No. L.

To those well read in the sad records of Indian history, the names of Powhatan, Opechancanough, Massasoit, Alexander, Philip, Canonchet, Logan, Pontiac, and the never-to-be-forgotten Tecumthè, will suggest memories fully justifying the above assertion. The name of Tecumthè signifies "a tiger crouching for his prey." He was equally great in council and in war, noble and generous in spirit as commanding in intellect. He bore the commission of Chief of the Indian Forces in the British army during the late war. He did not, however, join the ranks of the white men until the failure of several admirably contrived projects convinced his sound and enlightened judgment that opposition to the white race was vain. Pontiac was an Ottawa chieftain, who in 1763 succeeded in the next-to-impossible scheme of uniting all the scattered and often hostile Indian tribes distributed throughout the colonized districts of North America in one grand confederacy against their European invaders. Their first step was the projected extinction of all the white man's posts along a thousand miles of frontier; and he actually succeeded so far as to cut off, almost simultaneously, nine out of twelve of these military establishments. The surprise of Michillimackinac, one of these stations, is thus narrated in a public document. (It was a period of profound peace between the Europeans and Indians) : "The fort was then upon the main land, near the northern point of the peninsula. The Ottawas, to whom the assault was committed, prepared for a great game of ball, to which the officers of the garrison were invited. While engaged in play, one of the parties gradually inclined toward the fort, and the other pressed after them. was once or twice thrown over the pickets, and the Indians were suffered to enter and procure it. Nearly all the garrison were present as spectators, and those on duty were alike unprepared as unsuspicious. Suddenly the ball was again thrown into the fort, and all the Indians rushed after it. The rest of the tale is soon told: the troops were butchered, and the fort destroyed." This extensive and well-laid scheme failed, from Pontiac himself being betrayed at the fort of Detroit. He has been accused of great cruelty; but, in contests waged between the red and white races, this is a word of doubtful import. His generosity and heroism are undeniable.

The ball

As a compliment, Major Rogers had sent Pontiac a bottle of brandy. His counselors advised him not to take it: "It must be poisoned,' said they, "and sent with a design to kill him;" but Pontiac laughed at their suspicions. "He can not," he replied, "he can not take my life; I have saved his !"

No. LI.

But a far truer insight into the religious state of the American Indian will be obtained by observing how peculiarly and emphatically he

is, in the words of the apostle,

a law unto himself." I mean, how distinctly he evinces, in the whole moral conduct of his life, that he lives. under a strong and awful sense of positive obligation. It is of little matter with what doctrines that sense of obligation connects itself. It often appears to connect itself with none. The Indian can not tell why a burden is laid upon him to act in this or that manner. He obeys a law undefined, unwritten, but mysteriously binding upon his spirit. All the compulsive force which what we call the law of honor had upon the conscience of a man of the world-I had almost said which religious sanctions have upon the man of principle-is scarcely to be paralleled with that kind of moral necessity which seems in some .cases to actuate his proceedings. If religion be what its name implies, id quod relligat, that which binds the will, and enforces self-denial and self-devotion (be the object or motive held out what it may), then no people taken in the mass is to be compared, in this respect, to the savages of America. After all," says Mr. Flint, "that which has struck us, in contemplating the Indians, with the most astonishment and admiration, is the invisible but universal energy of the operation and influence of an inexplicable law, which has, where it operates, a more certain and controlling power than all the municipal and written laws of the whites united. There is despotic rule without any hereditary or elected chief. There are chiefs with great power, who can not tell when, where, or how they became such. There is perfect unanimity on a question involving the existence of a tribe, when every member belonged to the wild and fierce democracy of nature, and could dissent without giving a reason. A case occurs where it is prescribed by custom that an individual should be punished with death. Escaped from the control of his tribe, and as free as the winds, this invisible tie is about him, and he returns and surrenders himself to justice. His accounts are not settled, and he is in debt. He requests delay till he shall have finished his summer's hunt. He finishes it, pays his debt, and dies with a constancy which has always been, in all views of the Indian character, the theme of admiration."-Flint's Geography of the Mississippi Valley, p. 125.

In the expressive words of Penn, "What good might not a good people graft, where there is so distinct a knowledge both of good and evil ?”—Report on Aborigines, 1837, p. 116.

Mr. Merivale adds, "I would not insert the following high-colored expression in a work edited by Washington Irving, were it not for the remarkable agreement between all capable observers of the uncontaminated races of Indians upon this subject. 'Simply to call these people religious (some tribes of the Rocky Mountains) would convey but a faint idea of the deep hue of piety and devotion which pervades the whole of their conduct. They are more like a nation of saints than a horde of savages.'"-Adventures of Captain Bonneville.

328

THE CONQUEST OF CANADA.

No. LII.

Catlin gives the same account of the appropriation of the Manitou or guardian angel as Lafitau and Charlevoix. He applies to it the term of Mystery, or Medicine-bag, and thus explains the derivation of the modern term:

“The term Medicine, in its common acceptation among the Indians, means mystery, and nothing else. The origin of the term is, that in the French language a doctor is called 'Médecin ;' the Indian country is full of doctors, and as they are all magicians, and profess to be skilled in many mysteries, the word 'médecin' has become habitually applied to every thing mysterious or unaccountable, and the English and American have easily and familiarly adopted the same word, with a slight alteration conveying the same meaning; and, to be a little more explicit, they have denominated these personages 'Medicine-men,' which means something more than merely a doctor or physician. The Indians do not use the word 'medicine,' however, but in each tribe they have a word of their own construction synonymous with mystery or mystery-man. Their medicine-bag then is a mystery-bag, and its meaning and importance necessary to be understood, as it may be said to be the key to Indian life and character.

(C Feasts are often made, and dogs and horses sacrificed, to a man's 'medicine;' and days, and even weeks of fasting and penance of various kinds are often suffered to appease his medicine, which he fancies

he has in some way offended. This curious custom has generally been

•

done away with along the frontier, where white men laugh at the Indian for the observance of so ridiculous and useless a form; but in this country (beyond the Rocky Mountains) it is still in full force, and every male in the tribe carries this his supernatural charm or guardian, to which he looks for the preservation of his life in battle or in other danger. During my travels thus far I have been unable to buy a medicine-bag of an Indian, though I have offered extravagant prices for them; and even on the frontier, where they have been induced to abandon the practice, though a white may induce an Indian to relinquish his medicine, yet he can not buy it of him: the Indian in such case will bury it to please a white, and save it from his sacrilegious touch, and he will linger around the spot, and at regular times visit and pay it his devotions as long as he lives."-Catlin's North American Indians, vol. i., p. 36.

No. LIII.

Catlin says, "The tribes, so far as I have visited them, all distinctly believe in the existence of a Great (or Good) Spirit, an Evil (or Bad) Spirit, and also in a future existence and future accountability, according to their virtues and vices in this world. So far the North American Indians would seem to be one family, and such, an unbroken the

ory among them; yet, with regard to the manner and form, and time and place of that accountability-to the constructions of virtues and vices, and the modes of appeasing and propitiating the Good and Evil Spirits, they are found in all the change and variety which fortuitous circumstances, and fictions and fables have wrought upon them... These people, living in a climate where they suffer from cold in the severity of their winters, have very naturally reversed our ideas of heaven and hell. The latter they describe to be a country very far to the north, of barren and hideous aspect, and covered with eternal snow and ice. The torments of this freezing place they describe as most excruciating, while heaven they suppose to be in a warmer and delightful latitude, where nothing is felt but the keenest enjoyment, and where the country abounds in buffaloes and other luxuries of life. The Great or Good Spirit they believe dwells in the former place, for the purpose of there meeting those who have offended him, increasing the agony of their sufferings by being himself present, administering the penalties. The Bad or Evil Spirit they suppose to be at the same time in Paradise, still tempting the happy; and those who have gone to the regions of punishment they believe to be tortured for a time proportioned to the amount of their transgressions, and that they are then to be transferred to the land of the happy, where they are again liable to the temptation of the Evil Spirit, and answerable again at a future period for their new offenses."-Catlin, vol. i., p. 159.

Dr. Richardson says, While at Carlton I took an opportunity of asking a communicative old Indian of the Blackfoot nation his opinion of a future state. He replied that they had heard from their fathers that the souls of the departed have to scramble with great labor up the sides of a steep mountain, upon attaining the summit of which they are rewarded with the prospect of an extensive plain, interspersed here and there with new tents, pitched in agreeable situations, and abounding in all sorts of game. While they are absorbed in the contemplation of this delightful scene, they are descried by the inhabitants of the happy land, who, clothed in new skins, approach and welcome, with every demonstration of kindness, those Indians who have led good lives; but the bad Indians, who have imbrued their hands in the blood of their countrymen, are told to return from whence they came, and, without more ceremony, precipitated down the steep sides of the mountain.". Franklin's Journey, p. 77.

"C'est du côté de l'ouest, d'où les sauvages prétendent être venus, qu'il placent le pays des ancêtres, ou des ames. C'est, disent-ils, un pays très êloigné, et où chacun est contraint de se rendre, après son trèpas, par un chemin fort long et fort pénible, dans lequel il y a beaucoup à souffrir, à cause des rivières qu'il faut passer sur des ponts tremblants, et si étroits qu'il faut être une âme pour pouvoir s'y soûtenir; encore trouve-t-il au bout du pont un chien, qui comme un autre cerbère leur dispute le passage, et en fait tomber plusieurs dans les eaux, dont la rapidité les roule de précipice en précipice. Celles qui sont assez heureuses pour franchir ce pas, trouvent en arrivant, un

grand et beau pays, au milieu duquel est une grande Cabane, dont Tharonhiaouagon, leur Dieu, occupe une partie, et Ataensic, son ayeule, occupe l'autre. L'appartement de cette vielle est tapissé d'une quantité infini de colliers de porcelaine, de bracelets, et d'autres meubles, dont les morts, qui sont sous sa dépendance, lui ont fait présent à leur arrivée. Ataensic est maîtresse de la Cabane, selon le style des sauvages, elle et son petit fils dominent sur les mânes, et font consister leur plaisir à les faire danser devant eux. Il y a une infinité de versions sur le pays des âmes, mais ce qui je viens d'en rapporter en est comme le fonds. où tout le reste se réduit."-Lafitau, tom. i., p. 402.

No. LIV.

"Un officier Français, qui parle la langue Huronne comme les Hurons même, et qui connoît fort bien le génie des sauvages, m'a raconté un fait, dont il a été le témoin... Quelques sauvages intrigués, au sujet d'un parti de sept guerriers de leur village, et dont tout le monde commençoit à être en peine, prièrent une vielle sauvagesse de jongler pour eux. Cette femme étoit en grande réputation, et on avoit vérifié plusieurs de ses prédictions, mais on avoit beaucoup de peine à la déterminer à faire ces sortes d'opérations, quoiqu'on la payât bien, parcequ'elle souffroit beaucoup. Comme elle avoit de l'amitié pour moi, dit cet officier, je me mis de la partie avec les sauvages, ajoutant néanmoins très peu de foy à ces sortes de choses, je la priai très fortement, et je fis tant, qu'elle s'y résolut. Elle commença d'abord par préparer un espace de terrain qu'elle nettoya bien, et qu'elle couvrit de farine. Elle disposa sur cette poudre comme sur une carte géographique, quelques paquets de buchettes, qui représentaient divers villages de différentes nations, observant particulièrement leur position, et les rhumbs de vent. Elle entra ensuite dans de grandes convulsions, pendant lesquelles nous vîmes sensiblement sept bluettes de feu sortir des buchettes qui représentoient notre village; tracer un chemin sur cette farine et aller d'un village à l'autre. Après d'être éclipsées pendant un assez long tems, dans l'un de ces villages, ces bluettes reparurent au nombre de neuf, tracèrent un nouveau chemin pour le retour, jusqu'à ce qu'enfin elles s'arrêtèrent assez près du village, ou paquet de buchettes, d'où les sept premièrs étoient d'abord sorties. Alors la sauvagesse, toujours en fureur, troubla tout l'ordre des buchettes, foula aux pieds tout le terrain qu'elle avoit préparé, et où cette scène venoit de passer. Elle s'assit ensuite et après s'être donné le tems de se tranquilliser, et de reprendre ses esprits, elle raconta tout ce qui étoit arrivè aux guerriers, la route qu'ils avoient tenue, les villages par où ils avoient passé, le nombre des prisonniers qu'ils avoient fait; elle nomma l'endroit où ils étoient dans ce moment, et assura qu'ils arriveroient trois jours après au village, ce qui fut vérifié par l'arrivée des guerriers, qui confirmèrent de point en point ce qu'elle avoit dit."-Lafitau, tom. i., p. 387.