When it becomes necessary to move a village, which fact is never known to the people, a crier goes through the camp, shouting, “Egalakapo! Egalakapo!” when all the squaws drop whatever work they may be engaged in, and in an instant are busy as bees, taking down tipis, bringing in the ponies and dogs, and loading them; and in less than fifteen minutes the cavalcade is on the march.
The squaws accompany the men when they go to hunt buffalo, and as fast as the animals are killed, they strip off their hides, and then cut off the meat in strips about three feet long, three to four inches wide, and two inches thick; and such is their skill that the bones will be left intact and as free from meat as though they had been boiled. The meat is then taken to camp and hung up to dry. It is most filthy, being covered with grass and the excrement of the buffalo.
The medicine men treat all diseases nearly alike. The principal efforts are directed to expelling the spirit, whatever it may be, which it is expected the medicine man will soon discover, and having informed the friends what it is, he usually requires them to be in readiness to shoot it, as soon as he shall succeed in expelling it.
Incantations and ceremonies are used, intended to secure the aid of the spirit, or spirits, the Indian worships. When he thinks he has succeeded, the medicine man gives the command, and from two to six or more guns are fired at the door of the tent to destroy the spirit as it passes out.
Many of these medicine men depend wholly on conjuring, sitting by the bedside of the patient, making gestures and frightful noises, shaking rattles, and endeavoring, by all means in their power, to frighten the evil spirit. They use fumigation, and are very fond of aromatic substances, using and burning cedar and many different plants to cleanse the tent in which the sick person lies.
The native plants, roots, herbs, and so forth, are used freely, and are efficacious.
They are very careful to conceal from each other, except a few initiated, as well as from white men, a knowledge of the plants used as medicine, probably believing that their efficacy, in some measure, depends on this concealment.
There is a tall, branching plant, growing abundantly in the open woods and prairies near the Missouri River, which is used chiefly by the Indians as a purgative, and is euphorbia corrallata, well known to the botanist.
Medicines are generally kept in bags made of the skin of some animal.
All the drinks which are given the sick to quench thirst are astringent, sometimes bitter and sometimes slightly mucilaginous.