130 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 99 



This is anop;od to bo done especially with twins, ^* although a single- 

 born baby could by the same means bo brought up to become a 

 witch. 



If twins are born, and their parents intend to make witches of 

 them, no mother's milk is given them for 24 days (i. e., the taboo 

 period for them other, see p. 127); tliey are to be fed with the liquid 

 portion of corn hominy, k'a'no'€''no°. This must be given them only 

 during the night. Moreover, they are to be kept rigidly secluded from 

 all visitors duiing the same 24 days' period. Some of these injunc- 

 tions are strangely reminiscent of, and are no doubt related to, tlie 

 Iroquois custom of concealing children until puberty ("down-fended" 

 children, as J. N. B. Hewitt calls them), as practiced by the Onon- 

 daga., Mohawk, and Seneca.®^ 



At the end of this period a decoction of the bark of k*alo*'Gwo" 

 Df'Dawi^skaGe'"' {Rhus glabra L., smooth sumac), is drunk by the 

 mother, "to make her milk flow abundantly," and from then on- 

 ward she nurses tlie children: the result has been obtained. 



As to the power of these twin witches, the most astonishing asser- 

 tions arc made. Not only do they not stop at flying through the 

 air or diving imder the ground, but they can even walk on the sunrays. 

 They can take all human or animal shapes conceivable. 



Even when they are only a month old, "whatever they think 

 happens." If they are lying on the groimd in their swaddlings, and 

 crying for hunger, and their mother should happen to be eating, and 

 wishes to finish her meal before attending to them, her food will 

 become undone (i. e., raw) again, and the food of all those that happen 

 to be eating with her. 



If their mother is cookiiig a meal while they cry for her, and she 

 does not heed them, the food she is preparing will never get done. 



When they have grown to be urchins, and happen to be playing 

 outside, all of a sudden they will come scampering in, asking for food ; 

 if their mother says the food isn't ready yet, it will never get done. 

 But if she gives it to them straightway, even if she had only just 

 put it on the fire, it is ready to be eaten as soon as she hands it to 

 them. 



They often go and play with the "Little People." 



They can see the Little People, and talk with them, though we 

 can not. 



But wherever they go, and however long a time they are absent, 

 their i)arents are never anxious on their account, knowing as they do 

 that they can take care of themselves. 



"* It is immaterial whether they are of the same sex or not. 

 8' Cf. Hewitt, Iroquoian Cosmology, pp. 142, 252; Hewitt, Seneca Fiction, Leg- 

 ends, and Myths, pp. 510, 810. 



