252 FOSSIL MEN. 



and what relations have their religions to those of the 

 ancient and pre-historic peoples of the Old World ? 

 What do primitive, untutored men like those whose 

 stern, grave faces are presented in the two photo- 

 graphs of Chippewa chiefs reproduced here, believe as 

 to the great questions relating to God and a future 

 state ? There is the more reason to ask these ques- 

 tions, since it has been too much the habit of modern 

 writers to deny to such rude tribes the possession of 

 any religious ideas, because they do not present the 

 forms of religion best known to us. It would seem as 

 if a people not possessing churches, or temples, or 

 images, or pictures, or a caste of priests, must neces- 

 sarily have no religion, just as for similar reasons the 

 early Christians were stigmatised as atheists, and as 

 Laud is said, on returning from a tour in Scotland, to 

 have reported that he could perceive no indications 

 of religion among the Presbyterian people of that 

 country. * 



Our first answer shall be from the narrative of the 

 old Breton seaman, Cartier, who discovered the St. 

 Lawrence three hundred years ago, and who can teach 

 us all the better that he is no missionary, but merely 

 a rough sailor, not recognising any similarity between 

 the traditions of the Indians and those he himself 

 believed. The creed of Stadacona, the ancient Que- 

 bec, according to him might be stated thus : " There 



* For remarkable and curious illustrations of this prejudice, 

 I may refer to the discussion of this subject in Lubbock's 

 " Pre-historic Times." 



