178 BULLETIN OF THE 



proper relegation of ascertained facts to a category of similars, 

 though among the latter there must be eventual discrimination 

 between mere homology and true analogy. The savage only 

 understood human feelings and capacities, and so peopled his 

 philosophy with imagined actors to perform every operation of 

 nature beyond his own powers. Thus many forms of being, 

 motion, and action, became the work of personages with man's 

 volition, and differing chiefly from him by greater intelligence, 

 strength, and size. The polytheism naturally resulting was 

 not so disgraceful to humanity as has been claimed, for the 

 methods of modern science have only improved upon the barbaric 

 or Archaic efforts through greater experience and more careful 

 restrictive tests to guard against false conclusions from associa- 

 tion of ideas, and tempting tirst impressions of cause and conse- 

 quence. The sequence in mental progress is, 1st, Mythology; 

 2d, Metaphysics; 3d, Positive Philosophy. 



It would then have been indeed strange, if the cosmogony and 

 religion of our native tribes had contrasted greatly with those of 

 our own ancestors of the stone age to which, of the old world's 

 periods, they relatively belong. In fact there is no such contrast. 

 The Indian filled nature with spirits only in the sense of e.xpla- 

 natiOn before mentioned, some one of his Anthropomorphic or 

 Zoomorphic conceptions to answer the pressing conundrums of 

 how and why, ever personally accomplishing or acting in all 

 phenomena whether spasmodic, continuous, or intermittent, with 

 no relation to any general order, rule, or Providence. We now 

 account for a thunder-storm by known rules of evaporation and 

 condensation. The Indian was driven to invent a monstrous dis- 

 turbing and overshadowing eagle, and he both explained and 

 symbolized the howling wind by the howling wolf. The Dakota, 

 sees a Wakan not only in every unusual occurrence, but in each 

 remarkable rock and noisy cataract, and recognizes its divinity 

 by a tribute of tobacco. Among the Iroquois, their staples, 

 corn, beans, and squashes, being planted and tended, were col- 

 lectively the gifts and constant care of the " Three Supporting 

 Sisters" — " De-o-ha-ko " — but any one of the secular oaks and 

 sequoias, the growth of which is not observed, may have in the 

 regions where they are found its individual numen. The red tuft 

 of" the woodpecker, the blindness of the mole, the forked tongue 

 of the snake, and the spark from the flint, each had its storied 

 cause in the adventures of ancestors and daimons. 



It is not correct to call our Indian a Zooloter, except in so far 

 that his intense study of the habits of animals has individualized 

 and personified their special characteristics, and that, taught by 

 fasting visions, he generally adopts some bird or beast in mutual 

 relation of protection and respect, though not often strictly with 

 worship. He nad no special cult of a living animal, such for 

 instance as of the bull Apis, but deified its mystical progenitor 

 or prototype. Michabo, the Great Hare, was to the Algonkins 



