The American Indians: Their History, Condition and Prospects, from Original Notes and ManuscriptsSchoolcraft, Henry Rowe
History
The American Indians: Their History, Condition and Prospects, from Original Notes and Manuscripts
Schoolcraft, Henry Rowe
Indians of North America
We have recently had an opportunity of conversing with one of this class
of sacred person, who has within late years embraced Christianity; and
have made some notes of the interview, which we will advert to for the
purpose of exhibiting his testimony, as to the true character of this
class of impostors. Chusco, the person referred to, is an Ottawa Indian
who has long exercised the priestly office, so to say, to his brethren
on the northern frontiers. He is now a man turned of seventy. He is of
small stature, somewhat bent forward, and supports the infirmities of
age by walking with a staff. His sight is impaired, but his memory
accurate, enabling him to narrate with particularity events which
transpired more than half a century ago. He was present at the great
convocation of northern Indians at Greenville, which followed Gen.
Wayne's victories in the west--an event to which most of these tribes
look back, as an era in their history. He afterwards returned to his
native country in the upper lakes, and fixed his residence at
Michilimackinac, where in late years, his wife became a convert to the
Christian faith, and united herself to the mission church on that
island. A few years after, the old prophet, who despised this mode of
faith, and thought but little of his wife's sagacity in uniting herself
to a congregation of believers, felt his own mind arrested by the same
truths, and finally also embraced them, and was propounded for
admission, and afterwards kept on trial before the session. It was about
this time, or soon after he had been received as an applicant for
membership, that the writer visited his lodge, and entered into a full
examination of his sentiments and opinions, contrasting them freely with
what they had formerly been. We requested him to narrate to us the facts
of his conversion to the principles of Christianity, indicating the
progress of truth on his mind, which he did in substance, through an
interpreter, as follows:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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