Page:The Red Man and the White Man in North America.djvu/210

190 through the whole continent and under all variety of circumstances, were and are the victims of enfeebling and distressing superstitions. These are associated with the most serious and the most trifling incidents of their lives. They find dark omens and forebodings not only in events, but even in their own random thoughts. Dreams have a deeper, a more serious, a more potent influence over them than do any occurrences and experiences of the noonday light. They brood for hours of keen and anxious musing over the interpretation of any vision of a night, — its counsel, command, or warning to them. It is in their dreams that their own guiding or guardian spirit comes to them. His own revered and familiar fetich, or especial companion for life, comes to each of the youth passing on to manhood, in some special dream connected with his period of retirement and fasting, as he is in training for a brave. It may come through the shape of some animal or bird, which henceforth is the cherished confidant of the rest of his life.

Among the mysterious treasures of the “medicine-bag” is some article, meaningless to all but the owner, which is identified with this dream messenger. The course of action of an Indian in some of the most important of his voluntary proceedings is often decided by some direction believed to have been made to him in a dream. If forced by companionship or necessity to do anything against which his superstitious musings have warned him, he complies with a faintness of heart which unmans him far more than does a faltering courage in the thick of carnage. A pleasant dream will irradiate his breast and his features for long days afterwards. He cheerfully complies with any acts of self-denial to which he is prompted through this medium. A pleasant story is told of a chief of the Five Nations in warm friendship with Sir William Johnson, British agent among those tribes. Seeing once the portly officer arrayed in a splendid scarlet uniform, with chapeau