against a step at once so rash and unbecoming the true dignity of our sex:

"How, my daughter, (said she, addressing my sister,) "how can you even
think of attending the feast and seeing the unspeakable torments that
those poor unfortunate prisoners must inevitably suffer from the hands of
our warriors? How can you stand and see them writhing in the warriors'
fire, in all the agonies of a slow, a lingering death?

How can you think of enduring the sound of their groanings and prayers to
the Great Spirit for sudden deliverance from their enemies, or from life?
And how can you think of conducting to that melancholy spot your poor
sister Dickewamis, (meaning myself), who has so lately been a prisoner,
who has lost her parents and brothers by the hands of the bloody warriors,
and who has felt all the horrors of the loss of her freedom, in lonesome
captivity? Oh! how can you think of making her bleed at the wounds which
now are but partially healed? The recollection of her former troubles
would deprive us of Dickewamis, and she would depart to the fields of the
blessed, where fighting has ceased, and the corn needs no tending--where
hunting is easy, the forests delightful, the summers are pleasant, and the
winters are mild!--O! think once, my daughter, how soon you may have a
brave brother made prisoner in battle, and sacrificed to feast the
ambition of the enemies of his kindred, and leave us to mourn for the loss
of a friend, a son and a brother, whose bow brought us venison, and
supplied us with blankets!--Our task is quite easy at home, and our
business needs our attention. With war we have nothing to do: our husbands
and brothers are proud to defend us, and their hearts beat with ardor to
meet our proud foes. Oh! stay then, my daughter; let our warriors alone
perform on their victims their customs of war!"

This speech of our mother had the desired effect; we stayed at home and