war-pole as they sung. All the
consecrated things were then carried, with no small show of solemnity,
into the hot-house. Here they remained three whole days and nights, in
separation from the rest of the people, applying warm ablutions to
their bodies, and sprinkling themselves with a decoction of snake root.
During a part of the time, the female relations of each of the
consecrated company, after having bathed, anointed, and drest themselves
in their finest apparel, stood, in two lines opposite the door, and
facing each other. This observance they kept up through the night,
uttering a peculiar, monotonous song, in a shrill voice for a minute;
then intermitting it about ten minutes, and resuming it again. When not
singing their silence was profound.

The chief, meanwhile, at intervals of about three hours, came out at the
head of his company, raised the war-whoop, and marched round the red
war-pole, holding in his right hand the pine or cedar boughs, on which
the scalps were attached, waving them backward and forward, and then
returned again. To these ceremonies they conformed without the slightest
interruption, during the whole three days' purification. To proceed with
the whole details of the ceremony to its close, would be tedious. We
close it, only adding, that a small twig of the evergreen was fixed upon
the roof of each one of their cabins, with a fragment of the scalps
attached to it, and this, as it appeared, to appease the ghosts of their
dead. When Boone asked them the meaning of all these long and tedious
ceremonies, they answered him by a word which literally imports "holy."
The leader and his waiter kept apart and continued the purification
three days longer, and the ceremony closed.

He observed, that when their war-parties returned from an expedition,
and had arrived near their village, they followed their file leader, in
what is called _Indian file_, one by one, each a few yards behind the
other, to give the procession an appearance of greater length and
dignity. If the expedition had been unsuccessful, and they had lost any
of their warriors, they returned without ceremony and in noiseless
sadness. But if they had been successful, they fired their guns in
platoons, yelling, whooping, and insulting their prisoners, if they had
made any. Near their town was a large square area, with a war-pole in
the centre, expressly prepared for such purposes. To this they fasten
their prisoners. They then advance to