IN THE OLD WEST 73 



The lodges of the village, numbering some two 

 hundred or more, were erected in parallel lines, 

 and covered a large space of the level prairie in 

 shape of a parallelogram. In the center, how- 

 ever, the space which half-a-dozen lodges in length 

 would have taken up was left unoccupied, save by 

 one large one, of red-painted buffalo-skins, tat- 

 tooed with the mystic totems of the medicine 

 peculiar to the nation. In front of this stood the 

 grim scalp-pole, like a decayed tree-trunk, its 

 bloody fruit tossing in the wind; and on another 

 pole, at a few feet distance, was hung the bag 

 with its mysterious contents. Before each lodge 

 a tripod of spears supported the arms and shields 

 of the Yuta chivalry, and on many of them smoke- 

 dried scalps rattled in the wind, former trophies 

 of the dusky knights who were arming themselves 

 within. Heraldic devices were not wanting 

 not, however, graved upon the shield, but hang- 

 ing from the spear-head, the actual totem of the 

 warrior it distinguished. The rattlesnake, the 

 otter, the carcajou, the mountain badger, the 

 war-eagle, the konqua-kish, the porcupine, the fox, 

 &c., dangled their well-stuffed skins, displaying 

 the guardian medicine of the warriors they per- 

 tained to, and representing the mental and cor- 

 poreal qualities which were supposed to character- 

 ize the braves to whom they belonged. 



From the center lodge, two or three medicine- 

 men, fantastically attired in the skins of wolves 



