[The foregoing tale was related by Chusco, an Ottowa chief, converted to Christianity a few years ago. He was born at L'arbre Croche, in Michigan, some years after the taking of Fort Mackinac, in 1763,—an event of such notoriety in Indian tradition, that it is generally referred to by them as an era. He was present at the treaty of Greenville, in 1793, and received an annuity during the last few years of his life in consequence of a promise understood to have been made to him by General Wayne.]
Chusco was a man of small stature; he appears to have possessed great bodily activity in his youth, united to a mind of quick observation. He embraced, at an early period of his life, the profession of a seer, and practised it with the approbation of his tribe till within a few years. About 1827 his mind was arrested by the truths of revelation, which were first brought to his notice by his wife, who had been instructed at a mission on the island of Mackinac. He made a profession of religion within a year or two after, renounced his idolatry, gave up the use of ardent spirits and every species of fermented drink, and exhibited a consistent Christian life, to the period of his death, in 1837. He is buried at Round Island, in lake Huron, where a neat paling has been placed over his grave. The story itself, so far as respects the object, is calculated to remind the reader of South American history, of the alleged descent of Manco Capac and the Children of the Sun. But I am not prepared to say, that an examination of the traditional history of the Algics will sustain the comparison.
The tale does not appear to be of great comparative antiquity. The introduction of ships, and guns, and axes, is sufficient to indicate this. It is interesting, however, as revealing their notions of cosmogony, the division of the day into quartads, and their impressions of general geography. It would appear that they believe the earth to be globular; they speak of but a single sea. The tradition of Manabozho is attested, and he is here represented, as in all other known instances, to be a Bad, and not a Good Spirit, and there is no countenance given to the verbal opinion, sometimes expressed, that this personage partakes of any of the characters of a Saviour.
The moral bearing of the story is, perhaps, to indicate the danger of ambition. Ambition and presumption, in human wishes, are very clearly rebuked by the results of the oracular response, and by the immediate fulfilment of the predictions.
FOOTNOTES:
[10] The East—i. e. place of light.
[11] Ship and boat. These terms exhibit the simple and the diminutive forms of the name for ship or vessel. It is also the term for a woman's needlework, and seems to imply a tangled thready mass, and was perhaps transferred in allusion to a ship's ropes.
[12] Wewaquonidjig, a term early and extensively applied to whiteman, by our Indians, and still frequently used.
[13] Odawbon comprehends all vehicles between a dog train and a coach, whether on wheels or runners. The term is nearest allied to vehicle.
[14] Massive silver.