422 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1940 



merit and manage the rituals. Members of both sexes attend. A 

 member should put up a feast every year for the orders which have 

 helped him. He calls in the head woman of the opposite moiety to 

 conduct the ritual. His membership ceases rarely, when he dreams 

 he has been released. Then he knows he is no longer a member. 



THE FALSE-FACE SICKNESS 



Symptoms of the False-face sickness are ailments of the head, shoul- 

 ders, and joints. Masks cause and cure swelling of the face, toothache, 

 inflammation of the eyes, nose bleeding, sore chin, and earache. At 

 Tonawanda, red spots on the patient's face are False-face symptoms. 

 This calls for the red Faces, who should dance in the morning before 

 sunrise. Black spots require the use of black masks at night. Im- 

 aginary hair lying on the patient's face, indicated by her attempts to 

 brush it aside, is a False-face symptom. The patient complains to her 

 old people. They consult a clairvoyant, who prescribes a False-face 

 ceremony. To ridicule the masks or any of their ceremonies is inviting 

 sickness or misfortune. 



Cases of hysterical possession formerly occurred among Iroquois 

 women. A Tonawanda informant states that it was confined to certain 

 nervous women who became possessed of the False-face spirits when- 

 ever the masked men appeared (Peter W. Doctor). On hearing the 

 rumpus of whining and rattles, which marks their approach, one 

 woman would fall into spasms, imitate their cry and crawl toward the 

 fire, and, unless she was restrained, plunge her hands into the glowing 

 embers and scatter the fire as if she were a False-face hunting tobacco. 

 Some one always gi-abbed her, while another burned tobacco, imploring 

 the masked men to cure her. The ritual usually restored her normal 

 composure. Other women became possessed of the tutelaries of the 

 Bear or Buffalo societies. My informant used to think women became 

 possessed to show off. Some of these women were clairvoyants. An- 

 other informant remembers a man who became possessed 30 years 

 ago at Newtown, for resisting a doorkeeper (Jesse J. Cornplanter). 

 When the masked ritual conductor nudged him with his rattle, he 

 obstinately refused to join the round dance. They struggled and the 

 man, overcome with fear, fell into a spasm and cried like a False- face. 

 They had to blow ashes on him. Afterward, the man did not remem- 

 ber his behavior. In all cases, the form of the hysteria was prescribed 

 by the culture. These cases resemble those which Champlain and the 

 missionaries witnessed at Huronia. The Feast of Fools of the early 

 Hurons has evolved from a random series of hysterical dream fulfill- 

 ments to an organized Midwinter Festival by a gradual standardization 

 of forms differing according to locality. 



