The transfer is no mere figure of speech, but has its origin in the very texture of the human mind. The heavens, the upper regions, are in every religion the supposed abode of the divine. What is higher is always the stronger and the nobler; a _superior_ is one who is better than we are, and therefore a chieftain in Algonkin is called _oghee-ma_, the higher one. There is, moreover, a naif and spontaneous instinct which leads man in his ecstasies of joy, and in his paroxysms of fear or pain, to lift his hands and eyes to the overhanging firmament. There the sun and bright stars sojourn, emblems of glory and stability. Its azure vault has a mysterious attraction which invites the eye to gaze longer and longer into its infinite depths.[46-2] Its color brings thoughts of serenity, peace, sunshine, and warmth. Even the rudest hunting tribes felt these sentiments, and as a metaphor in their speeches, and as a paint expressive of friendly design, blue was in wide use among them.[47-1]
So it came to pass that the idea of God was linked to the heavens long ere man asked himself, are the heavens material and God spiritual, is He one, or is He many? Numerous languages bear trace of this. The Latin Deus, the Greek Zeus, the Sanscrit Dyaus, the Chinese Tien, all originally meant the sky above, and our own word heaven is often employed synonymously with God. There is at first no personification in these expressions. They embrace all unseen agencies, they are void of personality, and yet to the illogical primitive man there is nothing contradictory in making them the object of his prayers. The Mayas had legions of gods; "_ku_," says their historian,[47-2] "does not signify any particular god; yet their prayers are sometimes addressed to _kue_," which is the same word in the vocative case.
As the Latins called their united divinities _Superi_, those above, so Captain John Smith found that the Powhatans of Virginia employed the word _oki_, above, in the same sense, and it even had passed into a definite personification among them in the shape of an "idol of wood evil-favoredly carved." In purer dialects of the Algonkin it is always indefinite, as in the terms _nipoon oki_, spirit of summer, _pipoon oki_, spirit of winter. Perhaps the word was introduced into Iroquois by the Hurons, neighbors and associates of the Algonkins. The Hurons applied it to that demoniac power "who rules the seasons of the year, who holds the winds and the waves in leash, who can give fortune to their undertakings, and relieve all their wants."[48-1] In another and far distant branch of the Iroquois, the Nottoways of southern Virginia, it reappears under, the curious form _quaker_, doubtless a corruption of the Powhatan _qui-oki_, lesser gods.[48-2] The proper Iroquois name of him to whom they prayed was _garonhia_, which again turns out on examination to be their common word for _sky_, and again in all probability from the verbal root _gar_, to be above.[48-3] In the legends of the Aztecs and Quiches such phrases as "Heart of the Sky," "Lord of the Sky," "Prince of the Azure Planisphere," "He above all," are of frequent occurrence, and by a still bolder metaphor, the Araucanians, according to Molina, entitled their greatest god "The Soul of the Sky."