The ceremony of initiating youth into manhood, says B. Hawkins[121], is usually performed at the age from fifteen to seventeen, and is called puskita (_fasting_), like the busk of the nation. A youth of the proper age gathers two handfuls of the sowátchko plant, which intoxicates and maddens, and eats this very bitter root for a whole day, after which he steeps the leaves in water and drinks from this. After sunset he eats two or three spoonfuls of boiled grits.[122] He remains in a house for four days, during which the above performances are repeated. Putting on a new pair of moccasins (stillipaí�a), he leaves the cabin, and during twelve moons abstains from eating the meat of young bucks, of turkey-cocks, fowls, peas and salt, and is also forbidden to pick his ears and to scratch his head with his fingers, but must use a small splinter to perform these operations. Boiled grits--the only food allowed to him during the first four moons--may be cooked for him by a little girl, but on a fire kindled especially for his own use. From the fifth month any person may cook for him, but he has to serve himself first, using one pan and spoon only. Every new moon he drinks the pā′ssa or button-snake root, an emetic, for four days, and takes no food except some boiled grits, húmpita hátki, in the evening. At the commencement of the twelfth lunation he performs for four days the same rites as he did at the beginning of the initiation, but on the fifth he leaves the cabin, gathers maize-cobs, burns them to ashes, and with these rubs his whole body. At the end of the moon he elicits transpiration by sleeping under blankets, then goes into cold water, an act which ends the ceremony. The herb medicines are administered to him by the ísti pakā′dsha `láko or "great leader," who, when speaking of him, says: pusidshedshē′yi sanatchumitchä′tchä-is,[123] "I am passing him through the physicking process repeatedly," or: náki omálga imaki`lä′dshäyi sá`lit ómäs, tchí, "I am teaching him all the matters proper for him to think of." If he has a dream during this course of initiation, he has to drink from the pā′ssa, and dares not touch any persons, save boys who are under a like course. This course is sometimes shortened to a few months, even to twelve days only, but the performances are the same.