MANITOUS AND ( KIES. Ixix 



but extended to inanimate things. A remarkable exam- 

 ple occurred among the Hurons, a people comparatively 

 advanced, who, to propitiate their fishing-nets, and per- 

 suade them to do their office with effect, married them 

 every year to two young girls of the tribe, with a cere- 

 mony far more formal than that observed in the case of 

 mere human wedlock.^ The fish, too, no less than the 

 nets, must be propitiated ; and to this end they were ad- 

 dressed every evening from the fishing-camp by one of 

 the party chosen for that function, who exhorted them 

 to take courage and be caught, assuring them that the 

 utmost respect should be shown to their bones. The 

 harangue, which took place after the evening meal, was 

 made in solemn form ; and while it lasted, the whole 

 party, except the speaker, were required to lie on their 

 backs, silent and motionless, around the fire.^ 



Besides ascribing life and intelligence to the material 

 world, animate and inanimate, the Indian believes in 

 supernatural existences, known among the Algonquins as 

 Manitous, and among the Iroquois and Hurons as Okies 

 or Otkons. These words comprehend all forms of super- 

 natural being, from the highest to the lowest, with the 

 exception, possibly, of certain diminutive fairies or hob- 

 goblins, and certain giants and anomalous monsters, 



^ There are frequent allusions to this ceremony in the early writers. 

 The Algonquins of the Ottawa practised it, as well as the Hurons. Lale- 

 mant, in his chapter " Du Regne de Satan en ces Contrees " {Relation des 

 Hurons, 1639), says that it took place yearly, in the middle of March. As 

 ■'twas indispensable that the brides should be virgins, mere children were 

 cnosen. The net was held between them ; and its spirit, or oh', was 

 harangued by one of the chiefs, who exhorted him to do his part in fur- 

 nishing the tribe with food. Lalemant was told that the spirit of the net 

 had once appeared in human form to the Algonquins, complaining that 

 he had lost his wife, and warning them, that, unless they could find him 

 another equally immaculate, they would catch no more fish. 



2 Sagard, Le Grand Voyage du Pays des Hurons, 257. Other old 

 writers make a similar statement. 



