142 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETPINOLOGY [bull. 4?. 



trees and cloths on which they had i)iiinted various figures. These scaffolds 

 were designed for as many persons who wei*e to accompany the woman chief 

 into the other world. Their relations were all around them, and esteemed as a 

 great honor for their families the permission that they had obtained to sacri- 

 fice themselves in this manner. They apply sometimes ten years beforehand 

 to obtain this favor, and the persons that have obtained it must themselves 

 make the cords with which they are to be strangled. 



They appear on their scaffolds dressed in their richest attire, holding in the 

 right hand a great shell. The nearest relation [of each] is on his right hand, 

 having under his left arm the cord which is to serve for the execution and in his 

 right hand a war club. From time to time his nearest relation makes the cry 

 of death, and at this cry the 14 victims descend from their scaffolds and go 

 and dance all together in the middle of the open place that is before the temi)le, 

 and before the cabin of the woman chief. 



That day and the following ones they show them great respect ; they have 

 each five servants, and their faces are painted red. Some add that during the 

 eight days that precede their death they wear a red ribbon around one of their 

 legs, and that during this time everybody strives who shall be the first to feast 

 them. However this may be, on the occasion I am speaking of the fathers and 

 mothers who had strangled their children took them up in their hands and 

 ranged themselves on both sides of the cabin; the 14 persons who were also 

 destined to die placed themselves in the same position, and were followed by 

 the relations and friends of the deceased, all in mourning — that is to say, having 

 their hair cut off. They all made the air resound with such frightful cries that 

 one would have said that all the devils in hell were come to howl in the place. 

 This was followed by the dances of those who were to die and by the songs of 

 the relations of tlie woman chief. 



At last they began the procession. The fathers and mothers, who carried the 

 dead children, appeared first, marching two and two, and came immediately 

 before the bier on which was the body of the woman chief, which four men 

 carried on their shoulders. All the others came after in the same order as the 

 first. At every ten paces the fathers and mothers let their children fall upon 

 the ground ; those who carried the bier walked upon them, then turned quite 

 round them, so that when the procession arrived at the temple these little bodies 

 were all in pieces. 



While they buried the body of the woman chief in the temple, they undressed 

 the 14 persons who were to die. They made them sit on the ground before the 

 door, each having two savages by him, one of whom sat on his knees and the 

 other held his arms behind. Then they put a cord about his neck and covered 

 his head with a roebuck's skin. They made him swallow three pills of tobacco 

 and drink a glass of water, and the relations of the woman chief drew the two 

 ends of the cord, singing till he was strangled, after which they threw all the 

 carcasses into the same pit, which they covered with earth. 



When the great chief dies, if his nurse is living, she must die also. The 

 French, not being able to hinder this barbarity, have often obtained leave to 

 baptize the young children that were to be strangled, and who in consequence 

 did not accompany those in whose honor they were to be sacrificed into their 

 pretended paradise." 



To give an idea of this bloody ceremony, it is necessary to know that as soon 

 as an heir i)resum])tive has been born to the great chief, each family that has 

 an infant at the breast is obliged to iiay him homage. From all these infiints 

 they chot)se a certain number whom tlu^y desire for the service of the young 

 prince, and as soon as they are of a competent age they furnish them with em- 



" (Minrlcvnix in Kroncli. Ilisl. Coll. I.a., ICv.-ttl.^, 1851. 



