[66] The reader who cares to consult my studies upon the subject of Fetichism in Africa, where it is and ever has been the national creed, is referred to “The Lake Regions of Central Africa,” chap. xix. The modes of belief, and the manners and customs of savage and barbarous races are so similar, that a knowledge of the African is an excellent introduction to that of the American.
[67] This gourd or calabash is the produce of the Cucurbita lagenaria, or calabash vine. In Spanish, Central, and Southern America, Cuba and the West Indies, they use the large round fruit of the Crescentia cujete.
I can not but think that the two main articles of belief which have been set down to the credit of the Indian, namely, the Great Spirit or Creator, and the Happy Hunting-grounds in a future world, are the results of missionary teaching, the work of Fathers Hennepin, Marquette, and their noble army of martyred Jesuit followers. In later days they served chiefly to inspire the Anglo-American muse, e. g.:
“By midnight moons o’er moistening dews,
In vestments for the chase arrayed,
The hunter still the deer pursues—
The hunter and the deer, a shade!
And long shall timorous fancy see
The painted chief and pointed spear,
And Reason’s self shall bow the knee