Western Scenes and Reminiscences / Together with Thrilling Legends and Traditions of the Red Men of the Forest

by Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

Arrived here, we turned our attention to sugar making, the management of which, as I have before related, belongs to the women, the men cutting wood for the fires, and hunting and fishing. In the midst of this, we were joined by several lodges of Indians, most of whom were of the family to which I belonged, and had wintered near us. The lands belonged to this family, and it had, therefore, the exclusive right to hunt on them. This is according to the custom of the people; for each family has its own lands. I was treated very civilly by all the lodges.

Our society had been a short time enlarged by this arrival of our friends, when an accident occurred which filled the whole village with anxiety and sorrow. A little child, belonging to one of our neighbors, fell into a kettle of boiling syrup. It was instantly snatched out, but with little hope of its recovery.

So long, however, as it lived, a continual feast was observed; and this was made to the Great Spirit and Master of Life, that he might be pleased to save and heal the child. At this feast I was a constant guest; and often found difficulty in eating the large quantity of food which, on such occasions as these, is put upon each man’s dish. The Indians accustom themselves both to eat much and to fast much with facility.

Several sacrifices were also offered; among which were dogs, killed and hung upon the tops of poles, with the addition of stroud blankets and other articles. These also were given to the Great Spirit, in humble hope that he would give efficacy to the medicines employed.

The child died. To preserve the body from the wolves, it was placed upon a scaffold, where it remained till we went to the lake, on the border of which was the burial ground of the family.

On our arrival there, which happened in the beginning of April, I did not fail to attend the funeral. The grave was made of a large size, and the whole of the inside lined with birch bark. On the bark was laid the body of the child, accompanied with an axe, a pair of snow shoes, a small kettle, several pairs of common shoes, its own strings of beads, and because it was a girl, a carrying belt and a paddle. The kettle was filled with meat.

All this was again covered with bark; and at about two feet nearer the surface, logs were laid across, and these again covered with bark, so that the earth might by no means fall upon the corpse.

The last act before the burial performed by the mother, crying over the dead body of her child, was that of taking from it a lock of hair for a memorial. While she did this I endeavored to console her, by offering the usual arguments: that the child was happy in being released from the miseries of this present life, and that she should forbear to grieve, because it would be restored to her in another world, happy and everlasting. She answered that she knew it, and that by the lock of hair she should discover her daughter, for she would take it with her. In this she alluded to the day when some pious hand would place in her own grave, along with the carrying belt and paddle, this little relic, hallowed by maternal tears.

I have frequently inquired into the ideas and opinions of the Indians in regard to futurity, and always found that they were somewhat different in different individuals.

Some suppose their souls to remain in this world, although invisible to human eyes; and capable, themselves, of seeing and hearing their friends, and also of assisting them, in moments of distress and danger. Others dismiss from the mortal scene the unembodied spirit, and send it to a distant world or country, in which it receives reward or punishment, according to the life which it has led in its prior state. Those who have lived virtuously, are transported into a place abounding with every luxury, with deer and all other animals of the woods and water, and where the earth produces, in their greatest perfection, all its sweetest fruits. While, on the other hand, those who have violated or neglected the duties of this life, are removed to a barren soil, where they wander up and down, among rocks and morasses, and are stung by gnats as large as pigeons.