Thirty-three days after our departure from the Hacienda del Milagro, we came in sight of the Comanche village, and during the whole long journey had not been exposed to the slightest danger, or stopped by any annoying accident.
We were expected, and were received by the chiefs, at the head of whom was Eagle-head, not merely as friends, but as children of the tribe. A spacious cabin was placed at our disposal, and provisions were brought us from all sides.
We had arrived just at the right moment; the grand festival of the buffaloes was to be held that very night—a very curious ceremony, whose object is to implore the blessing of the Wacondah before beginning the hunt.
In the centre of the village a large open space had been prepared, about sixty yards long by forty-five wide, surrounded by an inclosure of reeds and willow branches twelve feet high, and slightly bent inwards. An entrance had been left, facing the east. The four fires which are always kept up in the medicine lodge, were burning in each corner, and the most distinguished chiefs, among whom we were counted, sat in a semicircle to the right of the inclosure.
Eagle-head, in his quality of first sachem of the tribe, held the head of the file; he had, expressly for this occasion, painted his face blue, yellow, and white, and wore on his head a fillet of some red skin.
The spectators, more especially the squaws, were sitting against the palings silent and contemplative. The men, some in full paint, others simply dressed or naked to the waist, went about the interior of the inclosure irregularly. Children ranged round the fires threw in from time to time willow branches, to keep them burning.
At the signal given by Chichikoués for the feast to begin, six old men emerged from a calli, and stood in a row in front of the medicine lodge.
These men are chosen by the chiefs to represent buffaloes, and after the ceremony large presents are made to them. Each of them held in his hand a long staff, at the end of which four black feathers were fixed, and along the staves, at equal distances, were fastened small tufts of young buffalo skin and bells.
These men-buffaloes carried their clubs in the left hand, and two of them bore what the Comanches call a "badger," that is to say, a blown-up skin, which is beaten like a drum. They stood at the entrance of the medicine lodge, shaking their staves incessantly, and in turn singing and imitating, with rare perfection, the lowing of buffaloes, which lasted some considerable time.
Behind them marched a tall man with a ferocious face, whose head was covered with a fur cap, because once on a time he had been scalped in a fight with the Apaches. This man was the director of the feast, and represented the leader of the old buffaloes; his name was "Raised-scalp."