Seeing that his father had taken a place in our cavalcade on the left of Major O'Fallon, he rode up on his right to the exclusion of a brave officer who had previously occupied that situation, and who now regarded him with an apparently stern aspect, but in which there was perhaps more of admiration than of irritation at this unexpected intrusion. The young chief caught the look, and retorted with an eye that seemed never to have been averted through fear. The name of Petalesharoo is connected with the abolition of a custom formerly prevalent in this nation, at which humanity shudders. The Pawnee Loups heretofore exhibited the singular anomaly, amongst the American natives, of a people addicted to the inhuman, superstitious rite, of making propitiatory offerings of human victims to Venus, the _Great Star_. The origin of this sanguinary sacrifice is unknown; probably it existed previously to their intercourse with the white traders. This solemn ceremony was performed annually, and immediately preceded their horticultural operations, for the success of which it appears to have been instituted. A breach of this duty, the performance of which they believed to be required by the Great Star, it was supposed would be succeeded by the total failure of their crops of maize, beans, and pumpkins, and the consequent total privation of their vegetable food. To obviate a national calamity so formidable, any person was at liberty to offer up a prisoner of either sex, that by his prowess in war he had become possessed of. {81} The devoted individual was clothed in the gayest and most costly attire; profusely supplied with the choicest food, and constantly attended by the magi, who anticipated all his wants, cautiously concealed from him the real object of their sedulous attentions, and endeavoured to preserve his mind in a state of cheerfulness, with the view of promoting obesity, and thereby rendering the sacrifice more acceptable to their Ceres. When the victim was thus sufficiently fattened for their purpose, a suitable day was appointed for the performance of the rite, that the whole nation might attend. The victim was bound to a cross, in presence of the assembled multitude, when a solemn dance was performed, and after some other ceremonies, the warrior, whose prisoner he had been, cleaved his head with the tomahawk; and his speedy death was insured by numerous archers, who penetrated his body with their arrows. A trader informed us that the squaws cut pieces of flesh from the deceased, with which they greased their hoes; but this was denied by another, who had been present at one of these sacrifices. However this may be, the ceremony was believed to have called down a blessing upon their labours of the field, and they proceeded to planting without delay.