Immediately after the sacrifice
the people proceeded to plant their fields. A particular account has
been preserved of the sacrifice of a Sioux girl by the Pawnees in
April 1837 or 1838. The girl was fourteen or fifteen years old and
had been kept for six months and well treated. Two days before the
sacrifice she was led from wigwam to wigwam, accompanied by the
whole council of chiefs and warriors. At each lodge she received a
small billet of wood and a little paint, which she handed to the
warrior next to her. In this way she called at every wigwam,
receiving at each the same present of wood and paint. On the
twenty-second of April she was taken out to be sacrificed, attended
by the warriors, each of whom carried two pieces of wood which he
had received from her hands. Her body having been painted half red
and half black, she was attached to a sort of gibbet and roasted for
some time over a slow fire, then shot to death with arrows. The
chief sacrificer next tore out her heart and devoured it. While her
flesh was still warm it was cut in small pieces from the bones, put
in little baskets, and taken to a neighbouring corn-field.
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