230 REV. S. D. PEET ON THE TRADITIONS OF 
missionaries among the Indian tribes have great advantages, 
and frequently find opportunities for learning the peculiar 
beliefs of the aborigines. It is true that many have failed to 
improve their opportunities, and have very strangely remained 
in ignorance of the very systems of thought and of ethnical 
religion which are so prevalent around them. Mr. Hells 
has, however, taken the pains to investigate the traditions 
and customs, and has brought out from time to time a con- 
siderable amount of valuable material. This is fortunate, for 
the opinion is held quite extensively in this country that the 
missionaries are poor authorities on ethnological subjects. 
It is not an opinion which is justifiable, for there are very 
many scholars among these Christian laborers, and some of 
the very best contributions to the science have come from 
them. The many translations of the Bible into Indian are 
monuments of industry. ‘These translations were many of 
them made at a time when there were no ethnologists in this 
country, and had it not been for their self-denying and 
scholarly labour there would be no record of the state of the 
native languages at the time. 
It is a remarkable fact that the Indian Bible which was 
prepared by Rev. John Eliot in 1661 is now, not only very 
scarce, bringing fabulous prices, but the persons who are able 
to read it are still more scarce. The Dakotah dictionary of 
Rev. 8. L. Riggs is an extremely valuable work, and the only 
one which has ever been prepared on that stock of languages. 
In this department, the labors of the missionaries are 
appreciated, but in the line of mythology and comparative 
religion there seems to be a strange lack of confidence. (1) 
It is said that they do not discriminate between the native 
traditions and those which have been borrowed. (2) The 
attitude of the missionaries toward their superstitions have the 
effect to make the Indians reticent in reference to their belief. 
(3) The missionaries are never allowed to enter into the 
sacred feasts or religious ceremonies of the pagan Indians. (4) 
The questions which are presented to the Indians are very 
likely to bring back a response which is deceiving, and on this 
account the missionaries are likely to confound the native 
ideas with those which reflect their own thought. (5) The 
teaching of preceding missionaries has had a tendency to 
confuse the natives themselves, and they are quite likely to 
mingle the Bible stories with their own traditions. On these 
accounts, ethnologists are inclined to reject the testimony of 
missionaries in reference to traditions, It is a question, how- 
ever, whether there are any better authorities. The following 
