"They bear sickness and pain with great fortitude, seldom uttering a complaint; bystanders sympathize with them, and try every means to relieve them. Insanity is unknown; the blind are taken care of by their friends and the nation generally, and are well dressed and fed. Drunkenness is rare, and is much ridiculed; a drunken man is said to be bereft of his reason, and is avoided. As to the origin of the nation, their belief is, that the Master of life formed a man, and placed him on the earth; he was solitary, and cried to the Master of life for a companion, who sent him down a woman; from the union of these two proceeded a son and daughter, who were married, and built themselves a lodge distinct from that of their parents; all the nations proceeded from them, excepting the whites, whose origin they pretend not to know. When a man is killed in battle, the thunder is supposed to take him up, they do not know where. In going to battle each man traces an imaginary figure of the thunder on the soil; and he who represents it incorrectly is killed by the thunder. A person saw this thunder one day on the ground, with a beautiful mockasin on each side of it; having much need of a pair, he took them and went his way; but on his return, by the same spot, the thunder took him off, and he has not been since heard of. They seem to have vague notions of the future state. They think that a brave warrior, or good hunter, will walk in a good path; but a bad man, or coward, will find a bad path. Thinking the deceased has far to travel, they bury with his body mockasins, some articles of food, &c. {118} to support him on the journey. Many persons, they believe, have become reanimated, who had been, during their apparent death, in strange villages; but as the inhabitants used them ill, they returned. They say they have never seen the Master of life, and therefore cannot pretend to personify him; but they have often heard him speak in the thunder; they wear often a shell which is in honour, or in representation of him, but they do not pretend that it resembles him, or has any thing in common with his form, organization, or dimensions.