ullas are weaker than we; their arms are not so strong, their hearts
are not so big, as ours. As well might the timid deer make war upon a
hungry wolf, as the Walkullas upon the Shawanos. We could slay them as
easily as a hawk pounces into a dove's nest and steals away her
unfeathered little ones; the Mad Buffalo alone could have taken the
scalps of half the nation. But a strange tribe has come among them--men
whose skin is as white as the folds of the cloud, and whose hair shines
like the great star of day. They do not fight, as we fight, with bows
and arrows and with war-axes, but with spears[A], which thunder and
lighten and send unseen death. The Shawanos fall before it, as the
grapes and acorns fall when the forest is shaken by the wind in the
Beaver-Moon(4). Look at the arm nearest ray heart; it was stricken by a
bolt from the stranger's thunder. But he fell by the hand of the Mad
Buffalo, who fears nothing but shame, and his scalp lies at the feet of
the head chief.

[Footnote A: Muskets, which were termed "spears" by the Indians in the
earlier part of their intercourse with the Europeans.]

"Fathers, this was our battle. We came upon the Walkullas, I and my
brothers, when they were unprepared. They were just going to hold the
dance of the green corn. The whole nation had come to the dance; there
were none left behind, save the sick and the very old. None were
painted; they were all for peace, and were as women. We crept close to
them, and hid in the thick hazles which grew upon the edge of their
camp; for the Shawanos are the cunning adder, and not the foolish
rattlesnake. We saw them preparing to offer a sacrifice to the Great
Spirit. We saw them clean the deer, and hang his head, and his horns,
and his entrails, upon the great white pole with a forked top, which
stood over the roof of the council-wigwam. They did not know that the
Master of Life(5) had sent the Shawanos to mix blood with the
sacrifices. We saw them take the new corn, and rub it upon their hands,
and breasts, and faces. Then the head chief, having first thanked the
Master of Life for his great goodness to the Walkullas, got up, and gave
his brethren a talk. He told them that the Great Spirit loved them, and
had made them victorious over all their enemies; that he had sent a
great many fat bears, and deer, and mooses, to their hunting-grounds;
and had given them fish, whose heads were very small and bodies very
big; that he had made their corn