Ridiculous and unreasonable tales about their savage customs have kept
timid explorers at a safe distance, and thus little has been learned
about them. This last fragment will pass away within a few years and all
trace will be lost. Tuberculosis claims a dozen yearly; the children are
weaklings from diseased parents and the result of intermarriage, so they
fall victims of comparatively harmless ailments. A few years ago an
epidemic of measles swept through the tribe. Poor ignorant creatures,
trying to cool the burning fever they spent hours bathing in the cold
waters of the stream flowing through the village. More than eighty died
in one week from the effects, and others that lived through it are
invalids. This was almost too much for their superstitious minds. They
were for fleeing from that accursed place, but the old men said: "Where
can we go? We have no other place but this. Let us wait here for death."
So they spent hours in dancing and ceremonies to appease the angry gods.
They have no favoring gods, only evil spirits which they must outwit or
bribe with dances. The Peach Dance which we had gone to see was for the
purpose of celebrating good crops of melons, corn, and other products
and to implore the mercy of harmful powers during the winter months.

After the sun was out of sight we followed Wattahomigie to the scene of
the dance. There was no other light than that of the brush fires. A huge
circle of howling, chanting Indians had formed a wide ring in which a
dozen or more bucks and as many squaws were gathered. There seemed to be
no prearranged procedure. When one of the dancers would feel so
inclined, he, or she, would start a wild screeching and leaping about.
This would continue until the singer ran out of breath. Occasionally a
squaw would grow so enthused she would be quite overcome with emotion
and fall to the ground, foaming at the mouth. No notice would be taken
except to grab her by the hair and drag her to the edge of the circle.
The dance lasted until the gray dawn and was the most ghastly and weird