cilmen were so horror-stricken by the disclosures of Tyope and of
the Koshare Naua, that they went to do penance with a zeal that could
not fail to draw the attention of everybody around them. Thus Kauaitshe,
the delegate of the Water clan, and Tyame, he of the Eagles, and several
others considered it their duty to fast. Not a word concerning the
meeting passed their lips; but when on the following morning each one of
them retired to a secluded chamber or sat down in a corner of his room,
his arms folded around his knees, speechless, motionless; when he
refused to partake of the food which his wife or daughter presented to
him,--when he persisted in this attitude quietly and solemnly, it could
not fail to attract attention. The father, brother, or husband fasted!
Whenever the Indian does penance it is because he has something heavy on
his mind. In the present instance, as it happened immediately after the
council, it necessarily led to the inference that at that council
momentous questions must have been discussed, and also that these
questions had not been solved. Otherwise, why should the councilmen
fast?

Penitence, with the Indian, is akin to sacrifice; the body is tormented
because the soul is beyond human reach. The fasting is done in order to
render the body more accessible to the influence of the mind. Often,
too, one fasts in order to weaken the body, in order to free the soul
from its thralls and bring it into a closer relation with the powers
regarded as supernatural. At all events, fasting and purifications were
a sure sign that serious affairs were in process of development, and
such proceedings on the part of some of the nashtio could not fail to
produce results the opposite of what the shaman had intended.

It would have been different had the yaya alone retired for penitential
performances; nobody would have been struck by that, for everybody was
accustomed to see them at work, as such voluntary sacrifice on their
part is usually called; it was their business. But since the nashtio
also, at least in part, performed similar acts, it could not help
producing, slowly and gradually but surely, a tremendous amount of
gossip and a corresponding number of speculations of a rather gloomy
nature.

That gossip was started in the cave-dwellings of Tzina hanutsh. The
stout representative of the Water clan had married into that cluster,
and lived consequently among them with his wife. He returned home wildly
excit