PEET ON INDIAN RELIGIONS.
§ 360. In the Journal of the Victoria Institute of Great Britain for 1888,[277] is an article containing the following statements, which were not seen by the writer until he had completed the preceding chapters of this paper.
Referring to Mr. Eells, the Nez Percé missionary, and to Mr. Williams, who has been laboring among the Chippewas, Mr. Peet observes:[278]
There are four or five points on which both missionaries seem to be agreed * * * These four doctrines—the existence of God, immortality of the soul, the sinfulness of man, and the necessity of sacrifice—seem to have been held in various modified forms by all the tribes in North America.
On the next page[279] he gives a classification of native religions, by which he means those of America. He says that these religions may be divided by geographical districts into several classes:
(1) Shamanism, by which he seems to mean the worship of the wakan men and women. “Among the Eskimos, Aleuts, and other hyperborean nations, who subsist chiefly by fishing.” (2) Animism, by which he probably means the worship of “souls” or “shades,” including ghosts, as every object, whether animate or inanimate, is thought to have a “shade.” This belief, he says, is found in its highest stage among tribes that formerly dwelt in British North America, between Hudsons Bay and the Great Lakes. These tribes subsist by hunting. (3) Animal worship, practiced by a class partly hunters, partly farmers, dwelling, say, between 35° and 48° N. lat. (4) Sun worship, the cult of the tribes south of 35° N. lat., and extending to the Gulf of Mexico. (5) Elemental worship, which he defines as “the worship of rain, lightning, the god of war and death,” found in Mexico and New Mexico. (6) Anthropomorphism, a religion which gave human attributes to the divinities, but assigned to them supernatural powers. This prevailed in Central America.