Note: As mentioned below in the excerpt by Gabriel Sagard, Indigenous people believe that everything (the wind, water, fire, sky, rain, trees, etc.) is animated by a spirit. For the Europeans, however, there was only one god. The religious views held by the Europeans and the Indigenous peoples were therefore very different.

Excerpt: “They believe that there are indeed certain spirits that dominate in one place, and other spirits that dominate in another, some dominate in the rivers, others in the rocks, in the trees, in the fire and in many material things, to which they attribute various powers and authorities.”

 

 

 

 

Author: Excerpt from Histoire du Canada by Gabriel SAGARD, cited in HÉROUX, Denis, Robert LAHAISE, Noël VALLERAND. La Nouvelle-France. Montréal, Kébékédit, 1974, p.8.