.MTA1Mg.NzA0MzQ
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
77 P. 14. 79
X gone through again; and this four times: after which all repaired to a stream & dipped seven times and then retired to rest. The next morning, at day break, the conjurer took them to the creek, going behind with his deer skin, beads & conjuring for them. On arriving at the stream they again plunged seven times. During the day they were mostly in a company, at or near the townhouse watching each other to see that no one violated the rules of the play. These rules were as follows. 1. No one of the players must go near his wife, or any other woman during the seven days of the dance, nor for four days after the play. Some were scratched, the better to fit them for the play. These must not associate with their wives for twenty four days after being scratched. 2. They must eat no meat, nor any thing hot or salt. They would eat only cold bread, and drink parched corn meal in water. 3. They could not receive their food from the hands of a woman, but having it set down some distance off, had it brought them by boys; and the seven men, selected to wait on, or watch the conjurer, could eat no food prepared by any other, than the seven women chosen for the purpose. 4. Those seven women must not be pregnant, nor affected with any uncleanness. 5. The seven men above mentioned, were generally married men, but their wives were neither pregnant, nor, on any account, unclean. 6. If any one of the players had a wife in a state of pregnancy, he must keep behind the other, in dancing, marching, 7. No woman must come to the place of the dance, nor walk a path the players had to walk during the seven days. On the second day the players ordered a number of lads to kill a squirrel without shooting it, for the ball. A man selected from the bird clan, took the skin, dressed it, filling it with deers hair, and the night before the play, put it on the deer skin of the conjurer, and then fasted till the play is over. The seven nights of the dance were conducted as the first except on the seventh night, the players dancing seven times instead of four, and the seven women danced the whole night a short distance off. Their musician accompanied his voice with the sound of a drum. On the morning of the eighth day, just at sunrise, the whooper raised his whoop, and the players, standing in a cluster, with their faces towards the ball ground, responded four written sideways: X The seven men selected must always be the first