Tooker] ETHNOGRAPHY OF THE HURON 111 



According to one account, they then went in a band to the woods and 

 cast out, they said, their madness. The sick man then began to get 

 better (JK 10: 177). Those who did not get what they dreamed 

 thought they would soon die and some of the sick were carried from 

 house to house hoping to get what they had dreamed and thus be 

 cured (S 204). The festival usually lasted 3 days (S 203), or 7 or 8 

 hours (C 165). 



An example will indicate the details of such a ceremony. While 

 a curing ceremony was being celebrated in the village, a woman went 

 out one night from her house with one of her daughters in her arms. 

 The moon appeared to her as a beautiful tall woman, also holding in 

 her arms a little girl. The moon told her that the various peoples 

 of the area should offer her presents that were the product of their 

 own country: for example, some tobacco from the Tobacco Nation, 

 some robes of outay [probably the black squirrel (JR 17:243 n. 8)] 

 from the Neutral Nation, a belt and leggings with their porcupine 

 ornaments from the Askicwaneronons or Sorcerers, and a deer skin 

 from the Ehonkeronons or Islanders. The moon also told her that 

 the feast being performed was acceptable to her and that she wished 

 others held. Finally, she said that she wished the woman to be like 

 her, and that, as she was of lire, the woman should be dressed in 

 the color of fire — in a red cap, a red plume, and a belt, leggings, shoes, 

 and the rest of her clothes decorated with red ornaments. (This was 

 the dress in which she appeared at the ceremony later performed for 

 her.) When she had returned to her house, she suffered from a gid- 

 diness in the head and a contraction of the muscles that made the people 

 conclude that she was sick of a disease for which the remedy was the 

 ononharoia ceremony. The sick woman confirmed this belief by see- 

 ing in her dreams only shouting people going and coming through 

 her house. She resolved to ask in public that they celebrate this feast 

 for her. The chiefs from the village in which she was living went to 

 the village in wliich she was born to ask this of the chiefs. They 

 immediately summoned the council. In this council, the affair was 

 declared one of those most important to the welfare of the counti-y, 

 and it was said that they ought to avoid any failure and give what 

 the sick woman desired. The next morning, this decision was an- 

 nounced throughout the village and the people were exhorted to go 

 promptly and bring the sick woman to the village and to prepare 

 themselves for the feast. They did not walk but ran to the village. 

 At noon the sick woman arrived, carried upon their shoulders in a 

 kind of basket, with an escort of 25 or 30 persons, who were singing. 

 A little while before she arrived, the general council had assembled. 

 The deputies annomiced her arrival to the council. They said two 

 men and two girls arrayed in robes and collars of such and such a 

 fashion and with certain fish and presents in their hands should be 



