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this mysterious power behind contagion, but the savages have gone so far as to give it a name. It is orenda among the Hurons. Spirits, men, and beasts may have or be orenda — for it is both adjective and noun. The successful hunter owes to it his game; the storms have it; it is in the voice of the enchanter, incantations are filled with it; it is the power of the medicine man. Its very vagueness aids in its definition, for it is not spirit, it is merely power — mysterious, wonderful, uncanny potency. The Algon- quin manitou is the same thing; and both the idea and the name are found generally among our Indians. The work of Miss Fletcher, Messrs. McGee, Hewitt, and Jones, as well as that of Powell, Brinton, and others has at last brought this home to us. The Aruntas of Australia call it arungquiltha, the Malgaches of Madagascar call it hasina^ the Maoris atua, the Melanesians mana, and, I venture to add, the Latins, that one people of antiquity whose state religion remained even in the time of its highest culture a clear perpetuation of magic, called it sacer, or the sacred — the thing with power to bless or curse, the nameless, formless force which even in historic times took to itself form and shape as god or goddess. Bona Dea or Optimus Maximus. Time will not permit me to trace in detail the succession of modern investigators which has brought this principle of religious evolution to our attention. Although early dictionaries, espec- ially of Indian languages, contained some hint of the idea, and investigators here or there brought in scattered evidences from time to time, it was not until about 1895, so far as I know, that the mass of evidence became general, and, mainly through our own American workers, drew attention to the implications. Yet the significance was not really seen until about 1900, when Mr. Marett brought out in Folk Lore his theory of a "preanimistic religion," to be followed the next year by Mr. E. S. Hartland.® The first clear statement, however, of the role of orenda, or mana, in magic was the article "Esquisse d'une theorie generale de la magie," by Messrs. Hubert and Mauss in the Annie soci- ologie for 1902-3. This masterful essay remains today the best
•Folklore, XII, 20.
