Of monotheism either as
displayed in the one personal definite God of the Semitic races, or in
the dim pantheistic sense of the Brahmins, there was not a single
instance on the American continent. The missionaries found no word in
any of their languages fit to interpret _Deus_, God. How could they
expect it? The associations we attach to that name are the accumulated
fruits of nigh two thousand years of Christianity. The phrases Good
Spirit, Great Spirit, and similar ones, have occasioned endless
discrepancies in the minds of travellers. In most instances they are
entirely of modern origin, coined at the suggestion of missionaries,
applied to the white man's God. Very rarely do they bring any
conception of personality to the native mind, very rarely do they
signify any object of worship, perhaps never did in the olden times. The
Jesuit Relations state positively that there was no one immaterial god
recognized by the Algonkin tribes, and that the title, the Great Manito,
was introduced first by themselves in its personal sense.
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