CHAPTER VII. 



CONCLUDING REMARKS. 

 PEET ON INDIAN RELIGIONS. 



§ 360. In the Journal of the Victoria Institute of Great Britain for 

 1888/ is an article containing the following .statements, which were not 

 seen by the writer irutil he had completed the preceding chapters of this 

 paper. 



Referring to Mr. Eells, the Nez Perec missionary, and to Mr. Wil- 

 liams, who has been laboring among the Chippewas, Mr. Peet observes : ^ 



There are four or five poiats on which botli uiissionaries seem to be agreed » * » 

 These four doctrines — the existence of God, immortality of the soul, the sinfulness of 

 mau, and the necessity of sacrifice — seem to have been held in various modified forms 

 by all the tribes in North America. 



On the next page' he gives a classiflcatiou of native religions, by 

 which he means those of America. He says that tliese I'eligions may 

 be divided by geogTaphical districts into several classes: 



(1 ) Shamanism, by which he seems to mean the worship of the wakan 

 men and women. " Among the Esliimos, Aleuts, aud other hyperborean 

 nations, who subsi.st chiefly by fishing." (2) Animism, by which lie 

 jirobably means the worship of "souls" or "shades,"' including ghosts, 

 as every object, whether animate or inanimate, is thought to have a 

 " shade." This belief, he says, is found in its highest stage among tribes 

 that formerly dwelt in British ^STorth America, between Hudsons Bay 

 and the Great Lakes. These tribes subsist by hunting. (3) Animal 

 worship, practiced by a class partly hunters, partly farmers, dwelling, 

 say, between 35° and iS° N. lat. (i) Sun worship, the cult of the 

 tribes south of 35° N. lat., and extending to the Gulf of Mexico, 

 (5) Elemental worship, which lie defines as "the worship of rain, light- 

 ning, the god of war and death," found in Mexico and Xew Mexico. 

 (0) Anthropomorphism, a religion which gave human attributes to 

 the divinities, but assigned to them supernatural powers. This iire- 

 vailed in Central America. 



^Rev. S. D. Peet, on the tradition of aborigines of Xorth America, in Jour. Vict, Inst., Vol. xxi, pp. 



229-247. 



'Ibid., p. 232. 



»lbid.,p.233. 



520 



