The public feasts are conducted in the same manner, but with some additional ceremony. Several chiefs officiate at them, and procure the necessary provisions, as well as prepare a proper place of reception for the numerous company. Here the guests discourse upon public topics, repeat the heroic deeds of their forefathers, and excite the rising generation to follow their example. The entertainments on these occasions consist of dried meats, as it would not be practicable to dress a sufficient quantity of fresh meat for such a large assembly; though the women and children are excluded.

Similar feasts used to be made at funerals, and annually, in honour of the dead; but they have been, for some time, growing into disuse, and I never had an opportunity of being present at any of them.

The women, who are forbidden to enter the places sacred to these festivals, dance and sing around them, and sometimes beat time to the music within them; which forms an agreeable contrast.

With respect to their divisions of time, they compute the length of their journeys by the number of nights passed in performing them; and they divide the year by the succession of moons. In this calculation, however, they are not altogether correct, as they cannot account for the odd days.

The names which they give to the names are descriptive of the several seasons.

May Atheiky o Pishim Frog Moon.
June Oppinu o Pishim The Moon in which birds begin to lay their eggs.
July Aupascen o Pishim The Moon when birds cast their feathers.
August Aupahou o Pishim The Moon when the young birds begin to fly.
September Waskiscon o Pishim The Moon when the moose deer cast their horns.
October Wisac o Pishim The Rutting-Moon.
November Thithigon Pewai o Pishim Hoar-Frost Moon.
Kuskatinsyoui o Pishim Ice Moon.
December Pawatchicananasis o Pishim Whirlwind-Moon.
January Kushapawasticanum o Pishim Extreme cold Moon.
February Kichi Pishim Big Moon; some say, Old Moon.
March Mickysue Pishim Eagle Moon.
April Niscaw o Pishim Goose Moon.

These people know the medicinal virtues of many herbs and simples, and apply the roots of plants and the bark of trees with success. But the conjurers, who monopolize the medical science, find it necessary to blend mystery with their art, and do not communicate their knowledge. Their materia medica they administer in the form of purges and clysters, but the remedies and surgical operations are supposed to derive much of their effect from magic and incantation. When a blister rises in the foot from the frost, the chafing of the shoe, etc., they immediately open it, and apply the heated blade of a knife to the part, which, painful as it may be, is found to be efficacious. A sharp flint serves them as a lancet for letting blood, as well as for scarification in bruises and swellings. For sprains, the dung of an animal just killed is considered as the best remedy. They are very fond of European medicines, though they are ignorant of their application: and those articles form an inconsiderable part of the European traffic with them.

Among their various superstitions, they believe that the vapour which is seen to hover over moist and swampy places, is the spirit of some person lately dead. They also fancy another spirit which appears, in the shape of a man, upon the trees near the lodge of a person deceased, whose property has not been interred with them. He is represented as bearing a gun in his hand, and it is believed that he does not return to his rest, till the property that has been withheld from the grave has been sacrificed to it.

EXAMPLES OF THE KNISTENEAUX AND ALGONQUIN TONGUES.