Tales and traditions occupy the place of books, with the Red Race.—They make up a kind of oral literature, which is resorted to, on long winter evenings, for the amusement of the lodge.
The love of independence is so great with these tribes, that they have never been willing to load their political system with the forms of a regular government, for fear it might prove oppressive.
To be governed and to be enslaved, are ideas which have been confounded by the Indians.
FOOTNOTES:
[25] Vide a Reminiscence of Oswego.
[26] The sound of i in this word, as in Ontario, is long e in the Indian.