strokes of lightning, etc., in every way to them unaccountable by natural means.
They think this great medicine pervades all air, earth and sky; that it is omnipresent, omnipotent, but subject to be changed and enlisted on their side in any undertaking if the proper ceremonies and sacrifices are made. It is the author of both good and evil according to its pleasure, or in accordance with their attention to their mode of worship.
Its good acts are apparent in years of great abundance of game, seasons of health, triumph over enemies; etc. ; and the evil in great distress, losses, defeat, infectious diseases, or any other great misfortune, the cause of which is unknown and cannot otherwise be attributed. And as it seldom happens in their precarious life that the intervals between accidents or calamities are long, this Great Spirit is more feared than loved. Its bounties are passed by unheeded and unthanked, whilst its visitations are fearfully numbered. Power is its attribute and its residence is supposed by some to be in the sun.
They do not acknowledge any separate existing spirit of evil, although they have a name for a being of the kind in their language; yet the idea has been implanted by the whites in late years and is by them but faintly realized. Great evil is a dispensation of the anger of the Great Spirit which it is in their power to avoid by making the proper sacrifices, prayers and fasts, which they all do; yet they make no demonstrations of thanks by offerings or otherwise when success has been the apparent result of their ceremonies. This would seem to prove that they believe the aid of the Great Spirit to have been bought, paid for, by the value of the articles sacrificed, or only a compliance with obligation on its part accruing from their personal infliction of pain.
This great unknown spirit or medicine created all things - a few men and women of different colors first, from which original stock sprang the various races of mankind, whites, Indians, negroes, etc. The Indians, they say, are