OCR Text |
Show THE GREAT BUFFALO MEDICINE FEAST. space, forty paces or more in length, was enclosed in a fence, ten or twelve feet high, consisting of reeds and willow twigs inclining inwards. (See the woodcut.) An entrance was left at a ; b represents the fence; d are the four fires, burning in the medicine lodge, which were kept up the whole time. At e the elder and principal men had taken their seats ; to the right sat the old chief, Lachpitzi-Sihrisch (the yellow bear) ; some parts of his face were painted red, and a bandage of yellow skin encircled his head. Places were assigned to us on the right hand of the yellow bear. At /, close to the fence, the spectators, especially the women, were seated : the men walked about, some of them handsomely dressed, others quite simply; children were seated round the fires, which they kept alive by throwing twigs of willow trees into them. Soon after Charbonneau had introduced us to this company, six elderly men advanced in a row from the opposite hut, and stopped for a moment at the entrance of the great medicine lodge. They had been chosen, by the young men, to represent buffalo bulls, for which they afterwards received presents. Each of them carried a long stick, at the top of which three or four black feathers were fastened; then, at regular intervals, the whole length of the stick was ornamented with small bunches of the hoofs of buffalo calves, and at the lower end of the stick were some bells. In their left hand they carried a battle-axe, or war club, and two of them had a stuffed skin which they called a badger, and used as a drum. They stood at the entrance, rattled their sticks incessantly, sang alternately, and imitated, with great perfection, the hoarse voice of the buffalo bull. They were followed by a tall man, whose physiognomy strikingly resembled that of a Botocudo. He wore a cap, trimmed with fur, because he had been formerly scalped in a battle. He represented the director of the ceremony and the leader of the old bulls, behind whom he made his appearance. The bulls now entered the medicine lodge and took their seats at c, near the fence, behind one of the fires. In front of them they laid the badger, which is equivalent to what is called the tortoise in the Okippe of the Mandans. Each of the bulls fixed his weapon in the ground before him ; two of them had clubs, with a head, on which a human face was carved. Several young men |