CHAPTER VI.

MACKINAW.

Late at night we reached this island, so famous for its beauty, and to

which I proposed a visit of some length. It was the last week in August,

when a large representation from the Chippewa and Ottowa tribes are here

to receive their annual payments from the American government. As their

habits make travelling easy and inexpensive to them, neither being

obliged to wait for steamboats, or write to see whether hotels are full,

they come hither by thousands, and those thousands in families, secure

of accommodation on the beach, and food from the lake, to make a long

holiday out of the occasion. There were near two thousand encamped on

the island already, and more arriving every day.

As our boat came in, the captain had some rockets let off. This greatly

excited the Indians, and their yells and wild cries resounded along the

shore. Except for the momentary flash of the rockets, it was perfectly

dark, and my sensations as I walked with a stranger to a strange hotel,

through the midst of these shrieking savages, and heard the pants and

snorts of the departing steamer, which carried away all my companions,

were somewhat of the dismal sort; though it was pleasant, too, in the

way that everything strange is; everything that breaks in upon the

routine that so easily incrusts us.

I had reason to expect a room to myself at the hotel, but found none,

and was obliged to take up my rest in the common parlor and eating-room,

a circumstance which ensured my being an early riser.

With the first rosy streak, I was out among my Indian neighbors, whose

lodges honey-combed the beautiful beach, that curved away in long, fair

outline on either side the house. They were already on the alert, the

children creeping out from beneath the blanket door of the lodge; the

women pounding corn in their rude mortars, the young men playing on

their pipes. I had been much amused, when the strain proper to the

Winnebago courting flute was played to me on another instrument, at any

one fancying it a melody; but now, when I heard the notes in their true

tone and time, I thought it not unworthy comparison, in its graceful

sequence, and the light flourish, at the close, with the sweetest

bird-songs; and this, like the bird-song, is only practised to allure a

mate. The Indian, become a citizen and a husband, no more thinks of

playing the flute than one of the "settled down" members of our society

would of choosing the "purple light of love" as dye-stuff for a surtout.

Mackinaw has been fully described by able pens, and I can only add my

tribute to the exceeding beauty of the spot and its position. It is

charming to be on an island so small that you can sail round it in an

afternoon, yet large enough to admit of long secluded walks through its

gentle groves. You can go round it in your boat; or, on foot, you can

tread its narrow beach, resting, at times, beneath the lofty walls of

stone, richly wooded, which rise from it in various architectural forms.

In this stone, caves are continually forming, from the action of the

atmosphere; one of these is quite deep, and with a fragment left at its

mouth, wreathed with little creeping plants, that looks, as you sit

within, like a ruined pillar.

[Illustration: ARCHED ROCK FROM THE WATER]

The arched rock surprised me, much as I had heard of it, from the

perfection of the arch. It is perfect whether you look up through it

from the lake, or down through it to the transparent waters. We both

ascended and descended, no very easy matter, the steep and crumbling

path, and rested at the summit, beneath the trees, and at the foot upon

the cool mossy stones beside the lapsing wave. Nature has carefully

decorated all this architecture with shrubs that take root within the

crevices, and small creeping vines. These natural rains may vie for

beautiful effect with the remains of European grandeur, and have,

beside, a charm as of a playful mood in nature.

The sugar-loaf rock is a fragment in the same kind as the pine rock we

saw in Illinois. It has the same air of a helmet, as seen from an

eminence at the side, which you descend by a long and steep path. The

rock itself may be ascended by the bold and agile. Halfway up is a

niche, to which those, who are neither, can climb by a ladder. A very

handsome young officer and lady who were with us did so, and then,

facing round, stood there side by side, looking in the niche, if not

like saints or angels wrought by pious hands in stone, as romantically,

if not as holily, worthy the gazer's eye.

The woods which adorn the central ridge of the island are very full in

foliage, and, in August, showed the tender green and pliant leaf of June

elsewhere. They are rich in beautiful mosses and the wild raspberry.

From Fort Holmes, the old fort, we had the most commanding view of the

lake and straits, opposite shores, and fair islets. Mackinaw, itself, is

best seen from the water. Its peculiar shape is supposed to have been

the origin of its name, Michilimackinac, which means the Great Turtle.

One person whom I saw, wished to establish another etymology, which he

fancied to be more refined; but, I doubt not, this is the true one, both

because the shape might suggest such a name, and that the existence of

an island in this commanding position, which did so, would seem a

significant fact to the Indians. For Henry gives the details of peculiar

worship paid to the Great Turtle, and the oracles received from this

extraordinary Apollo of the Indian Delphos.

It is crowned most picturesquely, by the white fort, with its gay flag.

From this, on one side, stretches the town. How pleasing a sight, after

the raw, crude, staring assemblage of houses, everywhere else to be met

in this country, an old French town, mellow in its coloring, and with

the harmonious effect of a slow growth, which assimilates, naturally,

with objects round it. The people in its streets, Indian, French,

half-breeds, and others, walked with a leisure step, as of those who

live a life of taste and inclination, rather than of the hard press of

business, as in American towns elsewhere.

On the other side, along the fair, curving beach, below the white houses

scattered on the declivity, clustered the Indian lodges, with their

amber brown matting, so soft, and bright of hue, in the late afternoon

sun. The first afternoon I was there, looking down from a near height, I

felt that I never wished to see a more fascinating picture. It was an

hour of the deepest serenity; bright blue and gold, rich shadows. Every

moment the sunlight fell more mellow. The Indians were grouped and

scattered among the lodges; the women preparing food, in the kettle or

frying-pan, over the many small fires; the children, half-naked, wild as

little goblins, were playing both in and out of the water. Here and

there lounged a young girl, with a baby at her back, whose bright eyes

glanced, as if born into a world of courage and of joy, instead of

ignominious servitude and slow decay. Some girls were cutting wood, a

little way from me, talking and laughing, in the low musical tone, so

charming in the Indian women. Many bark canoes were upturned upon the

beach, and, by that light, of almost the same amber as the lodges.

Others, coming in, their square sails set, and with almost arrowy speed,

though heavily laden with dusky forms, and all the apparatus of their

household. Here and there a sail-boat glided by, with a different, but

scarce less pleasing motion.

It was a scene of ideal loveliness, and these wild forms adorned it, as

looking so at home in it. All seemed happy, and they were happy that

day, for they had no firewater to madden them, as it was Sunday, and the

shops were shut.

From my window, at the boarding house, my eye was constantly attracted

by these picturesque groups. I was never tired of seeing the canoes come

in, and the new arrivals set up their temporary dwellings. The women ran

to set up the tent-poles, and spread the mats on the ground. The men

brought the chests, kettles, &c.; the mats were then laid on the

outside, the cedar boughs strewed on the ground, the blanket hung up for

a door, and all was completed in less than twenty minutes. Then they

began to prepare the night meal, and to learn of their neighbors the

news of the day.

The habit of preparing food out of doors, gave all the gipsy charm and

variety to their conduct. Continually I wanted Sir. Walter Scott to have

been there. If such romantic sketches were suggested to him, by the

sight of a few gipsies, not a group near one of these fires but would

have furnished him material for a separate canvass. I was so taken up

with the spirit of the scene, that I could not follow out the stories

suggested by these weather-beaten, sullen, but eloquent figures.

They talked a great deal, and with much variety of gesture, so that I

often had a good guess at the meaning of their discourse. I saw that,

whatever the Indian may be among the whites, he is anything but

taciturn with his own people. And he often would declaim, or narrate at

length, as indeed it is obvious, that these tribes possess great power

that way, if only from the fables taken from their stores, by Mr.

Schoolcraft.

I liked very much to walk or sit among them. With the women I held much

communication by signs. They are almost invariably coarse and ugly, with

the exception of their eyes, with a peculiarly awkward gait, and forms

bent by burthens. This gait, so different from the steady and noble step

of the men, marks the inferior position they occupy. I had heard much

eloquent contradiction of this. Mrs. Schoolcraft had maintained to a

friend, that they were in fact as nearly on a par with their husbands as

the white woman with hers. "Although," said she, "on account of

inevitable causes, the Indian woman is subjected to many hardships of a

peculiar nature, yet her position, compared with that of the man, is

higher and freer than that of the white woman. Why will people look only

on one side? They either exalt the Red man into a Demigod or degrade him

into a beast. They say that he compels his wife to do all the drudgery,

while he does nothing but hunt and amuse himself; forgetting that, upon

his activity and power of endurance as a hunter, depends the support of

his family; that this is labor of the most fatiguing kind, and that it

is absolutely necessary that he should keep his frame unbent by burdens

and unworn by toil, that he may be able to obtain the means of

subsistence. I have witnessed scenes of conjugal and parental love in

the Indian's wigwam from which I have often, often thought the educated

white man, proud of his superior civilization, might learn an useful

lesson. When he returns from hunting, worn out with fatigue, having

tasted nothing since dawn, his wife, if she is a good wife, will take

off his moccasons and replace them with dry ones, and will prepare his

game for their repast, while his children will climb upon him, and he

will caress them with all the tenderness of a woman; and in the evening

the Indian wigwam is the scene of the purest domestic pleasures. The

father will relate for the amusement of the wife, and for the

instruction of the children, all the events of the day's hunt, while

they will treasure up every word that falls, and thus learn the theory

of the art, whose practice is to be the occupation of their lives.

Mrs. Grant speaks thus of the position of woman amid the Mohawk Indians:

"Lady Mary Montague says, that the court of Vienna was the paradise of

old women, and that there is no other place in the world where a woman

past fifty excites the least interest. Had her travels extended to the

interior of North America, she would have seen another instance of this

inversion of the common mode of thinking. Here a woman never was of

consequence, till she had a son old enough to fight the battles of his

country. From that date she held a superior rank in society; was allowed

to live at ease, and even called to consultations on national affairs.

In savage and warlike countries, the reign of beauty is very short, and

its influence comparatively limited. The girls in childhood had a very

pleasing appearance; but excepting their fine hair, eyes, and teeth,

every external grace was soon banished by perpetual drudgery, carrying

burdens too heavy to be borne, and other slavish employments considered

beneath the dignity of the men. These walked before erect and graceful,

decked with ornaments which set off to advantage the symmetry of their

well-formed persons, while the poor women followed, meanly attired, bent

under the weight of the children and utensils, which they carried

everywhere with them, and disfigured and degraded by ceaseless toils.

They were very early married, for a Mohawk had no other servant but his

wife, and, whenever he commenced hunter, it was requisite he should have

some one to carry his load, cook his kettle, make his moccasons, and,

above all, produce the young warriors who were to succeed him in the

honors of the chase and of the tomahawk. Wherever man is a mere hunter,

woman is a mere slave. It is domestic intercourse that softens man, and

elevates woman; and of that there can be but little, where the

employments and amusements are not in common; the ancient Caledonians

honored the fair; but then it is to be observed, they were fair

huntresses, and moved in the light of their beauty to the hill of roes;

and the culinary toils were entirely left to the rougher sex. When the

young warrior made his appearance, it softened the cares of his mother,

who well knew that, when he grew up, every deficiency in tenderness to

his wife would be made up in superabundant duty and affection to her. If

it were possible to carry filial veneration to excess, it was done here;

for all other charities were absorbed in it. I wonder this system of

depressing the sex in their early years, to exalt them when all their

juvenile attractions were flown, and when mind alone can distinguish

them, has not occurred to our modern reformers. The Mohawks took good

care not to admit their women to share their prerogatives, till they

approved themselves good wives and mothers."

The observations of women upon the position of woman are always more

valuable than those of men; but, of these two, Mrs. Grant's seems much

nearer the truth than Mrs. Schoolcraft's, because, though her

opportunities for observation did not bring her so close, she looked

more at both sides to find the truth.

Carver, in his travels among the Winnebagoes, describes two queens, one

nominally so, like Queen Victoria; the other invested with a genuine

royalty, springing from her own conduct.

In the great town of the Winnebagoes, he found a queen presiding over

the tribe, instead of a sachem. He adds, that, in some tribes, the

descent is given to the female line in preference to the male, that is,

a sister's son will succeed to the authority, rather than a brother's

son.

The position of this Winnebago queen, reminded me forcibly of Queen

Victoria's.

"She sat in the council, but only asked a few questions, or gave some

trifling directions in matters relative to the state, for women are

never allowed to sit in their councils, except they happen to be

invested with the supreme authority, and then it is not customary for

them to make any formal speeches, as the chiefs do. She was a very

ancient woman, small in stature, and not much distinguished by her

dress from several young women that attended her. These, her attendants,

seemed greatly pleased whenever I showed any tokens of respect to their

queen, especially when I saluted her, which I frequently did to acquire

her favor."

The other was a woman, who being taken captive, found means to kill her

captor, and make her escape, and the tribe were so struck with

admiration at the courage and calmness she displayed on the occasion, as

to make her chieftainess in her own right.

Notwithstanding the homage paid to women, and the consequence allowed

her in some cases, it is impossible to look upon the Indian women,

without feeling that they _do_ occupy a lower place than women among the

nations of European civilization. The habits of drudgery expressed in

their form and gesture, the soft and wild but melancholy expression of

their eye, reminded me of the tribe mentioned by Mackenzie, where the

women destroy their female children, whenever they have a good

opportunity; and of the eloquent reproaches addressed by the Paraguay

woman to her mother, that she had not, in the same way, saved her from

the anguish and weariness of her lot.

More weariness than anguish, no doubt, falls to the lot of most of these

women. They inherit submission, and the minds of the generality

accommodate themselves more or less to any posture. Perhaps they suffer

less than their white sisters, who have more aspiration and refinement,

with little power of self-sustenance. But their place is certainly

lower, and their share of the human inheritance less.

Their decorum and delicacy are striking, and show that when these are

native to the mind, no habits of life make any difference. Their whole

gesture is timid, yet self-possessed. They used to crowd round me, to

inspect little things I had to show them, but never press near; on the

contrary, would reprove and keep off the children. Anything they took

from my hand, was held with care, then shut or folded, and returned with

an air of lady-like precision. They would not stare, however curious

they might be, but cast sidelong glances.

A locket that I wore, was an object of untiring interest; they seemed to

regard it as a talisman. My little sun-shade was still more fascinating

to them; apparently they had never before seen one. For an umbrella they

entertain profound regard, probably looking upon it as the most

luxurious superfluity a person can possess, and therefore a badge of

great wealth. I used to see an old squaw, whose sullied skin and coarse,

tanned locks, told that she had braved sun and storm, without a doubt or

care, for sixty years at the least, sitting gravely at the door of her

lodge, with an old green umbrella over her head, happy for hours

together in the dignified shade. For her happiness pomp came not, as it

so often does, too late; she received it with grateful enjoyment.

One day, as I was seated on one of the canoes, a woman came and sat

beside me, with her baby in its cradle set up at her feet. She asked me

by a gesture, to let her take my sun-shade, and then to show her how to

open it. Then she put it into her baby's hand, and held it over its

head, looking at me the while with a sweet, mischievous laugh, as much

as to say, "you carry a thing that is only fit for a baby;" her

pantomime was very pretty. She, like the other women, had a glance, and

shy, sweet expression in the eye; the men have a steady gaze.

That noblest and loveliest of modern Preux, Lord Edward Fitzgerald, who

came through Buffalo to Detroit and Mackinaw, with Brant, and was

adopted into the Bear tribe by the name of Eghnidal, was struck, in the

same way, by the delicacy of manners in the women. He says,

"Notwithstanding the life they lead, which would make most women rough

and masculine, they are as soft, meek and modest, as the best brought up

girls in England. Somewhat coquettish too! Imagine the manners of Mimi

in a poor _squaw_, that has been carrying packs in the woods all her

life."

McKenney mentions that the young wife, during the short bloom of her

beauty, is an object of homage and tenderness to her husband. One Indian

woman, the Flying Pigeon, a beautiful, an excellent woman, of whom he

gives some particulars, is an instance of the power uncommon characters

will always exert of breaking down the barriers custom has erected round

them. She captivated by her charms, and inspired with reverence for her

character, her husband and son. The simple praise with which the husband

indicates the religion, the judgment, and the generosity he saw in her,

are as satisfying as Count Zinzendorf's more labored eulogium on his

"noble consort." The conduct of her son, when, many years after her

death, he saw her picture at Washington, is unspeakably affecting.

Catlin gives anecdotes of the grief of a chief for the loss of a

daughter, and the princely gifts he offers in exchange for her portrait,

worthy not merely of European, but of Troubadour sentiment. It is also

evident that, as Mrs. Schoolcraft says, the women have great power at

home. It can never be otherwise, men being dependent upon them for the

comfort of their lives. Just, so among ourselves, wives who are neither

esteemed nor loved by their husbands, have great power over their

conduct by the friction of every day, and over the formation of their

opinions by the daily opportunities so close a relation affords, of

perverting testimony and instilling doubts. But these sentiments should

not come in brief flashes, but burn as a steady flame, then there would

be more women worthy to inspire them. This power is good for nothing,

unless the woman be wise to use it aright. Has the Indian, has the white

woman, as noble a feeling of life and its uses, as religious a

self-respect, as worthy a field of thought and action, as man? If not,

the white woman, the Indian woman, occupies an inferior position to that

of man. It is not so much a question of power, as of privilege.

The men of these subjugated tribes, now accustomed to drunkenness and

every way degraded, bear but a faint impress of the lost grandeur of the

race. They are no longer strong, tall, or finely proportioned. Yet as

you see them stealing along a height, or striding boldly forward, they

remind you of what _was_ majestic in the red man.

On the shores of lake Superior, it is said, if you visit them at

home, you may still see a remnant of the noble blood. The

Pillagers--(Pilleurs)--a band celebrated by the old travellers, are:

still existant there.

"Still some, 'the eagles of their tribe,' may rush."

I have spoken of the hatred felt by the white man for the Indian: with

white women it seems to amount to disgust, to loathing. How I could

endure the dirt, the peculiar smell of the Indians, and their dwellings,

was a great marvel in the eyes of my lady acquaintance; indeed, I wonder

why they did not quite give me up, as they certainly looked on me with

great distaste for it. "Get you gone, you Indian dog," was the felt, if

not the breathed, expression towards the hapless owners of the soil. All

their claims, all their sorrows quite forgot, in abhorrence of their

dirt, their tawny skins, and the vices the whites have taught them.

A person who had seen them during great part of a life, expressed his

prejudices to me with such violence, that I was no longer surprised that

the Indian children threw sticks at him, as he passed. A lady said, "do

what you will for them, they will be ungrateful. The savage cannot be

washed out of them. Bring up an Indian child and see if you can attach

it to you." The next moment, she expressed, in the presence of one of

those children whom she was bringing up, loathing at the odor left by

one of her people, and one of the most respected, as he passed through

the room. When the child is grown she will consider it basely ungrateful

not to love her, as it certainly will not; and this will be cited as an

instance of the impossibility of attaching the Indian.

Whether the Indian could, by any efforts of love and intelligence from

the white man, have been civilized and made a valuable ingredient in the

new state, I will not say; but this we are sure of; the French

Catholics, at least, did not harm them, nor disturb their minds merely

to corrupt them. The French they loved. But the stern Presbyterian, with

his dogmas and his task-work, the city circle and the college, with

their niggard concessions and unfeeling stare, have never tried the

experiment. It has not been tried. Our people and our government have

sinned alike against the first-born of the soil, and if they are the

fated agents of a new era, they have done nothing--have invoked no god

to keep them sinless while they do the hest of fate.

Worst of all, when they invoke the holy power only to mask their

iniquity; when the felon trader, who, all the week, has been besotting

and degrading the Indian with rum mixed with red pepper, and damaged

tobacco, kneels with him on Sunday before a common altar, to tell the

rosary which recalls the thought of him crucified for love of suffering

men, and to listen to sermons in praise of "purity"!!

My savage friends, cries the old fat priest, you must, above all things,

aim at _purity_.

Oh, my heart swelled when I saw them in a Christian church. Better their

own dog-feasts and bloody rites than such mockery of that other faith.

"The dog," said an Indian, "was once a spirit; he has fallen for his

sin, and was given by the Great Spirit, in this shape, to man, as his

most intelligent companion. Therefore we sacrifice it in highest honor

to our friends in this world,--to our protecting geniuses in another."

There was religion in that thought. The white man sacrifices his own

brother, and to Mammon, yet he turns in loathing from the dog-feast.

"You say," said the Indian of the South to the missionary, "that

Christianity is pleasing to God. How can that be?--Those men at Savannah

are Christians."

Yes! slave-drivers and Indian traders are called Christians, and the

Indian is to be deemed less like the Son of Mary than they! Wonderful is

the deceit of man's heart!

I have not, on seeing something of them in their own haunts, found

reason to change the sentiments expressed in the following lines, when a

deputation of the Sacs and Foxes visited Boston in 1837, and were, by

one person at least, received in a dignified and courteous manner.

GOVERNOR EVERETT RECEIVING THE INDIAN CHIEFS,

NOVEMBER, 1837.

Who says that Poesy is on the wane,

And that the Muses tune their lyres in vain?

'Mid all the treasures of romantic story,

When thought was fresh and fancy in her glory,

Has ever Art found out a richer theme,

More dark a shadow, or more soft a gleam,

Than fall upon the scene, sketched carelessly,

In the newspaper column of to-day?

American romance is somewhat stale.

Talk of the hatchet, and the faces pale,

Wampum and calumets and forests dreary,

Once so attractive, now begins to weary.

Uncas and Magawisca please us still,

Unreal, yet idealized with skill;

But every poetaster scribbling witling,

From the majestic oak his stylus whittling,

Has helped to tire us, and to make us fear

The monotone in which so much we hear

Of "stoics of the wood," and "men without a tear."

Yet Nature, ever buoyant, ever young,

If let alone, will sing as erst she sung;

The course of circumstance gives back again

The Picturesque, erewhile pursued in vain;

Shows us the fount of Romance is not wasted--

The lights and shades of contrast not exhausted.

Shorn of his strength, the Samson now must sue

For fragments from the feast his fathers gave,

The Indian dare not claim what is his due,

But as a boon his heritage must crave;

His stately form shall soon be seen no more

Through all his father's land, th' Atlantic shore,

Beneath the sun, to _us_ so kind, _they_ melt,

More heavily each day our rule is felt;

The tale is old,--we do as mortals must:

Might makes right here, but God and Time are just.

So near the drama hastens to its close,

On this last scene awhile your eyes repose;

The polished Greek and Scythian meet again,

The ancient life is lived by modern men--

The savage through our busy cities walks,--

He in his untouched grandeur silent stalks.

Unmoved by all our gaieties and shows,

Wonder nor shame can touch him as he goes;

He gazes on the marvels we have wrought,

But knows the models from whence all was brought;

In God's first temples he has stood so oft,

And listened to the natural organ loft--

Has watched the eagle's flight, the muttering thunder heard,

Art cannot move him to a wondering word;

Perhaps he sees that all this luxury

Brings less food to the mind than to the eye;

Perhaps a simple sentiment has brought

More to him than your arts had ever taught.

What are the petty triumphs _Art_ has given,

To eyes familiar with the naked heaven?

All has been seen--dock, railroad, and canal,

Fort, market, bridge, college, and arsenal,

Asylum, hospital, and cotton mill,

The theatre, the lighthouse, and the jail.

The Braves each novelty, reflecting, saw,

And now and then growled out the earnest _yaw_.

And now the time is come, 'tis understood,

When, having seen and thought so much, a _talk_ may do some good.

A well-dressed mob have thronged the sight to greet,

And motley figures throng the spacious street;

Majestical and calm through all they stride,

Wearing the blanket with a monarch's pride;

The gazers stare and shrug, but can't deny

Their noble forms and blameless symmetry.

If the Great Spirit their morale has slighted,

And wigwam smoke their mental culture blighted,

Yet the physique, at least, perfection reaches,

In wilds where neither Combe nor Spursheim teaches;

Where whispering trees invite man to the chase,

And bounding deer allure him to the race.

Would thou hadst seen it! That dark, stately band,

Whose ancestors enjoyed all this fair land,

Whence they, by force or fraud, were made to flee,

Are brought, the white man's victory to see.

Can kind emotions in their proud hearts glow,

As through these realms, now decked by Art, they go?

The church, the school, the railroad and the mart--

Can these a pleasure to their minds impart?

All once was theirs--earth, ocean, forest, sky--

How can they joy in what now meets the eye?

Not yet Religion has unlocked the soul,

Nor Each has learned to glory in the Whole!

Must they not think, so strange and sad their lot,

That they by the Great Spirit are forgot?

From the far border to which they are driven,

They might look up in trust to the clear heaven;

But _here_--what tales doth every object tell

Where Massasoit sleeps--where Philip fell!

We take our turn, and the Philosopher

Sees through the clouds a hand which cannot err,

An unimproving race, with all their graces

And all their vices, must resign their places;

And Human Culture rolls its onward flood

Over the broad plains steeped in Indian blood.

Such thoughts, steady our faith; yet there will rise

Some natural tears into the calmest eyes--

Which gaze where forest princes haughty go,

Made for a gaping crowd a raree show.

But _this_ a scene seems where, in courtesy,

The pale face with the forest prince could vie,

For One presided, who, for tact and grace,

In any age had held an honored place,--

In Beauty's own dear day, had shone a polished Phidian vase!

Oft have I listened to his accents bland,

And owned the magic of his silvery voice,

In all the graces which life's arts demand,

Delighted by the justness of his choice.

Not his the stream of lavish, fervid thought,--

The rhetoric by passion's magic wrought;

Not his the massive style, the lion port,

Which with the granite class of mind assort;

But, in a range of excellence his own,

With all the charms to soft persuasion known,

Amid our busy people we admire him--"elegant and lone."

He scarce needs words, so exquisite the skill

Which modulates the tones to do his will,

That the mere sound enough would charm the ear,

And lap in its Elysium all who hear.

The intellectual paleness of his cheek,

The heavy eyelids and slow, tranquil smile,

The well cut lips from which the graces speak,

Fit him alike to win or to beguile;

Then those words so well chosen, fit, though few,

Their linked sweetness as our thoughts pursue,

We deem them spoken pearls, or radiant diamond dew.

And never yet did I admire the power

Which makes so lustrous every threadbare theme--

Which won for Lafayette one other hour,

And e'en on July Fourth could cast a gleam--

As now, when I behold him play the host,

With all the dignity which red men boast--

With all the courtesy the whites have lost;--

Assume the very hue of savage mind,

Yet in rude accents show the thought refined:--

Assume the naiveté of infant age,

And in such prattle seem still more a sage;

The golden mean with tact unerring seized,

A courtly critic shone, a simple savage pleased;

The stoic of the woods his skill confessed,

As all the Father answered in his breast,

To the sure mark the silver arrow sped,

The man without a tear a tear has shed;

And thou hadst wept, hadst thou been there, to see

How true one sentiment must ever be,

In court or camp, the city or the wild,

To rouse the Father's heart, you need but name his Child.

'Twas a fair scene--and acted well by all;

So here's a health to Indian braves so tall--

Our Governor and Boston people all!

I will copy the admirable speech of Governor Everett on that occasion,

as I think it the happiest attempt ever made to meet the Indian in his

own way, and catch the tone of his mind. It was said, in the

newspapers, that Keokuck did actually shed tears when addressed as a

father. If he did not with his eyes, he well might in his heart.

EVERETT'S SPEECH.

Chiefs and warriors of the Sauks and Foxes, you are welcome to our hall

of council.

Brothers! you have come a long way from home to visit your white

brethren; we rejoice to take you by the hand.

Brothers! we have heard the names of your chiefs and warriors; our

brothers, who have travelled into the West, have told us a great deal of

the Sauks and Foxes; we rejoice to see you with our own eyes, and take

you by the hand.

Brothers! we are called the Massachusetts. This is the name of the red

men that once lived here. Their wigwams filled yonder field; their

council fire was kindled on this spot. They were of the same great race

as the Sauks and Misquakuiks.

Brothers! when our fathers came over the great waters, they were a small

band. The red man stood upon the rock by the seaside, and saw our

fathers. He might have pushed them into the water and drowned them. But

he stretched out his arm to our fathers and said, "Welcome, white men!"

Our fathers were hungry, and the red men gave them corn and venison. Our

fathers were cold, and the red man wrapped them up in his blanket. We

are now numerous and powerful, but we remember the kindness of the red

man to our fathers. Brothers, you are welcome; we are glad to see you.

Brothers! our faces are pale, and your faces are dark; but our hearts

are alike. The Great Spirit has made his children of different colors,

but he loves them all.

Brothers! you dwell between the Mississippi and the Missouri. They are

mighty rivers. They have one branch far East in the Alleghanies, and the

other far West in the Rocky Mountains; but they flow together at last

into one great stream, and run down together into the sea. In like

manner, the red man dwells in the West, and the white man in the East,

by the great waters; but they are all one branch, one family; it has

many branches and one head.

Brothers! as you entered our council house, you beheld the image of our

great Father Washington. It is a cold stone--it cannot speak. But he was

the friend of the red man, and bad his children live in peace with their

red brethren. He is gone to the world of spirits. But his words have

made a very deep print in our hearts, like the step of a strong buffalo

on the soft clay of the prairie.

Brother! I perceive your little son between your knees. God preserve his

life, my brother. He grows up before you like the tender sapling by the

side of the mighty oak. May the oak and the sapling flourish a long time

together. And when the mighty oak is fallen to the ground, may the young

tree fill its place in the forest, and spread out its branches over the

tribe like the parent trunk.

Brothers! I make you a short talk, and again bid you welcome to our

council hall.

Not often have they been addressed with such intelligence and tact. The

few who have not approached them with sordid rapacity, but from love to

them, as men, and souls to be redeemed, have most frequently been

persons intellectually too narrow, too straightly bound in sects or

opinions, to throw themselves into the character or position of the

Indians, or impart to them anything they can make available. The Christ

shown them by these missionaries, is to them but a new and more powerful

Manito; the signs of the new religion, but the fetiches that have aided

the conquerors.

Here I will copy some remarks made by a discerning observer, on the

methods used by the missionaries, and their natural results.

"Mr. ---- and myself had a very interesting conversation, upon the

subject of the Indians, their character, capabilities, &c. After ten

years' experience among them, he was forced to acknowledge, that the

results of the missionary efforts had produced nothing calculated to

encourage. He thought that there was an intrinsic disability in them, to

rise above, or go beyond the sphere in which they had so long moved. He

said, that even those Indians who had been converted, and who had

adopted the habits of civilization, were very little improved in their

real character; they were as selfish, as deceitful, and as indolent, as

those who were still heathens. They had repaid the kindnesses of the

missionaries with the basest ingratitude, killing their cattle and

swine, and robbing them of their harvests, which they wantonly

destroyed. He had abandoned the idea of effecting any general good to

the Indians. He had conscientious scruples, as to promoting an

enterprise so hopeless, as that of missions among the Indians, by

sending accounts to the east, that might induce philanthropic

individuals to contribute to their support. In fact, the whole

experience of his intercourse with them, seemed to have convinced him of

the irremediable degradation of the race. Their fortitude under

suffering, he considered the result of physical and mental

insensibility; their courage, a mere animal excitement, which they found

it necessary to inflame, before daring to meet a foe. They have no

constancy of purpose; and are, in fact, but little superior to the

brutes, in point of moral development. It is not astonishing, that one

looking upon the Indian character, from Mr. ----'s point of view, should

entertain such sentiments. The object of his intercourse with them was,

to make them apprehend the mysteries of a theology, which, to the most

enlightened, is an abstruse, metaphysical study; and it is not singular

they should prefer their pagan superstitions, which address themselves

more directly to the senses. Failing in the attempt to christianize,

before civilizing them, he inferred, that, in the intrinsic degradation

of their faculties, the obstacle was to be found."

Thus the missionary vainly attempts, by once or twice holding up the

cross, to turn deer and tigers into lambs; vainly attempts to convince

the red man that a heavenly mandate takes from him his broad lands. He

bows his head, but does not at heart acquiesce. He cannot. It is not

true; and if it were, the descent of blood through the same channels,

for centuries, had formed habits of thought not so easily to be

disturbed.

Amalgamation would afford the only true and profound means of

civilization. But nature seems, like all else, to declare, that this

race is fated to perish. Those of mixed blood fade early, and are not

generally a fine race. They lose what is best in either type, rather

than enhance the value of each, by mingling. There are exceptions, one

or two such I know of, but this, it is said, is the general rule.

A traveller observes, that the white settlers, who live in the woods,

soon become sallow, lanky, and dejected; the atmosphere of the trees

does not agree with Caucasian lungs; and it is, perhaps, in part, an

instinct of this, which causes the hatred of the new settlers towards

trees. The Indian breathed the atmosphere of the forests freely; he

loved their shade. As they are effaced from the land, he fleets too; a

part of the same manifestation, which cannot linger behind its proper

era.

The Chippewas have lately petitioned the state of Michigan, that they

may be admitted as citizens; but this would be vain, unless they could

be admitted, as brothers, to the heart of the white man. And while the

latter feels that conviction of superiority, which enabled our Wisconsin

friend to throw away the gun, and send the Indian to fetch it, he had

need to be very good, and very wise, not to abuse his position. But the

white man, as yet, is a half-tamed pirate, and avails himself, as much

as ever, of the maxim, "Might makes right." All that civilization does

for the generality, is to cover up this with a veil of subtle evasions

and chicane, and here and there to rouse the individual mind to appeal

to heaven against it.

I have no hope of liberalizing the missionary, of humanizing the sharks

of trade, of infusing the conscientious drop into the flinty bosom of

policy, of saving the Indian from immediate degradation, and speedy

death. The, whole sermon may be preached from the text, "Needs be that

offences must come, yet we them by whom they come." Yet, ere they

depart, I wish there might be some masterly attempt to reproduce, in art

or literature, what is proper to them, a kind of beauty and grandeur,

which few of the every-day crowd have hearts to feel, yet which ought to

leave in the world its monuments, to inspire the thought of genius

through all ages. Nothing in this kind has been done masterly; since it

was Clevengers's ambition, 'tis pity he had not opportunity to try fully

his powers. We hope some other mind may be bent upon it, ere too late.

At present the only lively impress of their passage through the world is

to be found in such books as Catlin's and some stories told by the old

travellers, of which I purpose a brief account.

First, let me give another brief tale of the power exerted by the white

man over the savage in a trying case, but, in this case, it was

righteous, was moral power.

"We were looking over McKenney's trip to the Lakes, and, on observing

the picture of Key-way-no-wut, or the Going Cloud, Mr. B. observed "Ah,

that is the fellow I came near having a fight with," and he detailed at

length the circumstances. This Indian was a very desperate character,

and whom all the Leech lake band stood in fear of. He would shoot down

any Indian who offended him, without the least hesitation, and had

become quite the bully of that part of the tribe. The trader at Leech

lake warned Mr. B. to beware of him, and said that he once, when he (the

trader) refused to give up to him his stock of wild rice, went and got

his gun and tomahawk, and shook the tomahawk over his head, saying

"_Now_, give me your wild rice." The trader complied with his exaction,

but not so did Mr. B. in the adventure which I am about to relate.

Key-way-no-wut came frequently to him with furs, wishing him to give for

them cotton cloth, sugar, flour, &c. Mr. B. explained to him that he

could not trade for furs, as he was sent there as a teacher, and that it

would be like putting his hand into the fire to do so, as the traders

would inform against him, and he would be sent out of the country. At

the same time, he _gave_ him the articles which he wished.

Key-way-no-wut found this a very convenient way of getting what he

wanted, and followed up this sort of game, until, at last, it became

insupportable. One day the Indian brought a very large otter skin, and

said "I want to get for this ten pounds of sugar, and some flour and

cloth," adding, "I am not like other Indians, _I_ want to pay for what I

get. Mr. B. found that he must either be robbed of all he had by

submitting to these exactions, or take a stand at once. He thought,

however, he would try to avoid a scrape, and told his customer he had

not so much sugar to spare. "Give me then," said he, "what you can

spare," and Mr. B. thinking to make him back out, told him he would give

him five pounds of sugar for his skin. "Take it," said the Indian. He

left the skin, telling Mr. B. to take good care of it. Mr. B. took it at

once to the trader's store, and related the circumstance, congratulating

himself that he had got rid of the Indian's exactions. But, in about a

month, Key-way-no-wut appeared bringing some dirty Indian sugar, and

said "I have brought back the sugar that I borrowed of you, and I want

my otter skin back." Mr. B. told him, "I _bought_ an otter skin of you,

but if you will return the other articles you have got for it, perhaps I

can get it for you." "Where is the skin?" said he very quickly, "what

have you done with it?" Mr. B. replied it was in the trader's store,

where he (the Indian) could not get it. At this information he was

furious, laid his hands on his knife and tomahawk, and commanded Mr. B.

to bring it at once. Mr. B. found this was the crisis, where he must

take a stand or be "rode over rough shod" by this man; his wife, who was

present was much alarmed, and begged he would get the skin for the

Indian, but he told her that "either he or the Indian would soon be

master of his house, and if she was afraid to see it decided which was

to be so, she had better retire." He turned to Key-way-no-wut, and

addressed him in a stern voice as follows: "I will _not_ give you the

skin. How often have you come to my house, and I have shared with you

what I had. I gave you tobacco when you were well, and medicine when you

were sick, and you never went away from my wigwam with your hands

empty. And this is the way you return my treatment to you. I had thought

you were a man and a chief, but you are not, you are nothing but an old

woman. Leave this house, and never enter it again." Mr. B. said he

expected the Indian would attempt his life when he said this, but that

he had placed himself in a position so that he could defend himself, and

he looked straight into the Indian's eye, and like other wild beasts he

quailed before the glance of mental and moral courage. He calmed down at

once, and soon began to make apologies. Mr. B. then told him kindly, but

firmly, that, if he wished to walk in the same path with him, he must

walk as straight as the crack on the floor before them; adding that he

would not walk with anybody who would jostle him by walking so crooked

as he had done. He was perfectly tamed, and Mr. B. said he never had any

more trouble with him."

The conviction here livingly enforced of the superiority on the side of

the white man, was thus expressed by the Indian orator at Mackinaw while

we were there. After the customary compliments about sun, dew, &c.,

"This," said he, "is the difference between the white and the red man;

the white man looks to the future and paves the way for posterity." This

is a statement uncommonly refined for an Indian; but one of the

gentlemen present, who understood the Chippeway, vouched for it as a

literal rendering of his phrases; and he did indeed touch the vital

point of difference. But the Indian, if he understands, cannot make use

of his intelligence. The fate of his people is against it, and Pontiac

and Philip have no more chance, than Julian in the times of old.

Now that I am engaged on this subject, let me give some notices of

writings upon it, read either at Mackinaw or since my return.

Mrs. Jameson made such good use of her brief visit to these regions, as

leaves great cause to regret she did not stay longer and go farther;

also, that she did not make more use of her acquaintance with, indeed,

adoption by, the Johnson family. Mr. Johnson seems to have been almost

the only white man who knew how to regard with due intelligence and

nobleness, his connexion with the race. Neither French or English, of

any powers of sympathy, or poetical apprehension, have lived among the

Indians without high feelings of enjoyment. Perhaps no luxury has been

greater, than that experienced by the persons, who, sent either by trade

or war, during the last century, into these majestic regions, found

guides and shelter amid the children of the soil, and recognized in a

form so new and of such varied, yet simple, charms, the tie of

brotherhood.

But these, even Sir William Johnston, whose life, surrounded by the

Indians in his castle on the Mohawk, is described with such vivacity by

Mrs. Grant, have been men better fitted to enjoy and adapt themselves to

this life, than to observe and record it. The very faculties that made

it so easy for them to live in the present moment, were likely to unfit

them for keeping its chronicle. Men, whose life is full and instinctive,

care little for the pen. But the father of Mrs. Schoolcraft seems to

have taken pleasure in observation and comparison, and to have imparted

the same tastes to his children. They have enough of European culture to

have a standard, by which to judge their native habits and inherited

lore.

By the premature death of Mrs. Schoolcraft was lost a mine of poesy, to

which few had access, and from which Mrs. Jameson would have known how

to coin a series of medals for the history of this ancient people. We

might have known in clear outline, as now we shall not, the growths of

religion and philosophy, under the influences of this climate and

scenery, from such suggestions as nature and the teachings of the inward

mind presented.

Now we can only gather that they had their own theory of the history of

this globe; had perceived a gap in its genesis, and tried to fill it up

by the intervention of some secondary power, with moral sympathies. They

have observed the action of fire and water upon this earth; also that

the dynasty of animals has yielded to that of man. With these animals

they have profound sympathy, and are always trying to restore to them

their lost honors. On the rattlesnake, the beaver, and the bear, they

seem to look with a mixture of sympathy and veneration, as on their

fellow settlers in these realms. There is something that appeals

powerfully to the imagination in the ceremonies they observe, even in

case of destroying one of these animals. I will say more of this

by-and-by.

The dog they cherish as having been once a spirit of high intelligence;

and now in its fallen, and imprisoned state, given to man as his

special companion. He is therefore to them a sacrifice of peculiar

worth: whether to a guardian spirit or a human friend. Yet nothing would

be a greater violation than giving the remains of a sacrificial feast to

the dogs, or even suffering them to touch the bones.

Similar inconsistences may be observed in the treatment of the dog by

the white man. He is the most cherished companion in the familiar walks

of many men; his virtues form the theme of poetry and history; the

nobler races present grand traits, and are treated with proportionate

respect. Yet the epithets dog and hound, are there set apart to express

the uttermost contempt.

Goethe, who abhorred dogs, has selected that animal for the embodiment

of the modern devil, who, in earlier times, chose rather the form of the

serpent.

There is, indeed, something that peculiarly breaks in on the harmony of

nature, in the bark of the dog, and that does not at all correspond with

the softness and sagacity observable in his eye. The baying the moon, I

have been inclined to set down as an unfavorable indication; but, since

Fourier has found out that the moon is dead, and "no better than

carrion;" and the Greeks have designated her as Hecate, the deity of

suicide and witchcraft, the dogs are perhaps in the right.

They have among them the legend of the carbuncle, so famous in oriental

mythos. Adair states that they believe this fabulous gem may be found on

the spot where the rattlesnake has been destroyed.

If they have not the archetypal man, they have the archetypal animal,

"the grandfather of all beavers;" to them, who do not know the elephant,

this is the symbol of wisdom, as the rattlesnake and bear of power.

I will insert here a little tale about the bear, which has not before

appeared in print, as representing their human way of looking on these

animals, even when engaged in their pursuit. To me such stories give a

fine sense of the lively perceptions and exercise of fancy, enjoyed by

them in their lives of woodcraft:

MUCKWA, OR THE BEAR.

A young Indian, who lived a great while ago, when he was quite young

killed a bear; and the tribe from that circumstance called him Muckwa.

As he grew up he became an expert hunter, and his favorite game was the

bear, many of which he killed. One day he started off to a river far

remote from the lodges of his tribe, and where berries and grapes were

very plenty, in pursuit of bears. He hunted all day but found nothing;

and just at night he came to some lodges which he thought to be those of

some of his tribe. He approached the largest of them, lifted the curtain

at its entrance, and went in, when he perceived the inmates to be bears,

who were seated around the fire smoking. He said nothing, but seated

himself also and smoked the pipe which they offered him, in silence. An

old grey bear, who was the chief, ordered supper to be brought for him,

and after he had eaten it, addressed him as follows: "My son, I am glad

to see you come among us in a friendly manner. You have been a great

hunter, and all the she-bears of our tribe tremble when they hear your

name. But cease to trouble us, and come and live with me; we have a very

pleasant life, living upon the fruits of the earth; and in the winter,

instead of being obliged to hunt and travel through the deep snow, we

sleep soundly until the sun unchains the streams, and makes the tender

buds put forth for our subsistence. I will give you my daughter for a

wife, and we will live happily together." Muckwa was inclined to accept

the old bear's offer; but when he saw the daughter, who came and took

off his wet moccasons, and gave him dry ones, he thought that he had

never seen any Indian woman so beautiful. He accepted the offer of the

chief of the bears, and lived with his wife very happily for some time.

He had by her two sons, one of whom was like an Indian, and the other

like a bear. When the bear-child was oppressed with heat, his mother

would take him into the deep cool caves, while the Indian-child would

shiver with cold, and cry after her in vain. As the autumn advanced, the

bears began to go out in search of acorns, and then the she-bear said to

Muckwa, "Stay at home here and watch our house, while I go to gather

some nuts." She departed and was gone for some days with her people.

By-and-by Muckwa became tired of staying at home, and thought that he

would go off to a distance and resume his favorite bear-hunting. He

accordingly started off, and at last came to a grove of lofty oaks,

which were full of large acorns. He found signs of bear, and soon espied

a fat she-bear on the top of a tree. He shot at her with a good aim, and

she fell, pierced by his unerring arrow. He went up to her, and found

it was his sister-in-law, who reproached him with his cruelty, and told

him to return to his own people. Muckwa returned quietly home, and

pretended not to have left his lodge. However, the old chief understood,

and was disposed to kill him in revenge; but his wife found means to

avert her father's anger. The winter season now coming on, Muckwa

prepared to accompany his wife into winter quarters; they selected a

large tamarack tree, which was hollow, and lived there comfortably until

a party of hunters discovered their retreat. The she-bear told Muckwa to

remain quietly in the tree, and that she would decoy off the hunters.

She came out of the hollow, jumped from a bough of the tree, and escaped

unharmed, although the hunters shot after her. Some time after, she

returned to the tree, and told Muckwa that he had better go back to his

own people. "Since you have lived among us," said she, "we have nothing

but ill-fortune; you have killed my sister; and now your friends have

followed your footsteps to our retreats to kill us. The Indian and the

bear cannot live in the same lodge, for the Master of Life has appointed

for them different habitations." So Muckwa returned with his son to his

own people; but he never after would shoot a she-bear, for fear that he

should kill his wife."

I admire this story for the _savoir faire_, the nonchalance, the Vivian

Greyism of Indian life. It is also a poetical expression of the sorrows

of unequal relations; those in which the Master of Life was not

consulted. Is it not pathetic; the picture of the mother carrying off

the child that was like herself into the deep, cool caves, while the

other, shivering with cold, cried after her in vain? The moral, too, of

Muckwa's return to the bear lodges, thinking to hide his sin by silence,

while it was at once discerned by those connected with him, is fine.

We have a nursery tale, of which children never weary, of a little boy

visiting a bear house and holding intercourse with them on terms as free

as Muckwa did. So, perhaps, the child of Norman-Saxon blood, no less

than the Indian, finds some pulse of the Orson in his veins.

As they loved to draw the lower forms of nature up to them, divining

their histories, and imitating their ways, in their wild dances and

paintings; even so did they love to look upward and people the

atmosphere that enfolds the earth, with fairies and manitoes. The

sister, obliged to leave her brother on the earth, bids him look up at

evening, and he will see her painting her face in the west.

All places, distinguished in any way by nature, aroused the feelings of

worship, which, however ignorant, are always elevating. See as instances

in this kind, the stories of Nanabojou, and the Winnebago Prince, at the

falls of St. Anthony.

As with the Greeks, beautiful legends grow up which express the aspects

of various localities. From the distant sand-banks in the lakes,

glittering in the sun, come stories of enchantresses combing, on the

shore, the long golden hair of a beautiful daughter. The Lorelei of the

Rhine, with her syren song, and the sad events that follow, is found on

the lonely rocks of Lake Superior.

The story to which I now refer, may be found in a book called Life on

the Lakes, or, a Trip to the Pictured Rocks. There are two which purport

to be Indian tales; one is simply a romantic narrative, connected with a

spot at Mackinaw, called Robinson's Folly. This, no less than the other,

was unknown to those persons I saw on the island; but as they seem

entirely beyond the powers of the person who writes them down, and the

other one has the profound and original meaning of Greek tragedy, I

believe they must be genuine legends.

The one I admire is the story of a young warrior, who goes to keep, on

these lonely rocks, the fast which is to secure him vision of his

tutelary spirit. There the loneliness is broken by the voice of sweet

music from the water. The Indian knows well that to break the fast,

which is the crisis of his life, by turning his attention from seeking

the Great Spirit, to any lower object, will deprive him through life of

heavenly protection, probably call down the severest punishment.

But the temptation is too strong for him; like the victims of the

Lorelei, he looks, like them beholds a maiden of unearthly beauty, to

him the harbinger of earthly wo.

The development of his fate, that succeeds; of love, of heart-break, of

terrible revenge, which back upon itself recoils, may vie with anything

I have ever known of stern tragedy, is altogether unlike any other form,

and with all the peculiar expression we see lurking in the Indian eye.

The demon is not frightful and fantastic, like those that haunt the

German forest; but terribly human, as if of full manhood, reared in the

shadow of the black forests. An Indian sarcasm vibrates through it,

which, with Indian fortitude, defies the inevitable torture.

The Indian is steady to that simple creed, which forms the basis of all

this mythology; that there is a God, and a life beyond this; a right and

wrong which each man can see, betwixt which each man should choose; that

good brings with it its reward and vice its punishment. Their moral

code, if not refined as that of civilized nations, is clear and noble in

the stress laid upon truth and fidelity. And all unprejudiced observers

bear testimony that the Indians, until broken from their old anchorage

by intercourse with the whites, who offer them, instead, a religion of

which they furnish neither interpretation nor example, were singularly

virtuous, if virtue be allowed to consist in a man's acting up to his

own ideas of right.

Old Adair, who lived forty years among the Indians; not these tribes,

indeed, but the southern Indians; does great justice to their religious

aspiration. He is persuaded that they are Jews, and his main object is

to identify their manifold ritual, and customs connected with it, with

that of the Jews. His narrative contains much that is worthless, and is

written in the most tedious manner of the folios. But his devotion to

the records of ancient Jewry, has really given him power to discern

congenial traits elsewhere, and for the sake of what he has expressed of

the noble side of Indian character, we pardon him our having to wade

through so many imbecilities.

An infidel; he says, is, in their language, "one who has shaken hands

with the accursed speech;" a religious man, "one who has shaken hands

with the beloved speech." If this be a correct definition, we could wish

Adair more religious.

He gives a fine account of their methods of purification. These show a

deep reliance on the sustaining Spirit. By fasting and prayer they make

ready for all important decisions and actions. Even for the war path, on

which he is likely to endure such privations, the brave prepares by a

solemn fast. His reliance is on the spirit in which he goes forth.

We may contrast with the opinion of the missionary, as given on a former

page, the testimony of one, who knew them as Adair did, to their heroism

under torture.

He gives several stories, illustrative both of their courage, fortitude,

and resource in time of peril, of which I will cite only the two first.

"The Shawano Indians took a Muskohge warrior, known by the name of "Old

Scrany;" they bastinadoed him in the usual manner, and condemned him to

the fiery torture. He underwent a great deal, without showing any

concern; his countenance and behavior were as if he suffered not the

least pain, and was formed beyond the common laws of nature. He told

them, with a bold voice, that he was a very noted warrior, and gained

most of his martial preferments at the expense of their nation, and was

desirous of showing them in the act of dying that he was still as much

their superior, as when he headed his gallant countrymen against them.

That, although he had fallen into their hands, in forfeiting the

protection of the divine power, by some impurity or other, yet he had

still so much virtue remaining, as would enable him to punish himself

more exquisitely than all their despicable, ignorant crowd could

possibly do, if they gave him liberty by untying him, and would hand to

him one of the red hot gun-barrels out of the fire. The proposal, and

his method of address, appeared so exceedingly bold and uncommon, that

his request was granted. Then he suddenly seized one end of the red hot

barrel, and, brandishing it from side to side, he found his way through

the armed and surprised multitude, and leaped down a prodigious steep

and high bank into a branch of the river, dived through it, ran over a

small island, passed the other branch amidst a shower of bullets, and,

though numbers of his eager enemies were in close pursuit of him, he got

to a bramble swamp, and in that naked, mangled condition, reached his

own country. He proved a sharp thorn in their side afterwards, to the

day of his death.

The Shawano also captivated a warrior of the Anantooiah, and put him to

the stake, according to their usual cruel solemnities. Having

unconcernedly suffered much sharp torture, he told them with scorn, they

did not know how to punish a noted enemy, therefore he was willing to

teach them, and would confirm the truth of his assertion, if they

allowed him the opportunity. Accordingly he requested of them a pipe and

some tobacco, which was given him; as soon as he lighted it, he sat

down, naked as he was, on the women's burning torches, that were within

his circle, and continued smoking his pipe without the least

discomposure. On this a head warrior leaped up, and said they had seen,

plain enough, that he was a warrior, and not afraid of dying; nor should

he have died, but that he was both spoiled by the fire, and devoted to

it by their laws; however, though he was a very dangerous enemy, and his

nation a treacherous people, it should appear they paid a regard to

bravery, even in one, who was marked over the body with war streaks at

the cost of many lives of their beloved kindred. And then, by way of

favor, he, with his friendly tomahawk, put an end to all his pains:

though this merciful but bloody instrument was ready some minutes before

it gave the blow, yet, I was assured, the spectators could not perceive

the sufferer to change, either his posture, or his steady, erect

countenance in the least."

Some stories as fine, but longer, follow. In reference to which Adair

says, "The intrepid behavior of these red stoics, their surprising

contempt of and indifference to life or death, instead of lessening,

helps to confirm our belief of that supernatural power, which supported

the great number of primitive martyrs, who sealed the Christian faith

with their blood. The Indians have as much belief and expectation of a

future state, as the greater part of the Israelites seem to have. But

the Christians of the first centuries, may justly be said to exceed even

the most heroic American Indians, for they bore the bitterest

persecution with steady patience, in imitation of their divine leader

Messiah, in full confidence of divine support and of a glorious

recompense of reward; and, instead of even wishing for revenge on their

cruel enemies and malicious tormentors, (which is the chief principle

that actuates the Indians,) they not only forgave them, but, in the

midst of their tortures, earnestly prayed for them, with composed

countenances, sincere love, and unabated fervor. And not only men of

different conditions, but the delicate women and children suffered with

constancy, and died praying for their tormentors: the Indian women and

children, and their young men untrained to war, are incapable of

displaying the like patience and magnanimity."

Thus impartially looks the old trader. I meant to have inserted other

passages, that of the encampment at Yowanne, and the horse race to which

he challenged them, to show how well he could convey in his garrulous

fashion the whole presence of Indian life. That of Yowanne, especially,

takes my fancy much, by its wild and subtle air, and the old-nurse

fashion in which every look and gesture is detailed. His enjoyment, too,

at outwitting the Indians in their own fashion is contagious. There is a

fine history of a young man driven by a presentiment to run upon his

death. But I find, to copy these stories, as they stand, would half fill

this little book, and compression would spoil them, so I must wait some

other occasion.

The story, later, of giving an Indian liquid fire to swallow, I give at

full length, to show how a kind-hearted man and one well disposed

towards them, can treat them, and view his barbarity as a joke. It is

not then so much wonder, if the trader, with this same feeling that they

may be treated, (as however brutes should not be,) brutally, mixes red

pepper and damaged tobacco with the rum, intending in their fever to

fleece them of all they possess.

Like Murray and Henry, he has his great Indian chief, who represents

what the people should be, as Pericles and Phocion what the Greek people

should be. If we are entitled to judge by its best fruits of the

goodness of the tree, Adair's Red Shoes, and Henry's Wawatam, should

make us respect the first possessors of our country, and doubt whether

we are in all ways worthy to fill their place. Of the whole tone of

character, judgment may be formed by what is said of the death of Red

Shoes.

"This chief, by his several transcendent qualities had arrived at the

highest pitch of the red glory....

He was murdered, for the sake of a French reward by one of his own

countrymen. He had the misfortune to be taken very sick on the road, and

to lodge apart from the camp, according to their custom. A Judas,

tempted by the high reward of the French for killing him, officiously

pretended to take great care of him. While Red Shoes kept his face

toward him, the barbarian had such feelings of awe and pity that he had

not power to perpetrate his wicked design; but when he turned his back,

then gave the fatal shot. In this manner fell this valuable brave man,

by hands that would have trembled to attack him on an equality."

Adair, with all his sympathy for the Indian, mixes quite unconsciously

some white man's views of the most decided sort. For instance, he

recommends that the tribes be stimulated as much as possible to war

with each other, that they may the more easily and completely be kept

under the dominion of the whites, and he gives the following record of

brutality as quite a jocose and adroit procedure.

"I told him; on his importuning me further, that I had a full bottle of

the water of _ane hoome_, "bitter ears," meaning long pepper, of which

he was ignorant. We were of opinion that his eager thirst for liquor, as

well as his ignorance of the burning quality of the pepper, would induce

the bacchanal to try it. He accordingly applauded my generous

disposition, and said his heart had all along told him I would not act

beneath the character I bore among his country people. The bottle was

brought, I laid it on the table, and then told him, as he was spitting

very much, (a general custom among the Indians when they are eager for

anything,) if I drank it all at one sitting it would cause me to spit in

earnest, as I used it only when I ate, and then very moderately; but

though I loved it, if his heart was very poor for it, I should be

silent, and not the least grudge him for pleasing his mouth. He said,

'your heart is honest, indeed; I thank you, for it is good to my heart,

and makes it greatly to rejoice.' Without any further ceremony he seized

the bottle, uncorked it, and swallowed a large quantity of the burning

liquid, till he was nearly strangled. He gasped for a considerable time,

and as soon as he recovered his breath, he said _Hah_, and soon after

kept stroking his throat with his right hand. When the violence of this

burning draught was pretty well over, he began to flourish away in

praise of the strength of the liquor and bounty of the giver. He then

went to his companion and held the liquor to his mouth according to

custom, till he took several hearty swallows. This Indian seemed rather

more sensible of its fiery quality than the other, for it suffocated him

for a considerable time; but as soon as he recovered his breath, he

tumbled about the floor like a drunken person. In this manner they

finished the whole bottle, into which two others had been decanted. The

burning liquor so highly inflamed their bodies, that one of the

Choctaws, to cool his inward parts, drank water till he almost burst;

the other, rather than bear the ridicule of the people, and the inward

fire that distracted him, drowned himself the second night after in a

broad and shallow clay hole....

There was an incident similar, which happened among the Cherokees. When

all the liquor was expended the Indians went home, leading with them, at

my request, those that were drunk. One, however, soon came back, and

earnestly importuned me for more Nawahti, which signifies both physic

and spirituous liquor. They, as they are now become great liars, suspect

all others of being infected with their own disposition and principles.

The more I excused myself, the more anxious he grew, so as to become

offensive. I then told him I had only one quarter of a bottle of strong

physic, which sick people might drink in small quantities, for the cure

of inward pains: and, laying it down before him, I declared I did not on

any account choose to part with it, but as his speech had become very

long and troublesome, he might do just as his heart directed him

concerning it. He took it up, saying, his heart was very poor for

physic, but he would cure it, and make it quite straight. The bottle

contained three gills of strong spirits of turpentine, which, in a short

time he drank off. Such a quantity would have demolished me or any white

person. The Indians, in general, are either capable of suffering

exquisite pain longer than we are, or of showing more constancy and

composure in their torments. The troublesome visiter soon tumbled down

and foamed prodigiously. I then sent for some of his relations to carry

him home. They came; I told them he drank greedily, and too much of the

physic. They said, it was his usual custom, when the red people bought

the English physic. They gave him a decoction of proper herbs and roots,

the next day sweated him, repeated the former draught, and he got well.

As these turpentine spirits did not inebriate him, but only inflamed his

intestines, he well remembered the burning quality of my favorite

physic, and cautioned the rest from ever teasing me for any physic I had

concealed in any sort of bottles for my own use; otherwise they might be

sure it would spoil them like the eating of fire."

We are pleased to note that the same white man, who so resolutely

resisted the encroachments of Key-way-no-wut, devised a more humane

expedient in a similar dilemma.

"Mr. B. told me that, when he first went into the Indian country, they

got the taste of his peppermint, and, after that, colics prevailed among

them to an alarming extent, till Mrs. B. made a strong decoction of

flagroot, and gave them in place of their favorite medicine. This

effected, as might be supposed, a radical cure."

I am inclined to recommend Adair to the patient reader, if such may be

found in these United States, with the assurance that, if he will have

tolerance for its intolerable prolixity and dryness, he will find, on

rising from the book, that he has partaken of an infusion of real Indian

bitters, such as may not be drawn from any of the more attractive

memoirs on the same subject.

Another book of interest, from its fidelity and candid spirit, though

written without vivacity, and by a person neither of large mind nor

prepared for various inquiry, is Carver's Travels, "for three years

throughout the interior parts of America, for more than five thousand

miles."

He set out from Boston in "June, 1786, and proceeded, by way of Albany

and Niagara, to Michilimackinac, a fort situated between the Lakes Huron

and Michigan, and distant from Boston 1300 miles."

It is interesting to follow his footsteps in these localities, though

they be not bold footsteps.

He mentions the town of the Sacs, on the Wisconsin, as the largest and

best built he saw, "composed of ninety houses, each large enough for

several families. These are built of hewn plank, neatly jointed, and

covered with bark so compactly as to keep out the most penetrating

rains. Before the doors are placed comfortable sheds, in which the

inhabitants sit, when the weather will permit, and smoke their pipes.

The streets are regular and spacious. In their plantations, which lie

adjacent to their houses, and which are neatly laid out, they raise

great quantities of Indian corn, beans and melons."

Such settlements compare very well with those which were found on the

Mohawk. It was of such that the poor Indian was thinking, whom our host

saw gazing on the shore of Nomabbin lake.

He mentions the rise and fall of the lake-waters, by a tide of three

feet, once in seven years,--a phenomenon not yet accounted for.

His view of the Indian character is truly impartial. He did not see it

so fully drawn out by circumstances as Henry did, (of whose narrative we

shall presently speak,) but we come to similar results from the two

witnesses. They are in every feature Romans, as described by Carver, and

patriotism their leading impulse. He deserves the more credit for the

justice he is able to do them, that he had undergone the terrors of

death at their hands, when present at the surrender of one of the forts,

and had seen them in that mood which they express by drinking the blood

and eating the hearts of their enemies, yet is able to understand the

position of their minds, and allow for their notions of duty.

No selfish views, says he, influence their advice, or obstruct their

consultations.

Let me mention here the use they make of their vapor baths. "When about

to decide on some important measure, they go into them, thus cleansing

the skin and carrying off any peccant humors, so that the body may, as

little as possible, impede the mind by any ill conditions."

They prepare the bath for one another when any arrangement is to be

made between families, on the opposite principle to the whites, who make

them drunk before bargaining with them. The bath serves them instead of

a cup of coffee, to stimulate the thinking powers.

He mentions other instances of their kind of delicacy, which, if

different from ours, was, perhaps, more rigidly observed.

Lovers never spoke of love till the daylight was quite gone.

"If an Indian goes to visit any particular person in a family, he

mentions for whom his visit is intended, and the rest of the family,

immediately retiring to the other end of the hut or tent, are careful

not to come near enough to interrupt them during the whole of the

conversation."

In cases of divorce, which was easily obtained, the advantage rested

with the woman. The reason given is indeed contemptuous toward her, but

a chivalric direction is given to the contempt.

"The children of the Indians are always distinguished by the name of the

mother, and, if a woman marries several husbands, and has issue by each

of them, they are called after her. The reason they give for this is,

that, 'as their offspring are indebted to the father for the soul, the

invisible part of their essence, and to the mother for their corporeal

and apparent part, it is most rational that they should be distinguished

by the name of the latter, from whom they indubitably derive their

present being.'"

This is precisely the division of functions made by Ovid, as the father

sees Hercules perishing on the funeral pyre.

"Nec nisi materna Vulcanum parte potentem

Sentiet. Aeternum est a me quod traxit et expers

Atque immune necis, nullaqe domabile flamma."

He is not enough acquainted with natural history to make valuable

observations. He mentions, however, as did my friend, the Indian girl,

that those splendid flowers, the Wickapee and the root of the

Wake-Robin, afford valuable medicines. Here, as in the case of the

Lobelia, nature has blazoned her drug in higher colors than did ever

quack doctor.

He observes some points of resemblance between the Indians and Tartars,

but they are trivial, and not well considered. He mentions that the

Tartars have the same custom, with some of these tribes, of shaving all

the head except a tuft on the crown. Catlin says this is intended, to

afford a convenient means by which to take away the scalp; for they

consider it a great disgrace to have the foeman neglect this, as if he

considered the conquest, of which the scalp is the certificate, no

addition to his honors.

"The Tartars," he says, "had a similar custom of sacrificing the dog;

and among the Kamschatkans was a dance resembling the dog-dance of our

Indians."

My friend, who joined me at Mackinaw, happened, on the homeward journey,

to see a little Chinese girl, who had been sent over by one of the

missions, and observed that, in features, complexion, and gesture, she

was a counterpart to the little Indian girls she had just seen playing

about on the lake shore.

The parentage of these tribes is still an interesting subject of

speculation, though, if they be not created for this region, they have

become so assimilated to it as to retain little trace of any other. To

me it seems most probable, that a peculiar race was bestowed on each

region, as the lion on one latitude and the white bear on another. As

man has two natures--one, like that of the plants and animals, adapted

to the uses and enjoyments of this planet, another, which presages and

demands a higher sphere--he is constantly breaking bounds, in proportion

as the mental gets the better of the mere instinctive existence. As yet,

he loses in harmony of being what he gains in height and extension; the

civilized man is a larger mind, but a more imperfect nature than the

savage.

It is pleasant to meet, on the borders of these two states, one of those

persons who combines some of the good qualities of both; not, as so many

of these adventurers do, the rapaciousness and cunning of the white,

with the narrowness and ferocity of the savage, but the sentiment and

thoughtfulness of the one, with the boldness, personal resource, and

fortitude of the other.

Such a person was Alexander Henry, who left Quebec in 1760, for Mackinaw

and the Sault St. Marie, and remained in those regions, of which he has

given us a most lively account, sixteen years.

His visit to Mackinaw was premature; the Indians were far from

satisfied; they hated their new masters. From the first, the omens were

threatening, and before many months passed, the discontent ended in the

seizing of the fort at Mackinaw and massacre of its garrison; on which

occasion Henry's life was saved by a fine act of Indian chivalry.

Wawatam, a distinguished chief, had found himself drawn, by strong

affinity, to the English stranger. He had adopted him as a brother, in

the Indian mode. When he found that his tribe had determined on the

slaughter of the whites, he obtained permission to take Henry away with

him, if he could. But not being able to prevail on him, as he could not

assign the true reasons, he went away deeply saddened, but not without

obtaining a promise that his brother should not be injured. The reason

he was obliged to go, was, that his tribe felt his affections were so

engaged, that his self-command could not be depended on to keep their

secret. Their promise was not carefully observed, and, in consequence of

the baseness of a French Canadian in whose house Henry took

refuge,--baseness such as has not, even by their foes, been recorded of

any Indian, his life was placed in great hazard. But Wawatam returned in

time to save him. The scene in which he appears, accompanied by his

wife--who seems to have gone hand in hand with him in this matter--lays

down all his best things in a heap, in the middle of the hall, as a

ransom for the captive, and his little, quiet speech, are as good as the

Iliad. They have the same simplicity, the same lively force and

tenderness.

Henry goes away with his adopted brother, and lives for some time among

the tribe. The details of this life are truly interesting. One time he

is lost for several days while on the chase. The description of these

weary, groping days, the aspect of natural objects and of the feelings

thus inspired, and the mental change after a good night's sleep, form a

little episode worthy the epic muse. He stripped off the entire bark of

a tree for a coverlet in the snow-storm, going to sleep with "the most

distracted thoughts in the world, while the wolves around seemed to know

the distress to which he was reduced;" but he waked in the morning

another man, clear-headed, able to think out the way to safety.

When living in the lodge, he says: "At one time much scarcity of food

prevailed. We were often twenty-four hours without eating; and when in

the morning we had no victuals for the day before us, the custom was to

black our faces with grease and charcoal, and exhibit, through

resignation, a temper as cheerful as in the midst of plenty." This wise

and dignified proceeding reminds one of a charming expression of what is

best in French character, as described by Rigolette, in the Mysteries of

Paris, of the household of Pere Cretu and Ramnonette.

He bears witness to much virtue among them. Their superstitions, as

described by him, seem childlike and touching. He gives with much humor,

traits that show their sympathy with the lower animals, such as I have

mentioned. He speaks of them as, on the whole, taciturn, because their

range of topics is so limited, and seems to have seen nothing of their

talent for narration. Catlin, on the contrary, describes them as lively

and garrulous, and says, that their apparent taciturnity among the

whites is owing to their being surprised at what they see, and

unwilling, from pride, to show that they are so, as well as that they

have little to communicate on their side, that they think will be

valuable.

After peace was restored, and Henry lived long at Mackinaw and the Sault

St. Marie, as a trader, the traits of his biography and intercourse with

the Indians, are told in the same bold and lively style. I wish I had

room for many extracts, as the book is rare.

He made a journey one winter on snow shoes, to Prairie du Chien, which

is of romantic interest as displaying his character. His companions

could not travel nearly so fast as he did, and detained him on the way.

Provisions fell short; soon they were ready to perish of starvation.

Apprehending this, on a long journey, in the depth of winter, broken by

no hospitable station, Henry had secreted some chocolate. When he saw

his companions ready to lie down and die, he would heat water, boil in

it a square of this, and give them. By the heat of the water and the

fancy of nourishment, they would be revived, and induced to proceed a

little further. At last they saw antlers sticking up from the ice, and

found the body of an elk, which had sunk in and been frozen there, and

thus preserved to save their lives. On this "and excellent soup" made

from bones they found they were sustained to their journey's end; thus

furnishing, says Henry, one other confirmation of the truth, that

"despair was not made for man;" this expression, and his calm

consideration for the Canadian women that was willing to betray him to

death, denote the two sides of a fine character.

He gives an interesting account of the tribe called "The Weepers," on

account of the rites with which they interrupt their feasts in honor of

their friends.

He gives this humorous notice of a chief, called "The Great Road."

"The chief, to whose kindly reception we were so much indebted, was of a

complexion rather darker than that of the Indians in general. His

appearance was greatly injured by the condition of his hair, and this

was the result of an extraordinary superstition.

"The Indians universally fix upon a particular object as sacred to

themselves--as the giver of prosperity and as their preserver from evil.

The choice is determined either by a dream or some strong predilection

of fancy, and usually falls upon an animal, part of an animal, or

something else which is to be met with by land, or by water; but the

Great Road had made choice of his hair, placing, like Samson, all his

safety in this portion of his proper substance! His hair was the

fountain of all his happiness; it was his strength and his weapon--his

spear and his shield. It preserved him in battle, directed him in the

chase, watched over him in the march, and gave length of days to his

wives and children. Hair, of a quality like this, was not to be profaned

by the touch of human hands. I was assured that it never had been cut

nor combed from his childhood upward, and that when any part of it fell

from his head, he treasured that part with, care; meanwhile, it did not

escape all care, even while growing on the head, but was in the

especial charge of a spirit, who dressed it while the owner slept. The

spirit's style of hair-dressing was peculiar, the hair being matted into

ropes, which spread in all directions."

I insert the following account of a visit from some Indians to him at

Mackinaw, with a design to frighten him, and one to Carver, for the same

purpose, as very descriptive of Indian manners:

"At two o'clock in the afternoon, the Chippeways came to my house, about

sixty in number, and headed by Mina-va-va-na, their chief. They walked

in single file, each with his tomahawk in one hand, and scalping knife

in the other. Their bodies were naked, from the waist upwards, except in

a few examples, where blankets were thrown loosely over the shoulders.

Their faces were painted with charcoal, worked up with grease; their

bodies with white clay in patterns of various fancies. Some had feathers

thrust through their noses, and their heads decorated with the same. It

is unnecessary to dwell on the sensations with which I beheld the

approach of this uncouth, if not frightful, assemblage."

"Looking out, I saw about twenty naked young Indians, the most perfect

in their shape, and by far the handsomest I had ever seen, coming

towards me, and dancing as they approached to the music of their drums.

At every ten or twelve yards they halted, and set up their yells and

cries.

When they reached my tent I asked them to come in, which, without

deigning to make me any answer, they did. As I observed they were

painted red and black, as they are when they go against an enemy, and

perceived that some parts of the war-dance were intermixed with their

other movements, I doubted not but they were set on by the hostile chief

who refused my salutation. I therefore determined to sell my life as

dearly as possible. To this purpose I received them sitting on my chest,

with my gun and pistols beside me; and ordered my men to keep a watchful

eye on them, and be also on their guard.

The Indians being entered, they continued their dance alternately,

singing at the same time of their heroic exploits, and the superiority

of their race over every other people. To enforce their language, though

it was uncommonly nervous and expressive, and such as would of itself

have carried terror to the firmest heart; at the end of every period

they struck their war-clubs against the poles of my tent with such

violence, that I expected every moment it would have tumbled upon us. As

each of them in dancing round passed by me, they placed their right

hands over their eyes, and coming close to me, looked me steadily in the

face, which I could not construe into a token of friendship. My men gave

themselves up for lost; and I acknowledge for my own part, that I never

found my apprehensions more tumultuous on any occasion."

He mollified them, however, in the end by presents.

It is pity that Lord Edward Fitzgerald did not leave a detailed account

of his journey through the wilderness, where he was pilot of an unknown

course for twenty days, as Murray and Henry have of theirs. There is

nothing more interesting than to see the civilized man thus thrown

wholly on himself and his manhood, and _not_ found at fault.

McKenney and Hall's book upon the Indians is a valuable work. The

portraits of the chiefs alone would make a history, and they are

beautifully colored.

Most of the anecdotes may be found again in Drake's Book of the Indians;

which will afford a useful magazine to their future historian.

I shall, however, cite a few of them, as especially interesting to

myself.

Of Guess, the inventor of the Cherokee alphabet, it was observable in

the picture, and observed in the text, that his face had an oriental

cast. The same, we may recall, was said of that of the Seeress of

Prevorst, and the circumstance presents pleasing analogies. Intellect

dawning through features still simple and national, presents very

different apparitions from the "expressive" and "historical" faces of a

broken and cultured race, where there is always more to divine than to

see.

Of the picture of the Flying Pigeon, the beautiful and excellent woman

mentioned above, a keen observer said, "If you cover the forehead, you

would think the face that of a Madonna, but the forehead is still

savage; the perceptive faculties look so sharp, and the forehead not

moulded like a European forehead." This is very true; in her the moral

nature was most developed, and the effect of a higher growth upon her

face is entirely different from that upon Guess.

His eye is inturned, while the proper Indian eye gazes steadily, as if

on a distant object. That is half the romance of it, that it makes you

think of dark and distant places in the forest.

Guess always preferred inventing his implements to receiving them from

others: and, when considered as mad by his tribe, while bent on the

invention of his alphabet, contented himself with teaching it to his

little daughter; an unimpeachable witness.

Red Jacket's face, too, is much more intellectual than almost any other.

But, in becoming so, it loses nothing of the peculiar Indian stamp, but

only carries these traits to their perfection. Irony, discernment,

resolution, and a deep smouldering fire, that disdains to flicker where

it cannot blaze, may there be read. Nothing can better represent the

sort of unfeelingness the whites have towards the Indians, than their

conduct towards his remains. He had steadily opposed the introduction of

white religion, or manners, among the Indians. He believed that for them

to break down the barriers was to perish. On many occasions he had

expressed this with all the force of his eloquence. He told the

preachers, "if the Great Spirit had meant your religion for the red man,

he would have given it to them. What they (the missionaries) tell us, we

do not understand; and the light they ask for us, makes the straight and

plain path trod by our fathers dark and dreary."

When he died, he charged his people to inter him themselves. "Dig my

grave, yourselves, and let not the white man pursue me there." In

defiance of this last solemn request, and the invariable tenor of his

life, the missionaries seized the body and performed their service over

it, amid the sullen indignation of his people, at what, under the

circumstances, was sacrilege.

Of Indian religion a fine specimen is given in the conduct of one of the

war chiefs, who, on an important occasion, made a vow to the sun of

entire renunciation in case he should be crowned with success. When he

was so, he first went through a fast, and sacrificial dance, involving

great personal torment, and lasting several days; then, distributing all

his property, even his lodges, and mats, among the tribe, he and his

family took up their lodging upon the bare ground, beneath the bare sky.

The devotion of the Stylites and the hair-cloth saints, is in act,

though not in motive, less noble, because this great chief proposed to

go on in common life, where he had lived as a prince--a beggar.

The memoir by Corn Plant of his early days is beautiful.

Very fine anecdotes are told of two of the Western chiefs, father and

son, who had the wisdom to see the true policy toward the whites, and

steadily to adhere to it.

A murder having taken place in the jurisdiction of the father, he

delivered himself up, with those suspected, to imprisonment. One of his

companions chafed bitterly under confinement. He told the chief, if they

ever got out, he would kill him, and did so. The son, then a boy, came

in his rage and sorrow, to this Indian, and insulted him in every way.

The squaw, angry at this, urged her husband "to kill the boy at once."

But he only replied with "the joy of the valiant," "He will be a great

Brave," and then delivered himself up to atone for his victim, and met

his death with the noblest Roman composure.

This boy became rather a great chief than a great brave, and the

anecdotes about him are of signal beauty and significance.

There is a fine story of an old mother, who gave herself to death

instead of her son. The son, at the time, accepted the sacrifice,

seeing, with Indian coolness, that it was better she should give up her

few solitary and useless days, than he a young existence full of

promise. But he could not abide by this view, and after suffering awhile

all the anguish of remorse, he put himself solemnly to death in the

presence of the tribe, as the only atonement he could make. His young

wife stood by, with her child in her arms, commanding her emotions, as

he desired, for, no doubt, it seemed to her also, a sacred duty.

But the finest story of all is that of Petalesharro, in whose tribe at

the time, and not many years since, the custom of offering human

sacrifices still subsisted. The fire was kindled, the victim, a young

female captive, bound to the stake, the tribe assembled round. The young

brave darted through them, snatched the girl from her peril, placed her

upon his horse, and both had vanished before the astonished spectators

had thought to interpose.

He placed the girl in her distant home, and then returned. Such is the

might of right, when joined with courage, that none ventured a word of

resentment or question. His father, struck by truth, endeavored, and

with success, to abolish the barbarous custom in the tribe. On a later

occasion, Petalesharro again offered his life, if required, but it was

not.

This young warrior visiting Washington, a medal was presented him in

honor of these acts. His reply deserves sculpture: "When I did it, I

knew not that it was good. I did it in ignorance. This medal makes me

know that it was good."

The recorder, through his playful expressions of horror at a declaration

so surprising to the civilized Good, shows himself sensible to the grand

simplicity of heroic impulse it denotes. Were we, too, so good, as to

need a medal to show us that we are!

The half-breed and half-civilized chiefs, however handsome, look vulgar

beside the pure blood. They have the dignity of neither race.

The death of Oseola, (as described by Catlin,) presents a fine picture

in the stern, warlike kind, taking leave with kindness, as a private

friend, of the American officers; but, as a foe in national regards, he

raised himself in his dying bed, and painted his face with the tokens of

eternal enmity.

The historian of the Indians should be one of their own race, as able to

sympathize with them, and possessing a mind as enlarged and cultivated

as John Ross, and with his eye turned to the greatness of the past,

rather than the scanty promise of the future. Hearing of the wampum

belts, supposed to have been sent to our tribes by Montezuma, on the

invasion of the Spaniard, we feel that an Indian who could glean

traditions familiarly from the old men, might collect much that we could

interpret.

Still, any clear outline, even of a portion of their past, is not to be

hoped, and we shall be well contented if we can have a collection of

genuine fragments, that will indicate as clearly their life, as a

horse's head from the Parthenon the genius of Greece.

Such, to me, are the stories I have cited above. And even European

sketches of this greatness, distant and imperfect though they be, yet

convey the truth, if made in a sympathizing spirit. Adair's Red Shoes,

Murray's old man, Catlin's noble Mandan chief, Henry's Wa-wa-tam, with

what we know of Philip, Pontiac, Tecumseh and Red Jacket, would suffice

to give the ages a glimpse at what was great in Indian life and Indian

character.

We hope, too, there will be a national institute, containing all the

remains of the Indians,--all that has been preserved by official

intercourse at Washington, Catlin's collection, and a picture gallery as

complete as can be made, with a collection of skulls from all parts of

the country. To this should be joined the scanty library that exists on

the subject.

I have not mentioned Mackenzie's Travels. He is an accurate observer,

but sparing in his records, because his attention was wholly bent on his

own objects. This circumstance gives a heroic charm to his scanty and

simple narrative. Let what will happen, or who will go back, he cannot;

he must find the sea, along those frozen rivers, through those starving

countries, among tribes of stinted men, whose habitual interjection was

"edui, it is hard, uttered in a querulous tone," distrusted by his

followers, deserted by his guides, on, on he goes, till he sees the

sea, cold, lowering, its strand bristling with foes; but he does see it.

His few observations, especially on the tribes who lived on fish, and

held them in such superstitious observance, give a lively notion of the

scene.

A little pamphlet has lately been published, giving an account of the

massacre at Chicago, which I wish much I had seen while there, as it

would have imparted an interest to spots otherwise barren. It is written

with animation, and in an excellent style, telling just what we want to

hear, and no more. The traits given of Indian generosity are as

characteristic as those of Indian cruelty. A lady, who was saved by a

friendly chief holding her under the waters of the lake, while the balls

were whizzing around, received also, in the heat of the conflict, a

reviving draught from a squaw, who saw she was exhausted; and, as she

lay down, a mat was hung up between her and the scene of butchery, so

that she was protected from the sight, though she could not be from

sounds, full of horror.

I have not wished to write sentimentally about the Indians, however

moved by the thought of their wrongs and speedy extinction. I know that

the Europeans who took possession of this country, felt themselves

justified by their superior civilization and religious ideas. Had they

been truly civilized or Christianized, the conflicts which sprang from

the collision of the two races, might have been avoided; but this cannot

be expected in movements made by masses of men. The mass has never yet

been humanized, though the age may develop a human thought.

Since those conflicts and differences did arise, the hatred which

sprang, from terror and suffering, on the European side, has naturally

warped the whites still farther from justice.

The Indian, brandishing the scalps of his friends and wife, drinking

their blood and eating their hearts, is by him viewed as a fiend,

though, at a distant day, he will no doubt be considered as having acted

the Roman or Carthaginian part of heroic and patriotic self-defence,

according to the standard of right and motives prescribed by his

religious faith and education. Looked at by his own standard, he is

virtuous when he most injures his enemy, and the white, if he be really

the superior in enlargement of thought, ought to cast aside his

inherited prejudices enough to see this,--to look on him in pity and

brotherly goodwill, and do all he can to mitigate the doom of those who

survive his past injuries.

In McKenney's book, is proposed a project for organizing the Indians

under a patriarchal government, but it does not look feasible, even on

paper. Could their own intelligent men be left to act unimpeded in their

behalf, they would do far better for them than the white thinker, with

all his general knowledge. But we dare not hope the designs of such will

not always be frustrated by the same barbarous selfishness they were in

Georgia. There was a chance of seeing what might have been done, now

lost forever.

Yet let every man look to himself how far this blood shall be required

at his hands. Let the missionary, instead of preaching to the Indian,

preach to the trader who ruins him, of the dreadful account which will

be demanded of the followers of Cain, in a sphere where the accents of

purity and love come on the ear more decisively than in ours. Let every

legislator take the subject to heart, and if he cannot undo the effects

of past sin, try for that clear view and right sense that may save us

from sinning still more deeply. And let every man and every woman, in

their private dealings with the subjugated race, avoid all share in

embittering, by insult or unfeeling prejudice, the captivity of Israel.