Page:Myths of the Iroquois.djvu/39

Rh to the council-house, where the gathered tithes of tobacco were burned in the council-fire. While the tobacco was burning, the agile and athletic danced the rain-dance.

When this was done, Hi-nûⁿ, pleased with the incense of the burning tobacco, called forth huge dark banks of rain clouds and took personal charge of the gathering storm to guide it to wet the dry and parched earth. Hi-nûⁿ was considered a great lover of tobacco, but always in want of it.

This was made from the dried and pulverized flesh of every known bird, beast, and fish. Equal portions of this flesh were mixed into a compound, which was divided among all true medicine-men.

Witches could and did assume animal shapes.

On the Buffalo Reservation a man saw a "witch- woman" coming, with fire streaming from her mouth. Crossing a creek and obtaining his gun the man returned and saw a dog at no great distance resting its fore-feet upon a log, and it had fire streaming from its mouth and nostrils.

The man fired at it and saw it fall, but as it was very dark he dared not go near it; but on the following morning he went to the spot and saw where it had fallen, by the marks of blood from its wound. Tracking it by this means he followed its path until it had reached a bridge, where the woman's tracks took the place of the dog's tracks in the path. He followed the bloody trail to the Tonawanda Reservation, where he found the woman. She had died from the effect of the shot.

On the Tonawanda Reservation three boys were coming down a hill, when they saw a large hog, which they concluded to follow to find its home. As they pursued the hog they continually kicked it, and it retaliated by biting at them at times. It retreated toward the bank of a small creek, reaching which it suddenly disappeared. They saw no reason to suppose that it had drowned itself in the stream; but while searching for it they found on one of the banks an old man, who laughed and said, "What do you seek?" They answered, "A hog."