{These [spirits], when anyone conjures, if he is a renowned medicine man, they all appear and speak to him mostly in his own language. Some few excepted are the Pike (a jack fish) who speaks French, the Sun and Moon both speak English, the Bull or Buffaloe in an unknown, or at least strange, language. But all [are] perfectly intelligible to the conjurer.
I am quite astray—leaving the proper thread of my story to follow one of its branches. I ought to have said that.}
[Sun]
The Sun, when he appears to an Indian, he is seen in the heavens, as an Indian (i. e. a man) walking on the wind. His dress is of a variety of colors and handsome.
[A Dream Meeting with Sun]
I had a dream the latter part of which I shall relate to you as it is perfectly descriptive of the manner or form in which the Sun appears. I related it the next day to some of my half-breeds, when one of them replied, "What a pity! Had you now forborne for a few days mentioning this, he would have appeared again to you, and then you would have had a fine opportunity of learning (from the fountain-head, as we might say) how it is the Indians come to perform those things the white will never credit." And he continued that it was precisely the form he assumed when he appears to the Indians.
In my dream I thought we were travelling a road from which some of our party had the utmost to dread from the ambush of an Indian who could transport himself to what place he pleased. As we were walking, I happened to look above and was much struck with the appearance of a man walking in the heavens. His dress was that of a neat Southern Indian, composed mostly of red and yellow, but also of a few other colors. The garters of his leggings were also neat and handsome and had a tuft of swans-down that had been powdered with vermillion attached to the knot on the back part of the leg. To his shoes were attached two long swan quills inclosing the foot thus
with a tuft of down at each end and in the middle on both sides all powdered with vermillion. With these quills and down, and the down on his garters, [he was buoyed] up in the air. I addressed [him] in broken Cree. He answered in the same broken accent. Upon my second address, I thought he did not understand more of that language than I did myself. The Sauteux seemed to me his proper tongue, and I was glad of having an opportunity of speaking that language. So I the third time addressed him in it, asked him from whence he came, whither he was going. He was very high, insomuch that the others thought it preposterous in my addressing him—that he could not hear from that distance. Upon this he came down and talked with us, saying he was an ambassador. Such is the habillement, and manner in which the Sun shews himself.