nd insects; having no boats, no clothing, no laws, no
God."[9]

[9] Bancroft: _The Native Races of the Pacific States of North
America_, vol. i, p. 400.

In the northwestern corner of the American continent there dwells a
primitive race, which, for the sake of unification, I will style the
Aleutians. When these people were first discovered they were in that
state of social economics which they had reached after thousands of
years of psychical and social evolution; a primitive people, such as our
own ancestors were in the very beginning of civilization. The word
civilization is used advisedly; civilization is comparative, and its
degrees begin with the inception of man himself.

In their theogony, the Aleutians had arrived at an idea of the double or
soul, thus showing that their religion had progressed several steps
toward abstraction, that triumph of civilized religiosity; yet there
remained enough veneration of natural objects to show that the origin of
the religious feeling began, with them, in nature-propitiation. The
bladder of the bear, which viscus, in the estimation of the Aleutians,
is the seat of life, is at once suspended above the entrance of the
_kachim_ or communal dwelling and worshiped by the hunter who has slain
the beast from which it was taken. Moreover, when the bear falls beneath
the weapons of an Aleutian, the man begs pardon of the beast and prays
the latter to forgive him and to do him no harm. "A hunter who has
struck a mortal blow generally remains within his hut for one or several
days, according to the importance of the slain animal."[10] The first
herring that is caught is showered with compliments and blessings;
pompous titles are lavished upon it, and it is handled with the greatest
respect and reverence; it is the herring-god![11]

[10] Reclus: _Primitive Folk_, p. 18.

[11] Dall: _Alaska and its Resources_, p. 96.

Sidne, chief god of the Aleutian theogony, on final analysis, is found
to be the Earth, mother of all things. The _angakouts_, or priests, of
this people individualize and deify, however, all the phenomena of
nature; there are cloud-gods, sea-gods, river-gods, fire-gods,
rain-gods, storm-gods, etc., etc., etc. Everywhere, throughout all
nature, the Inoit, or Aleutian system of theology, penetrates, stripped,
it is true, of much of its original materialism, yet retaining enough to
show its undoubted origin in the sensual percepts, recepts, and concepts