260 RELIGION OF THE INDIANS. 



French Canadian Roman Catholics, though having a distinct In- 

 dian characteristic which marks it at once as pecuhar to that class 

 of people. Their church, at Mingan, is a low, wooden affair, very 

 plain, and with only the necessary paraphernalia connected with 

 their worship within it. Outside and near to is the burying ground, 

 and above each tomb, — at least the majority of them — a simple 

 cross of stained wood marked the head, the size of the cross being 

 the sign of the importance of the individual in his tribe and village. 

 Back from the burying ground, and some distance in the neighbor- 

 ing woods, was a large cross, and a bower of fir boughs a little dis- 

 tance from it, representing some further ceremonies in their mystic 

 religion. Here, I am informed, the people go to bow and rever- 

 ence the cross, and to dance or weep within the bower, as the 

 occasion may require. With regard to the Indian religion, Mr. 

 Butler says : — 



" The worship of the Indians at Mingan is in accordance with 

 the teachings of the Romish church, I imagine. I have never heard 

 of any separate form of their own. The cross and bower you speak 

 of are, I believe, a sort of memorial or votive shrine. There is a story 

 connected with it but I have forgotten what it is. " Mr. Butler 

 has thus touched upon a genuine relic which, could it be recalled, 

 would probably interest every intelligent reader in the United States 

 and abroad. He further says : " I suppose their religious ideas, 

 apart from the Roman Catholic Church, are very vague. " Much 

 to my annoyance, the attendance of strangers was forbidden rather 

 than bidden to these their mystic rites, and I was unable to observe 

 them at their worship, although their priest visited them and per- 

 formed services while I was there. 



The respect shown by the Indians to their dead results in a 

 species of religious superstition, peculiar, perhaps, to all communi- 

 ties of their race and color, that the bodies of their dead friends 

 must, at all hazards, be protected from anything that would defile, 

 or in any way injure them, while any relative of the deceased re- 

 mains alive. They regard their burying ground their final home, 

 and even from far distant camping grounds they are said to send 



