My husband at length ventured to propose to Mrs.  “Pawnee Blanc,” the nearest surviving relative of the person interred, to replace the pickets with a neat wooden platform.

The idea pleased her much, for, through her intimacy in Paquette’s family, she had acquired something of a taste for civilization.  Accordingly, a little platform about a foot in height, properly finished with a moulding around the edge, was substituted for the worn and blackened pickets; and it was touching to witness the mournful satisfaction with which two or three old crones would come regularly every evening at sunset, to sit and gossip over the ashes of their departed relatives.

On the fine moonlight nights, too, there might often be seen a group sitting there, and enjoying what is to them a solemn hour, for they entertain the poetic belief that “the moon was made to give light to the dead.”

The reverence of the Indians for the memory of their departed friends, and their dutiful attention in visiting and making offerings to the Great Spirit, over their last resting-places, is an example worthy of imitation among their more enlightened brethren.  Not so, however, with some of their customs in relation to the dead.

The news of the decease of one of their number is a signal for a general mourning and lamentation; it is also in some instances, I am sorry to say, when the means and appliances can be found, the apology for a general carouse.

The relatives weep and howl for grief—­the friends and acquaintance bear them company through sympathy.  A few of their number are deputed to wait upon their Father, to inform him of the event, and to beg some presents “to help them,” as they express it, “dry up their tears.”

We received such a visit one morning, not long after the payment was concluded.

A drunken little Indian, named, by the French people around, “Old Boilvin,” from his resemblance to an Indian Agent of that name at Prairie du Chien, was the person on account of whose death the application was made.  “He had been fishing,” they said, “on the shores of one of the little lakes near the Portage, and, having taken a little too much ‘whiskee,’ had fallen into the water and been drowned.”  Nothing of him had been found but his blanket on the bank, so there could be no funeral ceremonies, but his friends were prepared to make a great lamentation about him.

Their Father presented them with tobacco, knives, calico, and looking-glasses, in proportion to what he thought might be their reasonable grief at the loss of such a worthless vagabond, and they departed.

There was no difficulty, notwithstanding the stringent prohibitions on the subject, in procuring a keg of whiskey from some of the traders who yet remained.  Armed with that and their other treasures, they assembled at an appointed spot, not far from the scene of the catastrophe, and, sitting down with the keg in their midst, they commenced their affliction.  The more they drank, the more clamorous became their grief, and the faster flowed their tears.