DEPARTURE OF THE HUNTERS
When the next night arrives, approximately the same performance is repeated; and the same the next, with little of interest occurring during the day; but on the fourth morning, the leader who has selected a man for chief hunter, gives him a yard of wampum as pay. This master of the hunt then selects as many assistants as he wants, and he and his crew all gather in the Big House, where they are served about noon with a feast prepared for the occasion by the women of the camp, and the attendants tie sacks of the food to the hunters’ saddles.
When they have finished eating, they arrange themselves in a row, each hunter standing on his left foot and barely touching the ground with the toes of his right, an action whose meaning I have not yet been able to determine.
Then the speaker rises and talks to them, and the Mĭsiʹngʷ‛ who has been seen about the camp from time to time, is in the Big House listening to his words. “When you hunt,” says the speaker, “think of nothing but luck to kill deer.” As he speaks he goes to the west fire and throws into it, six times, an offering of native tobacco; then to the east fire, where he sacrifices six more pinches of the sacred herb—twelve in all. While sacrificing tobacco, he prays to the Mĭsiʹngʷ‛ to drive the deer up, so that the hunters can kill them. As he drops the last tobacco into the flames, he says, “If you kill a deer right away, bring it in tonight; if not, bring in all you kill day after tomorrow.”
What tobacco is left is given to the chief hunter with the words, “When you camp tonight, burn this and ask Mĭsinghâliʹkŭn to let you kill deer.” The reader will remember that Mĭsinghâliʹkŭn, in whose image the Mĭsiʹngʷ‛ is carved, is supposed to have control over the deer, and in fact over all wild animals.
All the hunters that are in the habit of chewing tobacco are now given some for this purpose. When they file out and mount their horses, the Mĭsiʹngʷ‛ follows them and sees them off.
After the hunters have disappeared, the people call the Mĭsiʹngʷ‛ back into the Big House and coax him to dance, while two men volunteer to sing for him.
PRAYER FOR THE HUNTERS
The following evening six men are appointed and given a yard of wampum to divide among them, to go out close to the forked game-pole east of the Big House, intended for the carcasses of the deer, and “pray” there twelve times. The meaning of this, of course, is that they sound the prayer word “Ho-o-o!” which is evidently to help the hunters. This night also a yard of wampum is unstrung and scattered on the ground just west of the east fire, and this the attendants must pick up, crying “Ho-o-o!” as they do so. For doing this, which is called “picking berries,” they are supposed to keep what wampum they pick up.