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Updated: May 12, 2025
She wanted to see how it would seem, for once, not to have any litter of whittlings, of strings and marbles and tops! No litter of beloved birds' eggs, snake-skins, turtle-shells! No trail of the Boy anywhere. It had taken the whole family to get the Boy off, but now he was gone.
Their faces were painted in stripes of white and yellow; down their backs hung snake-skins, and round their waists rattled circlets of human bones, while each held a small forked wand in her shrivelled hand. In all there were ten of them. When they arrived in front of us they halted, and one of them, pointing with her wand towards the crouching figure of Gagool, cried out
Rafael carried out the steamer trunks and luggage, the snake-skins, the smoky opals, the Indian baskets, the braided quirts, and all the scattered plunder that the cowboys had given Kitty and that she could not bear to leave behind.
"'But how shall we get the snake-skins? asked Grandfather Kit-chee, the head of the family. "'That is easy, answered the Master of Life. 'A-tos-sa, as you know, sheds his skin. If you look sharp, you can find the cast-off skins almost anywhere. Do as I have said, and you will be safe. Even Mee-ko the Squirrel and others of your enemies will be afraid of the snake-skin and let your nests alone.
Then I forgot these scenic accessories in the sight of the man himself. There he sat on a stool in front of his hut, quite unattended, and wearing only a cloak of leopard skins open in front, for he was unadorned with the usual hideous trappings of a witch-doctor, such as snake-skins, human bones, bladders full of unholy compounds, and so forth.
Then his eyes fell upon a sawed-off tree-trunk, in the hollow of which lay something wrapped in a white cloth, surrounded with snake-skins. He had come by this secret road into the actual presence of the great Ju-Ju. Curiously he inserted his hand, lifted the object out, and examined it. Inside was something of a strange, yet familiar shape, oval, and flattened at the ends.
"How do you know that's a fly-ketcher's nest and not a wood-pecker's, then?" he asked, to change the subject. "That's what I'd like to know, too," said Bonaparte as plainly as his growls and two mean eyes could say it. "If it's a fly-ketcher's, the nest will be lined with a snake's-skin," said Archie B. "That's nachrul, ain't it," he added "the nest of all sech is lined with snake-skins."
It was confidently asserted in Si-chow that he possessed every manner of printed leaf which had been composed in whatsoever language, and all the most precious charms, including many snake-skins of more than ordinary rarity, and the fang of a black wolf which had been stung by seven scorpions.
Just as this task was finished there appeared, scrambling up the denga, and followed, by some men, a fat and hideous-looking woman, with fish bladders in her hair, and snake-skins tied about her, who, from her costume, Rachel knew at once must be an Isanuzi or witch-doctoress.
As we rode away with the spade, Ántonia suggested that we stop at the prairie-dog town and dig into one of the holes. We could find out whether they ran straight down, or were horizontal, like mole-holes; whether they had underground connections; whether the owls had nests down there, lined with feathers. We might get some puppies, or owl eggs, or snake-skins.
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