The candidates then come out of the medicine-lodge, dragging the heavy weights
attached to their limbs, and are stationed at equal intervals outside the ring of
runners. As each takes his place, two powerful young men take charge of him,
who pass round each of his wrists a broad leathern strap, which they grasp very
firmly, but without tying it.
When all the preliminaries are completed, a signal is given, and the neophytes
begin to race round the Big Canoe, outside the inner circle, each man being
dragged along by his custodians, until the skulls and other weights drag out the
skewers to which they are fastened. The bystanders scream and yell and shout in
a frenzy of excitement; eager, moreover, to drown the groans of the sufferers,
should the instincts of nature prevail over their self-control, and desirous of
encouraging them in their final trial.
Sometimes the neophyte’s flesh proves to be so tough that the skewers cannot be
dragged out, and in such cases their friends jump on the skulls as they rattle
along the ground, so as to increase their weight.
Humanity cannot long endure a torture so horrible: the sufferers quickly faint,
though they are still hauled round in the barbarous race, nor set free until the last
weight is dragged from the quivering, bleeding body. Then the unconscious
wretch is released, and left, for the second time, in the care and protection of the
Great Spirit. In due time he recovers his senses, struggles to his feet, totters
through the crowd, is received by his friends, and conducted to his own hut.
Mr. Catlin supplies two illustrations of the rigorous tenacity with which the
Indians adhere to the rule that the skewers must be dragged, not removed, from
the sufferer’s flesh.
In one case the skewer had chanced to pass under a sinew, and the neophyte was
dragged round and round the ring in vain. In vain his friends added their weight
to that of the bison’s skulls. The scene became so horrible that even the
spectators could no longer endure it, and in sympathy with their cries the master
of the ceremonies stopped the race, leaving the youth, unconscious, on the
ground. As soon as he regained his senses, he crawled away to the prairie on his
hands and knees, and there remained, without food or drink, for three hours
longer, until suppuration took place, and he was enabled to get rid of the skewer.
Then he crawled home, and strange to say, notwithstanding the agony he had
undergone, and his loss of strength, recovered in a few days.