O my people!
I, too, could tell ye of the former days. — VI. p. 13.
The mode of sowing is from the twenty-first plate of De Bry to J. Le Moyne de Morgues. The common storehouses are mentioned by the same author; and the ceremony of the widows strewing their hair upon their husbands’ graves is represented in the 19th plate.
The Snake-Idol. — VI. p. 15.
Snake-worship was common in America. — Bernal Diaz, pp. 3, 7, 125. The idol described VII. p. 25, somewhat resembles what the Spaniards found at Campeche, which is thus described by the oldest historian of the Discoveries: “Our men were conducted to a broade crosse-way standing on the side of the towne. Here they shew them a square stage or pulpit foure steppes high, partly of clammy bitumen. and partly of small stones, whereto the image of a man cut in marble was joyned, two foure-footed unknown beastes fastening upon him, which, like madde dogges, seemed they would tear the marble man’s guts out of his belly. And by the image stood a serpent, besmeared all with goare bloud, devouring a marble lion; which Serpent, compacted of bitumen and small stones incorporated together, was seven and fortie feet in length, and as thicke as a great oxe. Next unto it were three rafters, or stakes, fastened to the grounde, which three others crossed, underpropped with stones; in which place they punish malefactors condemned; for proof whereof they saw innumerable broken arrows, all bloudie, scattered on the grounde, and the bones of the dead cast into an inclosed courte neere unto it.” — Pietro Martire.
It can scarcely be necessary to say, that I have attributed to the Hoamen such manners and superstitions as, really existing among the savage tribes of America, were best suited to the plan of the poem.
— piously a portion take
Of that cold earth, to which for ever now
Consigned they leave their fathers, dust to dust. — VI. p. 15.
Charlevoix assigns an unworthy motive for this remarkable custom, which may surely be more naturally explained: he says they fancy it procures luck at play.
— from his head
Plucking the thin gray hairs, he dealt them round. — VI. p. 17.
Some passages in Mr. Mackenzie’s “Travels” suggested this to me. “Our guide called aloud to the fugitives, and entreated them to stay, but without effect: the old man, however, did not hesitate to approach us, and represented himself as too far advanced in life, and too indifferent about the short time he had to remain in the world, to be very anxious about escaping from any danger that threatened him. At the same time, he pulled the gray hairs from his head by handfuls to distribute among us, and implored our favor for himself and his relations.
“As we were ready to embark, our new recruit was desired to prepare himself for his departure, which he would have declined; but, as none of his friends would take his place, we may be said, after the delay of an hour, to have compelled him to embark. Previous to his departure, a ceremony took place, of which I could not learn the meaning. He cut off a lock of his hair; and, having divided it into three parts, he fastened one of them to the hair on the upper part of his wife’s head, blowing on it three times with all the violence in his power, and uttering certain words. The other two he fastened with the same formalities on the heads of his two children.” — Mackenzie.
Forth from the dark recesses of the Cave
The Serpent came. — VII. p. 23.
Of the wonderful docility of the snake, one instance may suffice.
“An Indian belonging to the Menomonie, having taken a rattlesnake, found means to tame it, and, when he had done this, treated it as a Deity; calling it his great Father, and carrying it with him in a box wherever he went. This he had done for several summers, when Mons. Pinnisance accidentally met with him at this carrying-place, just as he was setting off for a winter’s hunt. The French gentleman was surprised one day to see the Indian place the box which contained his God on the ground, and, opening the door, give him his liberty; telling him, whilst he did it, to be sure and return by the time he himself should come back, which was to be in the month of May following. As this was but October, Monsieur told the Indian, whose simplicity astonished him, that he fancied he might wait long enough, when Maay arrived, for the arrival of his great Father. The Indian was so confident of his creature’s obedience, that he offered to lay the Frenchman a wager of two gallons of rum, that, at the time appointed, he would come and crawl into his box. This was agreed on, and the second week in May following fixed for the determination of the wager. At that period they both met there again; when the Indian set down his box, and called for his great Father. The snake heard him not; and, the time being now expired, he acknowledged that he had lost. However, without seeming to be discouraged, he offered to double the bet if his Father came not within two days more. This was further agreed on; when, behold! on the second day, about one o’clock, the snake arrived, and of his own accord crawled into the box, which was placed ready for him. The French gentleman vouched for the truth of this story; and, from the accounts I have often received of the docility of those creatures, I see no reason to doubt its veracity.” — Carver’s Travels.
We have not taken animals enough into alliance with us. In one of the most interesting families which it was ever my good fortune to visit, I saw a child suckled by a goat. The gull should be taught to catch fish for us in the sea, the otter in fresh water. The more spiders there were in the stable, the less would the horses suffer from the flies. The great American fire-fly should be imported into Spain to catch mosquitoes. Snakes would make good mousers; but one favorite mouse should be kept to rid the house of cockroaches. The toad is an excellent fly-catcher; and, in hot countries, a reward should be offered to the man who could discover what insect feeds upon fleas; for, say the Spaniards, no ay criatura tan libre, a quien falta su Alguacil.
— that huge King
Of Basan, hugest of the Anakim. — VII. p. 23.
Og, the King of Basan, was the largest man that ever lived: all Giants, Titans, and Ogres are but dwarfs to him; GaragantutL himself is no more compared to Og, than Tom Thumb is to Garagantua. For thus say the rabbis: Moses chose out twelve chiefs, and advanced with them till they approached the land of Canaan, where Jericho was, and there he sent those chiefs that they might spy out the land for him. One of the Giants met them: he was called Og, the son of Anak; and the height of his stature was twenty-three thousand and thirty-three cubits. Now, Og used to catch the clouds, and draw them towards him, and, drink their waters; and he used to take the fishes out of the depths of the sea, and toast them against the orb of the sun, and eat them. It is related of him by tradition, that in the time of the Deluge he went to Noah, and said to him,’ Take me with thee in the ark;’ but Noah made answer, ‘Depart from me, O thou enemy of God!’ And when the water covered the highest mountains of the earth, it did not reach to Og’s knees. Og lived three thousand years, and then God destroyed him by the hand of Moses: for, when the army of Moses covered a space of nine miles, Og came and looked at it, and reached out his hand to a mountain, and cut from it a stone so wide that it could have covered the whole army; and he put it upon his head, that he might throw it upon them. But God sent a lapwing, who made a hole through the stone with his bill, so that it slipt over his head, and hung round his neck like a necklace, and he was borne down to the ground by its weight. Then Moses ran to him (Moses was himself ten cubits in stature); and he took a spear ten cubits long, and threw it up ten cubits high, and yet it only reached the heel of Og, who was lying prostrate; and thus he slew him., And then came a great multitude with scythes, and cut off his head; and, when lie was dead, his body lay for a whole year, reaching as far as the river Nile in Egypt. His mother’s name was Enac, one of the daughters of Adam; and she was the first harlot. Her fingers were two cubits long; and upon every finger she had two sharp nails, like two sickles. But, because she was a harlot, God sent against her lions as big as elephants, and wolves as big as camels, and eagles as big as asses, and they killed her and eat her.
When Og met the spies who were sent by Moses, he took them all twelve in his hand, and put them in his wallet, and carried them to his wife, and said to her,’ Look, I beseech you, at these men who want to fight with us!’ And he emptied them out before her, and asked her if he should tread upon them; but she said,’ Let them go and tell their people what they have seen.’ When they were got out, they said to each other ‘If we should tell these things to the children of Israel, they would forsake Moses; let us therefore relate what we have seen only to Moses and Aaron.’ And they took with them one grape-stone from the grapes of that country, and it was as much as a camel could carry. And they began to advise the people that they should not go to war, saying what they had seen; but two of them — namely, Caleb the son of Jepho, and Joshua the son of Nun - concealed it. — Maracci.
Even if the grapes had not been proportioned to Og’s capacious mouth, the rabbis would not have let him starve. There were behemoths for him to roast whole; and Bar-Chana saw a fish to which whales are but sprats, and Leviathan but a herring. “We saw a fish,” says he, “into whose nostrils the worm called Tinna had got and killed it; and it was cast upon the shore with such force by the sea, that it overthrew sixty maritime cities: sixty other cities fed upon its flesh; and what they left was salted for the food of sixty cities more.”
From one of the pupils of his eyes they filled thirty barrels of oil. A year or two afterwards, as we passed by the same place, we saw men cutting up his bones, with which the same cities were built up again.” — Maracci.
Arrows round whose heads dry tow was twined,
With pine-gum dipt. — VII. p. 25.
This mode of offence has been adopted wherever bows and arrows were in use. De Bry represents it in the thirty-first plate to Le Moyne de Morgues.
The Medes poisoned their arrows with a bituminous liquor called naphtha, whereof there was great plenty in Media, Persia, and Assyria. The arrow, being steeped in it, and shot from a slack bow (for swift and violent motion took off from its virtue), burnt the flesh with such violence, that water rather increased than extinguished the malignant flame: dust alone could put a stop to it, and, in some degree, allay the unspeakable pain it occasioned.” — Universal History.
His hands transfixed
And lacerate with the body’s pendent weight. — VIII. p. 21.
Laceras toto membrorum pondere palmas.
Mambruni, Constantinus, sive Idololatria, Debellata.
Not for your lots on earth,
Menial or mighty, slave or highly-born,
For cunning in the chase, or strength in war,
Shall ye be judged hereafter. — VIII. p. 32.
They are informed in some places that the kings and noblemen have immortal souls, and believe that the souls of the rest perish together with their bodies, except the familiar friends of the princes themselves, and those only who suffer themselves to be buried alive together with their masters’ funerals; for their ancestors have left them so persuaded, that the souls of kings, deprived of their corporeal clothing, joyfully walk to perpetual delights through pleasant places always green, eating, drinking, and giving themselves to sports, and dancing with women after their old manner while they were living; and this they hold for a certain truth. Thereupon many, striving with a kind of emulation, east themselves headlong into the sepulchres of their lords; which if his familiar friends defer to do, they think their souls become temporary instead of eternal. — Pietro Martire. When I was upon the Sierras of Guaturo, says. Oviedo, and had taken prisoner the Cacique of the Province who had rebelled, I asked him whose graves were those which were in a house of his; and he told me, of some Indians who had killed themselves when the Cacique his father died. But, because they often used to bury a quantity of wrought gold with them, I had two of the graves opened, and found in them a small quantity of maize, and a small instrument. When I inquired the reason of this, the cacique and his Indians replied, that they who were buried there were laborers, who had been well skilled in sowing corn and in gathering it in, and were his and his father’s servants, who, that their souls might not die with their bodies, had slain themselves upon his father’s death; and that maize with the tools was laid there with them that they might sow it in heaven. In reply to this, I bade them see how the Tuyra had deceived them, and that all he had told them was a lie; for, though they had long been dead, they had never fetched the maize, which was now rotten, and good for nothing, so that they had sown nothing in heaven. But the cacique answered, that was because they. found plenty there, and did not want it. — Relacion sumaria de la Historia Natural de las lndias, por el Capitian Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo.
The Tlascallans believed that the souls of chiefs and princes became clouds, or beautiful birds, or precious stones; whereas those of the common people would pass into beetles, rats, mice, weasels, and all vile and stinking animals. Torquemada, L. 6, c. 47. Cadog, Deiniol,
Padarn, and Teilo. — VIII. p. 35.
The two first of these saints, with Madog Morvyn, are called the Three Holy Bachelors of the Isle of Britain. Cadog the Wise was a Bard who flourished in the sixth century. He is one of the three protectors of innocence: his protection was through church law; Blas’s, by the common law; and Pedrogyl’s, by the law of arms. These three were also called the Just Knights of the Court of Arthur. Cadog was the first of whom there is any account, who collected the British Proverbs. There is a church dedicated to him in Caermarthenshire, and two in Monmouthshire. Deiniol has churches dedicated to him in Monmouth, Cardigan, and Pembroke shires. In the year 525, he founded a college at Bangor, where he was abbot; and, when it was raised to the dignity of bishopric, he was the first bishop. Padarn and Teilo rank with Dewi, or David, as the three blessed Visitors; for they went about preaching the faith to all degrees of people, not only without reward, but themselves alleviating the distresses of the poor as far as their means extended. Padarn found a congregation at a place called from him Llanbadarn Vaar, where he had the title of archbishop. Teilo established the college at Llandaff: the many places called Llancleilo were so named in honor of him. He and Cadog and David were the three canonical Saints of Britain. — Cambrian Biography.
Teilo, or Teliau, as he is called by David Williams, took an active part against the heresy of Pelagius, the great Welshman. “Such was the lustre of his zeal, that, by something like a pun on his name, he was compared to the sun, and called Helios, and, when slain at the altar, devotees contended with so much virulence for the reputation of possessing his body, that the priests, to avoid scandalous divisions, found three miraculous bodies of the saint, as similar, according to the phrase used on the occasion, as one egg to another; and miracles were equally performed at the tombs of all the three.” — D. Williams’s Hist. of Monmouthshire.
This Miracle is claimed by some Agiologists for St. Baldred, Confessour, “whose memory in ancient tymes hath byn very famous in the kingdome of Scotland. For that he having sometymes preached to the people of three villages neere adjoyning one to the other in Scotland, called Aldhalm, Tiningham: and Preston, was so holy a man of life, that, when he was dead, the people of each village contended one with another which of them should have his body; in so much, that, at last, they, not agreeing thereabout, took armes, and each of them sought by force to enjoy the same. And, when the matter came to issue, the said sacred body was found all whole in three distinct places of the house where he died; so as the people of each village coming thither, and carrying the same away, placed it in their churches, and kept it with great honour and veneration for the miracles that at each place it pleased God to worke.” — English Martyrologe.
The story may be as true of the one Saint as of the other, a solution in which Catholicks and Protestants will agree. Godwin (in Catal. Ep. Landao) says that the Churches which contended for the Welsh Saint, were Pennalum, he burial place of his family, Llandeilo Vaur, where he died, and Llandaff, where he had been Bishop; and he adds, in honour of his own church, that by frequent mi
racles at his tomb it was certain Llandaff possessed the true body. — Yet in such a case as this the fac-similie might have been not unreasonablt deemed more curious than the original.
The polypus’s power of producing as many heads, legs, and arms as were wanted, has been possessed by all the great Saints. This miracle of triplification would have been more appropriate had it been worked upon some zealous Homoousian.
St. Teilo left his own country for a time because it was infested by an infectious disorder, called the Yellow Plague, which attacked both men and beasts. — Capgrave, quoted in Cressy’s Church History of Brittany
David. — VIII. p. 35.
Mongst Hatterill’s lofty hills, that with the clouds are crown’d,
The valley Ewias lies, immur’d so deep and round,
As they below who see the mountains rise so high,
Might think the straggling herds were grazing in the sky;
Which in it such a shape of solitude doth bear,
As Nature at the first appointed it for prayer.
Where in an aged cell, with moss and ivy grown,
In which not to this day the Sun hath ever shone,
That reverend British Saint, in zealous ages past,
To contemplation lived; and did so truly fast,
As he did only drink what crystal Hodney yields,
And fed upon the leeks he gathered in the fields;
In memory of whom, in each revolving year,
The Welshman on his day that sacred herb do wear.
Complete Poetical Works of Robert Southey Page 92