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ture, the manners, the images, the leffons taught, all confpire to flicw 

 that their fables and tales are of native origin ; and the naivete, fineffe, 

 and fpirit with which they are told; ftill more forcibly prove them to 

 be the fpontaneous produftions of the foil. Wherever any allufions are 

 made to the cuftoras or inventions derived from the old world, they are 

 decidedly to fuch only as every Indian may be acquainted with, either 

 from obfervation in the European fettlements he has vilitcd, or front 

 the report of the travellers of his nation. 



For thefe and other Indian produftions, I am indebted to interpre- 

 tation. It was always made in the prefence of my friendly chief, and 

 immediately after his narration ; and I have this intrinfic evidence of its 

 fidelity, that he took back the ftory from the looks and gefliures of 

 the interpreter, as I often anticipated its general features and the cha- 

 rafters introduced, from his manner of telling it. The interpreter was 

 the chief's nephew by adoption, beloved as a fon, born of European 

 parents, taken from the weftern fettlements in one of the Indian war- 

 incurfions, educated among the Indians, uCng their cuftoms, and excel- 

 ling in all their exercifes and fports, till chance brought him into an 

 engagement where the party of Indians he fought with, were oppofed 

 to a body of militia commanded by his elder brotfcer ; who with a rifle 

 ball (hattered the arm of his Indian adoptive brother, fighting by his 

 fide. Learning from a prifoner the nearly tragical fituation he had been 

 placed in, he left the Indians during the continuance of the war, to 

 return in times of peace, in a charafter which puts it in his power to 

 exercife his benevolence towards them more extenfively, than if he ftili 

 wore the Indian drefs. Mr. Wells, in this account of his conneftion 

 with the Indians, will recognize his own communications. 



Vol. IX. R Section 



