Part 12

But now new voices came from the tent. For half an hour there were sounds in many different voices, but none of them were like the priest's own voice. When these sounds were no longer heard, the medicine man spoke in his own voice, and declared that the Great Turtle was present, and would answer any question that might be asked.

The chief of the village now put a large quantity of tobacco into the little tent. This was a sacrifice to the Great Turtle. Then he told the priest to ask the Great Turtle whether the white men were coming to make war on them, and whether there were many soldiers at Fort Niagara.

The medicine man put this question to the Great Turtle. The tent began to shake so violently that it seemed about to fall over. Then a loud cry came from the tent. This was to show that the Great Turtle was leaving.

For a quarter of an hour no sound was heard. Then the Great Turtle returned. He now made a long speech to the priest in his little squeaky, puppy voice, but it was spoken in a language which nobody could understand. After the spirit's speech was finished, the medicine man spoke in his own voice, and explained to the people that in the last fifteen minutes the Great Turtle had crossed Lake Huron, and gone to Fort Niagara, hundreds of miles away. Then he had gone on down to Montreal. He said there were not many soldiers at Fort Niagara, but at Montreal the river was covered with boats filled with soldiers. He said the soldiers coming to make war on the Indians were as many as the leaves on the trees. He told the Indians, that, if they would send men to the general of this army, he would make peace with them, and fill their canoes with presents of blankets, kettles, guns, powder, and shot. And he said, what pleased them still more, that the general would give them great barrels of rum.

The Indians were so much delighted with this message, that many of them set out, soon after, to go in boats to make peace with the white men. No doubt this humbug of the medicine man was a plan to persuade them to go. Mr. Henry was taken along to act as their friend.

THE RATTLESNAKE GOD.

Mr. Henry had traveled several days with the Indians going to Fort Niagara to make peace. One day the wind was blowing so hard that they could not go on. So they camped on a point in Lake Huron.

While the Indians were building a hut, Mr. Henry was lighting a fire. He went off a little way to get dry wood, and while he was picking up sticks he heard a strange sound. It lasted only a little while; but, when Mr. Henry went a little farther, it began again. He looked up into the air to see where it came from. Then he looked down on the ground, and saw a large rattlesnake coiled close to his naked leg. If he had taken one step more, he would have stepped on it, and it would have bitten him.

He now ran back to the canoe to get his gun to kill the snake.

"What are you doing?" asked the Indians.

"I am going to kill a rattlesnake," he said.

"Oh, no! don't do that," they said.

The Indians all got their tobacco bags and pipes, and went to the place where the snake had been seen. It was still lying in a coil.

The Indians now stood round the snake, and one after another spoke to it. They called it their grandfather. But they took care not to go too close to their grandfather. They stood oft and filled their pipes with tobacco. Each one in turn blew tobacco smoke at the snake. The snake seemed to like it. For half an hour it lay there in a coil, and breathed the smoke. Then it slowly stretched itself out at full length, and seemed in a very good humor. It was more than four feet long.

After having more smoke blown at it, it slowly crept away. The Indians followed, begging their grandfather, as they called it, to take care of their families while they were gone. They also asked that the snake would open the heart of the English general so that he would give them a great deal of rum. One of the chiefs begged the snake to take no notice of the insult offered to him by the white man, who would have killed it if the Indians had not stopped him. They also begged that it would remain and live in their country.

The Indians thought that the snake was a spirit or god in this form. They thought that it had been sent to stop them on their way. They were almost ready to turn back, but Mr. Henry persuaded them to go on.

The next morning was calm. The Indians took a short course by sailing straight to an island out in the lake. But after they had got far out, the wind began to blow very hard. They expected every moment that their canoe would be swallowed up by the waves. They began to pray to the rattlesnake to help them. One of the chiefs resolved to make a sacrifice to the snake. He took a dog, and tied its legs together, and threw it into the water. He asked the snake spirit to be satisfied with this. But the wind continued to grow higher, and so another dog was thrown into the water, and some tobacco was thrown with it. The chief told Grandfather Snake that the man who wanted to kill him was really a white man, and no kin to the snake or to the Indians.

Some of the Indians began to think of throwing Mr. Henry in after the dog and the tobacco to satisfy the snake spirit; but the wind went down, and they soon got to the island. Some days afterward the party came to the fort. The English general was very glad to see Mr. Henry, and his long captivity was over, in spite of the anger of the rattlesnake god of the Indians.

WITCHCRAFT IN LOUISIANA.

The Indian medicine men or priests have many ways of deceiving their people. A French officer found that the people of a certain tribe believed very much in an idol which a medicine man had set up. This idol was called by a long name, Vistee-poolee-keek-apook. The Indians, when they stood near, would sometimes hear it speak, and this seemed to them a very wonderful thing.

A French officer named Bossu tried to find out what made the idol talk. He found a long reed, such as we call a cane pole, running from the back of the idol's head to a cave or hollow in the rocks behind the idol. This reed had been made into a hollow tube. In the cave there was a medicine man who talked into the tube. The words coming out of the other end in the idol's head were heard from the mouth of the idol, as if the idol were speaking. Bossu showed the Indians the trick, and then got one of his soldiers to destroy the idol.

The soldier that destroyed the idol was so brave, that the Frenchmen had given him a nickname which means "fearless." The medicine man declared that some dreadful thing would fall on Fearless because he had destroyed the idol. In order to make his people believe in the power of this god that had been thrown down, he told them that there was a witch or evil spirit which came to the village in the shape of a little black panther. He said, that, whenever he pronounced the name of his god, this little black panther would instantly disappear.

You see, the cunning old medicine man had somehow got hold of a large black cat with yellow eyes. Cats were not common among the Indians, these animals having been brought by the white people. Such a cat as this, the Indians had never seen. The medicine man kept the cat in his cabin, and trained it. He would strike it with a whip, crying out every time he struck it, "Vistee-poolee-keek-apook!"

The poor cat became afraid of the long ugly name of the Indian god, because the whip and the name always came together. One day the black cat crept into the cabin of an Indian woman to get something to eat. The medicine man who was near by saw it. He said the name of his god in his common voice. The cat, which the Indians believed to be a witch, jumped like lightning through the hole in the cabin that was used for a window. The Indians really believed that they had seen an evil spirit in the shape of a little black panther, and that it disappeared when the medicine man spoke the name of his god.

After that, every time an Indian saw this black cat, or little black panther, as it was called, he spoke the name of this terrible god. Of course, the black cat with yellow eyes ran away. Tired out at last with being driven off in this fashion, the cat disappeared entirely, and took up its home with the wild animals in the woods, where it could not hear the terrible name of the idol any more.

Bossu afterward made use of the Indians' belief in spirits for his own purpose. One of his soldiers had been killed by one of the Indians. Bossu could not find out who killed the soldier, or even to what tribe the Indian that killed him belonged. He wanted to punish or frighten the murderer in order to save the lives of the rest of the French soldiers.

He called the chief of the Indians, and told him that one of his men was missing. He said he was sure the man had not run away. He therefore asked that the Indians should find the man, and said, that, if he were not found, he should have to think that some of the Indians had killed him.

The chief answered that the white soldier had probably gone hunting in the woods, and killed himself accidentally with his gun, or else he had been killed by a panther. To this Bossu replied that the animal would not have eaten the gun or the clothes of the soldier. He said that if the Indians would find the Frenchman's gun, or bits of his clothes, they could easily show that he had been killed by a wild animal.