In a language which separates all
matter, the whole creation, in fact, into two classes of nouns--deemed
animates and inanimates--the distinctions of gender are lost, so far as
the laws of syntax are involved. It is necessary only to speak of
objects as possessing and wanting vitality, to communicate to them the
property named, whether it in reality possesses it in nature or not. For
this purpose words which lack it in their penultimate syllables, take
the consonant _n_ to make their plurals for inanimates, and _g_ for
animates. By this simple method, the whole inanimate creation--woods,
trees, rocks, clouds, waters, &c.--is clothed at will with life, or the
opposite class of objects are shorn of it, which enables the speaker,
whose mind is imbued with his peculiar mythology and necromancy, to
create a spiritual world around him. In this creation it is known to all
who have investigated the subject, that the Indian mind has exercised
its ingenuity, by creating classes and species of spirits, of all
imaginable kinds, which, to his fancied eye, fill all surrounding space.
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