The young fellow then said, “You let me alone and quit witching me or I will burn your heart right out of you. You made me do wrong. I’ve got a good woman.”
Then the young woman said, “I’ll quit; you are too strong for me.” After that the young fellow got well.
After that the young woman never witched anybody, but was a good friend to the young fellow’s wife and took care of her babies.
64. CATCHING A WITCH BUNDLE.[[56]]
One night three men came to the house of a man named William and asked him to go with them to a place on the Four-mile Level. It seemed that a man by the name of Jesse —— had been having very bad luck and had lost one child after another by some strange disease. William was reminded of this and asked by one of the men, a Tonawanda witch doctor, to assist in the hunt for the mysterious source of death. He consented and went along with the party.
Reaching the desired spot the witch doctor took a forked stick and held it by the long forked ends, one in either hand. He walked forward and when he pointed the stick in a certain direction the stick would glow. He kept following the glow until he reached an old stump way in the heart of the bush lot. The three men followed him silently. When he touched the stump the forked stick seemed on fire and bent down and touched the ground between two roots. “This is where we must dig,” said the witch doctor.
One of the men carried a spade and dug as directed. Very soon he struck a stone, after which the witch doctor assumed charge of the digging. A lantern was lighted and as the earth was scraped away the investigators found a cubical slate box with a cover over it, made from thick slabs from the creek bottom. The witch doctor lifted the cover and looked in. “It is there,” he whispered, placing some white powder on the top of the box.
The party now went back to Jesse’s house and dug a hole at the corner of the woodshed. In this the witch doctor placed a five-gallon crock. Over this he placed a large piece of silk, weighted at the corners so that it stretched taut, like a drumhead over the mouth of the crock. He then made a little fire and cast medicine powder into it, at the same time talking and commanding the witch bundle to come from its slate box through the air into the crock. After a while there was a ball of fire flying through the air and it came down and went through the silk without burning it.
“Now we have it,” said the witch doctor. “We can open it now.” So they opened it and found a bundle of rags all saturated with fresh human blood. In the middle of the bundle they found a sharp bone called otnä´yont, and it was red with blood. It was the bone that had been drinking the blood of Jesse’s children. The witch doctor then took the bone and took care of it. After that there was no more sickness and the last child got well. It seems that these sharp bones must be taken care of and if neglected they will eat the blood of children until some one finds the bundle and takes care of it.