SACRIFICES. IXXXV 



The prophet, or diviner, had various means of read- 

 ing the secrets of futurity, such as the flight of birds, 

 and the movements of water and fire. There was a 

 peculiar practice of divination very general in the Algon- 

 quin family of tribes, among some of whom it still sub- 

 sists. A small, conical lodge was made by planting 

 poles in a circle, lashing the tops together at the height 

 of about seven feet from the ground, and closely covering 

 them with hides. The prophet crawled in, and closed 

 the aperture after him. He then beat his drum and 

 sang his magic songs to summon the spirits, whose weak, 

 shrill voices were soon heard, mingled with his lugubri- 

 ous chanting, while at intervals the juggler paused to 

 interpret their communications to the attentive crowd 

 seated on the ground without. During the whole scene, 

 the lodge swayed to and fro with a violence which has 

 astonished many a civilized beholder, and which some of 

 the Jesuits explain by the ready solution of a genuine 

 diabolic intervention.^ 



The sorcerers, medicine-men, and diviners did not 

 usually exercise the function of priests. Each man sac- 

 rificed for himself to the powers he wished to propitiate, 

 whether his guardian spirit, the spirits of animals, or the 

 other beings of his belief. The most common ofiering 

 was tobacco, thrown into the fire or water; scraps of 

 meat were sometimes burned to the manitous ; and, on a 

 few rare occasions of public solemnity, a white dog, tlie 

 mystic animal of many tribes, was tied to the end of an 

 upright pole, as a sacrifice to some superior spirit, or to 



1 This practice was first observed by Champlain. (See "Pioneers of 

 France in the New World.") From his time to the present, numerous 

 writers have remarked upon it. Le Jeune, in the Relation of 1637, treats 

 it at some length. The lodge was sometimes of a cyhndrical, instead of a 

 conical form. 



h 



