A NATIVE ILLINOIS SUN MYTH.

By Clara Kern Bayliss.

I fear that I shall not be able to make you appreciate the importance of this Sauk myth and how fitting it is that it should be recorded in the historical publications of the State. It is about as difficult to make the paleface, unversed in Indian lore, understand the relationships. which the red man sees between the heavenly bodies, between the cloud and the bird, etc., as it is to convey to the untutored savage-and for that matter, to many of the white people themselves-the esoteric meaning of divine incarnation, vicarious atonement and resurrection.

We are prone to think lightly of all faiths save our own. We say that the dull. prosaic red man of our acquaintance has no sentiment; no ancestral faith. Yet I had not been two days in a Mexican pueblo before I came upon a genuine survival of that ancient sun myth which was the starting point for every religion the world has ever known.

For primitive religion and philosophy everywhere began in an attempt to explain the sunrise and sunset, storms and earthquakes and all the more marked phenomena of nature. Every religion in the world -Christian, Buddhist, Parsee. American Indian-points to a more or less remote ancestry in nature worship; the degree of remoteness being proportionate to the stage of enlightenment possessed by the adherents of that religion. And it is not denial of true religion, but on the contrary it is the most incontrovertible proof of its existence. that in all lands and in all ages the finite mind has looked with admiration and reverence upon the manifestations of an overruling SOMEWHAT. And what more worshipful Over Ruler had early man, groping in the pathless jungles of an unconquered wilderness, than the beneficent light of day? The earliest worship in the world was, as a matter of course, sun worship. It was inevitable that savage man, dwelling in perpetual fear of the wild beasts and the human foes that lurked. around him, dreading the darkness and welcoming the daylight, should take the sun for his God and the darkness for his devil, and should give to each a whole retinue of followers. We Christians still speak of the sun as the God of day and of the devil as the imp of darkness, terms which have strayed down the centuries from some far-off ancestral nature worship.

It is noteworthy that all the deities of earth, from Jesus to Napi of the Blackfeet Indians, have departed from among men, but will come again, even as the sun god of early man retired at night to return

another day. "Though he be dead, yet shall he live again" is as old as the dawning conviction that it is the same sun that died last night which rises again in the morning.

Men have always instinctively worshiped something. At first it was the visible sun, coming to dispel their foes and fears of the night. Then it was some mystic potency behind or within the sun-the power to resurrect the dead vegetation and rejuvenate the earth; then a still more intangible and spiritual force, until they arrived at the Omnipotent and Omnipresent Mind which is the God of the Christian today. Taken altogether, the myths of the American Indians form a complete system portraying the development of this God idea from the time of its first inception up to its arrival at a stage but one degree inferior to that which occupied the Hebrew mind at the time when the more primitive of the Old Testament books were written. Oldbis of the Wintus of California is a most majestic personage, sitting aloft in his wigwam of flowering oaks on the top of the sky and issuing his commands in truly god-like fashion. And Napi, the Old Man Immortal of the Blackfeet, is a most gentle, helpful and humanly lovable being. Then there are a multitude of lesser beings which correspond to our archangels and to our (now rapidly evaporating) devil and his minions.

The

Taking one myth or one series of myths alone, it might seem fanciful to say that the arrow and the hummingbird represent rays of light; the grizzlies, clouds and fogs; that the decrepit old grandmother symbols the sky; the rolling head or rock, a destructive whirlwind; that a serpent is the synonym for the zigzag lightning darting across the heavens, etc. But when we find these same agents appearing again and again in the legends of different tribes, always assuming the same character and performing the same acts, then the evidence is cumulative, and there can be no question as to the significance of the agent.

In the myths of all tribes-the Incas of Peru, the Aztecs of Mexico, the Algonquins of the north, the Pueblos of the south coast and the tribes of the Pacific slope—we find the sun or the daylight acting as a beneficent giant, who can compass the earth at a single bound, and who is forever contending with an almost equally potent giant of darkness. On the side of the light god are arrayed the moon, stars, all bright colors and beneficial phenomena; while on the side of darkness are fogs, storms, noisome odors and all things of dire portent. Day after day, year after year, these two opposing forces contend for mastery, but neither one can wholly annihilate the other. Night after night the conflict is renewed, sometimes in a spirit of rivalry, with only a few of the foes confronting; at other times with the armies drawn up in full strength, to battle to the death.

It was natural that early man should personify the heavenly bodies, for he knew of nothing except an animate being that was warm like the sun and that moved as do the heavenly orbs, in a direct course and with seeming purpose. Moreover, he had to speak of them as "he" or "she," for his language had no neuter gender. And when once these objects were named and regarded as individuals, the myth making was well under way. Here were two hostile peoples pitted against

each other; the one led by the Sun, a chief whose shield blinded all by its brightness, and who was armed with bow and arrows (his rays of light) that could fly with killing effect to incredible distances. In his retinue were all things that loved the light, even the hearts of the dumb earth-bound trees yearning toward him. On the other side was a dread chief who could summon storms and lightning, pestilence and death to do his bidding. All the heavens and all the earth was the stage of action for these two forces; and wonderful were the comedies and tragedies which the red man saw enacted in the sky as he followed the trail through the forest by day or lay at night with face upturned to the starlit dome which bent above the boundless prairies. Wonderful were the dreams woven by his poetic fancy about the doings of the Sun Man, Moon Woman, Dawn Maiden and Star Children and their inveterate foes, the Storm Clouds and Darkness.

So detailed and so graphic did the descriptions of the conflicts between the two parties become as the myth developed in the minds of successive poet-philosophers that the Spaniards, who heard the Aztec legends about glorious ancestors whose dominion had been cut short by a barbarian horde of Chichimecs that rose up against them, never suspected these Spaniards-that the mighty ancestors were the suns of past days and the Chichimecs were the countless stars of night summoned forth by the dark Tezcatlipoca, the brother and rival of the sungod.

The Navahoes of the southwest call the sun and his helpers yéi or gods; and the Darkness and his minions, anaye or alien gods. The Algonkins of the northeast designate the two as the good and evil Manitous. Like all deities of history, they were regarded as anthropomorphic, or manlike; and they were sometimes Sky Walkers and sometimes Earth Walkers. And in the myths, the transition from sky to earth and mundane nature, and back again to celestial, is often so sudden as to require violent mental gymnastics to follow it.

There were three chief theories regarding the re-appearance of the heavenly orbs. I. One was that the sun, moon and stars rowed back under the earth in a canoe, or that they returned through a tunnel in the earth from west to east, so as to be ready to rise in the east at their own proper times. 2. Another was that they actually died in the west, but came to life again in the east. (And this gave rise to endless tales of death and resurrection among celestial bodies, men, animals, plants and trees; and also to a belief in a home of departed spirits somewhere in the sunsetting land.) 3. The third theory was that each day's luminary was the offspring of that of the preceding day. And these succeeding suns were named and were regarded as father, son and grandson.

This last was the conception of the Aztecs of Mexico, among whom yesterday's sun was old Camaxtli, and today's sun was the tall, fair young Quetzalcoatl. This, too, was the idea of the Algonkins of the northern United States. The youthful Sun is often pictured as wedding the Dawn Maiden and setting out with her on a long journey. across the wide prairies of the Sky Country, the maiden usually perishing ere the journey is well begun; the Sun growing hourly more

viri'e and energetic until he passes the zenith, after which he begins. to flag, to grow old; and when he reaches the mottled west at evening he is a decrepit, blotched old man, who falls into the sunset fire and is burned up, or who sinks into the ocean and is drowned-yet he is immortal, for all Sky Walkers are immortal.

This Sun Man walks, talks, laughs, shoots his arrows; but the personification reaches its climax when he is described as starting up the steps of the sky, counting the steps, "one, two, three," as he goes;* and when he warms to his work, changing his pace and springing across land and ocean, "nine miles to the leap."†

The great Algonkin family embraced all the tribes of northern United States from the Atlantic almost to the Pacific, with the exception of the Iroquois of New York and the Sioux of Dakota. Among the Abenaki-Algonkins of New England, Kulooskap is the Sun and also the sunlight or Daylight. Malsum, the Darkness, is his twin brother. But despite this relationship, the two live in perpetual conflict, daily pursuing each other across the world from east to west with murderous intent. Each is a giant and can stretch up till his head touches the stars and higher, or can shrink down until he is no larger than a mouse. Kulooskap, the Sungod, carries a magic bow and arrows (his rays of light) with which to pierce his enemies; and Malsum, the dark and dour, carries a black root from under the ground. They both live in the tent with their grandmother Sky, who sits bowed far forward-as skies and grandmothers are wont to sit. Kulooskap has a little brother, Martin, the Morning Star, whom the grandmother keeps ever with her, carrying him on her back, pappoose fashion-on a cradle-board, with face to the rear-so he is always the first to perceive the approach of Kulooskap and to whisper the good news to the old dame.

Once Malsum stole the old woman and the little brother and fled with them mile after mile, league after league, till they grew wan and weary and could scarcely travel farther; but through all his hardships the little Martin "still wore his good clothes," for the Morning Star remains trim and tidy to his last gasp. During their unwilling flight, Martin contrived to drop inscribed bits of bark along the route to guide Kulooskap in the pursuit. Kulooskap, overtaking them, hid himself behind the tree trunks so that Malsum would not see him just yet; and he whispered to Martin and the grandmother to go on with their captor for a little time longer and to throw Malsum's child into the fire (of the red dawn). After they had done so, Kulooskap stepped out from behind the tree trunks, stood close to Malsum, and, disdaining to shoot so feeble an opponent as the Darkness had now become, tapped Malsum lightly on the head with his bow, til he shrank down, lower and lower, smaller and smaller, "till he died like a dog" at the feet of his sunbright brother.

Once Kulooskap took Martin and the grandmother in his canoe and rowed away with them on a stream which was broad at first, but which became narrower until it passed into deep gorges and went

*Mono (California myth). + Passamaquody myth.

under ground. (And this you will recognize as their return from west to east.) On and on he rowed, straight through the darkness and the night though he sang the songs of magic as he thus went through the territory of the enemy. In this dread land the grandmother and the little brother became as dead; but when morning approached, Kulooskap beached his canoe, carried the two ashore and bade them arise; and lo! the Morning Star shone out, the Sky became bright, and the Sun went on his way as usual.

Then Malsum stole upon Kulooskap as he lay asleep in the deep, dark forest, and struck him with the magic root, to kill him; but Kulooskap rose up in sorrow and anger" and smote his wayward brother till he fell down, dead.

Thus the never-ending conflict went on from day to day, from year to year. Sometimes the Frost Giant came to the aid of Malsum and tried to freeze Kulooskap to death. The lakes froze over, the streams turned to stone, the sap in the trees became ice, the great oaks burst with a resounding snap, but Kulooskap only laughed and heaped up the fire till his adversary melted in the spring sunshine and flowed away.

I have thus briefly outlined the sun myth of the New England Algonkins, both to show that different versions of the same myth are found in different tribes and also to indicate the kinship of the Sauk myth of Illinois; for Black Hawk's famous tribe, with its three thousand acres of corn along Rock river and its populous city of Saukenuk near the conflux of that river with the Mississippi, belonged to the Algonkin family. They were Algonkins who migrated westward by way of Lake Huron and Saginaw Bay. Saginaw valley, where Champlain found them in 1612, was originally called Saukenong, the Place of the Sauks. Thence they were driven to Mackinac, and from there they came to Rock river, where they had been for more than a century when the white men drove them across the Mississippi.

In the Wi-sá-kä-ha myth of the Sauks we have the same conflict as in the Abenaki; the same light god; the same little brother; but the enemy here seems to be clouds instead of darkness, and the little brother comes a second time as the Evening Star, the morning and evening star being, in fact, the same.

We give but a fragment of this Sauk story, yet enough to show that it is no trivial tale, but a myth that deserves preservation in the annals of the State where it had its home. In this one myth we catch a glimpse of every separate stage in the development of religious philosophy. That is why it is so well worth preserving. The central figure is, first, a purely cosmic object or force, the sun or sunlight; second, a Something behind the sun, the Creator; third, a terrestrial teacher and friend of mankind; and, last of all, a Deity who has departed from among men, but who will come again to gather mortals into life everlasting.

And, however imperfectly the original conception is carried out, the myth begins with a grand celestial drama in which the morning sun rises through opposing clouds and steadily pursues his journey