Page:An analysis of religious belief (1877).djvu/70

 alone for the pleasures they are afterwards to enjoy together. Religion, ever ready to seize on the more solemn moments of our existence, seeks to consecrate the time at which the two sexes are ready to enter towards one another on a new and deeply important relationship.

Bearing these characteristics in mind, we may proceed to notice a few of the ceremonies performed at puberty. Let us begin with the most barbarous of all, those witnessed by Mr. Catlin among the Mandans, a tribe of North American Indians now happily extinct. The usual secrecy was observed about the "O-kee-pa," as this great Mandan ceremony is termed, and it was only by a favor, never before accorded to a stranger, that Mr. Catlin was enabled to be present in the "Medicine Lodge," where the operations were conducted. In the first place a mysterious personage, supposed to represent a white man, appeared from the west and opened the lodge. At his approach all women and children were ordered to retire within their wigwams. Next day the young men who had arrived at muturity during the last year were summoned to come forth, the rest of the villagers remaining shut up. After committing the conduct of the ceremonies to a "medicine man," this personage returned to the west with the same mystery with which he had come. The young men were now kept without food, drink, or sleep, for four days and four nights. In the middle of the fourth day two men began to operate upon them, the one making incisions with a knife in their flesh, and the other passing splints through the wounds, from which the blood trickled over their naked, but painted bodies. The parts through which the knife was passed were on each arm, above and below the elbow; on each leg, above and below the knee; on each breast, and each shoulder. The young men not only did not wince, but smiled at their civilized observer during this process. "When these incisions were all made, and the splints passed through, a cord of raw hide was lowered down through the top of the wigwam, and fastened to the splints on the breasts or shoulders, by which the young man was to be raised up and suspended, by men placed on the top of the lodge for the purpose. These cords having been attached to the splints on the breast or the shoulders, each one had his shield hung to