With the American Indians, there are various traces of the blood-brotherhood idea. Says Captain Clark, in his work on the Indian Sign Language: “Among many tribes there are brothers by adoption, and the tie seems to be held about as sacredly as though created by nature.”[760] Stephen Powell, writing of the Pacific Coast Indians, gives this tie of brotherhood-adoption yet more prominence, than does Clark. He says: “There is an interesting institution found among the Wyandots, as among some other of our North American tribes, namely, that of fellowship. Two young men agree to be perpetual friends to each other, or _more than brothers_. Each reveals to the other the secrets of his life, and counsels with him on matters of importance, and defends him from wrong and violence, and at his death is chief mourner.”[761] This certainly suggests the relation of blood-brotherhood; whether blood be intermingled in the consummation of the rite, or not. Colonel Dodge tells of a ceremony of Indian-brotherhood, which includes a bloody rite, worthy of notice in this connection. He says: “A strong flavor of religious superstition attaches to a scalp, and many solemn contracts and binding obligations can only be made over or by means of a scalp;” for is it not the representative of a life? In illustration of this, he gives an incident which followed an Indian battle, in which the Pawnees had borne a part with the whites against the Northern Cheyennes. Colonel Dodge was sitting in his tent, when “the acting head-chief of the Pawnees stalked in gravely, and without a word.” The Colonel continues: “We had long been friends, and had on several occasions been in tight places together. He sat down on the side of my bed, looked at me kindly, but solemnly, and began in a low tone to mutter in his own language, half chant, half recitative. Knowing that he was making ‘medicine’ [that he was engaged in a religious exercise] of some kind, I looked on without comment. After some moments, he stood erect, and stretched out his hand to me. I gave him my hand. He pulled me into a standing position, embraced me, passed his hands lightly over my head, face, arms, body, and legs to my feet, muttering all the while; embraced me again, then turned his back upon me, and with his face toward heaven, appeared to make adoration. He then turned to embrace and manipulate me again. After some five minutes of this performance, he drew from his wallet a package, and unrolling it, disclosed a freshly taken [and therefore still bloody] scalp of an Indian. Touching me with this [blood-vehicle] in various places and ways, he finally drew out his knife, [and ‘cutting the covenant’ in this way, he] divided the scalp carefully along the part [the seam] of the hair, and handing me one half, embraced me again, kissing me on the forehead. ‘Now,’ said he in English, ‘you are my brother.’ He subsequently informed me that this ceremony could not have been performed without this scalp.”[762]