Alternating with these pairs is a single dancer, also naked and painted, and wearing no other garments than a beautiful girdle and a head-dress of eagles’ feathers mingled with the fur of the ermine. These four dancers also carry each a racket and a stick in their hands; in dancing they turn their backs to the great canoe. Two of them are painted black with white spots all over their bodies to represent the sky and stars. The two others are painted red to represent the day, with white marks to signify the spirits chased away by the first rays of the sun. None but these twelve individuals dance in this ceremony of solemnity. During the dance the master of the ceremonies stands by the great canoe and smokes in honour of each of the cardinal points. Four old men also approach the great canoe, and during the whole dance, which continues a quarter of an hour, the actors sing and make all the noise possible with their instruments, but always preserving the measure. Besides the dancers and musicians there are other actors who represent symbolical characters and have a peculiar dress during this festival. Near the great canoe are two men dressed like bears who growl continually and try to interrupt the actors. In order to appease them women continually bring them plates of food, which two other Indians disguised as eagles often seize and carry off into the prairie. The bears are then chased by troops of children, naked and painted like fawns and representing antelopes, which eagerly devour the food that is served. This is an allegory, signifying that in the end Providence always causes the innocent to triumph over the wicked. All at once on the fourth day the women begin to weep and lament, the children cry out, the dogs bark, the men are overwhelmed with profound despair. This is the cause: A naked man painted of a brilliant black like the plumage of a raven and marked with white lines, having a bear’s tusk painted at each side of his mouth, and holding a long wand in his hand, appears on the prairie running in a zigzag direction, but still advancing rapidly towards the village and uttering the most terrific cries. Arriving at the place where the dance is performing he strikes right and left at men, women, and children, and dogs, who fly in all directions to avoid the blows of this singular being, who is a symbol of the evil spirit. The master of the ceremonies on perceiving the disorder quits his post near the great canoe and goes toward the enemy with his medicine-pipe, and the evil spirit, charmed by the magic calumet, becomes as gentle as a child and as ashamed as a fox caught stealing a fowl. At this sudden change the terror of the crowd changes to laughter, and the women cease to tremble at the evil spirit and take to pelting him with mud; he is overtaken and deprived of his wand and is glad to take to his heels and escape from the village as quickly as he can.