statement on a fancied
resemblance of no value whatever, and the arguments of Lafitau to the
same effect are quite insufficient. There is a decided indecency in the
remains of ancient American art, especially in Peru (Meyen), and great
lubricity in many ceremonies, but the proof is altogether wanting to
bind these with the recognition of a fecundating principle throughout
nature, or, indeed, to suppose for them any other origin than the
promptings of an impure fancy. I even doubt whether they often referred
to fire as the deity of sexual love.

By a flight of fancy inspired by a study of oriental mythology, the
worship of the reciprocal principle in America has been connected with
that of the sun and moon, as the primitive pair from whose fecund union
all creatures proceeded. It is sufficient to say if such a myth exists
among the Indians--which is questionable--it justifies no such
deduction; that the moon is often mentioned in their languages merely as
the "night sun;" and that in such important stocks as the Iroquois,
Athapascas, Cherokees, and Tupis, the sun is said to be a feminine noun;
while the myths represent them more frequently as brother and sister
than as man and wife; nor did at least the northern tribes regard the
sun as the cause of fecundity in nature at all, but solely as giving
light and warmth.[150-1]

In contrast to this, so much the more positive was their association of
the THUNDER-STORM as that which brings both warmth and rain with the
renewed vernal life of vegetation. The impressive phenomena which
characterize it, the prodigious noise, the awful flash, the portentous
gloom, the blast, the rain, have left a profound impression on the myths
of every land. Fire from water, warmth and moisture from the destructive
breath of the tempest, this was the riddle of riddles to the untutored
mind. "Out of the eater came forth meat, out of the strong came forth
sweetness." It was the visible synthesis of all the divine
manifestations, the winds, the waters, and the flames.

The Dakotas conceived it as a struggle between the god of waters and the
thunder bird for the command of their nation,[150-2] and as a bird, one
of those which make a whirring sound with their wings, the turkey, the
pheasant, or the nighthawk, it was very generally depicted by their
neighbors, the Athapascas, Iroquois, and Algonkins.[151-1] As the
herald of the summer it was to them a good omen and a friendly power. It
was the voic