filled with the green

son of green corn, and the dance was designed as a thanksgiving to the Great Spirit for his beneficence in bestowing upon them such a luxury. The day being appointed by the medicine-men, the villagers are all assembled, and in the midst of the pomp, a kettle is hung over the fire, and corn, which is well boiled to be given to the Great Spirit, as a sacrifice necessary to be made before any one can indulge the cravings of his appetite. Whilst their first kettle full is boiling, four medicine-men with a stalk of corn in one hand and a rattle in the other, their bodies painted with white clay, dance

round the kettle, chanting a song of thanksgiving to the Great Spirit, to whom the offering is to be made. At the same time, a number of warriors are dancing around in a more extended circle, with stalks of corn

in their hands, and joining also in the song of thanksgiving, whilst the villagers are all assembled and looking on. During this scene, there is an arrangement of wooden bowls laid upon the ground, in which the feast is to be dealt out, each one having in it a spoon, made of buffalo or mountain sheep's horn. In this wise the dance continues until the doctors decide that the corn is sufficiently boiled. After a few other juggles, the ceremony is considered complete, and permission is given to commence the feast. From this time a scene of license generally follows till the fields are exhausted, or the ears have become too hard for use.

Though the modes of burial were various, yet the Indians universally agreed in paying particular attention of some kind to the manes and memory of the dead. If slain in battle, every exertion was made to carry off their bodies, to be properly buried, as well as to save them from being scalped. The dead body was frequently interred in a sitting posture. The Chippewas have a custom of building a fire over the grave for several nights succeeding interment. The Mandans placed their dead bodies on slight scaffolds, just above the reach of human hands, and out of the way of wolves and dogs, and there they were left to decay. The skulls were afterwards collected and arranged in a circle around two medicine poles. They had several cemeteries at a little distance from their village, where hundreds of bodies were to be seen reposing in this manner. It was the custom of the friends here to visit the remains of the departed, and fathers, mothers, wives and children might be often

seen beneath the scaffolds, bewailing in the most piteous manner the decease of their kindred. Sometimes they tore their hair, rolled upon the ground, and lacerated their flesh with knives, to appease and put to rest

the spirits of the departed. Nor were these places visited only for penance. The women often resorted hither to hold converse with the dead, and not unfrequently, the mother might be seen with her needle-work by the skull of her child, and chatting to the ghastly relic, as if it were the living offspring.

The Indians believed in the immortality of the sou, but this was rather a continuance of life than a resurrection. His faith was like that of a child, which still believes its mother alive, though buried in the tomb. In the new state of existence, they believed that they should enjoy, without abatement, the pleasures of this

life that they would roam through delightful forests, stocked with game, and that, ever attended by attentive squaws, they should feast on the buffalo and the deer. The delights of their Elysium they supposed to be enhanced by having attained distinction in this world as hunters and warriors: the chief that numbered many scalps was supposed to be entitled to the highest state of bliss.

Their simple confiding faith led them to cherish the memory and remains of the departed. They buried the warrior with his pipe, his tomahawk, his quiver and the bow bent for action, and his most splendid apparel. They placed by his side the bowl of maize and the haunch of venison, to feed him in the long journey to the land of spirits. The mother would bury, by the tomb of her infant, its cradle, its beads, and its rattles; and even draw milk from her bosom and burn it in the fire, that the passing flame might bear nourishment to the child in the realms of the departed.

"Of all the nations of the earth," says Chateaubriand, "the Indians discover the greatest veneration for their dead. In national calamities the first thing they think of is to save the treasures of the tomb. They recognize no legal property, but where the remains of ancestors have been interred. When the Indians have pleaded their right of possession, they have always employed this argument, which in their opinion is irrefragable-Shall we say to the bones of our fathers, Rise, and follow us to a strange land?' Finding this plea disregarded, they carried with them

the bones which could not follow.

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"The motives of this attachment to sacred relics may easily be discovered. Civilized nations have monuments of literature and the arts for the memorials of their country. They have cities, palaces, towns, columns, obelisks; they have the furrows of the plough, the fields cultivated by them; their names are engraven in brass and marble; their actions are recorded in their chronicles. The savages have none of these things. Their names are not inscribed on the trees of their forests. Their huts, built in a few hours, perish in a few moments. Their traditional songs are vanishing with the last memory which retains them, with the last voice which repeats them. For the tribes of the New World there is therefore but a single monument-the grave. Take from the savages the bones of their fathers, and you take from their history, their laws, and their very gods."

The offerings of the Indians to their deities were made either by the chiefs, or by individuals on their own account. The belief in sorcery was universal, and their medicine-men, who united the character of prophet and priest, were supposed to exercise dominion over nature and the unseen world. They professed to command the elements, to call water from above, beneath, or around, to foretell the drought, and direct the lightning. By their spells they could give success to the hunter's arrow, and the fisherman's net. They could soften the heart of a maid towards her lover, endow the warrior with power to win victory, and compel disease to depart from its victim. These powers were accorded to the prophets by universal assent, and the crafty priests were not slow to take