id custom.[275-1]

This frenzy, terrible enough in individuals, had its most disastrous
effects when with that peculiar facility of contagion which marks
hysterical maladies, it swept through whole villages, transforming them
into bedlams filled with unrestrained madmen. Those who have studied the
strange and terrible mental epidemics that visited Europe in the middle
ages, such as the tarantula dance of Apulia, the chorea Germanorum, and
the great St. Vitus' dance, will be prepared to appreciate the nature of
a scene at a Huron village, described by Father le Jeune in 1639. A
festival of three days and three nights had been in progress to relieve
a woman who, from the description, seems to have been suffering from
some obscure nervous complaint. Toward the close of this vigil, which
throughout was marked by all sorts of debaucheries and excesses, all the
participants seemed suddenly seized by ten thousand devils. They ran
howling and shrieking through the town, breaking everything destructible
in the cabins, killing dogs, beating the women and children, tearing
their garments, and scattering the fires in every direction with bare
hands and feet. Some of them dropped senseless, to remain long or
permanently insane, but the others continued until worn out with
exhaustion. The Father learned that during these orgies not unfrequently
whole villages were consumed, and the total extirpation of some families
had resulted. No wonder that he saw in them the diabolical workings of
the prince of evil, but the physician is rather inclined to class them
with those cases of epidemic hysteria, the common products of violent
and ill-directed mental stimuli.[276-1]

These various considerations prove beyond a doubt that the power of the
priesthood did by no means rest exclusively on deception. They indorse
and explain the assertions of converted natives, that their power as
prophets was something real, and entirely inexplicable to themselves.
And they make it easily understood how those missionaries failed who
attempted to persuade them that all this boasted power was false. More
correct views than these ought to have been suggested by the facts
themselves, for it is indisputable that these magicians did not
hesitate at times to test their strength on each other. In these strange
duels _a l'outrance_, one would be seated opposite his antagonist,
surrounded with the mysterious emblems of his craft, and call upon his
gods one after anot