sport, and the toils of war are his glory. We do not pretend to decide whether or not plenty with ignorance, be preferable to toil and want with knowledge; but certain it is, that he who has enough for the present, and a certainty of its continuance, cannot be called poor. To return. The Mandans were, perhaps, the most religious people the sun ever shone upon. Like the Jews, they were theists; but their imagination peopled the whole universe with spirits of good and of evil. They had their Ahrimanes, like all other Indians, and prayed to him that he should do them no harm; making true the supposition that so shocked our 'Pilgrim Fathers,' that the heathen worshipped the devil. To the Mandan, every remarkable place had its presiding spirit; every event, no matter how trifling, was the effect of supernatural agency; but the Supreme was ever uppermost in his mind. Sacrifices to him were strewn all over the country; the first fruits of the season, the best part of the animal slain in the chase, the most costly of the goods obtained from the trader. A Mandan would not eat a morsel of a buffalo, till he had first made a burnt-offering, though he were starving. The Medicine-House,' that is to say, the temple, stood in the midst of the village. On its top were several tall poles, on which were constantly suspended blankets, broadcloth, etc., the best these devout worshippers could procure, there to rot, as a thing acceptable to God. The like was seen in a thousand other places. Into the Medicine-House no woman was ever permitted to enter; and in it, every spring, were enacted and suffered such cruelties as were never surpassed by the Holy Inquisition, all for the glory of God. There was this difference, however, between the Inquisition and the Medicine-House, that in the former the suffering was compulsory; whereas in the latter, the victims underwent the most horrible tortures voluntarily, and gloried in their torments. Nay, as the latter part of the ceremony was performed out of doors, wives and mothers looked on, and exulted in the pangs of their sons and husbands, and even assisted in increasing them. It were tedious to describe these barbarous rites: they involved an allegory, in which the Spirit of Evil was supposed to enter the village, and to be driven out of it again by the Spirit of Good. Mah-to-khay To-pah suffered these unheard of tortures five several times. How any man could survive them once, is wonderful; but that any one should desire to undergo them even a second time, is little less than miraculous. Catlin is the only white man who was ever admitted into the Medicine-House, during the performance of these rites; and four pictures of them may be seen in his gallery of paintings. Persons of weak nerves, however, had better not listen to his explanation of them.

Turtle doves swarmed in and about the Mandan villages, and it was held sacrilegious to molest them; because,' said the Mandans,' 'this was the bird that brought the willow-branch back to the canoe.' It was at the time, too, when the first willow-buds opened into leaves, that the ceremonies of which we have spoken took place. Some persons might argue, from these premises, that the Mandans were certainly descended from the Israelites, and possibly the supposition might have been corroborated by other traditions; but as no one has ever yet had opportunity and inclination to inquire, and as the Mandans are all past hope of any farther explanations, the question must

rest on this solitary fact, and on the decidedly Jewish physiognomy f the whiter half of the tribe.

After this long preamble, we come to our story. Before Mah-tokhay To-pah arrived at maturity, he offered himself as a candidate for the dreadful honors of the Feast of the Willow Leaf. His father and brother dissuaded, and his mother prayed, in vain. The young martyr was proof alike to entreaties, tears, and lamentations. The family appealed to the elders of the village, and the elders appealed to the Medicine Man, or master of the ceremonies, to prevent his intention; but the latter was not to be won. I am the servant of the Great Spirit,' said he, ' and do you think I will offend him? If the young man dies under the torture, it will be an acceptable sacrifice, and he will have the reward of his piety in another world. It would be throwing away my own life.'

เ

But he will certainly die,' said old Sintaypay Chahpah, and not he alone, but his father, too. The old man has vowed that if his son perishes, he will go to the Pawnee village, and throw away his body,' (i. e., he will rush upon assured death; a very common practice with Indians, when suffering severe affliction.)

His father will think better of it,' replied the Medicine Man. 'He has another son to comfort him in his old age, and if he had not, I cannot help it.'

You can help it, if you will,' rejoined Hayhahkhah, the boy's uncle. 'You, and you only, can.'

'I cannot, if I would,' said the priest, 'unless I should be expressly commanded, in a dream, to forbid his initiation.'

It is very well,' said Hayhahkhah,' coolly knocking the ashes out of his pipe, and folding his robe around him to withdraw.' 'It is very well. The boy must die. I have been through the ordeal myself, and I know that he must be a strong man who lives through it. Forty brave men have I seen die on the third day. This lad cannot go through the second. Peace be with you! If you should have a dream to-night, and the Great Spirit should forbid the sacrifice, it is my intention to give you ten horses to-morrow.'

That is right!' grunted old Sintaypay Chahpah, 'that is right; 'the boy is my cousin, and I shall send you five more, beside ten new robes.' And thus each of the old men endeavored, with simple cunning, to influence the dreams of the holy man, according to their several ability, or their earnestness in the task they had undertaken. Now we beg to be understood, that if we have not made our Indians talk upon stilts, and speak of themselves and others in the third person, like the Mohegaus and Mingoes of Mr. COOPER's imagination, it is for a very good reason. We could easily make them discourse in tropes, and soar above the fixed stars, and the human comprehension, in metaphor, as he does, and other American novelists, of far less merit, but even more pretension, do also; and perhaps it would accord better with the prevailing taste; but the fact is, Indians speak as plainly and as directly to the point as we do, on all ordinary occasions. It is only in premeditated harangues, that they adorn and obscure their discourse with the flowers and clouds of imagination and poetry.

In the mean while, the object of so much solicitude was undergoing a torture little less painful than that to which he had devoted

himself; we mean the objurgations of friends who knew better what was good for him than he did himself. His mother howled, and gashed her arms and bosom with an arrow-head, in token of grief. His sisters followed her example, and a score of squaws in and about their dwelling made the night hideous with a song of lamentation, which had for its burthen, I shall see you no more! I shall see you no more!' The father smoked his pipe, which he only took from his mouth to enforce the expostulations of his eldest born. The devoted listened unshaken, though not unmoved.

'Better to die like a man, than to live like an old woman,' said the Four-Bears, in reply to some remark of his brother.

But you are not a man,' returned the other.

You did not think so last year, when Letalesha killed your horse under you. I was just in time, then; and there hangs his hair in the smoke, and here is the eagle's feather in my head. Manhood is not reckoned by years. I have earned the right to call myself a man.'

The Master of Breath smiles not upon parricides,' interposed the father. My son dies after two sleeps, and my scalp will be at some Pawnee's bridle-rein.'

Take pity on your mother,' cried the other afflicted parent. O my son, my son! I shall see you no more! I shall see you no more!' We shall see you no more! we shall see you no more!' chimed

in the rest of the women.

The youth drew himself proudly up. Father, mother, brother, sisters, friends,' said he, 'I have heard all you have said, and you can say no more. I have seen but fifteen snows, as you say; but if no other Mandan boy has ever attempted the ordeal of men at that age, so much the more honor for me. It is the will of the Master of Life, which no one can resist. He commanded me in a dream. If it is his will that I should die, die I must; and you ought to rejoice at being so honored in your son. If it is his will that I should live, you will have so much the more cause to rejoice. Therefore, mother, cease your clamors, and dry your tears. We must all die, and why not as well now, as at any other time? Kill my black horse over my grave, and bury my bow and arrows with me, that I may not start for the world of shadows like a beggar, on foot and unarmed. Haply I may meet the revengeful ghost of Letalesha there! But I will not have our family's captives put to death to be my slaves. You, father and brother, must send me slaves fit to attend a warrior; slaves who shall receive their message on the ground where they fall. What is life, after all? It is but a cloud of smoke hanging over the house, which the first breath of wind will drive away. I have spoken, and henceforth I am deaf.'

'Well, then,' said one of the women, more anxious than ever to save so brave a boy, 'there is but one way. Let us send for the

Spotted Fawn. I am sure he can refuse her nothing.'

The Four-Bears, at the conclusion of his harangue, bad seated himself very quietly, with his elbows upon his knees, and stopped his ears with his thumbs; not so closely, however, but that the name of the Skipping Fawn reached his tympanum. She was a year his junior, and betrothed to him; for Indians marry very young. Well he knew that her supplications and her tears would shake his resolution. He rose with a wild cry, scattered the crowd of women right and left,

and vanished from the house and village, and was not seen again till the next morning.

In the morning the Medicine Man made proclamation for a public meeting, from the top of the Medicine-House, in a tone which scattered all the buffaloes within two leagues of the village. He then announced that the Master of Life had appeared to him in the visions of the night, and informed him that the sacrifices of boys were any thing but acceptable. None, he declared, upon whose heads the snows of twenty winters had not fallen, should participate in the holy and awful rites of the Willow-Leaf; and this was to be law, thenceforth and for ever. For this reason, and this only, the Four-Bears could no longer be considered a candidate; for which he, the high priest of the tribe, was sore at his heart, on which he impressively laid his hand. It would have made him happy to have seen how a boy of fifteen snows could have borne pangs which had quelled the courage of the bravest. Many a youth had he tortured; but never one so young. He ended his speech with a well-merited encomium on his own experience and skill in the science of tormenting, and another, less deserved, on the favorable terms on which he stood with the Great Spirit.

This discourse was received with unbounded applause by all who heard it, excepting him whom it principally concerned, and the boys of his own age, who were naturally curious to behold the agonies of their sometime companion. In the course of the day, several of them applied to the Medicine Man to relax the rule in their favor; but he repulsed them with rudeness and with blows. Before noon, many a blanket and many a yard of bright scarlet was fluttering from the poles on the top of the Medicine-House, in grateful thanksgiving and sacrifice to the Great Spirit.

In the mean while, the Four-Bears had blackened his face, which is the token of mourning, or of an intent to do some desperate deed, and had departed from the village, no one knew whither. He well knew, however, that for several days previous to the holy festival, it was the custom of the Medicine Man to repair to the woods which skirted the river, to pray, where no one was permitted to disturb him. Mah-to-khay To-pah resolved to break the custom, and presented himself before the astonished priest, with his teeth set, and his lips compressed, every nerve quivering with excitement, and drew an arrow to the head. Listen to me, lying prophet!' he said, with flashing eye; I submit to the will of the Great Spirit, but not to yours. The Master of Life cannot have two wills, nor speak with a forked tongue. In my dream, He told me what to do, and He cannot have told you to bring His anger on me by preventing me. a wise man, Keraguish, and I am a foolish boy; but I am not so foolish but that I can look through you, as the sun looks through a cloud. You have not dreamed for nothing. Why were so many horses and robes carried to your house this morning? Look at yonder herd of buffaloes; their flesh is fat and sweet; but you will never eat a morsel of it. Do you see these budding willows and cotton woods? You will never see the buds open into leaves. Look at that dark and rapid river; it shall cover you up, and sweep you away, and you shall have no other grave than the maws of the cat

VOL. XV.

53

You are

fishes. It is what belongs to the utterer of false oracles. Sing your death song! Before yonder antelope is out of sight, this arrow will quiver in your heart!'

The false priest was not, perhaps, less courageous than other men ; but he was old and weaponless, and there was none at hand to save. The determination that spoke from the youth's eye could not be mistaken, and he was tall and strong beyond his years. The Medicine Man, who had been the holy executioner of so many others, shrunk, but he did not tremble. 'Spare me !' said he; 'I am an old man. I am onshekah; (worthy of pity.) Do not take away my life. I have not long to live.'

'If I take pity on you,' replied Mah-to-khay To-pah, 'what dreams will you have to-night? To-morrow the festival begins.'

The Master of Life was only laughing at his creature ;' returned the magician; and the sacrifice of Mah-to-khay To-pah is more acceptable to him than any other.'

Live!' said the boy; 'but

REMEMBER! Sure as that sun shines above; sure as that river runs below; sure as God's birds (the doves) are murmuring in these trees; if the Medicine Man does not have a true dream to-night, he will never live to celebrate another feast of the Willow Leaf.'

So saying, he left the priest comfortably assured that his life depended on compliance, and returned to the village.

Great was the grief of the family of the Four-Bears, when the Medicine Man the next morning announced that he had been honored with a second visitation of the Great Spirit, whose will now was to accept the free-will offering of the body, not only of Mah-to-khay To-pah, but of any other youth in the village; no matter of what age. 'Wherefore, good and brave young men, who came to me yesterday,' continued the priest, come forward, and share the glory of the Four-Bears. If ye live, ye will be accounted men among men, and if ye die, ye will not be forgotten for as many snows as there are blades of grass in all the prairies. Let the sacrifices of the Master of Breath come forward.'

But none of the youth who had wished to win imperishable glory at a cheap rate, the day before, made their appearance. The FourBears, however, stepped forth, at the head of six full-grown men, all clad in their gayest attire; and the whole seven were conducted into the Medicine-House. Not one of our hero's family made the least objection. It would have been in vain. An Indian can always endure what cannot be cured. Not even when the shrieks of the devoted rang through the village, shrieks extorted by the last extremity of mortal agony, was an eye-lid seen to wink, or a muscle to quiver. What took place in the Medicine-House, is best passed over in silence. It would excite no pleasant feeling in the bosom of the reader, were I to relate it. It was noticed, however, by those outside, that while the voice of every one of the men could be distinguished, in the intensity of their sufferings, not a groan was heard from the boy; and it was afterward known that he had fainted later than any of his companions, at every application of the torture.

In the mean while, all was joy and jubilee in the village. The First Man' had appeared from no one knew where, and having