By G. H. Pond, of Bloomington.
BLOOMINGTON, December 14, 1866.
Rev. JOHN MATTOCKS—_Dear Sir_:—I have deferred complying with
your request to prepare a paper for the Historical Society till
now, only because I have never found the leisure necessary to
do it. Even now I have been obliged to let every thing else go
except what was absolutely necessary to be done in order to
attend to it. The press of to-day contains a notice of your
meeting last Monday. I suppose, therefore, that I am too late,
but will forward to you what I have prepared. If it is not
acceptable please return it to me.
The “superstitions” to which the paper relates, it may seem
to some, are too absurd to be the religion of men, however
degraded, but they have been obtained from the Indians
themselves, and I have never discovered that they had anything
better, but have discovered much that is worse. I presume that
no one will be disposed to say that it is my own invention,
for that would be giving me credit for more imaginative and
creative genius than I ever claimed. Such as it is I send it,
and shall be satisfied if the society accepts it or returns it
to me.
The sack I send you will find explained under the head
“_Medicine-man a DOCTOR_.” It is not the medicine sack of the
medicine dancer.
In haste, yours, &c.,