WANTON] INDIAN TRIBES OF THE LOWER MISSISSIPPI VALLEY 351

 Indians of this tribe. The mounds erected over chiefs are said to
 have been 4 or 5 feet high.
 Medicines were owned by certain individuals reputed to be skillful
 in the cure of this, that, or the other ailment-being native special-
 ists, in other words. These might be men or women, and it is said
 to have been customary for them to keep their methods of treatment
 a profound secret until they were ready to die or give up practice, when
 they confided them to whoever was to succeed them. Thus Benjamin
 Paul's grandmother was a snake doctor, and claimed to cure snake
 bites of all kinds. She had communicated to Benjamin Paul her
 manner of treating rattlesnake bites, but he did not feel at liberty to
 reveal it. All knowledge of her other remedies had died with her.
 She also had a reputation in cases of blindness, and was reputed to
 have cured patients given up by white physicians.
 The Indian turnip was considered a specific for consumption,
 a root called patisa'ne was used for dyspepsia, and the hd'cux, re-
 ferred to below, was smoked for the same disease. The slippery elm
 was also used as a medicine. In cases of consumption the gizzard of
 a bird called :ku'nsnu was mashed fine and rubbed upon the affected
 part. Witches knew how to extract poisons from various plants, and
 the leaves of a certain tree, known as the poison tree," are said to
 have been put into bayous to poison people. A common method of
 treatment, apart from these special remedies, was by means of the
 sweat bath. Sweat houses were made without floors and with a
 cavity in the ground 5 or 6 feet long. Hot stones were put into this,
 water poured upon them, and moss laid over all. Above the patient
 was seated covered with a blanket. In this way they say that pneu-
 monia and typhoid fever were quickly cured. Nor was shamanistic
 treatment wanting; but in place of the active, aggressive perform-
 ances usual with shamans in other parts of North America, the Chiti-
 macha representatives of the profession merely drank a tea made
 from a powerful herb and learned in the state of unconsciousness
 which followed what was the trouble with the patient and how it
 could be cured. Three herbs are mentioned as having been used by
 them. One, the wai't'i, which was both smoked and drunk, seems
 to have been the IleHx cassie or 'black drink' of the Creeks. The
 second was called nai'k'a and was used as a drink. The third.
 hd'cu, was smoked and was confused by Gatschet with tobacco, net,
 which was never used for this purpose.
 Duties connected with the supernatural were performed by a class
 of priests or shamans called kdtcnmi'c in the language of the com-
 mon people, but hk'kx.-atxkn by the nobility. There was at least
 one in every village, each of whom was accompanied by an appren-
tice who took his place when he died. A very famous he'kx-atxlkd
lived at Graine a Vol6e cove, but after his death the institution was