Through the shoulder had
passed a musquet ball, which had divided the subclavian artery and caused
death by loss of blood. No mark of any remedy having been applied could
be discovered. Possibly the nature of the wound, which even among us would
baffle cure without amputation of the arm at the shoulder, was deemed so
fatal, that they despaired of success, and therefore left it to itself. Had
Mr. White found the man alive, there is little room to think that he
could have been of any use to him; for that an Indian would submit to so
formidable and alarming an operation seems hardly probable.
None of the natives who had come in the boat would touch the body, or even
go near it, saying, the mawn would come; that is literally, 'the spirit of
the deceased would seize them'. Of the people who died among us, they had
expressed no such apprehension. But how far the difference of a natural
death, and one effected by violence, may operate on their fears to induce
superstition; and why those who had performed the rites of sepulture should
not experience similar fears and reluctance, I leave to be determined.
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