Whenever the affairs of his nation shall permit him to do so, Brandt declares it to be his intention to sit down to the further study of the Greek language, of which he professes himself to be a great admirer, and to translate from the original, into the Mohawk language, more of the New Testament; yet this same man, shortly before we arrived at Niagara, killed his only son with his own hand. The son, it seems, was a drunken good for nothing fellow, who had often avowed his intention of destroying his father. One evening he absolutely entered the apartment of his father, and had begun to grapple with him, perhaps with a view to put his unnatural threats into execution, when Brandt drew a short sword, and felled him to the ground. Brandt speaks of this affair with regret, but at the same time without any of that emotion which another person than an Indian might be supposed to feel. He consoles himself for the act, by thinking that he has benefitted the nation, by ridding them of a rascal.
Brandt wears his hair in the Indian style, and also the Indian dress; instead of the wrapper, or blanket, he wears a short coat, such as I have described, similar to a hunting frock.
Though infinite pains have been taken by the French Roman Catholics, and other missionaries, to propagate the gospel amongst the Indians, and though many different tribes have been induced thereby to submit to baptism, yet it does not appear, except in very few instances, that any material advantages have resulted from the introduction of the Christian religion amongst them. They have learned to repeat certain forms of prayer; they have learned to attend to certain outward ceremonies; but they still continue to be swayed by the same violent passions as before, and have imbibed nothing of the genuine spirit of christianity.
MISSIONARIES.
The Moravian missionaries have wrought a greater change in the minds of the Indians than any others, and have succeeded so far as to induce some of them to abandon their savage mode of life, to renounce war, and to cultivate the earth. It is with the Munsies, a small tribe resident on the east side of Lake St. Clair, that they have had the most success; but the number that have been so converted is small indeed. The Roman Catholics have the most adherents, as the outward forms and parade of their religion are particularly calculated to strike the attention of the Indians, and as but little restraint is laid on them by the missionaries of that persuasion, in consequence of their profession of the new faith. The Quakers, of all people, have had the least success amongst them; the doctrine of non-resistance, which they set out with preaching, but ill accords with the opinion of the Indian; and amongst some tribes, where they have attempted to inculcate it, particularly amongst the Shawnese, one of the most warlike tribes to the north of the Ohio, they have been exposed to very imminent danger[[17]].
[17]. The great difficulty of converting the Indians to christianity does not arise from their attachment to their own religion, where they have any, so much as from certain habits which they seem to have imbibed with the very milk of their mothers.
A French missionary relates, that he was once endeavouring to convert an Indian, by describing to him the rewards that would attend the good, and the dreadful punishment which must inevitably await the wicked, in a future world, when the Indian, who had some time before lost his dearest friend, suddenly interrupted him, by asking him, whether he thought his departed friend was gone to heaven or to hell. I sincerely trust, answered the missionary, that he is in heaven. Then I will do as you bid me, added the Indian, and lead a sober life, for I should like to go to the place where my friend is. Had he, on the contrary, been told that his friend was in hell, all that the reverend father could have said to him of fire and brimstone would have been of little avail in persuading him to have led any other than the most dissolute life, in hopes of meeting with his friend to sympathise with him under his sufferings.
The Indians, who yet remain ignorant of divine revelation, seem almost universally to believe in the exigence of one supreme, beneficent, all wise, and all powerful spirit, and likewise in the existence of subordinate spirits, both good and bad. The former, having the good of mankind at heart, they think it needless to pay homage to them, and it is only to the evil ones, of whom they have an innate dread, that they pay their devotions, in order to avert their ill intentions. Some distant tribes, it is said, have priests amongst them, but it does not appear that they have any regular forms of worship. Each individual repeats a prayer, or makes an offering to the evil spirit, when his fear and apprehensions suggest the necessity of his so doing.
The belief of a future state, in which they are to enjoy the same pleasures as they do in this world, but to be exempted from pain, and from the trouble of procuring food, seems to be very general amongst them. Some of the tribes have much less devotion than others; the Shawnese, a warlike daring nation, have but very little fear of evil spirits, and consequently have scarcely any religion amongst them. None of this nation, that I could learn, have ever been converted to Christianity.
LANGUAGE.