Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 7).djvu/300

 and the stones red hot, water is thrown over them, causing a dense vapour and intense heat; yet in the midst of this suffocating cloud, where one would suppose a salamander itself could hardly live, the Indians enter stark naked, and no sooner in than the aperture or hole is closed upon them. Here they keep singing and recounting their war adventures, and invoking the good spirit to aid them again, rolling and groaning all the time in this infernal cell for nearly an hour; when all at once they bound out one by one, like so many {312} subterranean spectres issuing from the infernal regions. Besmeared with mud, and pouring down with sweat, they dash into the cold water, and there plunge and swim about for at least a quarter of an hour, when they return again to their cell, going through this fiery trial twice—morning and evening—on all great occasions. On all occasions of peace or war; of success in their enterprises, and good luck in hunting, the bath is resorted to. In short, great virtues are supposed to arise from the regular observance of this general custom of purification.

In the wide field of gymnastic exercise, few Indians—I might say none—have been found to cope with civilized man. In all trials of walking, of running, of fatigue, feats of agility, and famine, even in the Indian's own country, he has to yield the palm of victory to the white man. In the trials of the hot bath alone the savage excels.

The ceremony of the bath is not peculiar to the Oakinackens: it is practised by all the aboriginal tribes on the American continent.