almost dying state, Why-Why rushed out to find the most celebrated local medicine-man.  In half an hour the chief medicine-man appeared, dressed in the skin of a wolf, tagged about with bones, skulls, dead lizards, and other ornaments of his official attire.  You may see a picture very like him in Mr. Catlin’s book about the Mandans.  Armed with a drum and a rattle, he leaped into the presence of the sick woman, uttering unearthly yells.  His benevolent action and “bedside manner” were in accordance with the medical science of the time.  He merely meant to frighten away the evil spirit which (according to the received hypothesis) was destroying the mother of Why-Why.  What he succeeded in doing was to make Why-Why’s mother give a faint scream, after which her jaw fell, and her eyes grew fixed and staring.

The grief of Why-Why was profound.  Reckless of consequences, he declared, with impious publicity, that the law which forbade a wife to see her own husband, and the medical science which frightened poor women to death were cruel and ridiculous.  As Why-Why (though a promising child) was still under age, little notice was taken of remarks which were attributed to the petulance of youth.  But when he went further, and transgressed the law which then forbade a brother to speak to his own sister, on pain of death, the general indignation was no longer repressed.  In vain did Why-Why plead that if he neglected his sister no one else would comfort her.  His life was spared, but the unfortunate little girl’s bones were dug up by a German savant last year, in a condition which makes it only too certain that cannibalism was practised by the early natives of the Mediterranean coast.  These incidents then, namely, the neglect of his unknown father, the death of his mother, and the execution of his sister, confirmed Why-Why in the belief that radical social reforms were desirable.

The coming of age of Why-Why was celebrated in the manner usual among primitive people.  The ceremonies were not of a character to increase his pleasure in life, nor his respect for constituted authority.  When he was fourteen years of age, he was pinned, during his sleep, by four adult braves, who knocked out his front teeth, shaved his head with sharp chips of quartzite, cut off the first joint of his little finger, and daubed his whole body over with clay.  They then turned him loose, imposing on him his name of Why-Why; and when his shaven hair began to show through the clay daubing, the women of the tribe washed him, and painted him black and white.  The indignation of Why-Why may readily be conceived.  Why, he kept asking, should you shave a fellow’s head, knock out his teeth, cut off his little finger, daub him with clay, and paint him like a pelican, because he is fourteen years old?  To these radical questions, the braves (who had all lost their own front teeth) replied, that this was the custom of their fathers.  They tried to console him, moreover, by pointing