The Indians have a very fanciful mythology, which would make exquisite machinery for poetry. It is quite distinct from the polytheism of the Greeks. The Greek mythology personified all nature, and materialised all abstractions: the Indians spiritualise all nature. They do not indeed place dryads and fauns in their woods, nor naiads in their streams; but every tree has a spirit; every rock, every river, every star that glistens, every wind that breathes, has a spirit; every thing they cannot comprehend is a spirit: this is the ready solution of every mystery, or rather makes every thing around them a mystery as great as the blending of soul and body in humanity. A watch, a compass, a gun, have each their spirit. The thunder is an angry spirit; the aurora borealis, dancing and rejoicing spirits; the milky way is the path of spirits. Birds, perhaps from their aerial movements, they consider as in some way particularly connected with the invisible world of spirits. Not only all animals have souls, but it is the settled belief of the Chippewa Indians that their souls will fare the better in another world, in the precise ratio that their lives and enjoyments are curtailed in this: hence, they have no remorse in hunting; but when they have killed a bear or rattle-snake, they solemnly beg his pardon, and excuse themselves on the plea of necessity. Besides this general _spiritualisation_ of the whole universe, which to an Indian is all spirit in diversity of forms (how delighted Bishop Berkeley would have been with them!), they have certain mythologic existences. Manabozho is a being very analogous to the Seeva of the Hindoo mythology. The four cardinal points are spirits, the west being the oldest and the father of the others, by a beautiful girl, who, one day while bathing, suffered the west wind to blow upon her. Weeng is the spirit of sleep, with numerous little subordinate spirits, his emissaries, whose employment is to close the eyes of mortals, and by tapping on their foreheads _knock_ them to sleep. Then they have Weendigos--great giants and cannibals, like the Ascaparts and Morgantes of the old romances; and little tiny spirits or fairies, which haunt the woods and cataracts. The Nibanàba, half human half fish, dwell in the waters of Lake Superior. Ghosts are plentiful, and so are transformations, as you have seen. The racoon was once a shell lying on the lake shore, and vivified by the sun-beams: the Indian name of the racoon, _aisebun_, is literally, _he was a shell_. The brains of a wicked adulteress, whose skull was beaten to pieces against the rocks, as it tumbled down a cataract, became the white fish.[30]