MDDM Iroquois cosmogony and The Golden Bough

[jbor]

http://www.crystalinks.com/iroquois.html

An elaborate Iroquois cosmology was based on the myth of a woman who fell
from the sky, and it featured deluge and earth-diver motifs. No other tribes
showed such a preoccupation in their mythology with supernatural aggression
and cruelty, sorcery, torture, and cannibalism.

This lore was relieved by occasional beautiful star myths and journeys to
the otherworld. 

Their formal religion consisted of six agricultural festivals featuring long
prayers of thanks. 

There were also rites for sanctioning political activity, such as treaty
making. 

Much of this culture still survives.

Warfare was ingrained in Iroquois society, and self-respect was dependent on
achieving personal glory.

War captives were often enslaved or adopted to replace dead kinsmen and made
up much of the Iroquois population in the late 17th century.


http://www.bartleby.com/196/166.html

Frazer, Sir James George. _The Golden Bough_ (1922)
Chapter 66: 'The External Soul in Folk-Tales'

[...]

Ideas of the same sort meet us in stories told by the North American
Indians. Thus the Navajoes tell of a certain mythical being called "the
Maiden that becomes a Bear", who learned the art of turning herself into a
bear from the prairie wolf. She was a great warrior and quite invulnerable;
for when she went to war she took out her vital organs and hid them, so that
no one could kill her; and when the battle was over she put the organs back
in their places again. [...]

Coincidentally, in the Simon & Schuster edition of _The Illustrated Golden
Bough_ there is a 16th C. painting by Joachim Patinir of Charon aboard his
ferry in the middle of the Styx on the very same page as the story of this
Navajo myth.

http://museoprado.mcu.es/prado/html/iestigia.html

http://cti.itc.virginia.edu/~mpm8b/underworld/hades27.htm

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