A study of Navajo symbolism - Free History Ebooks

NOTES ON CORRESPONDING SYMBOLSI N VARIOUS PARTS OF THE WORLDIN THE following pages 1 I have broughttogether references to symbols in variousparts of the world that correspond to somethat are mentioned in Airs. Newcomb's earlierchapters describing Navajo symbols. Theyare presented briefly for their suggestive value,without claim to completeness or comprehensivetreatment, solely as the record of oneperson's reading and observations.As an introduction to the pages that follow,I quote certain notes that I made upon firstreading Christopher Dawson's The Age of theGods. While there is some direct quotation,they reflect chiefly the impression of the earlychapters of the book upon a reader concernedwith the religion of the Navajo."A culture is a common way of life — a particularadjustment of man to his natural surroundingsand his economic needs. Race alonedoes not explain social development, for environment,occupation and thought interact invarying degrees. The history of mankindshows a continuous process of integration byreason, which is a creative power, and by religion,which embodies an attitude of life anda conception of reality. The prophet is perhapsthe greatest of all agents of social change.Thus the great stages of world culture arelinked with changes in man's vision of reality.Aristotle, in a flash of scientific imagination,anticipated modern experimental achievementsin the theory of the Great Summer and theGreat Winter, according to which the earthpasses through a cycle of climatic change,each phase of which is linked with a correspondingchange in the relative area of landand sea. When physical conditions are moststable, man does not progress.The religious impulse has been always andeverywhere present as one of the great permanentforces that make and alter man's destiny.The beginnings of religion are as old as thehuman consciousness.The African Bushmen and Australian abo-rigines are not typical of primitive man inEurope because of the great difference ofphysical type and geographical environment.It is rather in the Northern Steppe region ofAsia and America that we find the closestanalogies to Europe of the later glacial age,owing to parallels in climate, fauna and flora.There is to be found a common religiousfoundation which is the key to the earliestknown human religion — that of hunting people,who live utterly dependent on nature.The hunter sees everywhere behind the outwardappearance a vague supernatural power,showing itself alike in beast and plant, stormand heat, in rock and tree, in the magic of thepriest and in the spirits of the dead. Particularlyin the Indian tribes of North America,the idea lies at the root of primitive magic.Indians see the vague cosmic power above allmanifested in the animals, particularly in regardto the killing of bears. The relation ofthe hunter — the belief in animal guardianspirits — which goes back to late Palaeolithictimes may well have been diffused throughIndia to southeast Asia and Australasia, andthrough Siberia to North America.With the change from the Palaeolithicto the Neolithic culture, man ceased to be aparasite on nature, like the hunter; he learnedto govern and direct nature. Agriculturalpeople tend to matriarchy, for the cultivationof land involves fixed settlements, and it is thewoman who cultivates, not the mobile patriarchalhunter or owner of flocks, that is thestable element in society. A correspondingdevelopment is found in religion. Primitivepeoples regard the earth, which is the motherof the crops, as a female principle — The EarthMother. Her divine son and lover, who is thepersonification of the vegetative life of natureas seen in the trees and the harvest, symbolizeddeath and resurrection, and later gaveimmortality to initiates. While agriculturalpeople have an earth religion, pastoral people11 wish to express my gratitude to Mr. WalterWhitehill for his editing of this section.83