A number of the animals are killed in this way and taken back to the village where their flesh can be preserved by being cut into strips and smoke-dried. We are all too hungry, however, to wait until we return to the village before eating. The chief says we can have some boiled venison stew. We are puzzled at this, for no utensils have been brought along, but we soon learn how resourceful our Indian friends are. One of the men obtains some edible roots; another cuts the stomachs from several of the deer. Each one of the stomachs is cleaned and tied to form a pouch. The venison, roots, and some wild rice which some of the men brought along, are placed in the prepared deer stomachs, water added, and the ingenious “kettles” suspended over a slow fire. In a relatively short time a delicious stew is set before each of us, served in birch-bark dishes prepared in a few minutes by another of the hunters. While we are eating we ask the father of the Indian family we are visiting how the chief of his tribe obtained his position. We are told that his ability as a warrior and leader has led to his being chosen war chief, and his ability as an orator and his power to make people like him has kept him in authority. He says that in a nearby village the chief is also a great war leader, but he is not well liked otherwise. For that reason he sometimes finds it difficult to make his warriors obey him and he is therefore not nearly as powerful as our leader. We soon realize that the Indian chiefs depend primarily upon personal prestige and influence to keep them in power. We are informed, however, that in some other tribes the chief is always selected from a certain clan. [Illustration: YOUTH FASTING FOR A VISION (PAINTING BY A. O. TIEMANN).] One morning we witness a curious ceremony. Grandfather offers Blackbird, the older boy, some charcoal as well as his food. The father seems very proud when his son rejects the food, applies the charcoal to his face, and leaves the village to enter the forest alone. Grandfather explains that Blackbird, by accepting the charcoal, automatically agreed to fast alone in the forest for one day. This one-day fast will be good training for the day when he will feel ready to go on the long fast of four or five days. Every man has taken this long fast in the hope of seeing a vision of a guardian spirit who would then be his lifetime protector. The girls, too, must fast, but in a somewhat different fashion. Soon Morning Star, the older girl in our friend’s family, will reach womanhood and be segregated for a number of days in a secluded lodge, and during this period no men may approach her.