THE GEORGE CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY. 361 



In this moment of general terror and alarm there was an instant check! and all for 

 a few moments were as silent as death. 



The old master of ceremonies, who had run from his position at the big canoe, had 

 met this monster of fiends, and having thrust the medicine-pipe before him, held him 

 still and immovable under its charm ! This check gave the females an opportunity 

 to get out of his reach, and when they were free from their danger, though all hearts 

 beat yet with the instant excitement, their alarm soon cooled down into the most ex- 

 orbitant laiighter and shouts of applause at his sudden defeat, and the awkward and 

 ridiculous posture in which lie was stopped and held. The old man was braced stiff 

 by his side, with his eye-balls glaring him in the face, whilst the medicine-pipe held 

 in its mystic chains his Satanic Majesty, annulling all the powers of his magical 

 wand, and also depriving him of the powers of locomotion! Surely no two human 

 beings ever presented a more striking group than these two individuals did for a few 

 moments, with their eye-balls set in direst mutual hatred upon each oth»r ; both 

 struggling for the supremacy, relying on the potency of their medicine or mystery. 

 The one held in check, with his body painted black, representing (or rather assuming 

 to be) his sable majesty O-lrfi-hee-de (ihe Evil Spirit), frowning everlasting vengeance 

 on the other, who sternly gazed him back with a look of exultation and contempt, as 

 he held him in check and disarmed under the charm of his sacred mystery-pipe. 



When the superior powers of the medicine-pipe (on which hang all these annual 

 mysteries) had been thus fully tested and acknowledged, and the women had had 

 requisite time to withdraw from the reach of this fiendish monster, the pipe was very 

 gradually withdrawn from before him, and he seemed delighted to recover the use of 

 his limbs again, and power of changing his position from the exceedingly unpleasant 

 and really ridiculous one he appeared in, and was compelled to maintain a few mo- 

 ments before, rendered more superlatively ridiculous and laughable, from the fur- 

 ther information which I am constrained to give, of the plight in which this demon 

 of terror and vulgarity made his entree into the uaidst of the Maudan village, and to 

 the center and nucleus of their first and greatest religious ceremony. 



In this plight he pursued the groups of females, spreading dismay and alarm wher- 

 ever he went, and consequently producing the awkward and exceedingly laughable 

 predicament in which he was placed by the sudden check from the medicine-pipe, as 

 I have above stated, when all eyes were intently fixed upon him, and all joined in 

 rounds of applause for the success of the magic spell that was placed upon him ; all 

 voices were raised in shouts of satisfaction at his defeat, and all eyes gazed upon him ; 

 of chiefs and of warriors, matrons, and even of their tender-aged and timid daughters, 

 whose education had taught them to receive the moral of these scenes without the 

 shock of impropriety that would have startled a more fastidious and consequently 

 sensual-thinking people. 



After this he paid his visits to three others of the eight in succession, receiving as 

 before the deafening shouts of approbation which pealed from every mouth in the 

 multitude, who were all praying to the Great Spirit to send them buffaloes to supply 

 them with food during the season, and who attribute the coming of buffaloes for this 

 purpose entirely to the strict and critical observance of this ridiculous and disgust- 

 ing part of the ceremonies. 



During the half hour or so that he had been jostled about amongst man and beasts, 

 to the great amusement and satisfaction of the lookers-on, he seemed to have become 

 exceedingly exhausted, and anxiously looking out for some feasible mode of escape. 



THE EVIL SPIRIT AT LAST DRIVEN FROM THE VILLAGE. 



In this awkward predicament ho became the laughing-stock and butt for the wo- 

 men, who being no longer afraid of him, were gathering in grou^is around, to tease 

 and tantalize him ; and in the midst of this dilemma, which soon became a very sad 

 one, one of the Avomen, who stole up behind him with both hands full of yellow dirt, 

 dashed it into his face and eyes, and all over him, and his body being covered with 



