ISRAELITE AND INDIAN. 63 



stances because he was the most celebrated of all the tutelar gods, 

 and the reason for that celebrity was that the most powerful of 

 the clans claimed him as tutelar. 



Hecastotheism is a title given to the earliest form of religion 

 known, which belongs specially to the plane of savagery. In it 

 every object, animate or inanimate, which is remarkable in itself 

 or becomes so by association, is a quasi god. The transition be- 

 tween savagery and barbarism, as well as between the religions 

 of hecastotheism and zootheisin, connected with them, was not 

 sharply marked, so that all their features could coexist at a later 

 era, though in differing degrees of importance. 



This intermixture is found both among the Israelites and In- 

 dians. An illustration among many is in the worship of localities 

 and of local gods. Conspicuous rocks, specially large trees, pecul- 

 iar mountains, cascades, whirlpools, and similar objects received 

 worship from the Indians ; also the places where remarkable oc- 

 currences, as violent storms, had been noted ; and among some 

 tribes the particular ground on which the fasting of individuals 

 had taken place, with its accompanying dreams. The Indians 

 frequently marked these places, often by a pile of stones. The 

 Dakotas, when they did not have the stones, used buffalo skulls. 



In the Old Testament frequent allusions are made to a place 

 becoming holy where dreams or remarkable events had occurred. 

 They were designated by pillars. The Israelite compilers adopted 

 the pillar of Bethel for the same reason that required Mohammed 

 to adopt the Caaba. Though struggling for monotheism, they 

 could not always directly antagonize the old hecastotheism. 



Future State. The topic of a future state may be divided into 

 (1) the simple existence of the soul after death, (2) the resurrec- 

 tion of the body, and (3) a system of rewards and punishments 

 in the next world. 



The classical writers often distinguished two souls in the same 

 person one that wandered on the borders of the Styx until the 

 proper honors had been given to the corpse; the other being a 

 shadow, image, or simulacrum of the first, which remained in its 

 tomb or prowled around it. The latter could be easily invoked by 

 enchanters. 



Some of the Indians thought that the souls of the dead passed 

 to the country of their ancestors, from which they did not dare to 

 return because there was too much suffering on the road forward 

 and backward. Nevertheless, they believed that there was some- 

 thing spiritual which still existed with their human remains, and 

 they tell stories of it. Thus there are two souls, and the Dakotas 

 have four, one of which wanders about the earth and requires 

 food, the second watches over the body, the third hovers around 

 the village, and a fourth goes to the land of spirits. 



