302 IDEAS OF A DEITY. 



zone, on the banks of the Missouri, as well as on the table* 

 land of New Mexico, the American is a hunter; but in 

 the torrid zone, in the forests of G-uiana, he cultivates 

 cassava, plantains, and sometimes maize. Such is the 

 admirable fertility of nature, that the field of the native 

 is a little spot of land, to clear which requires only setting 

 fire to the brambles ; and putting a few seeds or slips into 

 the ground is all the husbandry it demands. If we go 

 back in thought to the most remote ages, in these thick 

 forests we must always figure to ourselves nations deriving 

 the greater part of their nourishment from the earth ; but, 

 as this earth produces abundance in a small space, and 

 almost without toil, we may also imagine these nations 

 often changing their dwellings along the banks of the same 

 river. Even now the native of the Orinoco travels with his 

 seeds; and transports his farm (conuco) as the Arab 

 transports his tent, and changes his pasturage. The num- 

 ber of cultivated plants found wild amid the woods, proves 

 the nomad habits of an agricultural people. Can we bo 

 surprised, that by these habits they lose almost all tho 

 advantages that result in the temperate zone from station- 

 ary culture, from the growth of corn, which requires exten- 

 sive lands and the most assiduous labour ? 



The nations of the Upper Orinoco, the Atabapo, and the 

 Inirida, like the ancient Germans and the Persians, have no 

 other worship than that of the powers of nature. They caill 

 the good principle Cachimana ; it is the Manitou, the Great 

 Spirit, that regulates the seasons, and favours the harvests. 

 Along with Cachimana there is an evil Drinciple, lolokiawo, 

 less powerful, but more artful, and in particular more 

 active. The Indians of the forest, when they occasionally 

 risit the missions, conceive with difficulty the idea of a 

 temple or an image. "These good people," said the mis- 

 sionary, " like only processions in the open air. "When I 

 last celebrated the festival of San Antonio, the patron of 

 my village, the Indians of Inirida were present at mass. 

 * Tour God,' said they to me, ' keeps himself shut up in a 

 house, as if he were old and infirm ; ours is in the forest, in 

 the fields, and on the mountains of Sipapu, whence the rains 

 come.' " Among the more numerous, and on this account 

 less barbarous tribes, religious societies of a singular kind 



