446 STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS or HUMAN REASON. and the southernAfricans. The first.relatés to the rude nations of the North America, collected many years ago, for my own late, out of a large volume, written by father Hennepin, a mis- sionary of Flanders, who travelled over all that country, and Made a considerable stay in someparts of it. All the notion of a God or religion which they generallyhave, is this: They see some bodies produce strange effects, which they cannot compre- hend, they see some appearances of nature or art which are very unusual, and then theyascribe the causes of these effects or ap- pearances to some being that is above themselves, and call it in their language Otkon, or Manitoo, or Atahouta, which means a sort of spirit, either good or evil. So when they see a gun make a flash and a noise, and immediately either a wild bull, or two or threewild fowl fall down dead, they cry, it is iron with an Otkon in it ; for they are not able to comprehend the meaning of it. So when they find a great cascade or water fall, which seems a little frightful, and dangerous to approach, they say, a spirit dwells there. And for such reasons they call all that dwell beyond the great lake, that is, the ocean, spirits ; for the Euro- peans perform several things which they understand not. When the author was among the Issati, he began to make a vocabu- lary in their own language, and when they found he could not understand their words sometimes till he had consulted his vo- cabulary, they thought his book was a spirit, which told him what they said. And this seems to he the springof the notion which they haveof their own souls; and accordingto their'own way of rea- soning, they think that guns, and bows, and arrows, and wild bulls, have souls also. When they die, they have a notion of their spirits going into the country of souls, where they fancy that the souls of every animate and inanimate thing on earth areto be found. They bury their bows, arrows, shoes, pipes, earthern- pots, rackets, that is, their broad net -work sandals, made, of thongs of leather, &c. that so the souls of their bows and arrows may assist them in hunting the souls of elks and beavers in the country of souls : and that the souls of rackets may be useful to them in travelling over the snow in that country. There, are 'some particular bones of the bulls and heavers which they kill, that are kept choicely by them, and are counted a sort of present mansions for their souls, and they use them well, lest, say they, the soul of the bulls which we have killed, should go and tell the other bulls, that we have cut them to pieces, and eat them ; and then they imagine that the rest of the bulls would never come within their reach, or be catched by them, either in this world or the other. They think that the souls of the Europeans go to a different country from that of the Americans, and ,some of them are
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