It is rare that, during the course of a year, a family is not visited by some calamity; - disease; death, either natural or at the hands of their foes; the loss of their horses, their richest treasure, by robbery; finally, the scarcity of game. which condemns them to rigorous fasts and sometimes even to famine. At the least misfortune the father of a family presents the calumet to the Great Spirit, and, in prayer, implores him to take pity on him, his wives and children. He promises to give him a part of all he possesses at the first peal of thunder in the spring. When it is practicable, the various camps collect as soon as winter is over, to offer their
gifts and sacrifices in union. This is the religious ceremony
far excellence. The Assiniboins attach the highest import
ance to it. They often speak of it in the course of the year, and look forward to its immediate arrival with joy, respect
and veneration. Sometimes three or four hundred lodges or families assemble in one locality. One sole individual is named the high priest, and directs all the ceremonies of the
festival. A species of hall is constructed, with about thirty
lodges, of skins of the buffalo. Each lodge is composed of twenty or twenty-four skins, stretched over a number of posts, seven or eight feet high. On the top of these posts several hundred poles are fastened, and on these each family hangs the articles that it intends to offer in sacrifice. These consist of skins of animals, richly embroidered with porcelain or glass beads, adorned with feathers of every hue; many-colored collars, clothes and ornaments of all kinds, making a rich and varied great Indian exhibition. Opposite to this hall, which is called the Great Medicine Lodge, they raise a high pole, to which all the chiefs and braves hang their medicine bags, containing the idols, their arrows, quivers, trophies won from their enemies, especially scalps. This pole is a tree, stripped of its bark and thirty or forty feet high. Men, women and children, in a spirit of religion, join in raising and planting it, amid the acclamations of the tribe.
After these preliminaries, the ceremony begins with a