“The last act before the burial, performed by the mother, crying over the dead body of her child, was that of taking from it a lock of hair for a memorial.  While she did this, I endeavoured to console her by offering the usual arguments:  that the child was happy in being released from the miseries of this present life, and that she should forbear to grieve, because it would be restored to her in another world, happy and everlasting.  She answered that she knew it, and that by the lock of hair she should discover her daughter; for she would take it with her.  In this she alluded to the day when some pious hand would place in her own grave, along with the carrying belt and paddle, this little relic, hallowed by maternal tears.”

After many ups and downs of hope and despair, and many narrow escapes of being killed and made into broth for warlike Ojibwes, Henry at length obtained permission to travel with a party of Ojibwe Indians who were invited to visited Sir William Johnson at Niagara.  This British Governor of Canada was attempting to enter into friendly relations with the Amerindian tribes, and induce them to accept quietly the transference of Canada from French to English control.

[Illustration:  SCENE ON CANADIAN RIVER:  WILD SWANS FLYING UP DISTURBED BY BEAR]

Before starting, however, to interview this great White Governor, the Ojibwes decided to consult their oracle, the Great Turtle, after which Fort Michili-Makinak was named.[8] Behind Fort Michili-Makinak is an extraordinary mound or hill of stone supposed to resemble this reptile exactly, and in fact to be in some way the residence of a supernatural giant turtle.

[Footnote 8:  Michili, pronounced “Mishili”, means “great”, and Makinak, “turtle”, in the translation of some Canadian writers.  The turtle in question is, of course, not the turtle of sea waters, but the Snapping Turtle (Chelydra serpentina) found in most Canadian lakes and the big rivers of North America, east of the Rocky Mountains.]

For invoking and consulting the Great Turtle, the first thing to be done was to build a large house, within which was placed a kind of tent, for the use of the priest and reception of the spirit.  The tent was formed of moose skins, hung over a framework of wood made out of five pillars of five different species of timber, about ten feet in height and eight inches in diameter, set up in a circle of four feet in diameter, with their bases two feet deep in the soil.  At the top the pillars were bound together by a circular hoop of withies.  Over the whole of this edifice were spread the moose skins, covering it at top and round the sides, and made fast with thongs of the same, except that on one side a part was left unfastened, to admit of the entrance of the priest.