558 ANNUAL, REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1920. 



and making Mows at them ; a Fourth would fondly kiss, and paw his Com- 

 panions, and snear in their Faces, with a Countenance more antick, than any 

 in a Dutch Droll. In this frantick Condition they were confined, lest they 

 should in their Folly destroy themselves ; though it was observed, that all their 

 Actions were full of Innocence and good Nature. Indeed, they were not very 

 cleanly ; for they would have wallow'd in their own Excrements, if they had 

 not been prevented. A Thousand such simple Tricks they play'd, and after 

 Eleven Days, return'd themselves again, not remembring anything that had 

 pass'd." 27 



HUSKANAWING CEREMONY OF THE VIRGINIA INDIANS. 



In the eastern United States the Algonquins and other tribes of 

 Indians practiced a ceremony comparable with that of the California 

 Indians, already described, in initiating their boys into the dignity of 

 manhood. In the ritual an intoxicating medicine {loysoccan) was 

 administered to the candidates, the principal ingredient of which was 

 undoubtedly Datura stramonium. The following account of this 

 is given by Beverly in his History of Virginia : 



The solemnity of huskanawing is commonly practiced once every fourteen 

 or sixteen years, or oftener, as their young men happen to grow up. It is an 

 institution or discipline which all young men must pass before they can be 

 admitted to be of the number of the great men, officers, or cockarouses of the 

 nation ; whereas, by Capt. Smith's relation, they were only set apart to supply 

 the priesthood. The whole ceremony of huskanawing is performed after the 

 following manner : 



The choicest and briskest young men of the town, and such only as have 

 acquired some treasure by their travels and hunting, are chosen out by the 

 rulers to be huskanawed; and whoever refuses to undergo this process dares 

 not remain among them. Several of those odd preparatory fopperies are 

 premised in the beginning, which have been before related ; but the principal 

 part of the business is, to carry them into the woods, and there keep them 

 under confinement, and destitute of all society for several months, giving them 

 no other sustenance but the infusion, or decoction, of some poisonous, intoxi- 

 cating roots; by virtue of which physic, and by the severity of the discipline 

 which they undergo, they become stark, staring mad ; in which raving 

 condition, they are kept eighteen or twenty days. During these extremi- 

 ties, they are shut up, night and day, in a strong inclosure, made on 

 purpose ; one of which I saw belonging to the Pamunky Indians, in the year 

 1694. It was in shape like a sugar loaf, and every way open like a lattice for 

 the air to pass through. In this cage, thirteen young men had been huskanawed, 

 and had not been a month set at liberty when I saw it. Upon this occasion, it 

 is pretended that these poor creatures drink so much of that water of Lethe, 

 that they perfectly lose the remembrance of all former things, even of their 

 parents, their treasure, and their language. When the doctors find that they 

 have drunk sufficiently of the wysoccan (so they call this mad potion), they 

 gradually restore them to their senses again, by lessening the intoxication of 

 their diet ; but before they are perfectly well, they bring them into their towns, 

 while they are still wild and crazy, through the violence of the medicine. After 

 this they are very fearful of discovering anything of their former remem- 



27 Beverly, Robert, History and Present State of Virginia, bk. 2, p. 24, 1705. 



