her head made of beads which keeps the hair from falling over her face,
just coming to the jaw, and if at any time the hair comes over her
face she strokes it back with her Indian comb, but she never touches
her hair with her hands. After she has bathed and dressed she goes to
the lodge and lies down and sleeps until late in the morning when Lock
and his helper come to the lodge and lie down and sleep until late
in the morning when Lock-nee and his helper come to the lodge, when
the three of them all take a bath, and then eat for the first time
since they started. None of them are allowed any water and will not
be allowed to drink any for many days yet. Some of these people would
start in looking fine and when they came out they would often look
like a walking skeleton, they would soon regain their flesh although
sometimes they never would regain their normal condition. These three
keep themselves secluded and no one has seen or heard of them, but all
are anxiously waiting to hear the word. After they have had their meal,
Lock and his helper go back across to the large rock, then Lock unrolls
his scroll, burns some more incense and gives his order to his helper
to go out to all the villages and call on as many to come forward and
help to put in the fish dam as is needed, and this is the time for them
to appear before Lock. Sometimes there will be from one hundred to two
hundred young men, no old or sickly ones are wanted. After they all
appear before Lock, he assigns to each lot of eight or ten of them,
the part and amount that they are to do. After this they go home, fix
up their provisions and camp outfit and in about thirty hours’ time the
river bars in and around this place are alive with Indians, and the air
is filled with merriment and jokes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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