The attitude of the American Indian toward the Eternal, the Great Mystery that surrounds and embraces us, is as simple as it is exalted. To us it is the surreme conception, bringing with it the fullest measure of joy and satisfaction possible in this life.

     The worship of the Great Mystery is silent, solitary, free from all self-seeking.

     It is silent, because all speech is of necessity feeble and imperfect; therefore the souls of our ancestors ascended to God in wordless adoration.

     It is solitary, because we believe that God is nearer to us in solitude, and there are no priests authorized to come between us and our Maker. None can exhort or confess or in any way meddle with the religious experience of another. All of us are created children of God, and all stand erect, conscious of our divinity. Our faith cannot be formulated in creeds, nor forced upon any who are unwilling to receive it; hence there is no preaching, proselytzing, nor persecution, neither are there any scoffers or atheists

     Our religion is an attitude of mind, not a dogma.

 

 

 

     There are no temples or shrines amoung us save those of nature. Being children of nature, we are intensely poetical. We would deem it sacrilege to build a house for  The One who may be met face to face in the mysterious, shadowy aisles of the primeval forest, or on the sunlit bosom of virgin prairies, upon dizzy soires and pinnacles of naked rock, and in the vast jeweledvault of the night sky! A God who is enrobed in filmy veils of cloud, there on the rim of the visible world where our Great-Grandfather Sun kundles his evening camp-fire; who rides upon the rigorous wind of the north, or breathes forth spirit upon fragrant southern airs, whose war canoe is launched upon majestic rivers and inland seas - such a God needs no lesser cathedral.