PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 177 



the abstract (which the genius of no Indian tongue could ex- 

 press), and, from its incorporated pronominal particle, could not, 

 as used by the Clierokee, signify "my maker," but his, i. e. the 

 white man's maker, thus showing only the readiness with which 

 the latter was admitted into America's elastic Pantheon. Doubt- 

 less in councils and other intercourse with Christians, Indian 

 speakers employed the words Manito, Taku Wakan, and the like, 

 in a sense acceptable to the known prejudices of tiieir interlo- 

 cutors, but that was through courtesy and policy, much as the 

 strictest Protestant would once have found it convenient if not 

 necessary, when at Rome, to speak respectfully of the Pope. The 

 adoption of expressions as well as of ideas which were under- 

 stood to be agreeable to or expected by the whites, is well illus- 

 trated in the use by western Indians of the terms "squaw" and 

 "papoose," which are not in their languages, but are mere cor- 

 ruptions from the Algonkin. As all travellers insisted upon 

 those words to signify woman and child, the tribes, as successively- 

 met, complied, with the result of a general belief that they were 

 common to the several native dialects, which is no more true than 

 if the English terms had been impressed upon them instead of 

 those equally foreign. 



The sixty-three linguistic families on this continent north of 

 Mexico, some differing from each other in speech more widely 

 than the Latin from the Teutonic nations, and even rivalling in de- 

 gree the distinction between Indo-European and Semitic dialects, 

 naturally present myths greatly diverse, but agree with marked 

 unanimity in acknowledging no Supreme God, and in dividing 

 all supra-human power among many personages to be propitiated, 

 appeased, and utilized. It is true that they did not reach the 

 advanced culture in which the Greek, Scandinavian, and other in- 

 heriters of earlier orient folk-lore produced the distinct figures of 

 Zeus, Thor, Phoebus, Astarte, and Boreas. Scholars have, how- 

 ever, lately traced these classic personifications of sky, thunder, 

 sun, moon, and wind, to their rude Aryan or Hamitic originals, 

 which differ but slightly, save in the tincture of racial idiosyn- 

 crasy and habitat, from those of our Indians, while we sometimes 

 strike curious native parallels to the serpent of Midgard and tor- 

 toise of Vishnu, the bridge of Al Sirat and the Elysian Fields, 

 the labors of Herakles and doom of Sisyphus, Titanic wars and 

 •Cyclopean struggles. 



In the infancy of all races appears what has, with doubtful 

 propriety as applied to that stage of development, been styled 

 nature worship, being at first merely an attempt to account for 

 surrounding phenomena. There could have been no clear con- 

 ception of the supernatural, because there was yet none of natural 

 order — no miracle when there was no law to be suspended or 

 changed. The human mind in its early development tried to 

 explain the unknown by classification with what was already 

 known, much as a scientific law is now formulated only after 



