TERM “GREAT SPIRIT” NEVER HEARD AMONG THE IOWA.
Mr. Hamilton wrote thus in one of his letters:
It is often said that the Indians are not idolaters, and that they believe in one Supreme Being, whom they call the Great Spirit. I do not now recollect that I ever heard the Iowas use the term Great Spirit since I have been among them. They speak of God (Wakanta), and sometimes of the Great God or Bad God. But of the true character of God they are entirely ignorant. Many of them speak of God as the creator of all things, and use a term that signifies “Creator of the earth.” Sometimes they call him “Grandfather” (hiⁿtuka). But they imagine him to be possessed of like passions with themselves, and pleased with their war parties, scalp dances, thefts, and such like sin. * * * They sometimes speak of the sun as a god, because it gives light and heat. The moon they sometimes speak of as a god, because it seems to be to the night what the sun is to the day. I asked an Indian the other day how many gods the Iowas had, and he promptly replied, ‘Seven.’