These idols are hung round with amulets and votive offerings, such as beavers' teeth, and bears' and eagles' claws.
When any chief personage is on his death-bed, or dangerously ill, the medicine men are sent for.

Each brings with him his idols, with which he retires into a canoe to hold a consultation.

As doctors are prone to disagree, so these medicine men have now and then a violent altercation as to the malady of the patient, or the treatment of it.

To settle this they beat their idols soundly against each other; whichever first loses a tooth or a claw is considered as confuted, and his votary retires from the field.

Polygamy is not only allowed, but considered honorable, and the greater number of wives a man can maintain, the more important is he in the eyes of the tribe.