platforms, and though great men were left to sleep in their lodges,
henceforth never to be entered by the living, there is no trace known to
me of continued ancestor-worship. As many Blackfeet change their names
yearly, ancestral names are not likely to become those of gods.

The Sun is by many believed to have taken the previous place of Na-pi in
religion; or perhaps Na-pi _is_ the Sun. However, he is still separately
addressed in prayer. The Sun receives presents of furs and so forth; a
finger, when the prayer is for life, has been offered to him. Fetishism
probably shows itself in gifts to a great rock. There is daily prayer,
both to the Sun and to Na-pi. Women institute Medicine Lodges, praying,
'Pity me, Sun. You have seen my life. You know that I am pure.' 'We look
on the Medicine Lodge woman as you white people do on the Roman Catholic
Sisters.' Being 'virtuous in deed, serious, and clean-minded,' the Medical
Lodge woman is in spiritual _rapport_ with Na-pi and the Sun. To this
extent, at least, Blackfoot religion is an ethical influence.

The creed seems to be a nascent polytheism, subordinate to Na-pi as
supreme Maker, and to the personified Sun. As Blackfoot ghosts are
'vaporous, ineffectual' for good, there seems to be nothing like ancestor
worship.

These two cults and beliefs, Pawnee and Blackfoot, may be regarded as
fairly well authenticated examples of un-Christianised American religion
among races on the borderland of agriculture and the chase. It would be
difficult to maintain that ghost-worship or ancestor-worship is a potent
factor in the evolution of the deathless Ti-ra-wa or the immortal Creator
Na-pi, who has nothing of the spirit about him, especially as ghosts are
not worshipped.[12]

Let us now look at the Supreme Being of a civilised American people. There
are few more interesting accounts of religion than Garcilasso de la Vega's
description of faith in Peru. Garcilasso was of Inca parentage on the
spindle side; he was born in 1540, and his book, taken from the traditions
of an uncle, and aided by the fragmentary collections of Father Blas
Valera, was published in 1609. In Garcilasso's theory the original people
of Peru, Totemists and worshippers of hills and streams, Earth and Sea,
were converted to Sun worship by the first Inca, a child of the Sun. Even
the new religion included ancestor-worship and other superstitions. But
behind Sun worship was the faith in a Being who 'advanced the Sun