Great Britain -- Social conditions -- 19th century; London (England) -- Description and travel
legs, bringing his uniform coat into the absurdest relations with the
overarching skies, and ran about the platform in his white gaiters,
waging his tail to an exceeding great extent. It struck me that there
was more waggery than this in the poodle, and that he knew that the
recruits would neither get through their exercises, nor get rid of their
uniforms, as easily as he; revolving which in my thoughts, and seeking in
my pockets some small money to bestow upon him, I casually directed my
eyes to the face of his superior officer, and in him beheld the
Face-Maker! Though it was not the way to Algeria, but quite the reverse,
the military poodle’s Colonel was the Face-Maker in a dark blouse, with a
small bundle dangling over his shoulder at the end of an umbrella, and
taking a pipe from his breast to smoke as he and the poodle went their
mysterious way.
XXVIII
MEDICINE MEN OF CIVILISATION
MY voyages (in paper boats) among savages often yield me matter for
reflection at home. It is curious to trace the savage in the civilised
man, and to detect the hold of some savage customs on conditions of
society rather boastful of being high above them.
I wonder, is the Medicine Man of the North American Indians never to be
got rid of, out of the North American country? He comes into my Wigwam
on all manner of occasions, and with the absurdest ‘Medicine.’ I always
find it extremely difficult, and I often find it simply impossible, to
keep him out of my Wigwam. For his legal ‘Medicine’ he sticks upon his
head the hair of quadrupeds, and plasters the same with fat, and dirty
white powder, and talks a gibberish quite unknown to the men and squaws
of his tribe. For his religious ‘Medicine’ he puts on puffy white
sleeves, little black aprons, large black waistcoats of a peculiar cut,
collarless coats with Medicine button-holes, Medicine stockings and
gaiters and shoes, and tops the whole with a highly grotesque Medicinal
hat. In one respect, to be sure, I am quite free from him. On occasions
when the Medicine Men in general, together with a large number of the
miscellaneous inhabitants of his village, both male and female, are
presented to the principal Chief, his native ‘Medicine’ is a comical
mixture of old odds and ends (hired of traders) and new things in
antiquated shapes, and pieces of red cloth (of which he is particularly
fond), and white and red and blue paint for the face. The irrationality
of this particular Medicine culminates in a mock battle-rush, from which
many of the squaws are borne out, much dilapidated. I need not observe
how unlike this is to a Drawing Room at St. James’s Palace.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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