Byrd (Wm.), History of the Dividing line (1729), vol. I. Reprint: Richmond, Va., 1866.
U. S. Geol. and Geogr. Surv., Miscell. Publ., No. 7, 1877: Ethnog. and Philol. of Hidatsa Indians. By Washington Matthews.
James’s Account of Long’s Exped., to Rocky Mountains, Phil., 1823, vol. I.
Lewis and Clarke’s Exped., ed. Allen, Dublin, 1817, vol. I.
The George Catlin Indian Gallery * * * Thomas Donaldson: Smithson. Rept., 1885, pt. 2, appendix.
Travels in * * * North America, by Maximilian, Prince of Wied. Trans. by H. Evans Lloyd, London, 1843.
ALLEGED BELIEF IN A GREAT SPIRIT.
§ 311. As among the Dakota, so among the Mandan and Hidatsa, we find that some of the earlier writers assert that the religion of the Indians under consideration “consists in the belief in one Great Spirit.”[217]
But such assertions are closely followed by admissions which explain the mistake of the writer: “Great Spirit” is synonymous with “Great Medicine,” a name applied to everything which they do not comprehend. Among the Mandan, “each individual selects for himself the particular object of his devotion, which is termed his medicine, and is either some visible being, or more commonly some animal.”
THE GREAT MYSTERY A MODERN DEITY.
Matthews states of the Hidatsa:
Many claim that the Great Spirit, or, more properly, the Great Mystery, is a deity of the modern Indian only. I have certainly heard some old and very conservative Minnetarees speak of Mahopa as if they meant thereby an influence or power above all other things, but not attaching to it any ideas of personality. It would now be perhaps impossible to make a just analysis of their original conceptions in this matter.[218]
POLYTHEISM.
Instead of believing in one Great Spirit, the Mandan and Hidatsa “believe in a multitude of different beings in the heavenly bodies; offer sacrifices to them; invoke their assistance on every occasion; howl, lament, fast, inflict on themselves acts of penance to propitiate these spirits; and, above all, lay very great stress upon dreams.”[219]