[raymoxNd] travel between CANADA AND ACADIA 35 



dictions at the maiden they disappeared in the foaming cataract, hear- 

 ing still the cry of triumph of the heroic daughter of the vanquished 

 tribe, in which she mingled the names of her betrothed and the nation 

 she had avenged. 



"The Malacite heroine's praise has been sung in verse in the 

 languages of the Abenaki, the French and the English. But what a 

 rich theme is here for the future writer of romance in Madawaska. 



"Greek history, so prolific of deeds of chivalry of every kind, 

 afïords nothing more heroic or more sublime than the sacrifice — 

 unpretentious and to-day so little regarded— of this obscure daughter 

 of the forest." 



The first white settlers of the River St. John found that the 

 native Indians entertained a superstitious dread of "the gray wolves 

 of Canada," as they termed the Mohawks. They had many legends 

 to relate of their conflicts with these implacable foes. Indian mothers 

 were wont to tell the disobedient little pappoose, "If you are not 

 good the Mohawks will come and get you." Even within the period 

 of the writer's own recollection the word Mohawk suddenly uttered 

 was sufficient to startle a St. John river Indian. The late Edward 

 Jack, C.E., who made quite a study of Indian habits and wrote much 

 concerning them, once asked an Indian child: "What is a Mohawk?" 

 The child replied very seriously: "A Mohawk is a bad Indian who 

 kills people and eats them." 



Another curious incident serves to illustrate the superstitious 

 dread entertained of the Mohawks by the Malacites. 



Frederick Dibblee, a Connecticut Loyalist and a graduate of 

 Columbia College, was appointed by the New England Company in 

 1787 a missionary-teacher to the Indians of Medoctec. The Society 

 for the Propagation of the Gospel sent out to him from England a 

 quantity of Indian prayer books, "prepared by the late excellent 

 Colonel Claus." These books, unfortunately, were in the Mohawk 

 dialect and Parson Dibblee could make no use of them. He says in 

 a letter to the S.P.G.: "That the Indians of the River St. John have 

 the utmost dread and hatred for the Mohawks, by whom formerly 

 they were almost extirpated, and whose language they are more 

 ignorant of than they are of the English tongue. He could not 

 persuade two or three of his Indian scholars to take any of the prayer 

 books, they being fearful that it would bring on a quarrel with the 

 Mohawks upon finding their books in their possession. He, therefore, 

 not knowing what else to do, gave them to the poor of his parish." 



Passing now from the period of legend ry days to that of recorded 

 time, it may be observed that, in prehistoric days, the Madawaska 



