Chapter XVI on what one might call a religion was particularly interesting. I found it interesting how a European, Christian writer was trying so hard to equate the religion of the Americans to that of something found in Europe. First he tries to equate it to the old Greco-Roman Pagan religions before christianity, but then he recognized that even that was too organized and choreographed.

He then goes into detail about how they are so ignorant of religion due to their lack of written religious texts or writing at all.

Then he finally proclaims that these “savages” live without religion at all, which after further research isn’t entirely true. Both historical and archeological evidence suggest that the natives living in the Americas did practice various religions. Since the Europeans, however, could not really equate it to anything that they experienced, they therefore rendered it as not existing at all.