An Injin is not a snake,
to cast his skin. The skin in which he was born he keeps. He plays
in it when a child; he goes in it to his first hunt; the bears and
the deer know him by it; he carries it with him on the warpath, and
his enemies tremble at the sight of it; his squaw knows him by that
skin when he comes back to his wigwam; and when he dies, he is put
aside in the same skin in--which he was born. There is but one skin,
and it has but one color. At first, it is little. The pappoose that
wears it is little. There is not need of a large skin. But it grows
with the pappoose, and the biggest warrior finds his skin around
him. This is because the Great Spirit fitted it to him. Whatever the
Manitou does is good.
"My brothers have squaws--they have pappooses. When the pappoose is
put into their arms, do they get the paint-stones, and paint it red?
They do not. It is not necessary. The Manitou painted it red before
it was born. How this was done I do not know. I am nothing but a
poor Injin, and only know what I see. I have seen that the pappooses
are red when they are born, and that the warriors are red when they
die. They are also red while living.
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