca
(“sacred”). These included springs, stones, caves, and mountain peaks, each of which had its own spirits.


 


The Totem. Somewhat unique to Native Americans, but similar in some respects to the African fetish, the totem is a symbol of a tribe, clan, or family. But it is also an object imbued with spirit power. As writer Jonathan Forty describes it in
Mythology: A Visual Encyclopedia
, “The totem was a coat of arms, an altar, shrine, flag, and a family tree all rolled into one.”
Although “totem” is most often associated with the great carved poles that lined the village streets of the Northwest and Alaskan tribes, the word comes from the Chippewa (or Ojibwa) of the Great Lakes area. In the broader sense, “totem” is a powerful symbol that united people who sometimes occupied vast territories. In discussing the importance of the totem to people in what he calls the “primal world,” religion authority Huston Smith writes in
Illustrated World’s Religions
, “To be separated from the tribe threatens them with death, not only physically but psychologically as well. The tribe, in turn, is embedded in nature so solidly that the line between the two is not easy to establish. In the case of totemism, it cannot really be said to exist. Totemism binds a human tribe to an animal species in a common life. The totem animal guards the tribe, which, in return, respects it and refuses to injure it, for they are ‘of one flesh.’” That idea is so powerful that a clan might have rules against killing or eating the species to which their totem—a bird, fish, animal, plant, or other natural object—belongs. (Maybe you have a “Jesus fish” on your car? Or wear your favorite team’s tiger, wildcat, or cardinal on your cap? Or maybe you pledge allegiance to a flag with an eagle on top? Totem, totem, totem.)
In the Pacific Northwest, highly skilled artisans carved the family and clan emblems on the elaborate cedar totem poles that eventually came to be viewed as “status symbols.” Captain Cook, the English explorer, saw these totems during his travels in the Pacific Northwest and noted them in his journals in the 1700s. The famed photographer of the Native Americans Edward S. Curtis first took pictures of them in the late nineteenth century as part of an expedition to Alaska led by railroad magnate E. H. Harriman, who stripped entire villages of their totems and other sacred objects. But the early history of totem poles is otherwise obscure, except for legends hinting that they go very far back in time.
In a flagrant example of attempted “culturecide,” in 1884, the Canadian government outlawed the large ceremonial gatherings called the “potlatch,” at which totem poles were raised. Many native children were then sent to government schools, and totem pole carving nearly died as an art form. There has been a revival in recent decades among a younger generation of artists who want to preserve the old ways. By the way, the “low man on the totem pole” usually wasn’t. In fact, the bottom figure was often created by the best carver, who wanted his work to be most visible.


 

THE MYTHS OF THE MAYAS

The Mayas once occupied an area that today consists of the Mexican states of Campeche, Yucatán, and Quintana Roo; part of the states of Tabasco and Chiapas; and most of Guatemala, Belize, and parts of El Salvador and Honduras. Recent discoveries show that the Mayan civilization began to reach its peak as early as 150 BCE and grew vibrantly until 900 CE. By then, most of the Mayas had moved to areas to the north and south, including Yucatán in Mexico and the highlands of southern Guatemala, where they continued to prosper until Spain conquered most of their territory in the mid-1500s. Descendants of the Maya still live in Mexico and Guatemala—where they are among the world’s poorest people. They speak Mayan languages and retain many of the religious customs of their ancestors.

What is the Popol Vuh?