, Animism. He has also been persuaded, by Mr. Dorman, that the
Great Spirit of North American tribes is 'almost certainly nothing more
than a figure of European origin, reflected and transmitted almost beyond
recognition on the mirror of the Indian mind,' That is not my opinion: I
conceive that the Red Indians had their native Eternal, like the
Australians, Fijians, Andamanese, Dinkas, Yao, and so forth, as will be
shown later.

Mr. Im Thurn, however, dilates on the dream origin of the ghost theory,
giving examples from his own knowledge of the difficulty with which Guiana
Indians discern the hallucinations of dreams from the facts of waking
life. Their waking hallucinations are also so vivid as to be taken for
realities.[25] Mr. Im Thurn adopts the hypothesis that, from ghosts, 'a
belief has arisen, but very gradually, in higher spirits, and, eventually,
in a Highest Spirit; and, keeping pace with the growth of these beliefs,
a habit of reverence for and worship of spirits.' On this hypothesis,
the spirit latest evolved, and most worshipful, ought, of course, to be
the 'Highest Spirit.' But the reverse, as usual, is the case. The Guiana
Indians believe in the continued, but not in the everlasting, existence of
a man's ghost.[26] They believe in no spirits which were not once tenants
of material bodies.[27]

The belief in a Supreme Spirit is only attained 'in the highest form of
religion'--Andamanese, for instance--as Mr. Im Thurn uses 'spirit' where
we should say 'being.' 'The Indians of Guiana know no god.'[28]

'But it is true that various words have been found in all, or nearly all,
the languages of Guiana which have been supposed to be names of a Supreme
Being, God, a Great Spirit, in the sense which those phrases bear in the
language of the higher religions.'

Being interpreted, these Guiana names mean--

_The Ancient One,
The Ancient One in Sky-land,
Our Maker,
Our Father,
Our Great Father._

'None of those in any way involves the attributes of a god.'

The Ancient of Days, Our Father in Sky-land, Our Maker, do rather convoy
the sense of God to a European mind. Mr. Im Thurn, however, decides that
the beings thus designated were supposed ancestors who came into Guiana
from some other country, 'sometimes said to have been that entirely
natural country (?) which is separated from Guiana by the ocean of the
air.'[29]

Mr. Im Thurn casually observed (having said nothing about morals in
alliance w