My motives for thus employing my time and paper were first to amuse and instruct myself, but principally for your own amusement and such few friends as you may think _worthy_ of the communication. _Lend them not [out] of the house_, nor let too many see them, for I have some notion, please God I live, to digest them into form and regularity, and have them published--besides a vast many others I [propose], with God's help, collecting. But this is merely between ourselves, and immediately after perusal blot out all _this_ paragraph. Journals [and] voyages of these people have been frequently published. But I have met with none that gives so circumstantial a detail of their private life (if I may so say) as is necessary to give that insight to their ideas and notions (and this latter term too, I think, critically speaking, cannot be applicable to them) that is required, and so much wanted, to form a proper estimate of man in his _natural_ state. We all see them, hear them and relate of them. But where is there one who can give the _whys_ and _wherefores_ that these people do so and so? I beg you will _blot_ this last paragraph entirely out, at least the first part. And do not be premature in your condemnation or judgement of me, for I trust my motives are entirely destitute of vanity, and only the desire of truth urges me, or at least [the desire for] true and just information. G N. April 16th 1823. {41} [Comments on Aboriginal Beliefs] Such are the notions and ideas of these people. They acknowledge a superior power, not Wee-suck-ā-jāāk, as I was erroneously informed, _but the same _one_ you adore in the Christmas holidays_. This one they have a great respect and veneration for. But seldom it is, as far as I can learn, that they sacrifice or pray to him, make speeches, which, though extempore, _I_ consider as much prayers as though they were composed after the most deliberate and mature reflection. And many parts of them [are] so simple, plain, natural, and withal so sublime, that I frequently felt great pleasure in attending to them. But these sentiments are so few comparitively speaking, and the absurdities so great and frequent, that few men can hear them without lamenting their ignorance. They have often seemed to me as desirous in a high degree of becoming acquainted with the true _mode_ of worshipping, from the frequent changes, even during my time, they have made in their _worshippings_. As a proof of this is the avidity with which they seize any new system introduced from their _southern_ neighbors, the short time they hold it, and how completely it is abandoned, if not entirely forgotten for another equally, if not more, absurd than the former. To introduce a new system among them, it is only necessary to report an extravagant tale of some wonderful character, the cures by _this_ means that have been performed, and such like miraculous and fantastic nonsense. But in their fundamental points I perceive no visible alteration.