Had you done me, Sir, the honor of passing with me but three days only, you would soon have seen what sort of a nation it is that I have to deal with. I am obliged to hold frequent and long parleys with them, and, at every occasion, to heap upon them the most fair and flattering promises. I must incessantly excite them to the practice of acts of religion, and labor to render them tractable, sociable, and loyal to the king (of France). But especially, I apply myself to make them live in good understanding with the French.
With all this, I affect a grave and serious air, that awes and imposes upon them. I even take care of observing measure and cadence in the delivery of my words, and to make choice of those expressions the properest to strike their attention, and to hinder what I say from falling to the ground. If I cannot boast that my harangues have all the fruit and success that I could wish, they are not however wholly without effect. As nothing inchants those people more than a style of metaphors and allegories, in which even their common conversation abounds, I adapt myself to their taste, and never please them better than when I give what I say this turn, speaking to them in their own language. I borrow the most lively images from those objects of nature, with which they are so well acquainted; and am rather more regular than even themselves, in the arrangement of my phrases. I affect, above all, to rhime as they do, especially at each member of a period. This contributes to give them so great an idea of me, that they imagine this gift of speaking is rather an inspiration, than an acquisition by study and meditation. In truth, I may venture to say, without presumption, that I talk the Micmaki language as fluently, and as elegantly, as the best of their women, who most excel in this point.
Another of my occupations is to engage and spur them on to the making a copious chace, when the hunting-season comes in, that their debts to the dealers with them may be paid, their wives and children cloathed, and their credit supported.
It is neither gaming nor debauchery that disable them from the payment of their debts, but their vanity, which is excessive, in the presents of peltry they make to other savages, who come either in quality of envoys from one country to another, or as friends or relations upon a visit to one another. Then it is, that a village is sure to exhaust itself in presents; it being a standing rule with them, on the arrival of such persons, to bring out every thing that they have acquired, during the winter and spring season, in order to give the best and most advantageous idea of themselves. Then it is chiefly they make feasts, which sometimes last several days; of the manner of which I should perhaps spare you the description, if the ceremony that attends them did not include the strongest attestation of the great stress they lay on hunting; the excelling wherein they commonly take for their text in their panegyrics on these occasions, and consequently enters, for a great deal, into the idea you are to conceive of the life and manners of the savages in these parts.
The first thing I am to observe to you is, that one of the greatest dainties, and with which they crown their entertainments, is the flesh of dogs. For it is not till the envoys, friends, or relations, are on the point of departure, that, on the eve of that day, they make a considerable slaughter of dogs, which they slea, draw, and, with no other dressing, put whole into the kettle; from whence they take them half boiled, and carve out into as many pieces as there are guests to eat of them, in the cabbin of him who gives the treat. But every one, before entering the cabbin, takes care to bring with him his Oorakin, or bowl, made of bark of birch-tree, either polygone shaped, or quite round; and this is practised at all their entertainments. These pieces of dogs flesh are accompanied with a small Oorakin full of the oil or fat of seal, or of elk's grease, if this feast is given at the melting-time of the snow. Every one has his own dish before him, in which he sops his flesh before he eats it. If the fat be hard, he cuts a small piece of it to every bit of flesh he puts into his mouth, which serves as bread with us. At the end of this fine regale, they drink as much of the oil as they can, and wipe their hands on their hair. Then come in the wives of the master and persons invited, who carry off their husbands plates, and retire together to a separate place, where they dispatch the remains.
After grace being said by the oldest of the company, who also never fails of pronouncing it before the meal, the master of the treat appears as if buried in a profound contemplation, without speaking a word, for a full quarter of an hour; after which, waking as it were out of a deep sleep, he orders in the Calumets, or Indian pipes, with tobacco. First he fills his own, lights it, and, after sucking in two or three whiffs, he presents it to the most considerable man in the company: after which, every one fills his pipe and smoaks.
The calumets lighted, and the tobacco burning with a clear fire, are scarce half smoked out, before the man of note before mentioned (for the greatest honors being paid him) gets up, places himself in the midst of the cabbin, and pronounces a speech of thanksgiving. He praises the master of the feast, who has so well regaled him and all the company. He compares him to a tree, whose large and strong roots afford nourishment to a number of small shrubs; or to a salutary medicinal herb, found accidentally by such as frequent the lakes in their canoes. Some I have heard, who, in their winter-feasts, compared him to the turpentine-tree, that never fails of yielding its sap and gummy distillation in all seasons: others to those temperate and mild days, which are sometimes seen in the midst of the severest winter. They employ a thousand similies of this sort, which I omit. After this introduction, they proceed to make honorable mention of the lineage from which the matter of the feast is descended.
"How great (will the oldest of them say) art thou, through thy great, great, great grand-father, whose memory is still recent, by tradition, amongst us, for the plentiful huntings he used to make! There was something of miraculous about him, when he assisted at the beating of the woods for elks, or other beasts of the fur. His dexterity at catching this game was not superior to our's; but there was some unaccountable secret he particularly possessed in his manner of seizing those creatures, by springing upon them, laying hold of their heads, and transfixing them at the same time with his hunting-spear, though thrice as strong and as nimble again as he was, and much more capable with their legs only, than we with our rackets "As for thyself, I say nothing, I am too full of the good things thou hast feasted me with, to treat on that subject; but I thank thee, and take thee by the hand, leaving to my fellow-guests the care of acquitting themselves of that duty." After this, he sits down, and some other younger, and in course of less note, for they pay great respect to age, gets up, and makes a summary recapitulation of what the first speaker has said; commending his manner of singing the praises of the master of the feast's ancestors: to which he observes, there is nothing to be added; but that he has, however, left him one part of the task to be accomplished, which is, not to pass over in silence the feast to which he and the rest of his brethren are invited; neither to omit the merit and praises of him who has given the entertainment. Then quitting his place, and advancing in cadence, he takes the master of the treat by the hand, saying, "All the praises my tongue is about to utter, have thee for their object. All the steps I am going to take, as I dance lengthwise and breadthwise in thy cabbin, are to prove to thee the gaiety of my heart, and my gratitude. Courage! my friends, keep time with your motions and voice, to my song and dance."