ers. Stones do not seem to us likely objects of veneration, yet many strong Manitos dwell in them—perhaps it is the spark of fire in the impassive flint that appeals to the Red Man s imagination; perhaps it is an instinctive veneration for the ancient material out of which were hewn the tools that have lifted man above the brute; perhaps it is a sense of the age-long permanence and invulnerable reality of earth s rocky foundations[27]:—
Ho! Aged One, eçka,
At a time when there were gathered together seven persons,[1]
You sat in the seventh place, it is said,
And of the Seven you alone possessed knowledge of all things,
Aged One, eçka.
When in their longing for protection and guidance,
The people sought in their minds for a way,
They beheld you seated with assured permanency and endurance,
In the center where converged the paths,
There, exposed to the violence of the four winds, you sat,
Possessed with power to receive supplications,
Aged One, eçka.
It is thus that the Omaha began his invocation to the healing stones of his sweat lodge—a veritable omphalos, or centre of the world, symbolizing the invisible, pervasive, and enduring life of all things.
IV. THE GREAT SPIRIT[6]
The Algonquians of the north recognize as the chief of their Manitos, Gitche (or Kitshi) Manito, the Great Spirit, whom they also call the Master of Life.[28] It should not be inferred that a manlike personality is ascribed to the Great Spirit. He is invisible and immaterial; the author of life, but himself uncreated; he is the source of good to man, and is invoked with reverence: but he is not a definite personality about whom
- ↑ The spirits of the seven directions, above, below, here, and the four cardinal points. The passage is translated by Alice C. Fletcher, 27 ARBE, p. 586. The word "eçka" may be roughly rendered "I desire," "I crave," "I implore," "I seek," etc., but has no exact equivalent in English.
