The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Land of Footprints by Stewart Edward White: standing orders with our boys for basins of hot water to be
waiting always behind our tents. After the usual polite exchanges
we informed the chief of our needs-firewood, perhaps, milk, a
sheep or the like. These he furnished. When we left we made him a
present of a few beads, a knife, a blanket or such according to
the value of his contribution.
To me these encounters were some of the most interesting of our
many experiences, for each man differed radically from every
other in his conceptions of ceremony, in his ideas, and in his
methods. Our coming was a good deal of an event, always, and each
chief, according to his temperament and training, tried to do
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