Entering the village, Hennepin saw a sight that curdled his blood. Stakes, with bundles of straws attached to them seemed in readiness for burning himself and his comrades.
Imagine their amazement when, instead of being roasted, they were taken into a lodge and treated to a kind of whortle-berry pudding _à la sauvage_!
The next matter of interest was a noisy wrangle among the warriors as to the distribution of the prisoners. To his great terror, Hennepin was assigned to Aquipagetin, the wily old villain who had insisted on the death of the Frenchmen and had persistently blackmailed them. "Surely now { 303} my time has come," the friar said to himself. Instead, to his great surprise, he was immediately adopted by his new master as a son, to replace the one whom the Miamis had lately killed, a procedure quite in accordance with Indian custom. Hennepin thus found himself separated from his two countrymen, who had other masters, much to the relief of Accau, who heartily hated him.
The friar was now conducted by his adopted father to his lodge, which stood on an island in a lake, was introduced as his son to some six or seven of his wives, was given a platter of fish and a buffalo-robe, and altogether was treated quite as a member of the family.
Now he had a period of rest in the Sioux village. The Indians subjected him, greatly to his advantage, to a treatment such as seems to have been in very general use on this continent and to have been the most rational feature of Indian medical practice, which relied mainly on charms and incantations. It was administered by placing the patient in a tightly closed lodge and pouring water on heated stones, thus producing a dense vapor which induced copious sweating, after which he was vigorously rubbed.
The Sioux had a certain respect for him, on { 304} account of magic powers which he was supposed to possess, and his pocket-compass inspired them with unbounded awe. On his side, he made himself useful in various ways, such as shaving the children's heads and bleeding the sick. The children had good reason to be thankful for having the friar for their barber, since the native method, he says, was "by burning off the Hair with flat Stones, which they heat red-hot in the Fire."