378 ANCIENT ABORIGINAL TEADE IN NORTH AMERICA. 



belong. Le Moyne drew his scenes of Indian life many years after his 

 return from America, while living in England, and as he executed these 

 delineations from memory, they are doubtless deficient in that minute- 

 ness of detail which entitles to safe comparisons and deductions. 



Among some tribes of the interior marine shells seem to have been 

 looked upon with a kind of religious reverence, and indications are not 

 wanting that they played a part in their religious ceremonies. The pe- 

 culiar sound produced by a sea-shell when approached to the ear necessa- 

 rily appeared strange and mysterious to them, and the rareness of the 

 shells, together with their elegant forms and beautiful colors, doubtless 

 increased their value in the eyes of the natives. According to Long, the 

 Omahas possessed, about half a century ago, a large shell (already trans- 

 mitted from generation to generation) to which they paid an almost relig- 

 ious veneration. "A skin lodge or temple," says Long, " is appropriated 

 for its preservation, in which a person constantly resides, charged with 

 the care of it, and appointed its guard. It is placed upon a stand and 

 is never suffered to touch the earth. It is concealed from the sight by 

 several envelops, which are composed of strands of the proper skins, 

 plaited and joined together in the form of a mat. The whole constitutes 

 a parcel of considerable size, from which various articles are suspended, 

 such as tobacco and roots of certain plants. No person dares to open 

 all the coverings of this sacred deposit in order to expose the shell to 

 view. Tradition informs them that curiosity induced three different 

 persons to examine the mysterious shell, who were immediately pun- 

 ished for their profanation by instant and total loss of sight. The last 

 of these offenders, whose name is Ish-ka-tappe, is still living. It was 

 ten years since that he attempted so unveil the sacred shell, but, like 

 his predecessors, he was visited with blindness, which still continues, 

 and is attributed by the Indians, as well as by himself, to his commit- 

 ting of the forbidden act. This shell is taken with the band to all the 

 national hunts, and is then transported on the back of a man. Pre- 

 viously to undertaking a national expedition against an enemy, the 

 sacred shell is consulted as an oracle. For this purpose the magi of the 

 band seat themselves around the great medicine lodge, the lower part 

 of which is then thrown up like curtains and the exterior envelop is 

 carefully removed from the mysterious parcel, that the shell may receive 

 air. A portion of the tobacco, consecrated by being long suspended to 

 the skin-mats or coverings of the shell, is now taken and distributed to 

 the magi, who fill their pipes with it to smoke to the great medicine. 

 During this ceremony an individual occasionally inclines his head for- 

 ward and listens attentively to catch some sound which he expects to 

 issue from the shell. At length, some one imagines that he hears a 

 sound like that of a forced expiration of air from the lungs, or like the 

 noise made by the report of a gun at a great distance. This is consid- 

 ered as a fiivorable omen, and the nation prepare for the projected ex- 

 pedition with a confidence of success. But, on the contrary, should no 



