164 
A VOYAGE TO 
1777. benefits, without fometimes forgetting them, or fuffering 
» ecem cr \ evil to befall them, they feem to regard this lefs than the 
attempts of fome more inaufpicious being to hurt them. 
They tell us, that Etee is an evil fpirit, who fometimes does 
them mifchief; and to whom, as well as to their God, they 
make offerings. But the mifchiefs they apprehend from 
any fuperior invifible beings, are confined to things merely 
temporal. 
They believe the foul to be both immaterial and immor¬ 
tal. They fay, that it keeps fluttering about the lips during 
the pangs of death; and that then it afcends, and mixes 
with, or, as they exprefs it, is eaten by the Deity. In this 
ftate it remains for fome time; after which, it departs to a 
certain place deftined for the reception of the fouls of men, 
where it exifts in eternal night; or, as they fometimes fay, 
in twilight, or dawn. They have no idea of any permanent 
punifhment after death, for crimes that they have commit¬ 
ted on earth; for the fouls of good and of bad men are eat 
indifcriminately by God. But they certainly confider this 
coalition with the Deity as a kind of purification neceffary 
to be undergone before they enter a ftate of blifs. For, 
according to their doCtrine, if a man refrain from all con¬ 
nection with women fome months before death, he paffes 
immediately into his eternal manfion, without fuch a pre¬ 
vious union; as if already, by this abftinence, he were pure 
enough to be exempted from the general lot. 
They are, however, far from entertaining thofe fublime 
conceptions of happinefs, which our religion, and, indeed, 
reafon, gives us room to expeCt hereafter. The only great 
privilege they feem to think they fhall acquire by death, is 
immortality ; for they fpeak of fpirits being, in fome mea- 
fure, not totally divefted of thofe paffions which actuated 
them 
