FATHER MORICE

average of intelligence and morals among
the aborigines of the Pacific Coast, or let us
say of the Rockies, was, however, of a lower
order than among the tribes of the Plains.
Among all there obtained the idea of a Great
Spirit or Master of Life—Kichi-Manitou,
together with the idea, of course, of an op-
posite spirit or Bad Spirit, Machi-Manitou.

Yet their religious system, which was the
shamanism common to nearly all the natives
of America, was mostly concerned with a
multitude of lesser spirits which were be-
lieved to people the material world, to in-
habit rocks and trees, lakes and mountains
—some good, which were supposed to adopt
people and act as their protectors, others
bad, which caused storms and head winds in
nature, sickness and bad luck in individuals.
So that, in the eyes of those Indians, a sick
person is little short of one possessed of an
evil spirit, which has to be exorcised out of
the patient by the incantations of the sha-
man or medicine-man, who is thought to be
under the influence of a stronger spirit.

In estimating the work of the missionary
—his difficulties and hardships in British
Columbia—we must not forget the physical

.