Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. II.djvu/319

Rh represented battles, treaties of peace, and other such events; the sun and the moon, trees and mountains, and rivers, fish and birds, and all kinds of animals, having their part in the delineations; men and horses, however, in the most distorted proportions, being the principal actors. I have also seen Indian songs inscribed upon trees and bark in similar hieroglyphics.

The religious culture of the Indian has adopted the same symbolic characters derived from natural objects. They constitute a living hieroglyphic writing. They have no sense of the worship of God in spirit and in truth, or in the influence of love. But they have many religious festivals; the Indians of Minnesota more than ten, at which they offer sacrifices to the sun and the moon, trees, rivers, stones, serpents; nay, indeed, to all things and all animals, to propitiate their spirits or their divinities. The festival of the sun is celebrated by day, that of the moon by night. One festival is for their weapons of war, which they regard as sacred, or as being possessed of an innate divine power. At all these festivals they have dancing and the beating of drums, as well as singing and many ceremonies. The principal transaction on these occasions, however, seems to be feasting; and as the Indians appear to consider it a duty to eat everything which is set before them, frequently more than they are able, they are sometimes obliged to take medicine, that it may be possible for them to pursue their eating. At the Feast of the Spirits, if the guest fails to eat all that is placed before him, he must redeem himself by the forfeit of a buffalo or beaver-skin. Great quantities of provisions, especially of venison, are collected for these festivities. In the meantime they are often famished with hunger.

Their medical knowledge, even if classed with supertitious usages, is not to be despised, and they have large acquaintance with healing herbs and the powers of nature. A lady of Philadelphia, who resided many years among