These are their principles.

That their practice evinces more and more a departure from them, under the debasing influences of a proximity to the whites, is a melancholy truth, which no one will admit with so much sorrow as those who lived among them, and esteemed them, before this signal change had taken place.
* * * * * One of the first improvements that suggested itself about our new dwelling, was the removal of some very unsightly pickets surrounding two or three Indian graves, on the esplanade in front of the house.

Such, however, is the reverence in which these burial-places are held, that we felt we must approach the subject with great delicacy and consideration.
My husband at length ventured to propose to Mrs."Pawnee Blanc," the nearest surviving relative of the person interred, to replace the pickets with a neat wooden platform.
The idea pleased her much, for, through her intimacy in Paquette's family, she had acquired something of a taste for civilization.
Accordingly, a little platform about a foot in height, properly finished with a moulding around the edge, was substituted for the worn and blackened pickets; and it was touching to witness the mournful satisfaction with which two or three old crones would come regularly every evening at sunset, to sit and gossip over the ashes of their departed relatives.
On the fine moonlight nights, too, there might often be seen a group sitting there, and enjoying what is to them a solemn hour, for they entertain the poetic belief that "the moon was made to give light to the dead." The reverence of the Indians for the memory of their departed friends, and their dutiful attention in visiting and making offerings to the Great Spirit, over their last resting-places, is an example worthy of imitation among their more enlightened brethren.

Not so, however, with some of their customs in relation to the dead.
The news of the decease of one of their number is a signal for a general mourning and lamentation; it is also in some instances, I am sorry to say, when the means and appliances can be found, the apology for a general carouse.
The relatives weep and howl for grief--the friends and acquaintance bear them company through sympathy.

A few of their number are deputed to wait upon their Father, to inform him of the event, and to beg some presents "to help them," as they express it, "dry up their tears." We received such a visit one morning, not long after the payment was concluded.
A drunken little Indian, named, by the French people around, "Old Boilvin," from his resemblance to an Indian Agent of that name at Prairie du Chien, was the person on account of whose death the application was made.