The very simplicity of the church awed him; had there been a multiplicity of furnishings, of strange objects whose use he could not comprehend, he would have felt he had something definite to watch and fear.  His impulse was to flee out into the sunshine, and he turned towards the door.  Then he remembered his object in coming and stood still again.

He listened intently, but there was no sound; then taking from the pouch that hung at his side a lump of deer’s suet, he smeared it about the sides of the benches and the backs of the chairs.  Then with a handful of tobacco taken from the same receptacle he began to sprinkle a small circle in the centre aisle.  When this was complete he seated himself crosslegged inside of it.  Slowly and deliberately he drew from the larger pouch slung at his back and covered by his long mantle, a mask, somewhat out of shape from its confinement in a small space, and a rattle made of a gourd filled with pebbles.  He attached the mask to his face as carefully as if he were to be observed by all his tribe, and laid the rattle across his knees.  All these preparations had taken place so quietly that no one who might have been in the church could have discovered the Indian’s presence by the aid of his ears alone.

Catanaugh had not come to Jamestown with the sole idea of witnessing his sister’s wedding.  It was not altogether of his own will that he was now about to undertake a dangerous experiment.  He was by no manner of means a coward:  his long row of scalps attested to his prowess as a brave; but, unlike Nautauquas, he was one who followed where others led, who obeyed when others commanded.  He was fierce in fight, relentless to an enemy, could not even dream as did his father and brother that the white men might become valuable allies and friends.  He would gladly have killed them all, and he had grown more and more unwilling that Pocahontas should unite herself to one of these interlopers, as he called them, because he realized that her marriage would make a bond of peace between the two peoples.  He had hoped to discover that Pocahontas was being forced into this marriage, in which case he had been prepared to carry her off by some desperate deed at the last moment; but he could not help seeing that she was happy and free in her choice, and would never follow him willingly or go quietly if he tried to make her.

Catanaugh was a member of the secret society of Mediwiwin and he was one who had great faith in medicine men and shamans.  He never undertook even a hunting expedition unless he had had a shaman consult his Okee to decide if the day would be a lucky one.  In every religious ceremony he would take an active part, would fast if the shamans said it was pleasing to Okee, would kill his enemies or save them for slaves, whichever the shamans suggested.  He was himself little of a talker except when after victory he was loud and long in his boasting; but he loved nothing better than to listen when the shamans told tales, as they sat on winter evenings around a lodge fire, or as they lay during the long summer twilights on the soft dried grass, of the transformations of human beings into otter, bear or deer forms, of the pursuit of evil demons, of magic incantations.  And the shamans, sure always of an audience in Catanaugh, made much of him, and in many ways without his knowing it, used him as a tool.