Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 36.djvu/70

60 attitude is to let him tell his myths and make his remarks in his own way and in his own language. When such texts are written out, translated, and studied they are of great value. It is only within about twelve years that this has been done in a systematic manner, but it has already resulted in the correction of many popular errors.

In attempting to translate the epithets mentioned, the missionaries and travelers often honestly used the word which, in their own conception, was the nearest equivalent. An instructive example is where Boscana describes a structure in southern California as a "temple." It was a circular fence, six feet high, not roofed in—a mere plaza for dancing; but the dancing was religious, and the word "temple" was the best one he could find, by which mistake he has perplexed archæologists who have sought in vain for the ruins.

A consideration not often weighed is that the only members of the Indian tribes who are willing to give their own ideas on religious matters to foreigners are precisely those who are most intelligent and most dissatisfied with their old stories. There were minds among them groping after something newer and better, and it would be easy to translate their vague longings into the conception of an overruling Providence. But the people had made no such advance.

The missionaries who announced that the Indians were fixed in the belief in one god were much troubled by the statement of the converted native, Hiaccomes, of Martha's Vineyard, who, having enumerated his thirty-seven gods, gave them all up. This, however, was a typical instance of the truth. The Indians had an indefinite number of so-called gods corresponding with the like indefinite number of the Elohim of the Israelites before the supremacy of Jahveh.

The biblical religion of Israel has been popularly held to be coeval with the world, but its own beginning was by no means archaic. About a thousand years before Christ it did not exist, and at least four hundred years were required for its development. The religious practices of David and Solomon did not materially differ from those of their neighbors in Palestine. Not until the time of Hezekiah, about seven hundred and twenty-five years before Christ, did the Israelite religion attain to a distinct formulation. Its ordinances and beliefs advanced from crudity and mutation to ripeness and establishment. It was a system long in growth, and so could not early possess authoritative documents.

The nomad Semite believed, with other barbarians, that he lived amid a supernatural environment. The world was surrounded and governed by the Elohim—myriads of active beings,