I86 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 184 
Stevenson (1894, p. 86). Ants enter the body to produce illness. 
Apparently, their principal, or only, way of doing this is to ascend the 
stream of urine when one is urinating on an ant hill. Cure consists of 
removing the ants. Body sores are treated by placing upon them a 
poultice of si-’i (ant) wawa (medicine), made from the leaves of an 
unidentified plant. Extraction of ants from the body is effected 
ceremonially by the Shima (sometimes called Ant) society, assisted 
by the Flint society. I did not obtain details of this ceremony. The 
head of the Ant society drew a sketch for Mrs. Stevenson of the sand 
painting used in their curing ceremony (1894, fig. 18 and pp. 103-104), 
but a curing ceremony which she witnessed in which ants were ex- 
tracted, was performed not by the Ant but by the Giant society (ibid., 
p.100). The ants were drawn magically to the surface of the patient’s 
body and then brushed off with plumes and straws: ‘. . . as the 
plumes and straws were moved down the boy’s body ants in any quan- 
tity were supposed to be brushed off the body, while in reality tiny 
pebbles were dropped upon the blanket; but the conjuration was so 
perfect the writer could not tell how or whence they were dropped, 
although she stood close to the group and under a bright light. . .” 
(ibid.). 
MENTAL MALADIES 
Psychological illnesses are recognized as such by the Sia. They 
are regarded as supernaturalistic ailments and accordingly must be 
treated by teaiyanyi. If a person has ‘‘bad dreams” repeatedly he 
may seek treatment from a medicine society or ask to be admitted to 
membership in it. ‘The man who had smallpox caused by ants, cited 
above, also dreamed about snakes, “many snakes, very many, and all 
the next day I thought about it, and I knew if I did not see the hona- 
aite [head] of the Snake Society and tell him I wished to become a 
member of that body I would die” (Stevenson, 1894, p. 86). 
I was told of a woman who had fits repeatedly. During a seizure 
she was so violent that it took the strength of two or more people to 
hold and restrain her. Finally she decided, whether of her own ini- 
tiative or at the suggestion of another person my informant did not 
know, to offer herself to the Flint society. She was accepted and 
initiated, and, it was said, was much improved if not cured as a 
consequence. 
Prolonged periods of anxiety or melancholy may induce a person to 
seek the aid of, or petition for membership in, one of the societies. 
Severe mental illness is very rare in Sia, according to Government 
physicians and nurses as well as my informants. I learned of one case, 
however, that was so severe that it resulted in commitment to a 
hospital for mental and nervous diseases. J became acquainted with 
