[Review of] Jennifer S.H. Brown and Robert Brightman. The Orders of the Dreamed :George Nelson on Cree and Northern Ojibwa Religion and Myth, 1823

This text addresses the complex challenge of comprehending religious otherness. Brown and Brightman present a previously unpublished 1823 letter journal of fur trader George Nelson in which he reflects on his struggle to understand the Cree and Ojibwa people he knew at first hand. While he constantly wondered at the strangeness of Algonquian religion, he also expressed his admiration as frequently. The Cree and the Ojibwa were thoroughly religious and, paradoxical as it seemed to Nelson, he did admit that their religion worked