Page:A description of Greenland.djvu/227

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of Greenland.
179

CHAP. XIX.

The Religion, or rather Superſtition, of the Greenlanders.


The Greenlanders may paſs for Naturaliſts.The Greenlanders Ignorance of a Creator would make one believe they were Atheiſts, or rather Naturaliſts. For, when they have been aſked from whence they thought that Heaven and Earth had their Origin, they have anſwered, nothing, but that it had always been ſo. They hold the Immortality of Souls, and admit a Spiritual Being.But if we conſider, that they have ſome Notion of the Immortality of Souls[1], and that there is another much happier Life after this; They are addicted to many Superſtitions, which ſuppoſes a kind of Worſhip.moreover, as they are addicted to different kinds of Superſtition, and that they hold there is a Spiritual Being, which they call Torngarſuk, to whom they aſcribe a ſupernatural Power, though not the Creation or the Production of Creatures, (of whoſe Origin they
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  1. The Angekuts ſay that Souls are a ſoft Matter to feel, or rather that they cannot be felt, as if they had neither Sinews, nor Bones.