unt of love of women, and the other half on
account of their maintenance. There was universal peace and harmony
throughout the land. The Kickapoos ate their deer's flesh with the
Potowatomies, hunted the otter with the Osages, and the beaver with
the Hurons; and the fierce Iroquois, instead of waking the wild shout
of war, went to the land of the Sauks and Ioways to buy wampum,
wherewith to decorate their tails. Happy would it have been for the
red men if they were still furnished with these appendages, and wanted
those which have been supplied in their place--women!

But the consequence which usually attends prosperity happened to the
Indians. They became very proud and vain, and forgot their creator and
preserver. They no more offered the fattest and choicest of their game
upon the _memahoppa_, or altar-stone, nor evinced any gratitude, nor
sung, nor danced in his praise, when he sent his rains to cleanse the
earth and his lightnings to cool and purify the air. When their corn
grew ripe and tall, they imputed it to their own good conduct and
management; when their hunt was successful, to their own skill and
perseverance. Reckoning not, as in times past, of the superintendence
of the Great Spirit over all things, they banished him altogether from
their proud and haughty hearts, teaching them to forget that there was
aught greater or more powerful than himself.

Though slow to anger, and waiting long before he remembers the
provocations he has received, the Great Spirit, in the end, and when
no atonement is made, always inflicts an adequate punishment for every
offence. Seeing how wicked the Indians had become, he said to his
Manitous: "It is time that the Kickapoos and other red men were
punished. They laugh at my thunders, they make mock of my lightnings
and hurricanes, they use my bounties without thanking me for them.
When their corn grows ripe and tall, instead of imputing its
luxuriance to my warm suns and reviving showers, they say, 'We have
managed it well;' when their hunt is successful, they place it to
account of their own skill and perseverance. Reckoning not, as in
times past, of my superintendence over all things, they have banished
me altogether from their haughty hearts, and taught themselves to
forget that there is aught greater and more powerful than the Indian."

So saying, he bade his chief Manitou repair to the dwelling-places of
the red men, and, to punish them for their wickedness, deprive them