" Nanaboojoo yet lives, resting himself after his labors, upon an immense flake of ice, in the great lake (the North Sea). We fear that the whites will one day discover his retreat and drive him off, then the end of the world is at hand, for as soon as he puts foot on the earth, the whole universe will take fire, and every living creature will perish in the flames! "
In their festivities and religious assemblies, all their songs turn upon some one or other of these fables. When the chief had finished this history, I asked him whether he had any faith in what he had just related. He answered in astonishment: "Assuredly I have, for I have had the happiness to see and entertain three old men of my nation, who penetrated far into the north, and were admitted into the presence of Nanaboojoo, with whom they conversed a long time. They confirmed all that I have recounted to you! "
Our savages believe that the souls of the dead, in their journey to the great prairie of their ancestors, pass a rapid current, over which the only bridge is a single tree, kept constantly in violent agitation; managed, however, in such a way that the souls of perfect men pass it in safety, whilst those of the wicked slip off the tree into the water and are lost forever.
Such is the narration given to me by the Potawatomi chief, comprising all the articles of the creed held by this tribe; we can hardly fail to recognize in it, much obscured by the accumulation of ages, the tradition of the universal deluge, of the creation of the universe, of Adam and Eve; even some traces of the incarnation are found in the birth of Nanaboojoo; he was descended of parents, one of whom only, his mother, was of the human race; he is, moreover, the interecessor between God and man.
If the early Jesuits or other Christian travelers had never been among these people, or if the Indians had never visited a Christian community, one might infer that they are in some sort direct descendants of Noah, and that they have preserved the tradition of the universal deluge, although