Atlantis: The Antedeluvian WorldDonnelly, Ignatius
History
Atlantis: The Antedeluvian World
Donnelly, Ignatius
Atlantis (Legendary place); Deluge; Ethnology
A belief in ghosts is found on both continents. The American Indians
think that the spirits of the dead retain the form and features which
they wore while living; that there is a hell and a heaven; that hell is
below the earth, and heaven above the clouds; that the souls of the
wicked sometimes wander the face of the earth, appearing occasionally to
mortals. The story of Tantalus is found among the Chippewayans, who
believed that bad souls stand up to their chins in water in sight of the
spirit-land, which they can never enter. The dead passed to heaven
across a stream of water by means of a narrow and slippery bridge, from
which many were lost. The Zuñis set apart a day in each year which they
spent among the graves of their dead, communing with their spirits, and
bringing them presents--a kind of All-souls-day. (Dorman, "Prim.
Superst.," p. 35.) The Stygian flood, and Scylla and Charybdis, are
found among the legends of the Caribs. (Ibid., p. 37.) Even the boat of
Charon reappears in the traditions of the Chippewayans.
The Oriental belief in the transmigration of souls is found in every
American tribe. The souls of men passed into animals or other men.
(Schoolcraft, vol. i., p. 33.) The souls of the wicked passed into toads
and wild beasts. (Dorman, "Prim. Superst.," p. 50.)
Among both the Germans and the American Indians lycanthropy, or the
metamorphosis of men into wolves, was believed in. In British Columbia
the men-wolves have often been seen seated around a fire, with their
wolf-hides hung upon sticks to dry! The Irish legend of hunters pursuing
an animal which suddenly disappears, whereupon a human being appears in
its place is found among all the American tribes.
That timid and harmless animal, the hare, was, singularly enough, an
object of superstitious reverence and fear in Europe, Asia, and America.
The ancient Irish killed all the hares they found on May-day among their
cattle, believing them to be witches. Cæsar gives an account of the
horror in which this animal was held by the Britons. The Calmucks
regarded the rabbit with fear and reverence. Divine honors were paid to
the hare in Mexico. Wabasso was changed into a white rabbit, and
canonized in that form.
The white bull, Apis, of the Egyptians, reappears in the Sacred white
buffalo of the Dakotas, which was supposed to possess supernatural
power, and after death became a god. The white doe of European legend
had its representative in the white deer of the Housatonic Valley, whose
death brought misery to the tribe. The transmission of spirits by the
laying on of hands, and the exorcism of demons, were part of the
religion of the American tribes.
The witches of Scandinavia, who produced tempests by their incantations,
are duplicated in America. A Cree sorcerer sold three days of fair
weather for one pound of tobacco! The Indian sorcerers around Freshwater
Bay kept the winds in leather bags, and disposed of them as they pleased.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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