THE GEORGE CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY. 367 



trusts his life, and in whom he reposes the most implicit confidence Hot his preserva- 

 tion and recovery. As an evidence of this, and of the high value which these youths 

 set upon this privilege, there is no person, not a relation or a chief of the tribe, who 

 is allowed, or who would dare to stoj) forward to offer an aiding hand, even to save 

 his life; for not only the rigid customs of the nation, and the pride of the individual 

 who has intrusted his life to the keeping of the Great Si^irit, would sternly reject 

 such a tender ; but their superstition, which is the strongest of all arguments in an 

 Indian community, would alone hold all the tribe in fear and dread of interfering, 

 when they consider they have so good a reason to believe that the Great Spirit has 

 undertaken the special care and i>rotection of his devoted worshipers. 



In this "last race," which was the struggle that iinally closed their sufferings, each 

 one was dragged until he fainted, and was thus left, looking more like the dead than 

 the living ; and thus each one laid, until, by the aid of the Great Spirit, he was in a few 

 minutes seen gradually rising, and at last reeling and staggering like a drunken man 

 through the crowd (which made way for him) to his wigwam, where his friends and 

 relatives stood ready to take him into hand and restore him. 



MARVELOUS ENDUKANCE OF A VICTIM. 



In this frightful scene, as in the buftalo-danco, the whole nation was assembled as 

 spectators, and all raised the most piercing and violent yells and screams they could 

 possibly produce to drown the cries of the suffering ones, that no heart could even be 

 touched with sympathy for them. I have mentioned before that six or eight of the 

 young men were brought from the medicine-lodge at a time, and when they were thus 

 passed through this shocking ordeal, the medicine-men and the chiefs returned to 

 the interior, where as many more were soon prepared and underwent a similar 

 treatment, and after that another batch and another, and so on until the whole num- 

 ber, some forty-five or fifty, had run in this siclvening circle, and, by leaving their 

 weights, had oi^ened the flesh for honorable scars. I said "all," but tlierc was one poor 

 fellow though (and I shudder to tell it), W'ho was dragged around and around the 

 circle with the skull of an elk hanging to the flesh of one on his legs ; several had 

 jumped upon it, but to no effect, for the splint was under the sinew, which could not 

 be broken. The dragging became every instant more and more furious, and the ap- 

 prehensions for the poor fellow's life api)arent by the piteous howl which was set up 

 for him by the multitude around, and at last the medicine-man ran, with his medicine- 

 I)ipe in his hand, and held them in check, when the body was dropped and left upon the 

 ground with the skull yet hanging to it. The boy, who was an extremely interesting 

 and fine-looking youth, soon recovered his senses and his strength, looking deliber- 

 ately at his torn and bleeding limbs, and also with the most pleasant smile of defiance 

 upon the misfortune which had now fallen to his peculiar lot, crawled through the 

 crowd (instead of walking, which they are never again at liberty to do until the flesh 

 is torn out and the article left) to the prairie, and over which, for the distance of half 

 a mile, to a sequestered spot, without any attendant, where he laid three days and 

 throe nights, yet longer, without food, and praying to the Great Spirit, until suppu- 

 ration took place in the wound, and by the decaying of the flesh the weight was 

 dropped', and the splint also, which ho dare not extricate in another way. At the end 

 of this ho crawled back to the village on his hands and knees, being too much ema- 

 ciated to walk, and begged for something to cat, which was at once given him, and 

 ho was soon restored to health. 



EXTREME SKLF-TOllTURR. 



These extreme and difficult cases often occur, and I learn that in such instances the 

 youth has it at his option to get rid of the weight that is thus left upon him in sucli 

 way as he may choose, and some of those modes are far more extraordinary than the 



