It is a mistake to suppose that these Indians are idolaters; heathens
and pagans you may call them if you will; but the belief in one Great
Spirit, who created all things, and is paramount to all things, and the
belief in the distinction between body and soul, and the immortality of
the latter--these two sublime principles pervade their wildest
superstitions; but though none doubt of a future state, they have no
distinct or universal tenets with regard to the condition of the soul
after death. Each individual seems to have his own thoughts on the
subject, and some doubtless never think about it at all. In general,
however, their idea of a paradise (the land of spirits) is some far off
country towards the south-west, abounding in sunshine, and placid lakes,
and rivers full of fish, and forests full of game, whither they are
transported by the Great Spirit, and where those who are separated on
earth meet again in happiness, and part no more.
Not only man, but everything animate, is spirit, and destined to
immortality. According to the Indians, (and Sir Humphry Davy,) nothing
dies, nothing is destroyed; what we look upon as death and destruction
is only transition and change. The ancients, it is said--for I cannot
speak from my own knowledge--without telescopes or logarithms, divined
the grandest principles of astronomy, and calculated the revolutions of
the planets; and so these Indians, who never heard of philosophy or
chemistry, have contrived to hit upon some of the profoundest truths in
physics and metaphysics; but they seem content, like Jaques, "to praise
God, and make no boast of it."
In some things, it is true, they are as far as possible from orthodox.
Their idea of a hell seems altogether vague and negative. It consists in
a temporary rejection from the land of good spirits, in a separation
from lost relatives and friends, in being doomed to wander up and down
desolately, having no fixed abode, weary, restless, and melancholy. To
how many is the Indian hell already realised on this earth? Physical
pain, or any pain which calls for the exercise of courage, and which it
is manliness to meet and endure, does not apparently enter into their
notions of _punishment_. They believe in evil spirits, but the idea of
_the_ Evil _Spirit_, a permitted agency of evil and mischief, who
divides with the Great Spirit the empire of the universe--who
contradicts or renders nugatory His will, and takes especially in hand
the province of tormenting sinners--of the devil, in short, they
certainly had not an idea, till it was introduced by Europeans.[29]
Those Indians whose politeness will not allow them to contradict this
article of the white man's faith, still insist that the place of eternal
torment was never intended for the Red-skins, the especial favourites of
the Great Spirit, but for white men _only_.
[Footnote 29: History of the Moravian Missions. Mr. Schoolcraft].