hingness. The same necessity of death and
resurrection was entertained by the Eskimos. To become of the highest
order of priests, it was supposed requisite, says Bishop Egede, that one
of the lower order should be drowned and eaten by sea monsters. Then,
when his bones, one after another, were all washed ashore, his spirit,
which meanwhile had been learning the secrets of the invisible world,
would return to them, and, clothed in flesh, he would go back to his
tribe. At other times a vague and indescribable longing seizes a young
person, a morbid appetite possesses them, or they fall a prey to an
inappeasable and aimless restlessness, or a causeless melancholy. These
signs the old priests recognize as the expression of a personal spirit
of the higher order. They take charge of the youth, and educate him to
the mysteries of their craft. For months or years he is condemned to
entire seclusion, receiving no visits but from the brethren of his
order. At length he is initiated with ceremonies of more or less pomp
into the brotherhood, and from that time assumes that gravity of
demeanor, sententious style of expression, and general air of mystery
and importance, everywhere deemed so eminently becoming in a doctor and
a priest. A peculiarity of the Moxos was, that they thought none
designated for the office but such as had escaped from the claws of the
South American tiger, which, indeed, it is said they worshipped as a
god.[281-1]

Occasionally, in very uncultivated tribes, some family or totem claimed
a monopoly of the priesthood. Thus, among the Nez Perces of Oregon, it
was transmitted in one family from father to son and daughter, but
always with the proviso that the children at the proper age reported
dreams of a satisfactory character.[281-2] Perhaps alone of the Algonkin
tribes the Shawnees confined it to one totem, but it is remarkable that
the greatest of their prophets, Elskataway, brother of Tecumseh, was not
a member of this clan. From the most remote times, the Cherokees have
had one family set apart for the priestly office. This was when first
known to the whites that of the Nicotani, but its members, puffed up
with pride and insolence, abused their birthright so shamefully, and
prostituted it so flagrantly to their own advantage, that with savage
justice they were massacred to the last man. Another was appointed in
their place who to this day officiates in all religious rites. They
have, however, the superstitio