168 A SPORTSMAN'S EDEN. 



wind. His heart fluttered like a snared bird and 

 stood still. When it began to beat again, the 

 thing was gone. Now it is at the sister's lodge 

 that there is a tapping, which is not the tapping 

 of the woodpecker a rustling that is not the 

 wood-rat, looking for his food. At length they 

 can stand these visitations no longer. Scuse, the 

 medicine-man, is sent for. With charms and 

 songs he entices the uneasy spirit to a mat, draws 

 him thither, and binds him upon it with a mighty 

 spell. Then he cross-examines the spirit of the 

 chief, and finds that Tumisco is discontented be- 

 cause he is forgotten ; his sisters have ceased to 

 mourn for him, other men ride his horses, his 

 dogs follow other men to the chase ; moreover, no 

 funeral feast has lately been held in his honour, 

 and his grave-clothes are musty and mouldy with 

 decay. 



This Scuse looks upon as a well-founded 

 cause of complaint. The spirit is released, and 

 Scuse and the sisters convene a meeting of the 

 tribes to hold a merry-making with the dead, who 

 is disinterred, each Indian lifting a bone, whilst 

 their mouths and nostrils are stuffed with 

 sweet-smelling grass. The bones are laid in a 

 new sheet. The old grave-clothes are burned. 

 Gifts are presented to the chief; like scaloolas 

 (or carrion birds), the warriors dance and flit 



