Basil. I shall often think of the pool, and the little cradles swimming on it. It would remind me of Moses in the bulrushes.
Hunter. There are other singular customs among the Indians. The Kowyas, the Pawnees, the Sacs and Foxes, the Osages, and the Iowas, all shave their heads, leaving a tuft on the crown two or three inches in length, and a small lock in the middle of it, as long as they can make it grow. By means of this small lock of hair braided, they ornament the tuft with a crest of the deer’s tail dyed scarlet, and sometimes add to it a war-eagle’s feather.
Austin. How different from the Crow Indians! They do not shave off their hair; but let it grow till it hangs down to the very ground.
Hunter. You have not forgotten that, I see. There is a cruel custom among the Indians, of exposing their aged people, that is, leaving them alone to die. If a party are obliged to remove from one place to another in search of food, and there is among them an aged man, who can no longer fight, nor hunt, nor fish, nor do any thing to support himself, he is liable, although in his time he may have been a war-chief, to be left alone to die. I have seen such a one sitting by a little fire left him by his tribe, with perhaps a buffalo skin stretched on poles over his head, and a little water and a few bones within his reach. I have put my pipe to his mouth, given him pemican, and gathered sticks, that he might be able to recruit his fire; and when, months after, I have returned to the spot, there has been nothing left of him but his skeleton, picked clean by the wolves and bleaching in the winds.
Austin. This is one of the worst things we have heard of the Indians.
Basil. Oh, it is very sad indeed!
Hunter. You would not forsake your father, in old age, in that manner, would you?
Austin. No! As long as we could get a bit of bread or a drop of water, he should have part of it, and we would die with him rather than desert him.
Brian and Basil. Yes; that we would!
Hunter. I hope so. This is, I say, a cruel custom; but it forms a part of Indian manners, so that the old men expect it, and, indeed, would not alter it. Indians have not been taught, as we have, to honour their parents, at least not in the same way; but I can say nothing in favour of so cruel and unnatural a custom. Among the Sioux of the Mississippi, it is considered great medicine to jump on the Leaping Rock, and back again. This rock is a huge column or block, between thirty and forty feet high, divided from the side of the Red Pipe-stone Quarry. It is about seven feet broad, and at a distance from the main rock of about six or eight feet. Many are bold enough to take the leap, and to leave their arrows sticking in one of its crevices; while others, equally courageous, have fallen from the top in making the attempt, and been dashed to pieces.