friendly braves, lose no time in equipping him or her with
the most ornate clothes and ornaments that are available or
in immediate possession. It is thus that the departed Otoe
is enrobed in death, in articles of his own selection and by
arrangements of his own taste and dictated by his own
tongue. It is customary for the dying Indian to dictate, ere
his departure, the propriety or impropriety of the
accustomed sacrifices. In some cases there is a double and
in others no sacrifice at all. The Indian women then prepare
to cut away their hair; it is accomplished with scissors,
cutting close to the scalp at the side and behind.

The preparation of the dead for burial is conducted with
great solemnity and care. Bead-work, the most ornate,
expensive blankets and ribbons comprise the funeral shroud.
The dead, being thus enrobed, is placed in a recumbent
posture at the most conspicuous part of the lodge and viewed
in rotation by the mourning relatives previously summoned by
a courier, all preserving uniformity in the piercing screams
which would seem to have been learned by rote.

An apparent service is then conducted. The aged men of the
tribe, arranged in a circle, chant a peculiar funeral dirge
around one of their number, keeping time upon a drum or some
rude cooking-utensil.

At irregular intervals an aged relative will arise and dance
excitedly around the central person, vociferating, and with
wild gesture, tomahawk in hand, imprecate the evil spirit,
which he drives to the land where the sun goes down. The