APPENDIX I.
Page 253.—“and nothing but fire.”
The Indians call the Rice Lake, in allusion to the rapidity with which fires run over the dry herbage, the Lake of the Burning Plains. Certainly, there is much poetical fitness and beauty in many of the Indian names, approximating very closely to the figurative imagery of the language of the East; such is “Mad-wa-osh,” the music of the winds.
APPENDIX K.
Page 272.—“but it was not so in the days whereof I have spoken.”
From George Copway’s Life.
Converted Indians are thus described in the “Life” of their literary countryman, George Copway:—
Chippewas of the River Credit.—These Indians are the remnant of a tribe which formerly possessed a considerable portion of the Elome and Gore Districts, of which, in 1818, they surrendered the greater part for an annuity of 532l. 10s. reserving only certain small tracts at the River Credit; and at sixteen and twelve miles creeks they were the first tribe converted to Christianity. Previous to the year 1823 they were wandering pagans. In that year Peter Jones, and John his brother, the sons of a white by a Mississaga woman, having been converted to Christianity, and admitted as members of the Wesleyan Methodist Church, became anxious to redeem their countrymen from their degraded state of heathenism and spiritual destitution. They collected a considerable number together, and by rote and frequent repetitions, taught the first principles of Christianity to such as were too old to learn to read, and with the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed, and Commandments, were thus committed to memory. As soon as the tribes were converted they perceived the evils attendant on their former state of ignorance and vagrancy. They began to work, which they had never done before; they recognised the advantage of cultivating the soil; they gave up drinking, to which they had been greatly addicted, and became sober, consistent, industrious Christians.
J. Sawyer, P. Jones, Chiefs; J. Jones, War-chief.