Western Characters | Page 9

probable it was) added by Jefferson, it is, I believe, the only example on record of poetical feeling in any Indian speech.
The religion of the Indian has given as much troublesome material to the builders of systems, as has been furnished by all his other characteristics combined. The first explorers of America supposed that they had found a people, quite destitute of any religious belief. But faith in a higher power than that of man, is a necessity of the human mind; and its organization, more or less enlightened, is as natural, even to the most degraded savage, as the formation of his language. Both depend upon general laws, common to the intellect of all races of men; both are affected by the external circumstances of climate, situation, and mode of life; and the state of one may always be determined by that of the other. "No savage horde has been caught with its language in a state of chaos, or as if just emerging from the rudeness of indistinguishable sounds. Each appears, not as a slow formation by painful processes of invention, but as a perfect whole, springing directly from the powers of man."[22] And though this rigor of expression is not equally applicable to the Indian's religion, the fact is attributable solely to the difference in nature of the subjects. As the "primary sounds of a language are essentially the same everywhere," the impulses and instincts of piety are common to all minds. But, as the written language of the Indian was but the pictorial representation of visible objects, having no metaphysical signification, so the symbols of his religion, the objects of his adoration, were drawn from external nature.[23] Even his faith in the Great Spirit is a graft upon his system, derived from the first missionaries;[24] and, eagerly as he adopted it, it is probable that its meaning, to him, is little more exalted, than that of the "Great Beaver," which he believes to be the first progenitor, if not the actual creator, of that useful animal.
We often see the fact, that the Indian believes in his manitou, cited as an evidence, that he has the conception of a spiritual divinity. But the word never conveyed such a meaning; it is applicable more properly to material objects, and answers, with, if possible, a more intense and superstitious significance, to the term amulet. The Indian's manitou might be, indeed always was, some wild animal, or some part of a beast or bird--such as a bear's claw, a buffalo's hoof, or a dog's tooth.[25] And, though he ascribed exalted powers to this primitive guardian, it must be remembered that these powers were only physical--such, for example, as would enable it to protect its devotee from the knife of his enemy, or give him success in hunting.
Materialism, then, reigns in the religion, as in the language, of the Indian; and its effects are what might be expected. His whole system is a degraded and degrading superstition; and, though it has been praised for its superior purity, over that of the ancients, it seems to have been forgotten, that this purity is only the absence of one kind of impurity: and that its cruel and corrupting influences, of another sort, are ten-fold greater than those of the Greek mythology. The faith of the Greek embodied itself in forms, ceremonies, and observances--regularly appointed religious rites kept his piety alive; the erection of grand temples, in honor of his deity, whatever might be his conception of that deity's character, attested his genuine devotion, and held constantly before his mind the abstract idea of a higher power. The Indian, before the coming of the white man, erected no temples[26] in honor of his divinities; for he venerated them only so long as they conferred physical benefits[27] upon him; and his idea of beneficence was wholly concrete. He had no established form of worship; the ceremonies, which partook of a religious character, were grotesque in their conception, variable in their conduct, and inhuman in their details. Such, for example, are the torturing of prisoners, and the ceremonies observed on the occasion of a young Indian's placing himself under his guardian power.
The dogmas of the Indian religion, until varied by the teaching of missionaries, were few and simple--being circumscribed, like everything else belonging to him, by the material world. He believed in a good spirit, and an evil spirit; but his conception was limited by the ideas of benefit or injury, to himself; indeed, it may safely be doubted, whether the word "spirit," in its legitimate sense, is at all applicable to his belief. "Power in a state of exertion," is the more accurate description of his imperfect notion: abstract existence he never conceived; the verb "to be" except as relating to time, place, and action,