FL661562

forth into a roar of laughter and acknowledge
that their was some hyposcrisy in their strict
manners. These laws are gradually deleted
both as to the intercourse with women & as
to the food they may be forbidden to eat. But
not until they are about the age of 30 are
all restrictions removed.
I shall now [word crossed out] in explanation & illustration
of this subject relate an instance where
I got into a great scrape with the elderly
men. In fact i gave much offence by openly
exposing at the time the secret. We had two
young lads under instruction, one of whom
was particularly promising and had
almost spirit & courage enough to resist
passing through the ceremony of being made a
young man or legal as they call it. Knowing
that I should for a time lose my influence
over him (for they are besides the restrictions passed
subject to kind of miliary rule towards the old
men.) I tried to dissuade him from going
to the ceremony; the whole of the tribe were
assembled near my [indecipherable] waiting for this