The devotional exercises of the Indians consist in singing, dancing, and performing various mystical ceremonies, which they believe efficacious in healing the sick, frustrating the designs of their enemies, and securing their own success. They often offer up to the Great Spirit a part of the game first taken in a hunting expedition, a part of the first produce of their fields, and a part of their food. At a feast, they first throw some of the broth, and then of the meat, into the fire. In smoking, they generally testify their reverence for the Master of life, by directing the first puff upwards, and the second downwards, or the first to the rising, and the second to the setting sun: at other times they turn the pipe to every point of the compass. They firmly believe in the immortality of the soul, and in a state of future retribution: but their conceptions on these subjects are modified and tinged by their occupations in life, and by their notions of good and evil. They suppose the spirit retains the same inclinations as when in the body, and rejoices in its old pursuits. At times, an Indian warrior, when about to kill and scalp a prostrate enemy, addresses him in such terms as the following:— “My name is Cashegra: I am a famous warrior, and am going to kill you. When you reach the land of spirits, you will see the ghost of my father: tell him it was Cashegra sent you there.” The uplifted tomahawk then descends upon his victim. The Mandans[7] expected, when they died, to return to the original subterraneous abode of their fathers: the good reaching the ancient village by means of the lake, which the weight of the sins of the bad will render them unable to pass. They who have behaved themselves well in this life, and been brave warriors and good hunters, will be received into the town of brave and generous spirits; but the useless and selfish will be doomed to reside in the town of poor and useless spirits. The belief of those untutored children of nature has an influence on their conduct. Among them the grand defect is, an erroneous estimate of good and evil, right and wrong. [Illustration: Destruction of the Pequots.] DESTRUCTION OF THE PEQUOTS IN 1637.