to hearken to the
good, and not to evil spirits--the former always recommending
peace.' They had formerly no notion of a devil, or evil being, in
the Christian or Eastern sense of the term, but readily adopted,
according to Loskiel, such a belief from the white people. They
have among them preachers, who pretend to have received
revelations, and who dispute and teach different opinions. Some
pretend to have travelled near to the dwelling of God, or near
enough to hear the cocks crow, and see the smoke of the chimneys in
heaven; others declare that no one ever knew the dwelling-place of
God, but that the abode of the Good Spirit is above the blue sky,
and that the road to it is the milky way--a notion, by the way,
which Beausobre and others have traced in the remains of the
Manicheans, and other Eastern philosophers. The Americans believe
in the existence of souls distinct from bodies, and many of them in
the transmigration of souls. According to Loskiel, they declare,
'that Indians cannot die eternally; for even Indian corn is
vivified, and rises again.' The general opinion among them is, that
the souls of the good alone go to a place abounding in all earthly
pleasures, while the wicked wander about dejected and melancholy.
Like other nations, they had sacrifices. 'Sacrifices,' says
Loskiel, 'made with a view to pacify God and the subordinate
deities, are of a very ancient date among them, and considered in
so sacred a light, that unless they are performed in a time and
manner acceptable, illness, misfortune, and death would befall them
and their families.' They offer on these occasions hares, bear's
flesh, and Indian corn. Many nations have, besides other stated
times of sacrifice, one principal festival in two years, when they
sacrifice an animal, and make a point of eating the whole.

"A small quantity of melted fat is poured by the oldest men into
the fire, and in this the main part of the offering consists. The
offerings are made to Manittos. The Manittos are precisely the
Fetisses of the African nations, and of the Northern Asiatics. They
are tutelary beings, often in visible forms. Every Indian has a
guardian Manitto; one has the sun for his Manitto; one the moon;
one has a dream, that he must make his Manitto an owl; one a
buffalo. Th