The native tribes who occupy the borders of the great lakes, are very ingenious in converting to the uses of superstition, such masses of loose rock, or boulder stones, as have been fretted by the action of water into shapes resembling the trunks of human bodies, or other organic forms.

There appears, at all times, to have been a ready disposition to turn such masses of rude natural sculpture, so to call them, to an idolatrous use; as well as a most ingenious tact, in aiding the effect of the natural resemblance, by dots or dabs of paint, to denote eyes, and other features, or by rings of red ochre, around their circumference, by way of ornament.

In the following figures, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, some of these masses are represented.

Number 3. was brought to the office of the Indian Agent at Michilimackinac in 1839, and placed among objects of analagous interest to visiters. It consisted of a portion of a vein or mass of gneiss or granite, from which both mica and feldspar were nearly absent, existing only in trace, while the quartzy portion predominated, and had, by its superior hardness, resisted the elemental action. The mode of the formation of such masses is very well known to geologists, resulting, in almost every case, from the unequal degree of hardness of various parts of a mass, submitted to an equal force of attrition, such as is ordinarily given by the upheaving and rolling force of waves on a lake, or ocean beach. To the natives, who are not prone to reason from cause to effect, such productions appear wonderful. All that is past comprehension, or wonderful, is attributed by them to the supernatural agency of spirits. The hunter or warrior, who is travelling along the coast, and finds one of these self-sculptured stones, is not sure that it is not a direct interposition of his God, or guardian Manito, in his favour. He is habitually a believer in the most subtle forms of mysterious power, which he acknowledges to be often delegated to the native priests, or necromancers. He is not staggered by the most extraordinary stretch of fancy, in the theory of the change or transformation of animate into inanimate objects, and vice versa. All things, “in heaven and earth,” he believes to be subject to this subtle power of metamorphosis. But, whatever be the precise operating cause of the respect he pays to the imitative rolled stones, which he calls Shingaba-wossins, and also by the general-phrase of Muz-in-in-a-wun, or images, he is not at liberty to pass them without hazarding something, in his opinion, of his chance of success in life, or the fortune of the enterprize in hand.

If the image be small, it is generally taken with him and secreted in the neighborhood of his lodge. If large and too heavy for this purpose, it is set up on the shore, generally in some obscure nook, where an offering of tobacco, or something else of less value, may be made to it, or rather through it, to the spirit.

In 1820 one of these stones (No. 2.) was met by an expedition of the government sent north, that year, for the purpose of interior discovery and observation, at the inner Thunder Bay island, in Lake Huron. It was a massy stone, rounded, with a comparatively broad base and entablature but not otherwise remarkable. It was set up, under a tree on the island, which was small, with the wide and clear expanse of the lake in plain view. The island was one of those which were regarded as desert, and was probably but seldom stopped at. It was, indeed, little more than a few acres of boulders and pebbles, accumulated on a limestone reef, and bearing a few stunted trees and shrubs. The water of the lake must, in high storms, have thrown its spray over this imaged stone. It was, in fine, one of those private places which an Indian might be supposed to have selected for his secret worship.

In No. 3. is figured an object of this kind, which was found in 1832, in the final ascent to the source of the Mississippi, on the right cape, in ascending this stream into lac Traverse—at the distance of about 1000 miles above the falls of St. Anthony. I landed at the point to see it, having heard, from my interpreter, that such an object was set up and dedicated to some unknown Manito there. It was a pleasant level point of land shaded with trees, and bearing luxuriant grass and wild shrubbery and flowers. In the middle of this natural parterre the stone was placed, and was overtopped by this growth, and thus concealed by it. A ring of red paint encircled it, at the first narrowed point of its circumference, to give it the resemblance of a human neck; and there were some rude dabs to denote other features. The Indian is not precise in the matter of proportion, either in his drawing, or in his attempts at statuary. He seizes upon some minute and characteristic trait, which is at once sufficient to denote the species, and he is easily satisfied about the rest. Thus a simple cross, with a strait line from shoulder to shoulder, and a dot, or circle above, to serve for a head, is the symbol of the human frame; and without any adjunct of feet, or hands, it could not have been mistaken for anything else—certainly for any other object in the animal creation.