fT ( S l6 ) 



and fince that time their young men have had a 

 firange itching to be in action. Three or four of 

 thefe bravoes equipped as if they had been going to 

 a mafquerade, with their faces painted in fuch a 

 manner as to infpire horror, and followed by almoft 

 all the Indians in the neighbourhood of the fort, 

 after having gone through all the cabbins fi nging 

 their war longs to the found of the chichikoue, 

 which is a fort of calabam rilled with little flint 

 {tones, came to perform the fame ceremony through 

 all the apartments in the fort, in order to do ho- 

 nour to the commandant and the reft of the of- 

 ficers. 



I own to you, Madam, that this ceremony has 

 fomething in it which infpires one with horror when 

 feen for the firfl time, and I had not been as yet fo 

 fully fenfible as I then was, that I was among bar- 

 barians. Their fongs are at all times melancholy 

 and doleful but here they were to the laft degree 

 frightful, occafioned perhaps entirely by the dark- 

 nefs of the night, and the apparatus of this feftival, 

 for fuch it is amongft the Indians. This invitation 

 was made to the Iroquois, who finding the war 

 with the Cherokees begin to turn burthenfome, or 

 not being in the humour, required time for deli- 

 beration, after which every one returned home. 



It mould feem, Madam, that in thefe fongs they 

 invoke the god of war, whom the Hurons call 

 Arejkoui^ and the Iroquois Agrejkoue ; I know not 

 what name he bears in the Algonquin languages. 

 But it is not a little furprifing, that the Greek word 

 Agvis, which is Mars, and the god of war in all thofe 

 countries which have followed the theology of Ho- 

 mer, mould be the root whence feveral terms in 

 the Huron and Iroquoife languages feem to be de- 

 rived, 



