the native beliefs. Thus if I find Ahone, or a deity of like
attributes, after a very early date, he is of no use for my purpose.
Nor do I much expect to find him. But do we find Winslow's
Massachusetts God, Kiehtan, named AFTER 1622 ("I only ask for
information"), and if we don't, does that prevent Mr. Tylor from
citing Kiehtan, with apparent reliance on the evidence?[1]


[1] Primitive Culture, ii. p. 342.


Again, Ahone, though primal and creative, is, by Strachey's
account, a sleeping partner. He has no sacrifice, and no temple or
idol is recorded. Therefore the belief in Ahone could only be
discovered as a result of inquiry, whereas figures of Oke or Okeus,
and his services, were common and conspicuous.[1] As to Oke, I
cannot quite understand Mr. Tylor's attitude. Summarising Lafitau,
a late writer of 1724, Mr. Tylor writes: "The whole class of
spirits or demons, known to the Caribs by the name of cemi, in
Algonkin as manitu, in Huron as oki, Lafitau now spells with
capital letters, and converts them each into a supreme being".[2]
Yet in Primitive Culture, ii., 342, 1891, Mr. Tylor had cited
Smith's Okee (with a capital letter) as the "chief god" of the
Virginians in 1612. How can Lafitau be said to have elevated oki
into Oki, and so to have made a god out of "a class of spirits or
demons," in 1724, when Mr. Tylor had already cited Smith's Okee,
with a capital letter and as a "chief god," in 1612? Smith,
rebuked for the same by Mr. Tylor, had even identified Okee with
the devil. Lafitau certainly did not begin this erroneous view of
Oki as a "chief god" among the Virginians. If I cannot to-day