Missionary Work Among the Ojebway Indians | Page 9

one eye to see. Her back was turned to me, and I could not distinguish what she was doing, but I heard a slicing and cutting and wheezing. Then the good lady turned round, and closing the eye I had opened I did not venture to look out again till the door was shut, and Mrs. Ahbettuhwahnuhgund departed; then I peeped out from my rug--poor piggy was minus one leg! Next time I saw the missing limb it was steaming on the breakfast table!
I must not make this chapter longer. By-and-bye I shall tell of the baptism of the Chief and several other of the pagan Indians of this place. Suffice it to say now that our little school kept nicely together, and services were held either by myself or my interpreter every fortnight. In a little more than a year's time we had the satisfaction of seeing both a school-church and a master's residence erected, and a catechist placed in charge of the station.

CHAPTER V.
INDIAN NAMES GIVEN.
It is a custom with the Indians to bestow Indian names upon missionaries and others who come to work among them, in order to make them, as it were, one with themselves. We had not been many months resident in Sarnia before we received an invitation from the pagan Chief at Kettle Point, to come to a grand feast which the Indians were preparing in our honour at that place, and to receive Indian names by which we should be incorporated into the Ojebway tribe.
It was one of the coldest of winter days when we started, the glass very low, a high wind, and the snow whirling through the air in blinding clouds. We went by train to Forest, and there Ahbettuhwahnuhgund met us with his sleigh. It was just a common box sleigh with two seats, and the bottom filled with straw, and two horses to pull us. We were all bundled up in rugs and blankets and wraps; the Chief, who was driving, had his head completely smothered up in a bright blue shawl belonging to his wife, and wrapped so many times round that he was as wide at the top of his eyes as at his shoulders. The only one of the party who appeared careless about the cold was an Indian named Garehees, who had come with us from Sarnia, and he sat with his feet hanging over the side of the sleigh; however, when we asked him how it was that he did not feel the cold, he replied with a grin, "Moccasins no cold,--white man boot cold,--ice!--two pair socks under moccasins me--big blanket too!" In about an hour and a half we arrived at the Chief's house; it was the first time my wife had been to Kettle Point, and she was very much pleased to make acquaintance with the Indians of whom she had often heard, and who had sent her presents of apples and cherries from their orchards. She had brought with her a few small gifts for the children, with which they were much delighted. A little boy named Isaac had a sugar-dog given to him; he soon had its nose in close quarters with his mouth, and the people laughed to see it disappearing. Indians are nearly always very much behind time in their arrangements; they do not appear yet to understand the value of time-- whether in their councils, their daily work, their feasts, or their attendance at church, they are generally behind the appointed hour. If a council is called to commence at noon, three or four Indians will have perhaps assembled at that hour; others straggle in as the day wears on; they sit or lie about, smoking their pipes, chewing tobacco, and talking; and it will probably be three o'clock before the council actually commences.
The Indian feast of to-day was no exception to the rule. It was appointed to take place at noon, but hour after hour sped by, and it was nearly four p.m. when they at length commenced. On entering the room where the feast was laid out, we found two seats arranged for us at the end of the apartment beneath an ornamented canopy decked with cedar boughs, and we were requested to sit down. Then the Chief and Shaukeens (both pagans) stood up, and the Chief made a brief oration to the people, which John Jacobs, a young native, then studying for the ministry at Huron College, interpreted for us. The Chief expressed his pleasure in receiving us among them, and his desire that we should become as one of them by receiving Ojebway names; and then, taking me by the hand, he continued: "The name that I have selected for you is one which we greatly respect and hold in fond remembrance; for