Page:Journal of American Folklore vol. 12.djvu/15

Rh after are attached that we feel the deepest remorse; but often for those which merit no punishment and are concealed in our own bosoms from the eye of scorn. The asseveration of Torlino, which I have already published elsewhere, is one of the best evidences I possess of the recognition of conscience in the Indian. Desiring to assure me of the verity of what he was about to relate, he said: "Why should I lie to you? I am ashamed before the earth; I am ashamed before the heavens; I am ashamed before the dawn; I am ashamed before the evening twilight; I am ashamed before the blue sky; I am ashamed before the darkness; I am ashamed before the sun; I am ashamed before that standing within me which speaks with me. Some of these things are always looking at me. I am never out of sight. Therefore I must tell the truth. That is why I always tell the truth. I hold my word tight to my breast." Here we have in the eternal vigilance of many mysterious eyes a substitute for the All-seeing Eye and a distinct conception of the inward monitor. Torlino was a pagan priest of the old school. A passage in the story of Nohoilpi, the gambler or gambling god, shows us that he who composed this tale knew what the pangs of remorse might be, even for an act not criminal, as we consider it, but merely ungenerous and unfilial. Nohoilpi had won at game, from the people of the Blue House in the Chaco cañyon, two shells of enormous size, the chief treasures of the pueblo. His father the Sun had asked him for these shells and had been refused the gift; the Sun was angry, and certain gods plotted the overthrow of the gambler. But before they began to work they wanted to find out if he was sorry because he had refused the shells to his father. So at night they sent first Darkness, and after him Wind, to the chamber where the gambler slept, to search well his body and his mind. Both returned saying that Nohoilpi was sorry for what he had done.

Let us now inquire if the good actions of Indians are ever prompted by pure feelings of benevolence. Perhaps there is no such thing as pure benevolence, and that in its highest manifestations good-will is but a refined form of selfishness. However this may be, we flatter ourselves that we often do good to our fellow creatures for no other reward than the pleasure it gives us to do it, and, unless we have good evidence to the contrary, it is but fair to believe that the savage acts at times from motives similar to ours. In the Navaho myths we frequently find allusions to gods helping men in all sorts of trouble. For certain specific services, such as teaching him songs and rites, they demand sacrifices—mostly of an innocent and inexpensive sort; but numerous services are performed without any hope of reward. The myths abound in instances of this kind. The gods are shown to help man merely because they take pity on him