They then
began to cry out to each other, 'Atahocan! Atahocan! it is Atahocan!'"

There could be no better evidence that Atahocan was NOT (as is often
said) "borrowed from the Jesuits". The Jesuits had only just arrived.

Later (1634) Le Jeune interrogated an old man and a partly Europeanised
sorcerer. They replied that nothing was certain; that Atahocan was only
spoken of as "of a thing so remote," that assurance was impossible. "In
fact, their word Nitatohokan means, 'I fable, I tell an old story'."

Thus Atahocan, though at once recognised as identical with the Creator
of the missionary, was so far from being the latest thing in religious
evolution that he had passed into a proverb for the ancient and the
fabulous. This, of course, is inconsistent with RECENT borrowing. He was
neglected for Khichikouai, spirits which inspire seers, and are of
some practical use, receiving rewards in offerings of grease, says Le
Jeune.(1)

(1) Relations, 1633, 1634.

The obsolescent Atahocan seems to have had no moral activity. But, in
America, this indolence of God is not universal. Mr. Parkman indeed
writes: "In the primitive Indian's conception of a God, the idea of
moral good has no part".(1) But this is definitely contradicted by
Heriot, Strachey, Winslow, already cited, and by Pere Le Jeune. The good
attributes of Kiehtan and Ahone were not borrowed from Christianity,
were matter of Indian belief before the English arrived. Mr. Parkman
writes: "The moment the Indians began to contemplate the object of his
faith, and sought to clothe it with attributes, it became finite, and
commonly ridiculous". It did so, as usual, in MYTHOLOGY, but not in
RELIGION. There is nothing ridiculous in what is known of Ahone and
Kiehtan. If they had a mythology, and if we knew the myths, doubtless
they would be ridiculous enough. The savage mind, turned from belief and
awe into the spinning of yarns, instantly yields to humorous fancy. As
we know, mediaeval popular Christianity, in imagery, marchen or tales,
and art, copiously illustrates the same mental phenomenon. Saints,
God, our Lord, and the Virgin, all play ludicrous and immoral parts in
Christian folk-tales. This is Mythology, and here is, beyond all cavil,
a late corruption of Religion. Here, where we know the history of a
creed, Religion is early, and these myths are late. Other examples of
American divine ideas might be given, such as the extraordinary hymns
in which the Zunis add