Charlevoix also relates instances of the successful exercise of magical arts.—Vol. vi., p. 92.
No. LV.
"In the neighborhood of Caughnawaga are the large tracts of land once belonging to the Johnson family, whose possessions were all confiscated at the period of the Revolution, in consequence of their adherence to the British, who gave them compensation by grants of land in Canada. The founder of this family is said to have acquired this fine tract of country by a dexterous piece of management. He traded extensively with the tribe of Mohawk Indians. Their chiefs were in the habit of applying to him frequently for tobacco and rum, which they had, they told him, dreamed that he was to give them. Johnson never failed to encourage their strong faith in dreams, humoring their foible by acceding to every request founded on them. Thus visits and dreams became frequent on the part of the Indians. Johnson never sent them away empty handed. To every request he replied, 'I will prove that you are right,' and presented them with whatever they applied for, on the footing that they had dreamed of it. At length the king had the conscience to dream that, if he were invested with Johnson's military dress of scarlet and gold, he should be as great a man as King George; and King George he soon in so far became, for no long time elapsed before Johnson had him appareled as he wished. But Johnson's turn to dream had now arrived, for he had all the while attached the same weight to dreams. He dreamed that the nation had, in consequence of his kindness to them, and in return for the hospitality he had shown them, bestowed on him part of their territory, which he had described, and which he of course took care should be sufficiently extensive and valuable—in fact, one of the finest tracts of land that it is possible to conceive. 'Have you really had such a dream?' they exclaimed, with terror and alarm depicted on their countenances. Being satisfied on this point, the chief or king convoked his tribe, who deliberated, and then announced to the dreamer that they had confirmed the dream. 'Brother Johnson,' they said, 'we give thee that tract of land, but never dream any more.' The head of this family was subsequently created a baronet, for his gallantry in the war, when the French made an incursion from Canada in 1755."—Stuart's America, vol. i., p. 71. See, also, Mrs. Grant's Letters of an American Lady, for an account of Sir William Johnson's intercourse with the Indians.
Lafitau and Charlevoix write at great length upon the Indian faith in dreams; Lafitau gives the following curious illustration of the extent to which this superstition is carried: "Un ancien missionnaire m'a raconté qu'un sauvage ayant rêvé que le bonheur de sa vie dépendoit de son mariage avec une femme qui étoit déjà mariée à l'un des plus considérables du village où il demeuroit. Le mari et la femme vivoient dans une grande union et s'entre-aimoient beaucoup. La séparation fut rude à l'un et à l'autre, cependant ils n'osoient refuser. Ils se séparèrent donc. La femme prit un nouvel engagement, et le mari abandonné, par complaisance et pour ôter tout soupçon qu'il pensât encore à sa première épouse, se marie avec une autre. Il reprit la première cependant, après la mort de celui qui les avait désunis, laquelle arriva peu de temps après."—Lafitau, vol. i., p. 364.
No. LVI.
"C'étoit une loi générale chez certains peuples barbares de l'antiquité (Ælian, de Cois, lib. iii.; Sext. Emp., de Tybaren.; Procop., de Etulis., lib. ii.; de Bello Gotico; Stobæus, de Massag., Serm. 122) de faire mourir leurs viellards avant l'âge de soixante ou soixante et dix ans, soit qu'ils ne voulassent point parmis eux conserver des morte payes, qui consumassent le peu qui restoit aux autres pour vivre: soit qu'ils se persuadassent rendre service à ceux qu'ils faisoient ainsi périr, en leur épargnant par une morte prompte et courte, la tristesse et les ennuis d'un âge avancé, dont les infirmités peuvent être regardées comme une mort continuelle. Cela a été, dit-on, une loi générale parmi quelques peuples de l'Amérique, et une de nos dernières relations porte, qu'il y a une nation où il n'est pas même permis de laisser passer aux femmes l'âge de trente ans; ce qui paroitra sans doute bien rigoureux à celles qui veulent encore être jeune dans un âge plus avancé.
"Les Algonquins et les autres nations errantes sont plus sujets à cette inhumanité envers les viellards que les autres, parcequ' étant presque toujours en voyage, et plus souvent réduits à la faim, l'incommodité des viellards qu'il faut porter et nourrir, devient alors plus sensible. Ces pauvres malheureux sont souvent les premiers à dire à celui qui les porte, 'Mon petit fils, je le donne bien de la peine, je ne suis plus bon à rien, casse-moi la tête.' On ne les écoute pas toujours; mais quelquefois aussi il arrive que le jeune homme epuisé de lassitude et de faim, répond froidement, 'Tu as raison, mon grand père.' Il décharge en même tems son paquet, prend sa hache, et casse la tête au bon homme, qui sans doute est faché intérieurement d'être pris au mot."—Lafitau, tom. ii., p. 490.
In 1819, James writes thus of the same inhuman custom: "The worst trait in the Indian character is the neglect shown toward the aged and helpless, which is carried to such a degree that, when on a march or a hunting excursion, it is a common practice to leave behind their nearest relations when reduced to that state, with a little food and water, abandoning them without ceremony to their fate. When thus abandoned by all that is dear to them, their fortitude does not forsake them, and the inflexible passive courage of the Indian sustains them against despondency. They regard themselves as entirely useless; and as the custom of the nation has long led them to anticipate this mode of death, they attempt not to remonstrate against the measure, which is, in fact, frequently the result of their earnest solicitation."—James's Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, vol. i., p. 237.
"This cruelty to living relations strongly contrasts with the extravagance and self-sacrifice of their mourning for the dead. The same people who expose a living parent because they can not carry him, are often found to convey the corpses of their departed friends to 'the festivals of the dead,' during many days of wearisome journeying."—P. de Brebœuf, Relation de la Nouvelle France; Charlevoix: Lafitau.
Catlin, one of the most partial observers, and the most zealous defender of the Indian character, relates the following scene, of which he was an eye-witness (in 1840): "We found that the Puncahs were packing up all their goods, and preparing to start for the prairies in pursuit of buffaloes, to dry meat for their winter's supplies. They took down their wigwams of skins to carry with them, and all were flat to the ground, and every thing packing up ready for the start. My attention was directed by Major Sanford, the Indian agent, to one of the most miserable and helpless-looking objects I ever had seen in my life—a very aged and emaciated man of the tribe, who, he told me, was going to be exposed. The tribe were going where hunger and dire necessity obliged them to go, and this pitiable object, who had once been a chief, and a man of distinction in his tribe, who was now too old to travel, being reduced to mere skin and bone, was to be left to starve, or meet with such death as might fall to his lot, and his bones to be picked by the wolves! I lingered around this poor old forsaken patriarch for hours before we started, to indulge the tears of sympathy which were flowing for the sake of this poor benighted and decrepit old man, whose worn-out limbs were no longer able to support him, and his body and his mind doomed to linger into the withering agony of decay, and gradual solitary death. I wept; and it was a pleasure to weep; for the painful looks and the dreary prospects of this old veteran, whose eyes were dimmed, whose venerable locks were whitened by a hundred years, whose limbs were almost naked, and trembling as he sat by a small fire which his friends had left him, with a few sticks of wood within his reach, and a buffalo's skin stretched upon some crotches over his head. Such was to be his only dwelling, and such the chances for his life, with only a few half-picked bones that were laid within his reach, and a dish of water, without means of any kind to replenish them, or move his body from that fatal locality. His friends and his children had all left him, and were preparing in a little time to be on the march. He had told them to leave him; 'he was old,' he said, 'and too feeble to march.' 'My children,' said he, 'our nation is poor, and it is necessary you should all go to the country where you can get meat. My eyes are dimmed, and my strength is no more; my days are nearly all numbered, and I am a burden to my children; I can not go, and I wish to die. Keep your hearts stout, and think not of me; I am no longer good for any thing.' In this way they had finished the ceremony of exposing him, and taken their final leave of him. I advanced to the old man, and was undoubtedly the last human being who held converse with him. I sat by the side of him, and though he could not distinctly see me, he shook me heartily by the hand, and smiled, evidently aware that I was a white man, and that I sympathized with his inevitable misfortune. When passing by the site of the Puncah village a few months after this in my canoe, I went ashore with my men, and found the poles and the buffalo skin standing as they were left over the old man's head. The fire-brands were lying nearly as I had left them; and I found at a few yards' distance the skull and others of his bones, which had been picked and cleaned by the wolves, which is probably all that any human being can ever know of his final and melancholy fate. This cruel custom of exposing their aged people belongs, I think, to all the tribes who roam about the prairies, making severe marches, when such decrepit persons are totally unable to go, unable to ride or to walk, when they have no means of carrying them."—Catlin's American Indians, vol. i., p. 217.