But to become conjurers, they have rites and ceremonies to perform and go through, which, though apparently simple and absurd, yet I have no doubt, but fully answer their ends.
Any person among them wishing to dive into futurity must be young and unpolluted, at any age between 18 and 25, though as near as I can learn between 17 and 20 years old. They must have had no intercourse with the other sex; they must be chaste and unpolluted.
In the spring of the year, they chuse a proper place at a sufficient distance from the camp not [to] be discovered nor disturbed. They make themselves a bed of grass, or hay as we term it, and have besides enough to make them a covering. When all this is done, and they do it entirely alone, they strip stark naked and put all their things a good way off. And then [they] return, lie on this bed, and then cover themselves with the rest of the grass. Here they remain and endeavour to sleep, which from their nature is no very difficult task. But during whatever time they may remain, they must neither eat nor drink. If they want to dream of the spirits above, their bed must be made at some distance from the ground—if of the spirits inhabiting our Earth, or those residing in the waters, on the ground. Here they lie for a longer or shorter time according to their success or the orders of the dreamed. Some remain but three or four days, some ten. And I have [been] told one remained thirty days without eating or drinking. Such was the delight he received from his dreams!
When I laughed at this, the man was vexed, the others not a little hurt.
The first thing they do after their return to their friends is to take a good drink of water, smoke the pipe, and after that eat, but as composedly as but just risen from a hearty meal. Their Dreamed sometimes order them to make a feast, and not uncommonly tell them where to go where they will find the animals whose flesh is to be served up (always boiled). They sometimes lie in one posture and sometimes another—i.e. their head to some one of the cardinal points. Some have the most pleasant dreams imaginable, others indifferent.
When they are to live to a good old age, they are told, "You will see many winters! Your head will grow quite white." or "Though you shall never see your head white, yet you shall live till you are obliged to make use of a stick and long after. You shall die old, very old, respected and regretted."
If they are to die young: "Thou shalt see the years of a young man."—and so on of the other ages, as well as the manner of life they shall have. The language is not very dissimilar to that of our version of the Bible. But that stile seems to me to be the language of nature which I always find the more charming the more retired the speaker is from the pompous bombastic walks of high life, which though they furnish us with more ideas, I do not think add much to the beauty of the language.
[Dialogue with a Spirit]
As I have said before, the purpose of these dreams is to dive into futurity. Everything in nature appears unto them, but in the shape of a human being. They dream they meet a man who asks them (after some preliminary conversation of course), "Dost thou know me?" (who or what I am?).
"No."