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Show THEOLOGICAL REFLECTIONS. 447 I have seen is only some sorcerers, and no doubt they rate system of dogma, ritual, and priestcraft, the difference between which and that of GarceY church was simply the difference between an Indian and a Spaniard. The underlying principle was the same, on the Colorado as on the Tiber, in Arizona as in Rome. The unanimity with which the padres, both Jesuit and Franciscan, disclaimed idolatry among their Indians is to me incomprehensible; sometimes I think I do not know what they mean by " idolatry." For if there is a basic fact in Indian religion, it is reverence for sacred symbols or fetiches of the most concrete material sort; just as the Catholics make fetiches of crucifixes and other images or paintings, strings of beads, bits of bread, sups of wine, and other objects, so do the Indians of their carvings and paintings of various things, bits of wood or bone, stones, feathers, hairs, seeds, etc. Where is the difference? Yet the Rudo Ensayo says, with comical naivete, p. 171: " A favorable characteristic of all the nations which people the Province of Sonora, even including the Sens and Apaches, is that they neither have been nor are at present idolaters; nor have they any inclination to become so. Thus far no trace has been found at all of such a worship or adoration- no idols or objects which would indicate that such a thing had existed up to the present time. The only devotion that has been observed is one to the Devil, and this is rather caused by fear and stupidity than by inclination. I am led to believe this because in all the ranches or villages there has always been one or more sorcerers; at least they are called so; and these have ever been suspected and feared on account of the belief that they can do evil. " I said that at least they are called so, because I cannot be persuaded to think that there have been real sorcerers among the Indians, and this for many reasons. 1st, Because the mischief they do is very little, considering the insatiable fury of the |