ANCIENT RITES OF THE CONDOLING COUNCIL
[English Translation]



THE PRELIMINARY CEREMONY:

CALLED, "AT THE WOOD'S EDGE."


1. Now [Footnote: The paragraphs are not numbered in the original
text. The numbers are prefixed in this work merely for convenience of
reference.] to-day I have been greatly startled by your voice coming
through the forest to this opening. You have come with troubled mind
through all obstacles. You kept seeing the places where they met on
whom we depended, my offspring. How then can your mind be at ease? You
kept seeing the footmarks of our forefathers; and all but perceptible is
the smoke where they used to smoke the pipe together. Can then your mind
be at ease when you are weeping on your way?

2. Great thanks now, therefore, that you have safely arrived. Now, then,
let us smoke the pipe together. Because all around are hostile agencies
which are each thinking, "I will frustrate their purpose." Here thorny
ways, and here falling trees, and here wild beasts lying in