“Why, by Indians, to be sure.”
“No, no,” replied he, “no Indian would do such a thing. Unless a white man, or white people, should happen to come this way, I shall find all safe on my return.”
Basil. If we were to leave our doors in that way, our houses would be sure to be robbed.
Hunter. No doubt they would; but Indians have good and bad qualities. The notion entertained by the Iroquois Indians, respecting the creation of mankind, will show how ignorant they are with respect to the Creator of all things; but, indeed, if the blessed book of truth were not in our hands, we should be equally ignorant ourselves. Before man existed, say they, there were three great and good spirits; of whom one was superior to the other two, and is emphatically called the Great Spirit and the Good Spirit. At a certain time, this exalted being said to one of the others, “Make a man.” He obeyed; and, taking chalk, formed a paste of it, and moulding it into the human form, infused into it the animating principle, and brought it to the Great Spirit. He, after surveying it, said, “This is too white.”
He then directed the other to make a trial of his skill. Accordingly, taking charcoal, he pursued the same process, and brought the result to the Great Spirit; who, after surveying it, said, “It is too black.”
Then said the Great Spirit, “I will now try myself;” and taking red earth, he formed an Indian. On surveying it, he said, “This is a proper or perfect man.”
After relating the strange opinion of the Iroquois Indians, the hunter advised the young people, on their return home, to look over the account of the creation of the world and mankind, in the first chapter of Genesis; telling them that they could not be too thankful for the opportunity of reading God’s word, which was not only sufficient to keep them from error in such things, but was able also to make them “wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.” He told them, that though the Indians were ignorant of holy things, they did not want shrewdness and sagacity. “When General Lincoln,” said he, “went to make peace with the Creek Indians, one of the chiefs asked him to sit down on a log; he was then desired to move, and, in a few minutes, to move still farther. The request was repeated, until the general got to the end of the log. The Indian still said, ‘Move farther;’ to which the general replied, ‘I can move no farther.’ ‘Just so it is with us,’ said the chief. ‘You have moved us back to the water, and then ask us to move farther!’”
In the account of his expedition to the foot of the Rocky Mountains, in 1821, Major Long relates the following anecdote of a Pawnee brave, son of Red Knife, who, in the succeeding winter, visited the city of Washington, during the session of Congress.
This brave, of fine size, figure and countenance, is now about twenty-five years old. At the age of twenty-one, his heroic deeds had acquired for him in his nation the rank of the bravest of the braves. The savage practice of torturing and burning to death their prisoners existed in this nation. An unfortunate female, of the Paduca nation, taken in war, was destined to this horrid death.
The fatal hour had arrived. The trembling victim, far from her home and her friends, was fastened to the stake. The whole tribe were assembled on the surrounding plains to witness the awful scene.