ow can Lafitau be said to have elevated oki into
Oki, and so to have made a god out of "a class of spirits or demons,"
in 1724, when Mr. Tylor had already cited Smith's Okee, with a capital
letter and as a "chief god," in 1612? Smith, rebuked for the same by Mr.
Tylor, had even identified Okee with the devil. Lafitau certainly
did not begin this erroneous view of Oki as a "chief god" among the
Virginians. If I cannot to-day produce corroboration for a god named
Ahone, I can at least show that, from the north of New England to the
south of Virginia, there is early evidence, cited by Mr. Tylor, for a
belief in a primal creative being, closely analogous to Ahone. And this
evidence, I think, distinctly proves that such a being as Ahone was
within the capacity of the Indians in these latitudes. Mr. Tylor must
have thought in 1891 that the natives were competent to a belief in a
supreme deity, for he said, "Another famous native American name for the
supreme deity is Oki".(3) In the essay of 1892, however, Oki does not
appear to exist as a god's name till 1724. We may now, for earlier
evidence, turn to Master Thomas Heriot, "that learned mathematician"
"who spoke the Indian language," and was with the company which
abandoned Virginia on 18th June, 1586. They ranged 130 miles north
and 130 miles north-west of Roanoke Island, which brings them into the
neighbourhood of Smith's and Strachey's country. Heriot writes as to the
native creeds: "They believe that there are many gods which they call
Mantoac, but of different sorts and degrees. Also that there is one
chiefe God that hath beene from all eternitie, who, as they say, when he
purposed first to make the world, made first other gods of a principall
order, to be as instruments to be used in the Creation and Government to
follow, and after the Sunne, Moone and Starres as pettie gods, and the
instruments of the other order more principall.... They thinke that all
the gods are of humane shape," and represent them by anthropomorphic
idols. An idol, or image, "Kewasa" (the plural is "Kewasowok"),
is placed in the temples, "where they worship, pray and make many
offerings". Good souls go to be happy with the gods, the bad burn in
Popogusso, a great pit, "where the sun sets". The evidence for this
theory of a future life, as usual, is that of men who died and revived
again, a story found in a score of widely separated regions, down to our
day, when the death, revival and revelation oc