Probably Mr. Strachey's narrative justifies, by analogy, our suspicion of
Major Ellis's theory that the African Supreme Being is of European origin.
The purpose in the Ahone-Okeus creed is clear. God (Ahone) is omnipotent
and good, yet calamities beset mankind. How are these to be explained?
Clearly as penalties for men's sins, inflicted, not by Ahone, but by his
lieutenant, Okeus. But that magistrate can be, and is, appeased by
sacrifices, which it would be impious, or, at all events, useless, to
offer to the Supreme Being, Ahone. It is a logical creed, but how was the
Supreme Being evolved out of the ghost of a 'people-devouring king' like
Powhattan? The facts, very fairly attested, do not fit the anthropological
theory. It is to be remarked that Strachey's Ahone is a much less
mythological conception than that which, on very good evidence, he
attributes to the Indians of the Patowemeck River. Their Creator is spoken
of as 'a godly Hare,' who receives their souls into Paradise, whence they
are reborn on earth again, as in Plato's myth. They also regard the four
winds as four Gods. How the god took the mythological form of a hare is
diversely explained.[5]
Meanwhile the Ahone-Okeus creed corresponds to the Nyankupon-Bobowissi
creed. The American faith is certainly not borrowed from Europe, so it is
less likely that the African creed is borrowed.
As illustrations of the general theory here presented, we may now take two
tribal religions among the North American Indians. The first is that of
the equestrian Pawnees, who, thirty years ago, were dwelling on the Loup
Fork in Nebraska. The buffaloes have since been destroyed, the lands
seized, and the Pawnees driven into a 'Reservation,' where they are, or
lately were, cheated and oppressed in the usual way. They were originally
known to Europeans in four hordes, the fourth being the Skidi or Wolf
Pawnees. They seem to have come into Kansas and Nebraska, at a date
relatively remote, from Mexico, and are allied with the Lipans and
Tonkaways of that region. The Tonkaways are a tribe who, in a sacred
mystery, are admonished to 'live like the wolves,' in exactly the same way
as were the Hirpi (wolf tribe), of Mount Soracte, who practised the feat
of walking unhurt through fire.[6] The Tonkaways regard the Pawnees, who
also have a wolf tribe, as a long-separated branch of their race. If,
then, they are of Mexican origin, we might expect to find traces of Aztec
ritual among the Pawnees.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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