climbed to the roof of a house, and shouted to the invisible monster,
"If you want flesh, go to our enemies, go to the Iroquois!"--while,
to add terror to persuasion, the crowd in the dwelling below yelled with
all the force of their lungs, and beat furiously with sticks on the walls
of bark.

[ 1 Many believed that the country was bewitched by wicked sorcerers,
one of whom, it was said, had been seen at night roaming around the
villages, vomiting fire. (Le Mercier, Relation des Hurons, 1637, 134.)
This superstition of sorcerers vomiting fire was common among the
Iroquois of New York.--Others held that a sister of Etienne Brule caused
the evil, in revenge for the death of her brother, murdered some years
before. She was said to have been seen flying over the country,
breathing forth pestilence. ]

Besides these public efforts to stay the pestilence, the sufferers,
each for himself, had their own methods of cure, dictated by dreams or
prescribed by established usage. Thus two of the priests, entering a
house, saw a sick man crouched in a corner, while near him sat three
friends. Before each of these was placed a huge portion of food,--enough,
the witness declares, for four,--and though all were gorged to
suffocation, with starting eyeballs and distended veins, they still held
staunchly to their task, resolved at all costs to devour the whole,
in order to cure the patient, who meanwhile ceased not in feeble tones,
to praise their exertions, and implore them to persevere.

[ "En fin il leur fallut rendre gorge, ce qu'ils firent a diuerses
reprises, ne laissants pas pour cela de continuer a vuider leur
plat."--Le Mercier, Relation des Hurons, 1637, 142.--This beastly
superstition exists in some tribes at the present day. A kindred