La Salle and the discovery of the great West - North Central ...

1681.] GRAND COUNCIL. 289them to a council, promised them a new home in theWest under the protection of the Great King, withrich lands, an abundance of game, and French tradersto supply them with the goods which they had oncereceived from the English. Let them but help himto make peace between the Miamis and the Illinois,and he would insure for them a future of prosperityand safety. They listened with open ears, andpromised their aid in the work of peace.On the next morning, the Miamis were called to agrand council. It was held in the lodge of theirchief, from which the mats were removed, that thecrowd without might hear what was said. La Sallerose and harangued the concourse.Few men were soskilled in the arts of forest rhetoric and diplomacy.After the Indian mode, he was, to follow his chroniclers,"the greatest orator in North America." 1 Hebegan with a gift of tobacco, to clear the brains ofhis auditory ; next, for he had brought a canoe-loadof presents to support his eloquence, he gave themcloth to cover their dead, coats to dress them,hatchets to build a grand scaffold in their honor, andbeads, bells, and trinkets of all sorts, to decoratetheir relatives at a grand funeral feast.All this wasmere metaphor. The living, while appropriatingthe gifts to their own use, were pleased at the complimentoffered to their dead; and their delightredoubled as the orator proceeded. One of their1 "En ce genre, il €toit le plus grand orateur de l'AmenqueSeptentrionale." — Relation des Decouvertes.10