to have been dead, they were lamenting the sufferings I must have undergone when I was killed, and, perhaps, until my reappearance again on this earth.
They eventually dispersed, leaving me in the charge of the two who had found me in my perilous situation. All was then quiet for about three hours, for they had gone, it seemed, to their respective huts to eat their roots; then there was a great noise amongst them, and a trampling backwards and forward from hut to hut, as if something of importance was going on. I was naturally anxious at this, not knowing how it would all end; at last it came on night, and the boys and girls set to work making a very large fire, probably to roast me—who could tell? At any rate I supposed it not at all improbable, surrounded as I was by such a host of wild uncultivated savages: however that might be, it was impossible to escape, as I was too weak and terrified at the appearance of all around. At last all the women came out naked—having taken off their skin rugs, which they carried in their hands. I was then brought out from the hut by the two men, the women surrounding me. I expected to be thrown immediately into the flames; but the women having seated themselves by the fire, the men joined the assemblage armed with clubs more than two feet long; having painted themselves with pipe-clay, which abounds on the banks of the lake. They had run streaks of it round the eyes, one down each cheek, others along the forehead down to the tip of the nose, other streaks meeting at the chin, others from the middle of the body
