Sometimes the
sweat lodge is used, or hot rocks are applied over the place where the pain
is most severe, or actual cautery is practised, by inserting prickly pear
thorns in the flesh, and setting fire to them, when they burn to the very
point.

The sweat lodge, so often referred to, is used as a curative agent, as well
as in religious ceremonies, and is considered very beneficial in illness of
all kinds. The sweat lodge is built in the shape of a rough hemisphere,
three or four feet high and six or eight in diameter. The frame is usually
of willow branches, and is covered with cow-skins and robes. In the centre
of the floor, a small hole is dug out, in which are to be placed red hot
stones. Everything being ready, those who are to take the sweat remove
their clothing and crowd into the lodge. The hot rocks are then handed in
from the fire outside, and the cowskins pulled down to the ground to
exclude any cold air. If a medicine pipe man is not at hand, the oldest
person present begins to pray to the Sun, and at the same time sprinkles
water on the hot rocks, and a dense steam rises, making the perspiration
fairly drip from the body. Occasionally, if the heat becomes too intense,
the covering is raised for a few minutes to admit a little air. The sweat
bath lasts for a long time, often an hour or more, during which many
prayers are offered, religious songs chanted, and several pipes smoked to
the Sun. As has been said, the sweat lodge is built to represent the Sun's
own lodge or home, that is, the world. The ground inside the lodge stands
for its surface, which, according to Blackfoot philosophy, is flat and
round. The framework represents the sky, which far off, on the horizon,
reaches down to and touches the world.

As soon as the sweat is over, the men rush out, and plunge into the stream
to cool off. This is invariably done, even in winter, when the ice has to
be broken to make a hole large enough to bathe in. It is said that, when
the small-pox was raging among these Indians, they used the sweat lodge
daily, and that hundreds of them, sick with the disease, were unable to get
out of the river, after taking the bath succeeding a sweat, and were
carried down stream by the current and drowned.

It is said that wolves, which in former days were extremely numerous,
sometimes went crazy, and bit every animal they met with, sometimes even
coming into camps and biting dogs, horses, and people. Persons bitten by a
mad wo