humanity, while a natural tendency became apparent to look beyond him to
other powers sharing his dominion. The Indian belief, if developed,
would have developed into a system of polytheism.

[ Some of the early writers could discover no trace of belief in a
supreme spirit of any kind. Perrot, after a life spent among the Indians,
ignores such an idea. Allouez emphatically denies that it existed among
the tribes of Lake Superior. (Relation, 1667, 11.) He adds, however,
that the Sacs and Foxes believed in a great _genie_, who lived not far
from the French settlements.--Ibid., 21. ]

In the primitive Indian's conception of a God the idea of moral good has
no part. His deity does not dispense justice for this world or the next,
but leaves mankind under the power of subordinate spirits, who fill and
control the universe. Nor is the good and evil of these inferior beings
a moral good and evil. The good spirit is the spirit that gives good
luck, and ministers to the necessities and desires of mankind: the evil
spirit is simply a malicious agent of disease, death, and mischance.

In no Indian language could the early missionaries find a word to express
the idea of God. Manitou and Oki meant anything endowed with
supernatural powers, from a snake-skin, or a greasy Indian conjurer,
up to Manabozho and Jouskeha. The priests were forced to use a
circumlocution,--"The Great Chief of Men," or "He who lives in the Sky."
[ See "Divers Sentimens," appended to the Relation of 1635, sec. 27; and
also many other passages of early missionaries. ] Yet it should seem
that the idea of a supreme controlling spirit might naturally arise from
the peculiar character of Indian belief. The idea that each race of
animals has its archetype or chief would easily suggest the existence of
a supreme chief of the spirits or of the human race,--a conception