A Ceremony of Native Americans, Rites of Passage

1878

A Disgusting Ceremony

A Winnipeg, Manitoba, correspondent describes the following ceremony, indulged in by the Sircees tribe of Indians, in that neighborhood:

The candidate was required to repair to the forest for a certain number of days, to be passed in fasting until, from extreme physical privation, he should be wrought up to a close communion with the spirits. He then returned and entered the pale of the fence making the limits of the dog feast, to be at once surrounded by a circle of conjurers and braves of the tribe, who indulged in a wild dance.

In the midst of this dance a live dog, white in color, if to be had, was brought within the circle by the instructing medicine-man, and given to the novitiate. Seizing the sacrificial animal by the neck and hind leg, the candidate finishes his initiation by devouring the animal alive. The spectacle of this poor wretch, his face covered with blood, the howls and contortions of this suffering animal, and the yelling, dancing demons circling about in their monotonous dance was appalling in the last degree.

The dogs consumed we generally of small size, but in some instances large ones are given, and the neophyte is in a gorged and semi-dormant condition at the end of his repast.

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