"My friends,[14]--The Great Spirit has sent you to us with kind words, and he has opened our ears to hear them, which we have done. We are glad to see you and to hear you speak, for we know that you are our friends. What you have said relative to our learning to read and to write, we are sure can do us no good--we are now too old; but for our children, we think it would be well for them to learn; and they are now going to schools in our village, and learning to read and to write. As to the white man's religion which you have explained, we have heard it told to us in the same way, many times, in our own country, and there are white men and women there now, trying to teach it to our people. We do not think your religion good, unless it is so for white people, and this we don't doubt. The Great Spirit has made our skins red, and the forests for us to live in. He has also given us our religion, which has taken our fathers to 'the beautiful hunting grounds,' where we wish to meet them. We don't believe that the Great Spirit made us to live with pale faces in this world, and we think He has intended we should live separate in the world to come. "My friends,--We know that when white men come into our country we are unhappy--the Indians all die, or are driven away before the white men. Our hope is to enjoy our hunting grounds in the world to come, which white men cannot take from us: we _know_ that our fathers and our mothers have gone there, and we don't know why we should not go there too. "My friends,--You have told us that the Son of the Great Spirit was on earth, and that he was killed by white men, and that the Great Spirit sent him here to get killed; now we cannot understand all this--this may be necessary for white people, but the red men, we think, have not yet got to be so wicked as to require that. If it was necessary that the Son of the Great Spirit should be killed for white people, it may be necessary for them to believe all this; but for us, we cannot understand it." [14] Being a silent listener to these conversations, I took out my note book and wrote down the remarks here given, as they were translated by Jeffrey. He here asked for the pipe, and having drawn a few whiffs, proceeded.