then, we cannot do better than no longer to countenance or cherish those, who have proved themselves so unworthy thereof.  They are no longer, as to us, under a favorable aspect.  They shall dearly pay for the wrong they have done us.  They have not, it is true, deprived us of the means of hunting for our maintenance and cloathing; they have not cut off the free passage of our canoes, on the lakes and rivers of this country; but they have done worse; they have supposed in us a tameness of sentiments, which does not, nor cannot, exist in us.  They have defloured our principal maidens in wantonness, and lightly sent them back to us.  This is the just motive which cries out for our vengeance.  Sun! be thou favorable to us in this point, as thou art in that of our hunting, when we beseech thee to guide us in quest of our daily support.  Be propitious to us, that we may not fail of discovering the ambushes that may be laid for us; that we may not be surprized unawares in our cabbins, or elsewhere; and, finally, that we may not fall into the hands of our enemies.  Grant them no chance with us, for they deserve none.  Behold the skins of their beasts now a burnt-offering to thee!  Accept it, as if the fire-brand I hold in my hands, and now set to the pile, was lighted immediately by thy rays, instead of our domestic fire.”

Every one of the assistants, as well men as women, listen attentively to this invocation, with a kind of religious terror, and in a profound silence.  But scarce is the pile on a blaze, but the shouts and war-cries begin from all parts.  Curses and imprecations are poured forth without mercy or reserve, on the enemy-nation.  Every one, that he may succeed in destroying any particular enemy he may have in the nation against which war is declared, vows so many skins or furs to be burnt in the same place in honor of the sun.  Then they bring and throw into the fire, the hardest stones they can find of all sizes, which are calcined in it.  They take out the properest pieces for their purpose, to be fastened to the end of a stick, made much in the form of a hatchet-handle.  They slit it at one end, and fix in the cleft any fragment of those burnt stones, that will best fit it, which they further secure, by binding it tightly round with the strongest Toobee, or fibrils of fir-root above-mentioned; and then make use of it, as of a hatchet, not so much for cutting of wood, as for splitting the skull of the enemy, when they can surprize him.  They form also other instruments of war; such as long poles, one of which is armed with bone of elk, made pointed like a small-sword, and edge of both sides, in order to reach the enemy at a distance, when he is obliged to take to the woods.  The arrows are made at the same time, pointed at the end with a sharp bone.  The wood of which these arrows are made, as well as the bows, must have been dried at the mysterious fire, and even the guts of which the strings are made.  But you are here to observe, I am speaking of an incident that happened some years ago; for, generally speaking, they are now better provided with arms, and iron, by the Europeans supplying them, for their chace, in favor of their dealings with them for their peltry.  But to return to my narration.