254 NARRATIVE OF THE EXPEDITION. 



small apukwa mats were spread for each, guest. I observed the 

 dish of hard bread, which came opportunely, as there was no 

 other representative form of bread. The chief sat down at the head 

 of his breakfast, in the oriental fashion. Imitating his example, 

 I sat down with a degree of repose and nonchalance, as if this 

 had been the position I had practised from childhood. His em- 

 press — Equa,* sat on one side, near him, to pour out the tea, but 

 neither ate nor drank anything herself. Her position was also 

 that of the oriental custom for females ; that is, both feet were 

 thrown to one side, and doubled beside her.f The chief helped 

 ■us to fish and to tea, taking the cups from his wife. He was dig- 

 nified, gi'ave, yet easy, and conversed freely, and the meal passed 

 off agreeably and without a pause, or the slightest embarrass- 

 ment. This was, perhaps, owing in part to my having been ac- 

 quainted with him before, he having visited me at my agency at 

 Sault Ste. Marie in 1828, and sat as a guest at my own table. 

 Nor, in a people so loath to give their confidence as the Indian, is 

 the fact undeserving of mention, of general affiliation to the tribe, 

 caused by my marriage with a granddaughter of the ruling chief 

 of Lake Superior, a lady of refinement and intelligence, who was 

 the child of a gentleman of Antrim, Ireland, where she was edu- 

 cated. 



On rising to leave, I invited him to a council, at my tent, 

 which was ordered to assemble at the firing of the military. It 

 is not unimportant to observe, that, in preparing to set out on this 

 expedition into the Indian country, at a time when the Black- 

 hawk had raised the standard of revolt on Eock Eiver, and the 

 tribes of the Upper Mississippi were believed to be extensively 

 in his views, I had caused my canoe, after it had been finished in 

 most perfect style of art known to this kind of vessel, to be 

 painted with Chinese vermilion, from stem to stern. Ten years' 

 residence among the tribes, in an official capacity, had convinced 

 me that fear is the controlling principle of the Indian mind, and 

 that the persuasions to a life of peace, are most effectively made 

 under the symbols of war. To beg, to solicit, to creep and cringe 



* Equa, a female ; it is not, appropriately, the term of wife, for which the vo- 

 cabulary has a peculiar term, but is generally employed in the sense of woman. 



•j- I have observed this to be the universal custom among all the aboriginal fe- 

 males of America. They never part the feet. 



