o undertook a philosophical survey of American
religions was Dr. Samuel Farmer Jarvis, in 1819 (A Discourse on the
Religion of the Indian Tribes of North America, Collections of the
New York Historical Society, vol. iii., New York, 1821). He
confined himself to the tribes north of Mexico, a difficult portion
of the field, and at that time not very well known. The notion of a
state of primitive civilization prevented Dr. Jarvis from forming
any correct estimate of the native religions, as it led him to look
upon them as deteriorations from purer faiths instead of
developments. Thus he speaks of them as having "departed less than
among any other nation from the form of primeval truth," and also
mentions their "wonderful uniformity" (pp. 219, 221).

The well-known American ethnologist, Mr. E. G. Squier, has also
published a work on the subject, of wider scope than its title
indicates (The Serpent Symbol in America, New York, 1851). Though
written in a much more liberal spirit than the preceding, it is
wholly in the interests of one school of mythology, and it the
rather shallow physical one, so fashionable in Europe half a
century ago. Thus, with a sweeping generalization, he says, "The
religions or superstitions of the American nations, however
different they may appear to the superficial glance, are
rudimentally the same, and are only modifications of that primitive
system which under its physical aspect has been denominated Sun or
Fire worship" (p. 111). With this he combines the favorite and (may
I add?) characteristic French doctrine, that the chief topic of
mythology is the adoration of the generative power, and to rescue
such views from their materializing tendencies, imagines to
counterbalance them a clear, universal monotheism. "We claim to
have shown," he says (p. 154), "that the grand conception of a
Supreme Unity and the doctrine of the reciprocal principles existed
in America in a well defined and clearly recognized form;" and
elsewhere that "the monotheistic idea stands out clearly in _all_
the religions of America" (p. 151).

If with a hope of other views we turn to our magnificent national
work on the Indians (History, Conditions, and Prospects of the
Indian Tribes of the United States: Washington, 1851-9), a great
disappointment