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“In this lodge,” he said, “no harm will befall you. But lest the women and children grow to think lightly of manhood there will be from time to time much din and devil-noises.”

At that the eleven medicine-men began to rock their bodies and groan like lost souls (they groaned louder and louder, with a kind of awful rhythm), and to shake the devil-rattles, which were dried gourds, brightly painted, and containing teeth of famous enemies, and one of the medicine-men tossed a devil-horn to Andramark, and the boy put it to his lips and blew for all he was worth. It was quite obvious that the medicine-men were just having fun, not with him, but with all the women and children of the village who were outside listening–at a safe distance, of course–and imagining that the medicine-lodge was at that moment a scene of the most awful visitations and terrors. And all that afternoon, at intervals, the ghastly uproar was repeated, until Andramark’s lips were chapped with blowing the devil-horn and his insides felt very shaky. But between times the business of the medicine-men with Andramark was very serious, and they talked to him like so many fathers, and he listened with both ears and pulled at the poppy-red medicine-pipe whenever it was passed to him.

They lectured him upon anatomy and hygiene; upon tribal laws and intertribal laws; and always they explained “why” as well as they could, and if they didn’t know “why” they said it must be right because it’s always been done that way. Sometimes they said things that made him feel very self-conscious and uncomfortable. And sometimes they became so interesting that it was the other way round.

“The gulf,” said Owl Eyes, “between the race of men and the races of women and children is knowledge. For, whereas many squaws and little children possess courage, knowledge is kept from them, even as the first-run shad of the spring. The duty of the child is to acquire strength and skill, of the woman to bear children, to labor in the corn-field, and to keep the lodge. But the duty of man is to hunt, and to fight, and to make medicine, to know, and to keep knowledge to himself. Hence the saying that whatever man betrays the secrets of the council-lodge to a squaw is a squaw himself. Hitherto, Andramark, you have been a talkative child, but henceforth you will watch your tongue as a warrior watches the prisoner that he is bringing to his village for torture. When a man ceases to be a mystery to the women and children he ceases to be a man. Do not tell them what has passed in the medicine-lodge, but let it appear that you could discourse of ghostly mysteries and devilish visitations and other dread wonders–if you would; so that even to the mother that bore you you will be henceforward and forever a thing apart, a thing above, a thing beyond.”

And the old medicine-man who sat on Owl Eyes’s left cleared his throat and said:

“When a man’s wife is in torment, it is as well for him to nod his head and let her believe that she does not know what suffering is.”

Another said:

“Should a man’s child ask what the moon is made of, let that man answer that it is made of foolish questions, but at the same time let him smile, as much as to say that he could give the truthful answer–if he would.”

Another said:

“When you lie to women and children, lie foolishly, so that they may know that you are making sport of them and may be ashamed. In this way a man may keep the whole of his knowledge to himself, like a basket of corn hidden in a place of his own secret choosing.”

Still another pulled one flap of the lodge a little so that a ray of light entered. He held his hand in the ray and said: