2T6 Expedition to the 



Annually, in the month of July, the Minnetarees celebrate 

 their great medicine dance, or dance of penitence, "which may 

 well be compared with the Currack-pooja of the expiatory 

 tortures of the Hindoos, so often celebrated at Calcutta. On 

 this occasion a considerable quantity of food is prepared, 

 which is well cooked, and served up in their best manner. 

 The devotees then dance and sing to their music at inter- 

 vals, for three or four days together in full view of the vic- 

 tuals, without attempting to taste of them. But they do not, 

 even at this time, forego their accustomed hospitality. And 

 if a stranger enters, he is invited to eat, though no one par- 

 takes with him. On the third or fourth day, the severer ex- 

 piatory tortures commence, to which the preceding ceremo- 

 nies were but preludes. An individual presents himself be- 

 fore one of the officiating magi, crying and lamenting, and 

 requests him to cut a fillet of skin from his arm, which he 

 extends for that purpose. The devout operator thrusts a sharp 

 instrument through the skin near the wrist, then introduces 

 the knife, and cuts out a piece of the required length, some- 

 times extending the excision entirely to the shoulder. Ano- 

 ther will request bands of skin to be cut from his arm. A 

 third will have his breast flayed, so as to represent a full moon 

 or crescent. A fourth submits to the removal of concentric 

 arcs of skin, from his breast. A fifth prays the operator, to 

 remove small pieces of skin, from various indicated parts of 

 his body; for this purpose an iron bodkin is thrust through 

 the skin, and the piece is cut off, by passing the knife under 

 the instrument. 



Various are the forms of suffering which they inflict upon 

 themselves. An individual requests the operator, to pierce a 

 hole through the skin of each of his shoulders, and after pas- 

 sing a long cord through each of these holes, he repairs to a 

 golgotha at some distance from the village, and selects one 

 of the bison skulls collected there. To the chosen cranium 

 he affixes the ends of his cords, and drags it in this painful 



