ing down to the knee - in a word, two miserable-looking beldams, capable of striking terror in any beholder,- issue from their huts with pipes' in their hands, ornamented with the scalps which their husbands have taken from their unhappy enemies. Passing through the village, they dance around each akkayo, solemnly announcing " that the Sioux girl has been given to the Master of Life by wise and just men, that the offering is acceptable to him, and that each one should prepare to celebrate the day with festivity and mirth." At this announcement the idlers and children of the village move about and shout with joy. They then, still dancing, re-conduct the two old squaws to their huts, before which they place their pikes as trophies, and enter. All then return to their own lodge, to partake of the feasts of their relatives.
About ten o'clock in the morning of the third day, all the young women and girls of the village, armed with hatchets, repair to the lodge of their young and unhappy captive, and invite her to go into the forest with them to cut wood. The simple-hearted, confiding child accepts their malicious invitation with eagerness and joy, happy to breathe once more the pure air. They then give her a hatchet, and the female troop advance toward the place marked out in the dance, making the forest resound with shouts of joy. Atipaat, an old squaw who conducts them, designates by a blow of the hatchet the tree which is to be cut down. Each then gives it one blow, after which the victim approaches to complete the work. As soon as she commences what seems to her but pastime, the whole crowd of young furies surround her, howling and dancing. Unconscious that the tree is to supply the wood for her own sacrifice, the poor child pursues her work as if a great honor had been reserved for her. Atipaat, the old woman, then fastens to her the ashki8 with which to draw the wood.
7 Fr. pikes.
8 The ashki is a cord, made of horse hair or of the bark of the elm, which they prepare by boiling it in cold water. It varies from twenty-