let thine eyes
shine as when I first saw thee. Be again as straight as the young fir,
and array thyself in the garment which glittered like the sands of the
Spirits' Island."

With a convulsive start, the warrior raised himself upon his couch to
an upright posture. Gazing wildly around for a moment, he threw his
arms forward, shouting "I come, beloved, I come!" and then falling
back he lay a lifeless corpse. And so died Mishikinakwa, the Little
Turtle of the Winnebagoes, of love for a phantom woman.

Note.

(1) _The Hottuk Ishtohoollo, or Holy People._--p. 273.

Almost every hill and cavern has, in the eye of the Indian, its
tutelary deity. The tradition entitled "The Mountain of Little
Spirits" is one which paints a genuine belief.

Adair, in his History of the North American Indians, says, "They (viz.
the Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, &c.) believe the higher regions to be
inhabited by good spirits, whom they call _Hottuk Ishtohoollo_, and
_Nana Ishtohoollo_, 'Holy People,' and relations to the 'Great Holy
One?' The _Hottuk Ookproose_, or _Nana Ookproose_, 'accursed people,'
or 'accursed beings,' they say possess the dark regions of the West;
the former attend and favour the virtuous; and the latter in like
manner accompany and have power over the vicious. Several warriors
have told me," he says, "that their _Nana Ishtohoollo_, 'concomitant
Holy Spirits,' or angels, have forewarned them, as by intuition, of a
dangerous ambuscade, which must have been attended with certain death,
when they were alone and seemingly out of danger; and, by virtue of
the impulse, they immediately darted off, and with extreme difficulty
escaped the crafty, pursuing enemy."

All the Northern Indians are very superstitious with respect to the
existence of fairies. One of their tribes, the Chepewyans, speak of a
race whom they call _Nant-e-na_, whom they say they frequently see,
and who are supposed by them to inhabit the different elements of
earth, sea, and air, according to their several qualities. To one or
the other of these fairies they usually attribute any change in their
circumstances either for better or worse; and, as they are led into
this way of thinking entirely by the art of the conjurors, there is no
such thing as any general mode of belief; for those jugglers differ so
much from each other in their accounts of these beings, that those who
believe any thing they say have little to do but change their opinions
according