Akaitcho Generally Evaded Our
Questions On These Points But Expressed A Desire To Learn From Us And
Regularly Attended Divine Service During His Residence At The Fort,
Behaving With The Utmost Decorum.
This leader indeed and many others of his tribe possess a laudable
curiosity which might easily be directed to the most important ends; and
I believe that a well-conducted Christian mission to this quarter would
not fail of producing the happiest effect.
Old Keskarrah alone used
boldly to express his disbelief of a Supreme Deity and state that he
could not credit the existence of a Being whose power was said to extend
everywhere but whom he had not yet seen, although he was now an old man.
The aged sceptic is not a little conceited as the following exordium to
one of his speeches evinces: "It is very strange that I never meet with
anyone who is equal in sense to myself." The same old man in one of his
communicative moods related to us the following tradition: The earth had
been formed but continued enveloped in total darkness, when a bear and a
squirrel met on the shores of a lake; a dispute arose as to their
respective powers, which they agreed to settle by running in opposite
directions round the lake, and whichever arrived first at the starting
point was to evince his superiority by some signal act of power. The
squirrel beat, ran up a tree, and loudly demanded light which, instantly
beaming forth, discovered a bird dispelling the gloom with its wings; the
bird was afterwards recognised to be a crow.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 381 of 649
Words from 102874 to 103142
of 176017
