Then at last two sons of the old chief went a journey to a village some
distance away where a Medicine Man lived, and they took presents to the
Medicine Man and begged him to come to cure the old chief’s sickness:
and the Medicine Man came. He was a very old man, and he had a great
name for skill in curing diseases. He brought with him his wand of
magic wood and a bone rattle, but no medicines, though it was said of
him that he could make more powerful medicines than any that the women
made. He went into the old chief’s hut, and sat by him for a long time
without speaking. Then he got up and walked solemnly round the bed from
left to right three times, making signs with his wand and shaking his
rattle. Tig and some of the others were waiting and listening outside
the hut, and only the old chief’s sons and some of the older men were
allowed inside. Then the Medicine Man said that an evil spirit was
troubling Old Chief, and unless he could scare it away, the chief
would die. The Medicine Man began to chant a song, shaking his rattle
and beating on the ground with his wand; and the old chief lay groaning
in pain, and the people cried and groaned also. At last the Medicine
Man said that no more could be done that night; but that on the morrow
he would work a stronger spell against the evil spirit. But in the
night Old Chief died.
Then in the morning the news spread about that the old chief was dead;
and the women who had attended him in his sickness stood around the
hut moaning and wailing, and went crying up and down the village. And
all the people mourned for him. Then after two days they carried his
body to the top of a hill beyond the village, and built a funeral pyre
of faggots and burned his body in the fire. This was done according
to the rule of the Medicine Men, of whom there were three present to
take part in the funeral. They gathered the ashes together and put
them into an urn and then carried the urn to a place that they had
chosen. In the meantime the people had built up another great fire;
and they brought an ox, and killed it and roasted it in the fire, and
made a great feast on the hill-top beside the fire, and all the people
sat down and feasted at the funeral feast of the old chief. Then the
Medicine Men bade the people approach to lay the gifts in the grave.
They brought food from the feast and set it in little vessels beside
the urn, because they believed that the chief’s spirit would need food
for refreshment in the spirit world; and they brought his spear and his
axe and his bow and arrows and his shield, and laid them in the grave;
and they brought his favourite dog and killed it there, and laid its
body beside the urn, so that it might attend its master in the world
of spirits. Then when this was done, the Medicine Men made the people
bring stones to raise a cairn over the urn. First they laid large flat
stones, building them like a little chamber about the urn; then they
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