Page:The City of the Saints.djvu/127

Rh And long shall timorous fancy see The painted chief and pointed spear, And Reason's self shall bow the knee To shadows and delusions here."

My conviction is, that the English and American's popular ideas upon the subject are unreliable, and that their embodiment, beautiful poetry, "Lo the poor Indian," down to "his faithful dog shall bear him company," are but a splendid myth. The North American aborigine believed, it is true, in an unseen power, the Manitou, or, as we are obliged to translate it, "Spirit," residing in every heavenly body, animal, plant, or other natural object. This is the very essence of that form of Fetichism which leads to Pantheism and Polytheism. There was a Manitou, as he conceived, which gave the spark from the flint, lived in every blade of grass, flowed in the streams, shone in the stars, and thundered in the waterfall; but in each example—a notable instance of the want of abstractive and generalizing power—the idea of the Deity was particular and concrete. When the Jesuit fathers suggested the unity of the Great Spirit pervading all beings, it was very readily recognized; but the generalization was not worked out by the Indian mind. He was, therefore, like all savages, atheistic in the literal sense of the word. He had not arrived at the first step, Pantheism, which is so far an improvement that it opens out a grand idea, the omnipresence, and consequently the omnipotence, of the Deity. In most North American languages the Theos is known, not as the "Great Spirit," but as the "Great Father," a title also applied to the President of the United States, who is, I believe, though sometimes a step-father, rather the more reverenced of the twain. With respect to the happy hunting-grounds, it is a mere corollary of the monotheistic theorem above proved. It is doubtful whether these savages ever grasped the idea of a human soul. The Chicury of New England, indeed, and other native words so anglicized, appear distinctly to mean the African Pepo—ghost or larva.

Certain missionaries have left us grotesque accounts of the simple good sense with which the Indians of old received the Glad Tidings. The strangers were courteously received, the calumet was passed round, and they were invited to make known their wants in a "big talk." They did so by producing a synopsis of their faith, beginning at Adam's apple and ending at the Savior's cross. The patience of the Indian in enduring long speeches, sermons, and harangues has ever been exemplary and peculiar, as his fortitude in suffering lingering physical tortures. The audience listened with a solemn demeanor, not once interrupting what must have appeared to them a very wild and curious story. Called upon to make some remark, these antipomologists simply ejaculated,

"Apples are not wholesome, and those who crucified Christ were bad men!"