cease their superstitious performances, whenever a baptized person, wearing a token of his religion, such as a cross or a blessed medal, comes near their meeting place. An old woman, whom I am instructing at this time and who long belonged to the Big Medicine, has been threatened with death by the jugglers if she becomes a Christian; still she remains firm in her good resolutions. The example of her husband and her six children, whom I have baptized, encourages her to brave these menaces. The chiefs of this sect are feared among the savages and impose greatly on their credulity; they make the poor Indians believe that they can at will take the form of a serpent, bear, wolf or any other animal; that they can foretell the future and discover murder and theft. Their knowledge of herbs allows them often to make extraordinary cures. After administering the medicine to the sick, they utter cries and yells, pretend to suck the malady from the body by long tubes, dance around the sufferer and perform the most astonishing antics before him.
There is a tradition among the Potawatomies that there is in the moon an old woman, always busy at the making of a big basket. If she succeeds in finishing her task the world must perish; but a great dog is watching her continually, and destroys her work as often as she has it nearly done. The fight between the dog and the woman takes place at every eclipse of the moon. The big dog is the black spot that appears on the south of that luminary.
The Potawatomi who gives frequent feasts is, according to the expression of their songs, one of the heroes of the village. At the beginning of winter, when the hunt has been successful, every lodge presents a scene of rejoicing. Night and day the sound of the flute is heard, together with the deafening clamor of the tezereeken or drum, accompanying the monotonous songs of the savages. There is a sacred custom among them, that he who gives the feast may take no share in it himself; he would be dishonored and deemed sacrilegious. The hunter cuts up the animal that he has