Each time that the music, the songs and the dances are performed, the spectators observe the most profound silence, and during the space of thirty minutes that the extraordinary charivari continues, nothing is heard but the chants, the cries, the howlings and the music. When all {363} have figured in the dance, the presiding juggler gives the signal to stop, crying out with all the force of his lungs. Immediately all cease, each one takes his place, and the auditory responds: “Néva! Néva! Néva!” it is well, it is well, it is well! The dancers then fill the ancient nawishkaro, or religious calumet, which is used only upon occasions the most important. They offer it to the president, who, striking with both his hands the long pipe, adorned with pearls and worked with different figures, goes and squats himself down by the fire-place. One of the guards places a coal upon the mysterious calumet. Having lighted it, he rises and gives a puff to each of the musicians without once slacking his hold from the pipe. He then turns towards the centre, and raising his eyes towards heaven, he offers the calumet to the Master of life, resting for a moment in majestic silence: then, offering three puffs to heaven, he speaks these words: “O, Tirawaat! Thou who beholdest all things, smoke with thy children, and take pity on us.” He then offers the calumet to the buffalo heads, their great manitous, salutes each of them with two puffs, and then goes to empty the bowl of the pipe in a wooden dish, prepared for that purpose, that the sacred ashes {364} may be afterwards gathered and preserved in a deer-skin pouch.[352]
Buffalos discovered
After the dance, the master of ceremonies serves up the repast to the guests, seated in a circle. The food consists of dried buffalo meat and boiled maize, served in wooden plates, filled to the brim. Each one is bound to empty his plate, even should he expose himself to the danger of death from indigestion. The president offers a portion of the meat and maize to the Great Spirit, and places it accordingly upon the ground, and he then makes a similar offering to one of the buffalo heads, which is supposed to be a party to the feast. At length, while each one occupies himself with doing honor to his plate, one of the chiefs of the band rises up and announces to all the guests that the Master of life dances with him, and that he accepts the calumet and the feasting. All the band reply: “Néva! Néva! Néva!” This is the first condemnation.
{365} The repast ended, they again dance, after which the calumet is lighted the second time; and, as in the former instance, is offered to the Master of life and to the buffalo heads, upon which, the lodge again resounds with the triple cry, “Néva!” This last dance condemns, without appeal, the unfortunate victim whose immolation is invoked.
After all their grotesque dances, their cries, their chants and their vociferations, the savages, preceded by the musicians, go out of the lodge, to present the sacred calumet to the buffalo heads placed on the tops of the lodges of the village, each of which is ornamented with from two to eight heads, preserved as the trophies of their skill in the chase. At each puff the multitude raise a furious cry, for now the whole village joins in the extraordinary procession. They stop before the lodge of the Sioux girl, and make the air resound with the horrible imprecations against their enemies and against the unfortunate and innocent victim, who represents them on the present occasion. From this moment she is guarded by two old satellites, whose office it is to beguile her from the least suspicion that she is the victim for the coming sacrifice; and whose duty it also is to entertain {366} her upon the great feast, they prepare on the occasion in her honor, and that she may be well fed in order to appear more beautiful and fat, and thereby more agreeable to the Master of life. This ends the first day of the ceremonies.
On the second day, two old female savages, with dishevelled hair, their faces wrinkled and daubed with black and red paint, their naked arms and legs tattooed, barefooted, and with no other dress than a deer-skin petticoat, extending down to the knee—in a word, two miserable-looking beldams, capable of striking terror in any beholder,—issue from their huts with pipes in their hands, ornamented with the scalps which their husbands have taken from their unhappy enemies. Passing through the village, they dance around each akkaro, solemnly announcing, “that the Sioux girl has been given to the Master of life by wise and just men, that the offering is acceptable to him, and that each one should prepare to celebrate the day with festivity and mirth.” At this announcement, the idlers and children of the village move about and shout with joy. They then, still dancing, re-conduct the two old squaws to their huts, before which they place their pikes as trophies, and enter.—All then {367} return to their own lodge, to partake of the feasts of their relatives.
About ten o’clock in the morning of the third day, all the young women and girls of the village, armed with hatchets, repair to the lodge of their young and unhappy captive, and invite her to go into the forest with them to cut wood.—The simple-hearted, confiding child, accepts their malicious invitation with eagerness and joy, happy to breathe once more the pure air.—They then give her a hatchet, and the female troop advance towards the place marked out in the dance, making the forest resound with shouts of joy. Atipaat, an old squaw who conducted them, designates, by a blow of the hatchet, the tree which is to be cut down. Each then gives it one blow, after which the victim approaches to complete the work. As soon as she commences what seems to her but pastime, the whole crowd of young furies surround her, howling and dancing. Unconscious that the tree is to supply the wood for her own sacrifice, the poor child pursues her work as if a great honor had been reserved for her.—Atipaat, the old woman, then fastens to her the ashki[353] with which to draw the wood.