origin, coined at the suggestion of missionaries, applied to the white man's God. . . . The Jesuits' Relations state positively that there was no one immaterial God recognised by the Algonkin tribes, and that the title 'The Great Manito' was introduced first by themselves in its personal sense." The statement of one missionary cannot be taken, of course, to bind all the others. The Père Paul le Jeune remarks, "The savages give the name of Manitou to whatsoever in nature, good or evil, is superior to man. Therefore when we speak of God, they sometimes call him 'The Good Manitou,' that is, 'The Good Spirit.' "[1] The same Père Paul le Jeune[2] says that by Manitou his flock meant un ange ou quelque nature puissante. Il y'en a de bons et de mauvais. The evidence of Père Hierosme Lallemant[3] has already been alluded to, but it may be as well to repeat that, while he attributes to the Indians a kind of unconscious religious theism, he entirely denies them any monotheistic dogmas. With Tertullian, he writes, Exclamant vocem naturaliter Christianam. "To speak truth, these peoples have derived from their fathers no knowledge of a God, and before we set foot in their country they had nothing but vain fables about the origin of the world. Nevertheless, savages as they were, there did abide in their hearts a secret sentiment of divinity, and of a first principle, author of all things, whom, not knowing, they yet invoked. In the forest, in the chase, on the water, in peril by sea, they call him to their aid." This guardian, it
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