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The National Heptagon, the Sacred Square, ____ and wherever any part of the religious ceremonies took place, might only be entered by the red race, and, even of them, such only as had qualified themselves by the fulfilment of certain duties. Nevertheless, if a person under any criminal charge could make his way unobserved into the consecrated spots on any of the fasts of purification, or contrive to get within the Ookah's view, that person was absolved from stain among the rest and could not be punished.
During a religious festival, to touch either a person or a thing unsanctified, was an exclusion; and so was any offence against sobriety.
Among the customs observed on some of these occasions, if not on all, there was one, which has already been slightly mentioned, of gashing the limbs of young men and boys who presented themselves for the purpose: __ Aged priests did this with sharp flints, watching their countenances as they cut the long lines, and dashing the blood against the wall of the sacred place outside of which the ceremony was performed. On the least flinching, the priests cut still deeper.
It has been universally remarked that nothing could be more urbane than the bearing of the Cherokee at these festivals.
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