4. Waw-bun-onk tuz-zhe-kwa[64] ne-waw-ween ne-go-ho-ga.
The eastern woman calls me.
This is, perhaps, some local allusion, or it may have been appended to the song in those times when the idea of taking prisoners of white women may have been a spur to the valour and enterprise of the Indian warrior. Admiration of the beauty of white women, on the part of the Indians, is not exclusively confined to the narratives of romance writers.
5. This figure, the words for which are lost, or purposely withheld, represents a lodge, a kettle, and a boy, who is a prisoner. The line from his heart to the kettle, indicates too plainly the meaning of the song. I know not whether any still doubt that the North American Indians are cannibals; if so, they are only those who have taken little pains to be correctly informed. The author of the preceding narrative had spent the best years of his life among the Ojibbeways; a woman of that tribe was, as he somewhere says, “the mother of his children;” and we need not wonder that, after becoming aware of the strong feeling of white men on this subject, he should be reluctant in speaking of it. Yet he makes no hesitation in saying, that the Sioux eat their enemies, and he once admitted, that in the large Ottawwaw settlement of Waw-gun-uk-ke-zie, he believed there were few, if any, persons living in the late war, who did not, at some time or other, eat the flesh of some people belonging to the United States. I see no reason why we should disbelieve the assertions of the Indians, and those who know them best, on this subject, or why we should expect from this race a degree of refinement and humanity, which we, and all who possess it, owe to a state of advanced civilization, and the influence of the christian religion. We doubt not that our pagan forefathers, in the wilds of Scotland, Ireland, or Hungary, ate the flesh, and particularly the hearts, of their enemies slain in battle. Why should we not believe this of the savages of our own continent?
Song of the warriors about to start on a war party.
1. Ka-go sah-ween mow-we me-zhe-kain e-kwa-we-un-na ne-boi-ah-na mow-we me-zhe-ka.
Do not mourn, my women, for me, who am about to die.