dry
wood, as things fitting for their children's funeral. After the
children were thus past the guard, the guards tore down the tree,
branches and boughs with such violence, that they rent the body,
made wreaths for their heads, and bedecked their hair with the
leaves.

"What else was done with the children was not seen; but they were
all cast on a heap in a valley as dead, where they made a great
feast for all the company.

"The Werowance being demanded the meaning of this sacrifice,
answered, that the children were not dead, but that the Okee or
devil did suck the blood from the left breast of those, who
chanced to be his by lot, till they were dead; but the rest were
kept in the wilderness by the young men, till nine months were
expired, during which time they must not converse with any; and of
these were made their priests and conjurers."

How far Captain Smith might be misinformed in this account, I can't say,
or whether their Okee's sucking the breast, be only a delusion or
pretence of the physician, (or priest, who is always a physician,) to
prevent all reflection on his skill when any happened to die under his
discipline. This I choose rather to believe, than those religious
romances concerning their Okee. For I take this story of Smith's to be
only an example of huskanawing, which being a ceremony then altogether
unknown to him, he might easily mistake some of the circumstances of it.

The solemnity of huskanawing is commonly practiced once every fourteen
or sixteen years, or oftener, as their young men happen to grow up. It
is an institution or discipline which all young men must pass before
they can be admitted to be of the number of the great men, officers, or
cockarouses of the nation; whereas, by Capt. Smith's relation, they were
only set apart to supply the priesthood. The whole ceremony of
huskanawing is performed after the following manner:

The choicest and briskest young men of the town, and such only as have
acquired some treasure by their travels and hunting, are chosen out by
the rulers to be huskanawed; and whoever refuses to undergo this process
dares not remain among them. Several of those odd preparatory fopperies
are premised in the beginning, which have been before related; but the
principal part of the business is, to carry them into the woods, and
there keep them under confinement, and destitute of all society for
several months, giving them no other sus