[2] The Indians were much given to various forms of divination by which they believed that they ascertained the will of the unseen powers.
Jonathan Carver, who traveled much among the western tribes, about 1766, relates that once when he was with a band of Christinos, or Crees, on the north shore of Lake Superior, anxiously awaiting the coming of certain traders with goods, the chief told him that the medicine-man, or conjurer, or "clairvoyant" as we should say, would try to get some information from the Manitou. Elaborate preparations were made. In a spacious tent, brightly lighted with torches of pitch-pine, the conjurer, wrapped in a large elk-skin, and corded with about forty yards of elk-hide lariat—"bound up like an Egyptian mummy"—was laid down in the midst of the assembly, in full view of all.
Presently he began to mutter, then to jabber a mixed jargon of several native tongues, sometimes raving, sometimes praying, till he had worked himself into a frenzy and foamed at the mouth.
Suddenly he leaped to his feet, shaking off his bands "as if they were burnt asunder," and announced that the Manitou had revealed to him that, just at noon on the next day, there would arrive a canoe the occupants of which would bring news as to the expected traders.
On the next day Carver and his Indian friends were on the bluff watching. At the appointed hour a canoe (undoubtedly sent by the conjurer) came into view and was hailed by the Indians with shouts of delight. It brought tidings of the early coming of the traders.
[3] This was the established route used by the Indians. By it one could pass by water, with only the short carry between Lake George and the Hudson, all the way from the Great Lakes to the ocean.
[4] The thrifty Hollanders at once saw the importance of securing the fur-trade of the region thus opened to them. To protect it, they first established at the mouth of the river, on Manhattan Island, the post out of which the city of New York has grown. Next they reared a fort on an island a little below Albany; and, in 1623, they built Fort Orange, on the site of Albany. It soon became a most important point, because, until Fort Stanwix, on the Mohawk, was built, it was the nearest white man's post to which the Indians of the great Iroquois confederacy might bring their peltries. We hear much of it in the early history.
The great trading-stations were always on big rivers, because these drained a wide territory, and the supply of furs lasted long. As the French pushed further westward, as we shall see, important stations were opened on the Great Lakes.
[5] We may wonder at so small a list of casualties. The fact is that, until the introduction of fire-arms, Indian open fighting was not very deadly. They might yell and screech and shoot arrows at each other for hours, with very little loss. Surprises and ambuscades were their most effective methods.
[6] This word came into general use among French voyageurs and, later, among white men generally, as the equivalent of an Indian word denoting mysterious power.