"This notion, which has its historical origin among the Parsees of ancient Iran, is unknown to savage nations. 'The Hidatsa,' says Dr. Matthews, 'believe neither in a hell nor a devil.' 'The idea of the devil,' justly observes Jacob Grimm, 'is foreign to all primitive religions.' Yet Professor Mueller, in his voluminous work on those of America, after approvingly quoting this saying, complacently proceeds to classify the deities as good or bad spirits! "This view, which has obtained without question in earlier works on the native religions of America, has arisen partly from habits of thought difficult to break, partly from mistranslations of native words, partly from the foolish axiom of the early missionaries, 'The gods of the Gentiles are devils.' Yet their own writings furnish conclusive proof that no such distinction existed out of their own fancies. The same word(_otkon_) which Father Bruyas employs to translate into Iroquois the term 'devil,' in the passage 'The devil took upon himself the figure of a serpent,' he is obliged to use for 'spirit' in the phrase, 'At the resurrection we shall be spirits,' which is a rather amusing illustration how {105} impossible it was by any native word to convey the idea of the spirit of evil. "When, in 1570, Father Rogel commenced his labours among the tribes near the Savannah River, he told them that the deity they adored was a demon who loved all evil things, and they must hate him; whereas his auditors replied, that so far from this being the case, he whom he called a wicked being was the power that sent them all good things, and indignantly left the missionary to preach to the winds. "A passage often quoted in support of this mistaken view is one in Winslow's _Good News from New England_, written in 1622. The author says that the Indians worship a good power called Kiehtan, and another 'who, as farre as wee can conceive, is the Devill,' named Hobbamock, or Hobbamoqui. The former of these names is merely the word 'great,' in their dialect of Algonkin, with a final _N_, and is probably an abbreviation of Kittanitowit, the great Manitou, a vague term mentioned by Roger Williams and other early writers, manufactured probably by them and not the appellation of any personified deity. The latter, so far from corresponding to the power of evil, was, according to Winslow's own statement, the kindly god who cured diseases, aided them in the chase, and appeared to them in dreams as their protector. Therefore, with great justice, Dr. Jarvis has explained it to mean 'the _oke_ or tutelary deity which each Indian worships,' as the word itself signifies. "So in many instances it turns out that what has been reported to be the evil divinity of a nation, to whom they pray to the neglect of a better one, is in reality the highest power they recognize." {106} Creation-Myths