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From having the heart once chilled, she or he goes on in cruelty, until at last the sufferer eats the heart of another Chenoo, especially a female's. Then utter wickedness ensues. It is more than probable that this leads us back to some dark and terrible Shaman superstition, older than we can now fathom. There is a passage in the Edda which its translator, Thorpe, thinks can never be explained.
Behind us were curtains beyond which the Shaman slept, kept his instruments of divination and worked out his horoscopes. Now they had been drawn, and between them, in her royal array, stood the Khania still as a statue. "Who was it that spoke of crime?" she asked in a cold voice. "Was it you, my lord Leo?"
"Silence!" ordered the little governor, but nobody paid any attention. "Satyumishe Maseua," now shouted the principal shaman, "keep order, the nashtio Koshare wants to speak!" The tall man rose calmly; he went toward the cluster of wrangling men and grasped Kauaitshe by the shoulder. "Be quiet," he ordered. Nobody withstood his determined mien. All became silent.
The Shamán lifted his head angrily, saw it was no human hand that had dared turn on the light, growled, and pulled something else from under his inexhaustible parki. The Boy peered curiously. The Shamán seemed to be shutting out the offensive light by wrapping himself up in something, head and all.
It was the last time he would hear that voice. There went Geehow's lodge! And Tusken's! Seven, eight, nine; only the shaman's could be still standing. There! They were at work upon it now. He could hear the shaman grunt as he piled it on the sled. A child whimpered, and a woman soothed it with soft, crooning gutturals. Little Koo-tee, the old man thought, a fretful child, and not overstrong.
"Thanks for a good meal to Kuskokala the Shamán On the far mountain quietly lieth your husband." Ahmi, ahmi, sleep little one, wake not. "Twenty deers' tongues tied to the pack on his shoulders; Not a tongue in his mouth to call to his wife with. Wolves, foxes, and ravens are tearing and fighting for morsels. Tough and hard are the sinews; not so the child in your bosom."
The shaman would see signs and wonders in this when they told him. And yet again, they come to where the moose had made to mount the bank and gain the timber. But his foes had laid on from behind, till he reared and fell back upon them, crushing two deep into the snow. It was plain the kill was at hand, for their brothers had left them untouched.
She was shaking with excitement and with ecstacy. The sick man cried aloud. A frenzy seemed to seize the Shamán. He raised his voice in a series of blood-curdling shrieks, then dropped it, moaning, whining, then bursting suddenly into diabolic laughter, bellowing, whispering, ventriloquising, with quite extraordinary skill. The dim and foetid cave might indeed be full of devils.
And from that day I was both chief and shaman. And great honor was mine, and all men yielded me obedience." "Until the steamboat came," Mutsak prompted. "Ay," said Lone Chief. "Until the steamboat came."
The Chayan gave no immediate reply, but sat musing in a manner indicating that his thoughts were with Those Above. At last he raised his head and replied, "We must wait until the sun stands in the sky." Tyope suppressed a sigh. However much he attributed this answer of the shaman to inspiration from those on high, it appeared to him dangerous. Tyope felt very uneasy, but he was no coward.
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