It remains to speak of the religious and superstitious ideas which so
deeply influenced Indian life.


RELIGION AND SUPERSTITIONS.

The religious belief of the North-American Indians seems, on a first view,
anomalous and contradictory. It certainly is so, if we adopt the popular
impression. Romance, Poetry, and Rhetoric point, on the one hand,
to the august conception of a one all-ruling Deity, a Great Spirit,
omniscient and omnipresent; and we are called to admire the untutored
intellect which could conceive a thought too vast for Socrates and Plato.
On the other hand, we find a chaos of degrading, ridiculous, and
incoherent superstitions. A closer examination will show that the
contradiction is more apparent than real. We will begin with the lowest
forms of Indian belief, and thence trace it upward to the highest
conceptions to which the unassisted mind of the savage attained.

To the Indian, the material world is sentient and intelligent. Birds,
beasts, and reptiles have ears for human prayers, and are endowed with an
influence on human destiny. A mysterious and inexplicable power resides
in inanimate things. They, too, can listen to the voice of man, and
influence his life for evil or for good. Lakes, rivers, and waterfalls
are sometimes the dwelling-place of spirits; but more frequently they are
themselves living beings, to be propitiated by prayers and offerings.
The lake has a soul; and so has the river, and the cataract. Each can
hear the words of men, and each can be pleased or offended. In the
silence of a forest, the gloom of a deep ravine, resides a living mystery,
indefinite, but redoubtable. Through all the works of Nature or of man,
nothing exists, however seemingly trivial, that may not be endowed with a