EELIGION. 273 



action of one great power all the good, and to the other 

 great power all the bad, that may happen to him. For 

 his devoted and unremitting services on behalf of the 

 Indian the good god demands nothing in return no 

 adulation, no prayers, not even thanks. He is the 

 Indian's friend, as the bad god is his enemy, for some 

 inscrutable reason of his own, which the Indian does not 

 undertake to divine. 



While the Indian believes in another life after death, 

 the power of the two gods does not extend to it, but is 

 restricted entirely to benefits or injuries in this world ; 

 and his status after death does not in any way depend 

 either on his own conduct while living, or on the will of 

 either of the two gods. 



It must be understood that the Indian can do no wrong ; 

 in other words, he has no moral sense whatever. Murder 

 and theft are his means of livelihood. Greed, inconti- 

 nence, and other traits, which we call vices, are as natural 

 to him as to any other animal, and under no greater 

 restraint than brute instinct or fear. He may be punished 

 corporally for a crime against his chief or tribe. He 

 may have to pay ponies for stabbing another Indian, or 

 for taking away his wife ; but all crimes and peccadilloes 

 bring, or do not bring, their punishment in this life. 

 Whatever his character, whatever the actual deeds done 

 in the flesh, the Indian, when dead, goes at once to the 

 Happy Hunting Grounds, unless debarred by accident. 



There are two ways by which the Indian soul can be 

 kept out of the Happy Hunting Grounds. The first by 

 scalping the head of the dead body. No scalped Indian 

 can ever inherit their kingdom of heaven. Hence the 

 eagerness of each tribe to scalp all their enemies, and the 

 care they take to prevent being themselves scalped. 

 This superstition is the occasion for the display of the 

 very best traits of Indian character. Most reckless 

 charges are made, and desperate chances taken, by war- 

 riors to carry off unscalped the body of a chief or of a 



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