physitheism

The study of this stage of mythology, and of the arts and customs arising therefrom, as they are exhibited among the North American Indians, will ultimately throw a flood of light upon that later stage known as physitheism, or nature worship, now the subject of investigation by an army of Aryan scholars.

Seventh Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1885-1886, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1891 John Wesley Powell 1868

Psychotheism is born of physitheism as the anthropomorphic element in the concept of natural agency gradually fades; but since none of the aborigines of the United States had passed into the higher stage, the mode of transition does not require consideration.

The Siouan Indians 1882

The third stage is that of physitheism, in which the agencies of nature are personified and exalted unto omnipotence.

The Siouan Indians 1882

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 1882

Considering the mythology in relation to the stages in development of mythologic philosophy, it appears that the dominant beliefs, such as those pertaining to the sun and the winds, represent a crude physitheism, while vestiges of hecastotheism crop out in the object-worship and place-worship of the leading tribes and in other features.

The Siouan Indians 1882

Thus the existence of physitheism as a stage of philosophy is abundantly attested.

Sketch of the Mythology of the North American Indians First Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1879-80, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1881, pages 17-56 John Wesley Powell 1868

All these tribes are found in the higher stages of savagery, or the lower stages of barbarism, and their mythologies are found to be zoötheistic among the lowest, physitheistic among the highest, and a great number of tribes are found in a transition state: for zoötheism is found to be a characteristic of savagery, and physitheism of barbarism, using the terms as they have been defined by Morgan.

Sketch of the Mythology of the North American Indians First Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1879-80, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1881, pages 17-56 John Wesley Powell 1868

Having discovered this, with a vast accumulation of evidence, we are enabled to carry philosophy back one stage beyond physitheism, and we can confidently assert that all the philosophies of civilization have come up through these three stages.

Sketch of the Mythology of the North American Indians First Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1879-80, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1881, pages 17-56 John Wesley Powell 1868

That something higher may be denominated physitheism, or the worship of the powers and more obtrusive phenomena of nature.

Seventh Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1885-1886, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1891 John Wesley Powell 1868

Zoic mythology soon degenerates into folk tales of beasts, to be recited by crones to children or told by garrulous old men as amusing stories inherited from past generations; while physitheism is more often incorporated into the compound of paganism and Christianity now held by the more advanced tribes.

Seventh Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1885-1886, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1891 John Wesley Powell 1868