- paniments of speech, as comport with the real or fancied
nature of the subject.
It is not uncommon for these Indians to travel fifty leagues from home for the purpose of hunting. They employ the principal part of the summer in the chase. In autumn they again engage in the business. This is their most important season, on account of the greater relative value of furs. During the winter they return home, laden with peltry, smoaked flesh of various kinds, and the fat of bears. Last season they were very successful.
In hunting, Indians are exceedingly industrious and indefatigable; but in every other employment they are very indolent. It is probably owing to the latter circumstance, that they suffer their women to be the hewers of wood, and the performers of other servile work among them. From this practice has, {59} probably, arisen the idea, that Indians treat their wives with severity.
The belief of the Tondanwandeys, relative to a future state, is very simple and interesting. The death of friends is one of the greatest trials of life; and is calculated to produce the happiest influence upon the human heart. It alienates our affections from this world, and directs them to the happy abode of departed spirits. The desire of meeting our friends in a better state of existence renders Heaven doubly dear to us; and combines at once the tenderness of affection, the hope of glory, and the fear of God. The poor Indian fears nothing so much as the permanent loss of his friends; and finding them in a better world constitutes, with him, the bliss of Heaven.
I continued at the Indian village until about noon of the next day. Before leaving it, I purchased a pair of deerskin moccasons. It having snowed the preceding night, my path through the wood was obliterated. After travelling a mile or two I became completely bewildered; and
