They had learned the medicinal virtues of many herbs and of a few other simples. They bound

HAND-MADE AND FINCiER-MARKED VESSEL OF POT T E

up wounds with mollifying preparations of leaves. They treated fevers by opening the pores of the skin with a vapor bath ; but their chief reliance in many diseases was upon supernatural cures. Their medicine-man, or pow-wow, excited their superstitious susceptibilities and worked upon their imaginations, using, with great solemnity, the ceremonial stones already described to assist in his work. Their reliance upon faith-cures was complete.

O R N A M i: X T A L 1 ' 0 TT FRY. Found in Pethani in Indian grave.

It is not known that there were formal ceremonies for burying the dead. The bodies were usually interred in a sitting posture, facing the southwest. With the dead were buried their arms, ornaments, useful utensils, wampum and parched corn for food.

Of the religious belief of the Mohegans we have very little testimony, and even such as we have cannot be considered reliable. In the compass of human

1 This is of doubtful origin ; found deeply buried in a sjiring near the Indian path "Succabonk," in Bedford.

THE INDIANS.

thought there are no ideas requiring so clear an expression to be correctly understood as those pertaining to religion. The Indian endeavored to express these in a language imperfectly understood by the whites, and naturally the hearers interpreted these expressions according to their own predilections. It is not strange, therefore, that very little has come to us that can be implicitly accepted. But all our witnesses unite upon this important point, -- thea-e was no kind of idolatry practiced among the aborigines here. They believed in one all-wise, all-powerful and beneficent Being, whom they called the Cireat Spirit, and to whom they offered prayer.