Now Strachey's Great Hare is accepted by mythologists, while Ahone is regarded with suspicion. Ahone does not happen to suit anthropological ideas, the Hare suits them rather better. Moreover, and more important, there is abundant corroborative evidence for Oke and for the Hare, Michabo, who, says Dr. Brinton, "was originally the highest divinity recognised by them, powerful and beneficent beyond all others, maker of the heavens and the world," just like Ahone, in fact. And Dr. Brinton instructs us that Michabo originally meant not Great Hare, but "the spirit of light".(1) Thus, originally, the Red Men adored "The Spirit of Light, maker of the heavens and the world". Strachey claims no more than this for Ahone. Now, of course, Dr. Brinton may be right. But I have already expressed my extreme distrust of the philological processes by which he extracts "The Great Light; spirit of light," from Michabo, "beyond a doubt!" In my poor opinion, whatever claims Michabo may have as an unique creator of earth and heaven—"God is Light,"—he owes his mythical aspect as a Hare to something other than an unconscious pun. In any case, according to Dr. Brinton, Michabo, regarded as a creator, is equivalent to Strachey's Ahone. This amount of corroboration, valeat quantum, I may claim, from the Potomac Indians, for the belief in Ahone on the James River. Dr. Brinton is notoriously not a believer in American "monotheism".(2)
(1) Myths of the New World, p. 178.
(2) Myths of the New World, p. 53.
The opponents of the authenticity of Ahone, however, will certainly argue: "For Oke, or Oki, as a redoubted being or spirit, or general name for such personages, we have plentiful evidence, corroborating that of Smith. But what evidence as to Ahone corroborates that of Strachey?" I must confess that I have no explicit corroborative evidence for Ahone, but then I have no accessible library of early books on Virginia. Now it is clear that if I found and produced evidence for Ahone as late as 1625, I would be met at once with the retort that, between 1610 and 1625, Christian ideas had contaminated the native beliefs. Thus if I find Ahone, or a deity of like attributes, after a very early date, he is of no use for my purpose. Nor do I much expect to find him. But do we find Winslow's Massachusetts God, Kiehtan, named AFTER 1622 ("I only ask for information"), and if we don't, does that prevent Mr. Tylor from citing Kiehtan, with apparent reliance on the evidence?(1)
(1) Primitive Culture, ii. p. 342.
Again, Ahone, though primal and creative, is, by Strachey's account, a sleeping partner. He has no sacrifice, and no temple or idol is recorded. Therefore the belief in Ahone could only be discovered as a result of inquiry, whereas figures of Oke or Okeus, and his services, were common and conspicuous.(1) As to Oke, I cannot quite understand Mr. Tylor's attitude. Summarising Lafitau, a late writer of 1724, Mr. Tylor writes: "The whole class of spirits or demons, known to the Caribs by the name of cemi, in Algonkin as manitu, in Huron as oki, Lafitau now spells with capital letters, and converts them each into a supreme being".(2) Yet in Primitive Culture, ii., 342, 1891, Mr. Tylor had cited Smith's Okee (with a capital letter) as the "chief god" of the Virginians in 1612. How can Lafitau be said to have elevated oki into Oki, and so to have made a god out of "a class of spirits or demons," in 1724, when Mr. Tylor had already cited Smith's Okee, with a capital letter and as a "chief god," in 1612? Smith, rebuked for the same by Mr. Tylor, had even identified Okee with the devil. Lafitau certainly did not begin this erroneous view of Oki as a "chief god" among the Virginians. If I cannot to-day produce corroboration for a god named Ahone, I can at least show that, from the north of New England to the south of Virginia, there is early evidence, cited by Mr. Tylor, for a belief in a primal creative being, closely analogous to Ahone. And this evidence, I think, distinctly proves that such a being as Ahone was within the capacity of the Indians in these latitudes. Mr. Tylor must have thought in 1891 that the natives were competent to a belief in a supreme deity, for he said, "Another famous native American name for the supreme deity is Oki".(3) In the essay of 1892, however, Oki does not appear to exist as a god's name till 1724. We may now, for earlier evidence, turn to Master Thomas Heriot, "that learned mathematician" "who spoke the Indian language," and was with the company which abandoned Virginia on 18th June, 1586. They ranged 130 miles north and 130 miles north-west of Roanoke Island, which brings them into the neighbourhood of Smith's and Strachey's country. Heriot writes as to the native creeds: "They believe that there are many gods which they call Mantoac, but of different sorts and degrees. Also that there is one chiefe God that hath beene from all eternitie, who, as they say, when he purposed first to make the world, made first other gods of a principall order, to be as instruments to be used in the Creation and Government to follow, and after the Sunne, Moone and Starres as pettie gods, and the instruments of the other order more principall.... They thinke that all the gods are of humane shape," and represent them by anthropomorphic idols. An idol, or image, "Kewasa" (the plural is "Kewasowok"), is placed in the temples, "where they worship, pray and make many offerings". Good souls go to be happy with the gods, the bad burn in Popogusso, a great pit, "where the sun sets". The evidence for this theory of a future life, as usual, is that of men who died and revived again, a story found in a score of widely separated regions, down to our day, when the death, revival and revelation occurred to the founder of the Arapahoe new religion of the Ghost Dance. The belief "works for righteousness". "The common sort... have great care to avoyde torment after death, and to enjoy blesse," also they have "great respect to their Governors".
(1) Okee's image, as early as 1607, was borne into battle against Smith, who captured the god (Arber, p. 393). Ahone was not thus en evidence.
(2) Journal of Anthrop. Inst., Feb., 1892, pp. 285, 286.
(3) Prim. Cult,, ii. p. 342.
This belief in a chief god "from all eternitie" (that is, of unexplained origin), may not be convenient to some speculators, but it exactly corroborates Strachey's account of Ahone as creator with subordinates. The evidence is of 1586 (twenty-six years before Strachey), and, like Strachey, Heriot attributes the whole scheme of belief to "the priestes". "This is the sum of their religion, which I learned by having speciall familiaritie with some of their priests."(1) I see no escape from the conclusion that the Virginians believed as Heriot says they did, except the device of alleging that they promptly borrowed some of Heriot's ideas and maintained that these ideas had ever been their own. Heriot certainly did not recognise the identity. "Through conversing with us they were brought into great doubts of their owne (religion), and no small admiration of ours; of which many desired to learne more than we had the meanes for want of utterance in their language to expresse." So Heriot could not be subtle in the native tongue. Heriot did what he could to convert them: "I did my best to make His immortall glory knowne". His efforts were chiefly successful by virtue of the savage admiration of our guns, mathematical instruments, and so forth. These sources of an awakened interest in Christianity would vanish with the total destruction and discomfiture of the colony, unless a few captives, later massacred, taught our religion to the natives.(2)