[283-1] _Hist. des Incas_, lib. iii. ch. 22.
[283-2] _Travels in the Carolinas_, p. 504.
[284-1] _Hist. du Pérou_, p. 128; _Voiages aux Indes Occidentales_, ii. p. 97.
[284-2] Beverly, _Hist. de la Virginie_, p. 266. The dialect he specifies is "celle d'Occaniches," and on page 252 he says, "On dit que la langue universelle des Indiens de ces Quartiers est celle des _Occaniches_, quoiqu'ils ne soient qu'une petite Nation, depuis que les Anglois connoissent ce Pais; mais je ne sais pas la difference qui'l y a entre cette langue et celle des Algonkins." (French trans., Orleans, 1707.) This is undoubtedly the same people that Johannes Lederer, a German traveller, visited in 1670, and calls _Akenatzi_. They dwelt on an island, in a branch of the Chowan River, the Sapona, or Deep River (Lederer's _Discovery of North America_, in Harris, Voyages, p. 20). Thirty years later the English surveyor, Lawson, found them in the same spot, and speaks of them as the _Acanechos_ (see _Am. Hist. Mag._, i. p. 163). Their totem was that of the serpent, and their name is not altogether unlike the Tuscarora name of this animal _usquauhne_. As the serpent was so widely a sacred animal, this gives Beverly's remarks an unusual significance. It by no means follows from this name that they were of Iroquois descent. Lederer travelled with a Tuscarora (Iroquois) interpreter, who gave them their name in his own tongue. On the contrary, it is extremely probable that they were an Algonkin totem, which had the exclusive right to the priesthood.
[285-1] Riggs, _Gram. and Dict. of the Dakota_, p. ix; Kane, _Second Grinnell Expedition_, ii. p. 127. Paul Egede gives a number of words and expressions in the dialect of the sorcerers, _Nachrichten von Grönland_, p. 122.
THE INFLUENCE OF THE NATIVE RELIGIONS ON THE MORAL AND SOCIAL LIFE OF THE RACE.
Natural religions hitherto considered of Evil rather than of Good.--Distinctions to be drawn.--Morality not derived from religion.--The positive side of natural religions in incarnations of divinity.--Examples.--Prayers as indices of religious progress.--Religion and social advancement.--Conclusion.
Drawing toward the conclusion of my essay, I I am sensible that the vast field of American mythology remains for most part untouched--that I have but proved that it is not an absolute wilderness, pathless as the tropical jungles which now conceal the temples of the race; but that, go where we will, certain landmarks and guide-posts are visible, revealing uniformity of design and purpose, and refuting, by their presence, the oft-repeated charge of entire incoherence and aimlessness. It remains to examine the subjective power of the native religions, their influence on those who held them, and the place they deserve in the history of the race. What are their merits, if merits they have? what their demerits? Did they purify the life and enlighten the mind, or the contrary? Are they in short of evil or of good? The problem is complex--its solution most difficult. The author who of late years has studied most profoundly the savage races of the globe, expresses the discouraging conviction: "Their religions have not acted as levers to raise them to civilization; they have rather worked, and that powerfully, to impede every step in advance, in the first place by ascribing everything unintelligible in nature to spiritual agency, and then by making the fate of man dependent on mysterious and capricious forces, not on his own skill and foresight."[288-1]