Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 V13.djvu/245

 they recognised as the Lucifier or harbinger of day; and, as well as the Europeans, they called the Galaxy the heavenly path or celestial road. The filling and waning of the moon regulated their minor periods of time, and the number of moons, accompanied by the concomitant phenomena of the seasons, pointed out the natural duration of the year.

The superstitions of the Osages differ but little from those which have so often been described, as practised by the other natives. The importance of smoking, as a religious ceremony, is such as to be often accompanied by invocations for every aid or necessary of life. Before going out to war they raise the pipe towards heaven or the sun,[196] and implore the assistance of the Great Spirit to favour them in their reprisals, in the stealing of horses, and the destruction of their enemies, &c. &c. They are acquainted with the value of wampum, know the destructive effects of guns and gunpowder, and the fascinating, but deleterious qualities of spiritous liquors. Their minds have not been deluded into a belief in sorcery, which, from its supposed fatality, is by many of the eastern Indians punished with death. At their festivals, as among most of the other natives, the warriors recount their actions of bravery, and number them by throwing down a stick upon the ground for every exploit, or striking at a post fixed for the purpose. On such occasions, they sometimes challenge each other with a mutual emulation, to recount a like number of warlike deeds. Yet this ostentation is rarely suffered to degenerate into insult or envious combat; vulgarity is unknown amongst {176} the