[Footnote A: Ginseng, called by the Potowatomies _Abesoatchenza_, which signifies a child. I presume it has acquired its name rather from the figure of its root than from the tradition. They make great use of it in medicine.]
[Footnote B: The implements of writing, especially paper, are esteemed by the Indians as medicines, or spirits, of great power. Books are viewed in the same light. Singing hymns from a book delights them much, as they conceive, that the book is a spirit, which teaches the singer to sing for their diversion.]
[Footnote C: The Mammoth. See note, vol. ii, p. 111.]
"What brought you here?" demanded one of the Elks, a very elderly one, who was named the Broadhorns, of the woman, as she approached the outside of the circle. "Do you not know that it is death for any one to come into the camp of the Great Chief of the Elks, unless he is sent for? What brought you here?"
"Oho, and so you have come to the marriage, but you are too late."
"What marriage?" demanded the woman, straining her eyes still wider than my pale-faced brother does at this moment. "Who? How? What! Who's to be married?"
"Oh, you know nothing of the matter I see," answered the Elk Broadhorns. "Why, the youth, whom the Ottawas call the Child of the Hare, but whom the Elks call the Pig-faced Boy of the Ottawas, has married the daughter of a wise old man, who is akin to the Great Elk."
"Oho, and is that the cause of the hubbub?" demanded the woman.
"Not altogether," answered the Broadhorns; "you see gathered together but the usual number that attend the steps of our great chief, running of his errands, and doing him homage. But, come along, you must go and spread the blanket of friendship before the great man, whom all the Elks, no matter where found, as well as the inhabitants of the valley, worship and obey."
With that, the old Elk, who appeared to be an Elk of authority, spoke to the crowd, commanding them to make way for the woman who had come from the camp of their friends, the Ottawas, to visit the Great Chief. Immediately an opening was made in the crowd, through which the woman and her conductor reached the presence of the mighty king of the valley. Behold her, then, before the being of whom she had heard her people talk morning, noon, and night, but whom no Ottawa had ever beheld till now. She was beginning to deprecate his anger at her intrusion on his dominions, when, in a tone intended to be very kind, but which, nevertheless, was louder than the loudest tones of the _manza ouackanche_[A], he spoke, and bade her say, "why she had come uninvited to the marriage-feast of the Pig-faced boy of the Ottawas."