_In a Speech of the Chief of the Mickmakis or Maricheets Savages,
dependent on the government of Cape Breton._
When all the peltry of the beasts killed in the enemy’s country, (with
whom they are about to declare war) is piled in a heap, the oldest
samago, or chieftain of the assembly, gets up and asks what weather it
is? is the sky clear? does the sun shine? On being answered in the
affirmative, he orders the young men to carry the pile of peltry to a
rising ground or eminence, at some little distance from the field or
place of assembly. As this is instantly done, he follows them, and as he
walks along, begins and continues his address to the sun in the
following terms:
“Be witness, thou great and beautiful luminary, of what we are this day
going to do in the face of thy orb! If thou didst disapprove us, thou
wouldst, this moment hide thyself, to avoid affording the light of thy
rays to all the actions of this assembly. Thou didst exist of old, and
dost still exist. Thou dost remain for ever as beautiful, as radiant, as
beneficent, as when our first forefathers beheld thee. Thou wilt always
be the same. The father of the day can never fail us; he who makes every
thing vegetate, and without whom cold, darkness, and horror, would every
where prevail. Thou knowest all the iniquitous proceedings of our
enemies against us. What perfidy have they not used? what deceit have
they not employed, whilst we had no room to distrust them? There are now
more than five, six, seven, or eight moons revolved since we left the
principal among our daughters with them, in order thereby to form the
most durable alliance with them, (for, in short, we and they are always
the same thing as to our being, constitution, and blood) and yet we have
seen them look on these girls of the most distinguished rank, as mere
play-things for them; an amusement, a pastime, put by us into their
hands, to afford them a quick and easy consolation for the fatal blows
we had given them in the preceding war. Yet we had made them sensible,
that this supply of our principal maidens was, in order that they should
repeople their country more honourably, and to put them under a
necessity of conviction, that we were now become sincerely their
friends, by delivering them so sacred a pledge of amity as our principal
blood. Can we then, unmoved, behold them so basely abusing that through
confidence of ours? Beautiful, all-seeing, all-penetrating luminary!
without whose influence the mind of man has neither efficacy nor vigour,
thou hast seen to what a pitch that nation (who are, however, our
brothers) has carried its insolence towards our principal maidens. Our
resentment would not have been so extreme with respect to girls of more
common birth, the rank of whose fathers had not a right to make such an
impression on us: but here we are wounded in a point there is no passing
over in silence or unrevenged.--Beautiful luminary! who art thyself so
regular in thy course, and in the wise distribution thou makest of thy
light from morning to evening, wouldst thou have us not imitate thee?
and whom can we better imitate? The earth stands in need of thy
governing thyself, as thou dost towards it. There are certain places
where thy influence does not suffer itself to be felt, because thou dost
not judge them worthy of it. But as for us, it is plain that we are thy
children; for we can know no origin but that which thy rays have given
us, when first marrying efficaciously with the earth we inhabit, they
impregnated its womb, and caused us to grow out of it like herbs of the
field, and trees of the forests, of which thou art the common father. To
imitate thee, then, we cannot do better than no longer so countenance or
cherish those who have proved themselves so unworthy thereof. They are
no longer, as to us, under a favourable aspect. They shall dearly pay
for the wrong they have done us. They have not, it is true, deprived us
of the means of hunting for our maintenance and cloathing; they have not
cut off the free pillage of our canoes, on the lakes and rivers in this
country; but they have done worse, they have supposed in us a tameness
of sentiment which does not, cannot exist in us. They have deflowered
our principal maidens in wantonness, and lightly sent them back to us.
This is the just motive which cries out for vengeance. Sun! be thou
favourable to us in this point, as thou art in point of hunting, when we
beseech thee to guide us in quest of our daily support. Be propitious to
us, that we may not fail of discovering the ambushes that may be laid
for us; that we may not be surprised unawares in our cabins or
elsewhere; and finally, that we may not fall into the hands of our
enemies. Grant them no chance with us, for they deserve none. Behold the
skins of their beasts now a burnt-offering to thee! accept it, as if the
firebrand I hold in my hands, and now set to the pile, was lighted
immediately by thy rays instead of our domestic fire.”
[[Source:
“An account of the customs and manners of the Micmakis and Maricheets
Savage Nations, Now Dependent on the Government of Cape-Breton”,
Antoine Simon Maillard. English translation 1758.]]
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