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but tuberculosis. They held that the otter stole the breath of its victim,
who might become subject to paroxysms of hysteria, but more frequently
languished in a kind of trance, dreaming of the otter night and day.
Unmarried individuals alone were susceptible, and girls more than youths,
especially girls who were disappointed in love. Medicine-men sometimes
effected a cure, restoring the patient’s breath by singing and drumming;
the patient then acquired the lower grade of medicine power, the gift of
prophecy and of diagnosing the cause of sickness through dreams. But
often the medicine-man failed and the patient died. So susceptible were
unmarried girls that their contact with any part of the otter was liable to
induce the disease. Hence a man who had been rejected by a girl would
secretly mix with her food the tip of the otter’s tail, or one of its whiskers.
Sometimes she became so crazy that she followed him everywhere. At
other times the “ medicine ” appeared to have no effect, and the girl might
marry and even bear children. But after two or three years she became
languid and comatose. A medicine-man might cure her, but no one could
discover who had “ poisoned ” her food.