Aboriginal American Authors by Daniel G. Brinton
D >>
Daniel G. Brinton >> Aboriginal American Authors
Produced by David Starner, David Garcia and the PG Online Distributed
Proofreaders.
ABORIGINAL AMERICAN AUTHORS AND THEIR PRODUCTIONS;
ESPECIALLY THOSE IN THE NATIVE LANGUAGES.
A CHAPTER IN THE HISTORY OF LITERATURE.
BY DANIEL G. BRINTON, A.M., M.D.,
Member of the American Philosophical Society; the American Antiquarian
Society; the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, etc.; Vice-President
of the Numismatic and Antiquarian Society of Philadelphia, and of the
Congrès International des Américanistes; Délégué-Général de l'Institution
Ethnographique for the United States, etc.; Author of "The Myths of the
New World;" "The Religious Sentiment;" "American Hero Myths," etc.
NEW INTRODUCTION
Aboriginal American Authors, published by the Anthropologist Daniel G.
Brinton in 1883, is a work that is particularly appropriate for our own
times. The native American movement has stressed the need for history
written from the Indian point of view. Interest in native American
literature has become an important component in reinforcing a sense of
identity among American Indians today.
Brinton's work is a good summary of the better known traditional
writings of Indians from many regions of the Western hemisphere. This
bibliographical survey provides information on tribal histories that
would be particularly useful for Indian Study Programs in the states of
Oklahoma, New York and Wisconsin.
Brinton was aware of the 19th century racism of many who wrote about the
American Indian and reacted against it in his writings by taking a
stance which in some ways anticipates Ruth Benedict's involvement in
similar questions half a century later. Aboriginal American
Authors is written as an early attempt at placing the literature of
the American Indian with the other great literary traditions of the
world; that is why its usefulness endures.
John Hobgood
Social Science Department
Chicago State College
1970
PREFACE.
The present memoir is an enlargement of a paper which I laid before the
_Congrès International des Américanistes_, when acting as a delegate to
its recent session in Copenhagen, August, 1883. The changes are material,
the whole of the text having been re-written and the notes added.
It does not pretend to be an exhaustive bibliographical essay, but was
designed merely to point out to an intelligent and sympathetic audience
a number of relics of Aboriginal American Literature, and to bespeak the
aid and influence of that learned body in the preservation and
publication of these rare documents.
_Philadelphia, Nov. 1883._
CONTENTS.
Section 1. _Introductory_
Section 2. _The Literary Faculty in the Native Mind_
Vivid imagination of the Indians.
Love of story telling.
Appreciation of style.
Power and resources of their languages.
Facility in acquiring foreign languages.
Native writers in the English tongue.
In Latin.
In Spanish.
Ancient books of Aztecs.
Of Mayas, etc.
Peruvian Quipus.
Section 3. _Narrative Literature_
Desire of preserving national history.
Eskimo legends and narratives.
The _Walum Olum_ of the Delawares.
The Iroquois _Book of Rites_.
Kaondinoketc's Narrative.
The National Legend of the Creeks.
Cherokee writings.
Destruction of Ancient Literature.
Boturini's collection.
Historians in Nahuatl.
The Maya _Books of Chilan Balam_.
Other Maya documents.
Writings in Cakchiquel.
_The Memorial de Tecpan Atitlan_.
Authors in Cakchiquel and Kiche.
The _Popol Vuh_.
Votan, the Tzendal.
Writers in Qquichua.
Letters, etc., in native tongues.
Tales and stories of the Tupis and other tribes.
Section 4. _Didactic Literature_
Progress of natives in science.
Their calendars and rituals.
Their maps.
Scholastic works.
Theological writers.
Sermons in Guarani.
_Las Pasiones_.
Section 5. _Oratorical Literature_
Native admiration of eloquence.
The Oratorical style.
Custom of set orations.
Specimens in the Nahuatl tongue.
Ancient prayers and rhapsodies.
Section 6. _Poetical Literature_
Form of the earliest poetry.
Unintelligible character of primitive songs explained.
A Chippeway love song.
A Taensa epithalamium.
Montaigne on Tupi poetry.
Ancient Aztec poetry.
Maya and Peruvian poems.
Tupi songs.
Section 7. _Dramatic Literature_
Development of the dramatic art in America.
Origin of the serious and comic dramas.
The Qquichua drama of Ollanta.
The Kiche drama of Rabinal Achi.
The Comic Ballet of the Güegüence.
The _Logas_ of Central America.
Dramas of the Mangues.
Section 8. _Conclusion_
Ethnological value of literary productions.
Their general interest to scholars.
_Footnotes_
_Index_
[Transcriber's Note: Footnotes have been moved from inline to end-of-text,
and the above "Footnotes" section added.]
ABORIGINAL AMERICAN AUTHORS.
* * * * *
Section 1. _Introductory_.
When even a quite intelligent person hears about "Aboriginal American
Literature," he is very excusable for asking: What is meant by the term?
Where is this literature? In fine, Is there any such thing?
To answer such inquiries, I propose to treat, with as much brevity as
practicable, of the literary efforts of the aborigines of this
continent, a chapter in the general History of Literature hitherto
wholly neglected.
Indeed, it will be a surprise to many to learn that any members of these
rude tribes have manifested either taste or talent for scholarly
productions. All alike have been regarded as savages, capable, at best,
of but the most limited culture.
Such an opinion has been fostered by prejudices of race, by the jealousy
of castes, and in our own day by preconceived theories of evolution.
That it is erroneous, can, I think, be easily shown.
Let us first inquire into the existence of
Section 2. _The Literary Faculty in the Native Mind_.
This faculty is indicated by a vivid imagination, a love of narration,
and an ample, appropriate, and logically developed vocabulary. That, as
a race, the aborigines of America possessed these qualifications to a
remarkable degree, is attested by many witnesses who have lived
intimately among them; and is only denied by those whose acquaintance
with them has been superficial, or derived from second-hand and doubtful
sources.
The red man peoples air, earth, and the waters with countless creatures
of his fancy; his expressions are figurative and metaphorical; he is
quick to seize analogies; and when he cannot explain he is ever ready to
invent. This is shown in his inappeasable love of story telling. As a
_raconteur_ he is untiring. He has, in the highest degree, Goethe's
_Lust zu fabuliren_. In no Oriental city does the teller of strange
tales find a more willing audience than in the Indian wigwam. The folk
lore of every tribe which has been properly investigated has turned out
to be most ample. Tales of talking animals, of mythical warriors, of
giants, dwarfs, subtle women, potent magicians, impossible adventures,
abound to an extent that defies collection.[1]
Nor are these narratives repeated in a slip-shod, negligent style. The
hearers permit no such carelessness. They are sticklers for nicety of
expression; for clear and well turned periods; for vivid and accurate
description; for flowing and sonorous sentences. As a rule, their
languages lend themselves readily to these demands. It is a singular
error, due wholly to ignorance of the subject, to maintain that the
American tongues are cramped in their vocabularies, or that their syntax
does not permit them to define the more delicate relationships of ideas.
Nor is it less a mistake to assert, as has been done repeatedly, and
even by authorities of eminence in our own day, that they are not
capable of supplying the expressions of abstract reasonings. Although
pure abstractions were rarely objects of interest to these children of
nature, many, if not most, of their tongues favor the formation of
expressions which are as thoroughly transcendental as any to be found in
the _Kritik der Reinen Vernunft_.[2]
Their literary faculty is further demonstrated in the copiousness of
their vocabularies, their rare facility of expression, and their natural
aptitude for the acquisition of other languages. Théophilie Gautier used
to say, that the most profitable book for a professional writer to read
is the dictionary; that is, that a mastery of words is his most valuable
acquirement. The extraordinarily rich synonomy of some American tongues,
notably the Algonkin, the Aztec, and the Qquichua, attests how
sedulously their resources have been cultivated. Father Olmos, in his
grammar of the Aztec, gives many examples of twenty and thirty
synonymous expressions, all in current use in his day. A dictionary, in
my possession, of the Maya, one of the least plastic of American
tongues, gives over thirty thousand words, and scarcely a hundred of
them of foreign extraction.
This linguistic facility is shown also in the ease with which they
acquire foreign languages. "It is not uncommon," says Dr. Washington
Matthews, speaking of the Hidatsa, by no means a specially brilliant
tribe, "to find persons among them, some even under twenty years of age,
who can speak fluently four or five different languages."[3] Mr. Stephen
Powers tells us that, in California, he found many Indians speaking
three, four, five or more languages, generally including English;[4] and
in South America, both Humboldt and D'Orbigny express their surprise at
the same fact, which they repeatedly observed.[5]
But the most tangible evidence of both their linguistic and literary
ability is the work some of these natives have accomplished in European
tongues. It does not come within the limits of my plan to enter fully
into an examination of this branch of literature; but it is worth while
mentioning some of the more prominent native writers, who have composed
in European languages, as their productions are an easy test of what the
faculties of the red race are in this direction.
As the colonizers of the New World have been chiefly from Spain and
Great Britain, so naturally the English and Spanish languages have been
brought most widely to the knowledge of the natives. The half-civilized
tribes, within the area of the United States, have produced several
authors of merit. Perhaps the earliest of these was David Cusick, who,
in 1825, printed his _Ancient History of the Six Nations_. He was a
full blood Tuscarora, and his English is far from correct. Yet the
arrangement of his matter is skillful, and some passages quaintly vivid
and forcible. Another member of the Iroquois confederacy, Peter
Dooyentate Clarke, has taken up the _Origin and Traditional History of
the Wyandotts_, and has made a readable little book (published at
Toronto, 1870); while still more lately, Chief Elias Johnson, of the
Tuscaroras, has published a _History of the Six Nations_, very
creditably composed. (Lockport, 1881.)
The tribes of Algonkin lineage can also count some respectable writers.
The Rev. William Apess (or Apes), a member of the Pequod tribe of
Massachusetts, wrote and published five or six small books and
pamphlets, on questions relating to his people, between 1829 and 1837.
The book of George Copway, or Kah-ge-ga-gah-bowh, a chief of the
Ojibways, on _The Traditional History of the Ojibway Nation_
(London, 1850), is a good authority on the topic, and so well written
that we can scarcely suppose that it was his unaided effort. Of almost
equal merit is the _History of the Ojibway Indians, with especial
reference to their Conversion to Christianity_, by the Rev. Peter
Jones, or Kahkewaquonaby, a full-blood Indian, (London, 1861.)
In the southwest, the _Cherokee Phoenix_ offered a medium through
which the native writers of that tribe frequently published original
contributions; and one of its early editors, Elias Boudinot (named after
the celebrated philanthropist), published separately a number of
addresses and other documents, in English.
But, as we might naturally expect, it is in Spanish that we find the
best work of the native writers. The partly civilized races of Mexico,
Central America and Peru, were much better prepared to receive the
lessons of European teachers than the barbarous hunting tribes. Had they
had any fair chance, they would have soon equaled their teachers. Father
Motolinia, one of the earliest missionaries to Mexico, testifies to the
readiness with which the natives acquired both Spanish and Latin, and
adds that, in the latter tongue, they became skilled grammarians, and
wrote both verse and prose with commendable accuracy.[6] Quite a long
list of such native Latinists, their names and their writings, is given
by Father Augustin de Vetancurt, and he is not sparing in his praise of
the ability they displayed in the use of both Spanish and Latin.[7]
Similar testimony is rendered of the natives of Guatemala, by the
Archbishop Garcia Pelaez. He mentions, by name, several Indians who
became conspicuously thorough Latin scholars, and refers to others who
won honors in all the faculties of the University of Guatemala, and
distinguished themselves in after life by the display of their talents
and education.[8] Nor would it be difficult to find many other such
examples in Peru and Brazil.
The list of native Mexicans who wrote in Spanish is a fairly long one;
and I need only mention the better known names. At the head should be
placed that of Don Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl. He was a lineal
descendant of the sovereigns of Tezcuco, and an ardent student of the
antiquities of his race. Among the many works which he wrote are the
_Relaciones Historicas_ and the _Historia Chichimeca_, which
were published by Lord Kingsborough; a _Historia de la Nueva
España_, a _Historia del Reyno de Tezcuco_, and a _Historia de
Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe_, which have not had the fortune to be
printed. Such an excellent critic as Mr. Prescott says of his style:
"His language is simple, and occasionally eloquent and touching. His
descriptions are highly picturesque. He abounds in familiar anecdote;
and the natural graces of his manner in detailing the more striking
events of history and the personal adventures of his heroes, entitle him
to the name of the Livy of Anahuac."
Ixtlilxochitl flourished about the year 1600, and among his
contemporaries was Fernando de Alvarado Tezozomoc, also of native blood,
whose _Cronica Mexicana_ has been preserved, and is considered to
be well written, but less reliable. Of about the same date are the
_Relacion_ of Juan Bautista de Tomar, a native of Tezcuco, in which
he treats of the customs of his ancestors; the _Relaciones_ of Don
Antonio Pimentel, grandson of Nezahualpilli, lord of Tezcuco, an author
quoted and praised by the historian Torquemada; the _Historia de
Tlaxcallan_ of Diego Muñoz Camargo, a noble Tlascalan mestizo, of
whose style Prescott remarks that it compares not unfavorably with that
of some of the missionaries themselves; and the _Relacion de los
Dioses y Ritos de la Gentilidad_ of Don Pedro Ponce, the cacique of
Tzumpahuacan. Somewhat later, about 1625, Don Domingo de San Anton Muñon
Chimalpain wrote his _Historia Mexicana_ and his _Historia de la
Conquista_, which have been mentioned with respect by various
writers.
Along with these examples of literary culture in Mexico may be named
several native Peruvian writers who made use of the language of their
conquerors; as Don Joan de Santa Cruz Pachacuti Yamqui, whose
_Relacion de Antiguedades de Piru_ is a precious document, though
composed in very uncritical Spanish; as Don Luis Inca, whose
_Relacion_, prepared in Spanish, seems now to be lost, but is
referred to, with praise, by some of the older writers; and, above all
others, Inca Garcillasso de la Vega, whose vivid and attractive style,
and numerous historical writings place him easily in the first rank of
Spanish historians of America.
From the above it would seem evident enough that the American aborigines
were endowed, as a race, with a turn for literary composition, and a
faculty for it. They were generally, however, an unlettered race. What
they composed was for oral use only. This might be carefully arranged,
committed to heart, and handed down from generation to generation; but
as for recording it in forms which would convey it to the mind through
the eye, that was a discovery they had but partially made.
I say, "partially," because graphic methods, of some kind, were widely
used. We may as well omit from consideration, in this connection, the
merely pictographic signs of the hunting tribes, although they were used
for mnemonic purposes. Let us rather proceed, at once, to the highest
specimens of the graphic art in ancient America, and inquire their
scope. In Mexico, in Yucatan, in Nicaragua, and in one or two districts
of South America, the early explorers found systems of writing which
seemed to resemble that to which they were accustomed.
The Aztecs manufactured, in large quantities, a useful paper from the
leaves of the maguey, and upon it they painted numerous figures and
signs, which conveyed ideas, and sometimes also sounds. An early
authority informs us that their books were of five kinds. The first
detailed their method of computing time; the second described their holy
days, festivals and religious epochs; the third gave the interpretation
of dreams, omens and signs; the fourth supplied directions for naming
children; and the fifth rehearsed the rites and ceremonies connected
with matrimony.[9] Besides these, we know they wrote out tribute rolls,
the ancient history of their tribes, the fables of their mythology, the
genealogy of their sovereigns, and the geographical descriptions of
territories. Of all these we have examples preserved, and many of them
have been published.
Quite another and a more perfect method of writing prevailed among the
Mayas of Yucatan and Central America. Their books were exceedingly neat,
and strongly resembled an ordinary quarto volume, such as appears on
European bookshelves. I have so lately discussed their manufacture, and
the so-called alphabet in which they were written, and in a work of such
easy access, that it is enough if I quote the conclusions there arrived
at.[10] They are:--
1. The Maya graphic system was recognized, from the first, to be
distinct from the Mexican.
2. It was a hieroglyphic system, known only to the priests and a few
nobles.
3. It was employed for a variety of purposes, prominent among which was
the preservation of their history and calendar.
4. It was a composite system, containing pictures (figuras), ideograms
(caracteres), and phonetic signs (letras).
The ruins of Palenque, Copan, and other Maya cities, abound in such
hieroglyphs.
The natives of Nicaragua, those, at least, of Aztec lineage, made use of
parchment volumes, folded into a neat and portable compass, in which
they painted, in red and black ink, certain figures, "by means of
which," says the chronicler Oviedo, "they could express and understand
whatever they wished, with entire clearness."[11]
In South America the Peruvians had their _quipus_, cords of
different lengths, sizes and colors, knotted in various ways, and
attached to a base cord, an arrangement that was a decided aid to the
memory, though it could not be connected with the sounds of words. There
are also faint traces of figures, with definite meaning, among the
Muyscas of Colombia; and the Moxos of Western Bolivia are said to have
employed, as late as the last century, a method of writing, consisting
of lines traced on wooden slabs.[12]
Section 3. _Narrative Literature_.
Of all forms of sustained discourse, we may reasonably suppose that of
narration to have been the earliest. The incidents of the hunt were
related at the return; the experiences of the past were told as a guide
to the present; and the first efforts of the imagination are the
depicting of fictitious occurrences, tradition and myth, story and
history; these make up most of the entertainment of conversation to
simple minds.
Hence, in this primitive literature which I am describing, the narrative
portion is the most abundant. There was a natural aspiration on the part
of the natives, as soon as they had learned the art of writing, to
preserve in permanent form the records, more or less authentic, of their
tribes and ancestors. This desire of preserving the national history is
shown by the works of Copway, Jones, Cusick, Ixtlilxochitl, and others,
to whom I have already referred, who wrote in European tongues.
If we begin our survey at the extreme north, we find the Eskimo, amid
his depressing surroundings of eternal frost and months-long nights, an
unwearied chatterbox, reciting his own and his ancestors' adventures,
and weaving from his fancy the most extraordinary web of fictitious
experiences. Once taught to write, hundreds of these tales were
committed to paper by native hands. The manuscript collection of such in
the possession of the learned and indefatigable Dr. Heinrich Rink
contains considerably over two thousand pages, and the charming
rendering into English, which has been published by his efforts, is a
storehouse of weird conceptions and partly historic traditions about the
past of Greenland and Labrador. What adds to their interest is that most
of the illustrations are wood-cuts by native artists, truthfully setting
forth their own mental pictures.[13]
Another Eskimo composition, in the dialogue style, is before me as I
write. It is the description by Pok, a Greenlander, of his journey to
Europe and his return. The narrative forms a pamphlet of eighteen pages,
with several quaint colored illustrations, and it is one of the rare
products of the Godthaab press in Greenland to which we can assign a
genuine native origin.[14]
Another, which reveals still more distinctly the artistic and
imaginative capacities of that strange race, was published at Godthaab,
in 1860. Mr. Field remarks of it:--"An Esquimau of Greenland, with his
pencil, has, in this work, attempted to give representations of the
traditions, manners, weapons and habits of life of his own race."[15]
Among the tribes of the eastern United States there were a few
individuals who attempted to compose somewhat extensive records in their
native languages.
One of the most curious examples is that known as the _Walum Olum_,
a short account of the early history of the Delaware tribe, written in
that idiom, with mnemonic symbols attached. Its history is not very
complete. A "Dr. Ward, of Indiana" is said to have obtained it from a
member of the nation, in 1822. From him it passed into the hands of
Prof. C.S. Rafinesque, an eccentric and visionary Frenchman, who passed
the later years of his life in Philadelphia. He undertook to translate
it, and after his death the translation, together with the original,
came into the possession of Mr. E.G. Squier. By him it was first
published, but in a partial and incomplete manner, much of the original
text and many of the mnemonic symbols being omitted, and no effort being
made to improve Rafinesque's translation.[16]
The _Book of Rites_[17] of the Iroquois or Six Nations, lately
edited by Mr. Horatio Hale, is one of the most remarkable native
productions north of Mexico. Its authenticity and antiquity are
indisputable. The rites it describes are the ceremonies and set
speeches, the chants and formulas, of what is called "The Council of
Condolence," whose function is to express the national sense of loss at
the death of a chief, and to conduct the inauguration of his successor.
The publication of this ritual, supported as it is with the learned
notes of Mr. Hale, and an introduction by him, on the history, formation
and purpose of the famous League of the Iroquois, has thrown a
remarkable light, not merely on the ethnology of the district where the
Iroquois were located, but on the mental characteristics of the red race
in general. It is a refutation of the unscientific assumptions of a good
many would-be scientific men, who are self-blinded by their theories of
development to obvious facts in the mental powers of uncultivated
tribes.
Of less general importance, but admirable also for competent editorship,
is the short narrative of the Nipissing Chief, François Kaondinoketc,
which was published a few years ago, both in the original and with a
French translation, by a Canadian missionary, eminent alike for his
piety and his learning. It recites the journey of a half-breed Christian
Indian into the country of the heathen tribe of Beaver Indians, and the
miraculous interposition by which his life was saved when these Pagans
had caught him. They told him he must kill an eagle flying far above
them; at his prayer, the bird descended and came within the reach of his
sabre. In turn, he asked them to shoot their arrows into a tree; but by
rubbing it with holy water, the bark was so hardened that not one of
their shafts could pierce it. So they confessed the greatness of the
Christian's God.[18]