62 The Ottawa Naturalist. U'^^Y 



opportunities were unrivalled; and they used them in a spirit of 

 faithful inquiry, accumulating facts, and leaving theory to their 

 successors." It is for this reason that the Jesuit Relations 

 should be regarded as the groundwork of Indian archaeology, 

 as far as Canada is concerned. They were written by men of 

 absolute integrity, who have given us as much of the life history 

 of the individual, the clan and the tribe, as came under their 

 observation; or as they were able to obtain from the most trust- 

 worthy sources. They describe the Indian, as the}'" found him, 

 embowered in the seclusion of his native forests; surrounded 

 by innumerable okies or manitous, both benevolent and malig- 

 nant, to whom he appealed for aid in the hour of his need, or 

 propitiated with sacrifices; venerating, with a sentiment akin 

 to worship, such animal ancestors as happened to be the proto- 

 types of his various clans; adhering to mythologies that agreed 

 fairly well in essentials though somewhat loosely defined in 

 matters of detail; believing, in his Nature-M-orship. in the soul 

 or spirit of the lake, the river and the cataract ; but without any 

 vestige of belief in that personification of benificence called "The 

 Great Spirit" who was presented to him afterwards by the mis- 

 sionaries, as the archetype of mankind, and recommended to 

 him as the Supreme Being whom he should worship. 



That the Jesuit record has been dictated by a spirit of 

 truthfulness, is apparent from its impartial treatment of Indian 

 tradition and worship; for, while some writers have endeavored 

 to interpret Indian mythology in such a manner as to make it 

 confonn to the bias of preconceived theories, these worthy 

 apostles of the Cross have given us the simple truth without 

 embellishments. Examples of this kind may be found in 

 Ragueneau's Relation, of 1648, in which he refers to the Hurons 

 as having received from their ancestors no knowledge of God; 

 and in the denial of AUouez, in his Relation of 1667, that any 

 such knowledge existed among the tribes of Lake Superior. It 

 is not probable that these men would have failed to recognize 

 any such belief had the case been otherwise. Thus, these subtle 

 reasoners, and past-masters in theological disquisition, were 

 unable to discover, in such manitous as Manabozho, or the Great 

 White Hare of the Algonkins, or, in Rawen Niyoh, the great oki 

 of the Huron-Iroquois, beings analogous to the white man's God. 



Now, the writer is convinced that this field of archaeological 

 Inquiry should be entered, with the assistance of the "open se- 

 same" of the historical record; and that, by following up the 

 clues, transmitted to us by the Jesuits and other contemporary 

 writers, we should devote our attention to such portions of this 

 field as are most likely to yield the best results, under careful 

 and methodical cultivation. 



