Page:Journal of American Folklore vol. 12.djvu/610

 262 Journal of A merican Folk-Lore.

The wife now entered, bearing a kettle of corn mush, which she placed near the fireplace at the southwest. The mush was made of corn, dried in the milk after the native manner, crushed in a wooden mortar of aboriginal type, and boiled in water drawn from a running stream. She next brought two wooden bowls, a wooden ladle, and a number of buffalo-horn spoons threaded on a strip of leather ; these she placed on a mat near the kettle of mush. These bowls and spoons were of Indian manufacture.

The fireplace was encircled by a ridge of earth, flattened on the top and broad enough to receive offerings of food which might be placed upon it. The fireplace was empty, and no kettle hung from the tall crotched stick leaning over it from the east. The sunshine falling through the central opening of the lodge made a bright round patch upon the hard earth floor, and touched the edge of a gayly colored mat, while in the diffused light, at the back of the sombre- hued dwelling, could be seen against the walls the old divans of springy saplings with curtains of reed mats, and the lodge roof now sagging with age and the hard usage of wind and rain.

Three men entered ; two sat down on the mat spread at the south, and one on that at the north side of the fireplace. All were wrapped in their blankets, but when they were seated, these were thrown back, revealing their embroidered buckskin leggings, decorated shirts, and bead necklaces. Their glossy hair carefully parted in the middle, hung in two braids interwoven with colored bands. None were painted.

After a pause the priest took from the open bundle a small pipe with a black bowl and round wooden stem, filled it with native tobacco, and passed it to one of the young men at the south, who lit it, and returned it to the priest. The priest pointed the stem up- ward, then placed it to his lips, and sent a puff of smoke up to the blue sky seen through the central opening, A second whiff was blown downward toward the fireplace, and a third was wafted over the buffalo skull to the west. Then the priest handed the pipe back to the young man, who offered smoke upward and downward, and passed the pipe on to the other men, who observed the same cere- mony. The pipe then came back to the priest, who finished it, and carefully emptied the ashes in front of the skull. He then passed his hands four times over the pipe and stem, and stroked his head, arms, and body. Rising from his position a little south of the wand, he stooped over the skull, and stroked it four times with both hands from the jaw to the tips of the horns ; passed his hands four times around the feathered wand with a spiral motion ; and touched with both his hands all the articles that lay open on the calf-skin. With bowed heads all present gave the word of thanks, " Na-wa-i-ri ! "

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