The _waiter_, or servant of the leader, called _Etissu_, placed a couple
of blocks of wood near the war-pole, opposite the door of a circular
cabin, called the _hot-house_, in the centre of which was the council
fire. On these blocks he rested a kind of ark, deemed among their most
sacred things. While this was transacting the party were profoundly
silent. The chief bade all set down, and then inquired whether his cabin
was prepared and every thing unpolluted, according to the custom of
their fathers? After the answer, they rose up in concert and began the
war-whoop, walking slowly round the 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.
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