L O U 1 J>' I A N A. 19J 



You krtow befides, that all animals, even the 

 moft ferocious, are tamed by man, I do not pre- 

 tend to fay that the fnake of the pretended 

 witch v/ent into her country. All I can tell you 

 is, that I always had a very great antipathy 

 kgainfl thefe animals, and that when I meet 

 with them, I take a pleafure in crufhing their 

 heads* 



I remember, that iii the village of the Pkn- 

 guichias^ a nation allied to the Illinois^ one of 

 our foldiers was very near getting into a very 

 bad fcrape. He went into an Indian hut and 

 found a live fnake, which he killed with a 

 hatchet, not knowing that the m.after of the 

 hut had made his Manitou of it. The Indian 

 arrived at the fame time in a terrible paflion to 

 find his deity dead \ he afferted that it was the 

 foul of his father, who died about a year be- 

 fore ', he having (hot two ferpents which were 

 pairing upon the point of a rock, fell fick and 

 died foon after. 



The Imagination of the old man being trou- 

 bled by the height of the fever, he thought he 

 faw the two fnakes coming to reproach him with 

 their death ; he therefore recommended it to his 

 fon in dying, never to kill any of thefe ani- 

 O ?. mals. 



