The pernicious examples of white men, who have conducted the Indian trade, their immoral habits, injustice, and disregard of truth, and open licentiousness, have created the deepest prejudice in the minds of the Red men against the whole European race.
The Indian only thinks when he is forced to think, by circumstances. Fear, hunger and self-preservation, are the three prominent causes of his thoughts. Affection and reverence for the dead, come next.
Abstract thought is the characteristic of civilization. If teachers could induce the Indians to think on subjects not before known to them, or but imperfectly known, they would adopt one of the most efficacious means of civilizing them.
Christianity is ultraism to an Indian. It is so opposed to his natural desires, that he, at first, hates it, and decries it. Opposite states of feeling, however, affect him, precisely as they do white men. What he at first hates, he may as suddenly love and embrace.
Christianity is not propagated by ratiocination, it is the result of feelings and affections on the will and understanding. Hence an Indian can become a christian.
THE SAUSTAWRAYTSEES,
OR
THE ORIGIN OF THE WYANDOT AND SENECA TRIBES.
A WYANDOT TRADITION.
Towards the middle of the seventeenth century, a body of Indians, composed of the Wyandots (or as they were then called the Saus-taw-ray-tsee) and Seneca tribes inhabited the borders of Lake Ontario. The present Wyandots and Senecas are the remains of this community, and of the cause of their separation and of the relentless hostilities by which it was succeeded, the following details are given in the traditionary history of the Wyandots.