ear,’ or ‘rabbit’s tail’; for snake dreams, the plant used is ‘snake’s tooth,’” and so on, “an empiric development of the fetich idea.”[336] No sanitary precautions were taken during the treatment except fasting. When the patient eats, certain kinds of food are forbidden, but on the ground of some fancied connection between the disease and the food. If squirrels are supposed to be at the root of the trouble, the patient is prohibited from eating squirrel meat.[337] [Illustration: ESKIMO WOMAN OF POINT BARROW CARRYING CHILD Photograph by Capt. Healy, U. S. R. M. ] [Illustration: APACHE WOMAN CARRYING CHILD Shows also moccasins and leg wrappings similar to the Puebloan and Navajo ] The sweat bath was, and is, the great cure-all among the Amerinds, except the Central and Eastern Eskimo. It was also a means of religious purification. Sometimes the sweat house was a large structure, but usually it was only large enough to hold one or two persons in a squatting posture, and was constructed of poles covered with skins, blankets, or earth. The patient entered and those outside heated stones and passed them in to him by means of sticks. Water or some decoction was then poured over the stones and the opening closed. Profuse perspiration was the result. At the proper time, if a stream were near, the patient would run out and plunge in; otherwise cold water was poured over him. This was the chief remedy for smallpox, which has made such ravages in all tribes, but of course it was ineffective. The sweat lodge and the sweat bath connected with it must not be confounded, as is often the case, with the _estufa_, (or _kiva_). The latter has no connection with the sweat bath, but is an entirely different thing, the confusion arising from the Spanish term, which means a hothouse, derived from the fact that the kivas are kept stiflingly close and hot in winter. Most Amerinds believe that all living things, even trees, once had human shape, and “have been transformed, for punishment or otherwise, into their present condition.” They had no understanding of a single “Great Spirit” till the Europeans, often unconsciously, informed them of their own belief.