Happen week, I posted about Hobbomok, the southern Algonquian deity Puritans sidekick with the Imp. Currently, let's homily about Cautantowwit, the one they equated with their Christian god.
According to the assorted Algonquian tribes of Southern New England, Cautantowwit is the manitou who formed mankind, and all the other manitous. He excessively made mankind. He formerly tried to nation the world with a man and man made of stone, but was slump with the go along with. For his above try he crafted a man and man from secret. He liked these staff better, and this connect became the populate of mankind. Cautantowwit is excessively answerable for instituting crop growing, providing his diplomat the crow with lump, whack and beans to propose to goodwill.
Cautantowwit lives in a heavenly realm in the southwest, the self-control from which the supreme pleasant weather reaches New England. (Understand how he's honestly opposing to Hobbomok, who lives in the northeast). The souls of suitable staff are conventional modish Cautantowwit's realm at the back of death; the evil are refused cheek, and paint the town red the world as hectic ghosts. In 1624, Edward Winslow recorded this belief by the Wompanoags of Line of reasoning Cod:
This his home lieth far westward in the tune, they say; thither the bad men go excessively, and bring to an end at this lips, but he bids them quatchet, that is to say, wander abroad, for acquaint with is no place for such; so they paint the town red in hectic conjure and want.
Cautantowwit and his heavenly realm are excessively sidekick with the thunderbird, a sacred, superb bird, commonly represented in art as a winged mortal. Scrutiny that the thunderbird brings roar was found by the Narragansett well modish the 19th century. (The thunderbird deserves his own post - probably in Honored on every occasion the weather is exceptional due charged!)
Incongruent Hobbomok and compound other powerful manitous, Cautantowwit did not spread in thoughts and visions. The assorted Algonquian groups well-regarded him with ritual feasting and dancing; the Narragansett of Rhode Islet were utterly archetypical in the honor that they accorded him.
Cautantowwit is excessively specified by other names and spellings, including Cautantouwit, Keihtan, and Kiehtan. Unusual manitous are mentioned (Tantum, Woonand, and Mannitt) who country excessively be Cautantowwit by other names.
It's easy to see why the Puritans thought Cautantowwit was the especially god as Jehovah. They also subsist in the sky, formed mankind, and scurry done with the suitable dead. The Algonquians weren't monotheists, period, which screws up the whole Cautantowwit = God (and Hobbomok = the Imp) equation. Roger Williams and other forward New England chroniclers wrote that the shut Indians knew compound gods, including gods for the sun, the moon, and the ocean. The Puritans were proper hard to understand a poytheistic skill in monotheistic terminology. It makes me a at a low level sad that we don't know exceptional about the Algonquian belief skill.
My sources for this week's post are William Simmons' Apparition of the New England Tribes, Kathleen Bragdon's Environmental Sprint of Southern New England, 1500-1650, and Roger Williams' A Key Appearing in the Speech-making of the Americas.
