FORT YATES, DAKOTA.

MISS M.C. COLLINS.

During the recent measles epidemic a large number of children died on
the Agency. At this village, a little child had been conjured until they
thought it was dying, and then they sent for me. I found the poor little
one all bruised with the hands of the conjurer. I showed the mother how
to bathe it, and I poulticed the throat and sent Josephine over again to
change the poultice, and she reported the child as breathing quietly.
The next morning the swelling had gone down and the baby seemed much
better; all day it continued to improve, and the next day sat up and ate
rice soup which I carried it. The mother said, "She is well now!" I
said, "O, no, she is not; keep her in the house three days and I will
visit her, then she will be well perhaps." If an Indian is not in a
dying condition, they do not consider anything the matter. So, after I
left, she took her child out and walked about two miles. The child
caught cold, and that afternoon grew worse. They had an Indian to
conjure it, and it died immediately. They sent for me to come and pray
with them. Josephine went for Elias, and we went to the desolate home.
The baby had been dead an hour and was closed up in a box, the
grandfather singing a mourning song, the mother wailing, "O my daughter,
my daughter, I loved her and she has left me." Over and over again she
cried out in her sorrow. The grandmother had cut her flesh, and the
streams of blood running down from her hair over her face only made all
seem more desolate, and more weird and terrible. They were trying to be
Indians, and yet they had asked for me to come. I suppose it was to give
the child the full benefit of both religions, so that there should be no
mistake in the future world.