fact too familiar to need repetition. The real question is whether their economic development was reflected in the growth of their religious conceptions.

Many of the more modern writers ascribe to the Iroquois a comparatively well-developed monotheistic conception of God.1 On the other hand, the Jesuit missionaries, who knew them best, and the more careful investigations of the present day, unite in contradicting any such assertion. Le Jeune, for instance, says of the Hurons: "They have neither sought nor recognized him (God) except on the surface of created things, in which they have hoped for happiness, or dreaded some misfortune."2 What Le Jeune says of the Hurons seems to have been true also of the Five Nations. All these tribes had many divinities of divers sorts; each divinity owing its origin to some aspect of the economic relationship between man and his environment.

The tendency towards fetishism, so strong among domestic economists, was still to a certain degree apparent in the Iroquois religion. The Iroquois were likely to regard all things animate

1 Schoolcraft, "Hist. Ind. Tribes," I, 31, 32, 35; Morgan, “League," 149 sq.; Chadwick, "People of the Longhouse," pp. 134 sq.

2 Jes. Rel., X, 159. Cf. Lloyd, notes to Morgan's "League " (ed. 1901), II, 333-335. Compare with this the statement of the Sack chief (Jes. Rel., LVII, 283): "We care very little whether it be the devil or God who gives us food. We dream sometimes of one thing, sometimes of another; and whatever may appear to us in our sleep, we believe that it is the manitou in whose honor the feast must be given, for he gives us food; he makes us successful in fishing, hunting, and all our undertakings."

Cf. Also the Jesuits' assertion in regard to the Missisakiks (Jes. Rel., LV, 221): "Their training and the necessity of seeking their livelihood have reduced them to such a condition that all their reasoning does not go beyond what relates to the health of their bodies, and the success of their hunting and fishing, and good fortune in trade and in war. And all these things are, as it were, so many axioms from which they draw all their conclusions-not only as regards their residence, occupations, and manner of acting, but even as regards their superstitions and divinities."

Of the Illinois, a tribe whose civilization was very like that of the Iroquois, the Jesuit Relation says (Jes. Rel., LXVI, 233): “As all their knowledge is limited to the knowledge of animals and of the needs of life, so it is to these things that all their worship is limited."

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and inanimate as possessing an intelligence similar to their own; to anything, therefore, which for the moment seemed capable of helping or hindering them, they were ready to give presents and address conciliatory and friendly speeches. Of the Hurons, one of the Jesuits says: "They address themselves to the Earth, to Rivers, to Lakes, to dangerous Rocks, . . . and believe that all these things are animate." 1 On the way to Quebec particular rocks were often invoked by the Hurons. Among the Five Nations the same custom prevailed in regard to the rocks along certain routes.3 In general, however, individuals of any particular class of objects were not regarded as supernatural beings, but rather as reasonable persons, to be treated like ordinary men. As an example of this, there may be cited an occurrence among the Pottawatamies on Green Bay. A young man of this tribe was killed by a bear. Thereupon, his friends and relatives made war on the bears, killing five hundred, "as satisfaction for the death of that young man who had been so cruelly treated by one of their nation."4

Notwithstanding this tendency towards fetishism, the Iroquois inclined more and more to the worship of types or abstractions of classes of objects or beings, than to the adoration of individual specimens. Their life as hunters had changed their religion from a mere fetishism to a fairly well developed polytheism. Their hunting life, in the first place, had led to the apotheosis of various animal species. Every species of animal was supposed to have a great progenitor or "elder brother, who is, as it were, the source and origin of all individuals, and this elder brother is wonderfully great and powerful." To see one of these in a dream meant luck in hunting. Besides cherishing a general respect for all animal species, each Iroquois gens, furthermore, chose a particular one as

2

995

1Jes. Rel., X, 159. Cf. Jes. Rel., X, 167; VIII, 121; LXVIII, 47.

Jes. Rel., X, 165.

* Jes. Rel., XLIV, 25-27. Cf. V, 285; XIII, 270–271; XXXIII, 225.

"Powell, "Wyandot Gov't," Eth. Rep., 1879-1880, p. 65; Chadwick, "People of the Longhouse," pp. 83-84.

6 The Ball gens is an apparent exception. But this group was probably a subdivision of the "Small Turtle." See Chadwick, "People of the Longhouse," p. 84.

its special symbol and tutelary god. These divinities represented classes of animals of use in satisfying vital wants, or else having some less direct influence, beneficial or otherwise, upon economic welfare. The Iroquois legend of the origin of gentile totems probably tells the exact truth in the matter. Mrs. Smith, in her paper on "Myths of the Iroquois," relates as follows: "Later, as the numerous families became scattered over the state, some lived in localities where the bear was the principal game, and were called from that circumstance the clan of the Bear. Others lived where the beavers were trapped, and they were called the Beaver clan. For similar reasons, the Snipe, Deer, Wolf, Tortoise, and Eel clans received their appelations." 1 Not only each gens, but also each village possessed its special symbol and tutelary divinity, quite unconnected with the gentile totems. Every individual, likewise, had his tutelary demon, to which none was more devoted than the hunter, who, having made his selection, after retirement into the forest, rigorous fasting, and observance of dreams,3 thenceforth during his life offered to this special divinity prayers and sacrifices through means of various symbols which he considered appropriate.*

Just as hunting life had caused the apotheosis of certain animal species, so the growing importance of agriculture among the Iroquois led gradually to the deification of those plants upon which the people depended for vegetable food. The most prominent of these divinities were the spirits of maize, of beans, and of pumpkins. These were called "The Three Sisters," and were the objects of special reverence. Other spirits, even to that of the strawberry, were also worshipped, and thanked for their services. 5

The adoration of plant life was common to all the Iroquois settlements. Plant deities differed from animal deities, however,

1Smith, "Myths of the Iroquois," Eth. Rep., 1880-1881, p. 76. Ibid., p. 77.-Some gentes even went to the length of claiming these divinities as their own ancestors. Cf. Lloyd, Morgan's "League," II, 218. (Ed. 1901.)

in this: individuals, gentes, and villages,-all chose certain animals as objects of their special worship; whereas plants were worshipped by all alike. This will appear strange when it is remembered that the Iroquois were at the time of the Discovery, even more dependent on agriculture than on hunting for a livelihood. The reason for the predominance of animal deities may probably be found in the undeniable conservatism of religion. Agriculture, as the newer manner of production, had as yet failed to dislodge the older divinities of the hunting life from their topmost place in the scale of importance. Eventually, if Iroquois civilization had been allowed to grow on undisturbed, we might have found new settlements taking maize or the bean or the pumpkin, instead of the bear or the wolf or the deer, as their tutelary divinity.

The Iroquois worshipped not only the spirits of plants and animals representing the direct sources of their supply, but also the more conspicuous natural phenomena influencing their welfare. The sky, the sun, the rejuvenating power of nature, rain, and warm winds were adored as blessing-bringing deities; frost, hail, and cold winds were propitiated as harbingers of evil.

The sky and the sun would naturally be regarded as divine powers by the most primitive people. Without air and light and warmth, it was perfectly obvious that both they and all animals and plants would perish: hence they came vaguely to regard sky and sun as creating and ruling over all living things. Le Clerq says that the Gaspesiens, a wild forest hunting and fishing tribe near the mouth of the St. Lawrence, worshipped the sun as the author of all things. At dawn and at dusk they came out of their cabins, turned their faces toward the sun, and saluting with voice and gesture, made a prayer for prosperity in war and in hunting and fishing, for health for themselves and their families, etc.1 The Souriquois, a Nova Scotian tribe, also believed in a god whom they called by the same name as the sun and whom they invoked in times of great need, saying, 'Our Sun, or our God, give us something to eat." 2 These nomad hunters,

1

1Le Clercq, 165 sq.

'Jes. Rel., III, 133. Cf. Accounts of Quebec Indians: Jes. Rel., IV, 203; ; V, 35; 153, note 41. Also Jes. Rel., VI, 161, 163, 173; XXXIX, 15;

however, had but very indistinct ideas of the divinities they invoked. Had the Iroquois remained merely hunters and warriors, their notions might have been no less faint and obscure. But to them as semi-agriculturists, the vital importance of sunlight, air and moisture was ever increasingly apparent. Whether a summer was warm or cool, cloudy or clear, whether frosts came early or late, was of immensely greater importance to them as agriculturists than as hunters. Hence the Iroquois had formed some fairly clear conceptions of the different supernatural beings in whom they saw personified the several phenomena so influential in their economic life, and around these deities they had assembled a well developed series of legends and beliefs.

The foremost of the Iroquois divinities was the Sky, personified as Taronhiawagon, the Holder of the Heavens and the Master of Life, declaring his will in dreams.1 To the Hurons, the Sky was "a power which rules the seasons of the years, which holds in check the winds and waves of the sea, which can render favorable the course of their voyages and assist them in every time of need." 2 If a man was drowned, if an unseasonable frost injured the maize crop, the Hurons believed that it was all due to the anger of the Sky. To both Hurons and Iroquois proper, the Sky tended to take the place corresponding to that of Jove in Greek mythology.

Agreskoui, the other great divinity of the Iroquois proper, seems to have been a personification of the Sun, as distinct from the Sky. Agreskoui was also regarded as a god whose influence was to be felt on every side. He, too, like Taronhiawagon was called "Master of Life," and continually invoked "in the forests and during the chase, on the waters and when in danger of shipwreck." To him the first fruits of every enterprise were always

L, 285; Perrot, Ch. 5, notes, p. 276; Schoolcraft, "Hist. Ind. Tribes," V, 64; La Potherie, I, 121.

1

Jes. Rel., X, 323; LIV, 65; LV, 61; VIII, note 36. Hale, "Iroquois Book of Rites," in Brinton's "Library of Aboriginal American Literature," No. 2, p. 74. Parkman, "Jesuits in North America," Vol. I, Introd., p. lxxvii.

2 Jes. Rel., 161 sq.