Nash Buckingham and some of the other old-time outdoor
writers, in many of their hunting stories, mention “Red Gods.” I’ve always
wondered who these Red Gods were. So who are they? And what is it?
The Red Gods harken us to their call. “Be free! Go out!” they
cry, this strange something. Their insistent call—this subtle, penetrating
call—is something which arouses something within us. It shakes our
consciousness loose from the sordid
commercialism of today and from the shackles of obstructing business and
moneymaking ways and tears us away from civilization’s daily grind in the world
of the survival of the fittest and takes us away from a maddening world to
scale obstructing obstacles to venture deep into the outdoors where we can lay
aside the cares and toils for a few hours. Their calling sets off a nostalgic
yearning, more or less conscious, for the simpler life of our early ancestors.
While our world was in its cradle of civilization, when men
were young at heart and gods were new, our ancient ancestors called their gods
“the red ones”; and it met all their needs, wants, and demands, whether of enlightenment
One need only to open anywhere the sacred books of the East to
catch the gleam of the color. Far in the backward of the ages, when the gods
were principles commonplace to the people of the forest, the early Aryan saw
his gods red and called them so. The Aryan religion was primitive and consisted of the worship
Red were the gods when our forefathers lived far away and were
in courageous communion with the gods that occupied every watercourse in every
woodland. Red the gods remained some 7,000 years ago while the proto-Aryans in
Central Asia swept out from their foothold and populated the earth. The gods
were Red who looked down upon the construction of Kapilavastu, that first great
city on the Indian continent that has proved the type of other great cities.