Religion


The Indians of coastal Carolina believed there were many gods, of varying degrees of power and authority, but there was only one Great God—the Great Spirit. When the Great Spirit decided to create the world and the people in it, he first created lesser gods, including the sun and moon. In their belief, the Great Spirit first created woman, instead of man. Then, with the cooperation of a lesser god, she conceived and brought forth children to people the world. They had no written records of when these things occurred, but only legends, handed down from father to son.

They believed in the immortality of the soul after life on this earth. Depending upon the life they had lived, their souls went either to a Happy Hunting Ground in the sky, the habitat of the Great Spirit; or to a great pit or hole, somewhere toward the setting sun, which they called Popequsso, there to burn forever.

John Lawson confirms the fact the Indians believed in life after death, but gives a different version of their Heaven and Hell. Heaven was a place where the deceased “will have the enjoyment of young Women, great Store of Deer to hunt, (and) never meet with Hunger, Cold, and Fatigue.” Hell was just the opposite. There the departed hunter would always have “Hunger, Cold, Troubles, and only old, ugly Women for their Companions.”

see also
Indian Religion



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