272 BELIEFS AND USAGES OF CHICKASAW [ETH. ANN. 44 
They would have a doctor for three days and hold a Pishofa dance. If the 
first treatment proved ineffective, they would try a second; and, if the case 
proved obstinate, a third; but they stopped there. The third time, owl, buzzard, 
or eagle feathers were hung on sticks near the fire, each doctor making use of 
but one kind of bird, and it is Claimed that he would put a little piece of the 
flesh of that bird into the Pishofa food and that whoever ate that would take 
the sick person’s disease in his stead.” 
Even in olden times some people did not believe in wizards. One such per- 
son was so worked upon by them with salt and sugar as to be entirely con- 
verted. If one discovered that a wizard had been operating against him and 
consulted a doctor before the salt and sugar had melted, the doctor could 
remove it and effect a cure; but if it had had time to melt into his system he 
would be in danger of death. 
When anyone died and it was thought a certain wizard had killed him, the 
relatives of the deceased were sure to destroy that person. Knowing this the 
Indian doctor frequently refused to tell who was causing the sickness. But, 
as in the case of wizards, there were some doctors who were only quacks, and 
these caused the death of many innocent people by falsely accusing them of 
witchcraft. Most Indians believed in witchcraft, but some did not, and these 
saved many persons from punishment. Sometimes they interfered to prevent 
them from being burned to death, an ancient means of punishing wizards. 
In early times the Chickasaw were of one mind and purpose, and hence 
other tribes could not make head against them, but when they began to practice 
abuses such as witchcraft it was the beginning of their downfall. 
When I [i. e., McCurtain] was about 14 or 15 a woman died of some sickness 
and a man named John Brown, generally believed to be a wizard, was thought 
to have caused her death. So 8 or 10 people went to his house, set his chimney 
on fire,“ so as to induce him to come out, and then shot him. 
One evening an Indian named Wall Cass, on his way home from a hunting 
trip, saw a bear standing beside the road, in a region where no bears were 
supposed to live. He shot at the animal and the latter grunted and ran off 
into the woods. Next morning news came that a woman who had gone to bed 
perfectly well the night before had been found dead. Now, it was believed 
that however badly a witch or wizard had been wounded she or he would 
return home before dying. The man who had shot the bear therefore resolved 
to go to look at the woman, and when he returned he said, ‘I told you I 
thought it was that woman. She had been shot through the side, and I 
believe she was the bear at which I fired.’ This is a “true story,’ and the 
events happened when I was a boy. 
Sometimes a light was seen floating through the air toward a house until 
it got within 150 or 200 yards of the place, when it disappeared. It was thought 
that a wizard was the cause of it. 
4° See pp. 258-261. 
4° \ chimney made of crossed sticks and daubed with clay on the inside. The outside 
of such a chimney was inflammable. 
