bfc THE TRANSMIGRATION OF SOULS. 



That mankind mould worfhip the brutes merely as 

 brutes, is as incomprehensible as any thing on earth 

 can be, and therefore various hypothefes have been 

 raifed, both in antient and modern times, for unravel- 

 ling this curious practice of the ./Egyptians. But, 

 imce no aegyptian fyftem of religion has come down 

 to us fufficiently complete and unmixed for enabling 

 us properly to explain the fact ; . I think our beft way to 

 that end would be by having recourfe to the relation 

 between the aegyptian worfliip and theworfhipers of beafts 

 difcovered only in modern times. The Akanfeas in 

 Louifiana pray to beafts ; but at the fame time they 

 believe that fuch beafts are nothing elfe than the viiible 

 tabernacle of their god, who one while makes choice 

 of an ox, at another of an orignal, and at another of 

 a dog, for his yilible domicile *. 



The foothfayers of the Maikoutens, a nation in the 

 neighbourhood of the Illinefe, adore the ox, as their 

 great manitou, and affirm that in him they do not 

 worfhip the ox, but the manitou of the ox, who 

 dwells under the earth, and animates all oxen. They 

 add that bears and all other animals are in like mariner 

 animated by a fubterranean manitou -f~. 



A limilar wandering of the deities is like wife be-« 

 lieved by the inhabitants of the Eaft Indies. Their 

 god Brumma has animated the body of a flag and a 

 fwan. Viftnou has been a flfh, a tortoife, a hog, half 

 man and half lion, and laftly a brahmin. Since then 

 the gods themfelves are fubjecl to fuch wanderings, 



* Recueil de voyages au Nord, torn, v. p. ».6* 



* Ltttres edifiantes 3 rec, xi. p. 325. 



