GATSCHET KAS. LEG. COMMEXTARY, [73 J 41 



gan conceptions: (i) nana-pi'sa, "director, judge"; (2) istahiillo tchi'to 

 (also used of witches) and nanishtahiillo tchi'to; (3) hdsh ta'hli, from 

 ha'shi, sun; ta'hli, to comflete an act : (4^) yiiba pai'k, "our fatlier above." 

 A ghost they cal! shilup ; and the proper meaning of shilambish, now 

 soul, is shado-v. 



From all this it appears that the Great Spirit was supposed to 

 reside in the sun, and that he was the Sun-god himself. Although 

 the Great Spirit, or the Isakita immissi of the Creeks, was there- 

 fore practically identical with the Sun-god and the sun itself, a 

 formal distinction between it and the sun was always made.* 

 Thus when the head chief of the Creek confederacy wanted to 

 conciliate the Alibamu towns in 1S13 in favor of the United 

 States Government, he dispatched a runner to them with the fol- 

 lowing message : 



You saj that the Great Spirit visits jou frequently; that he comes in 

 the sun, and speaks to you ; that the sun comes down just above your 

 heads. Now we want to see and hear what you have seen and heard. Let 

 us have the same proof, then we will believe. You have nothing to fear.f 



A singular instance how fire cotild become sacred among In- 

 dians is given in "Life of Black Hawk" (1834), PP* ^7* ^^' ^^^ 

 great-grandfather of that famous Sak chief proclaimed during a 

 violent thunder-storm, that this storm had been caused by him, 

 and that it exemplified the name given to him by the Great Spirit, 

 this name being 77iz^wrt?^7-. Nanamaki. A stroke of lightning then 

 set fire to a tree close by ; Nanamaki brought some of its burniiig 

 branches to the lodge, made a fire and seated his brothers around 

 it ; thereupon, being the holder of the medicine-bag in the tribe, 

 he repeated the statement in an address to his people, that the 

 Great Spirit had made that fire through him. 



"On thk AioiXTAix WAS A roLP:," etc. The restless pole is 

 one of the various camp-signals in use among primitive nations. 

 It is mentioned in the migration stories of the Chicasa, Cha'hta 

 and Creeks, and the manner in which it worked, or was worked, 



* Compare what A. H. Saycc, '• Anc. Empires of the East," p. 267, says about Persian 

 fire-worship : •' At one time, no douht, fire itself was worshipped like the primitive Aryan 

 hearth on which it had originally blazed, and Atar, the fire-g-od, held high rank among the 

 Zoroastria is; but eventually il became the medium through which the worshipper ap- 

 proached his deity." 



t Pickett, -'History of Alabama," ii. i>p. 250-251. 



