See, four winters ago (in 1819), after we had taken debt in the fall and were proceding, each of us, to our hunting grounds, he appeared to me one night and said, "I am come to tell you to get out of the way of all large waters (lakes and rivers) and pitch off immediately into the woods. Be cautious, also select proper ground for an encamping. Never pitch your tents in large high woods particularly of the pine kind, chuse low woods to encamp in. And never look up to gaze lest I see you see and you be smitten. Keep off always from large waters, for I am on a circuit round the earth. I shall follow the travelling waters (the routes or roads usually frequented or navigated), and smite all those I there find with sickness. In the interior or to one side I shall not go. Tell this to the Indians that they keep out of the way."
It was that year that the measles made such havock in some places. He thus continued:
This last fall (in December) I saw him again. He told me he was on another circuit and intended making a large selection, passing through the plains and coming down again this way. He said he would pass when the leaves would be rather large (about the 20th June, in these parts) and told me as before to admonish everybody to keep out of the way of large waters [and] trees.
"It is not my doings, nor is it my choice that I thus prowl through the earth." said he. "But I am sent, and cannot resist."—Now we will be again this spring visited with some sickness, but I cannot tell which—it is a breaking out in the flesh. And his appearing to you (me) is a sign that he will certainly pass.
I then asked him if he intended telling the other Indians of it.
"I shall tell my Elder (brother), but not the others, for they won't believe me."
He was very diffident. He wanted to communicate to me all he was told. But [he] said he durst not lest he should injure himself by exasperating the other (Sickness) and being enigmatically forbidden!
"He told me," continued the Indian, "as a sign, that two of our number should die this winter: one a small one, (and he is dead, naming to me a child that had died about that time, though very distant then from him) and the other a full grown person. Whom he is I know not, but one must die!"
[Reappearances of Spirits in Dreams]
These chaps [spirits] seldom appear (in dreams) less than four times, but commonly six times, and each time in a different form until the last, when he makes himself known. And ever after [the spirit] appears (or rather [they] appear) in the same uniform manner. It is then, after they have made themselves completely known to their votaries, that they communicate their power and teach their songs which, though in their dreams, are so indelibly imprinted in their memories that they are never forgotten. For every one of these spirits, genii, demons, phantasies, or whatever you may please to term them, have each their song which they communicate to their votaries, as well as explain also their power. Hence it is, that when any one amongst them has dreamed of a certain number, commonly a good many, twenty, thirty, or perhaps a thousand, that they can conjure when they please. For these, like the guardian genii in the fables, keep always near them, and protect them from too much injury from the evil machinations of some of the mischievous ones.