AN INDIAN LOVER.
Mrs. Johnston told me that when her children are absent from her, and she looks for their return, she has a sensation, a merely physical sensation, like that she experienced when she first laid them to her bosom; this yearning amounts at times to absolute pain, almost as intolerable as the pang of child-birth, and is so common that the Indians have a word to express it. The maternal instinct, like all the other natural instincts, is strong in these people to a degree we can no more conceive than we can their quick senses. As a cat deprived of its kittens will suckle an animal of a different species, so an Indian woman who has lost her child must have another. "Bring me my son! or see me die!" exclaimed a bereaved mother to her husband, and she lay down on her mat, covered her head with her blanket, and refused to eat. The man went and kidnapped one of the enemy's children, and brought it to her. She laid it in her bosom, and was consoled. Here is the animal woman.
The mortality among the children is great among the unreclaimed Indians, from want of knowing how to treat infantine maladies, and from want of cleanliness. When dysentery is brought on from this cause, the children almost invariably perish. When kept clean, the bark-cradles are excellent things for their mode of life, and effectually preserve the head and limbs of the infant from external injury.
When a young Chippewa of St. Mary's sees a young girl who pleases him, and whom he wishes to marry, he goes and catches a loach, boils it, and cuts off the tail, of which he takes the flat bone, and sticks it in his hair. He paints himself bewitchingly, takes a sort of rude flute or pipe, with two or three stops, which seems to be only used on these amatory occasions, and walks up and down his village, blowing on his flute, and looking, I presume, as sentimental as an Indian can look. This is regarded as an indication of his intentions, and throws all the lodges in which there are young marriageable girls into a flutter, though probably the fair one who is his secret choice is pretty well aware of it. The next step is to make presents to the parents and relatives of the young woman; if these are accepted, and his suit prospers, he makes presents to his intended; and all that now remains is to bring her home to his lodge. He neither swears before God to love her till death—an oath which it depends not on his own will to keep, even if it be not perjury in the moment it is pronounced—nor to endow her with all his worldly goods and chattels, when even by the act of union she loses all right of property; but apparently the arrangements answer all purposes, to their mutual satisfaction.
The names of the women are almost always derived from some objects or appearances in nature, generally of a pleasing kind; the usual termination qua or quay, immediately blending with their signification the idea of womanhood. Thus, my Indian mother is "the green prairie," (woman). Mrs. Schoolcraft's name, Obah,bahm,wa,wa,ge,zhe,go,quà, signifies literally the "sound which the stars make rushing through the sky," and which I translate into the music of the spheres. Mrs. MacMurray is "the wild rose:" one of her youngest sisters is Wah,bu,nung,o,quà, the morning star (woman): another is Omis,ka,bu,go,quà, (the woman of) "the red leaf."
I went to-day to take leave of my uncle Wayish,ky, and found him ill—poor fellow! he is fretting about his younger son. I learn with pleasure that his daughter Zah,gah,see,ga,quà is likely to accompany me to the Manitoolin Islands.
July 31.
This last evening of my sojourn at the Sault-Sainte-Marie, is very melancholy—we have been all very sad. Mr. and Mrs. MacMurray are to accompany me in my voyage down the lake to the Manitoolin Islands, having some business to transact with the governor:—so you see Providence does take care of me! how I could have got there alone, I cannot tell, but I must have tried. At first we had arranged to go in a bark canoe; the very canoe which belonged to Captain Back, and which is now lying in Mr. MacMurray's court-yard: but our party will be large, and we shall be encumbered with much baggage and provisions—not having yet learned to live on the portable maize and fat: our voyage is likely to take three days and a half, even if the weather continues favourable, and if it do not, why we shall be obliged to put into some creek or harbour, and pitch our tent, gipsy fashion, for a day or two. There is not a settlement nor a habitation on our route, nothing but lake and forest. The distance is about one hundred and seventy miles, rather more than less; Mr. MacMurray therefore advises a bateau, in which, if we do not get on so quickly, we shall have more space and comfort,—and thus it is to be.