[Pioneers and Founders by Charlotte Mary Yonge]@TWC D-Link bookPioneers and Founders CHAPTER II 11/19
At an island called Juneauta, he met a very remarkable personage, a Powaw, who bore the reputation of a reformer, anxious to restore the ancient religion of the Red man, which had become corrupted by intercourse with the White and his vices. His aspect was the most dreadful thing Brainerd had ever seen.
He wore a shaggy bearskin coat, hood, and stockings, and a hideous, painted mask, so that no part of his person was visible, not even the hand in which he held an instrument made of the shell of a tortoise, with dry corn within, and he came up rattling this, and dancing with all his might, and with such gesticulations that, though assured that he intended no injury, it was impossible not to shrink back as this savage creature came close. Yet he was a thoughtful man, such as would have been a philosopher in ancient Greece or Rome.
He took the missionary into his hut, and conversed long and earnestly with him.
He had revolted in spirit from the degradation of his countrymen, and had gone to live apart in the woods, where he had worked out a system of natural religion for himself, which he believed the Great Spirit had taught him, and which had at last led him to return to his people and endeavour to restore them to that purity which of course he believed to have once existed.
He believed there were good men somewhere, and he meant to wander till he found them; meantime, he was kindly to all who came near him, and constantly uplifted his testimony against their vices, especially when the love of strong drink was brought among them.
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