It has been constantly set forth in this work that, in moments of truly religious thought, even the lowest tribes turn their minds towards a guardian, a higher power, something which watches and helps the race of men. This mental approach towards the powerful friend is an aspiration, and sometimes a dogma; it is religious, not mythological; it is monotheistic, not polytheistic. The Being appealed to by the savage in moments of need or despair may go by a name which denotes a hawk, or a spider, or a grasshopper, but we may be pretty sure that little thought of such creatures is in the mind of the worshipper in his hour of need.*
* There are exceptions, as when the Ojibbeway, being in
danger, appeals to his own private protecting Manitou,
perhaps a wild duck; or when the Zuni cries to "Ye animal
gods, my fathers!" (Bureau of Ethnol., 1880-81, p. 42.) Thus
we can scarcely agree entirely with M. Maurice Vernes when
he says, "All men are monotheistic in the fervour of
adoration or in moments of deep thought". (L'Histoire des
Religions, Paris, 1887, p. 61.) The tendency of adoration
and of speculation is, however, monotheistic.
Again, the most ludicrous or infamous tales may be current about the adventures and misadventures of the grasshopper or the hawk. He may be, as mythically conceived, only one out of a crowd of similar magnified non-natural men or lower animals. But neither his companions nor his legend are likely to distract the thoughts of the Bushman who cries to Cagn for food, or of the Murri who tells his boy that Pund-jel watches him from the heavens, or of the Solomon Islander who appeals to Qat as he crosses the line of reefs and foam. Thus it may be maintained that whenever man turns to a guardian not of this world, not present to the senses, man is for the moment a theist, and often a monotheist. But when we look from aspiration to doctrine, from the solitary ejaculation to ritual, from religion to myth, it would probably be vain to suppose that an uncontaminated belief in one God only, the maker and creator of all things, has generally prevailed, either in America or elsewhere. Such a belief, rejecting all minor deities, consciously stated in terms and declared in ritual, is the result of long ages and efforts of the highest thought, or, if once and again the intuition of Deity has flashed on some lonely shepherd or sage like an inspiration, his creed has usually been at war with the popular opinions of men, and has, except in Islam, won its disciples from the learned and refined. America seems no exception to so general a rule.
An opposite opinion is very commonly entertained, because the narratives of missionaries, and even the novels of Cooper and others, have made readers familiar with such terms as "the Great Spirit" in the mouths of Pawnees or Mohicans. On the one hand, taking the view of borrowing, Mrs. E. A. Smith says: "'The Great Spirit,' so popularly and poetically know as the God of the Red Man,' and 'the happy hunting-ground,' generally reported to be the Indian's idea of a future state, are both of them but their ready conception of the white man's God and heaven".* Dr. Brinton, too,** avers that "the Great Spirit is a post-Christian conception." In most cases these terms are entirely of modern origin, coined at the suggestion of missionaries, applied to the white man's God....
* Bureau of Ethnology's Second Report, p. 52.
** Myths of the New World, New York, 1876, p. 58.
The Jesuits' Relations state positively that there was "no one immaterial God recognised by the Algonkin tribes, and that the title 'The Great Manito' was introduced first by themselves in its personal sense." The statement of one missionary cannot be taken, of course, to bind all the others. The Pere Paul le Jeune remarks: "The savages give the name of Manitou to whatsoever in nature, good or evil, is superior to man. Therefore when we speak of God, they sometimes call him 'The Good Manitou,' that is, 'The Good Spirit'."* The same Pere Paul le Jeune** says that by Manitou his flock meant un ange ou quelque nature puissante. Il y'en a de bons et de mauvais. The evidence of Pere Hierosme Lallemant*** has already been alluded to, but it may be as well to repeat that, while he attributes to the Indians a kind of unconscious religious theism, he entirely denies them any monotheistic dogmas. With Tertullian, he writes, Exclamant vocem naturaliter Christianam. "To speak truth, these peoples have derived from their fathers no knowledge of a god, and before we set foot in their country they had nothing but vain fables about the origin of the world. Nevertheless, savages as they were, there did abide in their hearts a secret sentiment of divinity, and of a first principle, author of all things, whom, not knowing, they yet invoked. In the forest, in the chase, on the water, in peril by sea, they call him to their aid."
* Relations de la Novelle France, 1637, p. 49.
** Relations, 1633, p. 17.
*** 1648, p. 77.
This guardian, it seems, receives different names in different circumstances. Myth comes in; the sky is a God; a Manitou dwelling in the north sends ice and snow; another dwells in the waters, and many in the winds.* The Pere Allouez** says, "They recognise no sovereign of heaven or earth". Here the good father and all who advocate a theory of borrowing are at variance with Master Thomas Heriot, "that learned Mathematician" (1588). In Virginia "there is one chiefe god, that has beene from all eternitie," who "made other gods of a principal order".*** Near New Plymouth, Kiehtan was the chief god, and the souls of the just abode in his mansions.**** We have already cited Alione, and shown that he and the other gods found by the first explorers, are certainly not of Christian origin.
* The Confessions of Kah-ge-ga-gah Bowh, a converted Crane
of the Ojibbeways, may be rather a suspicious document. Kah,
to shorten his noble name, became a preacher and platform-
speaker of somewhat windy eloquence, according to Mr.
Longfellow, who had heard him. His report is that in youth
he sought the favour of the Manitous (Mon-e-doos he calls
them), but also revered Ke-sha-mon-e-doo, the benevolent
spirit, "who made the earth with all its variety and smiling
beauty". But his narrative is very unlike the Indian account
of the manufacture of the world by this or that animal,
already given in "Myths of the Origin of Things". The
benevolent spirit, according to Kah's father, a medicine-
man, dwelt in the sun (Copway, Recollections of a Forest
Life, London, s. a. pp. 4, 5). Practical and good-natured
actions of the Great Spirit are recorded on p. 35. He
directs starving travellers by means of dreams.
** Relations, 1667, p. 1.
*** Arber, Captain John Smith, p. 321.
**** Op. cit., p. 768.
A curious account of Red Indian religion may be extracted from a work styled A Narrative of the Captivity and Adventures of John Tanner during a Thirty Years' Residence among the Indians (New York, 1830). Tanner was caught when a boy, and lived as an Indian, even in religion. The Great Spirit constantly appears in his story as a moral and protecting deity, whose favour and help may be won by "prayers, which are aided by magical ceremonies and dances. Tanner accepted and acted on this part of the Indian belief, while generally rejecting the medicine men, who gave themselves out for messengers or avaters of the Great Spirit. Tanner had frequent visions of the Great Spirit in the form of a handsome young man, who gave him information about the future. "Do I not know," said the appearance, "when you are hungry and in distress? I look down upon you at all times, and it is not necessary you should call me with such loud cries". (p. 189).