Page:The Red Man and the White Man in North America.djvu/211

Rh and feather and epaulets and gold lace just received from England, the chief suggestively assured him soon after that he had dreamed a dream. On being questioned as to its purport, he candidly said that he had dreamed that Sir William was to make him a present of a similar array. Of course the politic officer fulfilled the dream. After a proper lapse of time Sir William also communicated a dream of his own, to the effect that the chief would present him with a large stretch of valuable land. The chief at once conferred the gift, quietly remarking that the white man “dreamed too hard for the Indian.”

The significance which the superstition of the Indian gives as omens to signs in heaven among the stars and clouds, or to aspects or incidents or objects which haply attract his notice around him, will either quicken him to joy or burden him with terror. The boldest warrior will wake with shudderings from a profound sleep, and nothing will bend his will to a course of which he has thus been instructed to beware. His own mind in fear or hope gives an ill or a propitious significance to things which have in themselves no suggestion of either character. The dream of a brave whose character or counsel carries weight with it will often decide the issue of peace or war for a tribe. As superstition, like most forms of folly and error, predominates with shadows and fears over all brighter fancies which it brings to the mind, so the Indian's reliance upon his visionary experiences tends to a prevailing melancholy. The traditions of his tribe, also, were inwrought with some superstitions which on occasions turned a bright or a dark counsel in emergencies, and served to inspirit or to depress them in projected enterprises.

The Jesuit missionaries among the Indians soon learned that some of the most embarrassing conditions of their residence, and some of the most threatening dangers to which they were exposed, — thwarting their efforts at conversion, and keeping their lives in momentary perils, — came