POWELL. ] THE COURSE OF EVOLUTION. 4l 
terprise is undertaken without consulting the gods, and no evil im- 
pends but they seek to propitiate the gods. All daily life, to the minutest 
particular, is religious. This stage of religion is characterized by fetich- 
ism. Every Indian is provided with his charm or fetich, revealed to 
him in some awful hour of ecstasy produced by fasting, or feasting, or 
drunkenness, and that fetich he carries with him to bring good luck, in 
love or in combat, in the hunt or on the journey. He carries a fetich 
suspended to his neck, he ties a fetich to his bow, he buries a fetich 
under his tent, he places a fetich under his pillow of wild-cat skins, he 
prays to his fetich, he praises it, or chides it; if successful, his fetich 
receives glory; if he fail, his fetich is disgraced. These fetiches may be 
fragments of bone or shell, the tips of the tails of animals, the claws of 
birds or beasts, perhaps dried hearts of little warblers, shards of beetles, 
leaves powdered and held in bags, or crystals from the rocks—anything 
curious may become a fetich. Fetichism, then, is a religious means, not 
a philosophic or mythologic state. Such are the supreme gods of the 
savage, and such the institutions which belong to their theism. Butthey 
have many other inferior gods. Mountains, hills, valleys, and great rocks 
have their own special deities—invisible spirits—and lakes, rivers, and 
springs are the homes of spirits. But all these have animal forms when 
in proper persone. Yet some of the medicine-spirits can transform 
themselves, and work magic as do medicine-men. The heavenly bodies 
are either created personages or ancient men or animals translated to 
the sky. And, last, we find that ancestors are worshipped as gods. 
Among all the tribes of North America with which we are acquainted 
tutelarism prevails. Every tribe and every clan has its own protecting 
god, and every individual has his my god. It is a curious fact that 
every Indian seeks to conceal the knowledge of his my god from all 
other persons, for he fears that, if his enemy should know of his tutelar 
deity, he might by extraordinary magic succeed in estranging him, and 
be able to compass his destruction through his own god. 
In this summary characterization of zodtheism, I have necessarily 
systematized my statements. ‘This, of course, could not be done by the 
savage himself. He could give you its particulars, but could not group 
those particulars in any logical way. He does not recognize any sys- 
tem, but talks indiscriminately, now of one, now of another god, and 
with him the whole theory as a system is vague and shadowy, but its 
particulars are vividly before his mind, and the certainty with which he 
entertains his opinions leaves no room to doubt his sincerity. 
But there is yet another phase of theism discovered. Sometimes a 
particular mountain, or hill, or some great rock, some waterfall, some 
lake, or some spring receives special worship, and is itself believed to 
be a deity. This seems to be a relic of hecastotheism. Fetichism, also, 
seems to have come from that lower grade, and all the minor deities, 
the spirits of mountains and hills and forest, seem to have been derived 
from that same stage, but with this development, that the things them- 
selves are not worshipped, but their essential spirits. 
