every country there is perceptible a desire in this class of men to
surround themselves with mystery, and to concentrate and increase their
power by forming an intimate alliance among themselves. They affected
singularity in dress and a professional costume. Bartram describes the
junior priests of the Creeks as dressed in white robes and carrying on
their head or arm "a great owlskin, stuffed very ingeniously, as an
insignia of wisdom and divination. These bachelors are also
distinguishable from the other people by their taciturnity, grave and
solemn countenance, dignified step, and singing to themselves songs or
hymns, in a low sweet voice, as they stroll about the towns."[283-2] The
priests of the civilized nations adopted various modes of dress to
typify the divinity which they served, and their appearance was often in
the highest degree unprepossessing.

To add to their self-importance they pretended to converse in a tongue
different from that used in ordinary life, and the chants containing
the prayers and legends were often in this esoteric dialect. Fragments
of one or two of these have floated down to us from the Aztec
priesthood. The travellers Balboa and Coreal, mention that the temple
services of Peru were conducted in a language not understood by the
masses,[284-1] and the incantations of the priests of Powhatan were not
in ordinary Algonkin, but some obscure jargon.[284-2] The same
peculiarity has been observed among the Dakotas and Eskimos, and in
these nations, fortunately, it fell under the notice of competent
linguistic scholars, who have submitted it to a searching examination.
The results of their labors prove that certainly in these two instances
the supposed foreign tongues were nothing more than the ordinary
dialects of the country modified by an affected accentuation, by the
introduction of a few cabalistic terms, and by the use of descriptive
circumlocutions and figurative words in place of ordinary expressions, a
slang, in short, such as rascals and pedants invariably coin whenever
they associate.[285-1]

All these stratagems were intended to shroud with impenetrable secrecy
the mysteries of the brotherhood. With the same motive, the priests
formed societies of different grades of illumination, only to be entered
by those willing to undergo trying ordeals, whose secrets were not to be
revealed under the severest penalties. The Algonkins had three such
grades, the _waubeno_, the _meda_, and the