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143 p. 46 145

Besides their stated feasts the Cherokees had many which were merely occasional. At the great feast in the spring, about planting time, the priest was requested to attend

to the season so as to render it fruitful. I call this man a priest because he offered the sacrifices of the people, and was their intercessor and was tilled? wholly by the town, and his family supplied, in part, at last with wnn?. Now if at any time the ground became dry and parched, or when the people began to desire right hand men, appointed seven men to hunt seven days and also seven men and seven women to fast the same length of time, as before the feast of first fruits. At the expiration of those days, when the hunters returned, the people again assembled, and a man was selected to take the deer skins