142 THE TATU. 
grand flourish of the bladders in the air, and a whirring chatter of the voice, 
to exorcise the evil spirit. 
Another and more sensible mode is as follows: A hole is dug in the 
ground large enough to admit the sick person, partly filled with stones 
painted with red and black stripes; then a fire is kindled in it and continued 
until the ground is thoroughly heated. The fire and stones are then 
removed, and a quantity of rushes with their joints painted with the sacred 
red earth is thrown in, followed by a wisp of damp hay or grass, for the 
purpose of creating a steam. First, the practitioner himself lies down on 
the hay and wallows his breast and back in it, probably to round it into 
shape; then the patient is laid on it, thickly covered with hay or blankets, 
and allowed to perspire freely. 
Still another method is, to place the patient on his back, naked, stretch 
out his arms and legs wide asunder, plant four springy twigs in the ground 
at a distance, bend them over, and tie each to a hand or foot with a string. 
Then the physician, spirally painted like the devil above described, ap- 
proaches with a coal of fire on a fragment of bark, and burns the strings in 
two, allowing the twigs to spring up one after another, whereupon the 
patient screams. The notion appears to be that the evil spirits lurking in 
the several limbs are somehow twitched out or burned. 
Mr. Carner described to me an interesting operation which he once 
witnessed, whereby a squaw whose nervous system had received a severe 
shock from fright was restored by what might be likened to the Swedish 
movement-cure. Dr. Tep, the renowned Tatu shaman, officiated on the 
occasion, and it seems to have been his exceptional good sense and inge- 
nuity which devised the remedy. The woman had been frightened simply 
by a pebble falling into the brook where she was drinking; but, however 
trivial was the producing cause, there could be no doubt as to the genuine- 
ness and intensity of her suffering. The disease appeared to have assumed, 
finally, the form of an inflammatory rheumatism, and had baffled the skill 
of all their physicians. 
At last Dr. Tep assembled nearly the whole village together, placed 
the woman in the center on the ground, caused the company to lock hands 
in a cirele, and then they commenced a dance around her, accompanied by 
