Page:Cathlamet On the Columbia.djvu/81

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THE MEDICINE MAN
61

in front of him, so that the movement brought it into contact with the low roof in perfect time with the chant and the jumping, the movements being so timed that the poles struck the roof all together with the final "yo." The noise was deafening and the lodge would shake in every timber.

After this had gone on with increasing enthusiasm for a half hour or so and the patient was supposed to be sufficiently prepared and the evil spirit properly alarmed, a terrific noise would be heard in the darkness outside, and suddenly the medicine man and four or five assistants would come bounding through the door with howls and yells into the smoky interior. They looked like fiends, bodies naked, faces covered with a hideous mask, over which towered a frightful headdress, and in their