Public religious duties are attended to in the celebration of particular
festivals and sacrifices, which are observed with circumspection and
attended with decorum.
In each year they have five feasts, or stated times for assembling in
their tribes, and giving thanks to Nauwaneu, for the blessings which they
have received from his kind and liberal and provident hand; and also to
converse upon the best means of meriting a continuance of his favors. The
first of these feasts is immediately after they have finished sugaring, at
which time they give thanks for the favorable weather and great quantity
of sap they have had, and for the sugar that they have been allowed to
make for the benefit of their families. At this, as at all the succeeding
feasts, the Chiefs arise singly, and address the audience in a kind of
exhortation, in which they express their own thankfulness, urge the
necessity and propriety of general gratitude, and point out the course
which ought to be pursued by each individual, in order that Nauwaneu may
continue to bless them, and that the evil spirit may be defeated.
On these occasions the Chiefs describe a perfectly straight line, half an
inch wide, and perhaps ten miles long, which they direct their people to
travel upon by placing one foot before the other, with the heel of one
foot to the toe of the other, and so on till they arrive at the end.
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