[274] “Kytan was an appellation of the greatest manito. The word signifies ‘greatest’ or ‘pre-eminent.’ See my note (p. 207) in Lechford’s Plaine Dealing (p. 120), where is mention of ‘Kitan, their good god.’ Roger Williams in a letter to Thomas Thorowgood, 1635, names ‘their god Kuttand to the south-west’ (Jewes in America, 1650, p. 6) but in his Key, he writes the name Cautantowit (To the Reader, p. 24.) i. e., Keihte-anito—‘greatest manito.’
“I have not met with the name Sanaconquam elsewhere: at least I do not remember seeing it except in Morton. The derivation is apparently from a word meaning to press upon, to op-press, to crush, or the like.” (Manuscript Letter of J. H. Trumbull, June 25, 1882.)
See, also, authorities referred to supra, p. [140], note, and also Ellis’s Red Man and White Man, pp. 134-9. Morell has a passage on the Indian’s methods of worship in his poem. (I. Mass. Hist. Coll., vol. i. p. 136.)
[275] Roger Williams says: “They will relate how they have it from their Fathers, that Kantántowwit made one man and woman of a stone, which disliking, he broke them in pieces, and made another man and woman of a tree, which were the Fountaines of all mankind.” (Key, ch. xxi.)
“They believe that the soules of men and women goe to the Sou-west, their great and good men and women to Cantántowwit his House, where they have hopes (as the Turks have) of carnal Joyes: Murtherers, theeves and Lyers, their souls (say they) wander restlesse abroad.” (Ib.)
Wood, enlarging on this, says: “Yet do they hold the immortality of the never-dying soul, that it shall passe to the South-west Elysium, concerning which their Indian faith jumps much with the Turkish Alchoran, holding it to be a kind of Paradise, wherein they shall everlastingly abide, solacing themselves in odoriferous Gardens, fruitfull corn-fields, green meadows, bathing their hides in the coole streams of pleasant Rivers, and shelter themselves from heat and cold in the sumptuous Pallaces framed by the skill of Natures curious contrivement. Concluding that neither care nor pain shall molest them but that Natures bounty wil administer all things with a voluntary contribution from the overflowing storehouse of their Elysian Hospital, at the portall whereof they say lies a great Dog, whose churlish snarlings deny a Pax intrantibus to unworthy intruders.” (Prospect, p. 79.)
Parkman says: “The primitive Indian believed in the immortality of the soul, but he did not always believe in a state of future reward and punishment.” (Jesuits in North America, p. lxxx.) Referring to a case in which one of the Jesuits quoted an Indian as saying “there was no future life,” Parkman adds: “It would be difficult to find another instance of the kind.”
The romantic view of the Indian on this point was taken by Arnold, in his History of Rhode Island (vol. i. p. 78), and the realistic view by Palfrey, in his New England (vol. i. p. 49); and, though writing at the same time, the two seem to be controverting each other. See Ellis’s Red Man and White Man, p. 115.