304 OSAGE MOURNERS. 
savage nations, to keep up a chorus of hideous 
cries and yells for a long while after the death 
of a relative, yet the Osages are by far the 
most accomplished mourners of them all. Be- 
ing once encamped near a party of them, I 
was wakened at the dawn of day by the most 
doleful, piteous, heart-rending howls and la- 
mentations. The apparently distressed mourn- 
er would cry with a protracted expiration till 
completely out of breath. For some instants 
he seemed to be in the very last agonies: 
then he would recover breath with a smother- 
ed, gurgling inspiration: and thus he con- 
tinued for several minutes, giving vent to 
every variety of hideous and terrific sounds. 
Looking around, I perceived the weeper stand- 
ing with his face towards the faint gleam 
which flitted from the still obscured sun. 
This was perhapshis idol; else he was standing 
thus because his deceased relation lay in that 
direction. A full ‘choir’ of these mourners 
(which is always joined by the howls and 
yelps of their myriads of dogs), imparts the 
most frightful horror to a wilderness camp. 
It is considered among these as well as 
other ‘crying’ tribes, quite a merit to be a 
graceful weeper: it becomes even a profitable 
vocation to those whose eyes and lungs are 
most capacious of such things. If you tell 
an Osage that you have lost a kinsman or 
friend for whom you wish him to mourn, he 
will undertake the service for a trifling re- 
ward—and acquit himself with more ‘credit’ 
—more to the spirit than the best tragic 
