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The name of the chief who first spoke at this secret meeting, which was afterward known among the Ojebways by the name of the "Council of the Bottom Land, near to the spring of gushing water," was Bear's Meat, an appellation that might denote a distinguished hunter, rather than an orator of much renown.
I said that at Garden River we were well content, for we had had the Gospel preached to us now for forty winters, and I felt our religious wants had been well attended to; but when I considered how great and how powerful is the English nation, how rapid their advance, and how great their success in every work to which they put their hands, I wondered often in my mind, and my people wondered too, why the Christian religion should have halted so long at Garden River, just at the entrance to the great Lake of the Ojebways; and how it was that forty winters had passed away and yet religion still slept, and the poor Indians of the great Ojebway Lake pleaded in vain for teachers to be sent to them.
"Brothers of the many tribes of the Ojebways," commenced this personage, "the Great Spirit has permitted us to meet in council. The Manitou of our fathers is now among these oaks, listening to our words, and looking in at our hearts. Wise Indians will be careful what they say in such a presence, and careful of what they think. All should be said and thought for the best.
The rule not to scratch their heads with their fingers, but to use a stick for the purpose instead, was regularly observed by Ojebways on the war-path.
For a time the man lay like dead, but under a shower of blows he showed signs of consciousness, and finally, discharging from his mouth the bean, or whatever it was that the chief had thrown at him, he came to life. In other tribes, for example, the Ojebways, Winnebagoes, and Dacotas or Sioux, the instrument by which the candidate is apparently slain is the medicine-bag.
At an eclipse the Ojebways used to imagine that the sun was being extinguished. So they shot fire-tipped arrows in the air, hoping thus to rekindle his expiring light. The Sencis of Peru also shot burning arrows at the sun during an eclipse, but apparently they did this not so much to relight his lamp as to drive away a savage beast with which they supposed him to be struggling.
"No matter; Onoah go just where he please. Sometime to Pottawattamie; sometime to Iroquois. All Ojebways know Onoah. All Six Nation know him well. All Injin know him. Even Cherokee know him now, and open ears when he speak. Muss cross river, and shake hand with Crowsfeather."
"Poor country to hunt in, dat," observed the Chippewa quietly, while le Bourdon was wiping his forehead after removing his cap. "Ojebways stay in it very little time." "This, according to our belief, was before any Ojebway lived. At length, God made a man, out of clay, and fashioned him, as we see men fashioned and living all around us." "Yes," answered the Chippewa, nodding his head in assent.
"My brother has told me many curious things," said Peter, when alone with the missionary, and speaking now in the language of the Ojebways "many very curious things. I like to listen to them. Once he told me how the pale-face young men take their squaws." "I remember to have told you this. We ask the Great Spirit to bless our marriages, and the ceremony is commonly performed by a priest.
The chiefs, he saw, had distrusted him all along, but had given him an opportunity to prove what he could do, in order to satisfy the more vulgar curiosity of their young men. He wisely determined, therefore, to keep out of the hands of his enemies. Although le Bourdon could hold a conversation in the tongue of the Ojebways, he was not fond of so doing.
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