258 BELIEFS AND USAGES OF CHICKASAW [ETH. ANN, 44 
was one of those in which they passed entirely round the fire and the 
house. These three dances and the bison dance were among the ones 
used in the Pishofa. The Pishofa dances alone were kept up in later 
years, the others having been abandoned about 1882, except for some 
sporadic attempts to revive them by some of the young people, who, 
however, did not know how to execute them properly. 
THE PISHOFA CEREMONY 
The most important ceremony known to the Chickasaw, in later 
times at least, was the Pishofa dance.s The earliest mention of this 
is in the following excerpt from Schoolcraft : 
When they are sick they send for a doctor (they have several among them) ; 
after looking at the sick awhile, the family leave him and the sick alone. He 
then commences singing and shaking a gourd over the patient. This is done, 
not to cure, but to find out what is the matter, or disease; as the doctor sings 
several songs he watches closely the patient, and finds out which song pleased ; 
then he determines what the disease is; he then uses herbs, roots, steaming, 
and conjuring; the doctor frequently recommends to have a large feast (which 
they call Tonsh-pa-shoo-phah) ; if the Indian is tolerably well off, and is sick 
for two or three weeks, they may have two or three Tonsh-pa-shoo-phahs. They 
eat, dance, and sing at a great rate at these feasts; the doctors say that it 
raises the spirits of the sick and weakens the evil spirit.” 
The doctor who presided at a Pishofa dance is said by Speck to 
have been chosen by the prophet of the sick man’s moiety.t° The 
ceremony proper did not begin until the last day of the treatment, 
which is reported sometimes to have been the third day and some- 
times the fourth. 
It took place ordinarily in the yard of the patient, which, like 
every other Chickasaw house yard, was kept clear of grass, weeds, 
and similar small growths. The door of the house normally faced 
east, and if it happened to be directed toward any other quarter the 
ceremony took place elsewhere in a house with eastern outlook. Dur- 
ing the entire time of the ceremony, until the evening of the last 
day, a fire was kept burning in front of the door, usually at the 
edge of the yard, but nearer if the doctor so ordered. One informant 
spoke as if it were occasionally in the northeastern corner of the 
yard, and instead of occupying one spot it was sometimes extended 
along a line parallel with the front of the house. Again there might 
be two fires, one in the northeastern corner of the yard and one in 
the southeastern corner. The fire was kept supplied with fuel by 
the doctor’s tishu or assistant. 
8The name is abbreviated from Ta"ci at picofa, “the corn is hulled.” Speck (Jour. 
Am, Folk-Lore, vol. xx, p. 54) is thus in error in translating it ‘a fast”; in fact, there 
was no fasting. It was a feast and dance, 
®* Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, vol. 1, p. 310. 
10 Jour. Am. Folk-Lore, vol. xx, p. 54. 
