226 BOUQUET IN THE INDIAN COUNTRY. [1764, Nov. 



peace may once more descend to warm and gladden 

 us. I wipe the tears from your eyes, and condole 

 with you on the loss of your brethren who have 

 perished in this war. I gather their bones 

 together, and cover them deep in the earth, that 

 the sight of them may no longer bring sorrow to 

 your hearts ; and I scatter dry leaves over the spot, 

 that it may depart for ever from memory. 



" The path of peace, which once ran between 

 your dwellings and mine, has of late been choked 

 with thorns and briers, so that no one could pass 

 that way ; and we have both almost forgotten that 

 such a path had ever been. I now clear away all 

 such obstructions, and make a broad, smooth road, 

 so that you and I may freely visit each other, as 

 our fathers used to do. I kindle a great council- 

 fire, whose smoke shall rise to heaven, in view of 

 all the nations ; while you and I sit together and 

 smoke the peace-pipe at its blaze." ^ 



1 An Indian council, on solemn occasions, is always opened with pre- 

 liminary forms, sufficiently wearisome and tedious, but made indispen- 

 sable by immemorial custom ; for this people are as much bound by their 

 conventional usages as the most artificial children of civilization. The 

 forms are varied to some extent, according to the imagination and taste of 

 the speaker ; but in all essential respects they are closely similar, through- 

 out the tribes of Algonquin and Iroquois lineage. They run somewhat as 

 follows, each sentence being pronounced with great solemnity, and con. 

 firmed by the delivery of a wampum belt: Brothers, with this belt I 

 open your ears that you may hear — I remove grief and sorrow from your 

 hearts — I draw from your feet the thorns which have pierced them as 

 you journeyed thither — I clean the seats of the council-house, that you 

 may sit at ease — I wash your head and body, that your spirits may be 

 refreshed — I condole with you on the loss of the friends who have died 

 since we last met — I wipe out any blood which may have been spilt 

 between us. This ceremony, which, by the delivery of so many belts of 

 wampum, entailed no small expense, was never used except on the most 

 important occasions ; and at the councils with Colonel Bouquet the angry 

 warriors seem wholly to have dispensed with it. 



