zootheism

The religion of the Cherokees, like that of most of our North American tribes, is zootheism or animal worship, with the survival of that earlier stage designated by Powell as hecastotheism, or the worship of all things tangible, and the beginnings of a higher system in which the elements and the great powers of nature are deified.

The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees Seventh Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1885-1886, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1891, pages 301-398

At the same time well-marked zootheistic features are found in the mythic thunder-birds and in the more or less complete deification of various animals, in the exaltation of the horse into the rank of the mythic dog father, and in the animal forms of the water-monsters and earth-beings; and the living application of zootheism is found in the animal fetiches and totems.

The Siouan Indians

In hecastotheism the potencies revered or worshiped are polymorphic, while their attributes reflect the mental operations of the believers; in zootheism the deities worshiped are zoomorphic, and their attributes continue to reflect the human mind.

The Siouan Indians

The second stage is zootheism; within it the powers of animate forms are exaggerated and amplified into the realm of the supernal, and certain animals are deified.

The Siouan Indians

On the whole, it seems just to assign the Siouan mythology to the upper strata of zootheism, just verging on physitheism, with vestigial traces of hecastotheism.

The Siouan Indians

Notwithstanding this general tendency, zootheism is often, though not to so great an extent, compounded in the same way.

Seventh Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1885-1886, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1891

But more than this, zootheism is not a permanent state of philosophy, but only a stepping-stone to something higher.

Seventh Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1885-1886, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1891

The religion of the Cherokees, like that of most of our North American tribes, is zootheism or animal worship, with the survival of that earlier stage designated by Powell as hecastotheism, or the worship of all things tangible, and the beginnings of a higher system in which the elements and the great powers of nature are deified.

Seventh Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1885-1886, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1891

So the stages in the evolution of mythologic philosophy overlap widely; there is probably no tribe now living among whom zootheism has not yet taken root, though hecastotheism has been found dominant among different tribes; there is probably no people in the zootheistic stage who are completely divested of hecastotheistic vestiges; and one of the curious features of even the most advanced psychotheism is the occasional outcropping of features inherited from all of the earlier stages.

The Siouan Indians