Their religious celebration, which the last year took place in December, was in this commenced on the 15th of November, and continued for fourteen days. As I was now considered as one of them, instead of being ordered to the woods, Maquina directed Thompson and myself to remain and pray with them to Quahootze to be good to them, and thank him for what he had done.
It was opened in much the same manner as the former. After which, all the men and women in the village assembled at Maquina's house, in their plainest dresses, and without any kind of ornaments about them, having their heads bound around with the red fillet, a token of dejection and humiliation, and their countenances expressive of seriousness and melancholy. The performances during the continuance of this celebration consisted almost wholly in singing a number of songs to mournful airs, the king regulating the time by beating on his hollow plank or drum, accompanied by one of his chiefs seated near him with the great rattle. In the meantime they ate but seldom, and then very little, retiring to sleep late, and rising at the first appearance of dawn, and even interrupting this short period of repose by getting up at midnight and singing.
The ceremony was terminated by an exhibition of a similar character to the one of the last year, but still more cruel. A boy of twelve years old, with six bayonets run into his flesh, one through each arm and thigh, and through each side close to the ribs, was carried around the room suspended upon them, without manifesting any symptoms of pain. Maquina, on my inquiring the reason of this display, informed me that it was an ancient custom of his nation to sacrifice a man at the close of this solemnity, in honour of their God, but that his father had abolished it, and substituted this in its place.[130] The whole closed on the evening of the 29th, with a great feast of salmon spawn and oil, at which the natives, as usual, made up for their late abstinence.
A few days after, a circumstance occurred, which, from its singularity, I cannot forbear mentioning. I was sent for by my neighbour Yealthlower, the king's elder brother, to file his teeth, which operation having been performed, he informed me that a new wife, whom he had a little time before purchased, having refused to sleep with him, it was his intention, provided she persisted in her refusal, to bite off her nose. I endeavoured to dissuade him from it, but he was determined, and, in fact, performed his savage threat that very night, saying that since she would not be his wife, she should not be that of any other, and in the morning sent her back to her father.