“All this I noted down, and from the circumstantial manner in which he related every particular, though he could not possibly have had any personal communication with or from them by any other Indians, I began to hope my men were safe, and that I should again see them. On the appointed day the interpreter and myself watched most anxiously, but without effect. We got our suppers, gave up all hopes, and heartily abused Wahwun for deceiving us. Just as we were preparing for bed, to my great joy the men rapped at the door, and in they came with the flour on their backs. My first business was to enquire of their travels. They told me the whole exactly as the old Indian had before stated, not omitting the tree or any other occurrence; and I could have no doubt but that the old fellow had got his information from some evil or familiar spirit.”
As has already been mentioned in this book, belief in dreams is very intimately associated with North-American Indian religious belief; and when an Indian dreams anything that seems to him important, he does not fail to enter in his birch bark “note book” the most salient points of it. Being, as a rule, however, incapable of giving his thoughts a tangible appearance by the ordinary caligraphic process, he draws the pictures just as he sees them in his vision. From the birch bark of a brave, by name the “Little Wasp,” Mr. Kohl copied the picture which appears on the next page: and this is the explanation of it:—
“The dreamer lying on his bed of moss and grass is dreaming the dream of a true hunter, and there are the heads of the birds and beasts which his guardian spirit promises that he shall not chase in vain. The man wearing the hat is a Frenchman, which the Little Wasp also dreams about.
“The Indians picture themselves without a hat because they usually have no other head gear than their matted hair, or, at most, a cloth wound turban-wise round the head. The hat, however, appears to them such a material part of a European—as much a part of their heads as the horse to the Centaur—that a hat in a picture-writing always indicates a European.
“It was not at all stupid of Little Wasp to dream of a Frenchman, for of what use would a sky full of animals prove to him unless he had a good honest French traiteur to whom he could sell the skins and receive in exchange fine European wares? The vault of the sky is represented by several semi-circular lines in the same way as it is usually drawn on their gravestones. On some occasions I saw the strata or lines variously coloured—blue, red, and yellow, like the hues of the rainbow. Perhaps, too, they may wish to represent that phenomenon as well. But that the whole is intended for the sky is proved by the fact that the ordinary colour is a plain blue or grey. The bird soaring in the heavens was meant for the kimou which so often appears in the dreams of these warlike hunters.
“When I asked the dreamer what he meant by the strokes and figures at the foot of the drawing, he said: ‘It is a notice that I fasted nine days on account of this dream. The nine strokes indicate the number nine, and a small figure of the sun over them means days.’
“His own self he indicated by the human figure. It has no head but an enormous heart in the centre of the breast.
“Though the head is frequently missing, the heart is never omitted in Indian figures, because they have as a general rule, more heart than brains, more courage than sense. ‘I purposely made the heart rather large,’ the author of the picture remarked, ‘in order to show that I had so much courage as to endure a nine days’ fast.’ He omitted the head, probably because he felt that sense was but little mixed up with such nonsensical fasting.
“‘But why hast thou painted the sun once more, and with so much care over it?’ asked I. ‘Because,’ replied he, ‘the very next morning after my fast was at an end, the sun rose with extraordinary splendour, which I shall never forget, for a fine sunrise after a dream is the best sign that it will come to pass.’”
The superstitions, in fact, of all Indians, are singularly wild, poetic, and primitive. Catlin, in his “Descriptive Catalogue,” gives some strange and interesting particulars. He says, for instance, the Sioux have a superstitious belief that they will conquer their enemy if they go through the following ceremony:—A dog’s liver and heart are taken raw and bleeding and placed upon a sort of platform, and, being cut into slips, each man dances upon it, bites off and swallows a piece of it, in the certain belief that he has thus swallowed a piece of the heart of his enemy whom he has slain in battle. Again, it is supposed that he most is in the favour of the Great Spirit who can throw most arrows from an Indian bow before the first cast reaches the ground, and Catlin says: “So eager are the Indians for this supremacy that I have known men who could get eight arrows in the air, all moving at the same time.” Another superstition takes the shape of a belief in dancing compelling a flock of buffaloes to turn upon the path of the dancers. This superstitious gyration is only resorted to when a tribe is absolutely starving, and it is accompanied by a song to the Great Spirit, imploring Him to help them, promising, at the same time, a burnt sacrifice, or, as they themselves generally put it, that the Great Spirit shall have the best of the meat cooked for himself.