I understood this more clearly now, as I lay watching the proceedings, for I had seen this feast in company with Guy Johnson on the Kennyetto, and found in it nothing offensive and no revolting license or blasphemy, though others may say this is not true.

Yet, how can a rite which begins with three days religious services, including confession of sins on wampum, be otherwise than decent? As for the rest of the feast, the horse-play, skylarking, dancing, guessing contests — the little children’s dance on the tenth day, the Dance for Four on the eleventh, the Dance for the Eight Thunders on the thirteenth — the noisy, violent, but innocent romping of the False Faces — all this I had seen in the East, and found no evil in it and no debauchery.

But what was now