[281-1]
Occasionally, in very uncultivated tribes, some family or totem claimed
a monopoly of the priesthood. Thus, among the Nez Perces of Oregon, it
was transmitted in one family from father to son and daughter, but
always with the proviso that the children at the proper age reported
dreams of a satisfactory character.[281-2] Perhaps alone of the Algonkin
tribes the Shawnees confined it to one totem, but it is remarkable that
the greatest of their prophets, Elskataway, brother of Tecumseh, was not
a member of this clan. From the most remote times, the Cherokees have
had one family set apart for the priestly office. This was when first
known to the whites that of the Nicotani, but its members, puffed up
with pride and insolence, abused their birthright so shamefully, and
prostituted it so flagrantly to their own advantage, that with savage
justice they were massacred to the last man. Another was appointed in
their place who to this day officiates in all religious rites. They
have, however, the superstition, possibly borrowed from Europeans, that
the _seventh_ son is a natural born prophet, with the gift of healing by
touch.
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