The traits of the Five Nations of the Veda for this reason may be compared very advantageously with the traits of the Five Nations of the Iroquois Indians, the most united and intelligent of American native tribes.  Their institutions are not yet extinct, and they have been described by missionaries of the 17th century and by some modern writers, to whom can be imputed no hankering after Aryan primitive ideas.[1] It is but a few years back since the last avat[=a]r of the Iroquois’ incarnate god lived in Onondaga, N.Y.

First, as an illustration of the extraordinary development of memory among rhapsodes, Vedic students, and other Aryans; among the Iroquois “memory was tasked to the utmost, and developed to an extraordinary degree,” says Parkman, who adds that they could repeat point by point with precision any address made to them.[2] Murder was compromised for by Wehrgeld, as among the Vedic, Iranic, and Teutonic peoples.  The Iroquois, like all Indians, was a great gambler, staking all his property[3] (like the Teutons and Hindus).  In religion “A mysterious and inexplicable power resides in inanimate things ...  Lakes, rivers, and waterfalls [as conspicuously in India] are sometimes the dwelling-place of spirits; but more frequently they are themselves living beings, to be propitiated by prayers and offerings."[4] The greatest spirit among the Algonquins is the descendant of the moon, and son of the west-wind (personified).  After the deluge (thus the Hindus, etc.) this great spirit (Manabozho, mana is Manu?) restored the world; some asserting that he created the world out of water.  But others say that the supreme spirit is the sun (Le Jeune, Relation, 1633).  The Algonquins, besides a belief in a good spirit (manitou), had also a belief in a malignant manitou, in whom the missionaries recognized the devil (why not Ormuzd and Ahriman?).  One tribe invokes the ‘Maker of Heaven,’ the ‘god of waters,’ and also the ’seven spirits of the wind’ (so, too, seven is a holy number in the Veda, etc.).

The Iroquois, like the Hindu (later), believe that the earth rests on the back of a turtle or tortoise[5], and that this is ruled over by the sun and moon, the first being a good spirit; the second, malignant.  The good spirit interposes between the malice of the moon and mankind, and it is he who makes rivers; for when the earth was parched, all the water being held back from earth under the armpit of a monster frog, he pierced the armpit and let out the water (exactly as Indra lets out the water held back by the demon).  According to some, this great spirit created mankind, but in the third generation a deluge destroyed his posterity[6].  The good spirit among the Iroquois is the one that gives good luck (perhaps Bhaga).  These Indians believe in the immortality of the soul.  Skillful hunters, brave warriors, go, after death, to the happy hunting-grounds (as in India and Scandinavia);