142 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 43

trees and cloths on which they had painted various figures. These scaffolds
were designed for as many persons who were to accompany the woman chief
into the other world. Their relations were all around them, and esteemed as a
great honor for their families the permission that they had obtained to sacri-
fice themselves in this manner. They apply sometimes ten years beforehand
to obtain this favor, and the persons that have obtained it must themselves
make the cords with which they are to be strangled.
 They appear on their scaffolds dressed in their richest attire, holding in the
right hand a great shell. The nearest relation [of each] is on his right hand.
having under his left arm the cord which is to serve for the execution and in his
right hand a war club. From time to time his nearest relation makes the cry
of death, and at this cry the 14 victims descend from their scaffolds and go
and dance all together in the middle of the open place that is before the temple,
and before the cabin of the woman chief.
 That day and the following ones they show them great respect; they have
each five servants, and their faces are painted red. Some add that during the
eight days that precede their death they wear a red ribbon around one of their
legs, and that during this time everybody strives who shall be the first to feast
them. However this may be, on the occasion I am speaking of the fathers and
mothers who had strangled their children took them up in their hands and
ranged themselves on both sides of the cabin; the 14 persons who were also
destined to die placed themselves in the same position, and were followed by
the relations alnd friends of the deceased, all in mourning-that is to say, having
their hair cut off. They all made the air resound with such frightful cries that
one( would have said that all the devils inl hell were come to howl il the place.
This was followed by the dances of those who were to die and by the songs of
the relations of the woman chief.
 At last they began the procession. The fathers and mothers, who carried the
dead children, appeared first, marching two and two, and came immediately
before the bier on which was the body of tile woman chief, which four men
carried on their shoulders. All the others came after in the same order as the
first. At every ten paces the fathers and mothers let their children fall upon
the ground; those who carried the bier walked upon them, then turned quite
round them, so that when the procession arrived at the temple these little bodies
were all in pieces.
 While they buried the body of the woman chief in the temple, they undressed
the 14 persons who were to die. They made them sit on the ground before the
door, each having two savages by him, one of whom sat on his knees and the
other held his arms behind. Then they put a cord about his neck and covered
his head with a roebuck's skin. They made him swallow three pills of tobacco
and drink a glass of water, and the relations of the woman chief drew the two
ends of the cord, singing till he was strangled, after which they threw all the
carcasses into the same pit, which they covered with earth.
 When the great chief dies, if his nurse is living, she must die also. The
French, not being able to hinder this barbarity, .have often obtained leave to
baptize the young children that were to be strangled, and who in consequence
did not accompany those in whose honor they were to be sacrificed into their
pretended paradise."
 To give an idea of this bloody ceremony, it is necessary to know that as soon
as an heir presumptive has been born to the great chief, each family that has
an infant at the breast is obliged to pay him homage. From all these infants
they choose a certain number whom they desire for the service of the young
prince, and as soon as they are of a competent age they furnish then with em-

 a Clinrlevoix in French. IIst. Coll. La., 163-165, 1851,