THE GEORGE CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY. 541 



all questions. After their resolve, the chief conducts and leads ; his pipe with the - 

 reddened stem is sent through the tribe by his runners,, and every man who consents 

 to go to war draws the smoke once through its stem ; he is then a volunteer, like all 

 of their soldiers in war, and bound by no compulsive power, except that of pride and 

 dread of the disgrace of turning back. After the soldiers are enlisted, the war-dance 

 is performed in the presence of the whole tribe, when each warrior, in warrior's dress, 

 with weapons in hand, dances up separately, and striking the reddened post, thereby 

 takes the solemn oath not to desert his party. 



The chief leads in full dress, to make himself as conspicuous a mark as possible for 

 his enemy ; while his men are chiefly denuded, and their limbs and faces covered 

 with red earth or vermillion, and oftentimes with charcoal and grease, so as to com- 

 pletely disguise them, even from the knowledge of many of their intimate friends. 



At the close of hostilities, the two parties are often brought together by a flag of 

 truce, where they sit in treaty, and solemnize by smoking through the calumet, or pipe 

 of peace, as I have before described ; and after that their warriors and braves step for- 

 ward, with the pipe of peace in the left hand, and the war-club in the right, and dance 

 around in a circle, going through many curious and exceedingly picturesque evolu- 

 tions in the pipe-of-peace dance. 



AFFECTIONS. 



To each other I have found these people kind and honorable, and endowed with 

 overy feeling of parental, of filial, and conjugal affection, that is met in more enlight- 

 ened communities. I have found them moral and religious, and I am bound to give 

 them great credit for their zeal, which is often exhibited in their modes of worship, 

 however insufficient they may seem to us, or may be in the estimation of the Great 

 Spirit. 



INDIAN RELIGION. 



I have heard it said by some very good men, and some who. have even been preach- 

 ing the Christian religion amongst them, that they have no religion, that all their 

 zeal in their worship of the Great Spirit was but the foolish excess of ignorant super- 

 stition ; that their humble devotions and supplications to the sun and moon, where 

 many of them suppose that the Great Spirit resides, were but the absurd rantings of 

 idolatry. To such opinions as these I never yet gave answer, nor drew other instant 

 inferences from them than that, from the bottom of my heart, I pitied the persons 

 who gave them. 



I fearlessly assert to the world (and I defy contradiction) that the North American 

 Indian is everywhere, in his native state, a highly moral and religious being, endowed 

 by his Maker with an intuitive knowledge of some great author of his being, and the 

 universe ; in dread of whose displeasure he constantly lives, with the apprehension 

 before him of a future state, where he expects to be rewarded or punished according 

 to the merits he has gained or forfeited in this world. 



I have made this a subject of unceasing inquiry during all my travels, and from 

 every individual Indian with whom I have conversed on the subject, from the highest 

 to the lowest and most pitiably ignorant, I have received evidence enough, as well as 

 from their numerous and humble modes of worship, to convince the mind, and elicit 

 the confessions of any man whose gods are not beaver and muskrats' skins, or whose 

 ambition is not to be deemed an apostle, or himself their only redeemer. 



Morality and virtue, I venture to say, the civilized world need not undertake to 

 teach' them ; and to support me in this, I refer the reader to the interesting narrative 

 of the Rev. Mr. Parker, amongst the tribes through and beyond the Rocky Mountains; 

 to the narratives of Captain Bonneville, through the same regions; and also to the 

 reports of the Reverend Messrs. Spalding and Lee, who have crossed the mountains, 

 and planted their little colony amongst them. And I am also allowed to refer to the 

 account given by the Rev. Mr. Beaver, of the tribes in the vicinity of the Columbia 

 and the Pacific coast. 



