The Virginia Indians were of course idolatrous, and their chief idol, called Okee, represented the spirit of evil, to appease whom they burnt sacrifices. They were greatly under the influence and control of their priests and conjurors, who wore a grotesque dress, performed a variety of divinations, conjurations, and enchantments, called powwowings, after the manner of wizards, and by their superior cunning and shrewdness, and some scanty knowledge of medicine, contrived to render themselves objects of veneration, and to live upon the labor of others. The superstition of the savages was commensurate with their ignorance. Near the falls of the James River, about a mile back from the river, there were some impressions on a rock like the footsteps of a giant, being about five feet apart, which the Indians averred to be the footprints of their god. They submitted with Spartan fortitude to cruel tortures imposed by their idolatry, especially in the mysterious and horrid ordeal of huskanawing. The avowed object of this ordeal was to obliterate forever from the memory of the youths subjected to it all recollection of their previous lives. The house in which they kept the Okee was called Quioccasan, and was surrounded by posts, with human faces rudely carved and painted on them. Altars on which sacrifices were offered, were held in great veneration. The diseases of the Indians were not numerous; their remedies few and simple, their physic consisting mainly of the bark and roots of trees. Sweating was a favorite remedy, and every town was provided with a sweat-house. The patient, issuing from the heated atmosphere, plunged himself in cold water, after the manner of the Russian bath.