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on the bank of the stream, seeing him through the crevices, she called to him and presented her babe. The good chief, with tears in his eyes, rejoiced at her safe delivery; he told her not to be uneasy, that he should lay by for a few days and would soon bring her some nourishing food, and some medicines to take. Then going to his encampment, he ordered all his men to go out a hunting, and remained himself to guard the camp."

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Forgive me, reader, if, for a moment, I disturb the order of my extract. There is nothing that I know within the whole scope of anecdotal history more affecting than the present narration. How exalted was the humanity of this Indian Chief! how refined his delicacy! how watchful and tender his care!The pathos, though deep, is sweet; and Mr. Heckewelder has communicated the story in a style of feeling and simplicity worthy of it. He has made us witnesses of the transaction. We see, through the darkness of the night, the swarthy warrior walking anxiously backward and forward before the hut of bark,— the "little infirmary" of the labouring woman. The morning comes; and in the pale dawn behold! the poor creature pointing, in a state of utter exhaustion, to her babe, delivered in the wilderness-in night and solitude! Yet was she not entirely without support; for, over and above the secret aid which came to her pangs from high, see! she meets with sympathy in a wild man, a stranger, a warrior; who melts into tears at the sight! My heart, too, swells as I read. Bear with me-we will resume our extract.

"Now for the reverse of the picture. Among the men whom this chief had under his command, was one of those white vagabonds whom I have before described. The captain was much afraid of him, knowing him to be a bad man; and as he had expressed a great desire to go a hunting with the rest, he believed him gone, and entertained no fears for the woman's safety. But it was not long before he was undeceived. While he was gone to a small distance to dig roots for his poor patient, he heard her cries, and running with speed to her hut, he was informed by her that the white man had threatened to take her life if she did not immediately throw her child into the river. The captain, enraged at the cruelty of this man, and the liberty he had taken with his prisoner, hailed him as he was running off, and told him That the moment he should miss the child, the 'tomahawk should be in his head.' After a few days this humane chief placed the woman carefully on a horse, and they went together to the place of their destination, the mother and child doing well. I have heard him relate this story, to which he added, that whenever he should go out on an excursion, he never would suffer a white man to be of his party.

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Yet I must acknowledge that I have known an Indian chief who had been guilty of the crime of killing the child of a female prisoner. His name was Glikhican. In the year 1770, he joined the congregation of the Christian Indians; the details of his conversion are related at large by Loskiel in his History of the Mis

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sions*. Before that time he had been conspicuous as a warrior and a counsellor, and in oratory it is said he never was surpassed. This man, having joined the French in the year 1754 or 1755, in their war against the English, and being at that time out with a party of Frenchmen, took among other prisoners, a young woman, named Rachel Abbott, from the Conegocheague settlement, who had at her breast a sucking babe. The incessant cries of the child, the hurry to get off, but above all, the persuasions of his white companions, induced him, much against his inclination, to kill the innocent creature; while the mother, in an agony of grief, and her face suffused with tears, begged that its life might be spared. The woman, however, was brought safe to the Ohio, where she was kindly treated and adopted, and some years afterwards was married to a Delaware chief of respectability, by whom she had several children, who are now living with the Christian Indians in Upper Canada.

"Glikhican never forgave himself for having committed this crime, although many times, and long before his becoming a Christian, he had begged the woman's pardon with tears in his eyes, and received her free and full forgiveness. In vain she pointed out to him all the circumstances that he could have alleged to excuse the deed; in vain she reminded him of his unwillingness at the time, and his having been in a manner compelled to it by his French asso

* Loskiel, p. 3. ch. 3.

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ciates; nothing that she did say could assuage his sorrow or quiet the perturbation of his mind; he called himself a wretch, a monster, a coward (the proud feelings of an Indian must be well understood to judge of the force of this self-accusation), and to the moment of his death the remembrance of this fatal act preyed like a canker-worm upon his spirits. I ought to add, that from the time of his conversion he lived the life of a Christian, and died as such, zeit

The Indians are cruel to their enemies!-In some cases they are, but perhaps not more so than white men have sometimes shewn themselves. There have been instances of white men flaying or taking off the skin of Indians who had fallen into their hands, then tanning those skins or cutting them in pieces, making them up into razor straps, and exposing those for sale, as was done at or near Pittsburg sometime during the revolutionary war. Those things are abominations in the eyes of the Indians, who, indeed, when strongly excited, inflict torments on their prisoners and put them to death by cruel tortures, but never are guilty of acts of barbarity in cold blood. Neither do the Delawares and some other Indian nations, ever on any account disturb the ashes of the dead. spoutdooanof ̧won and 20 The custom of torturing prisoners is of ancient date, and was first introduced as al trial of courage. I have been told, however, that among some tribes it has never been in use; but it must be added that those tribes gave no quarter. The Delawares accuse the Iroquoise of having been the inventors of this

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piece of cruelty, and charge them further with eating the flesh of their prisoners after the torture was over.zibBe this as it may, there are now but few instances of prisoners being put to death in this manner silt most guieits live routon o HIO Rare as these barbarous executions now are, I have reason to believe that they would be still less frequent, if proper pains were taken to turn the Indians away from this heathenish custom. Instead of this, it is but too true that they have been excited to cruelty by unprincipled white men, who have joined in their war-feasts and even added to the barbarity of the scene. Can there be a more brutal act than, after furnishing those savages, as they are called, with implements of war and destruction, to give them an ox to kill and to roast whole, to dance the war dance with them round the slaughtered animal, strike at him, stab him, telling the Indians at the same time, Strike, stab! thus you must do to your enemy! Then taking a piece of the meat and tearing it with their teeth," So you must eat

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his flesh!" and sucking up the juices, Thus you "must drink his blood; and at last devour the whole as wolves do a carcass. This is what is known to have been done by some of those Indian agents that I have mentioned. 100 of babaom Que Is this possible? the reader will naturally exclaim. Yes, it is possible, and every Indian war

will tell you that it is true. It has come to me from so many credible sources that I am forced to believe it.How can the Indians now be reproached with acts of cruelty to which they have been excited

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