Yet, with all these advantages of language, the nation itself is extreamly ignorant as to what concerns itself, or its origin, and their traditions are very confused and defective. They know nothing of the first peopling of their country, of which they imagine themselves the Aborigines. They often talk of their ancestors, but have nothing to say of them that is not vague or general. According to them, they were all great hunters, great wood-rangers, expert managers of canoes, intrepid warriors, that took to wives as many as they could maintain by hunting. They had too a custom amongst them, that if a woman grew pregnant whilst she was sucking a child, they obliged her to use means for procuring an abortion, in favor of the first-come, who they supposed would otherwise be defrauded of his due nourishment. Most of them also value themselves on being descended from their Jugglers, who are a sort of men that pretend to foretel futurity by a thousand ridiculous contorsions and grimaces, and by frightful and long-winded howlings.
The great secret of these Jugglers consists in having a great Oorakin full of water, from any river in which it was known there were beaver-huts. Then he takes a certain number of circular turns round this Oorakin, as it stands on the ground, pronouncing all the time with a low voice, a kind of gibberish of broken words, unintelligible to the assistants, and most probably so to himself, but which those, on whom he means to impose, believe very efficacious. After this he draws near to the bowl, and bending very low, or rather lying over it, looks at himself in it as in a glass. If he sees the water in the least muddy, or unsettled, he recovers his erect posture, and begins his rounds again, till he finds the water as clear as he could wish it for his purpose, and then he pronounces over it his magic words. If after having repeated them twice or thrice, he does not find the question proposed to him resolved by this inspection of the water, nor the wonders he wants operated by it, he says with a loud voice and a grave tone, that the Manitoo, or Miewndoo, (the great spirit) or genius, which, according to them, has all knowledge of future events, would not declare himself till every one of the assistants should have told him (the Juggler) in the ear what were his actual thoughts, or greatest secret. [A Romish missionary must, with a very bad grace, blame the Jugglers, for what himself makes such a point of religion in his auricular confession. Even the appellation of Juggler is not amiss applicable to those of their craft, considering all their tricks and mummery not a whit superior to those of these poor savages, in the eyes of common-sense. Who does not know, that the low-burlesque word of Hocus-pocus, is an humorous corruption of their Hoc est corpus meum, by virtue of which, they make a God out of a vile wafer, and think it finely solved, by calling it a mystery, which, by the way is but another name for nonsense. Is there any thing amongst the savages half so absurd or so impious?] To this purpose he gets up, laments, and bitterly inveighs against the bad dispositions of those of the assistants, whose fault it was, that the effects of his art were obstructed. Then going round the company, he obliges them to whisper him in the ear, whatever held the first place in their minds; and the simplicity of the greater number is such, as to make them reveal to him what it would be more prudent to conceal. By these means it is, that these artful Jugglers renders themselves formidable to the common people, and by getting into the secrets of most of the families of the nation, acquire a hank over them. Some, indeed, of the most sensible see through this pitiful artifice, and look on the Jugglers in their proper light of cheats, quacks, and tyrants; but out of fear of their established influence over the bulk of the nation, they dare not oppose its swallowing their impostures, or its regarding all their miserable answers as so many oracles. When the Juggler in exercise, has collected all that he can draw from the inmost recesses of the minds of the assistants, he replaces himself, as before, over the mysterious bowl of water, and now knows what he has to say. Then, after twice or thrice laying his face close to the surface of the water, and having as often made his evocations in uncouth, unintelligible words, he turns his face to his audience, sometimes he will say, "I can only give a half-answer upon such an article; there is an obstacle yet unremoved in the way, before I can obtain an entire solution, and that is, there are some present here who are in such and such a case. That I may succeed in what is asked of me, and that interests the whole nation, I appoint that person, without my knowing, as yet, who it is, to meet me at such an hour of the night. I name no place of assignation but will let him know by a signal of lighted fire, where he may come to me, and suffer himself to be conducted wherever I shall carry him. The Manitoo orders me to spare his reputation, and not expose him; for if there is any harm in it to him, there is also harm to me."
Thus it is the Juggler has the art of imposing on these simple credulous creatures, and even often succeeds by it in his divinations. Sometimes he does not need all this ceremonial. He pretends to foretell off-hand, and actually does so, when he is already prepared by his knowledge, cunning, or natural penetration. His divinations chiefly turn on the expedience of peace with one nation, or of war with another; upon matches between families, upon the long life of some, or the short life of others; how such and such persons came by their deaths, violently or naturally; whether the wife of some great Sagamo has been true to his bed or not; who it could be that killed any particular persons found dead of their wounds in the woods, or on the coast. Sometimes they pretend it's the deed of the Manitoo, for reasons to them unknown: this last incident strikes the people with a religious awe. But what the Jugglers are chiefly consulted upon, and what gives them the greatest credit, is to know whether the chace of such a particular species of beasts should be undertaken; at what season, or on which side of the country; how best may be discovered the designs of any nation with which they are at war; or at what time such or such persons shall return from their journey. The Juggler pretends to see all this, and more, in his bowl of water: divination by coffee-grounds is a trifle to it. He is also applied to, to know whether a sick person shall recover or die of his illness. But what I have here told you of the procedure of these Jugglers, you are to understand only of the times that preceded the introduction of Christianity amongst these people, or of those parts where it is not yet received: for these practices are no longer suffered where we have any influence.
Amongst the old savages lately baptized, I could never, from the accounts they gave me of the belief of their ancestors, find any true knowledge of the supreme Being; no idea, I mean, approaching to that we have, or rather nothing but a vague imagination. They have, it is true, a confused notion of a Being, acting they know not how [Who does?], in the universe, but they do not make of him a great soul diffused through all its parts. They have no conception or knowledge of all the attributes we bestow on the Deity. Whenever they happen to philosophize upon this Manitoo, or great spirit, they utter nothing but rêveries and absurdities. [Are not there innumerable volumes on this subject, to which the same objection might as justly be made? Possibly the savages, and the deepest divines, with respect to the manner of the Deity's existence, may have, in point of ignorance, nothing to reproach one another. It matters very little, whether one sees the sun from the lowest valley, or the highest mountain, when the immensity of its distance contracts the highest advantage of the eminence to little less than nothing. Surely the infinite superiority of the Deity, must still more effectually mock the distinction of the mental eye, at the same time that his existence itself is as plain as that of the sun, and like that too, dazzling those most, who contemplate it most fixedly; reduces them to close the eye, not to exclude the light, but as overpowered by it.]
Amongst other superstitious notions, not the least prevalent is that of the Manitoo's exercise of his power over the dead, whom he orders to appear to them, and acquaint them with what passes at a distance, in respect to their most important concerns; to advise them what they had best do, or not do; to forewarn them of dangers, or to inspire them with revenge against any nation that may have insulted them, and so forth.
They have no idea of his spirituality, or even of the spirituality of that principle, which constitutes their own vital principle. They have even no word in their language that answers to that of soul in ours. The term approaching nearest thereto that we can find, is M'cheejacmih, which signifies Shade, and may be construed something in the nature of the Manes of the Romans.
The general belief amongst them is, that, after death, they go to a place of joy and plenty, in which sensuality is no more omitted than in Mahomet's paradise. There they are to find women in abundance, a country thick of all manner of game to humor their passion for hunting, and bows and arrows of the best sort, ready made. But these regions are supposed at a great distance from their's, to which they will have to travel; and therefore it's requisite to be well-provided, before they quit their own country, with arrows, long poles fit for hunting, or for covering cabbins, with bear-skins, or elk-hides, with women, and with some of their children, to make their journey to that place more commodious, more pleasant, and appear more expeditious. It was especially in character for a warrior, not to leave this world without taking with him some marks of his bravery, as particularly scalps. Therefore it was, that when any of them died, he was always followed by, at least, one of his children, some women, and above all, by her whom in his life he had most loved, who threw themselves into the grave, and were interred with him. They also put into it great strips, or rolls of the bark of birch, arrows, and scalps. Nor do they unfrequently, at this day, light upon some of these old burying-places in the woods, with all these funeral accompanyments; but of late, the interment of live persons has been almost entirely disused.
I never could learn whether they had any set formulary of prayer, or invocation to the great Manitoo; or whether they made any sacrifices of beasts or peltry, to any other Manitoo, in contradiction to him, or to any being whom they dreaded as an evil genius. I could discover no more than what I have above related of the ceremonies in honor of the sun. I know, indeed, they have a great veneration for the moon, which they invoke, whenever, under favor of its light, they undertake any journeys, either by land or water, or tend the snares they have set for their game. This is the prayer they occasionally address to it:
"How great, O moon! is thy goodness, in actually, for our benefit, supplying the place of the father of the day, as, next to him, thou hast concurred to make us spring out of that earth we have inhabited from the first ages of the world, and takest particular care of us, that the malignant air of the night, should not kill the principle and bud of life within us. Thou regardest us, in truth, as thy children. Thou hast not, from the first time, discontinued to treat us like a true mother. Thou guidest us in our nocturnal journies. By the favor of thy light it is, that we have often struck great strokes in war; and more than once have our enemies had cause to repent their being off their guard in thy clear winter-nights. Thy pale rays have often sufficiently lighted us, for our marching in a body without mistaking our way; and have enabled us not only to discover the ambushes of the enemy, but often to surprize him asleep. However we might be wanting to ourselves, thy regular course was never wanting to us. Beautiful spouse of the sun! give us to discover the tracks of elks, moose-deer, martins, lynxes, and bears, when urged by our wants, we pursue by night the hunt after these beasts. Give to our women the strength to support the pains of child-birth [Lucina fer opem, was also the cry amongst the ancient heathens], render their wombs prolific, and their breasts inexhaustible fountains."
I have often tried to find out, whether there was any tradition or knowledge amongst them of the deluge, but always met with such unsatisfactory answers, as entirely discouraged my curiosity on that head.