{Indian Funeral Sermon.}
Thus This Orator Runs On, Highly Extolling The Dead Man,
For His Valour, Conduct, Strength, Riches, And Good-Humour;
And Enumerating His Guns, Slaves And Almost Every Thing
He Was Possess'd Of, When Living.
After which, he addresses himself
to the People of that Town or Nation, and bids them supply
the dead
Man's Place, by following his steps, who, he assures them,
is gone into the Country of Souls, (which they think lies a great way off,
in this World, which the Sun visits, in his ordinary Course)
and that he will have the Enjoyment of handsome young Women,
great Store of Deer to hunt, never meet with Hunger, Cold or Fatigue,
but every thing to answer his Expectation and Desire.
This is the Heaven they propose to themselves; but, on the contrary,
for those Indians that are lazy, thievish amongst themselves,
bad Hunters, and no Warriours, nor of much Use to the Nation,
to such they allot, in the next World, Hunger, Cold, Troubles, old ugly Women
for their Companions, with Snakes, and all sorts of nasty Victuals to feed on.
Thus is mark'd out their Heaven and Hell. {Indian Traditions.}
After all this Harangue, he diverts the People with some of their Traditions,
as when there was a violent hot Summer, or very hard Winter;
when any notable Distempers rag'd amongst them; when they were at War
with such and such Nations; how victorious they were; and what were
the Names of their War-Captains.
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