ABSTRACT 058NF TR GREAVES, ed.
[email protected] Pre-Columbian America: myths and legends, Donald A. Mackenzie, 1996; London, Ran-dom House UK. 329pp, illustrated. Published originally in 1923.
The prevailing view among American historians and anthropologists is that the native civilizations of the Western Hemisphere developed in a state of perfect isolation from those of the Old World. Donald Mackenzie, writing during a period of greater open-mindedness on this question, was of the opposite school of thought. The author of a number of well-received Mythologies (the original title of the present work being Myths of Pre-Columbian America), Mackenzie drew bold comparisons between Asian, Oceanic and Amerindian cultures and concluded that Diffusion was a likelier explanation for the facts than any sort of parallel, independent, development. A more recent proponent of the diffusion hypothesis was the late Joseph Campbell (see especially The Mythic Image,
1974), and in general it may be said that diffusion is inherently more amenable to proof than ?isolation?, since the diffusionists? case rests upon evidence, while the case for iso-lation is predicated upon the absence of evidence of contact. Indeed, isolationism is more in the nature of a prejudice or a position, and a precarious one at that! Among the many myth-motifs Mackenzie presents are: the winged disc and the world?s ages; goddesses of love and food; golden sun and silver moon; gold as an elixir; gold as a divine emanation;
eagle and serpent; tree of life; the milk-yielding tree; directional color symbolism, the ship of death, etc., etc. The book is a mine of ?correspondences? great and small, and all duly documented. Interspersed with the mythological and iconographical material is a plethora of supporting evidence of a more mundane nature. Mackenzie believed, for in-stance, that the relentless quest for such commodities as gold, jade, and pearls had brought Old World explorers to the New millennia before Columbus made his personal Voyage of Discovery?. Some had remained; some had intermarried; some had returned with tales to tell: cultural diffusion at work. Should be required reading at universities.
KEYWORDS
Mythology/ iconography/ symbolism/ jade/ gold/ pearls/ ancient mariners/ Egyptian myths/ Hindu myths/ Chinese myths/ Vishnu/ Quetzalcoatl/ Indra/ Tlaloc/ Fu-sang/ amrita/ cremation/ the Milky Ocean
