An Account of the Customs and Manners of the Micmakis and Maricheets Savage Nations, Now Dependent on the Government of Cape-BretonMaillard, Antoine Simon
History
An Account of the Customs and Manners of the Micmakis and Maricheets Savage Nations, Now Dependent on the Government of Cape-Breton
Maillard, Antoine Simon
Malecite Indians; Micmac Indians; Nova Scotia -- Description and travel
The general belief amongst them is, that, after death, they go to a
place of joy and plenty, in which sensuality is no more omitted than in
Mahomet's paradise. There they are to find women in abundance, a country
thick of all manner of game to humor their passion for hunting, and bows
and arrows of the best sort, ready made. But these regions are supposed
at a great distance from their's, to which they will have to travel; and
therefore it's requisite to be well-provided, before they quit their own
country, with arrows, long poles fit for hunting, or for covering
cabbins, with bear-skins, or elk-hides, with women, and with some of
their children, to make their journey to that place more commodious,
more pleasant, and appear more expeditious. It was especially in
character for a warrior, not to leave this world without taking with him
some marks of his bravery, as particularly scalps. Therefore it was,
that when any of them died, he was always followed by, at least, one of
his children, some women, and above all, by her whom in his life he had
most loved, who threw themselves into the grave, and were interred with
him. They also put into it great strips, or rolls of the bark of birch,
arrows, and scalps. Nor do they unfrequently, at this day, light upon
some of these old burying-places in the woods, with all these funeral
accompanyments; but of late, the interment of live persons has been
almost entirely disused.
I never could learn whether they had any set formulary of prayer, or
invocation to the _great Manitoo_; or whether they made any sacrifices
of beasts or peltry, to any other _Manitoo_, in contradiction to him, or
to any being whom they dreaded as an evil genius. I could discover no
more than what I have above related of the ceremonies in honor of the
sun. I know, indeed, they have a great veneration for the moon, which
they invoke, whenever, under favor of its light, they undertake any
journeys, either by land or water, or tend the snares they have set for
their game. This is the prayer they occasionally address to it:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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