ers I may name, which are familiar _to you_, and which it may not
be amiss to mention, as I have seen them practised while in their
country.

"The universal custom among them of burying their dead with feet to the
east, I could conceive to have no other meaning or object than a journey
to the east after death--like the Jews who expected to travel under
ground after death to the land of Canaan. On inquiry, I found that
though they were all going towards the `setting sun,' during their
life-times, they expected to travel to the east after death.

"Amongst the tribes, the women are not allowed to enter the medicine
lodge; as they were not allowed in Judea to enter the court of Israel.
Like the Jewish custom also, they are not allowed to mingle in worship
with the men; and at meals, are always separated.

"In their modes, fastings, feastings, or sacrifices, they have also a
most striking resemblance. Amongst all the western tribes, who have not
been persuaded from those forms by white men, they are still found
scrupulously and religiously adhering to, and practising them to the
letter. The very many times and modes of sacrificing, remind us
forcibly of the customs of the Israelites; and the one in particular,
which has been seen amongst several of the tribes, though I did not
witness it myself, wherein, like the manner of the `peace-offering,' the
firstling and that of the male is offered, and `_no bone is to be
broken_.' Such circumstances afford the strongest kind of proofs. All
the tribes have a great feast at the dawn of spring, and at those feasts
their various sacrifices are made. At the approach of the season of
green corn, a feast of the first ears are sacrificed with great
solemnity, followed by feasting and dancing: so at the ripening of
different kinds of fruit. The first and best piece that is cut from a
buffalo is always _Deo Dante_.

"Over the medicine lodge, and also over the lodges of the most
distinguished chiefs, are hung on high poles large quantities of fine
cloth, white buffalo robes, or other most costly articles which can be
procured, there to decay, an offering to the Great Spirit.

"The bunch of willow boughs with which each dancer is supplied, in the
Mandan religious ceremonies, the sacrificing and other forms therein
observed, certainly render it somewhat analogous to the Israelitish
feast of tabernacles.

"The universal practice of `_solus cam solo_' of the women, ablution and
anoin