800 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



element of man is directly stated ; and in connection with this 

 there is the following passage from the " Ethnography and Phi- 

 lology of the Hidatsa Indians/' * by the same learned author : 



" They " (the Hidatsa Indians) " worship everything in nature. 

 Not man alone, but the sun, the moon, the stars, all the lower ani- 

 mals, all trees and plants, rivers and lakes, many bowlders and 

 other separated rocks, even some small hills and buttes which 

 stand alone in short, everything not made by human hands, 

 which has an independent being, or can be individualized, pos- 

 sesses a spirit, or, more properly, a shade. 



" To these shades some respect or consideration is due, but not 

 equally to all. For instance, the shade of the cottonwood, the 

 greatest tree of the upper Missouri Valley, is supposed to possess 

 an intelligence which may, if properly approached, assist them in 

 certain undertakings ; but the shades of shrubs and grasses are of 

 little importance. . . . Formerly it was considered wrong to cut 

 down one of these great trees, and, when large logs were needed, 

 only such as were found fallen were used ; and to-day some of the 

 more credulous old men declare that many of the misfortunes of 

 the people are the result of their modern disregard for the rights 

 of the living cottonwood." 



These views are exactly similar to those held by the negroes of 

 the Gold and Slave Coasts. With them, as with the Hidatsa In- 

 dians, the shades, or third elements, of shrubs and grasses, which 

 experience has proved to be innocuous, are of little importance ; 

 while, like the cottonwood, the Bombax, the giant of the West Afri- 

 can forest, whose gray trunk frequently rises to a height of ninety 

 feet before a single branch is thrown out, is reverenced. The 

 Tshi-speaking peoples have indeed classed the indwelling spirits, 

 or third elements, of these trees into a species called Srahmantin 

 monstrous beings, gray in color and with long hair, who hurl 

 down the decayed trees upon passers-by. How did the Hidatsa 

 Indians form the belief that "everything not made by human 

 hands, which has an independent being, or can be individualized, 

 possesses a spirit, or, more properly, a shade " ? Do they, like the 

 Navajos, believe that they possess a third element ; and have they, 

 like the negroes of the Gold and Slave Coasts, extended the belief 

 to all nature, or has with them Nature-worship originated in some 

 other way ? 



Among other instances reported from North America the fol- 

 lowing may be mentioned : The Algonquins are said to believe 

 in two " souls," one of which goes out during sleep, and whose 

 adventures during its absence are the occurrences dreamed of, 

 while the other stays with the body. The same people are also 

 said to believe that sickness is caused by the man's " shadow " 



* Washington, Government Printing-Office, 18V7, p. 48. 



