I feel so nervous about differing from Mr. Tylor as to the borrowing of the idea of a superior and creative being from the Jesuits by the Red Indians that I have reconsidered his essay.[1] He is arguing that 'the Great Spirit belongs not to the untutored but to the tutored minds of the savages.' I am not contending for the use of the words 'Great Spirit' as of native origin, and as employed to designate what I call a superior being. That the natives had an untaught belief in such a being is my opinion, not that they styled him 'Great Spirit.' Mr. Tylor refers us to 'Relations des Jésuites,' 1611, p. 20, in the Quebec edition of 1858. Here (to translate the passage) I read: 'They believe in a god, so they say, but can only name him by the name of the sun, _Niscaminou_, and know no prayers, nor manner of adoring him.' When hungry they put on sacred robes, turn to the east, and say, 'Our Sun, or our God, give us to eat.' Here, then, are prayer, vestments, and turning to the east. The Jesuits, then, did not introduce these for the first time; nor did they introduce the conception of the superior being thus implored. A similar relation of the sun to the being addressed in prayer exists now among the Blackfoot Indians of America. With them the word _Natos_ is 'equivalent to holy or divine,' and is also the name of the sun. To Natos prayer and sacrifice are offered, and the cruel rites of the Natos-dance are performed. Tongues of cattle are served out to the virtuous: 'this rite partakes of the nature of a sacrament.' Youths sacrifice a finger, in recognition of prayers answered by Natos. 'Prayer is made to Natos only, and everything in Okán' (the ceremony) 'is sacred to him alone.'[2] These are advanced, elaborate, and thoroughly native observances, of which the germ may be found in the religions described in the Jesuit 'Relations' of 1611. Mr. Tylor says 'especially through missionary influence, since 1500, ideas of ... retribution after death for deeds done in life have been implanted on native polytheism in various parts of the world.' But his Jesuit authority of 1611, in the passage cited by him, writes: 'They believe in the immortality of the soul, and in recompenses for good men and bad, confusedly, and in a general way, but they seek and care no further as to the manner of such things' (_comment cela doibt estre_). Mr. Tylor's authority does not, I confess, appear to me to support his opinion. The natives believed in future 'retribution.' His other texts[3] show us savages consulting each his Manitou, 'a powerful being' (_quelque nature puissante_), or _diable_. A Manitou is 'any superior being, good or bad:' the God of the Jesuits is _le bon Manitou_, Satan is _le mauvais Manitou_.