and their explanation by the laws of physics. It includes terrestrial magnetism, the tides, meteorology as related to cosmical causes, the aurora, meteoric phenomena, and the physical constitution of the heavenly bodies generally. It differs from astrophysics only in dealing principally with phenomena in their wider aspects, and as the products of physical causes, while astrophysics is more concerned with minute details of observation.
COSMOGONY (from Gr. κόσμος, world and γίγνεσθαι, to be
born), a theory, however incomplete, of the origin of heaven and
earth, such as is produced by primitive races in the myth-making
age, and is afterwards expanded and systematized by priests,
poets or philosophers. Such a theory must be mythical in form,
and, after gods have arisen, is likely to be a theogony (θεός, god)
as well as a cosmogony (Babylonia, Egypt, Phoenicia, Polynesia).
1. To many the interest of such stories will depend on their parallelism to the Biblical account in Genesis i.; the anthropologist, however, will be attracted by them in proportion as they illustrate the more primitive phases of human culture. In spite of the frequent overgrowth of a luxuriant imagination, the leading ideas of really primitive cosmogonies are extremely simple. Creation out of nothing is nowhere thought of, for this is not at all a simple idea. The pre-existence of world-matter is assumed; sometimes too that of heaven, as the seat of the earth-maker, and that of preternatural animals, his coadjutors. The earth-making process may, among the less advanced races, be begun by a bird, or some other animal (whence the term “theriomorphism”), for the high idea of a god is impossible, till man has fully realized his own humanity. Of course, the earth-forming animal is a preternaturally gifted one, and is on the line of development towards that magnified man who, in a later stage, becomes the demiurge.[1] Between the two comes the animal—man, i.e. a being who has not yet shed the slough of an animal shape, but combines the powers—natural and preternatural—of some animal with those of a man. Let us now collect specimens of the evidence for different varieties of cosmogony, ranging from those of the Red Indian tribes to that of the people of Israel.
2. North American Stories.—Theriomorphic creators are most fully attested for the Red Indian tribes, whose very backwardness renders them so valuable to an anthropologist. There is a painted image from Alaska, now in the museum of the university of Pennsylvania, which represents such an one. We see a black crow tightly holding a human mask which he is in the act of incubating. Let us pass on to the Thlinkît Indians of the N.W. coast. A cycle of tales is devoted to a strange humorous being called Yehl or Yelch, i.e. the Raven, miraculously born, not to be wounded, and at once a semi-developed creator and a culture hero.[2] His bitter foe is his uncle; the germs of dualism appear early. Like some other culture-heroes, he steals sun, moon and stars out of a box, so enlightening the dark earth. These people are at any rate above the Greenlanders, but are surpassed by the Algonkins described by Nicholas Perrot in 1700, and by the Iroquois, whom the heroic Father Brébeuf (1593–1649) learned to know so well.[3] The earth-maker of the former was called Michabo, i.e. the Great Hare.[4] He is the leader of some animals on a raft on a shoreless sea. Three of these in succession are sent to dive for a little earth. A grain of sand is brought; out of it he makes an island (America?). Of the carcases of the dead animals he makes the present men (N. Americans?). There is also a Flood-story, an episode in which has a bearing on the great dragon-myth[5] (see Deluge). The Iroquois are in advance of the Algonkins; their creator-hero has no touch of the animal in him. Above the waters there existed a heaven, or a heavenly earth (cf. Mexico, Babylonia, Egypt), through a hole in which Aataentsic fell to the water. The broad back of a tortoise (cf. § 6) on which a diving animal had placed some mud, received her. Here, being already pregnant, she gave birth to a daughter, who in turn bore the twins Joskeha and Tawiscara (myth of hostile brothers). By his violence (cf. Gen. xxv. 22) the latter killed his mother, out of whose corpse grew plants. Tawiscara fled to the west, where he rules over the dead. Joskeha made the beasts and also men. After acting as culture-giver he disappeared to the east, where he is said to dwell with his grandmother as her husband.[6]
3. Mexican.—The most interesting feature in the Mexican cosmology is the theory of the ages of the world. Greece, Persia and probably Babylon, knew of four such ages.[7] The Priestly Writer in the Pentateuch also appears to be acquainted with this doctrine; it is the first of four ages which begins with the Creation and ends with the Deluge. The Mexicans, however, are said to have assumed five ages called “suns.” The first was the sun of earth; the second, of fire; the third, of air; the fourth, of water; the fifth (which is the present) was unnamed. Each of these closed with a physical catastrophe.[8] The speculations which underlie the Mexican theory have not come down to us. For the Iranian parallel, see § 8, and on the Hebrew Priestly Writer, Gunkel, Genesis[2], pp. 233 ff.
4. Peruvian.—In Peru, as in Egypt, the sun-god obtained universal homage. But there were creator-gods in the background. A theoretical supremacy was accorded by the Incas to Pachacamac, whose worship, like that of Viracocha, they appear to have already found when they conquered the land. Pachacamac means, in Quichua, “world-animator.”[9] The “philosophers” of Peru declared that he desired no temples or sacrifices, no worship but that of the heart. This is conceivable; Maui, too, in New Zealand had no temple or priests. But most probably this deity had another less abstract name, and the horrible worship offered in the one temple which he really had under the Incas, accorded with his true cosmic significance as the god of the subterranean fire. Viracocha too had a cosmic position; an old Peruvian hymn calls him “world-former, world-animator.”[10] He was connected with water. A third creator was Manco Capac (“the mighty man”), whose sister and wife is called Mama Oello, “the mother-egg.” Afterwards, the creator and the mother-egg became respectively the sun and the moon, represented by the Inca priest-king and his wife, the supposed descendants of Manco Capac.[11] Dualistic tendencies were also developed. Las Casas[12] reports a story that before creation the creator-god had a bad son who sought, after creation, to undo all that his father had done. Angered at this, his father hurled him into the sea. We need not suspect Christian influences, but the parallelism of Rev. xx. 3, Isa. xiv. 12, 15, Ezek. xxviii. 16 is obvious.
5. Polynesian.—Polynesia, that classic land of mythology, is specially rich in myths of creation. The Maori story, told by Grey and others, of the rending apart of Rangi ( = Langi, heaven)
- ↑ Cf. Miss Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, chaps. vi., vii., “The Making of a Goddess and of a God.”
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 See Ratzel, Hist. of Mankind, ii. 147-148; Breysig, Die Entstehung des Gottesgedankens (1905), pp. 10-12.
- ↑ See Chamberlain, Journ. of American Folklore, iv. 208-209 (analysis of Perrot’s account); Brinton, Myths of the New World, pp. 176-179; Breysig, op. cit., pp. 15-20.
- ↑ On Michabo see Brinton, op. cit. (1876), pp. 176 ff., Essays of an Americanist (1890), p. 132. This scholar holds that “Michabo” has properly nothing to do with “Great Hare,” but should be translated “the Great White One,” i.e. the light of the dawn. The Algonkins, however, thought otherwise, and the myth itself suggests a theriomorphic earth-maker.
- ↑ See Schoolcraft, Myth of Hiawatha (1856), pp. 35-39; and cf. the myth of Manabush, analysed in Journ. of Amer. Folklore, iv. 210-213.
- ↑ The latest explanation of Joskeha is “dear little sprout,” and of Tawiscara, “the ice-one,” while Aataentsic becomes “she of the swarthy body.” Hewitt, Journ. of Amer. Folklore, x. 68. Brébeuf (1635) says that Iouskeha gives growth and fair weather (Tylor, Prim. Cult. i. 294).
- ↑ See Jeremias, Das Alte Testament im Lichte des Alten Orients, p. 121, 1; Winckler, Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament 3, p. 333.
- ↑ Réville, Religions of Mexico and Peru, p. 129.
- ↑ Garcilasso el Inca, Comment. de los Incas, lib. ii. c. 2; cf. Lang, The Making of Religion, pp. 262-270.
- ↑ Réville, p. 187.
- ↑ Réville, p. 158. Garcilasso (lib. i. c. 18) says that Manco Capac “taught the subject nations to be men,” and also founded the imperial city of Cuzco ( = navel).
- ↑ De las antiquas gentes del Peru (ed. 1892), pp. 55, 56.
