McKenney mentions that the young wife, during the short bloom of her beauty, is an object of homage and tenderness to her husband.  One Indian woman, the Flying Pigeon, a beautiful and excellent person, of whom he gives some particulars, is an instance of the power uncommon characters will always exert of breaking down the barriers custom has erected round them.  She captivated by her charms, and inspired her husband and son with, reverence for her character.  The simple praise with which the husband indicates the religion, the judgment, and the generosity he saw in her, are as satisfying as Count Zinzendorf’s more labored eulogium on his “noble consort.”  The conduct of her son, when, many years after her death, he saw her picture at Washington, is unspeakably affecting.  Catlin gives anecdotes of the grief of a chief for the loss of a daughter, and the princely gifts he offers in exchange for her portrait, worthy not merely of European, but of Troubadour sentiment.  It is also evident that, as Mrs. Schoolcraft says, the women have great power at home.  It can never be otherwise, men being dependent upon them for the comfort of their lives.  Just so among ourselves, wives who are neither esteemed nor loved by their husbands have great power over their conduct by the friction of every day, and over the formation of their opinions by the daily opportunities so close a relation affords of perverting testimony and instilling doubts.  But these sentiments should not come in brief flashes, but burn as a steady flame; then there would be more women worthy to inspire them.  This power is good for nothing, unless the woman be wise to use it aright.  Has the Indian, has the white woman, as noble a feeling of life and its uses, as religious a self-respect, as worthy a field of thought and action, as man?  If not, the white woman, the Indian woman, occupies a position inferior to that of man.  It is not so much a question of power, as of privilege.

The men of these subjugated tribes, now accustomed to drunkenness and every way degraded, bear but a faint impress of the lost grandeur of the race.  They are no longer strong, tall, or finely proportioned.  Yet, as you see them stealing along a height, or striding boldly forward, they remind you of what was majestic in the red man.

On the shores of Lake Superior, it is said, if you visit them at home, you may still see a remnant of the noble blood.  The Pillagers (Pilleurs), a band celebrated by the old travellers, are still existent there.

  “Still some, ‘the eagles of their tribe,’ may rush.”

I have spoken of the hatred felt by the white man for the Indian:  with white women it seems to amount to disgust, to loathing.  How I could endure the dirt, the peculiar smell, of the Indians, and their dwellings, was a great marvel in the eyes of my lady acquaintance; indeed, I wonder why they did not quite give me up, as they certainly looked on me with great distaste for it.  “Get you gone, you Indian dog,” was the felt, if not the breathed, expression towards the hapless owners of the soil;—­all their claims, all their sorrows quite forgot, in abhorrence of their dirt, their tawny skins, and the vices the whites have taught them.