THE GEORGE CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY. 609 



the Indians all die, or are* driven away before the white men. Our hope is to enjoy our 

 hunting grounds in the world to come, which white men cannot take from us. We know 

 that our fathers and our mothers have gone there, and we don't know why we should 

 not go there too. 



"My friends, you have told us that the Son of the Great Spirit was on earth, and that 

 he was killed by white men, and that the Great Spirit sent him here to get killed. Now 

 we cannot understand all this. This may be necessary for white people, but the red 

 men, we think, have not yet got to be so wicked as to require that. If it was necessary 

 that the Son of the Great Spirit should be killed for white people, it may be necessary 

 for them to believe all this; but for us, we cannot understand it." 



He here asked for the pipe, and having drawn a few whiffs, proceeded. 

 11 My friends, you speak of the good book that you have in your hand; we have many 

 of these in our village; we are told that ' all your words about the Son of the Great 

 Spirit are printed in that book, and if we learn to read it it will make good people of us. ' 

 I would now ask why it dou't make good people of the pale- faces living all around us ? 

 They can all read the good book, and they can understand all that the black-coats* say, 

 and still we find they are not so honest and so good a people as ours. This we are sure of. 

 Such is the case in the country about us, but here we have no doubt but the white peo- 

 ple who have so many to preach and so many books to read are all honest and good. In 

 our country the white people have two faces, and their tongues branch in different ways. 

 We know that this displeases the Great Spirit, and we do not wish to teach it to our 

 children." 



He here took the pipe again, and while smoking, the reverend gentleman asked him 

 if he thought the Indians did all to serve the Great Spirit that they ought to do — all that 

 the Great Spirit required of them; to which he replied: 



"My friends, I don't know that we do all that the Great Spirit wishes us to do; there 

 are some Indians, I know, who do not; there are some bad Indians as well as bad white 

 people; I think it is very difficult to tell how much the Great Spirit wishes us to do." 



The reverend gentleman said: 



"That, my friends, is what we wish to teach you; and if you can' learn to read this 

 good book, it will explain all that." 



The chief continued: 



" We believe the Great Spirit requires us to pray to Him, which we do, and to thank 

 Him for everything we have that is good. We know that he requires us to speak the 

 truth, to feed the poor, and to love our friends. We don't know of anything more that 

 he demands; he may demand more of white people, but we don't know that." 



The reverend gentleman inquired: 



"Do you not think that the Great Spirit sometimes punishes the Indians in this 

 world for their sins ? ' ' 



War Chief. " Yes, we do believe so. " 



Reverend Gentleman. " Did it ever occur to you that the small-pox that swept 

 off half of your tribe, and other tribes around you, a few years ago, might have been sent 

 into your country by the Great Spirit to punish the Indians for their wickedness and 

 their resistance to his word ? " 



War Chief. "My friends, we don't know that we have ever resisted the word of the 

 Great Spirit. If the Great Spirit sent the small-pox into our country to destroy us, we 

 believe it was to punish us for listening to the false promises of white men. It is white 

 man's disease, and no doubt it was sent amongst white people to punish them for their 

 sins. It never came amongst the Indians until we began to listen to the promises of 

 white men, and to follow their ways; it then came amongst us, and we are not sure but 

 the Great Spirit then sent it to punish us for our foolishness. There is another disease 

 sent by the Great Spirit to punish white men, and it punishes them in the right place — 



♦Clergymen. 



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