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The baby girl is called Winona for some months, when the medicine-man is summoned and requested to name publicly the first-born daughter of Chetonska, the White Hawk; but not until he has received a present of a good pony with a finely painted buffalo-robe. It is usual to confer another name besides that of the "First-born," which may be resumed later if the maiden proves worthy.
He was the medicine-man of the tribe a sort of magician; a sharp, clever, unscrupulous, presumptuous, and rather fine looking-fellow, who held the people in some degree of subjection through their superstitious fears, though there were some of the men among them who would not give in to his authority. As Eskimos have no regular chiefs, this man tried to occupy the position of one.
My neglected hair had grown long and fell upon my neck. My father had not risen from his bed since the day the medicine-man led the people away. Though I read from the Bible and prayed beside him upon my knees, my father would not listen. Yet I believed my prayers were not unheeded in heaven. "Ha, ha, ha! my son," my father groaned upon the first snowfall. "My son, our food is gone.
Here he was treated well, and soon learned enough of their simple language to understand and be understood; while the King, who considered all white men as of canine origin, was pleased with him, and prepared to make him useful. Then Twemlow was sent, with an escort of chiefs, to the land of the Houlas, as a medicine-man, to win Queen Mabonga for the great King Golo.
Then one of them who had been sitting still on his horse rode a little forward and got off, and I could see a thin ribbon of blue smoke arising. I suppose he was the medicine-man of the tribe making medicine to frighten the evil spirit; or rather, perhaps, to get up their own courage to face it. This kept up for half an hour.
A guttural grunt applauded Le Borgne's advice, and the crafty scoundrel continued: "The great medicine-man, the white hunter, who lived under the earth, was their friend. Was he not here among them? Let the braves hear what he advised." The Indians grunted their approbation. Some one stirred the fire to flame. There was a shuffling movement among the figures in the dark.
Acting on this principle head-hunters in Borneo hang wooden hooks beside the skulls of their slain enemies in the belief that this helps them on their forays to hook in fresh heads. One of the implements of a Haida medicine-man is a hollow bone, in which he bottles up departing souls, and so restores them to their owners.
"Noiselessly my black servant and I proceeded to the chief's enclosure. His slaves permitted us to pass, by his orders, and we found ourselves in his tent, where he sat in grave silence on a pile of skins, the flare of a torch revealing fitfully the ugly face of the medicine-man, crouched with due humility on the earthen floor at his master's feet.
As for the disastrous effect which a miscarriage may have on the whole country I will quote the words of a medicine-man and rain-maker of the Ba-Pedi tribe: "When a woman has had a miscarriage, when she has allowed her blood to flow, and has hidden the child, it is enough to cause the burning winds to blow and to parch the country with heat.
Then the head medicine-man, raising himself upon his knees, crept on to the dais, took the fetish from her hands, and breaking into a wild song of triumph, he and his companions crawled down the hall and vanished through the door, leaving them alone save for the Asika's husband.
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