Page 129 - La Société canadienne d'histoire de l'Église catholique - Rapport 1961

ANNUAL ADDRESS. 125

first glimmering6 of whose history come down to us, almost from
the commerlcement of the Christian Era.* But these difficulties
which have so perplexed inquirers after aboriginal history, we
will leave to the sequel of our subject.
Having traced the modern Indian tribes, or at least some of
them, on the back track westward and northward to the north-
west coast and into the ocean, we will now turn back and inves-
tigate, as our limits will permit, their manners, customs, laws
and institutions for new bearings to guide us across the great
deep.
Mr. Prescott 1- remarks that the Indians resembled the Per-
sians and Chaldoans in their worship of the sun, in mode as
well as ob,ject. Among the Peruvians and Mexicans, this was
mixed with human sacrifices and the grossest rites. Sacred fire
was supplied alone by tho priesthood, and was the foundation of
their power.
"North of the Gulf of Mexico," says Mr. SCHOOLCRAFT,
"this doctrine prevailed with morc of its original, Oriental
simplicity, and free from the horrid rites which had-marked it in
the valley of Anahuac and among the spurs of the Andes. The
tribes of the present area of the United States would admit of no
temples, but made their fires in the recesses of the forest.
They sung hymns to the sun as the emblem of the Great Spirit.
Such is their present practice in the forest."
Thus we find all the Indian tribes, civilized and savage,
agreeing with many of the Asiatic nations in the object of wor-
ship and emblem of an invisible Deity; while, as Mr. SCHOOL-
CRAFT remarks, "there are no traces of sun worship in the whole
area of Western Europe."
The northern tribcs believe in the two principles of good and
evil, the good mind and the evil mind. Also in Manitoes, both
good and evil, distinct from the Great Spirit. Also in the
transmigration of souls, all which Mr. SCHOOLCRAFT traces to

+f National and Tribal Hist.
t Conquest of Mexico.