Manitu

“…Every successful hunter is more or less a conjuror adjusting himself to the realm of the Unknown which he senses about him…a process of independent experience interpreted out of the background of suggestion leveled upon the mind of the native by the tribally inherited pattern. He imitates the practices; he profits by the sayings and doings of his elders…

In short, he learns two things as a requirement of existence: “to work,” that is, to hunt, trap, fish, to make and use the articles employed therein; and to “operate mentu’ (Manitu),” a native term the meaning of which we can scarcely grasp, but represents something near our own notion of unseen force. The two are equally important and inseparable, according to his notion. This means the spiritual factor in industrial industry is as important a mechanical factor as a physical…”

Frank G. Speck, “Naskapi: The Savage Hunters of the Labrador Peninsula”

Volume 10 Civilization of American Indian Series 1935 (1965, 1977) University of Oklahoma Press