| OCR Text |
Show XL ANNUAL REPORT OP THE DIRECTOR as to the civilized mind. In speaking of the theology of the North American Indians as being zoomorphic it must therefore be understood to mean that such is its chief characteristic, but not its exclusive characteristic; and further, it must be understood that it contains by survival many elements from an earlier condition in which hecastotheism prevailed, that is, that the form of philosophy known as animism was generally accepted, and that psychic life, with feeling, thought, and will, was attributed to inanimate things. But more than this, zootheism is not a permanent state of philosophy, but only a stepping- stone to something higher. That something higher may be denominated physitheism, or the worship of the powers and more obtrusive phenomena of nature. In this higher state the sun, the planets, the stars, the winds, the storms, the rainbow, and fire take the leading part. The beginnings of this higher state are to be observed in many of the mythologies of North America. It is worthy of remark that a mythology with its religion subject to the influences of an overwhelming civilization yields first in its zoomorphic elements. Zoic mythology soon degenerates into folk tales of beasts, to be recited by crones to children or told by garrulous old men as amusing stories inherited from past generations; while physitheism is more often incorporated into the compound of paganism and Christianity now held by the more advanced tribes. Notwithstanding this general tendency, zootheism is often, though not to so great an extent, compounded in the same way. The study of this stage of mythology, and of the arts and customs arising therefrom, as they are exhibited among the North American Indians, will ultimately throw a flood of light upon that later stage known as physitheism, or nature worship, now the subject of investigation by an army of Aryan scholars. |
