mate.[1] Whether the Red Indian mind even in modern times really entertained this extreme pantheistic scheme, we may well doubt. In early times of American discovery, the records show a quite different and more usual conception of a supreme deity. Among the more noteworthy of these older documents are the following. Jacques Cartier, in his second Canadian voyage (1535), speaks of the people having no valid belief in God, for they believe in one whom they call Cudouagni, and say that he often speaks with them, and tells them what the weather will be; they say that when he is angry with them he casts earth in their eyes. Thevet's statement somewhat later is as follows: 'As to their religion, they have no worship or prayer to God, except that they contemplate the new moon, called in their language Osannaha, saying that Andouagni calls it thus, sending it little by little to advance or retard the waters. For the rest, they fully believe that there is a Creator, greater than the Sun, the Moon, and the Stars, and who holds all in his power. He it is whom they call Andouagni, without however having any form or method of prayer to him.[2] In Virginia about 1586, we learn from Heriot that the natives believed in many gods, which they call 'mantoac,' but of different sorts and degrees, also that there is one chief god who first made other principal gods, and afterwards the sun, moon, and stars as petty gods. In New England, in 1622, Winslow says that they believe, as do the Virginians, in many divine powers, yet of one above all the rest; the Massachusetts call their great god Kiehtan, who made all the other gods; he dwells far westerly above the heavens, whither all good men go when they die; 'They never saw Kiehtan, but they hold it a great charge and dutie, that one age teach another; and to him they make feasts, and cry and sing for plentie and victorie, or anything is good.' Another famous native
- ↑ Schoolcraft, 'Indian Tribes,' part i. p. 15.
- ↑ Cartier, 'Relation;' Hakluyt, vol. iii. p. 212; Lescarbot, 'Nouvelle France,' p. 613. Thevet, 'Singularitez de la France Antarctique,' Paris, 1558, ch. 77. See also J. G. Müller, p. 102. Andouagni is perhaps a miscopied form of Cudouagni. Other forms, Cudruagni, &c., occur.
