.MTA1Mw.NzA2NDY

From Newberry Transcribe
Jump to navigation Jump to search

442 and 23 penciled at top of page

The first autumnal moon was, & is called, the Great Moon. + The priests at some period had a house or room which no one would enter but himself. There he kept his holy things. His diamond was kept in a cane basket curiously wrought. There also he kept his shining stone beads, & little trough (see on war) and seven grains, like small grains of sand, to conjure with in the trough. These he kept in a cane vial stopped tight with spunk. They would however, come out now and then, notwithstanding the stopple, and fly about, shining like lightening bugs. When the priest saw this he killed a fowl and rubbed them with blood, saying that they came out for food, & thus he satisfied them for three months.

When the priest bathed, he always sweat in the Indian manner first.

+ This is disputed by some, yet the universal testimony of the old men, as far as I know, is, that the moon first appears when the leaves begin to fall, which must be about the time of the autumnal equinox, and the commencement of their autumn.