< Page:Primitive Culture Vol 2.djvu
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GOD OF AGRICULTURE.

305

Childbirth. In the West Indies, a special divinity occupied with this function took rank as one of the great indigenous fetish-gods;[1] in the Samoan group, the household god of the father's or mother's family was appealed to;[2] in Peru the Moon takes to this office,[3] and the same natural idea recurs in Mexico;[4] in Esthonian religion the productive Earth-mother appropriately becomes patroness of human birth;[5] in the classic theology of Greece and Italy, the divine spouse of the Heaven-king, Hēra,[6] Juno,[7] favours and protects on earth marriage and the birth of children; and to conclude the list, the Chinese work out the problem from the manes-worshipper's point of view, for the goddess whom they call 'Mother' and propitiate with many a ceremony and sacrifice to save and prosper their children, is held to have been in human life a skilful midwife.[8]

The deity of Agriculture may be a cosmic being affecting the weather and the soil, or a mythic giver of plants and teacher of their cultivation and use. Thus among the Iroquois, Heno the Thunder, who rides through the heavens on the clouds, who splits the forest-trees with the thunderbolt-stones he hurls at his enemies, who gathers the clouds and pours out the warm rains, was fitly chosen as patron of husbandry, invoked at seed-time and harvest, and called Grandfather by his children the Indians.[9] It is interesting to notice again on the southern continent the working out of this idea in the Tupan of Brazilian tribes; Thunder and Lightning, it is recorded, they call Tupan, considering themselves to owe to him their hoes and the profitable art of tillage, and therefore acknowledging him as a deity.[10]

  1. ↑ Herrera, 'Indias Occidentales,' Dec. i. 3, 3; J. G. Müller, 'Amer. Urrel.' pp. 175, 221.
  2. ↑ Turner, 'Polynesia,' p. 174.
  3. ↑ Rivero and Tschudi, 'Peru,' p. 160.
  4. ↑ Kingsborough, 'Mexico,' vol. v. p. 179.
  5. ↑ Castrén, 'Finn. Myth.' p. 89.
  6. ↑ Welcker, 'Griech. Götterl.' vol. i. p. 371.
  7. ↑ Ovid. Fast. ii. 449.
  8. ↑ Doolittle, 'Chinese,' vol. i. p. 264.
  9. ↑ Morgan, 'Iroquois,' p. 158.
  10. ↑ De Laet, 'Novus Orbis,' xv. 2; Waitz, vol. iii. p. 417; Brinton, pp. 152, 185; J. G. Müller, p. 271, &c.
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