Among the Hidatsa, when a certain man smoked very slowly no person in the lodge was allowed to speak nor to move a single limb, except to grasp the pipe. Neither women, children, nor dogs were allowed to remain in the hut while the man was smoking, and some one was always placed as a guard at the entrance. If, however, there were just seven persons present to smoke none of these precautions were observed. When the particular man cleared his pipe and shook the ashes into the fire it blazed up, perhaps because he had put into the pipe some gunpowder or similar combustible. When any person had a painful or diseased place this same man put his pipe upon it and smoked. On such occasions he did not swallow the smoke, as is the Indian custom, but he affirmed that he could extract the disease by his smoking, and he pretended to seize it in his hand and to throw into the fire.[249] SORCERY. § 336. They believe that a person whom they dislike must die, if they make a figure of wood or clay, substituting for the heart an awl, a needle, or a porcupine quill, and bury the image at the foot of one of their “medicine poles.”[250] JUGGLERY. § 337. The “medicine of one man consists in making a snow ball, which he rolls a long time between his hands, so that at length it becomes hard and is changed into a white stone, which, when struck, emits a fire. Many persons, even whites, pretended they had seen this, and they can not be convinced to the contrary. The same man pretends that, during a dance, he plucked white feathers from a certain small bird, which he rolled between his hands, and formed of them in a short time a similar white stone. * * * A great many Mandan and Hidatsa believe that they have wild animals in their bodies; one, for instance, affirmed that he had a buffalo calf, the kicking of which he often felt; others said that they had tortoises, frogs, lizards, birds, etc. * * * Among the Hidatsa were seen medicine dances of the women, where one claimed to have an ear of corn in her body, which she ejected from her mouth during the dance, and then ate, after it had been mixed with Artemisia. * * * Another female dancer caused blood to gush from her mouth at will.”[251] GHOST LORE. § 338. The Mandan believe that each person has several spirits dwelling within him; one of which is black, another brown, and a third light-colored, the last alone returning to the Lord of Life. They think that after death they go to the south, to several villages which are visited by the gods; that their existence there is dependent on their course of life while in this world; that the brave and kind-hearted carry on the same occupation, eat similar food, have wives, and enjoy the pleasures of war and the chase. Some of the Mandan are said not to believe all these particulars, but to suppose that after death their spirits will dwell in the sun or in certain stars.