" The mode of killing a man with one of these medicine-bags is
to thrust it at him; he falls like dead, but a second thrust of the
bag restores him to life.
A ceremony witnessed by the castaway John R. Jewitt during his
captivity among the Indians of Nootka Sound doubtless belongs to
this class of customs. The Indian king or chief "discharged a pistol
close to his son's ear, who immediately fell down as if killed, upon
which all the women of the house set up a most lamentable cry,
tearing handfuls of hair from their heads, and exclaiming that the
prince was dead; at the same time a great number of the inhabitants
rushed into the house armed with their daggers, muskets, etc.,
enquiring the cause of their outcry. These were immediately followed
by two others dressed in wolf-skins, with masks over their faces
representing the head of that animal. The latter came in on their
hands and feet in the manner of a beast, and taking up the prince,
carried him off upon their backs, retiring in the same manner they
entered." In another place Jewitt mentions that the young prince--a
lad of about eleven years of age--wore a mask in imitation of a
wolf's head.
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