Referring to Mr. Eells, the Nez Percé missionary, and to Mr. Williams, who has been laboring among the Chippewas, Mr. Peet observes:[278]
There are four or five points on which both missionaries seem to be agreed * * * These four doctrines—the existence of God, immortality of the soul, the sinfulness of man, and the necessity of sacrifice—seem to have been held in various modified forms by all the tribes in North America.
On the next page[279] he gives a classification of native religions, by which he means those of America. He says that these religions may be divided by geographical districts into several classes:
(1) Shamanism, by which he seems to mean the worship of the wakan men and women. “Among the Eskimos, Aleuts, and other hyperborean nations, who subsist chiefly by fishing.” (2) Animism, by which he probably means the worship of “souls” or “shades,” including ghosts, as every object, whether animate or inanimate, is thought to have a “shade.” This belief, he says, is found in its highest stage among tribes that formerly dwelt in British North America, between Hudsons Bay and the Great Lakes. These tribes subsist by hunting. (3) Animal worship, practiced by a class partly hunters, partly farmers, dwelling, say, between 35° and 48° N. lat. (4) Sun worship, the cult of the tribes south of 35° N. lat., and extending to the Gulf of Mexico. (5) Elemental worship, which he defines as “the worship of rain, lightning, the god of war and death,” found in Mexico and New Mexico. (6) Anthropomorphism, a religion which gave human attributes to the divinities, but assigned to them supernatural powers. This prevailed in Central America.
THE AUTHOR’S REPLY.
§ 361. But what do we find prevalent among the tribes under consideration in this paper?
I. Idea of God.—The Siouan tribes considered in this paper were not monotheists (§§ 26, 94, 95, 311). The statement recorded in § 21 about a crude belief in a Supreme Being, which the Omaha called Wakanda, was accepted by the author as the belief of his informants; but we must remember that the Omaha tribe has been in a transition state for many years, certainly since 1855, and possibly since the days of Maj. Long’s visits to them. (2) That these Indians believed in a Great Spirit who was supreme over all other superhuman powers needs more evidence. The only assertion of such a belief which the author has gained was obtained from an Omaha (see § 22), but this assertion was denied by two other members of that tribe. (3) In those cases alleged as proving a belief in one Great Spirit, a closer study of the language employed reveals the fact that a generic term has been used instead of a specific one, and, in almost every instance, the writer who tells of one Great Spirit supplements his account by relating what he has learned about beliefs in many gods or spirits. (4) These tribes had cults of many powers; everything animate and inanimate was regarded as having a “shade.”
II. Belief in immortality.—The author finds no traces of a belief in the immortality of human beings. Even the gods of the Dakota were regarded as being mortal, for they could be killed by one another (§ 94). They were male and female; they married and died, and were succeeded by their children. But if for “immortality” we substitute “continuous existence as shades or ghosts” there will be no difficulty in showing that the Siouan tribes referred to held such a belief respecting mankind, and that they very probably entertained it in a crude form prior to the advent of the white race to this continent (§§ 67-71, 91, 338).
III. Idea of sin.—The scriptural idea of sin seems to be wanting among these tribes. There have been recorded by the author and others many acts which were deemed violations of religious law, but few of them can be compared with what the Bible declares to be sins. It was dangerous to make a false report to the keeper of the sacred tent of war or to the directors of the buffalo hunt, in the estimation of the Omaha, for the offender was sure to be struck by lightning or bitten by a snake or killed by a foe or thrown by a horse or have some other disaster befall him.[280] It was dangerous to break the taboo of any gens or subgens, or to violate any other ancient custom.[281] (See §§ 45, 68, 222, and 286 of this paper.)