The wise men of the council are grouped together and sit aloof. They sit like mummies, smoking, and with every appearance of indifference. But their ears are wide open. One alone displays interest, and it is noticeable that he is different from all the rest of the aged group. He is younger. He has blue eyes and fair hair, and his skin is pale. Yet he, too, is blanketed like his companions. He listens acutely to the end of the speech. Then he silently moves away, and, unheeded, becomes lost in the adjacent woods.
As the chieftain’s last words die away the men of “med’cine” rise from their groveling attitude and a fresh dance begins. But this time it is not confined to the clearing. It is one which launches them into the midst of the audience. Hither and thither they caper, and from their tracks emerge a number of 287 very young men. It might be that this is the “Dance of Selection,” for it undoubtedly has the result of bringing forth a number of striplings from the ranks of the onlookers.
The dancers have made the complete circuit, and about one hundred young men, little more than boys, join in the great Sun-dance.
Now ensues one of the most terrible scenes of human barbarity conceivable. In the course of the dance the “med’cine” men seize upon each of the willing victims in turn. On the breast of each boy incisions are made with long, keen knives; two parallel incisions on each side of the chest. The flesh between each two of these is then literally torn from the underlying tissues, and a rough stick is thrust through the gaping wounds. So the would-be brave is spitted.
Now a rawhide rope is attached to the centre of the stick, the end of it is thrown over the gnarled limb of one of the trees in the centre of the clearing, and the youth is lifted from the ground and remains suspended, the whole weight of his body borne by the two straps of bloody flesh cut from his chest.
The dance proceeds until each youth is spitted and suspended from the central cluster of trees, then, with one accord, the men of the audience break from their places and join in the war-dance. They dance about the victims with a fierce glee like hundreds of fiends; they beat them, they slash them with knives, they thrust lighted brands upon the 288 fresh young flesh till it blisters and throws out nauseous odors. Their acts are acts of diabolical torture, inconceivably savage. But the worst agony is endured in desperate silence by each victim. That is, by all but one.
Out of all the number hanging like dead men upon the trees only one youth finds the torture unendurable.
He cries aloud for mercy, and his shrieks rise high above the pandemonium going on about him.
Instantly he is cut down, the stick is removed from his body, and he is driven from the ceremony by the waiting squaws, amidst a storm of feminine vituperation. He is the only one whose heart is faint. He will never be permitted to fight. He must live with the squaws all his days. He is considered a squaw-man, the greatest indignity that can be put upon him.
Thus are the braves made.