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There was, however, I understood, a very old woman extant, named "Mag," of great repute at medicines, pow-wows, and divination. I expressed a desire to speak with her, and was conducted to a log-house, more ricketty and ruined than any of the others. About fifty half-breeds followed me in respectful curiosity, and they formed a semicircle around the cabin.
Next day, the 26th, was spent in reconnaissance by company officers who had not already done one, and in pow-wows at Brigade, at which were decided the final details and also the scheme under which the "B" teams were to undertake the carrying forward of ammunition and bombs in rear of the advance.
The savages at first declared they were not so silly as to barter thirty-seven tutelar deities for one, but after much preaching and many pow-wows Mayhew succeeded in persuading them that the Deity of the white man was mightier than all their manitous.
He's been eddicated East an' can read in books, an' pow-wows American mighty near as flooent as I does myse'f. An' on that last p'int I'll take a chance that I ain't tongue-tied neither. "Which this yere is a long time ago. Them is days when I'm young an' lithe an' strong. I can heft a pony an' I'm six foot two in my moccasins.
"Had great days in India. Shooting, fishing, pig-spearing; polo, dances, rajahs, pretty women, pow-wows of sorts, and a chance of a fight. All in a year, my friend I beg your pardon and ten days. Quick work, eh? One crowded year of glorious life. A cycle of Cathay." She was looking at her saltspoon, stretched beyond her the length of her arm. "I'm sure you were very happy."
But we must not expect too much from the denizens of African seaports, mostly fishermen who will act hammock-bearers, a race especially fond of Bacchus and worshippers of the 'devil Venus. Perhaps a little too much license is allowed to them in the matter of noisy and drunken 'native customs, palavers, and pow-wows.
We was havin' a directors' meetin'. Get that, do you? We, you know! For nowadays, as private sec. and actin' head of Mutual Funding, I crashes into all sorts of confidential pow-wows. Uh-huh! Right in where they put a crimp in the surplus and make plots to slip things over on the Commerce Board! Oh my, yes! I'm gettin' almost respectable enough to be indicted.
"Enright tharupon calls a meetin' of the Stranglers, an' we-alls lines out for the New York Store to talk it over. Before we done pow-wows two minutes up comes Old Monte, with the stage, all dust an' cuss-words, an' allows he's been stood up out by the cow springs six hours before, an' is behind the mail-bag an' the Adams Company's box on the deal.
This was not so unreasonable as it may seem; for if the man could not make rain when it was wanted, what was he good for? The ceremonies of the pow-wows or medicine-men of the North American Indians, are less brutal than the African ones. These soothsayers, like the Obi-men, prepared charms for their customers, usually, however, not so much to destroy others as to protect the wearer.
I cannot say which was the worst. But when united, our sad lives seemed to have passed beneath the darkest cloud that could possibly hang over them. When the Indians held their tea-dances or pow-wows in times of peace, the squaws and children joined in, and it was a very amusing sight to watch them.