parable, holding scarcely more of poetic metaphor than of
scientific truth, were in his view the parents of all organic life.
From the Sun, as the universal father, proceeds the quickening
principle in nature, and in the patient and fruitful womb of our
mother, the Earth, are hidden embryos of plants and men.
Therefore our reverence and love for them was really an imaginative
extension of our love for our immediate parents, and with this
sentiment of filial piety was joined a willingness to appeal to
them, as to a father, for such good gifts as we may desire. This
is the material
or physical prayer.

The elements and majestic forces in nature, Lightning, Wind,
Water, Fire, and Frost, were regarded with awe as spiritual powers,
but always secondary and intermediate in character. We believed
that the spirit pervades all creation and that every creature
possesses a soul in some degree, though not necessarily a soul
conscious of itself. The tree, the waterfall, the grizzly
bear, each is an embodied Force, and as such an object of
reverence.

The Indian loved to come into sympathy and spiritual communion
with his brothers of the animal kingdom, whose inarticulate souls
had for him something of the sinless purity that we attribute to
the innocent and irresponsible child. He had faith in their
instincts, as in a mysterious wisdom given from above; and while he
humbly accepted the supposedly voluntary sacrifice of their bodies
to preserve his own, he paid homage to their spirits in prescribed
prayers and offerings.