outspread and displayed them for the admiration of the beholders.
Their number was immense, and their value relatively very great. Among
them were many robes of beaver and other rich furs, collected and
preserved for years, with a view to this festival. Fires were now
lighted, kettles slung, and, around the entire circle of the clearing,
the scene was like a fair or caravansary. This continued till three
o'clock in the afternoon, when the gifts were repacked, and the bones
shouldered afresh. Suddenly, at a signal from the chiefs, the crowd ran
forward from every side towards the scaffold, like soldiers to the
assault of a town, scaled it by rude ladders with which it was furnished,
and hung their relics and their gifts to the forest of poles which
surmounted it. Then the ladders were removed; and a number of chiefs,
standing on the scaffold, harangued the crowd below, praising the dead,
and extolling the gifts, which the relatives of the departed now bestowed,
in their names, upon their surviving friends.

[ 1 "I'admiray la tendresse d'vne femme enuers son pere et ses enfans;
elle est fille d'vn Capitaine, qui est mort fort age, et a este autrefois
fort considerable dans le Pais: elle luy peignoit sa cheuelure, elle
manioit ses os les vns apres les autres, auec la mesme affection que si
elle luy eust voulu rendre la vie; elle luy mit aupres de luy son
Atsatone8ai, c'est a dire son pacquet de buchettes de Conseil, qui sont
tous les liures et papiers du Pais. Pour ses petits enfans, elle leur
mit des brasselets de Pourcelaine et de rassade aux bras, et baigna leurs
os de ses larmes; on ne l'en pouuoit quasi separer, mais on pressoit,
et il fallut incontinent partir."--Brebeuf, Relation des Hurons, 1636,
134. ]

During these harangues, other functionaries were lining the grave
throughout with rich robes of beaver-skin. Three large copper kettles