THE " GKEAT SPIRIT." 507 



and which render monstrous the visage already ugly enough by 

 nature. 



The savage has no "industries" in the sense which we attach to 

 that comprehensive word; the terms "trade," "business," "pro- 

 fession," possess no equivalents in his language. He builds himself a 

 hut, a cabin, or a wigwam; and he fabricates for his use a few 

 indispensable implements, weapons, and utensils. The only profession 

 recognized among savage peoples is that of the priesthood. Priests, 

 indeed, are everywhere found as the teachers and ministers of a 

 religion if we are willing to bestow that sacred word on an incon- 

 gruous mass of superstitious practices and beliefs, founded upon some 

 dim idea of the existence of a Supreme Being. And this idea exists, 

 though very faintly and rudely, and mingled with many atrocious or 

 absurd aberrations, among most of the red-skins of North America 

 and the islanders of Polynesia. These races believe in the power of 

 a superior God, whom the former denominate the "Great Spirit," 

 Kitchi Manitou, and the latter Taoroa or Tangara ; as well as in 

 another life, a coarse and sensual immortality, wherein they hope to 

 enjoy the full measure of those animal delights which constitute their 

 ideal of perfect happiness. The conception which the savage forms 

 of his God is, nevertheless, a very poor and imperfect one. He never 

 connects him with his thoughts, his emotions, his moral or intellectual 

 nature ; but only with the material world with the thunder and the 

 lightning, the sunshine and the cloud. " Who is it," says the 

 Indian, " that causes the rain to rise in the high mountains, and to 

 empty itself into the ocean ? Who is it that causes to blow the loud 

 winds of winter, and that calms them again in the summer ? Who 

 is it that rears up the shade of those lofty forests, and blasts them 

 with the quick lightning at his pleasure ? " And so the Polynesian 

 employs his priest to propitiate his God with sacrifices when the storm 

 rages ; and the African, after a prolonged drought, engages the inter- 

 cession of his "rain-maker " to obtain the desired showers. It is not 

 a moral and a spiritual, but a maternal God, of whom the savage 

 conceives, and before whose anger he trembles. 



