THE CREE INDIANS.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.")
Sin,—I have just received from a friend, who is settled near Qu'Appelle, in the north-west of Canada, the following account of the mode of testing the bravery of the young men among the Cree Indians. He says :—" Last week 1 saw a religious dance among these people; the spectacle was so atrocious that I nearly fainted. The object was to test the endurance of their young fighting men. A large conical tent, supported by a central pole, was erected, of which one side was occupied by a band of drummers and by the chiefs ; the other side was left an open space, for the administration of the proposed test of manly virtue. The performance began by a chorus of tremendous shouts and outcries from the men around, to an accem- s paniinent of prolonged tomtoming on the drums. The men were got up in wonderful style, some painted in coloured stripes to resemble tigers, with scalps dangling round their waists and wrists, and tomahawks hanging in their belts. Their extremities were covered with Indian leggings, faced with beads and porcupine quills. Their faces were painted in all the colours of the rainbow, and a good many more. After a short silence, a young man came forward, about twenty years of age. Him they seized, and immediately cut a slit through each breast, and then passed through this hole a stout stick. To these sticks they fastened ropes, the other ends of which were firmly tied to the central pole of the tent. The young man then went to the extremity of the rope and leaned back with his whole weight, being supported by the sticks through his breast. He pulled the flesh right away from his bones, and in that awful position, without a cry escaping him, he began to dance to the thundering music of the band. He continued dancing forty-five minutes, when he fainted. Fifteen others then passed through the same ordeal, who were thus admitted as braves of the tribe. The trial was somewhat varied for some of them, by setting them to pull guns through the grass while harnessed in the same frightful fashion, or by swinging them to trees with hooks fastened in their backs. This band of Indians is only two miles from our settlement, so that you see we form a mixture of both civilised and savage people. Fancy this next door to Canada !"
.Although it is on another subject, may I add one remark to the observations already made on your admirable review of Mr. Drummond's work on "Natural Law in the Spiritual World." You say that he finds in natural law the warrant for eternal punishment, sudden conversion," &c. I do not think that Mr. Drummond finds any warrant in natural law for "eternal pun- ishment," in any other sense than a destruction of life which is eternal. Later on, I think you miss Mr. Drummond's meaning with respect to life and biogenesis, by failing to accept in its fullness his statement that in speaking of life, Christ" must have meant literal life," "because we must always take the literal rather than the metaphorical meaning in interpreting the Bible," which does not " mystify its readers." The meaning here seems to be that the word " life " covers many varieties, but that it always carries with it a central idea, of which the opposite is "literal" death or destruction. Taken in this sense,
I think Mr. Drummond's argument is logical and defensible.—
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