might of right, when joined with courage, that none ventured a word of
resentment or question. His father, struck by truth, endeavored, and
with success, to abolish the barbarous custom in the tribe. On a later
occasion, Petalesharro again offered his life, if required, but it was
not.

This young warrior visiting Washington, a medal was presented him in
honor of these acts. His reply deserves sculpture: "When I did it, I
knew not that it was good. I did it in ignorance. This medal makes me
know that it was good."

The recorder, through his playful expressions of horror at a declaration
so surprising to the civilized Good, shows himself sensible to the grand
simplicity of heroic impulse it denotes. Were we, too, so good, as to
need a medal to show us that we are!

The half-breed and half-civilized chiefs, however handsome, look vulgar
beside the pure blood. They have the dignity of neither race.

The death of Oseola, (as described by Catlin,) presents a fine picture
in the stern, warlike kind, taking leave with kindness, as a private
friend, of the American officers; but, as a foe in national regards, he
raised himself in his dying bed, and painted his face with the tokens of
eternal enmity.

The historian of the Indians should be one of their own race, as able to
sympathize with them, and possessing a mind as enlarged and cultivated
as John Ross, and with his eye turned to the greatness of the past,
rather than the scanty promise of the future. Hearing of the wampum
belts, supposed to have been sent to our tribes by Montezuma, on the
invasion of the Spaniard, we feel that an Indian who could glean
traditions familiarly from the old men, might collect much that we could
interpret.

Still, any clear outline, even of a portion of their past, is not to be
hoped, and we shall be well contented if we can have a collection of
genuine fragments, that will indicate as clearly their life, as a
horse's head from the Parthenon the genius of Greece.

Such, to me, are the stories I have cited above. And even European
sketches of this greatness, distant and imperfect though they be, yet
convey the truth, if made in a sympathizing spirit. Adair's Red Shoes,
Murray's old man, Catlin's noble Mandan chief, Henry's Wa-wa-tam, with
what we know of Philip, Pontiac, Tecumseh and Red Jacket, would suffice
to give the ages a glimpse at what was great in Indian life and Indian
character.

We hope, too, there will be a national institu