“But, beside the Supreme Being, they believe in an infinite number of subaltern spirits, who are the objects of worship. These they divide into good and bad. The good spirits are called by the Hurons, Okkis, by the Algonquins, Mannitous. They suppose them to be the guardians of men, and that each has his own tutelary deity. In fact, every thing in nature has its spirit, though all have not the same rank nor the same influence. The animals they hunt have their spirits. If they do not understand any thing, they immediately say it is a spirit. If any man performs a remarkable exploit, or exhibits extraordinary talents, he is said to be a spirit, or in other words, his tutelary deity is supposed to be of more than ordinary power.[36]
“It is remarkable, however, that these tutelary deities are not supposed to take men under their protection till something has been done to merit the favour. A parent who wishes to obtain a guardian spirit for his child, first blackens his face, and then causes him to fast for several days. During this time it is expected that the spirit will reveal himself in a dream; and on this account, the child is anxiously examined every morning with regard to the visions of the preceding night. Whatever the child happens to dream of the most frequently, even if it happen to be the head of a bird, the foot of an animal, or any thing of the most worthless nature, becomes the symbol or figure under which the Okki reveals himself. With this figure, in the conceptions of his votary, the spirit becomes identified; the image is preserved with the greatest care—is the constant companion on all great and important occasions, and the constant object of consultation and worship.[37]
“As soon as a child is informed what is the nature or form of his protecting deity, he is carefully instructed in the obligations he is under to do him homage, to follow his advice communicated in dreams, to deserve his favours, to confide implicitly in his care, and to dread the consequences of his displeasure. For this reason, when the Huron or the Iroquois goes to battle or to the chase, the image of his Okki is as carefully carried with him as his arms. At night, each one places his guardian idol on the palisades surrounding the camp, with the face turned from the quarter to which the warriors, or hunters, are about to march. He then prays to it for an hour, as he does also in the morning before he continues his course. This homage performed, he lies down to rest, and sleeps in tranquility, fully persuaded that his spirit will assume the whole duty of keeping guard, and that he has nothing to fear.
“With this account of Charlevoix, the relations which the Moravian missionaries give, not only of the Iroquois, but also of the Lenapés, or Delawares, and numerous tribes derived from them, perfectly accord. ‘The prevailing opinion of all these nations is,’ says Loskiel, ‘that there is one God, or as they call him, one great and good spirit, who has created the heavens and the earth, and made man and every other creature. But beside the Supreme Being, they believe in good and evil spirits, considering them as subordinate deities. Our missionaries have not found rank polytheism, or gross idolatry, to exist among the Indians. They have, however, something which may be called an idol. This is the manitto, representing in wood, the head of a man in miniature, which they always carry about them, either on a string round their neck, or in a bag. They hang it also about their children, to preserve them from illness, and ensure to them success. When they perform a solemn sacrifice, a manitto, or a head as large as life, is put upon a pole in the middle of the house. But they understand by the word manitto, every being to which an offering is made, especially all good spirits. They also look upon the elements, almost all animals, and even some plants, as spirits; one exceeding the other in dignity and power. The manittoes are also considered as tutelar spirits. Every Indian has one or more, which he conceives to be peculiarly given to him to assist him and make him prosper. One has, in a dream, received the sun as his tutelar spirit, another the moon; a third, an owl; a fourth, a buffalo. An Indian is dispirited, and considers himself as forsaken by God, till he has received a tutelar spirit in a dream; but those who have been thus favoured, are full of courage and proud of their powerful ally.”[38]
This account is corroborated by Heckewelder, in his late interesting history of the Indian nations.
“It is a part of their religious belief” says he, “that there are inferior manittoes to whom the great and good being has given the rule and command over the elements; that being so great, he, like their chiefs, must have his attendants to execute his supreme behests: these subordinate spirits, (something in their nature between God and man) see and report to him what is doing upon earth; they look down particularly upon the Indians, to see whether they are in need of assistance, and are ready at their call to assist and protect them against danger. Thus I have frequently witnessed Indians, on the approach of a storm or thunder-gust, address the manitto of the air to avert all danger from them; I have also seen the Chippeways, on the lakes of Canada, pray to the manitto of the waters, that he might prevent the swells from rising too high, while they were passing over them. In both these instances they expressed their willingness to be grateful, by throwing tobacco in the air or strewing it on the waters. ‘But amidst all these superstitious notions, the supreme manitto, the creator and preserver of heaven and earth, is the great object of their adoration. On him they rest their hopes; to him they address their prayers, and make their solemn sacrifices.’[39]
“The Knistineaux Indians who inhabit the country extending from Labrador, across the continent, to the Highlands which divide the waters on Lake Superior, from those of Hudson’s Bay, appear, from Mackenzie’s account, to have the same system, of one great Supreme, and innumerable subordinate deities. ‘The great master of life,’ to use their own expression, is the sacred object of their devotion. But each man carries in his medicine bag a kind of household god, which is a small carved image, about eight inches long. Its first covering is of down, over which a piece of beech bark is closely tied, and the whole is enveloped in several folds of blue and red cloth. This little figure is an object of the most pious regard.
“It is remarkable, that the description given by Peter Martyr, who was the companion of Columbus, of the worship of the inhabitants of Cuba, perfectly agrees with this account of the Northern Indians, by Mackenzie. They believed in the existence of one supreme, invisible, immortal and omnipotent Creator, whom they named Jocahuna, but at the same time acknowledged a plurality of subordinate deities. They had little images called Zemes, whom they looked upon as only a kind of messengers between them and the eternal omnipotent and invisible God. These images they consider as bodies inhabited by spirits, and oracular responses were therefore received from them as uttered by the divine command.”[40]
“The religion of Porto Rico, Jamaica, and Hispaniola, was the same as that of Cuba; for the inhabitants were of the same race, and spoke the same language. The Caribbean Islands, on the other hand, were inhabited by a very fierce and savage people who were continually at war with the milder natives of Cuba and Hispaniola, and were regarded by them with the utmost terror and abhorence. Yet ‘the Charaibeans,’ to use the language of the elegant historian of the West Indies, ‘while they entertained an awful sense of the one great Universal Cause, of a superior, wise, and invisible Being of absolute and irresistible power, admitted also the agency of subordinate divinities. They supposed that each individual person had his peculiar protector, or tutelar deity; and they had their laws and penalties, gods of their own creating.’ Hughes, in his history of Barbadoes, mentions many fragments of Indian idols, dug up in that island, which were composed of the same materials as their earthen vessels. ‘I saw the head of one,’ says he, ‘which alone weighed above sixty pounds. This, before it was broken off, stood upon an oval pedestal, about three feet in height. The heads of all the others were very small. These lesser idols were, in all probability, made small for the ease and conveniency of being carried with them in their several journeys, as the larger sort were perhaps designed for the stated places of worship.’”[41]
“Thus, in this vast extent of country, from Hudson’s Bay, to the West Indies, including nations whose languages are radically different, nations unconnected with, and unknown to, each other, the greatest uniformity of belief prevails, with regard to the supreme Being, and the greatest harmony in their system of polytheism. After this view, it is impossible not to remark, that there is a similar departure from the original religion among the Indians of America, as among the more civilized nations of Egypt, Greece, and Rome. The idea of the Divine Unity is much more perfectly preserved; the subordinate divinities are kept at a much more immeasurable distance from the Great Spirit; and, above all, there has been no attempt among them to degrade to the likeness of men the invisible and incomprehensible Creator of the universe. In fact, theirs is exactly that milder form of idolatry which ‘prevailed everywhere from the days of Abraham, his single family excepted,’ and which, after the death of that patriarch and of his son Isaac, infected, from time to time, even the chosen family itself.”[42]