doubt can exist as in most cases of good testimony; they may be considered as perfectly disinterested, and the relations were given by persons, who, because of their remote stations, could not have conspired to frame a system of deceit; they were given to affectionate friends and for superiors to whom they were bound by the most solemn and sacred ties, to be plain and candid. If ever documents possessed internal evidence of truth, that evidence is found in these letters, of which the editor says

"They bear, as do all the other letters of this work, a character of simplicity and of truth, which affects and which persuades. There is observable throughout, great care to hazard nothing, to speak only of what is within the writer's knowledge, only of what he has examined with a scrupulous attention, a taste for observation which extends to every thing, a desire to be informed and to communicate knowledge, the result probably of a good education, of a laudable emulation and of a sensitiveness happy and profound, which without permitting the missionary to forget what is required by the most pure and ardent zeal, teaches him to discover the secret of uniting with the love of useful science the most continued, persevering, and painful duties of his ministry."

Having premised these few observations as to the credit of the writers, the first question which presents itself to us is, whether the Aborigines were pure Theists, as has been frequently asserted, or whether their religion like that of the other degraded and barbarous nations known to us, was a blending of polytheism, idolatry and superstition. Upon this subject we meet with the following passage in a letter of Father Gabriel Marest, a Jesuit missionary in Canada, to his superior Father Lamberville, Procurator of the Canadian missions. Father Marest was chaplain to two vessels which sailed on the 10th of August, 1696, from Quebec, under the command of M. D'Iberville, to take possession of stations which the British were forming upon the shore of Hudson's Bay. On the 13th of October, the English surrendered a small fort at the confluence of two rivers, which he calls the Bourbon and the St. Therese, the former of which, the English, he says, called the Pornetton, in the latitude of something more than 57 degrees. Upon the arrival of the expedition in September, Father Marest states that he applied with assiduity to perfect himself in the language of the Indians: In September of the following year the English recaptured the fort, and the writer was taken and sent to Plymouth in England, where he was confined in prison until exchanged. He states that during the year of his residence at the fort, and in its vicinity, upwards of three hundred canoes had arrived for the purposes of traffic from seven or eight of the

neighbouring tribes, the most distant, the most numerous, and the most considerable of which were the Creeks and the Assiniboels, the former of which were sometimes called the Knistinnons-the language of the Creeks he calls the Algonquin, and that of the Assiniboels, the same as that of the Scioux. He then describes their places of residence and alliances; after which, he proceeds to describe their religion, regarding which we give the following passage:

;

"As to the religion which they profess, I believe that it is the same as that of the other savages: I do not know, as yet, with precision in what their idolatry consists. I do know that they have a sort of sacrifices they are great jugglers; they use as the others do, the pipe which they call calumet; they smoke at the sun; they also smoke towards absent persons; they have frequently smoked to our fort and our vessel; yet I cannot tell you for certain what notions of the divinity they might have, not having been able to fathom them. I will only add that they are extremely superstitious, greatly debauched, that they live in simultaneous „polygamy, and in a great estrangement from the Christian religion."

Although this extract gives us very little information respecting the facts which we seek, yet it exhibits to us the candour of the writer, and the difficulty of attaining in a short time, accurate notions of a religion to which we are perfect strangers; whilst it is a striking contrast to the presumption of persons, who, with less opportunity, have in similar cases dogmatically pronounced upon what they did not understand.

The fifth letter, in the sixth volume, is one from Father Sebastian Rasles, a Jesuit, to his brother who lived in France, and is dated at Narantsouac, on the 12th of October, 1723. It was written at the request of his brother to give him some notion of the state of the country and its inhabitants. He recites the history of his departure from France, and his travels and residence in America, in such a manner as to exhibit to us his full competency as a witness.

"On the 23d of July, in the year 1689, I embarked at Rochelle, and after a good voyage of three months, arrived at Quebec on the 13th of October; I immediately began to learn the language of the Indians which is very difficult; for it is not enough to study the terms and their signification as well as to lay in a stock of words and phrases; it is besides necessary to know the turn and arrangement which they receive from the natives, which can be attained only by intercourse and habits of intimacy with them.

"I thence went to live in a village in the nation of the Abnakis, which was in a forest, about three leagues from Quebec: this village was inhabited by about two hundred Indians, most of whom were Chris tians," &c.

He next describes their mode of building, dress and occupations; after which, he continues

"It was in the midst of this people, who are considered the least rude of our Indians, that I served my missionary apprenticeship. My principal occupation was to study their language. It is learned with great difficulty, especially when one has no other teachers but Indians."

After a dissertation upon the languages, and giving specimens of the dialects of the Abnakis, the Algonquins, the Hurons, and the Illinois, he states, that after nearly two years residence in this nation, he was ordered to the missions in the country of the Illinois. Previous however to his setting off, he was detained three months in Quebec, studying the Algonquin tongue, and on the 13th of August, probably 1692, he set out from Quebec in a canoe, to go through rivers and lakes, over unreclaimed lands, and in the midst of forests, a journey of eight hundred leagues to the nation of the Illinois. After much suffering near the lake of the Hurons, the company having been scattered by bad weather, he had to send some provisions to his comrades from Missilimakinak, where two missionaries were stationed, one for the Hurons, the other for the Outaouacks-probably Ottowas. Of those he gives the following account :

"They are very superstitious and much attached to the juggling of their charlatans. They claim an origin equally absurd and ridiculous! they pretend to have come from three families, and each family composed of five hundred persons. Some are of the family of Michabou, or "the great Hare." They pretend that this great Hare was a man of prodigious size, that he spread nets in the water to the depth of eighteen arms length, and that his hand was scarcely sunk to the armpit; that one day during the deluge, he sent the castor to discover land; but this animal not having returned, he sent another, which brought back a small quantity of earth covered with froth; that he went to that part of the lake whence the earth was brought, and which formed a small island; that he walked in the water around it, and that this island became extraordinarily large, on which account they attribute to him the creation of the earth: they add, that after having effected this he fled to the sun, which is the usual place of his residence; but before leaving this earth, he directed that upon the death of any one of his descendants their bodies should be burned, and the ashes cast into the air, that they might more easily ascend to the heavens; that if this was neglected, snow would continue to rest upon their lands, their rivers and lakes would remain locked up with ice, and not being able to procure fish, which is their usual diet, they would die in the spring."

Believing, as we do, the Mosaic account of the general deluge, and the origin of all the families of the earth from Noah,

and seeing amongst so many Asiatic tribes the similar accounts of an extraordinary man, who, according to some statements, was saved in a canoe; according to others, walked over the waters, or which like this, make his size gigantic, and thus enable him to overtop the billows; we look upon them all to be the rude traditions of degenerate nations, who, in their wilds and barbarism, preserve the outline of that history which Shem, Ham and Japheth related to their children, and the accurate detail of which is recorded in the sacred volume. We also view the departure of the great Hare for the sun, together with the worship which it is evident several of our tribes paid to that luminary, to afford a strong presumption of an intimate alliance between the progenitors of our red brethren and some of the Asiatic nations; this, we think, is also much strengthened by their precept for burning the bodies of the deceased, and esteem for jugglers, as well as their expertness in the practice. How far the tradition of the three original families might be founded upon the fact of the three sons of Noah, we shall not venture to determine; but we do strongly incline to the opinion, that most of the early practices of Pagans, and their principal religious traditions are founded upon the incorrect and mistaken views of the primitive Theism and the history of the early patriarchs.

Father Rasles gives us an account of the manner in which some circumstances served to confirm the family of Michabou in their notions.

"It is but a few years since, that the winter having been longer than usual, there was a general consternation amongst the Indians of the family of the great Hare. They had recourse to their usual jugglings; they frequently met to devise the means of dissipating the inimical snow which obstinately kept possession of the earth, when an old woman addressed them thus:- My children, you have no sense, you know the orders left by the great Hare to burn the bodies of the dead, and to cast their ashes to the winds, that they might the more speedily return to their country in heaven, and you have disobeyed those orders by leaving, during several days, the body of a man in this vicinity without being burned, as though he did not belong to the family of the great Hare. Repair your fault without delay; be careful to burn it if you desire to banish the snow.' 'You are right, mother,' said they; 'you have more sense than we have, and the advice which you give restores us to life. They immediately detached twenty-five men to burn the body, they were occupied on the journey and return during about fifteen days; meantime the thaw came, and the snow disappeared. They heaped praises and presents upon the old woman who had given this advice; and this event, quite within the range of natural causes, as it was, greatly served to keep them in their foolish and superstitious credulity."

The second family of the Ottawas are the descendants of Namepich, or the Carp, the eggs of which being laid on the bank of a river, were impregnated by the sun, and from them sprung a woman who is their mother.

The third are derived from Machova, or the Bear, but no explanation is given of the mode of their descent.

The custom of burning the dead is peculiar to the family of the great Hare; the others inter the deceased, and a detailed account is given of the modes in which the chiefs are decorated for interment, and of the funeral chaunt. Our readers are sufficiently acquainted with those particulars. But the following extract will, probably, exhibit what is not so generally known:

"Where the superstition of this people appears most extravagant, is in the worship which they pay to what they call their Manitou. As they know only the beasts with which they live in their forests, they imagine in those brutes, or rather in their skins, and the plumage of birds, a sort of genius which governs all things, and is the master of life and death. According to them, there are Manitous common to the whole nation, and special ones for each individual. Oussakita or Wassakita is, they say, the great Manitou of all animals that walk upon the earth or that fly in the air. It is he who governs them; thus when they go to hunt, they offer to him, tobacco, powder, lead, and skins well prepared, which they tie to a long pole, and lifting them in the air, they say, 'Oussakita, we give thee to smoke, and we offer thee the means of killing animals; vouchsafe to be pleased with these gifts, and do not permit the beasts to escape our paths; permit us to kill them in goodly numbers, and of the fattest condition, that our children may have no want of clothing or of food.""

The Manitou of the waters and of fish, is called Michibichi, probably the same as Mississippi: they offer sacrifice to him when they go out to fish, or make voyages: for this purpose, they throw tobacco, food and kettles into the river, and they beseech the genius to cause the waters to flow slowly, and to save their canoes from rocks, and to grant them abundance of fish.

Each individual has also his peculiar Manitou, which is a bear, a castor, a bustard, or such like. In the selection of his Manitou, an Indian regarded his choice (whatever it were) as directed by some superior influence which exhibited to him in his sleep that animal, which it would become him to adopt. He as soon as possible after this imagination, killed one of the description, and kept its skin or plumage in the place of greatest honor in his hut, feasted his friends, respectfully harangued the spoils and adopted his Manitou. Thenceforth its preservation became a peculiar object of his religious care, and itself an