obscured, altered and become fabulous in the long succession of ages.
3Keokuk, surnamed the Prophet, chief of the Kickapoos, a tribe of the nation of Potawatomies, is the inventor of a new doctrine. He has adherents to the number of about 400, young men for the most part. He claims to have received his religion by supernatural intervention, from the mouth of the Great Spirit himself. He calls himself the envoy of God, Christ under a new form, and invites all the nations of the earth to come and gather under his banner. He adopts sundry moral precepts, among others abstinence from all liquors and the keeping of Sunday. He appears profoundly ignorant of Christian doctrines,' and only admits certain points of it which agree with his ideas. His fellow religionists assemble for prayer four times a week between one and three in the afternoon. This prayer consists of a few detached sentences, often repeated in a monotonous musical tone. All perform this in concert, and to keep harmony in the words each holds a small strip of wood in his hand, an inch and a half wide by eight to ten long, upon which some arbitrary characters are traced, which they follow with a finger until the last mark gives warning of the end of prayer.
They reckon five of these characters or marks. The first represents the heart, the second the heart and the flesh, the third life, the fourth their names, the fifth their families. During the service they run over these marks several times. First the person imagines himself as existing upon earth, then he draws near the door of the house of God, etc. Putting their finger upon the lowest mark, they say, " O our Father, make our hearts like thy heart, as good as thine, as strong as thine.-As good as thy house, as good as the door of thy house, as hard and as good as the earth around thy house, as strong as thy walk
3 The remainder of the Potawatomi legend is translated from Missions de 1'Oregon, pp. 2238-303.
4 See Catlin, vol. II, pp. 98-ioo.