In the present instance, as it happened immediately after the council, it necessarily led to the inference that at that council momentous questions must have been discussed, and also that these questions had not been solved.

Otherwise, why should the councilmen fast?
Penitence, with the Indian, is akin to sacrifice; the body is tormented because the soul is beyond human reach.

The fasting is done in order to render the body more accessible to the influence of the mind.

Often, too, one fasts in order to weaken the body, in order to free the soul from its thralls and bring it into a closer relation with the powers regarded as supernatural.

At all events, fasting and purifications were a sure sign that serious affairs were in process of development, and such proceedings on the part of some of the nashtio could not fail to produce results the opposite of what the shaman had intended.
It would have been different had the yaya alone retired for penitential performances; nobody would have been struck by that, for everybody was accustomed to see them at work, as such voluntary sacrifice on their part is usually called; it was their business.