st Spirit, and the Governor
and the Creator of the world. It is said that almost all the nations of
the Algonquin language give this Sovereign Being the appellation of the
Great Hare. Some, again, call him Michabou, and others Atahocan. Most of
them hold the opinion that he was born upon the waters, together with his
whole court, entirely composed of four-footed animals, like himself; that
he formed the earth of a grain of sand, which he took from the bottom of
the ocean; and that he created man of the bodies of the dead animals.
There are, likewise, some who mention a god of the waters, who opposed the
designs of the Great Hare, or, at least, refused to be assisting to him.
This god is, according to some, the Great Tiger. They have a third, called
Matcomek, whom they invoke in the winter season.

The Agreskoui of the Hurons, and the Agreskouse of the Iroquois, is, in
the opinion of these nations, the Sovereign Being, and the god of war.
These Indians do not give the same original to mankind with the
Algonquins; they do not ascend so high as the first creation. According to
them, there were, in the beginning, six men in the world; and, if you ask
them who placed them there, they answer you, they do not know.

The gods of the Indians have bodies, and live much in the same manner as
themselves, but without any of those inconveniences to which they are
subject. The word _spirit_, among them, signifies only a being of a more
excellent nature than others.

According to the Iroquois, in the third generation there came a deluge, in
which not a soul was saved; so that, in order to repeople the earth, it
was necessary to change beasts into men.

Beside the First Being, or the Great Spirit, they hold an infinite number
of genii, or inferior spirits, both good and evil, who have each their
peculiar form of worship.

They ascribe to these beings a kind of immensity and omnipresence, and
constantly invoke them as the guardians of mankind. But they never address
themselves to the evil genii, except to beg of them to do them no hurt.

They believe in the immortality of the soul, and say that the region of
their everlasting abode lies so far westward, that the souls are several
months in arriving at it, and have vast difficulties to surmount. The
happiness which they hope to enjoy is not believed to be the recompense of
virtue only; but to have been a good hunter, brave in war, &c., are the
merits which entitle them to this paradi