[1898] Brinton (Myths, etc., 141) declares sun-worship, which some investigators have made the base of all primitive religions, to be but a “short and easy method with mythology,” and that “no one key can open all the arcana of symbolism.” He refers to D’Orbigny (L’Homme Américain), Müller (Amer. Urreligionen), and Squier (Serpent Symbol) as supporting the opposing view. We may find like supporters of the sun as a central idea in Schoolcraft, Tylor, Brasseur. Cf. Bancroft’s Native Races (iii. 114) in opposition to Brinton.

[1899] This monotheism is denied by Brinton (Myths of the New World, 52). “Of monotheism, either as displayed in the one personal definite God of the Semitic races, or in the dim pantheistic sense of the Brahmins, there was not a single instance on the American continent,”—the Iroquois “Neu” and “Hawaneu,” which, as Brinton says, have deceived Morgan and others, being but the French “Dieu” and “Le bon Dieu” rendered in Indian pronunciation (Myths of the New World, p. 53). The aborigines instituted, however, in two instances, the worship of an immaterial god, one among the Quichuas of Peru and another at Tezcuco (Ibid. p. 55).

Bandelier (Archæol. Tour, 185), examining the Hist. de los Méxicanos por sus Pinturas (Anales del Museo, ii. 86), Motolinía, Gómara, Sahagún, Tobar, and Durán, finds no trace of monotheism till we come to Acosta. Torquemada speaks of supreme gods; and Bandelier thinks that Ixtlilxochitl, in conveying the idea of a single god, evidently distorts and disfigures Torquemada.

Bancroft (iii. 198) accords honesty to Ixtlilxochitl’s account of the religion of the Tezcucan ruler Nezahualcoyotl, as reaching the heights of Mexican monotheistic conception, because he thinks his descendants, if he had fabled, would never have ended his description with so pagan a statement as that which makes the Tezcucan recognize the sun as his father and the earth as his mother.

Max Müller tells us that we should distinguish between monotheism and henotheism, which is the temporary preeminence of one god over the host of gods, and which was as near monotheism as the American aborigines came.

[1900] He also masses the evidence which shows, as he thinks, that “on Catholic missions has followed the debasement, and on Protestant missions the destruction, of the Indian race.” Amer. Hero-Myths, pp. 206, 238.

[1901] Unfortunately, Brinton enforces this view and others with a degree of confidence that does not help him to convince the cautious reader, as when he speaks of the opinions of those who disagree with him as “having served long enough as the last refuge of ignorance” (Amer. Hero-Myths, 145).

[1902] The whole question of comparative mythology involves in its broad aspects the subject of American myths. The literature of this general kind is large, but reference may be made to Girard de Rialle’s La Mythologie Comparée (Paris, 1878); for the idea of God, Dawson’s Fossil Men, ch. 9 and 10; Lubbock’s Origin of Civilization, ch. 4, 5, 6; J. P. Lesley’s Man’s origin and destiny, ch. 10; and for the geographical distribution of myths, Tylor’s Early Hist. of Mankind, ch. 12; Max Müller’s Chips, vol. ii.; and in a general way, Brinton’s Religious sentiment, its source and aim (N. Y., 1876). Reference may also be made to Joly’s Man before Metals, ch. 7; Dabry de Thiersant’s Origine des indiens (Paris, 1883); and G. Brühl’s Culturvölker Alt-Amerikas (Cincinnati, 1876-78), ch. 10 and 19. Brinton (Myths, 210) tracks the Deluge myth among the Indians, and Bancroft gives many instances of it (Native Races, v., index). Brinton thinks a paper by Charencey, “Le Déluge d’après les traditions indiennes de l’Amérique du Nord,” in the Revue Américaine, a help for its extracts, but complains of its uncritical spirit.

We find sufficient data of the aboriginal belief in the future life both in Bancroft’s final chapter (vol. iii. part i.) and in Brinton’s Myths, ch. 9. Brinton delivered an address on the “Journey of the soul,” which is printed in the Proceedings (Jan., 1883) of the Numismatic and Antiquarian Society of Philadelphia.

[1903] In studying the mythology of these tribes we must depend mainly on confined monographs. Mrs. E. A. Smith treats the myths of the Iroquois in the Second Annual Rept. Bureau of Ethnology. Charles Godfrey Leland has covered The Algonquin legends of New England; or, myths and folk-lore of the Micmac, Passamaquoddy, and Penobscot tribes (Boston, 1884). Brinton has a book on The Lenâpé and their legends (Philad., 1885); and one may refer to the Life and Journals of David Brainard. S. D. Peet has a paper on “The religious beliefs and traditions of the aborigines of North America” in the Journal of the Victoria Institute (London, 1888, vol. xxi. 229); one on “Animal worship and Sun worship in the east and west compared” in the American Antiquarian, Mar., 1888; and a paper on the religion of the moundbuilders in Ibid. vi. 393. The Dahcotah, or life and legends of the Sioux around Fort Snelling (N. Y., 1849) of Mrs. Mary Eastman has been a serviceable book. S. R. Riggs covers the mythology of the Dakotas in the Amer. Antiquarian (v. 147), and in this periodical will be found various studies concerning other tribes.

[1904] Bandelier, Archæol. Tour, 185, calls it the earliest statement of the Nahua mythology.

[1905] There is more or less of original importance on the Aztec myths in Alfredo Chavero’s “La Piedra del Sol,” likewise in the Anales (vol. i.). Cf. also the “Ritos Antiguos, sacrificios e idolatrias de los indios de la Nueva España,” as printed in the Coleccion de doc. ined. para la hist. de España (liii. 300).

Bancroft (vol. iii. ch. 6-10), who is the best source for reference, gives also the best compassed survey of the entire field; but among writers in English he may be supplemented by Prescott (i. ch. 3, introd.); Helps in his Spanish Conquest (vol. ii.); Tylor’s Primitive Culture; Albert Réville’s Lectures on the origin and growth of religion as illustrated by the native religions of Mexico and Peru, translated by P. H. Wicksteed (London, 1884, being the Hibbert lectures for 1884); on the analogies of the Mexican belief, a condensed statement in Short’s No. America of Antiq., 459; a popular paper in The Galaxy, May, 1876. Bandelier intended a fourth paper to be added to the three printed in the Peabody Mus. Repts. (vol. ii.), namely, one on “The Creeds and Beliefs of the Ancient Mexicans,” which has never, I think, been printed.

Among the French, we may refer to Ternaux-Compans’ Essai sur la théogonie Méxicaine (Paris, 1840) and the works of Brasseur. Klemm’s Cultur-Geschichte and Müller’s Urreligionen will mainly cover the German views. Of the Mexican writers, it may be worth while to name J. M. Melgar’s Examen comparativa entre los signos simbolicos de las Teogonias y Cosmogonias antiguas y los que existen en los manuscritos Méxicanos (Vera Cruz, 1872).

The readiest description of their priesthood and festivals will be found in Bancroft (ii. 201, 303, with references). Tenochtitlan is said to have had 2,000 sacred buildings, and Torquemada says there were 80,000 throughout Mexico; while Clavigero says that a million priests attended upon them. Bancroft (iii. ch. 10) describes this service. There is a chance in all this of much exaggeration.

The history of human sacrifice as a part of this service is the subject of disagreement among the earlier as well as with the later writers. Bancroft (iii. 413, 442) gives some leading references. Cf. Prescott (i. 77) and Nadaillac (p. 296). Las Casas in his general defence of the natives places the number of sacrifices very low. Zumárraga says there were 20,000 a year. The Aztecs, if not originating the practice, as is disputed by some, certainly made much use of it.

[1906] Anales del Museo Nacional, ii. 247; Bancroft, iii. 240, 248.

[1907] Bandelier thinks Durán the earliest to connect St. Thomas with Quetzalcoatl. Cf. Bancroft, iii. 456.

[1908] Müller agrees with Ixtlilxochitl that Quetzalcoatl and Huemac were one and the same, and that Ternaux erred in supposing them respectively Olmec and Toltec deities. Cf. Brasseur’s Palenqué, 40, 66. Cf. D. Daly on “Quetzalcoatl, the Mexican Messiah” in Gentleman’s Mag., n. a., xli. 236.

[1909] For the later views in general see Clavigero, Tylor, Brasseur (Nations Civil., i. 253), Prescott (i. 62), Bancroft (iii. 248, 263; v. 24, 200, 255, 257), and Short (267, 274).

[1910] The god Paynal was a sort of deputy war-god. See H. H. Bancroft’s Native Races.

[1911] Cf. references in Peabody Mus. Rept., ii. 571; Short, p. 206.

[1912] Cf. Relacion de las ceremonias y Ritos de Michoacan, a manuscript in the library of Congress, of which there is a copy in Madrid, which is printed in the Coleccion de doc. ined. para la hist. de España, liii.

[1913] For further modern treatment see Schultz-Sellack’s “Die Amerikanischen Götter der vier Weltgegenden und ihre Tempel in Palenque” in Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, xi.(1879); Brasseur’s Landa, p. lx; Ancona’s Yucatan (i. ch. 10); Powell’s First Report Bureau of Ethnology; for sacrifices, Nadaillac (p. 266); and for festivals and priestly service, Bancroft (ii. 689). For Yucatan folk-lore, see Brinton in Folk-lore Journal (vol. i. for 1883).

[1914] First series: vol. iv., W. Sargent on articles from an old grave at Cincinnati, exhumed in 1794; vol. v., G. Turner on the same; vol. vi., W. Dunbar on the Indian sign language; J. Madison on remains of fortifications in the west; B. S. Barton on affinities of Indian words. New series: vol. i., H. H. Brackenridge on Indian populations and tumuli; C. W. Short on an Indian fort near Lexington, Ky.; vol. iii., D. Zeisberger on a Delaware grammar; vol. iv., J. Heckewelder on Delaware names, etc.

[1915] It celebrated its centennial in 1880, when an impromptu address was delivered by R. C. Winthrop, which is printed by this society, and is also contained, with a statement of the occasion of it, in his Speeches and Addresses, 1878-1886. For a record of the interest in archæological studies about 1790, see Reports of the American Philosophical Society, xxii. no. 119.

[1916] First series: vol. i., S. H. Parsons on discoveries in the western country; vol. iii., E. A. Kendall and J. Davis on an examination of the much controverted inscription of the so-called Dighton Rock; E. Stiles on an Indian idol. New series: vol. i., Rasle’s Abenaki dictionary; vol. v., W. Sargent’s plan of the Marietta mounds, etc.

[1917] This society published the original edition of S. G. Morton’s Inquiry into the distinctive characteristics of the aboriginal race of America (2d ed., Philadelphia, 1844), which glances at their moral and intellectual character, their habits of interment, their maritime enterprise, and their physical condition.

[1918] Field’s Ind. Bibliog., no. 1564.

[1919] Vol. ii., S. S. Haldeman on linguistic ethnology; vol. iii., J. C. Nott and L. Agassiz on the unity of the human race; vol. v., Col. Whittlesey on ancient human remains in Ohio; vol. vi., J. L. Leconte on the California Indians; vol. xi., Whittlesey on ancient mining at Lake Superior; Morgan on Iroquois laws of descent; D. Wilson on a uniform type of the American crania; vol. xiii., Morgan on the bestowing of Indian names; vol. xvii., Whittlesey on the antiquity of man in America; W. De Haas on the archæology of the Mississippi Valley; W. H. Dall on the Alaska tribes; vol. xix., Dall on the Eskimo tongue, etc.

[1920] Abstracts of the Transactions prepared by J. W. Powell (Washington, 1879, etc.).

[1921] The student will find some general help, at least, from the publications of such as these: the Peabody Academy of Science (Salem, Mass.), Memoirs, 1869, etc.; Essex Institute (Salem, Mass.), Bulletin, 1869, and Proceedings, 1848, etc.; Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, Memoirs, 1810-16; Transactions, 1866, etc.; the Lyceum of Natural History, became in 1876 the New York Academy of Sciences, Annals, 1823, etc.; Proceedings, 1870, etc.; Transactions; the Numismatic and Antiquarian Society of Philadelphia, Proceedings; Wyoming Historical and Geological Society, Proceedings and Collections (Wilkes-Barre, Pa., 1884, etc.); the Cincinnati Society of Natural History, Journal and Proceedings, 1876; Indianapolis Academy of Sciences, Transactions, 1870, etc.; Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters, Bulletin, 1870, and Transactions, 1870; Davenport (Iowa) Academy of Science, Proceedings, 1867; St. Louis Academy of Science, Transactions, 1856; Kansas Academy of Science, Transactions, 1872; California Academy of Sciences, Proceedings, 1854, etc., and Memoirs, 1868, etc.; Geographical Society of the Pacific, its official organ Kosmos,—not to name others.

In British America we may refer to the Natural History Society of Montreal, publishing The Canadian Naturalist, 1857, etc.; the Canadian Institute, Proceedings; the Royal Society of Canada, Proceedings; the Nova Scotia Institute of Natural Science, Proceedings and Transactions, 1867,—not to mention others; and among periodicals the Canadian Monthly, the Canadian Antiquarian, and the Canadian Journal.

[1922] The tendency of general periodicals to questions of this kind is manifest by the references in Poole’s Index, under such heads as American Antiquities, Anthropology, Archæology, Caves and Cave-dwellers, Ethnology, Lake Dwellings, Man, Mounds and Moundbuilders, Prehistoric Races, etc.

[1923] The history of its incipiency and progress can be gathered from the Reports of the Museum, with summaries in those numbered i., xi. and xix.

[1924] Cf. Waldo Higginson’s Memorials of the Class of 1833, Harvard College, p. 60, and the contemporary tributes from eminent associates noted in Poole’s Index, p. 1434.

[1925] The documentary history, by W. J. Rhees, of the Smithsonian Institution, forms vol. xvii. of its Miscellaneous Collections. Cf. J. Henry on its organization in the Proceedings of the Amer. Asso. for the Adv. of Science, vol. i. A Catalogue of the publications of the S. I. with an alphabetical index of articles, by William J. Rhees (Washington, 1882), constitutes no. 478 of its series.

The early management of the Smithsonian decided that the “knowledge” of its founder meant science, and from the start gave not a little attention to archæology as a science. When the Bureau of Ethnology became a part of the Institution, and its Reports included papers necessarily historical as well as archæological, the way was prepared for a broader meaning to the term “knowledge,” and as a significant recognition of the allied field of research the present government of the Smithsonian gave hearty concurrence to the act of Congress which in Dec., 1888, made also the American Historical Association, which had existed without incorporation since 1884, a section of the Smithsonian Institution.

[1926] Its mound explorations have been conducted by Cyrus Thomas; those among the Pueblos of the southwest by James Stevenson (d. 1888); while Major Powell himself has controlled personally the body of searchers in the linguistic fields (American Antiquarian, viii. 32). It would seem that its profession “to organize anthropological research” is not to its full extent true, since the physiological side of the subject seems to be left in Washington to the Army Medical Museum.

[1927] Cf. Charles Rau’s Archæological Collections of the United States National Museum (1876) in Smithsonian Contributions, xx., with many illustrative woodcuts; and a paper by Ernest Ingersoll in The Century, January, 1885. Cf. also F. W. Putnam’s contribution on American Archæological Collections in the American Naturalist, vii. 29.

[1928] B. P. Poore’s Descriptive Catal. Govt. Pub., p. 593; Field’s Ind. Bibliog., no. 1379; Allibone’s Dictionary, iii. p. 1952, for references and opposing criticisms. Some of the condemnation of the book is too sweeping, for amid its ignorance, confusion, and indiscrimination there is much to be picked out which is of importance. Cf. Parkman’s Jesuits, p. lxxx; Wilson’s Prehistoric Man, ii. ch. 19; Brinton’s Myths, p. 40. Cf. on Schoolcraft’s death (with a portrait) Historical Mag., April, 1865; Amer. Antiq. Soc. Proc., April, 1865.

F. S. Drake’s Indian Tribes of the United States (Philad., 1884) is, with some additional matter, a rearrangement of Schoolcraft, the omission to acknowledge which on the title-page being an unworthy bibliographical deceit. Schoolcraft’s rivalry of Geo. Catlin and his ignoring of Catlin’s work is commented on at some length by Donaldson in the Smithsonian Inst. Report, 1885, part ii. pp. 373-383.

[1929] For full details of this and other publications mentioned in this paper, see S. H. Scudder’s Catalogue of Scientific Serials, 1633-1876, published by the library of Harvard University in 1879.

[1930] Sabin, xvii., no. 70354. The Congrès Archéologique de France began its Séances générales in 1834, but the interest of its Comptes rendus for Americanists is for comparative illustration. The two volumes of Mémoires de la Société Ethnologique (Paris, 1841-45) contain nothing bearing directly on American archæology. Much the same may be said of the Annales Archéologiques fondées par Didron aîné, in 1844, and continued to 1870; of the Bulletin Archéologique (1844-46) of the Athénæum Français, and of its continuation, the Bulletin Archéologique Français (1846-56); and of the Annales of the Institut Archéologique (1844, etc.).

[1931] Am. Antiq. Soc. Proc., April, 1876.

[1932] A Revue Ethnographique was begun in 1869. A Societé Ethnologique, publishing Bulletin (1846-47) and Mémoires (1841-45), is a distinct organization.

[1933] S. H. Scudder, in his Catalogue of Scientific Serials, no. 1528, endeavors to put into something like orderly arrangement the exceedingly devious devices of duplication of this and allied publications.

[1934] A Revue d’Anthropologie was begun at Paris, under the direction of Broca, in 1872. A Société d’Anthropologie began two series, Bulletins and Mémoires, in 1860. Mortillet conducted L’Homme from 1883 to 1887, when he and his associates in this work suspended its publication to devote themselves to a Dictionnaire des Sciences Anthropologiques and to a Bibliothèque Anthropologique.

[1935] Rosny died April 23, 1871.

[1936] Its publications began in 1665. Cf. synopsis in Scudder’s Catalogue, pp. 26-27. Cf. C. A. Alexander on the origin and history of the Royal Society, in Smithsonian Rept., 1863.

[1937] Some of the local societies deal to some extent in American subjects; e. g., the Journal of the Manchester Geographical Society, begun in 1885.

[1938] Not to be confounded with The Ethnological Journal, vol. i., 1848-49, and vol. ii., 1854, incomplete; and The Ethnological Journal, 1 vol., 1865-66.

[1939] Cf. J. R. Bartlett on an Antwerp meeting, in Amer. Antiq. Soc. Proc., 1868.

[1940] Such periodicals as Nature and Popular Science Review show how anthropological science is attracting attention.

[1941] See Scudder’s Catalogue.

[1942] The third volume of Bastian’s Culturländer des Alten America (Berlin, 1886) comprises “Nachträge und Ergänzungen aus den Sammlungen des Ethnologischen Museums.”

[1943] Congrès des Américanistes, Compte Rendus, Nancy, ii. 271.

[1944] Cf. Oscar Montelius, Bibliographie de l’archéologie préhistorique de la Suède pendant le 19e siècle, suivie d’un exposé succinct des sociétés archéologiques suédoises (Stockholm, 1875).

[1945] It is described by Tylor in his Anahuac, ch. 9; by Brocklehurst in his Mexico to-day, ch. 21; by Bandelier in the American Antiquarian (1878), ii. 15; in Mayer’s Mexico; and in the summary of information (fifteen years old, however) in Bancroft’s Mexico, iv. 553, etc., with references, p. 565, which includes references to the Uhde collection at Heidelberg, the Christy collection in London (Tylor), that of the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia (Trans., iii. 570), not to name the Mexican sections of the large museums of America and Europe. Henry Phillips, Jr. (Proc. Amer. Philosophical Soc., xxi. p. 111) gives a list of public collections of American Archæology. There are some private collections mentioned in the Archives de la Soc. Amér. de France, Nouv. Ser., vol. i. A. de Longperier’s Notice des Monuments dans la Salle des Antiquités Américaines (Paris, 1880) covers a part of the great Paris exhibition of that year. Something is found in E. T. Stevens’s Flint Chips, a guide to prehistoric archæology as illustrated in the Blackmore Museum [at Salisbury, England], London, 1870.

[1946] There is an account of Mendoza in the Amer. Antiq. Soc. Proc., April, 1888, p. 172.

[1947] Coleccion de las Antigüedades Mexicanas que ecsisten en el Museo Nacional, litografiadas por Frederico Waldeck (Mexico, 1827—fol.); Sabin, iv. 15796. See miscellaneous references on Mexican relics in Bancroft’s Nat. Races, iv. 565.