Another strange superstition is the green corn dance--the sacrifice of the first kettle to the Great Spirit. Four medicine men, whose bodies are painted with white clay, dance around the kettle until the corn is well boiled, and they then burn it to cinders as an offering to the Great Spirit. The fire is then destroyed, and _new_ fire created by rubbing two sticks together, with which the corn for their own feast is cooked. Again, there is a snow-shoe dance, performed at the first fall of snow, and which is as solemn a rite as any in the Indian faith. Another strange superstition is that by which an Indian becomes a _medicine_ or _mystery_ man. Splints of wood are thrust through his flesh and by these he hangs from a pole, and gazes, medicine bag in hand, at the sun, from its rising to its setting. This voluntary torture entitles him to great respect for the remainder of his life as a medicine or mystery man--in another word, an astrologer. The history of Indian superstition has yet to be written. The North American is no less adept at picture “talking” than at picture writing. Burton, while sojourning among the Prairie Indians, devoted considerable attention to this art as practised among them. He describes it as a system of signs, some conventional, others instinctive or imitative, which enables tribes who have no acquaintance with each other’s customs and tongues to hold limited but sufficient communication, An interpreter who knows all the signs, which, however, are so numerous and complicated that to acquire them is the labour of years, is preferred by the whites even to a good speaker. The sign system doubtless arose from the necessity of a communicating medium between races speaking many different dialects and debarred by circumstances from social intercourse. The first lesson is to distinguish the signs of the different tribes, and it will be observed that the French voyageurs and traders have often named the Indian nations from their totemic or masonic gestures. The Pawnees imitate a wolf’s ears with the two forefingers--the right hand is always understood unless otherwise specified--extended together, upright, on the left side of the head. The Araphos, or Dirty Noses, rub the right side of that organ with the forefingers; some call this bad tribe the Smellers, and make their sign to consist of seizing the nose with the thumb and forefinger. The Comanches imitate by the waving of the hand or forefinger the forward crawling motion of a snake. The Cheyennes, Piakanoves, or Cut Wrists, draw the lower edge of the hand across the left arm, as if gashing it with a knife. The Sioux, by drawing the lower edge of the hand across the throat; it is a gesture not unknown to us, but forms a truly ominous salutation, considering those by whom it is practised; hence the Sioux are called by the Yutas Hand-cutters.