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NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



the base of all true religion, it is a shame that zealous and honest 

 workers among the Indians should not acquaint themselves with 

 the tenets of their ancient faith, thereby harmonizing its primal 

 truths with any newer religion that may be taught to them. 



Philosophy and science were processes of knowledge unknown 

 by the primitive red man yet by their intuitions, lofty and intellec- 

 tual, they evolved a purely spiritual religion with one invisible 

 Great Spirit as its ruler who made himself known to them by his 

 works visible in all the benedictions of nature. To the Indian 

 there occurred no idea of the omnipresence of a ruling power, 

 therefore "assistants" who were subservient to his will were as- 

 signed certain duties. Unlike the pagans of old these were not 

 worshiped as individual gods. To He-no, the Thunderer, was 

 given the voice of admonition and instrument of vengeance as 

 well as judgment in the bestowal of beneficent rains. Ga-oh was 

 empowered with the direction of the winds ; from their tangles he 

 divided the breath of the summer time from the frost of the winter. 

 Other assistants distributed all the fruits, beans, squash and corn, 

 the last three having a triad of .female "supporters" whose gen- 

 erosity is "thanked" at the annual Green Corn dance. In fact to 

 all visible and invisible nature each had its guardian under the 

 guidance of one supreme power. 



In Indian language there is no blasphemous or profane word. 

 Their attitude toward the Great Spirit is venerative and dignified. 

 In their various feasts religious dances are introduced in all of which 

 there are interludes when the tenets of the ancient faith are re- 

 cited. These have descended from generation to generation by 

 word only; there are no written records of the Indian religion. A 

 young preacher is taught word for word and when he enters office 

 he "remembers" and expounds to the people at the annual festivals. 

 There are never any religious "uprisings" or "excitements." The 

 law and word are passed year by year, century after century, by 

 the true pagan preacher. In the "new religion" of the Iroquois, 

 Ga-nio-dai-u, there is an interweave of modern ideas induced by 

 the necessity of reform from evils introduced by the palefaces. 

 But even in this "temperance" preaching nothing has been accepted 

 that was not consistent with their primitive idea of justice and 

 repentance. 



The Indian having no knowledge of a sacrificial atonement 

 assumes the punishment of his own evil. The religious law governs 

 this by a recital of his "sins" at the public New Year feast and a 

 sin thus confessed is atoned for. By this came the use of the 



