Advancing age brought with it the suspicion of witchcraft. Maune´ was of a strange nation; and her adherence to unknown customs aroused fear in the breasts of the ignorant Shawnees. Finally, the leading medicine man decreed that she must die. Her sons were powerless to resist the tide of superstition.
A bundle of sticks was produced, and the unfortunate creature tied to a stake. Then the horrible torture commenced. Frantic Indians, chanting their weird melodies, danced round the fire, as it slowly consumed the ill-fated Chippewa. Not a sound of terror or of anguish escaped the woman in this moment of exquisite suffering. At last, a merciful breath of flame severed the thread of life, and all that remained of the bright little maiden, who had been the idol of her brave Canadian people, was a disfigured mass of charred flesh and bones.
Surely the Great Spirit whom she worshipped, and the tender Mother of Christ, whom the Jesuits had taught her to implore, looked down in pitying love, and recompensed, in the Spirit Land, this child of misfortune—Maune´ la misérable.
Tragedies were every-day occurrences among the natives, in those days, and there were times when fanaticism swept all before it; but that the great men of the Indians were not unworthy of the admiration and respect of their enemies, is shown in
A FRAGMENT OF HISTORY FROM THE WAR OF THE RACES.
On a picturesque cliff overlooking the Mad River, in what is now the State of Ohio, was located, more than a century ago, the Indian village of the Piqua Shawnees.
The settlement was prosperous and fully two hundred acres of land were in cultivation. A log fort, surrounded with pickets, had been built, and the Shawnees were prepared for defense in the event of an attempt to capture the town.
This beautiful spot was the birth-place of the famous Tecumseh—Shooting Star—the most illustrious Indian that ever battled for the rights of his people. Eloquent, powerful in mind and body, and possessing the soul of a hero, the patriotic chief was, at the opening of the nineteenth century, deep in plans for the advancement of his race. Is it a matter of surprise that he should oppose, with ceaseless energy, the encroachment of the white man? That his talents should be unsparingly used in the hopeless endeavor to stay the westward progress of civilization? He had seen the red man repeatedly deprived of land, under almost compulsory treaties with the Government. His independent spirit rebelled against the authority of the pale-face; and the circumstances of his father's death, during the troublous times when the celebrated Cornstalk waged war, had made a lasting impression.
