It recites the journey of a half-breed Christian
Indian into the country of the heathen tribe of Beaver Indians, and the
miraculous interposition by which his life was saved when these Pagans
had caught him. They told him he must kill an eagle flying far above
them; at his prayer, the bird descended and came within the reach of his
sabre. In turn, he asked them to shoot their arrows into a tree; but by
rubbing it with holy water, the bark was so hardened that not one of
their shafts could pierce it. So they confessed the greatness of the
Christian's God.[18]
This charmingly naive narrative makes us doubly regret that the editor's
projected _Chrestomathie Algonquine_ has not been carried out in
full.
The southern Atlantic coast of the United States was principally
occupied by the Muskokee or Creek tribe, who occupied the territory as
far west as the Mississippi. Their language was first reduced to writing
in the Greek alphabet, by the Moravian missionaries, about 1733; but at
present a modified form of the English alphabet is in use. They had a
very definite and curious tribal history, full of strange metaphors and
obscure references. It was, according to old authorities, "written in
red and black characters, on the skin of a young buffalo," and was read
off from this symbolic script by their head-chief, Chekilli, to the
English, in 1735, and skin and translation were both sent to London, and
both lost there.
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