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I took the fish to them because Maneto said to me, you must take fish to these people, whispering ever in my ear 'You must take fish to them. I had to do it, or Maneto would have killed me." Our old woman telling us he sometimes got drunk, we said to him he should not do so any more, that the Great Sakemacker who is above, was offended at such conduct and would kill him.
Knowing that I could arouse the interest of the most apathetic among them when I began to combine the characters into words, I asked for their earnest attention while I proceeded in my work. They could hardly believe their own eyes that before them was Maneto, the Great Spirit.
We told him he must not make such a difference between himself and a Christian, because one was white and the other red, and one wore clothes and the other went almost naked, or one was called a Christian and the other an Indian, that this great and good Sakemacker was the father of us all, and had made us all, and that all who did not do good would be killed by Maneto whether they were called Christians or Indians; but that all who should do good would go to this good sakemacker above.
Something that filled, and thrilled them, as I have never before or since seen Indians thrilled. For a time I could only keep quiet and look on, and rejoice as I studied them. Some of them in their amazement were doubtful of their own senses. They acted as though they could not believe their own eyes; so they appealed to those nearest to them, and said: "Is it Maneto to you?"
"No," said he, laughing as if that were a mistake of ours, "it is Maneto who kills those who do evil, and leaves those who do good at peace." "That is only," we replied, "because Maneto is the slave and executioner of the Great Sakemacker above;" and we then asked him if he believed there was such a great and good sakemacker there?
"Undoubtedly," he said, "but he remains above, and does not trouble himself with the earth or earthly things, because he does nothing except what is good; but Maneto, who also is a sakemacker, is here below, and governs all, and punishes and torments those men who do evil and drink themselves drunk." Hereupon we inquired of him why he did so then.
"Yes," said he, "we do not know or speak to this sakemacker, but Maneto we know and speak to, but you people, who can read and write, know and converse with this sakemacker." We asked him, where he believed he came from? He answered from his father. "And where did your father come from?" we said, "and your grandfather and great-grandfather, and so on to the first of the race?"
He whom they had heard in the thunder and the storm, whose power they had seen in the lightning flash, about whom, with reverence and awe, they had talked in their wigwams, and at their camp-fires "Maneto!" Here, made by a burnt stick on a rock visible to their eyes, was that name: God on the Rock! It was indeed a revelation.
When the Indians came again to De Vries, he declared to them that his Great Spirit, or "Maneto," had revealed their wicked purposes, and that he would not sail up the Timber Creek, nor would he allow one of them upon his vessel; and, having ordered them all on shore, he dropped some distance down the river.
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