RAISING THE DEVIL—“TAR-HEADS.” 225 
In the ceremony of raising the dead there is first a noisy powwow in 
the assembly-hall, and then a number of muffled forms appear, before 
whom the women pass in procession in the darkness, with fear and trembling 
and weeping, and deposit gifts in their hands. Thus their rascally~ and 
indolent masters get possession of their base earnings without using coer- 
cion. 
In raising the devil there is a still greater ado. About the time of 
harvest it would appear that the Old Scratch had determined to get them 
all. They go out and kindle fires on all the hills about at night; they 
whoop, halloo, and circle around as if driving in game; finally they chase 
him in and tree him, then fling down shell-money underneath the tree to 
hire him to take himself off. Sometimes he makes for the assembly-house, 
fantastically dressed, and with harlequin nimbleness capers about it awhile, 
then bows his head low and shoots into the entrance backward. He is now 
intrenched in the stronghold of their power, and literally the devil is to 
pay. Presently they pluck up courage to follow him in, and for awhile 
there prevails the silence of the grave, when a pin could be heard to drop. 
Then they fling down money before him, and dart out with amazing agility 
After a proper length of time he steals out by some obscure trap-door, 
strips off his diabolical toggery, and reappears as a human being. The 
only object of this gratuitous and egregious foolery appears to be to assist 
them in maintaining their influence over the squaws. 
A widow wears tar on her head and face as long as she is in mourning; 
sometimes two or three years, sometimes as many weeks. When she 
removes it, it is understood she wishes to remarry; but if an Indian makes 
advances to her before its removal, she considers herself insulted, and 
weeps. 
The knowledge of medicine is a secret with the craft; to learn it a 
young man pays his teacher all that he possesses, and begins life without 
anything left. But he soon reimburses himself from his patients, charging 
them often from $10 to $20 shell-money for a single dose. For a felon, a 
Korusi shaman split a live frog and bound one portion on the affected part, 
which cured the same. When a person is manifestly sick unto death, the 
Korusi sometimes wind ropes tight around him to terminate his sufferings. 
15 TC 
