426 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1940 



He hopes that the great one dwelling on the rim of the earth will 

 confer his power on the masked company and prevent high winds 

 from leveling the settlement. They scour the exterior of the house 

 and, crawling through the door, visit every room. They sweep be- 

 neath the beds and peer into every nook and corner for disease 

 spirits. They haul the sick out of bed and sometimes commit indig- 

 nities on lazy people. If someone has set a kettle down for them, 

 their leader will burn tobacco, and ask the masked company to blow 

 ashes on the patient. Their only fee is native tobacco, which their 

 guide collects in a twined husk basket. Once at Newtown, a leader 

 was about to gather his company of exterminators and depart for 

 another house when one turned up missing. They heard a most 

 terrifying racket in the loft. They ascended to discover him vio- 

 lently shaking an old straw bedticking, from which bedbugs were 

 fleeing by the score. Tliis fellow, now an old man, possessed of an 

 extraordinary sense of the ridiculous, was shaking his rattle and 

 crying in the most orthodox manner. It is a good example of the 

 frivolity which may pervade an otherwise serious ritual. 



Meanwhile, the two matrons brew a purgative at the village cook 

 house. At Newtown and Tonawanda, the sole ingredient is parched 

 w^iite sunflower seeds, wliich are steeped for the medicine, but at 

 Allegany they add "manroot" {Ipomoea pandurata)^ which must 

 be found growing erect like a living person. 



The community assembles at the longhouse. An appointed speaker 

 returns thanks to all the spirit forces. At Coldspring, Husk Face 

 runners and the marching song signify the approach of the combined 

 company. Bursting into the room, the False-faces crawl toward the 

 fire. Each matron entrusts a pail of medicine to one of them whom 

 she designates "water waiter" for her moiety. Lest they scatter the 

 fire about the room, an appointed priest makes an invocation, burn- 

 ing the tobacco that was levied at the houses. He implores them 

 to protect the people against epidemics and tornadoes. 



Tobacco Invocation 



Partake of this sacred tobacco, O mighty shagodyoweh, you who live at the 

 rim of the earth, who stand towering, you who travel everywhere on the earth 

 caring for the people. 



And you too, whose faces are against the trees in the forests, whom we call 

 the company of laces ; you also receive tobacco. 



And you Husk Faces partake of the tobacco. For you have been continually 

 associated with the False-faces. You too have done your duty. 



Partake of this tobacco together. Everyone here believes that you have 

 chosen him for your society. 



So now your mud-turtle rattle receives tobacco. (Here they scrape their 

 rattles on the floor.) 



And now another thing receives tobacco, your staff, a tall pine with the 

 branches loppod off to the top. 



