Then he
takes them all by the hand, and begins his dance again: and sometimes
this first dance is carried to a pitch of madness. At the end of it he
kisses his hand, by way of salute to all the company; after which he
goes quietly to his place again. Then another gets up to acquit himself
of the same duty, and so do successively all the others in the cabbin,
to the very last man inclusively.
This ceremony of thanksgiving being over by the men, the girls and women
come in, with the oldest at the head of them, who carries in her left
hand a great piece of birch-bark of the hardest, upon which she strikes
as it were a drum; and to that dull sound which the bark returns, they
all dance, spinning round on their heels, quivering, with one hand
lifted, the other down: other notes they have none, but a guttural loud
aspiration of the word Heh! Heh! Heh! as often as the old female savage
strikes her bark-drum. As soon as she ceases striking, they set up a
general cry, expressed by Yah! Then, if their dance is approved, they
begin it again; and when weariness obliges the old woman to withdraw,
she first pronounces her thanksgiving in the name of all the girls and
women there.
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