120 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 190 



French wrongly call Jesus, but they do not know me. I have pity on your 

 country, which I have taken under my protection; I come to teach you both 

 the reasons and the remedies for your misfortune. It is the strangers who alone 

 are the cause of it ; they now travel two by two throughout the country, with 

 the design of spreading the disease everywhere. They will not stop with that ; 

 after this smallpox which now depopulates your houses, there will follow certain 

 colics which in less than three days will carry off all those whom this disease 

 may not have removed. You can prevent this misfortune ; drive out from your 

 village the two black gowns [Jesuits] who are there. As for those who are now 

 attacked by the smallpox, I wish you to serve me in curing them; prepare 

 a quantity of such a water, run as fast as possible to the village, and tell the 

 elders to carry and distribute this potion during the whole night. Then all the 

 youth and the war chiefs will go acting like madmen through all the houses; 

 but 1 wish them to continue even till the dawn of day. 



Then the spirit disappeared. This man immediately hastened to the 

 village and gave the warning to all he knew. Then the elders met 

 two and three times in council. These ceremonies were received with 

 approbation. Toward evening, one heard in all the streets nothing 

 but the shouts of the chiefs, exhorting the youth to act bravely as 

 mad men. These masqueraders withdrew a little after midnight. Six 

 of the elders then bore in silence a great kettle full of that water 

 and made all the sick people drink it after the young men had ceased 

 their activities.^ *^ The ceremony was repeated the next night (Christ- 

 mas) (JR 20: 27-31). 



The Huron said that the witches could ruin them. If a person's 

 trading or hunting had been successful, then a witch made him or a 

 member of his family ill so that he had to spend all his profit on 

 doctors and medicines (JR 8: 123). 



CHARMS 



Not all charms were witchcraft charms ; some charms, or familiars, 

 [ascwandies (JR 17: 159) ; ascwandics (JR 17: 203, 207, 211; cf. JR 

 17: 159); aaskwandiks (JR 21: 135); aashouandy (JR 33: 211); 

 oky — "most things that seem at all unnatural or extraordinary to our 

 Hurons are easily accepted in their minds as Oky — that is, things 

 that have supernatural virtue" ( JR 33 : 211) and cf. above, "Medicine 

 Men"] brought good fortune. All (JR 17: 211) or nearly all (JR 

 15: 181) possessed these charms (JR 33: 211). Such tilings as an 

 owl's claw or a serpent's skin could be charms (JR 26 : 267). 



Charms could be found. If, for example, after a hunter had had 

 difficulty in killmg a bear or stag, he found in its head or entrails 

 something unusual as a stone or snake, he said that this was what 

 gave the animal such strength and prevented it from dying. He kept 

 the stone or snake so that it might bring him good fortune. Or, if 



" Beauchamp (1901 a : 158), apparently referring to this episode, says that drinking medi- 

 cine water was not customary among the Huron, but that it was among the Iroquois. This 

 statement would seem to be In error. 



