What strikes us the most in this analysis of the opinions entertained by the red race on a future life is the clear and positive hope of a hereafter, in such strong contrast to the feeble and vague notions of the ancient Israelites, Greeks, and Romans, and yet the entire inertness of this hope in leading them to a purer moral life. It offers another proof that the fulfilment of duty is in its nature nowise connected with or derived from a consideration of ultimate personal consequences. It is another evidence that the religious is wholly distinct from the moral sentiment, and that the origin of ethics is not to be sought in connection with the ideas of divinity and responsibility.
[233-1] Journal Historique, p. 351: Paris, 1740.
[234-1] Rep. of the Commissioner of Ind. Affairs, 1854, pp. 211, 212. The old woman is once more a personification of the water and the moon.
[234-2] Bægert, Acc. of the Aborig. Tribes of the Californian Peninsula, translated by Chas. Rau, in Ann. Rep. Smithson. Inst., 1866, p. 387.
[235-1] Of the Nicaraguans Oviedo says: “Ce n’est pas leur cœur qui va en haut, mais ce qui les faisait vivre; c’est-à-dire, le souffle qui leur sort par la bouche, et que l’on nomme Julio” (Hist. du Nicaragua, p. 36). The word should be yulia, kindred with yoli, to live. (Buschmann, Uber die Aztekischen Ortsnamen, p. 765.) In the Aztec and cognate languages we have already seen that ehecatl means both wind, soul, and shadow (Buschmann, Spuren der Aztek. Spr. in Nördlichen Mexico, p. 74).
[236-1] Rel. de la Nouv. France, An 1636, p. 104; “Keating’s Narrative,” i. pp. 232, 410.
[237-1] French, Hist. Colls. of Louisiana, iii. p. 26.
[237-2] Mrs. Eastman, Legends of the Sioux, p. 129.
[237-3] Voy. à la Louisiane fait en 1720, p. 155: Paris, 1768.
[239-1] Dupratz, Hist. of Louisiana, ii. p. 219; Dumont, Mems. Hist. sur la Louisiane, i. chap. 26.