FOOTNOTES:
[1] Little Wise People, the Beavers, so called by the Assiniboins. The Indians, though they kill this animal whenever they can, nevertheless esteem him scarcely inferior to man in wisdom. A bit of his skin, or his paw, or any part of him, is esteemed a very powerful "medicine" or amulet.
[2] See this superstition in the last tale.
[3] The Indians always give a corporeal form to the Supreme Being, and, in every instance that I have heard of, when supposing him to have a human form, imagine him with some kind of covering upon his head. Since their introduction to the white people, they have invariably supposed this covering to be a hat.
[4] Chesapeak Bay.
[5] See the Tradition post.
[6] The greater part of the Indians of the Western Continent believe themselves descended from, or colonies of, the Lenni Lenapes, and hence give to that tribe the epithet, "grandfather." Several of the tribes have a tradition, that they came from beyond the Rocky Mountains.
[7] Oniagarah, Niagara: the former is the Indian pronunciation of the name of that celebrated cataract.
[8] See the note relating to the Mammoth in the tradition of "The Coming of Miquon."
[9] Intoxicating bean.—See Long's First Expedition to the Rocky Mountains.
[10] See the tradition, entitled "The Valley of the Bright Old Inhabitants."
[11] When an Indian wishes to express his admiration of music, he likens it to the notes of the Mocking-Bird. When the Winnabagoes visited Philadelphia, in the winter of 1828, they went to the Chesnut-street theatre, to hear Mrs. Knight sing: one of the chiefs, wishing to testify his delight, plucked an eagle's feather, and sent it to her by the box-keeper, with the message, that "she was a mocking-bird squaw."—American paper.
[12] The physic-nut, or Indian olive. The Indians, when they go in pursuit of deer, carry this fruit with them, supposing that it has the power of charming or drawing that creature to them.
[13] Button snakeroot.
[14] Tobacco.
[15] The Spaniards.
[16] The partridge, a common figure with the Indians to express cowardice.
[17] Northern lights, aurora borealis.
[18] The milky way.
[19] The name given by the Indians to the bellows.
[20] Put the hatchet under the bedstead, an Indian figure, signifying that peace will not last long.
[21] A night's encampment is a halt of one year at a place.
[22] The Shoshonees, a tribe living west of the Rocky Mountains, to indicate the sincerity of their professions, pull off their mocassins before they smoke in the pipe of peace, an action which imprecates on themselves the misery of going barefoot for ever, if they are faithless to their words.
[23] "Great council fire" means all the land or territory possessed by the nation.
[24] Michabou is generally the Indian Neptune: sometimes, however, they mean by this title the Great Spirit.
[25] The mountains.
[26] Hills of the Serpent, the Rocky Mountains. I have before mentioned the Indian superstition that thunder is the hissing of a great serpent, which has his residence among those mountains.
[27] Hollow voice—echo.
[28] Martha's Vineyard, a little island upon the coast of New England.
[29] The owl. See the tradition, vol. 1. p. 61.
[30] A brook in Barnstable County, respecting which this tradition is current among the Indians.
[31] The Indians, as I have before remarked, believe the world to be an island, and always speak of it as such.
[32] Gayhead, which has a chalk cliff.
[33] See note, vol. i. page 59.
[34] See note, vol. i. page 253.
[35] "Wrathful phial of liquid fire" is a literal translation of the Chippewa word for ardent spirit.
[36] Burning water, ardent spirits, commonly called by them the "fire-eater."