Witches are mischievous beings, doing ill to their neighbors in pure wantonness of mood, for little or no reason. Since this is so, there is no outward characteristic that distinguishes a witch, and we are told that part of the aloofness and also of the courtesy shown strangers is because anyone may prove capable of doing the household an injury. Father Dumarest writes: To understand the fear Indians have of witches we must realize that they believe witches to be a race apart, men like themselves, but endowed with evil power, power to kill when insulted.... If there is a great drought after the dance of _Shiwanna_,[218] witches are at the bottom of it. Witches then there always will be in the world, and incessant conflicts between witches and _Cheani_. Many join the witch society every year. Whoever consents to become a member, may choose the especial powers he wishes to exert, but on the sole condition that he sacrifices the being dearest to him.[219] Once a member of the witch society, always a member. The very word _Kanakiaia_ (witch) is the terror of all women and children, and of the majority of the men. In 1896 a terrible epidemic ravaged the pueblos of the Rio Grande, and the West. At Cochití they attributed the epidemic to witchcraft. Spies watched day and night about the cemetery and the churches. One of the men pursued a monster he discovered prowling about, and when they came to grips the witch was found to be a _Koshare_; both died the next day, and the people said the _Koshare_ confessed he was dying of the harm he had done. [Father Dumarest affirms only this:] I buried them both the same day; the next day the Kasik made a search of the house of the _Koshare_ and found in a pot a stone image with owl eyes, feathers of owl and crow; so the Kasik was convinced that the _Koshare_ had been a witch, and of his numerous family only two children survived.[220]