Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 29.djvu/674

656 hidden with transverse bars of yellow and vermilion, and a ring of black about the eye; a second had daubed his countenance with black, painting the orbits white; another employed white and black in alternate horizontal bars, with eyes set in a deep border of bright vermilion; still another hid his face behind a mask of ochre; and a fifth wore a wolf-skin robe, the head of which supplied a covering for his own. The acolytes, or assistants, save for the instruments they bore, and the medicine-bags suspended from their necks, differed little from their brethren of the laity.

The scene was night, close upon the "witching hour"; the place a natural opening, less than thirty yards in diameter, in the midst of spruces, cedars, and towering Norway pines; a bright moon threw but fitful gleams of light, the rays straggling in here and there only serving to render "darkness visible"; even a small fire kindled near the center in no way tended to disperse the gloom of the surroundings, its beams but magnifying all within their radius into ghastly shades and shadows that danced fitfully and spectrally over the dark evergreen background, giving the solemn and weird character demanded in such proceedings, aiding to impress the beholders with the idea of the mysterious and supernatural.

The unfortunate in whose behalf the medicine council was instituted was a man just past the prime of life, who but a short time before had been stricken with paralysis that involved in varying degrees the entire right half of the body; the hand and arm were entirely dead to sensation, and no way amenable to the will. He had for some time been under the care of local conjurers, who, failing to relieve by their incantations, demanded a great powpow that should embrace the most noted of the fraternity; they assumed that their failure was due to insufficient power, since a half-dozen or more of malevolent spirits were implicated in the production of the malady.

The poor fellow was finally introduced into our midst, when he was submitted to a searching cross-examination as to forgotten or unfulfilled vows; then, after a few uneventful preliminaries, such as looking into amulets in order to determine the number and character of the demons involved, he was placed in the center of the circle of conjurers who had thus ranged themselves to the left of the fire.

Pou-ni-ka-ma-ta, the "Medicine Elk," he of the antlered head, led the jig, circling round and round the invalid, followed by the entire conjuring crew in single file chanting a refrain that ever ended with a line indicative of the unity of purpose and power of the Supreme Manitou on earth, giving a peculiar inflection and intonation to the final word. This was repeated over and over and over again, with unvarying monotony, only to be replaced after a measured period by another higher in key, and more emphatic in enunciation and movement; and