Tooker] ETHNOGRAPHY OF THE HURON 117 



Gambling was frequent and took up much of the Indians' time. 

 Both men and women might stake all that they had on such games, 

 appearing as cheerful and patient when they lost as thougli they had 

 lost nothing. Some returned to their villages naked and singing after 

 having lost everything (S 96). 



WITCHCRAFT 



Not all illness was caused by the desires. The diagnostician might 

 find that the illness was not caused by the desires of the sick person, 

 but by witchcraft (JK 17: 213); or the sick person might have a 

 dream that indicated the cause of his illness was witchcraft (JR. 33 : 

 219) . To treat this kind of disease, there was a special class of doc- 

 tors [called ontetsans (JR 17:211) or aretsan (JR 17:213)]; those 

 who cured by extracting the spell. This spell might be a knot or 

 tuft of hair, a piece of a man's nail or animal's claw, a piece of leather, 

 bone, or iron, a piece of a tree leaf or wood, some sand or pebble, or 

 other such object ( JR 33 : 199, 219) . The charm was extracted, some- 

 times by giving an emetic and sometimes by sucking the diseased part 

 of the body (JR 33: 199, 219).^^ [The general references to giving 

 "potions" and to "blowing" by the medicine men ( JR 8 : 123 ; 13 : 103, 

 137, and passim above), may refer to the extraction of the charm.] 

 The doctor might extract the charm with the point of a knife without 

 making any incision, saying he had drawn it from the heart or inside 

 the patient's bones (JR 33 : 199), or he might extract the charm from 

 the material vomited up (JR 17: 213). In one instance, a woman 

 was given some doses of water and she threw up a charm ; a coal as 

 large as a thumb. Another time, the arendhoane shook a man sick 

 with a high fever, as one would shake a sieve, and sand came forth 

 from all parts of his body (JR 10 : 197). In a third instance, a sick 

 man was given an emetic and threw up a charm that consisted of 

 some hairs, a tobacco seed, a green leaf, and a little cedar twig. As 

 one of these charms was broken and the other part had remained in 

 his body, he died. In still another instance, a sick person vomited up 

 a charm that was a grasshopper's leg twined about with a few hairs 

 (JR 13: 157; cf. JR 15: 21 — when a member of the Tobacco Nation 

 vomited up a leaden pellet in some blood, it was concluded that a 

 Frencliman had bewitched him). 



Sorcerers sometimes used as a charm the flesh of a kind of mon- 

 strous serpent {angont ^*) who lived underground, in caves, under 



" The Iroquois also hold that witchcraft charms may be extracted from the patient by 

 giving an emetic or by sucking. The charms are similar to those of the Huron described 

 below (Beauchamp 1893: 183; 1922: 61-66; De C. Smith 1889 a: 277-278; E. A. Smith 

 1883 : 71-72 ; Snyderman 1949 : 218 ; Parker 1913 : 27 n. ; see also Finley 1840 : 65 for a 

 Wyandot example of extracting a witch charm by cutting and sucking). Witches may 

 also use other techniques (Parker 1913: 27 n. ; Shimony 1961 a: 288). 



" Shimony (1961 a : 287 ; cf. Speck 1949 : 113) mentions a charm described either as a 

 small stone or as a small piece of dried meat, called o^nl'ySnt or ofni'ylt, that is said to be 

 used for witchcraft. The word means 'sharp point' (William N. Fenton : personal com- 

 munication). 



