triumph, when the warriors, painted red and black, returned, carrying
the scalps of their slain foes on branches of evergreen pine, while
they chanted the sonorous song of victory; and such was the Dance of
the Serpent, the dance of lawless love, where the women and young
girls were allowed to do whatsoever they listed.

Once a year, when the fruits ripened, they held the Green-Corn Dance, a
religious festival that lasted eight days in the larger towns and four
in the smaller. Then they fasted and feasted alternately. They drank out
of conch-shells the Black Drink, a bitter beverage brewed from the
crushed leaves of a small shrub. On the third day the high-priest or
fire-maker, the man who sat in the white seat, clad in snowy tunic and
moccasins, kindled the holy fire, fanning it into flames with the
unsullied wing of a swan, and burning therein offerings of the
first-fruits of the year. Dance followed dance. The beloved men and
beloved women, the priest and priestesses, danced in three rings,
singing the solemn song of which the words were never uttered at any
other time; and at the end the warriors, in their wild war-gear, with
white-plume headdresses, took part, and also the women and girls, decked
in their best, with ear-rings and armlets, and terrapin shells filled
with pebbles fastened to the outside of their legs. They kept time with
foot and voice; the men in deep tones, with short accents, the women in
a shrill falsetto; while the clay drums, with heads of taut deer-hide,
were beaten, the whistles blown, and the gourds and calabashes rattled,
until the air resounded with the deafening noise.[24]

Though they sometimes burnt their prisoners or violated captive women,
they generally were more merciful than the northern tribes.[25]

But their political and military systems could not compare with those of