and whose duty it also is to entertain {366} her upon the great feast, they prepare on the occasion in her honor, and that she may be well fed in order to appear more beautiful and fat, and thereby more agreeable to the Master of life. This ends the first day of the ceremonies.
On the second day, two old female savages, with dishevelled hair, their faces wrinkled and daubed with black and red paint, their naked arms and legs tattooed, barefooted, and with no other dress than a deer-skin petticoat, extending down to the knee—in a word, two miserable-looking beldams, capable of striking terror in any beholder,—issue from their huts with pipes in their hands, ornamented with the scalps which their husbands have taken from their unhappy enemies. Passing through the village, they dance around each akkaro, solemnly announcing, "that the Sioux girl has been given to the Master of life by wise and just men, that the offering is acceptable to him, and that each one should prepare to celebrate the day with festivity and mirth." At this announcement, the idlers and children of the village move about and shout with joy. They then, still dancing, re-conduct the two old squaws to their huts, before which they place their pikes as trophies, and enter.—All then {367} return to their own lodge, to partake of the feasts of their relatives.
About ten o'clock in the morning of the third day, all the young women and girls of the village, armed with hatchets, repair to the lodge of their young and unhappy captive, and invite her to go into the forest with them to cut wood.—The simple-hearted, confiding child, accepts their malicious invitation with eagerness and joy, happy to breathe once more the pure air.—They then give her a hatchet, and the female troop advance towards the place marked out in the dance, making the forest resound with shouts of joy. Atipaat, an old squaw who conducted
