They make use of these songs, of this drum, and of this noise or uproar, in their sicknesses. I explained it quite fully last year; but since that time I have seen so much foolishness, nonsense, absurdity, noise, and din made by this wretched sorcerer in order to cure himself, that I should become weary in writing and would tire your reverence, if I should try to make you read the tenth part of what has often wearied me almost beyond endurance. Occasionally this man would enter as if in a fury, singing, crying and howling, making his drum rattle with all his might; while the others howled as loudly as he, and made a horrible din with their sticks, striking upon whatever was before them; they made the little children dance, then the girls, then the women; he lowered [69] his head and blew upon his drum, then blew toward the fire; he hissed like a serpent, drew his drum under his chin, shaking and turning it about; he struck the ground with it with all his might, then turned it upon his stomach; he closed his mouth with the back of one hand, and then with the other; you would have said that he wanted to break the drum to pieces, he struck it so hard upon the ground; he shook it, he turned it from one side to the other, and, running around the fire several times, he went out of the cabin, continuing to howl and bellow; he struck a thousand attitudes, and all this was done to cure himself. This is the way they treat their sick. I am inclined to think that they wish to conjure the disease, or to frighten the wife of Manitou, whom they hold as the origin and cause of all evils, as I have said above.