up their abode. Some, again, are as distinctly the deified souls of men. The two first classes may be briefly instanced together in America, where the light-side and shadow-side (as Dr. J. G. Müller well calls them) of the conception of a future life are broadly contrasted in the definitions of the Lord of the Dead. Among the Northern Indians this may be Tarenyawagon the Heaven-God, identified with the Great Spirit, who receives good warriors in his happy hunting-grounds, or his grandmother, the Death-goddess Atahentsic.[1] In Brazil, the Under-world-god, who places good warriors and sorcerers in Paradise, contrasts with Aygnan the evil deity who takes base and cowardly Tupi souls,[2] much as the Mexican Tlaloc, Water-god and lord of the earthly paradise, contrasts with Mictlanteuctli, ruler of the dismal dead-land in the shades below.[3] In Peru there has been placed on record a belief that the departed spirits went to be with the Creator and Teacher of the World — 'Bring us too near to thee ... that we may be fortunate, being near to thee, O Uira-cocha!' There are also statements as to an under-world of shades, the land of the demon Supay.[4] Accounts of this class must often be suspected of giving ideas mis-stated under European influence, or actually adopted from Europeans, but there is in some a look of untouched genuineness. Thus in Polynesia, the idea of a Devil borrowed from colonists or missionaries may be suspected in such a figure as the evil deity Wiro, chief of Reigna, the New Zealander's western world of departed souls. But few conceptions of deity are more quaintly original than that of the Samoan deity Saveasiuleo, at once
- ↑ J. G. Müller, 'Amer. Urrel.' pp. 137, &c., 272, 286, &c., 500, &c. See Sproat, p. 213 (Ahts), cited ante, p. 85. Chay-her signifies not only the world below, but Death personified as a boneless greybeard who wanders at night stealing men's souls away.
- ↑ Lery, 'Bresil,' p. 234.
- ↑ Clavigero, vol. ii. pp. 14, 17; Brasseur, 'Mexique,' vol. iii. p. 495.
- ↑ 'Rites and Laws of Yncas,' tr. and ed. by C. R. Markham, pp. 32, 48 (prayer from MS. communication by C. R. M.); Garcilaso de la Vega, lib. ii. c. 2, 7; Brinton, 'Myths of New World,' p. 251.
