Wear next
your heart the old chivalric motto SEMPER PARATUS.
One morning we were summoned to the lodge of an old man, in good
truth the Nestor of his tribe. We found him half sitting, half
reclining on a pile of buffalo robes; his long hair, jet-black even
now, though he had seen some eighty winters, hung on either side of
his thin features. Those most conversant with Indians in their homes
will scarcely believe me when I affirm that there was dignity in his
countenance and mien. His gaunt but symmetrical frame, did not more
clearly exhibit the wreck of bygone strength, than did his dark,
wasted features, still prominent and commanding, bear the stamp of
mental energies. I recalled, as I saw him, the eloquent metaphor of
the Iroquois sachem: "I am an aged hemlock; the winds of a hundred
winters have whistled through my branches, and I am dead at the top!"
Opposite the patriarch was his nephew, the young aspirant Mahto-
Tatonka; and besides these, there were one or two women in the lodge.
The old man's story is peculiar, and singularly illustrative of a
superstitious custom that prevails in full force among many of the
Indian tribes. He was one of a powerful family, renowned for their
warlike exploits. When a very young man, he submitted to the
singular rite to which most of the tribe subject themselves before
entering upon life.
