Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 29).djvu/311

 practices, adding at the same time, with much feeling and veneration, “God has had pity on us—He has opened our eyes—He is infinitely good to us.” A single instance will serve to give you some idea of the objects of their worship, and the facility with which they adopt their manitous or divinities. They related to me, that the first white man they saw in their country, wore a calico shirt spotted all over with black and white, which to them appeared like the smallpox, he also wore a white coverlet. The Cœur d’Alenes imagined that the spotted shirt was the great manitou himself—the great master of that alarming disease, the smallpox—and that the white coverlet was the great manitou of the snow; that if they {266} could obtain possession of these, and pay them divine honors, their nation would never afterwards be visited by that dreadful scourge; and their winter hunts be rendered successful by an abundant fall of snow. They accordingly offered him in exchange for these, several of their best horses. The bargain was eagerly closed by the white man. The spotted shirt and the white coverlet became thenceforward, objects of great veneration for many years. On grand solemnities, the two manitous were carried in procession to a lofty eminence, usually consecrated to the performance of their superstitious rites. They were then respectfully spread on the grass: the great medicine-*pipe offered to them, with as much veneration, as it is customary with the Indians, in presenting it to the sun, the fire, the earth, and the water. The whole band of jugglers, or medicine-men, then entoned canticles of adoration to them. The service was generally terminated with a grand dance, in which the performers exhibited the most hideous contortions and extravagant gestures, accompanied with a most unearthly howling.

The term medicine is commonly employed by the whites,