578 RUDIMENTS OF RELIGION. 



senior of the first party that came on board, was judged to be 

 the most proper person to question on the subject of religion. 

 I directed Sacheuse to ask him if he had any knowledge of a 

 Supreme Being ; but after trying every word used in his own 

 language to express it, he could not make him understand 

 what he meant. It was distinctly ascertained that he did not 

 worship the sun, moon, stars, or any image or living creature. 

 When asked what the sun or moon was for, he said to give 

 light. He had no knowledge, or idea, how he came into being, 

 or of a future state ; but said that when he died he would be 

 put into the ground. Having fully ascertained that he had 

 no idea of a beneficent Supreme Being, I proceeded, through 

 Sacheuse, to inquire if he believed in an evil spirit ; but he 



could not be made to understand what it meant He was 



positive that in this incantation he did not receive assistance 

 from anything, nor could he be made to understand what a 

 good or an evil spirit meant."* 



In some cases travellers have arrived at these views very 

 much to their own astonishment. Thus Father Dobritzhoffer 

 says : " Theologians agree in denying that any man in posses- 

 sion of his reason can, without a crime, remain ignorant of 

 God for any length of time. This opinion I warmly defended 

 in the University of Cordoba, where I finished the four years* 

 course of theology begun at Gratz, in Styria. But what was 

 my astonishment when, on removing from thence to a colony 

 of Abipones, I found that the whole language of these savages 

 does not contain a single word which expresses God or a 

 divinity. To instruct them in religion, it was necessary to 

 borrow the Spanish word for God, and insert into the cate- 

 chism 'Dios ecnam caogerik/ ' God the creator of things."' f 



Canon Callaway, in his " Eeligious System of the Amazulu 



* Ross's Voyage of Discovery to t 1. c. vol. ii. p. 57. See also 

 the Arctic Regions, p. 127. p. 64. 



