Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 29).djvu/391

 the entrance of the women, young girls and children. The guests are seated upon the ground or upon mats on the right and left of the presiding juggler, turning around from time to time in the most grotesque and ridiculous dances. Imagine thirty swarthy savages, with their bodies tattooed; their faces besmeared with paint—white, black, made of soot and the scrapings of the kettles, yellow, green and vermilion; and their long and dishevelled hair clotted with mud or clay. Placing themselves in a circle, they shriek, they leap, and give to their bodies, their arms, their legs, and their heads a thousand hideous contortions; while streams of perspiration, pouring down their bodies, render the horrors of their appearance still more dreadful, by {362} the confused commingling of the colors with which they are smeared—now they crowd together pell-mell, then separate, some to the right, some to the left, one upon one foot, another upon two, while others go on all-fours without order, and although without appearance of measure, yet, in perfect harmony with their drums, their calabashes and their flutes.

Near the centre of the hut, at about four feet from the fire-place, are placed four large buffalo heads, dissected, in order that they may take the augury. The presiding juggler, the musicians and the dancers have their heads covered with the down of the swan, which sticks to them by means of honey, with which they smear their hair—a practice common to all the tribes of North America in their superstitious rites. The president or presiding juggler alone is painted with red, the musicians, one half red and the other half black, while all the others are daubed with all colors, and in the most fantastic figures.

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