booxet] VISIT TO THE MASTER OF LIFE 665 



He then commanded him toexhort his people tocease from drunken- 

 ness wars, polygamy, and the medicine sous', and continued: 



The land on which you are, I have made for yon, not for others. Wherefore do you 

 sufferthe whites Indwell upon your lands? Can you notdo without then. .' I know 

 that those whom you call the children of your Great Father [the Kin- of France] 

 supply your wants; but were you not wicked as you are you would not need them. 

 You might live as you did before you knew them. Before those whom you call your 

 1,1, .there [the French] had arrived, did not your bow tin. 1 arrow maintain you.' You 

 needed neither gun, powder, nor tmy other object. The flesh of animals was your 

 food; their skins your raiment. But when I saw you inclined to evil, I removed the 

 animals into the depths of the forest that you might depend on your brothers for 

 your necessaries, for your clothing. Again become good and do my will and I will 

 aend animals for your sustenance. I do not, however, forhid suffering among you your 

 Father's children. I love them; they know me; they pray tome. I supply their 

 own wants, and give then, that which they bring to yon. Not so with those who 

 are come to trouble your possessions [the English], Drive them away; wage war 

 against them; I love them not: they know me not; they are my enemies; they tire 

 your brothers' enemies. Send them back to the lands I have made for them. Let 

 them remain there. (Schoolcraft, Alg. Ses., /.> 



The Master of Life then gave him a prayer, carved in Indian hiero- 

 glyphics upon a wooden stick, which he was told to deliver to his chief 

 on returning to earth. ( Parkman, 2.) Uis instructor continued : 



Learn it by heart, and teach it to all the Indians and children. It must be repeated 

 niornin"- anil evening. Do all that I have told thee, and announce it to all the 

 Indians"as coming from the Master of Life. Let them drink but one draught, or two 

 at most, in oue day. Let them have but one wife, and discontinue running after 

 other people's wives and daughters. Let them not fight one another. Let them 

 not sing the medicine song, for in singing the medicine song they speak to the evil 

 spirit. *Drive from your lands those dogs in red clothing; they are only an injury to 

 you. When you want anything, apply to me, as your brothers do, and I will give to 

 both. Do not sell to your brothers that which I have placed on the earth as food. In 

 short, become good, and you shall want nothing. When you meet one another, bow 

 ami give one another the [left] hand of the heart. Above all, I command thee to 

 repeat morning and evening the prayer which I have given thee. 



The Indian received the prayer, promising to do as he had been 

 commanded and to recommend the same course to others. His former 

 conductor then came and, leading him to the foot of the mountain, bid 

 him resume his garments and go back to his village. His return 

 excited much surprise among his friends, who had supposed him lost. 

 They asked him where he had been, but as he had been commanded 

 to speak to no one until he had seen the chief, he motioned with his 

 hand to signify that he had come from above. < >n entering the village 

 he went at once to the wigwam of the chief, to whom he delivered the 

 prayer and the message which he had received from the Master of Life. 

 (Schoolcraft. Alg. Res., :'.) 



Although the story as here given bears plain impress of the white 

 man's ideas, it is essentially aboriginal. While the discrimination 

 expressed by the Master of Life in favor of the French and against 

 the English may have been due to the fact that the author of the 



