The American Indians: Their History, Condition and Prospects, from Original Notes and ManuscriptsSchoolcraft, Henry Rowe
History
The American Indians: Their History, Condition and Prospects, from Original Notes and Manuscripts
Schoolcraft, Henry Rowe
Indians of North America
The love for mystery and magic which pervades the native ceremonies, has
affected the forms of their language. They have given it a power to
impart life to dead masses. Vitality in their forms of utterance is
deeply implanted in all these dialects, which have been examined; they
provide, by the process of inflection, for keeping a perpetual
distinction between the animate and inanimate kingdoms. But where
vitality and spirituality are so blended as we see them in their
doctrine of animal souls, the inevitable result must be, either to exalt
the principle of life, in all the classes of nature, into immortality,
or to sink the latter to the level of mere organic life. Indian
word-makers have taken the former dilemma, and peopled their paradise
not only with the souls of men, but with the souls of every imaginable
kind of beasts. Spirituality is thus clogged with sensual accidents. The
human soul _hungers_, and it must have food deposited upon the grave.
_It suffers from cold_, and the body must be wrapped about with cloths.
It is in _darkness_, and a light must be kindled at the head of the
grave. It wanders through plains and across streams, subject to the
providences of this life, in quest of its place of enjoyment, and when
it reaches it, it finds every species of sensual trial, which renders
the place not indeed a _heaven of rest_, but _another experimental
world_--very much like this. Of punishments, we hear nothing; rewards
are looked for abundantly, and the idea that the Master of life, or the
merciful Spirit, will be alike merciful to all, _irrespective of the
acts of this life_, or the degree of _moral turpitude_, appears to leave
for their theology a belief in restorations or universalism. There is
nothing to refer them to a Saviour; that IDEA was beyond their
conception, and of course there was no occasion for the offices of the
Holy Ghost. Darker and more chilling views to a theologian, it would be
impossible to present. Yet it may be asked, what more benign result
could have been, or can now be, anticipated in the hearts of an
ignorant, uninstructed and wandering people, exposed to sore
vicissitudes in their lives and fortunes, and without the guidance of
the light of Revelation?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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